Guilt, but is it? And which kind?

Posted on Mon Mar 29th, 2021 @ 2:24am by Lieutenant JG Steven Wright

Having already slept the three hours he needed, Steven Wright lay awake in the dark, meditating and contemplating the tasks for his day, just like he did in review of the previous day just a few hours ago. "Computer, play Steven Wright Classical playlist, volume level 2," he said as he lay thinking.

There were the standard tasks ahead today, but they'd also be docking at Starbase 10. So outside of refreshing Intelligence syncs and updating some Federation databases, Wright should be free for some relaxation, and hopefully to meet Djon's family that provided unexpected assistance in acquiring Axelrod. Perhaps he should contact his Mother and Father just to check in while he wasn't in the field, but they'd want knowledge they can't know, so perhaps not at this juncture.

His thoughts drifting back to those hours on Hiobos V, Wright wondered if he had done the right thing down there. He'd never killed someone before, and while he didn't know what the actual number sat at, he'd killed four or five Romulans while clearing that ship, escorting Cadet Wu.

While handily keeping Wu safe, as he'd promised, he'd ended at least four lives. He'd expected to have to kill that day, but that didn't prepare a man for this weight. They had made their mistakes in attacking The Federation and taking Axelrod, but that didn't make Wright comfortable with ending their lives. He knew that the Romulan's he'd killed believed as strongly as him that they were doing the right thing for their people, they likely thought that about themselves far more than Wright did about himself.

He hated how much some few cultures out here in the stars refused to accept the logic of cooperation. Those men had died at his hands for no greater reason than the fact that MANY Romulan sects believe that all others are inferior to them and their ways. Such intolerance was the very opposite of The Federation, and it cannot be tolerated if The Federation is to survive and thrive. "Heh, I'm only intolerant about intolerance," he chuckled to himself.

Sitting up and grabbing a padd from the bedside table, he started typing up a psychological report on himself, both current, and at the time of transferring to the Norris. He sent the current report to Captain Winters and Lt. McCloud who would shortly be joining them as the CMO. The report to the Captain included an unbiased as possible statement of the effects of killing for the first time, the lack of negative or indicative reactions to being in a combat situation, and that, at least for now, I do not foresee any lasting repercussions, so long as I properly handle the guilt of ending another life. The report to the CMO was cold and clinical, enough so that it shouldn't have been done about oneself, with no personal notation or explanation.

The other Psych report, the one for when he transferred aboard the Norris, he filed on the ship's computers, under Lieutenant Tyjuuc's access codes, after verifying there were no contradictions between it and the Physical exam he'd also filed under her name. Sliding another, jet black, padd from the top drawer of his nightstand, he transferred both files to the black padd, and spent fifteen minutes reviewing the history established by his entire career of falsified medical reports. Getting showered and dressed while reviewing the tale he'd woven about himself for his whole life for errors or a pattern that suggested he was more, Wright headed off to his station early.