Where You Stand

Posted on Tue Apr 7th, 2026 @ 12:44am by Ensign Sophie Bishop & Lieutenant Dashku Zhevou

2,301 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Year One: The Point of No Return
Location: Operations Suite
Timeline: MD 005 - 1657 hours

Operations was in its steady, controlled rhythm when Sophie stepped in—consoles humming, status lights pulsing in soft patterns, the quiet choreography of a ship underway. She paused just inside the suite, letting the flow settle before she moved, padd tucked against her side.

“Lieutenant Zhevou?” she said when she had Dashku’s attention. “I’ve finished the ops log from last shift. I wanted to make sure I flagged everything the way you prefer—if you’ve got a minute.”

She stopped there, posture straight, expression open, waiting.

Dashku looked up from her desk, she had been working on a report of her own and was was ready to take a break. She sized Sophie up for a moment, before holding out her hand for the padd and managed a weak smile as she looked at her. "I would think you've done enough of these reports that you'd know how I want them to be done. Is that all you needed?"

Sophie nodded, a touch sheepish, and didn’t move to hand the padd over.

“Yes, Lieutenant. I do,” she said. Then, after a beat, “Or—I reckon I should.”

She shifted her weight, choosing her words carefully. “It’s just… lately it feels like there’s a lot of talking going on. Not in reports. Just—around.” A small pause. “Senior officers, I mean. Out in the open.”

Her brow knit, not upset so much as unsettled. “At the Academy, disagreements were quieter. You knew where things stood. This feels messier, and I’m still figuring out where I’m meant to stand in it.”

She glanced down at the padd, thumb brushing its edge. “I don’t want to be green about it. But I don’t want to lose sight of why I signed up, either.” A faint, honest smile. “So I figured I’d check my footing with you.”

"Have a seat," Dashku pointed to the chair across from her desk, before she picked up her cup and took a drink from it. She needed a moment to think, the truth was she had a point, but this was also an unprecedented move. Even she was unsettled by what was happening to the Commodore. "The Academy was a much bigger place and had a lot more high level eyes on everything. This is your first starship, and it's a small one, which means hearing a whole lot more. There also comes a level of familiarity with only around two hundred crew."

She paused for a moment as she considered her next words carefully, "Your footing with me is solid, I'm not going to tell you what to think. I can't make up your mind for you, Sophie. You have to do that for yourself. Why don't you tell me why you signed up?"

Sophie took the seat, hands folding in her lap, eyes briefly dropping to the deck before she spoke.

“I think… I signed up because Starfleet made sense to me,” she said, thoughtful, almost distant as she searched for the right words. “Back home, if something was broken, you didn’t argue about it. You fixed it. You figured out what was wrong, put the pieces where they belonged, and made it work again.”

A small, almost embarrassed smile touched her mouth. “I liked that Starfleet promised order. Not control—just… structure. Rules that meant something. A way to fix things without making them worse.”

She looked up again, more earnest now. “At the Academy they talked a lot about trust. That if you did your job right, the system would catch you. That people wouldn’t just… fall through.” Her fingers tightened slightly. “I believed that. I still do.”

There was a pause, then she hesitated—just long enough to show she was weighing whether the question was appropriate.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” she added, careful, “what made you join?”

She gave a small, self-aware shrug. “I know not a lot of Orions choose Starfleet. I always figured it had to mean something. Like—” she stopped herself, cheeks warming faintly, “—sorry. That probably sounds naïve.”

"Orions are both simple hedonistic pleasure seekers and complex humanoids. Our culture isn't straight forward, we will often mimic those around us to gain their trust and then take advantage, so it's hard for outsiders to know the real reason," Dashku was trying to answer the question. "I was sixteen when I left my planet, hid on a merchant ship and ended up joining the crew. They taught me a great deal in the two years I was there, but the captain of that ship became an almost surrogate father to me. He resisted my... charms and helped me to understand a great deal. He was a retired Starfleet captain and actually encouraged me to join. That wasn't the only reason, I thought it would be best in terms of education, skills and a place to hide from my mother."

Dashku pursed her lips for a moment as she looked at Sophie, a young but good officer if not naive. Her mother would have preached the virtues of taking advantage of one in that position and it made her glad she had chosen another path. After the pause she continued.

"Rules are an interesting thing, we are bound to the uniform code of justice as Starfleet officers and Federation law as Federation citizens, but rarely does following rules make you stand out. History often points to the rule breakers as those that bring about real change. For example, my people believe slavery is a natural part of life, Orions are superior and meant to rule their lessers. It is legal on almost all Orion worlds. If we traveled to an Orion would, would you consider buying a slave?"

Sophie didn’t answer straight away.

The question settled between them, heavy but clear.

She shook her head, small but certain.

“No,” she said. Not sharp. Just plain.

“I couldn’t.”

A breath slipped out of her, steadying. “I don’t care if it’s legal there. It still feels wrong.” She gave a faint shrug. “People aren’t property. I don’t think I’d ever get comfortable pretending they are.”

Her brow knit slightly, not in accusation—just thought. “And I don’t really need to stand out,” she added, softer. “I just need to know I’m not crossing a line I can’t come back from.”

She met Dashku’s eyes again.

“If the uniform means anything to me, it’s that some things are settled. Slavery’s one of them.”

Then, almost apologetically, “Maybe that’s simple. But I’m alright with simple.”

"Slavery is an easy one to reject, we live in a culture that despises it and it's obvious the pain and suffering that often go hand in hand with it," Dashku pursed her lips for a moment, before she continued. "We, as Starfleet, are taught that we can disobey an unlawful order but they're very clear on what an unlawful order is. If the Moore were ordered to blow up a village of innocent people for example is an obvious unlawful order."

"In the case of the Commodore it's more grey, she was ordered to give aide to the Romulans, but she chose to disobey and give those resources to our own people. We're not meant to be robots, that just follow every order, but we are bound by the UCMJ. You could argue that neither choice was wrong, but disobeying orders means dealing with the consequences even if you feel what you've done is morally correct."

Sophie was quiet for a moment, considering it properly this time. The answer didn’t come as easily as the last one had.

“I don’t think either choice was selfish,” she said at last, her tone thoughtful rather than defensive. “That’s what makes it complicated. If she’d ignored Federation citizens in danger, that would’ve felt wrong. If she ignored Romulans in danger, that would’ve felt wrong too. It’s not good versus bad. It’s good versus good.”

Her fingers folded together in her lap as she searched for steadier ground.

“But the order was still the order,” she continued, gently but firmly. “And if everyone starts deciding which ones matter more based on how they feel in the moment, then it stops being structure and starts being preference.”

She met Dashku’s eyes, earnest rather than confrontational.

“I don’t think the Commodore is a villain. I just think that if you choose to step outside the rules, you have to accept what comes with that. Otherwise the rules don’t mean anything at all. Starfleet can’t work if we trust our individual judgement more than the chain of command every time it gets hard.”

"I don't think she is either, I am hopeful that she gets assigned a good lawyer and has a strong defense, but ultimately it's out of my hands unless I decide to violate our orders and become a vigilante," Dashku considered the next line of thought carefully, she knew it might be a bit risky. "Take me for example. I'm not a native born Federation citizen, I had to earn that through service with a letter or recommendation from a former Starfleet officer. I'm a member of a species that tends to be opposed to federation values, family that are in the very organization that enforces that culture and is often willing to fight. Add in my own questionable past and it could be trouble."

"Did I fool my sponsor? Have I fooled everyone since then? What if a bunch of crew members decide I'm guilty of espionage or worse? It's an easy path to go down, even more so when someone charismatic is leading the charge. That's why getting her to her trial is so important, even if you think what she did was right. The system exists because we have faith it works, not that it's perfect or infallible, but that it works in general. The moment that faith is lost, people can easily give into fear and that makes them more easy to manipulate."

"I know who I am, what I am and what my principals are. It's why those who talk behind by back don't bother me. I'll stand on those principals, even if that means standing alone."

Sophie listened without interrupting, her attention fixed on Dashku as the words settled. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t rushed.

“That makes sense,” she said quietly.

She shifted slightly in the chair, thinking it through rather than reacting to it. “I’ve never doubted you, Lieutenant. Not once.” Her tone wasn’t defensive or trying to flatter; it was simply the truth as she saw it. “You’ve always been clear about where you stand, and that’s part of why people follow you.”

Her gaze dropped briefly to the padd in her hands before lifting again. “At the Academy they talk a lot about integrity, but it’s mostly theory. Out here you actually get to see what it looks like when someone lives by it.”

A small, thoughtful breath followed.

“I think that’s what I was trying to figure out earlier,” she continued. “How someone holds onto their principles when things around them get… louder.” She gave a faint, self-aware smile. “Watching you do it probably helps more than any lecture I ever sat through.”

She leaned back slightly, the tension she’d carried into the room easing a little.

“And for what it’s worth,” she added, earnest as ever, “I believe the system works too. Maybe not perfectly, but enough that it’s worth protecting. Getting the Commodore to a trial the right way is part of that.”

"I'm glad you don't doubt me, but I doubt myself," Dashku gave her a half smile, it would be lovely to be that young and naïve again. She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. "I'm glad I have been a good example, I just fear that one day I may be offered a choice and the consequences of choosing my integrity will be greater than to compromise. Irrational? Perhaps."

Sophie sat with that for a moment, her hands still curled around the padd in her lap.

“I don’t think that sounds irrational,” she said quietly. “I think it sounds honest.”

Her mouth softened into a small, thoughtful smile. “And maybe that’s part of it too. The people worth following are probably the ones who still stop and ask themselves that.”

She glanced down for a second, then back up, steadier now than when she’d come in.

“For what it’s worth, Lieutenant, I think if that day ever comes, you’ll still know who you are. You might hate the choice, and you might hate what it costs, but I don’t think you’d stop being yourself just because it got hard.”

The smile lingered, faint but real.

“And if I’m wrong, then I guess by that point I’ll know you well enough to say so.”

She rose then, smoothing her uniform more out of habit than nerves, and finally held the padd out.

“Thank you for the minute,” she said. “I won’t take up any more of your afternoon.”

"Sophie, I know I'm tough on all of you, but I see it as my job to help you become the officer you should be. Someone did that for me when I was a fresh faced ensign," Dashku reached up and took the padd, she glanced at it before setting it down and nodded to Sophie. "You're welcome. I only asked you pay it forward when you're sitting in this chair."

 

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