Glenn knew this. She could pass, in fact had passed, multiple tests and examinations covering this information.
Nothing that she knew changed the nature or lessened the despair of this moment.
She had dreamed since she was young of leading explorers into space. But early in her training she had decided that the experiences she was likely to face while doing so required a deeper understanding of her body and how it processed complex emotions. Everyone who chose the command path developed their own tools for reckoning with the challenges inherent in encountering new alien species, defending their vessels against attack, and the long, often dull hours in between when it was necessary to maintain a state of alert relaxation in order to stand ready to face the unexpected. This had been the genesis of her eventual decision to become a doctor before becoming a commanding officer. Knowledge was her weapon of choice and thus far it had served her well.
But when it came to the sudden loss of almost a third of her crew, for reasons she was having great difficulty isolating and organizing, all of that information and practice was failing her, particularly, she suspected, because Ranson Velth was now included among the list of those lost.
They had first met the day the Full Circle Fleet had gathered for their initial mission briefing with then Admiral Willem Batiste. She had, of course, reviewed Velth’s file when she had selected him to be her chief of security, but the cold facts of his life on paper prior to joining her crew had failed to capture the depth of compassion and the absolute loyalty that had defined him and that she had come to rely upon in the past year.
She would mourn each and every crew member she had lost, but only now was she faced with the grim reality that Velth had been one of the few, along with the Doctor, who had become essential to her in a personal way. They had been peers.
They had been friends.
The others seemed so young, which was odd to say when she wasn’t more than a decade older than most of them. Each had specialties and areas of expertise that had been critical to their assignments. As she had reviewed their weekly performance reports—compiled by Velth—she had been pleased with their progress, especially as they had faced several truly grim challenges while serving with the fleet.
But each time she had undertaken an away mission, Velth had been by her side. He had become her de facto first officer, patiently guiding the fresh-faced ensigns on the bridge, helping them to acclimate to their holographic counterparts, and allowing her to revel in the experience of her first command because he was always there, at her back, standing between her crew and whatever darkness they confronted.
It had only been a few days since she had studied a biodome on the surface of DK-1116 with the other fleet captains, marveling at the mysteries present and embracing them with the wondrous joy and curiosity that had compelled her to devote her life to Starfleet. She well remembered Captain Farkas’s fears and how she had privately diagnosed them as a mild form of post-traumatic stress, honestly earned by Vesta’s captain. Farkas’s losses while serving with the fleet had been massive.
Then, Glenn had been an observer. Now, although the numbers were vastly different, she felt a new, deep kinship and compassion for Farkas, along with a vast quantity of regret that she had not taken the captain’s concerns more seriously.
Glenn could not have prepared herself more thoroughly to face the challenges of this mission. Still, she realized that she had begun this mission with the naïvete of a child.
Childhood was over.
“Commander Glenn?” Kim said as the doors to her room slid open.
“Come in, Lieutenant.”
Kim did as she had asked but came only as far as the foot of her biobed. They were roughly the same age. According to his file, she was only a year and a few months older than he. But while he had spent seven years as an ensign, she had completed not only medical school, but also her command training, putting her on the short list to lead the Galen. She didn’t make a habit of comparing herself to others. Everyone’s path was their own and people moved over them at whatever pace best suited their skills and temperament. But when she considered all that this man had done in the last few days to save her people and her ship, she truly wondered why he hadn’t risen more quickly through Starfleet’s ranks. There hadn’t been many opportunities for advancement in position during Voyager’s maiden trek, but field promotions were common in circumstances as unusual as theirs had been. If she ever saw Admiral Janeway again, Glenn resolved to ask her why she had found so little cause to consider the future career prospects of those who served under her.
Glenn suddenly wondered whether the admiral had truly believed she would bring her crew home and if she would come to question her own ability to do that in the weeks and months ahead.
She didn’t want to believe that she now found herself in the same circumstance that Captain Kathryn Janeway had more than a decade earlier: stranded, thousands of light-years from Federation space, her ship damaged and understaffed, at the mercy of hostile aliens. But the comparison was hard to ignore. Much as she was tempted to
