Chapter Text
He should have known it wouldn't work out the way they'd originally envisioned it. He had told himself at the beginning that the failure he foresaw was only his paranoid imagination and that he should give them all the benefit of the doubt. They were all officers, after all, and they deserved at least some of his trust.
Now, however, as he looked over each of them in turn he realized he should have gone with his original gut instinct on the matter. He hadn't even heard the full story, but knew it wouldn't be good. A part of him wanted to stand up and leave his own office then and there just to avoid having to hear what was to come. He knew he couldn't do that though.
"All right," he began, leaning forward and placing his folded hands on the desk in front of him. "Which one of you is going to start?"
The four pilots and single communication specialist sitting across from him remained silent for a few seconds. Jonathan Archer shifted in his seat, A.G. Robinson looked bored, Sam Gardner seemed to be half-asleep, and Veronica Fletcher looked mostly irritated while Erika Hernandez seemed mostly murderous. The five of them made quite the sight.
"Well?" he asked again. "Who wants to explain how a simple assignment could go so badly?"
"There was nothing 'simple' about the assignment," Veronica muttered under her breath.
Forrest arched an eyebrow at her. He wasn't even completely sure how Fletcher got mixed up in all of this to begin with. Neither Jefferies nor Duvall had been able to do the assignment and somehow Fletcher had come up as a fill-in. He was pretty sure it'd been A.G. and Erika who had suggested it, but he wasn't even sure anymore.
"Perhaps you'd liked to start with your side of the story than, Fletcher?"
The pilot muttered something he couldn't quite decipher before Erika rolled her eyes and spoke up. "I'll start, Admiral."
"Of course," A.G. muttered with a scoff and an amused smirk.
Erika shot Robinson a glare before she turned her attention back to him and began. "Everything started out fine. We met up at 0600, just like you told us....."