Meeting the second officer

Posted on Wed Aug 12th, 2026 @ 7:29am by Lieutenant Commander Maximo (Max) Vero & Lieutenant Reruk

2,336 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Season 1 Episode 2: The Garden at the Edge of Night
Location: 2Os office
Timeline: Pre launch, before party

ON:

Max had realised he had not yet had a chance to meet the second officer. The trip to his office was short and peaceful. For a brief moment he got no messages. Pressing the chime on the door all he knew about the man was he was a Hekaran. Another alien race he didn't know a lot about.

The door slid open to reveal a workspace organized with meticulous, almost clinical precision. Every datapad on the desk was aligned parallel to the console edges, and the ambient lighting was dimmed to a level optimized for sensor calibration rather than comfort.

Lieutenant Reruk stood behind his desk, his posture as unyielding as a bulkhead. His dark eyes flicked to Max, taking in the Executive Officer's presence without a trace of warmth or performative welcome. His hands remained clasped firmly behind his back, the sign of a scientist sizing up his latest sample.

"Commander," Reruk said, his voice flat, razor-thin, and entirely devoid of pleasantries. He offered no invitation to sit. "If this is regarding the diagnostic schedules for the auxiliary sensor relays, they were routed to your console twenty minutes ago. If it is a social visit, I am currently preparing the long-range sweep protocols for our departure vector or we won't be allowed to leave dock."

“No not at all but thank you for sending everything in a timely manner and in a well presented format. Please continue to do so. I wish all officers who send me reports would do that.

It’s a social call. I’m not worried about that we won’t be able to dock as you’re clearly the sort of man who can multi-task. If I’m wrong I’m happy to give you a hand. I’ll just plonk here,” he pulled the chair out and sat down.

“We haven’t officially met yet but I like to get to know who I’m working with and the face behind the reports. So Lieutenant tell me a bit about yourself. I know the departments as ready as it can be.”

Reruk’s jaw tightened imperceptibly as Max unceremoniously dropped into the chair. The relaxed, easygoing demeanor of the Executive Officer was precisely the kind of Starfleet informalities Reruk found exhausting. He did not sit. Instead, he adjusted a single PADD on his desk, shifting it a millimeter to maintain its alignment before looking back up with a cold, unyielding gaze.

"There is little to tell that is relevant to the ship's operational readiness, Commander," Reruk said, his tone biting and meticulously controlled. "I hold doctorates in Cellular Chronology and Subspace Physics from the University of Alpha Centauri. I do not waste time on small talk, nor do I require social rapport to ensure this department functions flawlessly." He leaned forward slightly, resting his fingertips on the cold surface of his desk. "You have my duty logs, my service record, and my diagnostic schedules. If Starfleet’s personnel shortage post-Wolf 359 requires my presence on your Bridge, you will receive my absolute technical precision.

Max was not afraid of this man. In fact he pitied him. he was caught up on being cold, distant, efficient and shielding himself in rudeness one day he was liable to snap or do something truly stupid offending in his stand off attitude that just gave out distain. That wasn't happening on Max's watch. What had possibly happened to the man to choose to be like this? There was no way he could be truly happy. He wondered if perhaps he was hiding something and it was easier to alienate everyone to hide it?

"I disagree," he said firmly. "There will be many situations where you need to small talk. Its not about wasting time. You might be efficient in systems and logs and diagnostics but you also need to be able to be efficient socially. You might not need social rapport to ensure this department functions but the rest of your staff will need it. Otherwise they will be uncomfortable and it will affect their work performance and that reflects on you. You don't have to be best friends with everyone but they do need to have confidence in and be comfortable working for you. A simple good morning, how's your day can go a long way. I suggest you work on that," he said simply.

He was beginning to get worried about the senior crew. They had one chief who relied completely on the "manual" and one who chose to be a rude island of a man who was going to alienate everyone in his path.

"But we get away from my original intent which was to know a little bit about you. And that request has nothing to do with ships readiness. So back to that. What is Cellular Chronology? I don't think people did doctorates in that back in my time at the academy. Admittedly it was nearly 110 years ago and science has no doubt moved on in leaps and bounds."

Reruk’s dark eyes fixed on Max with an icy, unblinking intensity, entirely untamed by the Executive Officer’s attempt at mentorship. He slowly unclasped his hands from behind his back, resting his palms flat against the cold desk surface, right beside the neatly aligned PADDs.

"If you truly wish to understand why I am here, Commander, let us dispose of the fiction that I am simply an awkward officer who needs to practice his social graces," Reruk said, his voice dropping to a razor-thin, biting register. "I am here because I was complicit in the illegal, highly classified age-reversal research at the Darwin Genetic Research Institute." He leaned forward, the shadow of his posture falling dark across the desk.

"My academic obsession with Cellular Chronology led me into the employ of rogue black-ops factions," Reruk continued, his tone clinical yet laced with an underlying, hyper-vigilant edge. "Alongside a pragmatic geneticist named Doxia Oroten, I weaponized temporal mechanics and genetic splicing, attempting to rewrite DNA to engineer functional immortality for a select class. It was a grotesque violation of law, logic, and the natural order - a concept my Hekaran heritage expressly forbids, yet one my ambition ignored until the cellular mutations in our test subjects became impossible to deny."

A flicker of cold, deeply buried guilt crossed his features before he smoothed it over with his usual guarded hostility. "When a containment failure threatened to turn horror into catastrophe, I gathered the encrypted data and turned Oroten over to Starfleet Command in exchange for clemency. The Federation Council stripped me of my civilian status and conscripted me to service as my legal sentence. I was assigned to the Genesis with provisional rank not out of merit, but because your fleet lost thousands of officers at Wolf 359 and needed a specialist who understands the boundary between life and temporal decay."

Reruk straightened to his full height, his posture as rigid as a bulkhead. "So no, I do not offer 'good mornings,' nor do I seek rapport. My duty on this vessel is to act as an unyielding ethical gatekeeper so that no one on this ship ever repeats the hubris that brought me here. If that makes your staff uncomfortable, Commander, that is an operational cost I am more than willing to accept."

Max smiled. A small one that conveyed he had met and understood the man now. His technobabble designed to intimidate and a further shield. His coldness designed not to let anyone close. This man was worried he would mess up again. Even his rearing himself to full height and over the desk with his shadow was a subconscious design to try intimidate Max to go away. It wasn’t working though. He’d already lost everything. He had little fear anymore.

“Immortality is overrated,” he said simply. “If it wasn’t then the … letter aliens ,,, “ he held a finger up ….” give me a second I’ve had a lot to remember in a short time ….. ahhh Si the Q, why do you think the Q put humanity on trial? Why they mess with us? They are bored. They live forever, have your immortality… well they say. We take their words at face value but imagine how truly bored you would be once you have done everything and seen everything.

Thank you though, Si Si I understand completely now. You did something truly truly stupid, even though you know that, sharing what you did you seem to be holding on to sort weird pride about it perhaps that’s the Hekaran way. I don't much care in this moment …..but the crutch of it is starfleet command have given you a second chance. One where you get to continue to play with your science toys and have a majority of freedom still rather than lock you up in jail.

I agree they gave you a provisional rank to keep numbers up. No starfleet officer would get to Lieutenant with an attitude like yours otherwise but that clemency you mentioned continues as long as you behave. You are aware that myself and the captain have to submit regular reports as to your performance to starfleet command. Part of being an officer is communication and your duty is to starfleet, the ship and “this crew.” There’s nothing unyieldingly ethical about you from what you just told me you have done.

So I give you time to reflect and make some changes. I help you if you need it. But if I see staff uncomfortable or they come to me upset about your communication style, I report back to starfleet command that you are failing in your conscription and then I make it an order, I think perhaps you weigh up whether the operational cost as you call it, is worth staying out of that jail. If I were in your shoes it would be as they say a no brainer, I am routing for you though,” Max said with a broad smile.

"Your threat lacks leverage, Commander," Reruk said, his voice flat and entirely devoid of fear. "The Captain is fully aware of my background and has already cleared me to serve precisely as I am. He recognizes that my value lies in my technical accuracy and ethical vigilance, not in performative sociability. In fact, I clearly outlined my operational approach before he appointed me Second Officer of this ship and he approved."

He leaned forward slightly, a thin, biting smirk touching his lips. "Furthermore, you should review the fine print of my plea agreement. Should Starfleet decide to discharge me, the terms mandate that I be returned directly to Hekaras II as a civilian. Threatening to send me home, away from military protocol and Starfleet's desperate post-Wolf 359 demands, is hardly the deterrent you think it is."

Reruk picked up a PADD, his posture unyielding. "My duty to this ship is to ensure its technical survival. Now, if you are finished, I have work to do."

Max’s smile did not waver and he allowed himself a chuckle when the man referred to his supposed “ethical vigilance”. He waited till he finished then responded.

“That wasn’t a threat. I’m a pacifist, I don’t make threats. Well unless the mission calls for it. That’s just a run down of the situation and responsibilities to it. If you choose to see that as a threat, it’s only because you have chosen to be a victim.

“Let’s not fool ourselves though, any agreement can be rewritten and a Captain listens to his XO. The Captain also won’t put up with this kind of attitude for long,” Max said simply. He refused to believe Steyn would agree to unleash a man this repugnant on his crew and ship in any situation.

“What I don’t understand is why agree to a plea deal to be an officer if you’re not willing to grow, to embrace being in starfleet and its values and make yourself a better person? Why not just negotiate to go back home when you threw that other man under the bus?

Or is that because as you outlined earlier, what you did was a concept your Hekaran heritage expressly forbids and the consequences of going back home would be far more uncomfortable.”

"A perceptive deduction, Commander," Reruk said as he set the PADD down on the desk with a sharp, deliberate snap. For a fraction of a second, his dark eyes flashed with raw, hostile defense before he reined it back behind a wall of clinical ice as he continued, "Going home means facing the Hekaran Science Academy: an institution that does not offer plea bargains or provisional pips for perverting the natural order. Starfleet conscription was the only option that allowed me to continue my work under supervision rather than spending my remaining years stripped of my credentials in absolute exile."

"I signed that agreement to work, not to undergo an emotional rehabilitation program," Reruk added coldly, his posture unyielding as he leaned in across the desk, his hands gripping the edge until his knuckles turned pale, "I do not need to 'grow,' nor do I require your version of Starfleet values to execute my duties. My competence helps keep this ship functional. Now, unless you intend to order my court-martial right here on my desk, I suggest you let me return to duties."

“You are here by Starfleets penchant towards second chances but do not mistake our compassion for weakness. Both parties learn from each other. While Starfleet does respect other cultures and their values, we also expect other cultures to respect ours. I will leave you to your work for now and to think over my words. If you don’t take something onboard, your wish of a court marshall may be granted sooner than you think,”

And with that he turned and left his office.

OFF

Cmdr. Max Vero
XO

Lt. Reruk
Chief Science Officer

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