Better Go and Get Your Armour

Posted on 15 Jun 2014 @ 6:32am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas

1,822 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 5, Supply Compartment
Timeline: MD 05 - 0745 hours

[ON]

Despite the humanoid forms standing still all around him, Andreus Kohl was alone in the supply closet. He had arrived early to select his Environmental Suit for the day's away mission. The gloves had felt particularly cumbersome in the last one he had worn. Kohl had intended to take his time in selecting a better fit. But as he circled the compartment, the empty EV suits all looked pretty much the same. Kohl came to stand in front of one of the empty shells, and he bowed his head, pressing his forehead against the EV suit.

Jared had left Min only after she had promised to be careful and take care of her, their baby. He couldn't help but whistle softly as he walked into the supply closet. "Hey boss," he said, somewhat informally.

Kohl's first instinct was to jump back. If he moved quickly, he surmised, it may appear as if he were only inspecting the EV suit closely. That would have looked far less peculiar than if he were taking strength from the EV suit to hold himself upright, by way of his forehead. At precisely the same time, though, he suspected jumping away from the EV suit might appear suspicious in and of itself. And, really though, moving quickly was difficult enough for him these days, let alone move quickly in a natural-looking manner.

Wise or not, Kohl stayed stood right where he was, head bowed against an EV suit. "Ah. Nicholas," Kohl said, and his timbre was oblique. "Hullo."

Jared might have had his mind on other things, but he couldn't help but notices something odd. Not quite sure what it might be, his curiosity was nevertheless piqued.

"You okay sir?' he asked moving a few steps in Kohl's direction.

At that, Kohl looked up. He didn't turn towards Jared; he didn't look Jared's way. Kohl just raised his head. Obscurely, Kohl asked, "How do you do it, Lieutenant?"

Jared was a bit confused. The other man's actions had been a bit mysterious and his words only added to that. "How do I do what sir?" he asked.

"You've always been an officer, yeah?" Kohl asked. There was a hint of a quaver in his voice, and he continued to stare at the EV suit, rather than at Jared. "A Science officer?"

"Well, I am rather new to Starfleet, before I entered I was on a.... merchant vessel. I wore a lot of different hats then I had to. But yes I started my career as an officer.

Why?"

Turning round, Kohl laid his gaze directly onto Jared. In an impassive tone of voice, he asked, "How do you go and study rocks and terraforming, with so much of your training having been in linguistics? How do you be a science officer with your expertise so specialized?"

The light was starting to dawn on Jared, though he wasn't entirely sure of what Kohl was driving at, he now had a better idea.

"Those are good questions. I guess part of the answer is I am naturally curious. I like solving problems and getting to the bottom of things. So while I may not get into studying some of those things you mentioned, there are other things that do fascinate me. I just try to pick and chose.

I even considered going into flight control or navigation more specifically, because that is something I do enjoy. I think spatially.

As to being an officer, linguistics is just my field of study. It's part of who I am, but it's not all of what I am. It doesn't define me. I assume you're not just asking rhetorical questions?"

"I don't know," Kohl said quietly, "what value I'm offering to this mission. We're circling a dead rock that's slowly --but much faster than it should be-- becoming capable of supporting life." --Kohl cleared his throat-- "Life. That's what I know. Sociology, biology. Life Sciences. ...As for the rest of it, I took the requisite courses at the Academy, but that feels like a lifetime ago. Maybe two."

Jared put a hand on the other man's shoulder, "Lieutenant, you don't always have to be useful all the time. We can't be experts in every field. Your job, if you don't mind me saying so is to lead not to get bogged down the details."

"I feel like I know that? Or I feel like I should know that?" Kohl said, but his eye line kept wandering off to stare into the middle distance. He looked to Jared, and smiled at him for his show of kindness. "But I still feel anxious all the time when I'm down on the planet."

"All due respect, but I think I'd be worried if you didn't get nervous. This is all new to you. Maybe a I can give you an example. When was on on the merchant vessel I had to create these reports every week. The first time I did it, took me about 2 hours, maybe a bit more to create the two reports. It was challenging and a real pain in the but. I kept having to start over. But within a couple of weeks I could do both report in less than ten minutes.

I know that's not exactly the same, but you have to just get some experience at things before you can become confident. But pretty soon it will just become second nature to you."

Nodding at the moral of the story, Kohl had started to say, "I see what you--" but he stopped. He tiled his head and looked over Jared's shoulder, and then he brought his gaze back to Jared's eyes. "Jared," Kohl said, "Why is that tribble wearing an environmental suit?"

Jared raised both brows at the comment glancing behind him to see if there was really anything to see. Kohl was either pranking him or there was something to be worried about.

"What are you talking about?"

In response to Jared's question, Kohl raised his arm to the level of his shoulder and pointed one finger at an environmental suit in particular. "There," Kohl said. "There's a tribble crawling into that sleeve."

Jared turned to look and saw no tribble. He turned back around keeping his face as neutral as possible. "I didn't see anything."

"You didn't turn fast enough," Kohl said, and he emphasized his point by swatting Jared's upper arm with the back of his hand. Kohl took one large step closer to the environmental suit, but then he hesitated. His brow creased and he pursed his lips. "You truly didn't see it?" Kohl asked.

Jared shook his head, "No, sorry, I didn't seen anything sir. What would a tribble be doing in an EV suit?" It wasn't that Jared disbelieved Kohl per se. He was sure the man thought he was seeing something. He just wasn't sure he actually did see something.

"I saw one in the gym too," Kohl said emphatically, as if that would make his point. He took another couple steps closer to the EV suit in question. "I don't think the locale means much to a tribble. I mean, I don't imagine the tribble was working on tightening her glutes."

"Really?" Jared asked. He turned to scan the room seeing nothing out of place and certainly no tribbles, "I haven't seen anything. Why don't we go investigate the suit and see what's there."

Kohl shot across the compartment on determine steps. The motor-assist bands strapped to his legs, beneath his uniform, were operating at peak efficiency -- making up for the impaired strength of his own legs. It didn't take long for Kohl to clasp his hands around the EV suit sleeve he had seen the tribble crawling into, and he gently squeezed and shook the garment.

Jared walked over to stand beside him eager to be proven wrong, to find the tribble. He liked tribbles, didn't everybody? And besides he didn't want to think that his boss was crazy. He waited expectantly for the little creature to fall out of the suit.

Nothing fell out of the suit. Not even the purr or hiss of a tribble sounded out to let Kohl and Jared know there was something living deeper inside. Kohl patted down the length of the sleeve, and then the length of the other sleeve. Each time, the fabric folded flat between his hands. Kohl didn't say anything. He opened the seals and pulled apart the entire front of the EV suit, laying the insides bare. The EV suit was plainly empty.

Kohl didn't say anything. He just stared at the suit; stared right at it.

And Jared stared at Kohl staring at the empty suit. He cleared his throat. "Maybe it fell out someplace. Maybe we should look around.'

His lips twisted into a frown, and Kohl partly turned away from Jared. Kohl's mouth open, and one of his hands raised to the level of his chin, as if he were about to say something. No words came. Kohl stared at the wall, and then the floor, and he let out a breath he was holding.

"Lieutenant, are you okay?" he asked, "let's just take a look. Maybe we just missed it."

"Okay," said Kohl. He nodded a couple of times, and said, "Okay," again. He stepped closer to another EV suit, and gave the arms and legs a shake. He gave each of the boots a gentle kick.

Jared moved to another suit and started to mimic Kohl's actions, hoping that something would turn up and that he wasn't working next to and for a man who was hallucinating.

Stepping over to the next EV suit in the lineup, Kohl began to inspect it next. His movements were becoming half-hearted as he was moving farther and farther away from where he had seen the tribble. Even if he had seen a tribble, he couldn't imagine it would have traveled so far so quickly, but he couldn't see where else the tribble could be hiding. And he didn't want to be the one to give up.

Jared started searching the opposite direction and soon had gotten to the end of the row of suits. He turned back in Kohl's direction. "Did you find anything?" he asked a hopeful tone in his voice.

Kohl stopped walking; he stopped looking. He just stopped. "Nothing," he said simply. Kohl was stood there, staring at the ceiling, and then he moved towards the doorway. "I'm going to, uhm, I'm going to head back to my quarters for a minute," he said.

Jared just watched him go, wondering what was going on in Kohl's mind and making a mental note to talk with a counselor or the Captain.


[OFF]

A join post by

Lt. Jared Nicholas
Language Specialist
USS Galileo

Lt. Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Science Officer

USS Galileo

RSS Feed