Personal/Transmission Log of Captain Jack Buchanan

[omn]

Personal Video, transmitted from U.S.S. Robau to Deep Space Thirteen wrote:

"Ramona Sitwell, you have a seven year-old sister."

Jack rubs his face. He looks like.. maybe he's undergone a lot of stress recently. His duty jacket is missing entirely, and the sleeves of his undershirt have been rolled up to his elbows. But more than that, you can see the strain in his eyes. He isn't at his desk- he's recording this message from the couch at the far end of his ready room. Stars peek in from the window that starts just above his head.

"Her name is Verelan. She's brilliant. She's adorable. She has my chin."

He lets out a relatively wistful sigh, looking around his ready room. He glances to his wrist-chronometer, as if he's on a deadline.

"We were going to tell you soon. We were so excited. When we departed the station, Aurelia was- what, four, five months along?"

The guilt visibly spreads across his body; it starts in his eyes. His eyebrows droop. His shoulders tense. A trembling hand runs over his tightly-shaven head. His view hits every point in his office except the camera.

"I'm sure you've heard about it by now. There was an incident. Aurelia's ship was drawn into the anomaly we were sent to investigate. And.. just like that, I missed seven years of my daughter's life. We tried to get them out as quickly as we could- but it wasn't bloody good enough. My wife, my child, the entire sodding crew- endured seven goddamn years of hardship and pain because I didn't think to keep the Anarhai in tractor range."

He inhales, straightening himself up- attempting to compose himself. "I.. need to go. Their medical exams should be over soon, so I need to get back down there. We should arrive at the station soon. Until then.."

He looks at the recorder, briefly rubbing his face.

"Stay safe, Ramona. I love you."

[omn]

Personal Log, Stardate 92554.3 wrote:

"Davin Mandukar is.. an asshole."

It is immediately obvious that Jack isn't recording from his ready-room. The sounds and sights are all wrong. As a matter of fact, he's recording from a impressively domestic, if somewhat disorganized-looking kitchen. Judging by the assortment of ingredients lying about, the man is preparing some kind of breakfast. Jack's typical musical accompaniment is noticeably absent. He quietly works on peeling an orange for a good half-minute, before looking back to the recorder.

"I.." He visibly struggles to find words, looking back to the orange for a moment.

"Concubine. That was too far." He sighs. "He knew it'd piss me off. He was trying to get a rise out of me. And I suppose it worked, to an extent. But.." He brushes the orange peel off the counter, into a nearby waste disposal unit.

"..I don't think he hit me because he was angry with me. Not exclusively because he was angry with me, at least. I think he hit me because, with his head that far up his ass, picking a fight with me seemed to be the easiest way out of the confrontation. Easier than talking about his issues, that's for damned sure."

The fancy spacefuture oven on the other side of the s'Veras kitchen dings.

"Aurelia says we're done with him, but don't think so." He rubs at his beard a little. "Davin Mandukar is an asshole, but he's still family. Even if we can't save him from his pity party, we have to try." Jack sets the skinless orange atop a pile of similarly peeled citrus fruit.

"Computer, end recording."

[omn]

Quote:

"Dad, why aren't you worried about mom?"

Jack ceases pushing the roller over soft dough, looking to his daughter, tilting his head. She moves back to the counter, having retrieved a block of cheese from the replicator, setting it next to a cheese grater. Her little eyebrows furrow with concern.

There's music playing, but it isn't Captain Buchanan's typical 'classical' choice of accompaniment. It's got a little pop to it, and it's definitely modern; more than likely, this song was Verelan's choice.

"..What?"

"My teacher told us that everybody gets scared. She said that it was healthy to be worried."

He continues rolling, flattening the lump of italian dough- still, Jack looks a little confused. He takes a brief break from rolling for a moment in order to move a fully articulated Commander Jarok action figure out of the way of the ever-expanding circumference of the dough. "I wouldn't disagree."

"Then why don't you get scared? What if mom gets hurt?"

Jack stops rolling again. "What makes you think I don't get scared?"

"Mom said so."

A small amount of amusement spills into his confused features, and he resumes moving the rolling pin. "Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did n-" Captain Buchanan audibly catches himself, because he knows from experience that this line of conversation will loop forever, if given half a chance. He pulls the roller away from the dough; the former lump is as round and as flat as it's going to get, so he sets the pin aside. He starts to roll the edges up a little, by hand. "What did you mother tell you, specifically?"

"Back when.." The young girl takes a moment to find the right words. "Back when we were still on the ship, she told me that you were always brave, and that you were always strong."

The Captain points a flour-covered finger towards his daughter, laughing a little. The confusion seems to leave his face, leaving behind a mildly amused smirk. "That's not the same thing."

"What's the difference?"

"I.." He hesitates, rubbing at his beard. "Could you grab me the sauce?" Verelan nods, and turns around, moving over to a nearby shelf. "Which one?"

"The red one, with the tomato on the front." Jack turns around, hunting across their kitchen for a ladle. He pauses for a moment, considering, looking back to his daughter.

"Truth is- I get scared pretty often. I worry about your mother all the time. I worry about you all the time. I worry about my ship, my people- everybody who works under me. But.." His eyes scan across an open drawer for the ladle. "You can't be brave if you aren't scared first."

"What do you mean?"

"We get scared so that we have the opportunity to be brave."

Having found his chosen prey, Jack snatches the ladle from the spice drawer. As he looks to his daughter with amusement, he makes a mental note to ask her why, exactly, the ladle was in the spice drawer- later. His daughter looks.. relatively satisfied with the answer. He holds out the ladle.

"Get over here, you adorable little gremlin. You get to spread the sauce. Work for your share of the pizza."

She snorts.

[omn]

Audio Excerpt, Cell 23, Detention Block wrote:

"Computer, begin recording personal log."

Please note, due to your current legal status, contents of log will be retained and may be accessed by pertinent station personnel. Do you wish to proceed?

"Yes."

Recording.

"I keep running through the past few days. Every time I do, I see.. cracks. Little things. Choices I could have made that might have saved her life."

"When Aurelia asked me to run full scans on the rest of my away teams, I had already run a spinal scan. I thought I was in the clear."

"I heard, 'Jack, one of your crew has a calcium-based organism growing on his spine, and you should get checked', and took Verelan with me down to the medical bay- had Vergen run a quick scan of my spine. There was nothing there, so when Aurelia asked me to run full-body scans on the rest of my people, I thought to myself, 'I already checked. There was nothing there.' It was stupid. It was careless. If I had run a full scan, none of this would have happened. She'd still be alive."

"Vergen is probably blaming himself. He's wrong. I'm Captain. It was my responsibility. He couldn't have known."

"If I had gotten to her in time, before she fell- she might not have suffered the damage she did. She'd have been injured, but- we might have been able to save her."

"If I had warned her- she would have been able to stop me. I could feel it setting in- I could feel the fog swallowing me whole- if I had fought harder, gave a sign that something was wrong- she'd have been able to stop me. She'd still be alive."

"If I had been stronger, she would still be alive."

"She was family. I owed her so much- I owed my family to her. This was how I repaid her. Even after what I did, she saved my life. If I had been holding onto the decoupler when the surge hit, I would have been fried, too."

"This is what always happens. People look up to me. People trust me. People get close, and then I make a bad call, and people get hurt. People always get hurt."

"Never again. Computer, end recording."

Recording ended. Would you like to add entry this to your personal log from the Robau, or would you like to start a new, local log?

"I'd like you to transport me directly into the nearest star."

That command cannot be completed without Command clearance.

"That's what I thought."

[omn]

Audio Excerpt, Counselling Session A356 wrote:

“Captain, you’ve been attending these sessions for awhile now, and I’ve noticed that you don’t talk about your father much. Can I ask why?”

“Because Marcus Buchanan was kind of a prick.”

“He passed away a few years ago, correct?”

“He did.”

“How did you react to that, at the time?”

Jack took a moment, pausing, his gaze quietly flickering across the room. For a brief second, it catches on the door before shifting back to the counselor.
“I was.. upset, but I got past it.”

The counselor nodded, considering this. “That was same year as the incident on Risa, was it not?”

“It was.”

“That was the same year you began your relationship with Subcommander t’Veras, no?”

“..Yes.”

“And the same year you nearly died when you accelerated the U.S.S. Dresden into an Iconian Dreadnought.”

“I-”

“It seems to me that- coincidentally or not- the death of your father coincides with the beginning of a pattern of increased risk-taking behavior, culminating in the destruction of the U.S.S. Dresden- a move that, examined with this pattern in mind- could be interpreted as suicidal.”

Jack pinches his nasal bridge. “It’s.. not like that. It wasn’t like that.”

“If you’d like to explain elaborate, by all means, go ahead.”

“When I got the news that my father had passed- yes, I did have a breakdown. Aurelia can tell you that. She was there, with me- there for me. But I didn’t-” He sighs. “Sad isn’t the word I would use to express how I felt when my father passed.”

“What word would you use to describe how you felt?

“Rage.”

“It’s natural to feel anger after a loved one dies- it’s part of the natural cycle. But it doesn’t mean-”

“I wasn’t angry because of the 'injustice' of losing him. I..” Another sigh. “I thought I’d have time to make sure he knew he was wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

Jack hesitates, looking to the ground. He runs a hand over the stubble across his dome. “My father didn’t approve of me joining Starfleet.”

“When I left, he told me, ‘Starfleet will take everything from you. It’ll tear everything you care about away until you have nothing left, and then it will kill you.”

“But your mother was a Starfleet Officer, wasn’t she?”

“Why do you think he felt that way?” Jack glanced to his wrist, adjusting an antique wristwatch- a gift from his eldest daughter. “As far as he was concerned, Starfleet killed her. If she hadn’t been out there- saving lives- he wouldn’t have lost her.”

“Do you agree?”

Jack shakes his head. “Now, more than ever, no. He was wrong. The uniform doesn’t take anything from you. You give. You give your time, your dedication, your soul- and sometimes your life- because Starfleet represents something more than the clothes, or the ships, or the exploration. Something worth fighting for- worth giving everything you have.”

“What does Starfleet mean, to you?”

“That, together, we can be better than we are. That, through understanding, we can transcend our limitations.”

“Does this ‘understanding’ extend to your father?”

[omn]

Personal Log, Stardate 94080.5 wrote:

"The only people who have seen the end of war are the dead."

Jack runs his thumb across the flat of a pointed item in his hand, lifting it to eye level. It's an arrowhead, with a tip marred with a rust-coloured stain. The design and make is peculiar; it was clearly made using modern techniques, though it still appears handmade. There's an open frame on his desk, and an empty space on his office wall where the frame was hanging.

"When Andria passed, I made a vow- nobody else would die by my hand. Not allies, not my worst enemies." He pauses, flipping the arrowhead over. "At the time, it was an easy vow to justify, even if it meant giving up command. Pacifism is easy to justify when there aren't any stakes. The Tzenkethi weren't razing worlds."

"Giving up command was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Even now, I worry that I made the wrong choice." He manages a weak chuckle. "I have an automated program set up to give me regular status updates on how each member of the Robau's crew is doing. Don't get me wrong- I couldn't be more proud of every single one of them. But there's something in the back of my head screams- 'if you aren't there, you can't protect them.' But that's the part of the problem, isn't it?

He looks down to the arrowhead.

"Looking back.." He shifts his gaze off of the weapon, rubbing his eyelids. "It was killing me. Every time I sent somebody into danger; every time somebody was lost; every order to open fire and every life I took, no matter how justified, no matter if it was for the greater good or because somebody's life was at stake- each time, it tore off a piece of me. Each time it dragged me down further and further."

"Koniezecko offered me command of the cadet ship. Part of me wants to jump at the chance. If I'm the one in command, I can protect them. I can make sure every single one of my students is safe or die trying." A pause.

"But if I do, I break my vow. Whether it's a day from then or a week or a year, I know that I'll have to give that order, someday. I'll give an order, and somebody will die because of it. Maybe they'll be a pirate, maybe it'll be a Tzenkethi ambush. Even if one of my people doesn't die, somebody will. And.. I don't know if I can do that anymore; I don't know if I can be that man. I'm worried that if I do, by the time I'm done, there won't be any of me left."

"But if the Tzenkethi are razing worlds and I do nothing? I don't know if that's worse. Part of me had believed- had hoped- that we wouldn't see another war in our lifetime. That, having collectively seen the horrors of the Iconian War, that we'd be able to break the cycle and move forward outside of the confines of war and and hatred."

Jack sets the arrowhead back in the case, tossing himself back in his chair.

"Who knows- maybe I'm just an old man who likes to hear himself talk. Maybe I think that if I ramble for long enough I'll start to sound coherent enough that I'll be able to convince myself." He laughs, just a little. "Computer, end log."

[omn]

Personal Log, Stardate 96081.1 wrote:

"Earlier, a student of mine asked me if I missed if I ever missed 'it'. I gave a pretty stock answer, something about the ties that bind being the greatest frontier to explore." Jack relaxes in a faux-leather chair in the s'Veras family personal quarters. Opposite his own nearby desk, there's another, one that appears not to have been used for months- a gentle coating of dust covers most of the desk's contents on its surfaces, save for a series of wrapped gift boxes and cards left on the desk customarily by Jack and his youngest daughter every time the family's matriarch goes on extended assignment. Each is something they found or made that made them think of her; a trinket, or a drawing, occasionally a poem. Luckily, she's returning soon- the day of this recording, in fact, so this particular pile will not remain unopened for long.

"'It' being 'Starfleet'. Now, technically speaking, I never left Starfleet, but that's not really what they were asking, obviously. They wanted to know if I missed being captain. If I missed being an explorer." Jack leans off, reaching over to a nearby end table and grabbing hold of a small rubber ball- likely belonging to Verelan. He turns the chair a little, giving him a clear line of sight to the nearest wall. His hand arcs forward, launching the ball towards the floor; it bounces off of the ground, and then the wall, and then lands back in his hand. He exhales.

"I do. Unequivocally, part of me misses it. Now, I love everything I do here. I love being able to see Verelan grow. I love knowing my students, and watching them become who they're meant to be. I love being able to just.. breathe -- without the weight of hundreds of lives weighing on each of my choices. It's a privilege I wouldn't trade it for the world, and that includes being out there again."

"I miss the little things, though. Back when I was in command, when things were getting to be too much, sometimes I would just check out an enviro-suit, slip out an airlock, and just.. float. When you spend all your time aboard starships and starbases and shuttles, you can forget, I think, what space is- what it's really like, and I liked to remind myself sometimes. Even with the starship to my back, I would get this feeling of almost solipsistic peace. Everything else would just fall away." He launches the ball back at the floor again- it repeats the floor-wall-hand arc it travelled previously.

"Now, if I want to do that, I have to get a half dozen permits and clear everything. If I have to schedule my free-floating space freedom alone time, It kind of loses its luster. I think that's what I miss, really. When you're on a starship, anything can happen, at any time. Sure, yes, it was almost always something bad, but sometimes.. sometimes it was something amazing, something wonderful." He tosses the ball again. Floor, wall, hand.

"There are worse things than routine, I suppose."

// OOC Note: I'm bad at stardates; this is meant to have happened the day before Aurelia returned from her assignment.

[omn]

Excerpt from Q&A session following a Guest Lecture given by Jack e-Buchanan tr’Veras
Daystrom Institute, Okinawa, Japan

“During your lecture, you mentioned that you don’t consider war to be a natural societal development. On what expertise do you base your suggestion? You are not a scholar of societal development, nor are you an expert in biological evolution. Further, based on what evidence do you support this belief?”

The speaker was a young Vulcanoid in the first row. Jack stifled the urge to raise a surprised eyebrow- in his experience, with the exception of Starfleet, Vulcans students of science usually studied on their homeworld, and the student’s manner and garb did not strike him as particularly Romulan.

“You’re correct. I’m not an xenoanthropologist- to that I’ll freely admit. But I am – or I was – a soldier, and I think that qualifies me as something resembling an expert on the subject. And like most past-their-prime middle aged men, I’m a sucker for history holodocs, which I have to imagine counts for something.”

Jack gave little laugh. Not the earnest kind, but the performative kind you give to cue your audience to laugh- and it worked. Whether out of genuine humor or out of habit, many of the gathered attendees laughed. He leaned forward on the podium, crossing his arms and propping him self up with his elbows and still-quite-sturdy forearms.

“I don’t think it takes a doctorate to see it, though. I don’t think war comes naturally to most forms of organic life. Its omnipresence does not indicate its necessity or its roots. That’s… well, it’s a fallacy. It’s bad logic.”

He ran a hand through his hair. In a move that had come as something as a surprise to many of his longtime associates, he’d decided around a year ago to stop shaving his head, letting his typical light stubble grow into a long, densely packed mane that he kept tied behind his head into a powerfully fluffy sort of ponytail. He kept the sides cut short, though, into a clean fade. Moreso than ever, grey had begun to creep into his well-manicured beard, and a long grey-white streak ran through the hair on the top of his head.

“To put it simply: if cruelty came easily to us, we wouldn’t have to build systems to maintain it. We would not have to – for a lack of a better word – dehumanize our enemies. There would be no moral calculus.” He adjusted his posture, standing back up more fully.

“Across the galaxy, we see it- one of the signs that a species is developing what we call ‘civilization’ is not warfare- but empathy. On Earth, we find skeletons of early hominid elders carrying the marks of crippling injuries obtained during youth, indicating that they were cared for and provided for their entire lives despite their injuries. On Vulcan, we see the stronghold of Pelasht opening its doors to its enemy clans despite the risk. On Kaminar, the Ba’ul, even when motivated by the abject terror of a Kelpian resurgence, created a dozen metaphorical walls between themselves and those they subjugated. In the Gamma Quadrant, the Founders build intricate systems to avoid any real connection with outsiders, with solids, reserving their empathy only for one another- but what happens when one of them finds connection amongst the solids?” Jack laughed- this time a bit more earnestly.

“I’m not saying that conflict isn’t natural- even, unfortunately, murder. But war? War requires distance. And it requires machinery, both literal and metaphorical, to create that empathic distance.”

He paused. “To elaborate…”

“We create the sword to end a life quicker so that we don’t have to feel our hands at their throat as the light leaves their eyes. We create the sling to end a life from further away so that we may kill without looking our enemy in the face as we cave their skull in. We build catapults so that we may end their lives without entering their homes. We build wall after wall in front of our sense of empathy, and the moment we remove these walls, wars become… obsolete.” Towards the end of the sentence, Jack’s eyes moved towards the ground for a bit- but when he hit the word “obsolete”, his expression changed. His closer friends might recognize the expression. Wheels were turning.

The student tilted their head slightly. “Obsolete?”

Jack looked towards the student, considering his next words carefully. “We regularly render old forms of warfare obsolete with newer forms of warfare. Pardon me if this sounds… esoteric, but perhaps it’s time to render the old forms of warfare obsolete with a new form of peace.”