Different Reflections in a Similar Mirror

The four Starfleet members of the Tokyo bridge crew materialized in Medical Center.  Chief Medical Officer Trishel Volari and her staff were waiting... along with Chief of Security Fiet Varitic and members of his own department.  The security detail was strictly precautionary... and prior to the arrival of the Starfleet crew, Trishel had implicitly told the security team that unless one of the bridge crew became violent, they were to stand down and do absolutely nothing.

The looks on the faces of the Tokyo crew spoke volumes.  They were expecting to appear in a Starfleet sickbay... and the fact that they didn't was disappointing to say the least.  As Trishel approached the commander of the Tokyo, he leapt into the standard response of the captured man.  Trishel nodded, a tight smile across her face.

The crew of the Dinaqa were very young.  Most of them were barely a year or two out of Loczni.  But when the Khalindarian military machine began revamping, Bartok had responded in kind.  The Dinaqa was even younger than the crew that worked aboard her... less than ten tulina^[1].  But her crew had already gelled to the point where they were fast becoming one of the Bartokian fleet's most reliable ships.

When Jones made his comment about starting war with the Federation, Fiet Varitic couldn't restrain himself.  He had been on the bridge during the entire battle... and the Dinaqa had not fired on any of the Starfleet vessels.  He would not stand there and take such slander.  And when Jones added the part about firing on the DeSoto, Varitic had clenched his fists and turned away, muttering a choice smattering of Bartokian curses.

Trishel had kept her eye on the Chief of Security during the exchange.  The Dinaqa had not fired on the DeSoto, or any other Starfleet vessel for that matter.  It had been the Tibain which had launched two vorak torpedoes on the ship helmed by Ti Klec Ringo's mother.  And it didn't matter that Bartokians were incapable of lying.  Trishel knew enough about humans.  Once they made up their mind on a topic... that was it.  In the eyes and minds of these human survivors... the Bartokians were guilty as charged.  Every single one of them.

As Trishel and her crew worked on the survivors, one of their crew (a lieutenant, by his ranking pips), muttered, "Don't touch me."  The Sular, a young woman from Bartok III's second moon, looked over to Trishel, a surprised look on her face.  Trishel shook her head in reply.  They were under no obligation to treat the humans... and they couldn't treat one of them if he or she refused treatment.  The young woman smiled nervously to the human and went back into the Center.

Humans.  Trishel could recite their medical statistics chapter and verse... but truth be told, she despised them.  So smug.  So arrogant.  They acted as if the entire universe revolved around them.  She had heard once, from a friend who had attended Starfleet Academy, that at one point in human history, they had actually believed that the entire universe revolved around their pathetic little world.  And the Ancestors forbid you were from another culture.  She knew what most of the Federation, humans, in particular, thought of Bartokian culture.  It didn't surprise her.  Humans were such a close-minded group.  It was their way, or no way at all.

The doors to Medical Center swished open.  Ti Klec Cerina Ringo walked in.  She walked over to Trishel.  "Valendar Volari... what is the status on the Starfleet crew?"

"For the most part, nothing serious.  One of the lieutenants refused treatment."