Mira sat in front of her computer terminal in her ready room. Which was not located on deck one. Her ready room was located on deck five, so it could be closer to the lower decks staff. She had just completed her mission report regarding the SS Wolverine. She sat in her chair, staring at the monitor. The dead bodies are still vivid in her mind. They continue to haunt her. She sits there as the hum of engines bouncing off the hull of the Paso Robles, the vibrations keep reminding her of the mission. She remembered the Wolverine was damaged and it’s hull was vibrating.

During the mission Mira and her away team, beamed over to the SS Wolverine. Before they beamed over, she had a bad feeling. A feeling she could not shake. Nothing could prepare her for the horror, she saw during their mission.

The Wolverine had a crew of three and twenty injured personnel. The Vaadwaur slaughtered them all. The phoenix class transport became a tomb. She could not get the vivid images of the dead out of her mind.

Mira could not forget the frightened looks on their faces, when they died. She was shaken emotionally. Deep in her thoughts she thought the Vaadwaur were animals. Real barbarians, how could they even pretend to be a civilized society.

How could they slaughter the injured? Why didn’t they try negotiating with the Federation? Why didn’t they show compassion? There seemed to be no valid reason for their actions.

Mira believed the same results could have been achieved by taking the injured and crew as hostages. Starfleet would have investigated regardless. So in her eyes there was not really a valid reason for slaughtering the innocent.

Jaxon believes their deaths were part of the ruse to get Starfleet to investigate the disappearance of the crew. Mira knew there was some merit to his claim, but there was no real concrete proof of their intentions.

Mira could not help but wonder, if the situation would have been different if she was in command of the SS Wolverine? She know the medical transport vessel but she just assumed what would have happened if she would have been put in that position in command. Was she fought back which you have tried to flee the ship? Different ideas kept running through her mind. Did they all have to die she kept asking herself? If she would have thought would she have won or would she have just ended up dead like them?

Mira was still trying to come to grips with the horror in her mind. Those faces continue to haunt her, and her eyes this is worse than the Battle of Frontiers day. During that battle, the Borg had managed to assimilate their young but they were still alive and they can still be saved. Whatever during this engagement the injured and the defenseless were slaughtered like animals. She couldn’t understand or comprehend why they needed to die. This was not a war time scenario, the crew of The Wolverine posed no threat to them.

They slaughtered them, and had no remorse for their own actions. From what she saw on the video playback they were gloating and laughing as they were planting their bombs on the cargo hoping to get even more Federation personnel killed. What kind of civilized society does this to another? Part of her felt like maybe they should go after them, and bring them up on war crimes. Even though she knew it wasn’t her decision. Somehow she would have to find a way to accept this reality, and be able to move on.

If it wasn’t for the skillful actions of Lieutenant thorn, the chief of security for the USS Paso Robles, they would have been killed and their ship would have been badly damaged or destroyed. The Vaadwaur had rigged the cargo pods to detonate but luckily for them the pods didn’t do that.

Mira stood up and walked over to the window and looked out as she saw the Stars streaking by. Her thoughts were still thinking about the crew and the injured aboard the SS Wolverine. Seeing their decaying bodies on the floor. She wondered how Aria and Jaxon were coping with it. Part of her debated about reaching out to the counseling department, but then another part of her decided that that may not be a good idea because she supposed to be the first officer she should be able to handle these kinds of situations and make life and death choices.

She kept telling herself she needed to be strong for her crew. She kept telling herself that she cannot let little things like this bother her. But she was struggling with that term, ‘little things’. She knew this wasn’t little. Any loss of life was too much. One life, 23 lives or even 10,000 lives, it was all too much. She felt like she was putting herself under unnecessary pressure. Part of her felt trapped within her own pressures of loyalty, duty and respect. Here she was hurting but yet she needed to be strong enough to support her crew. Did she have what it takes she wondered?

She can feel the rage built up inside of her, and she needed to let it go she quickly left her room and she walked over to the nearest holodeck. Luckily for her it was not in use, and nobody had it reserved. Even though I was inappropriate for her to be using the holodeck during work time, she would ask for forgiveness later.

She loaded a training program, a hand-to-hand combat program. She walked in and immediately began to defend herself. Two Vaadwaur holographic recreations started to charge towards her, she blocked their attack by using basic martial art techniques.

The holographic recreations continue to try to defeat her advances. But she was able to continue to block him over and over again. She was getting frustrated. “Damn it” he called out to yourself, being a little annoyed that she let her guard down and one of the holographic recreations managed to get in a shot to her leg which caused it to slightly cramp up on her a little bit but she smacked it hard to get the leg muscle to uncramp.

She felt unfocused, she was going to defeat these two holographic recreations. The holographic recreations charged at her again. She was able to split the two of them up, and give her stuff a little bit of space with the first one it was definitely the weaker of the two holographic recreation she managed to take him down with the lake sleeve and then nail them right in his knee cap to prevent him from moving the holographic recreation disappeared. That was one down.

She started to make her way down the hallway, it was so silent you could hear a pin drop. She can feel her heartbeat accelerating, as she continued to slowly move down being prepared for any sudden surprise attack.

Mira head projected his attack and when he thought he had the upper hand he came around the corner she was able to instantly block it. The tails and struggle for a while exchanging bloods back and forth. She started to give out a war like cry, and she continued, she could feel the strain on her muscles starting to get to her. But she progressed anyways.

After what seemed like an eternity the holographic recreation made a mistake and she capitalized on it. Both holographic recreations were now disabled and the program completed. And she stood there breathing pretty heavily and trying to catch her breath. She was slightly annoyed that she didn’t get much satisfaction from defeating the two holographic creations as she is hoping she would. She felt like she needed a blow off steam. And even though she did that she didn’t feel very much better about it.

Deep in her mind, she thinks part of the problem might have been the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to killing even a holographic recreation of the Vaadwaur. You know if their situation had been reversed, they would have no problem taking her out.

Mira thought about going back in, taking on another holographic recreation. But had it really helped her. She didn’t really get that much satisfaction from the last round and she won. Would you really get any satisfaction this time? “Computer end program Arch” she called out and she took a couple deep breaths and then proceeded to leave the holodeck.

She felt powerless, that she was in a rut and she had no idea how to get out of it her one thought was just fighting a bunch of holographic recreations was definitely not the answer. So what would be therapy? She’s the first officer of a Starship. Should she really be seeing a therapist? It was a question that was going through her mind over and over again. Trying to be tough, trying to be strong, trying to be somebody everybody can look up to.

She wished she could numb her body to the pain that she was feeling, but it wasn’t a pain of emotional loss more than a pain of innocent lives just being slaughtered for no other reason than the near enjoyment of it. What kind of civilized society could do that, that was a moral complication that she couldn’t solve or process. And it angers her deeply.

As soon as she left the holodeck, she debated about immediately going right back in again. Her anger was still there and her frustration was still there. And she still hadn’t found a successful way of venting it. Her mind kept going back to the possibility of therapy but she felt like that just wasn’t good enough. How could she talk to a lower ranking officer to help her come to terms with her feelings. And was it even possible to come to terms? What the Vaadwaur did was atrocious, and inhumane to any civilized society standards.

Typically Mira was a fun loving and happy person but maybe she was just reaching her limits or maybe, the stress of command was starting to get to her she wasn’t sure. She desperately wanted answers and she felt like she wasn’t getting the answers. She started to think about a movie, that her roommate back in the academy played one night because her roommate had brought her boyfriend over and they are watching an old classic 21st century movie it had to deal with some silly boxer named Rocky or something like that but it was a message of the movie that really struck a chord with her.

She remembers something in one of the lines talking about sometimes it’s not about how hard you can get hit but it’s about getting back up or something along those lines. She wondered if that analogy fit her it didn’t matter how many times you got hit hard or how atrocious things could be out there but if she can get back up if she could continue forward. Was that enough or if she wondered? She really couldn’t remember the exact lines but she just remembered the main concept was to keep moving forward.

Mira wondered if she could keep moving forward, and if she could accept the fact that this was out of her control and out of her hands. In that innocent life was taken and while tragic, there is nothing she could do to change the outcome of it. And she had to accept that.

That was her biggest problem she couldn’t accept the fact that there was nothing she could have done, now it seems silly that she went into the holodeck and tried to beat up a couple holographic recreations of the Vaadwaur. Thinking about it now, it seemed very silly to her.

Mira wasted very little time, she knew that she was needed on the bridge soon it would be her shift again. She walked to her quarters, and quickly jumped in the vibe shower before putting on a fresh uniform. She quickly did her hair and put it back in a ponytail and then got ready to go making sure that her uniform was crisp, clean and presentable.

For a brief moment she looked in the mirror, trying to force herself to find out if she could pull off a fake smile. She still had to come to terms with everything that’s been going on but she also knew that she needed a fake it until she made it on her own accord.

Mira stood there looking into the mirror, she kept trying to reassure herself.  She was strong and she knew she could do this for the crew,  she just had to have faith in herself. She took a couple deep breaths, and then proceeded to head out the door, her next stop would be the bridge.

Mira walked onto the bridge forcing a fake smile on her face, she didn’t want anybody else to see that she was struggling. She wanted to be strong for the others, and she kept thinking about that movie in the silly line that she heard about taking another step and moving forward. Mira would figure out how to do it on her own, but if she needed to she could probably consult the holodeck there were some good educational programs in there. Maybe she could find a way to seek help without having to inform anybody among the crew. She didn’t want people’s trust in her to be shattered.

Mira walked onto the bridge, she simply nodded towards the captain and the others, she looked around and thought to herself, that she was going to be okay.

She took some solace in the fact that the bridge crew was laughing and generally having a good time. She was able to adsorb some of their energy to try to make herself feel better. She discovered that sometimes, the burden of leadership meant that you had to take on some of the heavier burdens, for the sake of your crew.

This revelation, this reflection gave her a whole new respect for Captain Renato Gutierrez and what he had gone through. She knew that he was their in 2385 even though he was young, he had to take on the burden of all the lives lost that day and then he had to take on that burden again during the Battle of Frontiers Day.

She hoped someday she could be half the captain that he was, if he could learn to get over those two situations she could learn to get over a little skirmish regarding the Vaadwaur.