Being a Starfleet Officer

Kheren had listened to the Cardassian's outburst with astonishment. The man was so blinded by his own arrogance and anger that he spoke as if he truly beleived that he alone knew what they were facing and how to face it... when he had not even listened when the captain of the Artemis had spoken about the attack on his ship; his crew had suffered and died at the hands of those fanatics months before this overpretentious engineer had even heard of their name!

And his crew had effectively neutralized them in minutes... all without even injuring any one of them.

Lucky? maybe... Well prepared? Most assuredly. Whatever vaunted training and experience the Cardassian boasted for himself, it was clearly inferior even to mere basic Starfleet Academy training; or again, he was emotionally compromised so much as to forget something as basically simple as... the stun setting.

No; the man's problem was not just his lack of judgment and self-control; it was much worse: the real problem was his attitude.

This Sorripto wore a Starfleet uniform; yet, he understood nothing of what it meant: at the core of Starfleet, of the entire Federation, was the sanctity of sentient life. Sometimes, alas, preserving such life meant using violence; sometimes, that violence lead to death. Any Starfleet officer knew that, at one point, he might have to go as far as to kill... But a true Starfleet officer saw violence and especially killing as the last resort, not the first, best and only way to solve problems.

Because it never does.

When Sorripto threw to Allen Samji the small bauble he had been pocketing, the Andorian's quadriscopic vision clearly saw enough of it to read what was engraved on it.

Then he understood why the man was so wrong in word and intent. The man was not angry or mad as much as he was immoral.

And Kheren was not the only one to think so. The chief engineer of the Alsea, this Lieutenant Commander Niomo Lire he had met yesterday on the Promenade, lashed out with an outburst of his own; but his was about duty, integrity and responsibility.

His were the words of a true Starfleet officer.

And so, the commanding officer of the Artemis kept quiet. There was nothing more to add that would ever convince someone like this Sorripto of the errors of his ways. And the man was not his problem anyway. But Kheren sincerely hoped that his commanding officer, Captain Crist, would watch him closely and reign him in properly before he needlessly caused any loss of life; be it his own, that of their enemy or worse, his alleged friend... his crew... or all of them.

When a man has only death on his mind, only death he will sow, tought the Andorian as he finally dismissed this Lieutenant Commander Sorripto from his own mind.