Lessons reaction

Sariel doesn't know Nella Daren as anyone but a superior officer.

The older woman isn't Nella to her, not even mentally. To her, she's Commander Daren,head of stellar sciences, a decade or more Sariel's senior and wearing competence and experience like a second skin. Stellar sciences isn't Sariel's department, never mind how useful their information often proves at the helm; she doesn't interact with Commander Daren beyond quiet nods in the corridors, exchanged greetings in the turbolifts. All the same, Sariel can't help respecting the other woman.

She works out, somewhere around their initial orbit of Bersallis III, that it's the scientist's particular mix of professionalism and offbeat grace that's won her over so quickly. That, and the close-held flutter of curiosity that she'll never indulge - certainly not with someone ranked so far above her - to know if speaking Kweyol in front of Daren won't get her an answer back in Quebecois. Sariel likes what she knows of Nella Daren, vastly different though their personalities are.

And then Bersallis III hits them from all sides, rains fire and risks lives,

two eyes on the sky

and suddenly, stellar sciences is looming large where it didn't hours before. Daren's got her work cut out for her, cut from cloth that scorches,

one eye on the sky

and Sariel can't do a thing to help. Steady hands or no, it's not pilots they need in this particular situation. So she waits.

So does everyone else.

Sariel's not sure which rattles her more; when she believes Commander Daren has died in the line of duty, or when she finds out she's wrong. The first is understandable, training or no training, and the second is a pleasant shock to be sure, but the fact remains that both realities shake Sariel more than a little. She knows plenty about fighting and bleeding and dying, in the line of duty or otherwise, knows people who've done all three,

Lieutenant Hagler

but a near-death experience, anyone's near-death experience, is bound to get her thinking about the subject. and a few other subjects besides. Would she be that brave? Will she, if the need arises?

And was she?

She finds herself hoping, praying, not for anything even close to the first time, that the answer is yes to all three questions.

As for the other reality, the true reality--well. Sariel knows about coming back from the brink, too.

Sariel keeps the fine thread of connection she feels to Nella Daren to herself, even before the other woman transfers away. Their situations were, are, vastly different, but all the same: Daren's just the tiniest bit like her. And between the similarity, the lingering respect for the commander that doesn't fade with time, and Daren's visible dedication to her work...

Other people might forget Nella Daren.

Sariel doesn't.

The chase missing scenes/reaction

The details of what they're doing make Sariel's head ache. It's not that she hasn't got an understanding of the hard sciences -- she has to, her chosen profession being what it is, but hers is a world of angles and vectors, axes and degrees and intersecting planes. It's Sonya who's got the marginal interest in archeology, and Selar and Alyssa are the ones most likely to read hidden messages in DNA, mathematically represented or otherwise. Sariel could likely handle an encrypted message in a star chart if one appeared, but that's an almost entirely different situation from the one they're facing. Almost. And besides, all other knowledgeable sources notwithstanding, the mystery they've been set is Captain Picard's puzzle if it's anyone's.

Sariel doesn't ask about the minutia that have them leaping across distances on the heels of the literal unknown. For one, it's not her business; leave that to the senior officers. For a second, she already knows all she cares to. And for another--well. She's sure she wouldn't understand half of the answers she got. Again, that's Selar's line of work. She has enough to think about drawing near-invisible shipwide lines in the black as is, never mind she's not the one actively tracing them half the time. Hers is a world of speed and distance and named places - Ruah IV, Indri VIII, Loren III and by the time they break their third orbit, it almost feels like they're the pursued rather than the pursuing.

And in the end, that's very nearly what they are. Vilmor II makes a reality out of that feeling, if the world before it didn't.

Sariel learns just enough about what happens on the final found planet's surface; just enough - patterns and molecules and long-forgotten distant voices in projection - to give those haste-scorched trails left in the void a meaning. At least for her. Sariel doesn't know much about the particular type of molecular analysis the captain's been dealing with, never mind the sheer amount of pure archeology that's gone into the discovery they've made.

But origin myths and reasons and benevolent powers with a hand in the evolution of worlds... those she's familiar with. At least, familiar enough to leave her contented and then some at day's end. Common ground of the sort they've uncovered might not appeal to most when enemies are involved, but honestly?

Sariel doesn't mind.

Somebody say aleluia, aleluia.

Or maybe just merci.