If I should take a notion
To jump into the ocean,
T'aint nobody's business if I do

"Commander Worf? Lt. O'Reilly. The away team supplies are ready and waiting in Transporter Room 3, Commander."

"Thank you Lieutenant. Please advise the captain that we will be departing for the planet surface as soon we achieve synchronous orbit."

Leo consulted her dataport to access navigation. "That'll be 1300 hours, commander. Right on schedule. I'll let him know. Good luck, and watch your back. These folks asked for a security consult for a reason." She smiled as she heard Worf's stifled grunt of displeasure. He did not take cautions gladly, especially from an administrative officer.

"I shall endeavor to return in one piece, Lieutenant. Worf out."

Picard overheard the exchange through the open door that divided his ready room from Leo's much smaller office. Engineering and maintenance together had managed to subdivide a space from the captain's rather large ready room to devote to the admin exec function. They would certainly have been able to share a single large space, but both Picard and Leo harbored a need for at least the illusion of privacy and solitude.

"You really shouldn't torment him like that, Lieutenant. Commander Worf's pride is a sacred possession."

"You assume I was being facetious," Leo informed him as she approached his desk. "We all know how dicey things are down there right now."

The planet Rhezar 2 was a mining colony that had done business exclusively with Starfleet supplying dilithium for starship drives for slightly more than four years. A year ago a group of engineers discovered a rich source of neutronium some miles away from the original mine site and, together with some other tech specialists and mine workers, decided that they could negotiate a better arrangement as an independent supplier to a wider variety of customers outside of Starfleet. While it had been nearly a year since the decision was made to break off from the original colony and begin anew as a separate concern, the tension arising from the split had never abated.

The second Rhezar mine began to realize a profit, and tensions increased as the "Rhezar Neutronium Source" company followed several deep veins that eventually abutted land owned by the Rhezar 2 Dilithium colony. The Rhezar Dilithium concern claimed that the work of Rhezar Neutronium actually encroached on their mining property. While Federation mediators had been working on the problem, intermittent altercations between members of the respective companies had become more frequent. Most recently, there had been sabotage of the Rhezar Dilithium mining equipment and a maintenance worker had been injured in the explosion. A day later Starfleet had relayed to the Enterprise a request from Rhezar Dilithium for a security consultation. Security had never been much of a concern in the years the mine had been in operation. Until now, anyway.

"Point taken. This away team will conduct the preliminary analysis of the Rhezar Dilithium operation."

"Right. And Worf and his people will meet with the Rhezar Dilithium execs and staff to discuss what measures might be necessary given the structure of the organization and the infrastructure of the respective mines. The Federation mediators have tried to raise the security issues in their meetings with both sides, but Rhezar Neutronium insists that their people have nothing to do with the sabotage. The rest of the confrontations could best be described as bar fights resulting from the ongoing pissing contest between the companies' workers. Ain't free enterprise grand. You should pardon the expression."

"I trust your ongoing reports are expressed in more Starfleet-appropriate language?" Picard commented drily.

Leo rolled her eyes and assured him, "Yes sir. Colorful colloquialisms strictly omitted."

"Very well. Dismissed."

Leo hastened to add before she turned to go, "I'm saving them for my memoirs. All names and locations changed to protect the innocent, of course."

"Dismissed."

"Yes, sir." She returned to her garret (she knew a garret was supposed to be up high or something, but she figured floating in space might count) to undertake the breakdown of personnel records to be sent to department commanders who would schedule crew reviews. The schedules then would be returned to Leo, who would notify the respective crewmembers and review any conflicts to be passed back to the department commanders. And so on. Leo realized that to an outsider such procedures must seem impossibly Byzantine, but the fact was that this and other protocols set up by herself, the senior staff, and the captain had already begun to streamline ship's operations without compromising efficiency. Leo had to admit even she was surprised. It wasn't without difficulties but the results pleased her greatly.

Given the 900-member crew complement, Leo's work on the personnel records would require several days to complete. She was even accessing them from her quarters. It was the first time the full review was to be completed with the new procedure, and she was just a little bit driven to bring it in on schedule. Hours had passed when she heard the captain's comlink summon him to sickbay for urgent business. Not that it didn't interest her, but Leo knew that it wasn't her business to become involved in any situation unless and until she was directed by the captain to do so, or directly requested by someone else involved. Besides, a sickbay matter could mean anything at all.

Moments after the captain left calling to her, "I'll be in sickbay, Lieutenant!" the door comlink chimed. Swell. She was busting to wade through this and already an interruption. Oh well, she wanted this post after all.

"Lieutenant Walter Jennings, captain, it's urgent I see you."

Leo triggered the door function from the captain's desk, simultaneously accessing the crew roster via his dataport. Jennings, Walter, Lieutenant. Stellar cartography. "I'm sorry Lieutenant, the captain has been called away. If you'll tell me what you wish to see him about…" when at last she looked up she stopped in mid-sentence. The officer standing before her was obviously frantic, wringing his hands, eyes wild. Leo hit the door remote again to close it.

"Lieutenant Jennings, please, catch your breath. Tell me what's happening."

"My wife… Irene… she was on the away team to Rhezar 2. Something's happened, I need to know… I was nearer here than to security, I can't raise Commander Worf on his comlink, I can't raise sickbay, I need to know what's happened."

That must have been why the captain was called away. Leo activated his private link to Beverly Crusher's office.

"Lieutenant O'Reilly. Doctor, I have a very distraught crewmember in the ready room requesting information about the away team. What can you tell me?"

To her surprise Nurse Ogawa answered. "Lieutenant, we're busy with casualties."

"Casualties? What's going on?" She cast a glance at Jennings and switched the comlink to "closed", then picked up the transceiver and put it on, turning her back. "I don't need details, Alyssa," she all but whispered, "but Lt. Jennings is wound very tight and I need to tell him something."

"There was a cave-in of one of the mine chambers during the walk-through. Three mine employees injured, two of three away team injured, one badly. One dead… Ensign Irene Jennings."

Leo took a breath. A deep, big one. "Thanks Alyssa, keep me informed. O'Reilly out." Having no idea what she would say or do next, she turned to face Jennings. He'd gone pale as snow, obviously having heard that there were casualties in sickbay. Leo was stupidly silent.

"Lt. O'Reilly, a friend of mine in security just told me that there's been an accident with the away team, please if you know something you have to tell me!"

Goddamn corridor chatter, it moved faster than any com technology on the ship.

"Lt. Jennings, please, sit down." She was trying desperately to behave professionally, whatever that meant.

Jennings shook his head tensely. "I don't want to sit down. I want you to tell me about my wife, Ensign Irene Jennings, who went down with that away team."

Desperate, Leo tried obfuscation. "I have very little information. Yes, there was a cave in. The away team was affected."

"Affected. You know what happened." He approached the desk and slammed both hands down. "Goddammit, I have a right to know!"

This was wrong, it was all out of order. It was the department commander's job to deliver casualty notifications to next of kin. Failing that, it was the captain's responsibility. But Worf was likely injured, the captain in sickbay no doubt trying to get the details. Jesus Christ, what was she doing here?

"Lt. Jennings. There was a cave-in during the walk-through with the company representatives and the away team. Two of the away team were injured, one badly." She gulped a breath, unable to think of anything but the desperate face before her. "Ensign Jen… your wife… Irene. She was killed in the accident. It's all I know right now, I'm sorry." Jennings didn't react, not the twitch of an eyelash. "God, I'm so sorry," Leo added, her distress quite genuine.

Rather than erupting in violence or hysterics, Walter Jennings collapsed in the chair across from Leo, staring into space as if gathering his thoughts. Cautiously Leo sat as well, and waited.

"You know," he said almost casually, as if to no one, "you think you get it. You think you understand all about it, the risk, the enormity of it all. I mean, hell, exploring space, flying into the vacuum, getting involved in who knows what with who knows what chance of getting out again. We always joked that I had the most dangerous job, that I'd get so absorbed in mapping the stars that I'd forget to eat or drink. I'd starve to death, where she was at least a fully armed and moving target."

Floundering but no longer panicked, Leo ventured, "Is there someone I can contact, until you can speak with Dr. Crusher? Shall I call Counselor Troi?"

Incredibly, he smiled, though he was staring at the floor between his feet. "Not just yet. There's not much to verbalize that would make sense to a counselor. It's funny, guys I knew at the Academy, some women too, swore they'd never get married. Couldn't see the point, and didn't want to take the risk considering the life they were getting into. As if you're sparing yourself or someone else by going it alone."

"How long were you and Irene married?" Leo was, honestly, on automatic pilot. She didn't know this crewman from Adam, but the words came unbidden as if she had the right to know.

"Two years. Just six months after she was assigned to the Enterprise. Funny it never occurred to me to back away, even knowing she was doing one of the most dangerous jobs on the ship. Once we knew each other, really knew each other, there was just no other option. Living together wasn't enough."

Unable to stop herself, Leo asked a question that in retrospect she would consider appallingly inappropriate. "But what could it have changed between you? What could it have made more complete?"

Jennings raised his head, his eyes red-rimmed, but his face somehow transformed with a secret knowledge.

"Everything."

The silence that followed was broken by the door comlink.

"Lt. O'Reilly, it's Counselor Troi. Is Lt. Jennings still with you?"

"Yes, just a moment please." Leo looked questioningly at Jennings. He nodded his head so she invited, "Come in, Counselor."

When Deanna entered she found the scene surprisingly calm. Lt. Jennings wasn't the distraught husband she'd expected to find on the edge of losing control. If anything, she sensed Leo was the more unsettled of the two.

"Lt. Jennings," Troi told him gently, "I'll take you to sickbay if you like. We can talk privately later."

He stood and nodded, then turned to Leo. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Thanks for listening."

Leo could answer with nothing more than a witless shrug. "Take care, Lieutenant."

As Jennings preceded Deanna to the door, she spared a backward look at Leo. "Okay?" she mouthed silently. Leo nodded. Yeah, fine.

Alone again in the ready room, Leo went to the replicator. "Tea. Jasmine. Hot."

When she picked up the glass her hand was shaking so badly half the liquid splashed out, burning her.