Awake, but not out of the woods... Thanks!! rbs
Star Trek: Bounty - 7 - “One Character in Search of an Exit”
- Thread starter BountyTrek
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Part Five
The Bounty continued on course for Beta Ramis.
Although the immediate crisis was over, everyone onboard the Bounty still felt it was a sound plan to get Natasha checked over at a fully staffed medical facility, just to be on the safe side. Besides, they needed to stock up on medical supplies.
Natasha sat in the medical bay, now on her own. All of her own checks seemed to suggest that the treatment had successfully eradicated the toxin, and whatever aftereffects remained could be dealt with fairly easily.
The physical ones, at least.
She stared down at the small petri dish in front of her. Inside was the thorn from the Makalite planet that Sunek had retrieved from her pocket. On the medical computer’s screen alongside the dish were the results of the full chemical analysis that she had completed on the thorn. Or as full a chemical analysis as the Bounty’s systems could provide her with.
As she considered the tiny object in the dish, she heard the door to the bay open. She turned to see Jirel cautiously enter, trying too hard to look casual.
“Hey,” he smiled, “How’re you feeling?”
She considered his question for a moment, and decided that there was no point in lying. She was far too tired for that, both literally and metaphorically.
“Terrible.”
He offered a supportive smile and seemed to relax slightly at this frankness, then gestured at the offending thorn in the dish in front of her.
“Thought you’d have chucked that thing out the airlock.”
“I still might,” she shrugged, “I just thought I’d try and pull a more detailed analysis first. And before you say anything about my ‘Starfleet showing’ again, that’s just a good idea. In case we’ve missed something.”
He nodded in understanding, as a silence descended. Jirel shuffled from foot to foot near the door as she stood and began to pack away the dish.
She hadn’t wanted to have this particular conversation, at least not right now, but she could also see that he wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. So she may as well get it over with.
“Heard you were holding my hand.”
Jirel tried not to allow the comment to catch him off guard, but he couldn’t help but flinch slightly.
“Sunek,” he sighed ruefully, “That guy just can’t keep a secret…”
Now it was Natasha’s turn to forcibly stifle a sinking feeling in her stomach, though if Jirel noticed her reaction, he ignored it entirely in favour of his own awkward situation.
“Ok, look,” he began, “It’s true that there was some--I mean, I might have--I was just trying to--I think I read somewhere that if you hold a coma patient’s hand, they have a better chance of--”
She decided to step in before the Trill could embark any further downwards into the hole he was digging in the middle of the medical bay.
“Ok, I get it. You were worried about me. As a member of your crew.”
For the briefest of moments, Jirel considered protesting that explanation. After all, he knew it wasn’t true. He hadn’t just been worried about her as a member of his crew.
But the words wouldn’t come. And he finally decided that he’d embarrassed himself enough for one day. So he nodded.
“Yeah. Obviously. All part of the, um, captain…thing. Y’know, I’d have done the same for anyone.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Even Sunek.”
“Even…Yep. Anyone.”
He flinched again. She stifled a smile and regarded the Trill that she’d once seen as just a brash and overconfident wannabe space captain. A lot had changed since then.
But she didn’t allow herself to dwell on that particular issue for too long. She had bigger problems that she still had to deal with.
“Well,” she said eventually, rescuing Jirel from his latest flinch, “Thank you. For being such a thoughtful captain to your crew.”
His face shifted into an altogether more relieved, and entirely dorky, smile. He idly itched at his spots as Natasha went to leave. Just as the doors opened, he found himself calling after her.
“Um, hey, also,” he managed, “I was--I really wanted to say that--I mean, this might not be the right time for it, but--”
“No,” she butted in, a little too quickly, “It’s probably not the right time for it.”
Something in her reply caused a flicker of Jirel’s old wannabe space captain grin to return.
“Probably not--?”
“Definitely not,” she added, with more finality.
“Got it,” he nodded back, the grin disappearing as quickly as it had arrived as she walked on through the doors.
Jirel was left in the empty medical bay, feeling more than a little ridiculous all over again.
“Ugh,” he muttered into the empty room, “I am really bad at this…”
****************************
“There really is something to it, you know.”
“You are mistaken.”
The Bounty’s cockpit was less empty than it had been for a while, though still emptier than usual. As a result, the back and forth bickering between Denella and Klath had been allowed to continue unimpeded for some time.
“I’m serious,” Denella retorted from her engineering console, gesturing proudly at the readouts in front of her, “I was just in the engine room, nothing I tried could shift that damn drop-off in the power transfer rates. Then I paid her a compliment or two, and now look: 93% efficiency.”
She patted the Bounty’s hull plate behind her for effect and turned her cooing up to eleven.
“Because who’s the best ship in the whole galaxy, hmm? Yeah, she knows it.”
Klath watched the nauseating, and entirely one-sided conversation unfold from behind his own station with undisguised contempt.
“The ship is not responding to you, Denella,” he grunted, “You are definitely mistaken.”
“Then where did our new-found power transfer efficiency come from, hmm? We’re gonna make it to Beta Ramis four hours ahead of schedule at this rate.”
“Perhaps one of your repairs had a delayed reaction to the transfer coils,” the Klingon pointed out, “Or perhaps it was a temporary issue which self-corrected.”
“Or perhaps the old girl likes it when people are nice to her,” she grinned back.
Klath felt himself starting to grind his teeth.
He was sure that his friend was simply winding him up. But still, ever since the argument had first started to fester during their efforts to help Natasha, he knew that his pride would never allow him to back down and acknowledge her ridiculous point.
Instead of repeating himself, though, he opted to fight fire with fire, and began to theatrically tap at his bank of controls.
“Excuse me, I must conduct a full scan of the air circulators for evidence of contaminants.”
“Why?”
“There is a further medical issue onboard. First Jirel believed he could speak to the doctor through her coma, and now you believe you can talk to our ship. These are troubling developments.”
Denella smirked and folded her arms in front of her.
“All I’m saying is, it always has a positive effect on the ship. And the Bounty’s got a computer, the computer’s got some level of intelligence. Who’s to say there isn’t something to it?”
“Everyone unaffected by the contamination of our air supply,” he retorted.
“Come on,” she insisted, gesturing to where Klath’s ever-present bat’leth hung behind him, “I bet you do the same thing with your bat’leth. I can tell.”
Klath fixed her with an especially withering glare, in lieu of a vocal response.
“Fine,” she sighed, standing and throwing her hands up in a clear display of resignation, “Don’t believe me, see if I care. I’m gonna head back to the engine room and see if I can’t talk us up to 95% efficiency.”
She stopped at the cockpit door and patted the Bounty’s hull again for effect.
“Cos I bet you can make 95%, can’t you? Yeah, you can do anything…”
She disappeared out of the room, still apparently talking to the ship all the way back to the engine room. Klath watched her go with a deep sigh and a shake of his head.
“She is a fool,” he muttered, to nobody in particular.
Moments later, when he was sure he was alone, he retrieved his bat’leth from where it was hanging and lovingly ran his eyes across its freshly sharpened blade with pride.
“But you are a mighty slayer of enemies…”
****************************
Natasha sat alone in the Bounty’s dining area, picking at the food in front of her.
She was hungry, but she was struggling to eat. Even when the repast in front of her was a double cheeseburger (with all the trimmings).
Her mood only got worse when the door opened and Sunek sauntered in, grinning widely as he saw her sitting at the table.
She let out a long sigh. She hadn’t been looking forward to this. Of all the people in her life that she might have considered sharing quite so many of her private memories and darkest secrets with, the laughing Vulcan pilot of the Bounty would have been at the bottom of her list.
He walked over to the replicator and ordered a bowl of plomeek soup, before sitting opposite her at the table, still smiling. But when he saw her nervous and skittish look back at him, his grin disappeared.
“Nice,” he sighed, “I see. You don’t trust me.”
He shook his head and took a slurp of soup as she considered the best way to reply to that unexpected opener.
“If the situation was reversed, would you trust me?” she settled on.
Sunek set his spoon down in the bowl and considered this for a moment. It didn’t take the more traditional part of his Vulcan brain long to locate the most logical response.
“Ok, fine, I get it. It’s been a weird couple of days, all things considered. And I guess I’ve got a reputation for talking a lot. And while I can promise you that I really can keep a secret when I need to, nothing I can say would make you believe that.”
She went to respond, but felt a little rude to spell it out like that, so she just offered a shrug.
The Vulcan took a moment to consider the irony that he could prove his point by mentioning the secret of Klath’s discommendation, which only he knew about. But actually telling her that would rather undermine his whole point. So, instead, he opted for a more logical approach. As far as he was concerned.
“Ok, so, when I was a young guy, back at the ShiKahr Learning Institute, that’s when I first started hanging out with the V’tosh ka’tur.”
Natasha stared at him in confusion at this apparent non sequitur, as he continued to ramble.
“And one of the things you had to do to, y’know, join the gang, was some kind of dare, or prank. For me, that involved sneaking a bunch of recording equipment into the changing rooms of the annual women’s parrises squares tournament and broadcasting the footage across campus. Turns out, emotions or no emotions, you can still humiliate Vulcan women pretty well.”
“Sorry,” Natasha managed to butt in, “Why exactly are you telling me this horrible story?”
“Yeah, ok, I'm not proud of it. Still, about a year later, I started getting friendly with this new V’tosh ka’tur member. T’Shar, her name was. She was incredible. Funny, clever, and I swear, she used to walk around in these catsuits that were as illogical as they were--”
He noted Natasha’s increasingly unimpressed glare and opted to skip over those details.
“Good point. Not important. But, anyway, things finally seemed to be getting somewhere one day. We were on campus late one night, and she suddenly pulls me into a supply room and she’s, like, all over me. Except, what I didn’t know was that T’Shar was one of the women from the parrises squares tournament the year before.”
He suppressed a surge of embarrassment and swirled his spoon in his soup, then pressed on.
“So, yeah, she undresses me, she blindfolds me, I kinda like where things are going as you might imagine, and then she takes my hand and leads me right out a door on the other side of the room and...into the middle of a packed night school lecture on the metaphysical teachings of Kiri-kin-tha.”
Natasha failed to suppress a smirk at the mental image. Sunek nodded back.
“Yep. Exactly as humiliating as that. Worse, actually. A lecture hall full of stoic Vulcans doesn’t go mad when something like that happens. They just sorta stare at you in silence and raise their eyebrows in unison.”
“So…what happened?”
“I just had to turn around and waddle out of there, naked as a Betazoid groomsman,” he shrugged, “Perfect revenge. Plus, I’m pretty sure those lectures were broadcast planet-wide, so there’s probably actual footage of it happening somewhere.”
He suppressed a shudder, then focused back on her.
“So, there you go. You’re welcome.”
“I…don’t follow,” Natasha admitted, not entirely sure what his point was.
“That is the single most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. If the others knew about that, it would finish me on this ship. I’d literally have to pack up and move to a different quadrant. And now you know all about it.”
Natasha finally mustered an understanding smile, seeing the logic of Sunek’s plan.
“Right. So if you ever tell anyone about my secrets…”
“You can bring me down with you. We’ve both got each other’s self-destruct codes. Mutually assured compliance.”
She toyed with the remains of her meal and mustered a smile.
“You know,” she mused, “In a very, very weird way, that might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Thank you, Sunek.”
He grinned back and returned his attention to his soup, apparently satisfied with the resolution of her problems.
Except, she knew she had other problems. Her smile disappeared.
“I tried to save him,” she whispered, causing Sunek to pause mid-slurp, “After you broke the meld, the memory repeated again. And I tried to save Ensign Cartwright. To do things differently. But…I couldn’t. I still just ran away.”
Sunek shifted uncomfortably in his seat, entirely less satisfied now the conversation had taken a more serious turn.
“Well, um, you know it--Like you said, it was just a memory, right? How could you change it? It had already happened.”
She contemplated that statement with a fresh burst of sadness. It had definitely already happened. Again and again over the last few days.
“And,” Sunek ventured, “If you want my advice, which I guess you probably don’t, I’d say you’ve gotta leave all that behind somehow, you know?”
She looked back at him as he stirred his soup, looking oddly sage all of a sudden.
“I mean, what’s done is done, right? And you’re never gonna change that. Not even in your own head. So, I dunno, you’ve gotta do what you need to do to forgive yourself. Cos nobody else can do that for you. Right?”
She considered the strange logic of his words again, and mustered another nod. She had a pretty good idea of what she needed to do.
“I guess you’re right,” she sighed, as she stood from the table, “Thanks. Again.”
“Any time, doc,” he grinned back, as she made for the door, “And, hey, you ever run into that Caitian friend of yours again and both get a bit tipsy? You know where my cabin is.”
She paused at the door and shot a look at the grinning Vulcan.
“Come on,” he smiled, “I’m taking your secrets to my grave. Gotta let me get one hit in.”
****************************
Sunek returned to his cabin after finishing his soup whistling a jaunty tune.
All things considered, he was pretty impressed with himself. He’d given Natasha some great advice, even if he did say so himself. He’d never really considered himself to be much of a ship’s counsellor before, but he was starting to wonder if he might have missed his calling.
After all, it was great advice.
It was a good thing to let things go. Not to let things eat you up. That was just basic common sense. It was logical.
He was in such a good mood that he continued whistling all through his usual pre-bedtime routine, as he jumped in and out of the sonic shower, cleaned his teeth in record time, and pulled on an especially garish t-shirt adorned with an obscene Andorian slogan from his wardrobe.
Then, just as he was ready to turn in, he realised that with everything that had happened onboard just recently, he had missed today’s meditation session with Denella. But he was in such a good mood that he decided to fit it in right here and now.
Moments later, he stood on the deck of an ancient sailing ship, on the Voroth Sea back on Vulcan. The scene was calm, still and at peace.
He was, even though he may not have always demonstrated it, in control of his emotions.
And as he stood in perfect balance, he focused on his breathing, or on the stillness of the air, or the smell of the saline water.
He focused on anything, in fact, apart from the storm off on the horizon. The tumult in the distance that was still raging away.
He was, Sunek decided, very much a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ sort of ship’s counsellor.
****************************
Natasha sat and stared at the computer screen in her cabin, at the single simple text file displayed on it.
She had read over it enough times to know it off by heart. There was no need to read it again. Still, she found herself scanning over it again.
The same text as ever. The letter to Daniel Cartwright’s family.
Ever since her research had yielded the young ensign’s name, and she had traced his family back to Earth, she had worked on writing it. But, as she had admitted to Sunek while on the brink of death, she had never sent it.
Now, though, she felt compelled to do it.
She had written and rewritten it over and over again. There really was nothing more to be done on the editing front. It simply told them what had happened to their son, and explained how well he had fought, even to the end.
Even though she hadn’t known him on the Navajo, she had done her best to underline his bravery and his strength of character, embellishing slightly where necessary.
She still couldn’t tell whether she wanted to send it out of hope that it would give his family some closure, or that it would bring her some. In truth, both answers were probably valid.
She still wasn’t completely sure that it was the right thing to do, but after hearing what Sunek had said, she felt like this was the only way for her to find some peace.
Without allowing herself to question the letter any more, she moved her hand and tapped the panel to send it. In an instant, the simple message rushed off through a succession of subspace channels and hubs on its long way back to Earth.
Natasha sat for a moment and wondered what the young ensign’s parents would make of what she had said. Whether they would hate her for bringing their son’s death back up, or whether they would appreciate her words.
She even wondered if they would hate her, or blame her. After all, she had left him behind.
As she stood and walked over to her bed, she silently acknowledged that it didn’t really matter what they thought about her.
It couldn’t be any worse than how she felt about herself.
She settled down in bed. As she started to drift off to sleep, she heard a voice rattling around in her head. One that she had heard a lot recently.
The voice was Doctor Rahman’s, but that was largely incidental. The words were what really mattered.
“Very disappointing.”
The End
The Bounty continued on course for Beta Ramis.
Although the immediate crisis was over, everyone onboard the Bounty still felt it was a sound plan to get Natasha checked over at a fully staffed medical facility, just to be on the safe side. Besides, they needed to stock up on medical supplies.
Natasha sat in the medical bay, now on her own. All of her own checks seemed to suggest that the treatment had successfully eradicated the toxin, and whatever aftereffects remained could be dealt with fairly easily.
The physical ones, at least.
She stared down at the small petri dish in front of her. Inside was the thorn from the Makalite planet that Sunek had retrieved from her pocket. On the medical computer’s screen alongside the dish were the results of the full chemical analysis that she had completed on the thorn. Or as full a chemical analysis as the Bounty’s systems could provide her with.
As she considered the tiny object in the dish, she heard the door to the bay open. She turned to see Jirel cautiously enter, trying too hard to look casual.
“Hey,” he smiled, “How’re you feeling?”
She considered his question for a moment, and decided that there was no point in lying. She was far too tired for that, both literally and metaphorically.
“Terrible.”
He offered a supportive smile and seemed to relax slightly at this frankness, then gestured at the offending thorn in the dish in front of her.
“Thought you’d have chucked that thing out the airlock.”
“I still might,” she shrugged, “I just thought I’d try and pull a more detailed analysis first. And before you say anything about my ‘Starfleet showing’ again, that’s just a good idea. In case we’ve missed something.”
He nodded in understanding, as a silence descended. Jirel shuffled from foot to foot near the door as she stood and began to pack away the dish.
She hadn’t wanted to have this particular conversation, at least not right now, but she could also see that he wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. So she may as well get it over with.
“Heard you were holding my hand.”
Jirel tried not to allow the comment to catch him off guard, but he couldn’t help but flinch slightly.
“Sunek,” he sighed ruefully, “That guy just can’t keep a secret…”
Now it was Natasha’s turn to forcibly stifle a sinking feeling in her stomach, though if Jirel noticed her reaction, he ignored it entirely in favour of his own awkward situation.
“Ok, look,” he began, “It’s true that there was some--I mean, I might have--I was just trying to--I think I read somewhere that if you hold a coma patient’s hand, they have a better chance of--”
She decided to step in before the Trill could embark any further downwards into the hole he was digging in the middle of the medical bay.
“Ok, I get it. You were worried about me. As a member of your crew.”
For the briefest of moments, Jirel considered protesting that explanation. After all, he knew it wasn’t true. He hadn’t just been worried about her as a member of his crew.
But the words wouldn’t come. And he finally decided that he’d embarrassed himself enough for one day. So he nodded.
“Yeah. Obviously. All part of the, um, captain…thing. Y’know, I’d have done the same for anyone.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Even Sunek.”
“Even…Yep. Anyone.”
He flinched again. She stifled a smile and regarded the Trill that she’d once seen as just a brash and overconfident wannabe space captain. A lot had changed since then.
But she didn’t allow herself to dwell on that particular issue for too long. She had bigger problems that she still had to deal with.
“Well,” she said eventually, rescuing Jirel from his latest flinch, “Thank you. For being such a thoughtful captain to your crew.”
His face shifted into an altogether more relieved, and entirely dorky, smile. He idly itched at his spots as Natasha went to leave. Just as the doors opened, he found himself calling after her.
“Um, hey, also,” he managed, “I was--I really wanted to say that--I mean, this might not be the right time for it, but--”
“No,” she butted in, a little too quickly, “It’s probably not the right time for it.”
Something in her reply caused a flicker of Jirel’s old wannabe space captain grin to return.
“Probably not--?”
“Definitely not,” she added, with more finality.
“Got it,” he nodded back, the grin disappearing as quickly as it had arrived as she walked on through the doors.
Jirel was left in the empty medical bay, feeling more than a little ridiculous all over again.
“Ugh,” he muttered into the empty room, “I am really bad at this…”
****************************
“There really is something to it, you know.”
“You are mistaken.”
The Bounty’s cockpit was less empty than it had been for a while, though still emptier than usual. As a result, the back and forth bickering between Denella and Klath had been allowed to continue unimpeded for some time.
“I’m serious,” Denella retorted from her engineering console, gesturing proudly at the readouts in front of her, “I was just in the engine room, nothing I tried could shift that damn drop-off in the power transfer rates. Then I paid her a compliment or two, and now look: 93% efficiency.”
She patted the Bounty’s hull plate behind her for effect and turned her cooing up to eleven.
“Because who’s the best ship in the whole galaxy, hmm? Yeah, she knows it.”
Klath watched the nauseating, and entirely one-sided conversation unfold from behind his own station with undisguised contempt.
“The ship is not responding to you, Denella,” he grunted, “You are definitely mistaken.”
“Then where did our new-found power transfer efficiency come from, hmm? We’re gonna make it to Beta Ramis four hours ahead of schedule at this rate.”
“Perhaps one of your repairs had a delayed reaction to the transfer coils,” the Klingon pointed out, “Or perhaps it was a temporary issue which self-corrected.”
“Or perhaps the old girl likes it when people are nice to her,” she grinned back.
Klath felt himself starting to grind his teeth.
He was sure that his friend was simply winding him up. But still, ever since the argument had first started to fester during their efforts to help Natasha, he knew that his pride would never allow him to back down and acknowledge her ridiculous point.
Instead of repeating himself, though, he opted to fight fire with fire, and began to theatrically tap at his bank of controls.
“Excuse me, I must conduct a full scan of the air circulators for evidence of contaminants.”
“Why?”
“There is a further medical issue onboard. First Jirel believed he could speak to the doctor through her coma, and now you believe you can talk to our ship. These are troubling developments.”
Denella smirked and folded her arms in front of her.
“All I’m saying is, it always has a positive effect on the ship. And the Bounty’s got a computer, the computer’s got some level of intelligence. Who’s to say there isn’t something to it?”
“Everyone unaffected by the contamination of our air supply,” he retorted.
“Come on,” she insisted, gesturing to where Klath’s ever-present bat’leth hung behind him, “I bet you do the same thing with your bat’leth. I can tell.”
Klath fixed her with an especially withering glare, in lieu of a vocal response.
“Fine,” she sighed, standing and throwing her hands up in a clear display of resignation, “Don’t believe me, see if I care. I’m gonna head back to the engine room and see if I can’t talk us up to 95% efficiency.”
She stopped at the cockpit door and patted the Bounty’s hull again for effect.
“Cos I bet you can make 95%, can’t you? Yeah, you can do anything…”
She disappeared out of the room, still apparently talking to the ship all the way back to the engine room. Klath watched her go with a deep sigh and a shake of his head.
“She is a fool,” he muttered, to nobody in particular.
Moments later, when he was sure he was alone, he retrieved his bat’leth from where it was hanging and lovingly ran his eyes across its freshly sharpened blade with pride.
“But you are a mighty slayer of enemies…”
****************************
Natasha sat alone in the Bounty’s dining area, picking at the food in front of her.
She was hungry, but she was struggling to eat. Even when the repast in front of her was a double cheeseburger (with all the trimmings).
Her mood only got worse when the door opened and Sunek sauntered in, grinning widely as he saw her sitting at the table.
She let out a long sigh. She hadn’t been looking forward to this. Of all the people in her life that she might have considered sharing quite so many of her private memories and darkest secrets with, the laughing Vulcan pilot of the Bounty would have been at the bottom of her list.
He walked over to the replicator and ordered a bowl of plomeek soup, before sitting opposite her at the table, still smiling. But when he saw her nervous and skittish look back at him, his grin disappeared.
“Nice,” he sighed, “I see. You don’t trust me.”
He shook his head and took a slurp of soup as she considered the best way to reply to that unexpected opener.
“If the situation was reversed, would you trust me?” she settled on.
Sunek set his spoon down in the bowl and considered this for a moment. It didn’t take the more traditional part of his Vulcan brain long to locate the most logical response.
“Ok, fine, I get it. It’s been a weird couple of days, all things considered. And I guess I’ve got a reputation for talking a lot. And while I can promise you that I really can keep a secret when I need to, nothing I can say would make you believe that.”
She went to respond, but felt a little rude to spell it out like that, so she just offered a shrug.
The Vulcan took a moment to consider the irony that he could prove his point by mentioning the secret of Klath’s discommendation, which only he knew about. But actually telling her that would rather undermine his whole point. So, instead, he opted for a more logical approach. As far as he was concerned.
“Ok, so, when I was a young guy, back at the ShiKahr Learning Institute, that’s when I first started hanging out with the V’tosh ka’tur.”
Natasha stared at him in confusion at this apparent non sequitur, as he continued to ramble.
“And one of the things you had to do to, y’know, join the gang, was some kind of dare, or prank. For me, that involved sneaking a bunch of recording equipment into the changing rooms of the annual women’s parrises squares tournament and broadcasting the footage across campus. Turns out, emotions or no emotions, you can still humiliate Vulcan women pretty well.”
“Sorry,” Natasha managed to butt in, “Why exactly are you telling me this horrible story?”
“Yeah, ok, I'm not proud of it. Still, about a year later, I started getting friendly with this new V’tosh ka’tur member. T’Shar, her name was. She was incredible. Funny, clever, and I swear, she used to walk around in these catsuits that were as illogical as they were--”
He noted Natasha’s increasingly unimpressed glare and opted to skip over those details.
“Good point. Not important. But, anyway, things finally seemed to be getting somewhere one day. We were on campus late one night, and she suddenly pulls me into a supply room and she’s, like, all over me. Except, what I didn’t know was that T’Shar was one of the women from the parrises squares tournament the year before.”
He suppressed a surge of embarrassment and swirled his spoon in his soup, then pressed on.
“So, yeah, she undresses me, she blindfolds me, I kinda like where things are going as you might imagine, and then she takes my hand and leads me right out a door on the other side of the room and...into the middle of a packed night school lecture on the metaphysical teachings of Kiri-kin-tha.”
Natasha failed to suppress a smirk at the mental image. Sunek nodded back.
“Yep. Exactly as humiliating as that. Worse, actually. A lecture hall full of stoic Vulcans doesn’t go mad when something like that happens. They just sorta stare at you in silence and raise their eyebrows in unison.”
“So…what happened?”
“I just had to turn around and waddle out of there, naked as a Betazoid groomsman,” he shrugged, “Perfect revenge. Plus, I’m pretty sure those lectures were broadcast planet-wide, so there’s probably actual footage of it happening somewhere.”
He suppressed a shudder, then focused back on her.
“So, there you go. You’re welcome.”
“I…don’t follow,” Natasha admitted, not entirely sure what his point was.
“That is the single most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. If the others knew about that, it would finish me on this ship. I’d literally have to pack up and move to a different quadrant. And now you know all about it.”
Natasha finally mustered an understanding smile, seeing the logic of Sunek’s plan.
“Right. So if you ever tell anyone about my secrets…”
“You can bring me down with you. We’ve both got each other’s self-destruct codes. Mutually assured compliance.”
She toyed with the remains of her meal and mustered a smile.
“You know,” she mused, “In a very, very weird way, that might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Thank you, Sunek.”
He grinned back and returned his attention to his soup, apparently satisfied with the resolution of her problems.
Except, she knew she had other problems. Her smile disappeared.
“I tried to save him,” she whispered, causing Sunek to pause mid-slurp, “After you broke the meld, the memory repeated again. And I tried to save Ensign Cartwright. To do things differently. But…I couldn’t. I still just ran away.”
Sunek shifted uncomfortably in his seat, entirely less satisfied now the conversation had taken a more serious turn.
“Well, um, you know it--Like you said, it was just a memory, right? How could you change it? It had already happened.”
She contemplated that statement with a fresh burst of sadness. It had definitely already happened. Again and again over the last few days.
“And,” Sunek ventured, “If you want my advice, which I guess you probably don’t, I’d say you’ve gotta leave all that behind somehow, you know?”
She looked back at him as he stirred his soup, looking oddly sage all of a sudden.
“I mean, what’s done is done, right? And you’re never gonna change that. Not even in your own head. So, I dunno, you’ve gotta do what you need to do to forgive yourself. Cos nobody else can do that for you. Right?”
She considered the strange logic of his words again, and mustered another nod. She had a pretty good idea of what she needed to do.
“I guess you’re right,” she sighed, as she stood from the table, “Thanks. Again.”
“Any time, doc,” he grinned back, as she made for the door, “And, hey, you ever run into that Caitian friend of yours again and both get a bit tipsy? You know where my cabin is.”
She paused at the door and shot a look at the grinning Vulcan.
“Come on,” he smiled, “I’m taking your secrets to my grave. Gotta let me get one hit in.”
****************************
Sunek returned to his cabin after finishing his soup whistling a jaunty tune.
All things considered, he was pretty impressed with himself. He’d given Natasha some great advice, even if he did say so himself. He’d never really considered himself to be much of a ship’s counsellor before, but he was starting to wonder if he might have missed his calling.
After all, it was great advice.
It was a good thing to let things go. Not to let things eat you up. That was just basic common sense. It was logical.
He was in such a good mood that he continued whistling all through his usual pre-bedtime routine, as he jumped in and out of the sonic shower, cleaned his teeth in record time, and pulled on an especially garish t-shirt adorned with an obscene Andorian slogan from his wardrobe.
Then, just as he was ready to turn in, he realised that with everything that had happened onboard just recently, he had missed today’s meditation session with Denella. But he was in such a good mood that he decided to fit it in right here and now.
Moments later, he stood on the deck of an ancient sailing ship, on the Voroth Sea back on Vulcan. The scene was calm, still and at peace.
He was, even though he may not have always demonstrated it, in control of his emotions.
And as he stood in perfect balance, he focused on his breathing, or on the stillness of the air, or the smell of the saline water.
He focused on anything, in fact, apart from the storm off on the horizon. The tumult in the distance that was still raging away.
He was, Sunek decided, very much a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ sort of ship’s counsellor.
****************************
Natasha sat and stared at the computer screen in her cabin, at the single simple text file displayed on it.
She had read over it enough times to know it off by heart. There was no need to read it again. Still, she found herself scanning over it again.
The same text as ever. The letter to Daniel Cartwright’s family.
Ever since her research had yielded the young ensign’s name, and she had traced his family back to Earth, she had worked on writing it. But, as she had admitted to Sunek while on the brink of death, she had never sent it.
Now, though, she felt compelled to do it.
She had written and rewritten it over and over again. There really was nothing more to be done on the editing front. It simply told them what had happened to their son, and explained how well he had fought, even to the end.
Even though she hadn’t known him on the Navajo, she had done her best to underline his bravery and his strength of character, embellishing slightly where necessary.
She still couldn’t tell whether she wanted to send it out of hope that it would give his family some closure, or that it would bring her some. In truth, both answers were probably valid.
She still wasn’t completely sure that it was the right thing to do, but after hearing what Sunek had said, she felt like this was the only way for her to find some peace.
Without allowing herself to question the letter any more, she moved her hand and tapped the panel to send it. In an instant, the simple message rushed off through a succession of subspace channels and hubs on its long way back to Earth.
Natasha sat for a moment and wondered what the young ensign’s parents would make of what she had said. Whether they would hate her for bringing their son’s death back up, or whether they would appreciate her words.
She even wondered if they would hate her, or blame her. After all, she had left him behind.
As she stood and walked over to her bed, she silently acknowledged that it didn’t really matter what they thought about her.
It couldn’t be any worse than how she felt about herself.
She settled down in bed. As she started to drift off to sleep, she heard a voice rattling around in her head. One that she had heard a lot recently.
The voice was Doctor Rahman’s, but that was largely incidental. The words were what really mattered.
“Very disappointing.”
The End
Yeah... classic gag - and nicely reflected in the following sequence with Sunek and Natasha:But which part is the disappointment about? Not sure and equally certain Natasha doesn't know...
Nailed the dismount - Thanks!! rbs
Thanks for reading! And I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it.
Thanks for the kind words, and the reviews throughout!
Not quite sure when the next Bounty episode/chapter/story/whatever will be ready. Probably not until the new year at this point, so everyone gets a nice break from all this nonsense for a few weeks.
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