No Exceptions Part II
Posted on Fri Jul 3rd, 2026 @ 2:05pm by Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart & Commander Calvin 'Cal' Maraj
Edited on on Fri Jul 3rd, 2026 @ 2:34pm
2,982 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
Year One: The Point of No Return
Location: USS Moore - Ready Room
Timeline: MD 012: 09:30hrs
Tollan activated the tricorder and began scanning. "Pain scale," he said.
"Eight."
No hesitation.
"The only theoretical way to actually cure it," he added, matter-of-fact, "would mean going back to Vulcan. Working with a Vulcan healer."
Her eyes opened immediately. "No."
It wasn't loud. It didn't need to be.
"That's what I expected."
"Not happening," she said.
"Then this stays what it is," he replied evenly. "Maintenance."
She pushed the issue without lifting her head from its spot against his jaw. She didn't dare meet his eyes.
"I don't need a partner. I need a counselor."
"That's… not what you said before," he replied quietly.
Her voice was colder—not loud, but final.
"Get out of my quarters. Now."
She took a step closer, not crowding, but present in a way that made it impossible to pretend this was just another conversation in a corridor.
"You don't outrank my post," she said, not cruelly, just fact. "And you don't get to gamble with it."
Greco didn't hesitate. "You will not override Security protocol again. You will not dismiss a security officer outside your chain of command. And the next time a department head corrects you…"
His expression hardened slightly. "…you take the correction."
Evelyn stood there for a moment, anger simmering just beneath the surface.
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed."
The word cracked across the room like a whip.
Stewart didn't hesitate. She stopped at the table, close enough to make it clear this wasn't optional. One hand came to rest against the edge of the table—not forceful, but placed. Her hand moved without hesitation, fingers closing around the fabric at Keishara's sleeve.
"Take your hand off me."
It wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. Stewart drove a hard punch across Keishara's temple, fast and clean, no hesitation behind it—the kind of hit that snapped through bone and balance with a sharp, cracking force that cut straight through the room.
"Security to the DMZ. Lieutenant Stewart is under arrest."
Keishara leaned down, breath controlled despite the pulse hammering behind her eye.
"You picked the wrong fight."
Not shouted. Not smug. Just true.
"So which one are you today?"
"Today I'm here in an official capacity. You already know that, so I'm not going to insult either of us by pretending otherwise."
Her gaze stayed on him—but something tightened first.
"…I don't know."
Soft. Unsteady. A silence stretched just long enough to feel it.
"It's in the report," she added, dismissive—like he'd just lost the argument. Her foot caught the discarded duty jacket on the floor and she kicked it hard into the forcefield. The fabric struck the shimmer with a violent hiss-crack before collapsing back to the deck.
"That's the only answer you're getting."
The words came flat, edged with enough sarcasm to make it clear she wasn't particularly interested in the answer.
The look held another second before her mouth pressed into a thin line and she glanced away first, shaking her head once as though she couldn't quite believe him.
A quiet scoff escaped her.
Then she turned and headed back toward the chair.
Not quickly. Not reluctantly.
Just with the unmistakable air of somebody making a decision they were already annoyed about.
When she reached it, she dropped into the seat a little harder than necessary and leaned back, one arm settling across her stomach as her gaze drifted toward the viewport.
The silence stretched.
A few moments later her eyes wandered elsewhere.
To the stars.
A display.
The corner of the room.
Anywhere but the desk.
Anywhere but Cal.
Her expression remained carefully neutral, though every so often the corner of her mouth threatened to pull into the sort of look that suggested she was still arguing with him in her head and losing patience with the results.
Evelyn said nothing.
She was sitting.
That was apparently what he wanted.
For the moment, he could have it.
Cal watched her settle into the chair like she was doing him a favour.
For a second, he just looked at her.
Then the last of the heat in him folded down into something quieter.
“No,” he said.
A beat.
“I’m not done.”
He crossed back to the desk, but he did not sit. Not yet.
“You are.”
The words landed cleanly, without volume.
“You keep acting like this is a conversation you can win if you find the right angle. Like if you sit there long enough, roll your eyes in your head, throw enough old names at me, I’ll get tired and let you walk out of here with a warning.”
His eyes stayed on her.
“That is not happening.”
He picked up the PADD, then set it back down again almost at once, as if even the report was starting to annoy him.
“Once Commodore Anjar is off this ship, you are relieved of duty pending medical treatment on Vulcan.”
There it was.
Plain.
No room left around it.
“No exceptions. No bargaining. No ‘I’m fine,’ no ‘after the next mission,’ no clever little detour where you make this about whether I trust you at the helm.”
His jaw tightened once.
“You are not fine, Stewart. You know it, I know it, and half the people trying not to say it out loud know it.”
He let that sit for a moment, then carried on before she could grab at the softer edge of it.
“This isn’t shore leave. This isn’t me sending you away because I’m angry. This is treatment. Proper treatment. The kind we cannot give you here, no matter how many good people we throw at what you’re carrying.”
His voice dipped, rougher now, still controlled.
“Ever since Captain Stryvek died, you’ve been carrying something you haven’t let yourself put down. And whether you want to admit it or not, it’s costing you more than sleep.”
A beat.
“Lieutenant Avestro is going with you.”
He said it like the decision was already bolted to the deck.
“He knows the clinical side. More importantly, he knows you well enough to tell the difference between when you're actually fine and when you're putting on a brave face and daring everyone to argue with you. And the Vulcans are going to need someone there who can translate, because right now you’re working remarkably hard to ignore the people trying to help.”
Cal leaned forward slightly, both hands resting on the desk now.
“The Anjar transfer goes ahead. The crew will see it through, same as they always do.”
He held her gaze.
“You’ll be part of that until the handover is complete. After that, this stops being about the mission and starts being about you.”
His gaze held hers, steady and unkind only in the way truth sometimes had to be.
“After that, you go to Vulcan.”
A pause.
“And Stewart?”
His voice lowered.
“You can be angry about it all you want. You can hate me for it if that helps you get on the transport.”
He did not blink.
“But you are going.”
For a moment, Evelyn said nothing.
Her gaze settled somewhere past his shoulder.
Cal kept talking.
Her thumb moved in slow passes across the pads of her index and middle finger. Small. Automatic.
When he said you're not fine, the corner of her mouth pulled once — almost a smile, the kind that meant the opposite. Her eyes didn't move but something behind them did, a brief tightening she smoothed over almost immediately. Her thumb kept moving.
Then Stryvek.
Her gaze shifted. Down and to the left, just for a second, before she caught it and brought it back to the middle distance. One hand came up, knuckles resting near her lips. The thumb on her other hand stilled.
She adjusted her weight in the chair.
Then again.
Cal kept talking.
Her jaw shifted. She moved then, a small restless repositioning — one arm dropping to rest along the back of the chair, which brought her hand up near her mouth almost incidentally. Index finger pressed once against her lips before she seemed to register it and let the hand drop to rest against the chair back instead.
She crossed her other arm over her stomach, and the new posture looked casual for about three seconds before her shoulder drew in just slightly, just enough.
Relieved of duty.
The words hit different than the others. For a second she went very still — not composed, just stopped, the kind that happens before the body decides what to do next. Then her eyes moved to the front of her jacket and one hand smoothed across the fabric before she seemed to register she was doing it. The hand slowed. Didn't stop. Kept moving in that same absent press across fabric that didn't need straightening.
Cal kept talking.
She let her gaze drift back to the middle distance but it didn't settle the way it had before. A few seconds in one place. Then somewhere else. Her jaw worked once, quietly.
The hand on her jacket finally stilled.
Then —
Vulcan.
Her head came up.
Just that. No build to it. One word and she was fully back in the room, eyes on him for the first time in minutes, the careful management of the last several gone.
The muscle in her jaw jumped.
A slow breath through her nose.
Whatever she'd meant to say first didn't make it out.
"You can't order me to undergo treatment."
Flat. Hard.
Her thumb dragged once more across the side of her index finger.
Cal didn’t move.
For a second, he just watched her. The way Vulcan had brought her back into the room faster than anything else he’d said.
“No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”
A beat.
“And I’m not.”
He let that sit there, because she needed to hear the difference before she started building a wall around the wrong thing.
“You can get to Vulcan and refuse every healer they put in front of you. You can sit there in perfect silence and make a whole damn sport out of not being helped.”
His mouth tightened faintly.
“That is your choice.”
Then his voice changed. Not louder. Firmer.
“But you do not come back to active duty until this is resolved and Medical clears you.”
There it was. Plain. Final.
“I’m not ordering you to heal, Stewart. I wish to God I could, but I can’t.” His eyes stayed on hers. “What I can do is stop pretending you are fit to keep carrying this on the bridge.”
A small breath left him through his nose.
“You’re too good a pilot for me to let you keep flying like this. And you’re too important to this crew for me to stand here and act like duty means leaving you alone until you break in a way nobody can patch up.”
He leaned back from the desk slightly, giving the words room.
“So take the time you need. Face the Vulcans, the silence—whatever comes with it.”
A faint edge of Cal came through there, tired and dry, gone almost as soon as it arrived.
“But don’t confuse having a choice with having no consequences.”
His gaze held hers.
“After Anjar, you’re relieved of duty. Avestro will go with you as clinical support, and Yara will handle the medical recommendation. You come back when Medical says you’re ready.”
A moment passed.
“Not before.”
The silence held.
Stewart didn’t fill it.
Her eyes were on him. Staying on him. Her jaw was set and the red had come up into her face while he talked and she let him talk because she was listening and that was the problem — she was listening and it was landing and a moment behind the landing she became aware of the brightness in her eyes and the slight unsteadiness in her next breath and the way her thumbnail had found the corner of her lip without her deciding to put it there.
She shifted in the chair, letting out a breath closer to a shudder than annoyance before she collected herself. Control over whatever she felt established and placed behind something else entirely.
The contempt arrived and she reached for it. Let it settle over everything else. Her jaw set differently. Something cooled behind her eyes. The faint sneer at one corner of her mouth doing the work she needed it to do.
She met his gaze.
“Counselor Avestro and I are not exactly on speaking terms.”
Flat. Even. The title placed with precision as she sat back, squared her shoulders like her arguement invalidated the need for Koaruh altogether.
Cal let out a breath.
Not the angry kind this time.
Just tired.
The fire had gone out of him, or at least gone somewhere quieter. He could see the contempt she had pulled over herself. Too clean, too deliberate, like a jacket fastened over a wound before anyone noticed the blood.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”
He stayed where he was, hands still resting on the desk.
“That makes it awkward. It does not make it impossible.”
A beat passed.
“I’ve served with people I couldn’t stand the sight of,” he added, voice still even. “Border skirmishes, long-range patrols, months in a tin can with someone who’d rather see you spaced than share a meal. You learn fast that ‘awkward’ doesn’t get to decide whether something gets done.”
His mouth twitched faintly, but it didn’t become a smile.
“Avestro is not going as your partner. He is not going because I think the two of you need a nice long trip to talk about your feelings over Vulcan tea.” A faint breath of something almost like humour slipped through. “He is going because he assessed you, he knows the clinical picture, and he can tell when you are saying you’re fine because you mean anything but.”
His eyes stayed on hers, steadier now.
“And because I trust him to do his job when it matters. I don’t hand that out lightly.”
“You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to make conversation. You don’t have to forgive him for whatever passed between you two before this room.” His voice softened by a degree. “But you don’t get to turn ‘we’re not speaking’ into a medical plan.”
Cal straightened a little, then folded his arms loosely, not closing himself off so much as keeping his own hands out of the way.
“The other choice is someone you don’t know reading your life from a file, or Greco sitting beside you all the way to Vulcan, and I’m not putting that kind of pressure on a starship cabin.”
There it was. A small dry edge. Gone quickly.
“I’ve seen what happens when Starfleet decides someone’s easier to categorise than to understand,” he went on, quieter now. “It’s efficient. It’s clean. And it’s wrong more often than anyone likes to admit.”
“This isn’t about making you comfortable, Stewart. I wish it could be. Truly.” His jaw shifted once. “But it is about giving you the best chance I can, with the people I have, before Starfleet turns you into a problem to solve instead of a person to help.”
For a moment, his gaze dropped to the PADD, then came back to her.
“I want you back at the helm.”
The words were plain. No command polish around them.
“But I want you back well. Not braced. Not pretending. Not daring the rest of us to blink first.”
A beat.
“So yes, Avestro goes. You can sit in silence the whole way if that is what you need to do.”
His voice lowered.
“But you are not going alone.”
For a moment, Evelyn just stared at him. The muscle in her jaw jumped once.
Her thumb dragged across the edge of her index finger before stopping entirely.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, irritation written plainly across her face now. Whatever composure she'd managed to scrape together was wearing thin, and judging by the look she was giving him, she was about three seconds away from telling him exactly what she thought of his plan.
Before Stewart could say a word, The ship's yellow alert klaxon cut through the room.
The ready room lights shifted immediately, the subtle change washing across the bulkheads as the alert tone sounded again overhead.
Greco's voice cut across the comm. "Captain to the bridge."
Both of them froze.
The argument vanished.
Not resolved.
Not forgiven.
Just pushed aside by something larger.
The channel closed.
For a second the ready room was silent again.
Stewart met his eyes.
The irritation was still there. The anger too.
Neither of them said a word.
Then she pushed herself out of the chair.
Professionalism settled over her like a uniform she'd worn her entire life.
The tension remained. The emotion remained. But it no longer mattered. Not right now.
The moment it opened, Stewart was already mentally shifting gears. Whatever fight had been waiting in this room would still be there when the crisis was over.
And without another word, she followed her captain toward the bridge.
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