Second Chance To Make The Same Mistake

Posted on 27 Jan 2019 @ 11:45am by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant

1,461 words; about a 7 minute read

Circa Episode 17, Crystal of Life, before the USS Galileo-A reached the Latari System.


[ON]

Lake ir-Llantrisant’s Personal Log, Supplemental.

I transported aboard the USS Lagrange in the dead of their night, gamma shift. I brought nothing but my winning smile. Everything had been arranged in the evenings leading up to this one. Standing on the transporter platform, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I cleared my throat, and I said, "I’ve come to receive... medical supplies. For my Captain."

The Transporter operator looked up from her control panel. She looked at me but she also looked through me. Her attention was elsewhere. "Yes, sir. I understand," she said. Almost immediately, she stepped away from her console, moving towards the maintenance panels on the opposite end of the compartment. Throwing one last look in my direction, she said, "The Executive Officer will be through shortly, sir."

"Executive Officer?" I said. I had intended to clarify my understanding, but the timbre of my voice went up an octave in a brief moment of panic. "No, I made my arrangements with the quartermaster," I said.

Without looking at me, she replied, "Yes, sir. I understand." She placed her hands on the greenish wall and removed one of the panels. "As I said," she affirmed, "the Executive Officer will be through shortly."

Scrambling to keep my mission private, I interjected with, "This isn't-- this isn't ship's business. This is personal. I'm sure your Executive Officer has matters of greater import than--"

"Personal, sir?" the transporter operator asked me, as if she hadn't really heard anything after the word personal. She touched one of the isolinear chips, and then she stopped. This time she did look at me. Squinted right right at me. "Medical supplies for your Captain, you said?"

"Your quartermaster appro--" I started to insist, and then the doors to the corridor hissed open.

"Pond," came a new voice. A familiar voice. Pond, he called me, intended as a diminutive of Lake. I turned my head, matching that voice to a face to a name. Commander Andreus Kohl, with his regal stance, perfectly shaped beard and those lightning eyes. Somehow, the bastard looked better than the day I first met him. Certainly, he looked better than the last time I saw him, when he ended our relationship. Striding towards me, Andreus reached a hand out towards me. Judging by his expression, I couldn't tell if he wanted to shake my hand in greeting or if he was trying to help me down from the transporter pad. "You've arrived," Andreus said warmly. "It's so good to be seeing you again with my own eyes."

I folded my hands behind my back. I replied, "Commander. Hm. Yes. I can also..." --I stepped down from the platform, while keeping a respectful distance from Andreus-- "see you with my own eyes. Executive officer, I can see, of the Lagrange." At least, that's what I think I said? My memory is fuzzy. I was probably even less articulate than that. ...I thought he was still on Earth? How is he here?

If Andreus was offended by my avoidance dance, he didn't show it. Andreus smiled a little harder at me, saying, "If you'll follow me, I can take you to our... medical supplies." Immediately, I nodded at Andreus' offer and I followed him in silence.

By the time we approached the cargo bay, Andreus looked to me with mischief in his eyes. He said, "So Captain Saalm is sending the new boy to do her dirty work, huh?" There was an awful lot of familiarity in his tone, in his reference to Saalm.

"No," I said. It was the truth, of course, but I took pleasure in being contrary in that moment. "The Captain didn't send me herself, Commander."

Andreus smirked at me for a long heartbeat. He didn't say anything, while he studied my expression. Then he stepped away to retrieve an antigrav sled. "Then you're here for your own... medical supplies?" he asked, a heavy suggestion in his intonation.

"I hosted a launch celebration for the crew," I told him. I kept my timbre as impassive as I could. I didn't want to sound boastful for the event --which had been well-regarded-- but I also wasn't entirely proud of what I said next. "I encouraged... over-indulgence among the crew en masse. I feel responsible for my actions and wish to restock the Captain's supply, in return."

Once he'd dragged over the antigrav sled, Andreus spread his arms wide, as if offering himself. "All that is ours is yours," he said, like this sterile cargo bay was a Risian beach and his body was a horga'hn. With that sentiment hanging in the air, Andreus opened two cargo cases filled with liquor bottles. Exactly the medical supplies the doctor had ordered.

"After I've done you this favour, Pond," Andreus said, "I expect you'll invite me to your next crew bash?"

The sheer audacity of him asking me that shattered any professional facade I had managed thus far. I sneered at Andreus, I did. I could feel my teeth showing. "Only if I'm serving you up as Argelian sushi," I replied sourly.

Scoffing with what looked like genuine surprise, Kohl sputtered, "Why, Counselor, I do believe your hostility is showing?" And then his eyes darkened. I think I hurt him with that low blow. "It doesn't look good with your skin tone," he said, taking a step back from me as he did.

"I don't understand why you're acting like this," I said. I waved a hand at him, gesturing to his foolishness. Act the fool, Commander. Act the fool.

"Ditto," was the only reply Andreus gave me.

I waved both my hands at him in concert, punctuating the key words with a downward chop of my hands. "You told me you never wanted to see me again," I said, the hurt bleeding out my vocal cords.

"I said no such thing," Andreus replied, plainly indignant. "I said I didn't love you, yes. I said I didn't want to marry you, yes. But I'd still bang you. I've always liked you. Even now when you're yelling at me."

Mocking him with a hint of his Argelian accent, I said, "I, I, I, you, you, you." My voice went hoarse. "You made all these decisions about us without me. You never even talked to me about it. You just decided for yourself. You didn’t tell me you were having problems with us."

Andreus took another step back from me and he tripped over the antigrav sled. His legs fell out from under him and he landed his ass on the hard surface of the sled. "Of course there were problems with us," Andreus snapped back. "I went to bed alone. Every night. I was on Earth, you were on that base. That’s a problem. I communicate better through touch than through talking. I was getting to know the smooth touch of my LCARS console better than I know what your body feels like. That’s a problem."

"You never told me!" I insisted.

Andreus' voice took on a steely tone, when he said, "I did tell you."

"You told me when you dumped me," I said. I kneeled on the deck because he was still laid out on the antigrav sled. "We were building something. We were building towards building a life together. Why didn’t you tell me how you were feeling before that?"

"I told you when I knew," Andreus answered, shrugging helplessly. The fire was draining out of him. He was loosing his fight. He just sounded sad, when he told me, "I wasn’t feeling any sort of way until I was feeling that way. I didn’t know how I felt until I knew. And then I told you."

I wasn't ready to hear it. I poked holes in his logic, saying, "Biological cognition doesn’t work that way. People don’t 'just snap'. It takes--"

"I don't work at the Academy anymore, Lieutenant," Andreus said. He planted his boots on the deck and he grabbed hold of the sled's push bar. Andreus pushed up to his feet, but the sled shifted slightly, and he nearly fell again. "I'm not here for lectures," he told me, and he kicked the sled for good measure.

As Andreus walked away, he said, "Call the quartermaster if you need help carrying your bottles. I'm through..."

End log


[OFF]

Andreus Kohl, previously of the classic USS Galileo, will return...

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