Catch and Release... But He Won't Let Go

Posted on 28 Nov 2017 @ 10:05pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant

1,612 words; about a 8 minute read

Previously on Star Trek: Galileo:

Lake ir-Llantrisant’s Personal Log, Supplemental:

I did it. I did something. I had hours, too many hours between myself and the start of my shift in Sickbay. Sleep is elusive. Sleep isn’t the answer.

I found something. Two things. I suppose I found two things.

I found a reference to a Pakled vessel that had gone missing in a remote area of space. The reference is incomplete; there is no crew manifest to cross-check. But what I can’t ignore is the sector where the Pakled vessel was last recorded by marker buoys. The Pakled vessel went missing along the southern border of the Federation. That’s right in the midst of the operational area of one of Starfleet’s next intended deployments.

I did it. I found something else. I dug out my abandoned application to the USS Galileo-A. I did it. I submitted my application to Starfleet OPM. Maybe it is destiny? Maybe it was the smart thing to do.

”Captain's Log, Stardate 68437.3," she began.

The next PADD was fetched from the pile, this one with another familiar face. But from where, it was uncertain.

"Ir-Llantrisant, junior lieutenant, 36 years-old and...Romulan? Chief counselor, Medical Academy graduate, four years of deployment history, recently divorced..." The captain paused and looked closer at the man's picture on file. Where did she know him from? It was hard to be certain but her eyes subconsciously narrowed the more she stared at him. She didn't like his face. Rejected.

And now, the continuation...

ON:

Imploringly, he said, “Computer,” and he drew out the concluding R sound. Lake ir-Llantrisant wasn’t one to roll his Rs, but he knew how to elongate a vowel or a consonant if he needed to emphasize his point. He waited before he continued, waiting for the feedback tone that suggested the Hathaway’s audio interface had understand him. “Begin... recording... now,” Lake said. He stretched and shifted his jaw during the pauses, making a different face between each word. The reason for all this attention on his face became clear in a moment.

Standing upright in the medical laboratory he had claimed as his counselling office, Lake was staring closely into an LCARS companel. Another moment, and another feedback tone, later, and the companel was staring back at him with his own angular Romulan visage. Staring at himself --at his mirror image-- Lake became lost in the gaze into his own eyes. Rather than a mirror, the Computer was providing him with instantaneous feedback from the recording it was taking of him. As much as Lake took pride in maintaining his uniform standards, something about him looked different on this night. His posture was a little broader and his Lieutenant (Junior Grade) pips appeared to shine from a recent polish. Even the PADD in his grip was was the absolute newest model available.

Lake’s obsidian eyes stared back at him. Standing this closely, seeing himself up close, he could see the grey flecks defining his irises; he could see some hint of warmth that prevented his eyes from looking to be nothing more than gaping black pools. Given how the loss of Kellin Nertlinge always floated close to the surface of his thoughts, even that warmth looked more like pain. “When I miss home,” Lake told himself, “I think I miss the place most of all. I miss the orchards, losing myself between the trees, memorizing the paths from one place to another. I think I miss them as much as I can miss people.” --He swallowed hard—- “Every last tree on Romulus burned out to space dust, and the orchard on Tracken Two abandoned. It must be overgrown by now. A wild place...”

Suddenly, Lake blurted out a, “Sorry,” and he rubbed the back of his neck. He winced out all of his embarrassment through his face. “Computer, stop recording, delete, and start again.” Even as the Computer offered feedback tones to process and enact each of his requests, Lake still spoke to himself. “The people back home,” he said, “I can’t say I miss them quite as much. It’s not every day I need them in my life, but when I do speak with them, when I do speak with my mother, it hurts not to be in the same room with her when we’re trying to communicate. I don’t feel her vitality when I listen to a subspace recording. I tell her, I always tell her I wish she could have seen my face when I tell her about something awful, or exciting, or funny that happened.”

“That’s why,” he said, “now that’s why I’m going to show her this time.” Tilting his head from side to side, Lake watched his mirror-image in the companel. He took a step to the left, and then two steps to the right, striving to frame himself at a visually striking angle. At the same time, he wanted to the image to capture the old-timey LCARS interfaces on the bulkhead behind him. They looked just like all the villainous starships in those wartime holonovels, from when he was a kid. Lake asked the Computer, too, to adjust the framing for him.

Looking straight into the image sensors now, Lake smiled shyly, and he said, “I received your warm wishes, Betrys. I truly appreciate the faith you feel in my application to the USS Galileo-A. Keeping such a distance from you, from the Federation core, wouldn’t have been my first choice, but this is exactly the sort of assignment that will test me. A crew like that, out past the edge of nowhere, they’re going to need a Ship’s Counselor like no other. This ship will be a crucible to test what I’m made from.” A lie. It was the sort of rhetoric she had spewed at him as a child. He had always rolled his eyes, and yet it comforted him now. It was a warm salve on the raw nerve that was the death of his Department Head aboard Starbase 74, which had prompted his recall orders to the starbase.

“I also received a response,” Lake explained, his enthusiasm visibly rising, “from the Captain of the Galileo. The Computer alerted me when I was in Sickbay, but I told it to seal the missive. I promise I didn’t look yet. I wanted-- I wanted to share this with you,” he said, and that hadn’t been something he had said to her in years. It was bizarre; Lake craved every smothering aspect of her personality only now when the universe felt so cold. Lake raised the PADD to the level of his eyes and he turned it to face the display towards the image sensors. He couldn’t help himself, as much as his personal poise was important to him, a goofy grin split across his face.

“Computer,” Lake said, his voice booming with melodramatic significance, “Please open my most recent correspondence.” The last thing Lake heard was the LCARS telltale chime, and then everything went quiet. The entire universe fell away around him. The chimes from the computer, the hiss of the life support system. Lake went deaf to it all; all he could hear was the thumping of blood pumping through his own head.

The list of electronic messages on the PADD was replaced with a single word in red. The word was small at first, but it quickly swelled in size, as that single message took dominance over the entire display screen.

REJECTED.

All that had been written to Lake’s application was, Rejected. That’s all it said.

It was all he could say too. “Rejected.” He sputtered the word out, as if it were poison. Incredulously, he shouted, “The application period isn’t even closed yet, and she already--”

“That. Bitch.”

Lake ir-Llantrisant’s Personal Log, Supplemental:

That. Bitch.

That--

I can't--

I can't go back. Computer, do you hear me? I can't go back to Starbase Seventy-Four. He died there. He's really dead. I mean, what's the point of Starbase Seventy-Four now? Kellin's blood has stained the bulkheads. Jetara and Molly's too. I mean, I can't just, I can't just refuse the offer they've made me. I can't abandon my post, and I can't refuse an opportunity to advance. They don't, commanding officers don't forget that kind of thing, and I don't like taking orders. You know? I prefer to be the one giving the orders. Giving. It feels better that way. It feels good. If I can't get out from under Seventy-Four, I need to go around it. I need a parallel track.

I sent a response to the Captain of the Galileo. I don't care if she thinks she rejected me (before the end of the friggin' application period!), because I don't think she rejected me. I sent a response. I acted like I never even got a rejection. I sent her my availability for interviewing, and made it condescendingly clear that if she doesn't interview me soon, my Commanding Officer aboard Seventy Four will expect me to return right soon to take over their Counselling Services. I also attached some recommended reading, with my funniest article about isolation. Hilarious stuff that.

I sent it.

To that bitch.

[OFF]

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