Six Letters to End the World

Posted on 05 Nov 2017 @ 8:48am by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Edited on 05 Nov 2017 @ 9:03am

1,160 words; about a 6 minute read

Timeline: Circa MD 92 of Season 3, Episode 15, “Emanation”


[ON]

Lake ir-Llantrisant’s Personal Log, Supplemental Entry:

Killed.

Did they say killed...?

Kiiiiiiiilled. Kiiiiiiiiiilld.

Computer, pause recording.

No record of the next three point two minutes.

Huh. Yeah. They said killed.

We have a million words to choose from in Federation Standard, and Starfleet Command chose the world killed? Was there no other word more appropriate to choose from? No other word more compassionate?

...I can go home, they said. I can return to Starbase Seventy-Four. The quarantine has been lifted, and I can go back to my duty posting. Not only do they want me to go back, but they want to give me a present. They want to name me department head of Counselling Services aboard the starbase.

I can go home. I can go back to my life I can go back my quarters.

But I can’t. I can’t go back--

I made a mistake. (I can be too impulsive at times.) I made a mistake. I spoke with my XO; I demanded answers. She wouldn’t give me many. She wouldn’t tell me how they were killed.

That has to mean the Temporal Prime Directive. Or the section. Or a diplomatic way to protect the Federation’s relationship with another galactic power.

Or whatever happened was just so fvadt awful that nobody has the words for what happened.

Well, I have words. I have words for what I think. I told my XO I won’t come back. I told her to burn my quarters until there’s nothing left but cinders and superstructure. I told her to space the lot of it. I told her to toss my belongings in the industrial replicator and decimate them into raw food matter. Maybe someone will get a good cherry sundae out of the lot of it. I told her to--

No record of the next twenty-two point eight minutes.

I never thought--

I never seriously thought I would ever get back together with Kellin. We haven’t spoken in-- in months. I can’t say we’ve had a conversation with more than six words in over a year. I had stopped… missing him. I don’t, I don’t think I ever stopped loving him. Not exactly. But I stopped missing him. I certainly stopped liking him. Yes, we enjoyed four meaningful years or marria-- well, maybe three meaningful years, and some mediocre-- Well, at least two years--

I never thought--

I never thought Kellin would die.

There’s a sound, a titter, like nervous laughter on the recording.

I’m older than he is! I never considered I could outlive him. Or, at least, I never thought I would have to think about it anytime soon. I mean, yes, we have significant biological differences between us, and he never intended to be joined, but still? I never thought.

I never thought he could--

Computer, pause recording.

No record of the next one point seven hours.

There was… there was a notification I ignored earlier. It was about new Starfleet deployments. I don’t remember reading it too closely, but there was a detail, a single detail that snagged itself against a sharp corner of my mind.

Thirty-two months.

There’s a starship looking for a Starfleet crew to take it on a spin through a thirty-two month deployment. I looked at it again, and, indeed, it’s a volunteer assignment. Thirty-two months, the longest deployment available, because it’s out on the raggedy edge of Federation space. Somewhere along the southern border. I asked the Computer about the distance, and it told me the anticipated operating theatre is a solid seven months away from here at cruising warp. Seven months away from Earth. …Even farther away from anyone left alive in the Romulan Star Empire who still curses the name ir-Llantrisant.

Normally, I make lists. Normally, I make itemized pro-and-con lists when I’m faced with life choices. I mean, they want me back. I’ve made my commitment to the Hathaway and these cadets, but once their cruise is over, Starbase Seventy-Four wants me back to lead their counselling services for the entire starbase. A starbase that won’t tell me what happened to my previous department head…

So, I did it. I just did it. I was getting too complacent on the starbase. I’ve been there too long. They’re stunting my growth as a being! I did it.

I wrote my application to be the Chief Counsellor of the USS Galileo-A.

I told Edward Butler I don’t believe in destiny, and I don’t believe in destiny, but this is destiny. I’m destined for that unquestionably beleaguered crew. I know about isolation. I know it deep in my bones. I know it deep in my dark, unknowable subatomic places. I defected to the Federation from Romulus. I might as well have come from the Borg Collective, the way people looked at me. Look at me. I know from isolation intrinsically. Even if that was only teenaged angst rather than true isolation, half of my published research has been about Starfleet Officers working in isolation. This is meant to be. I’m the only one.

Only I can shepherd the crew of the Galileo-A through the sheer loneliness of thirty-two months at the edge of nowhere!

End log.

---

Lake ir-Llantrisant’s Personal Log, Supplemental:

I had to play back my last personal log to remember. I didn’t understand why my secret stash of bourbon was gone, and why I had left a shattered bottle in the sonic shower.

Yes.

Well.

I had to play back my last personal log to remember. Now I remember. That wasn’t the only discovery I made.

I found it. I found my application to the Galileo-A on a PADD in the drawer where I had hidden my bourbon. I studied it. I studied what I wrote, and I studied the Hathaway’s subspace communication logs, and I can be certain I did not submit my application to Starfleet OPM. I didn’t apply to Galileo and I’m not going to do so.

I told myself it was destiny, but it’s not destiny. I don’t believe in destiny. Clearly, it was a grief-reaction to the deaths of several of my crew members. A grief-reaction to Kellin. Clearly. It was such a cliche, I might as well have made the decision while literally running from my problems in the middle of a rain storm.

I’m not going to submit the application. I have to get to Sickbay. They’re waiting on me.

Computer, end log.

[OFF]

End?

 

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