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Jex clapped Noah on the back, "You ok, Cutler?" Casting a look about the alcove Noah was huddled in nursing the woes of their last op, the concern in her voice slipped to curiosity. "How did McGregor leave this out of the tour? I love it." Wide-eyed and smiling with glee, Jex drank in the various memorabilia cataloguing Border Patrol ships, stations and crews of the past.
Gordon approached with a round of drinks. “Captain’s compliments. He’ll be along shortly. Ah, Mr Templar, here’s yours.” Gordon turned to hand the security officer a drink from the tray after Templar ascended the curving stairs up to this raised level.
Sebastian groused silently at the proffered drink, as vexed in his own way as Noah was. He was struggling to maintain his taciturn demeanour, eyes flitting away from meeting Jex's and to be drawn on what had transpired during the rescue. “Why are we here?” After the ordeal of the rescue mission, none of them particularly felt like socialising. The muted levels of conversation from below in the lounge mirrored the mood among other crew personnel.
“Now Mr Templar, McGregor ordered you three here for a reason …” All three looked expectantly at the Kestrel’s barkeep, “and that reason is his. Meantime, he sent these up to you. I’ll be down below if you need me.”
Jex covered for the less than polite reception of the others. "Gordon, thanks. What's with this place?” Jex jerked a thumb at the wall of memories. “How come McGregor never showed us it as part of the tour? How come I am only seeing it now?"
Templar referred to their rather memorable first day aboard. “You’ll remember the tour was cut short.”
Noah commented, "Also because you never get past the lounge below." Noah peeped over the parapet of the raised area that sat overlooking Kestrel's lounge, to which Gordon laughed and Jex had to concede with a laughter of her own. True, Jex had tended to be in the mix of things down below.
"This alcove is named: Section C. The Blue."
The name did not in fact explain anything to the Trill. "Ok but still. What is this?" Jex stood and began to walk along the walls at the mismatch of nameplates, plaques, holo-images, medals and starship models of various Border Patrol images. A host of classes through the ages: the Archer class, a Magee frigate, a Malachowski class, a Walker class and a Constellation. Pride and centre on the back wall, an honour plaque of bronze with a model of a refit NX-class, a dedication to border cutter Falcon. "This was one of the first Cutters."
The various old ships and some names had a familiarity to Jex in her long Trill lifetime causing her to step along and backtrack against the wall in recognition or interest at one or another.
"Yes, the Falcon and her crew led the way for the formal creation of the Border Patrol. Its commanding officer laying the foundations of The Kennel Academy training regimens."
Noah groaned in memory of his time at the Border Patrol's specific training Academy. "Ugh, the Ankorr Drills."
Gordon and Jex both laugh at their shared memories too of the training. Templar gave a grudging nod to the hard drills of the Border Patrol training ahead of his transfer to the Kestrel from Fleet. Gordon pointed to one of the ship classes, remarking his first berth was aboard one. Jex supplied, "I berthed on one too. And look, a Peregrine class. Oh, and I berthed on one of the first Ambassadors."
A puzzled Gordon looked at Jex for that remark. "The Ambassadors didn't make it into the Dogs fleet until after their commission. That’s actually the Albacore modified variant for Border Patrol."
"I know. It was as a Fleeter, Gordon. Don't hold it against Leoni." Noah merely shook at his head, trying to keep up with Jex's myriad lives and her third person twice removed manner of speaking about herself. He recognised the tone of the voice as Jex proper, directing the words.
"There's the Rekki herself!" Jex smiled in a burst of fond memory of the Shangri-la class. Only the memories were more civilian based than actual service.
Templar wondered, “You served on it?”
“No.” Jex’s teeth scraped her lower lip before the darkness was replaced with an unsteady smile. "They saved my life."
Noah understood a little of what ordeal of the symbiont’s past life, Leoni was now referring to. The one that made her look with fear and trepidation at the ship’s Kzinti CoB. He stepped in to cover and offer Leoni a reprieve. "That's the Pelican Rest." Noah pointed to a J-Type starbase. My grandfather operated out of there when he first served.”
"That was a spicy region of space. I bet he had a few adventures to tell stationed out that way." They turned to the arrival of McGregor.
A chorus of greetings met McGregor. Gordon’s was a simple McGregor, since in McGregor’s chain of command structure, he kept the barkeep out of it. Jex called him Boss in the flavour of the engineering department. Sebastian called him ‘Skipper’ as ordered to do so by security second in command Lt. Ney. Noah called him ‘Captain’.
Jex nodded at the wall. "So, is all this your doing, Cap?"
"No, Slug, it ain’t. Well maybe." He pointed with an extended finger from the hand that held his tumbler to the Falcon dedication. "That was originally commissioned with the ship. The first Falcon belonged to the Kestrel class. In truth those battlers were the first line of defence in the Romulan War and the true predecessors of the Border Patrol. The Kestrel here was named in honour of their class.
“That ship ... it shaped much of what became the Dogs. Not just their practices, recruitment process, drills, command structures and SOP. And more than the legacy of Ankorr's training or Mercy Faraday's engineering prescripts. It was the ship and crew’s sacrifice. How they encapsulated the Creed of the Border Patrol.”
McGregor, stopped before a mantle bearing the old motto of one of Earth’s Life-Saving Services: “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.” Beside this was an old small holoplate image with a man named Patrick Etheridge. McGregor’s other hand drummed on the handrail before this, eyes hanging on the code a moment too long with what one might have thought a haunted look, except, except none of the three could image the man before them to be haunted. Did not want to think it.
McGregor cleared his throat and took of his own drink before he turned his attention back to the trio. Gordon had stepped away to leave them the privacy of the moment. The Captain gave them all a small, brittle smile and an acknowledging nod to what had transpired in their previous shift.
“It was a tough call today. No shame admitting that. Hell, you can feel it across the ship but the rest of the crew, they know it and understand that.” Despite the quiet of the lounge, there were still crew mixing and chatting finding their way to process last shift. “Ultimately, it was … a good call. We saved lives. We made a difference. We – we answered the call. We responded to their red and blues. That’s – that’s what we do.” McGregor referred to the red and blue alarm lights that had flanked the hull of the freighter the crew had sought to rescue. To answering the mayday call of the civilian fleet – The Red and Blues.
“Back when – when I was CoB, we went through a bad patch. Some rough times.” McGregor’s tumbler turned in his hand as he stopped short for a moment. He hung his head and nodded before lifting it to continue. “Some tough losses. We lost our Skipper. It – it were a bad time for the Boat. We needed no such reminder about sacrifice. And yet … we needed a reminder. I opted to do some refurbishment of this little nook. Over time, other bits have been added. And in time, others still.”
The hand with the drink swept the curved wall, gesturing and indicating to each and all honoured upon it. “It’s not just about sacrifice, it’s about doing the work, knowing it will be hard, knowing it might not always be a good result, for our successes are still someone else’s worst day. But it’s also about the good we do. About what we’ve stood for, what we’ve stood against, about the lives we’ve saved and the laws we’ve policed. We do it because it is The Job. A job we’ve trained for, specialised in, even though we can never truly know, like today about just what we might face. It’s about …” For a moment it seemed as though he were stuck for words but of course he wasn’t. Instead, he reached for those that came too easy for any in the Service. “Semper Paratus.”
“Always Ready.” Templar intoned, looking into the depths of his untouched drink before lifting his head and straightening his shoulders.
“Always,” McGregor responded softly.
Jex and Noah nodded now too, looking anew at the wall, standing slightly taller, standing not quite so defeated. Not so deflated.
“We weren't - we aren't one little ship in the dark. We're part of something larger. Cutters, tugs, buoy tenders, asteroid breakers, relay stations, starbases, forward operating groups, rapid deployment forces … the whole shebang. We answer the call. Because, those people they need to believe, need to know, we will come. The Border Patrol will come." Noah thought back to the story Judy Monroe had told and looked from McGregor to Leoni, understanding how she understood the call of the Border Patrol from the other side. He could harken to the tales of his grandfather and his career in the Dogs until its tragic end.
"We all come from somewhere, we all have some story or role-model that inspired us. And if we don't ... well one look here - you'll find it. From the Chomstock to Tiger Heron, Albacore to Bluefin, Echo to Watchtower, Pelican to Reach, The Crazy 8, The Banshees, The Sassy Sixth. We're just one part of a legacy, a tapestry of a service dedicated to a purpose. A long line of folk who dedicated their lives to helping and saving the lives of others. A line of legacy. A long line. And what’s the Creed?”
The three in turn replied in unison.
“Protecting borders.
Saving lives.
Holding the line.”
McGregor nodded and saluted the wall. “We hold the line.”