Elliana Avranos: From Squished to Service
Posted on Mon Aug 25th, 2025 @ 9:41pm by Lieutenant Elliana "El" Avranos & Lieutenant Commander Kurumi Ebisuzawa
1,490 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission: The Next Myogi
The young Mexican Lieutenant had hardly been aboard the USS Myogi for a few hours, and yet she was already on her way to her department head to report in. She had gotten a few stares along the way- some no doubt due to her good looks- but most were likely because she was featured in one of the more shocking images of the Starfleet Headquarters riots:
She had been part of a line of security blocking entry for a large crowd of rioters when the crowd had suddenly surged forward, quite literally crushing her into the very doorway she was protecting. Cameras capturing the event had focused on her screaming in pain moments before she was pulled to safety.
In the aftermath of the riot and the genesis of the separatist crisis that had followed, morale had plummeted among Starfleet Headquarters security personnel, and the Lieutenant whose face went viral across the Federation had indeed taken a leave of absence in part due to her injuries that she had sustained in that shocking footage, and in part for her mental wellbeing.
Kurumi had been busy going over the paperwork for the phaser certification tears she had been running for the entire crew. Her office was nice and quiet and she was enjoying having this little bit of time to get her work done.
However, having received word that her friend had recently perished at Braxus, Lieutenant Elliana Avranos was now back in action, having requested to be assigned to her friend's ship for her next tour. She had been surprised that her request had been granted, but nonetheless was glad to be here to do Tristana proud.
Arriving on deck 8, El made her way to the office of her new superior, Lieutenant Commander Kurumi Ebisuzawa and rang the door chime, making sure her uniform was fully zipped up before being let in.
"Enter," Kurumi's voice called.
The doors to the office snapped open, and El stepped through before stopping and going to attention, saluting her new superior:
"Lieutenant Elliana Avranos, reporting for duty as ordered." She said.
"You must be one of my new Security officers." Kurumi said. "Drop the salute Lieutenant, you're Starfleet not a Marine."
"Of course." Elliana responded, relaxing her posture. "Frankly, I'm just happy to be back in the field at all. Didn't think they were ever going to clear me after what happened back at Starfleet Headquarters."
"Oh, so you were there huh?"
"You mean you didn't see the video?" Elliana asked, pulling out a PADD and going through it. "Tristana, deberÃas haberlas mostrado... (Tristana, you should have shown them...)" She muttered in Spanish as she pulled up the video in question and handed the PADD over to Kurumi. "Have a look, then:"
The video was from the attack on Starfleet Headquarters, depicting a large crowd of rioters in a narrow doorway. A line of Starfleet Security barred their way from gaining further access. As the Starfleet officers calmly told the crowd to disperse, the angry crowd responded instead by using pepper spray on them.
Suddenly, one of the rioters lunged forward and grabbed hold of a riot helmet on one of the Starfleet officers, viciously pulling it off the head of the screaming woman as the crowd began to surge forward, yelling 'heave ho!' several times. When the camera person was able to refocus on the assaulted Starfleet officer, it was now clearly Elliana, crushed in the doorway and yelling in pain.
"Safe to say, those terrorists cracked a few of my ribs..." Elliana said as the video ended with her being pulled to safety. "To say nothing about me inhaling the nerve agents they used against us or getting beaten with my own weapon."
Kurumi threw the PADD down on her desk. "Listen very carefully. What happened at Starfleet Headquarters was one of the biggest security failures I've ever seen or heard of." She said sternly. "The sheer fact that that many people were allowed to even get so close is not only downright concerning, but also a huge oversight."
"I don't particularly care where you were or what you were doing. But from what I do know is that if I had of been in command of security, none of those 'protestors' would have got into the building." Kurumi paused. "Let me be very clear. You sit here in front of me acting all happy and 'glad to be here', when you should be ashamed. You failed at your last assignment Lieutenant. There were hundreds of tactics you could have used to stop those people. Headquarters is one of the most heavily shielded facilities on the planet. The damn building had shield generators as powerful as some of our big capital ships to protect it, not to mention emergency blast doors that can be sealed."
Kurumi looked her dead in the eyes. "You were easily overwhelmed by unarmed civilians and you put your own safety at risk. Tell me why I should even consider keeping someone like that on this ship."
Instantly, Elliana's smile faded, and she leaned forward.
"Commander, why do you think Sinisiub Pallis was able to so easily call for a vote of no confidence and remove the previous leadership from power?" She asked in an equally tern tone. "What happened at Starfleet Headquarters was the culmination of two decades of internal rot in Starfleet Security. Leadership loved to do the chest thumping and make us look big and powerful, but we on the ground knew that the gains weren't real:"
"Those big, fancy shield generators you spoke about- they went down for maintenance an hour before the terrorists showed up. Not because they were broken or needed it, but because leadership was so concerned about their pride and joy developing any kind of squeak or rattle that they didn't want them to see actual use. They were being pampered more than they were being used, but it gets worse:"
Elliana leaned back.
"Most of our equipment consisted of Dominion War era hand-me-downs." She continued. "While all the capital ships were getting the biggest and baddest phasers ever developed, We were stuck with twenty plus year old hardware. For years, we had been promised 'new equipment is coming, just bear with us,' and they always had an excuse for why we could never have what was standard equipment on the rest of the fleet. 'Oh, we had a new ship being commissioned and had to allocate the equipment to them,' that sort of bullshit."
Elliana then leveled an accusatory finger at Kurumi:
"You say I failed on my last assignment; I say we did the best we could with what we had available." She said, turning the accusatory finger into a thumb at herself. "And if you're going to blame me for the failings of upper leadership, perhaps you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and question how many potentially good officers you've kicked to the curb because of your unrealistic expectations of goodness. I did not work my ass off to get to where I am today to be disrespected in such a manner, and if you really don't want me, I'll happily go collect my belongings and you will never see me again."
Kurumi stared at her for what seemed like hours, the tension in the room thick enough to cut with a dulled blade. Finally Kurumi's face eased up. "I knew all that, and still you defend yourself." She said simply.
She relaxed and sat back in her chair. "I need officers who are willing to stand up for themselves. Make their own decisions and stand by those principals." She paused. "We're in charge of everyone's safety on this ship and I sometimes the higher ups need a good slap of reality." She ran a hand through the bangs on her forehead. "You see, Starfleet Admirals, Captain's and Commanders can be children. When they want something, they want it now. The reason I drilled into you like that was to test you. To see if you had what I need on my security team."
Kurumi rose to her feet. "I would rather have someone that I know has a realistic view of how shit works, than a 'yes man' or someone who has weak character. We are the ones out here facing God knows what, not sat behind a desk in some fancy corner office with a view of San Francisco bay." She held out a hand to her. "Congratulations. You passed, welcome to the team."
Slowly a smirk spread on Elliana's face as she rose to her feet and accepted the hand.
"I figured as such:" She said as she shook Kurumi's hand. "No way in hell would Tristana have put up with such a pretentious prick."
Posting by
Lieutenant Commander Kurumi Ebisuzawa
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
Lieutenant Elliana "El" Avranos
Security/Tactical Officer
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