Marching orders
Posted on 26 Dec 2021 @ 12:58pm by Commander Indi Hawk & Lieutenant Commander Cintia Sha'mer
1,657 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission: Home
It had been a while since Sha'mer had left her office, and yet Indi had barely moved at all. She was still sitting her chair, the same was still untouched on her desk, half empty. There had been a few chimes to her door, but she'd ignored all of them.
This couldn't be her Sha'mer, there were too many differences. She didn't have the same life experiences. The many, many experiences.....
~~~~
Captain Hawk, head of Law Enforcement at some Starbase or other for the Terran Union. As transporters weren't used in the universe she was used to, she walked over to her living quarters. Her look, her entire posture, and her mind were all screaming things nobody needed an interpreter for. Any junior officers she passed - and there were so annoyingly many of them on a Starbase - jumped to the side to let this storming Captain by.
Finally though, she entered her quarters, dreading what would follow. A happy reunion with another long separation? Immediate the separation to spare both the pain of what they were going to lose again? She didn't know.
Sha'mer looked up as she felt the familiar mind approach, though the dark tones in that mind made her frown. Something bad had happened, or was about to happen, or… She didn't want to know. Not yet. She had just gotten back and she didn't want to think about that mission. She didn't want to think about the inevitable follow-up of that mess – a mess, as usual, caused by the incompetence of others and which would require her specialised skillset to solve. She expected that fall-out to occur within the week, a fresh set of orders maybe a day or two later… with some luck, she could stretch it until two weeks before she had to ship out again. Sha'mer had planned to take the most out of those two weeks, but that dark tone in Indi's mind brooked little good.
No. Not now. A day from now she would deal with it. Or an hour from now. An hour wouldn't be too much to ask, would it?
Would it?
She smiled as Indi entered and rose to give her a hug. A single touch was enough to connect them fully. She relished the merging of minds, the way they strengthened and steadied each other. "Welcome home," she whispered, feeling the words echo in both her own mind and Indi's as they travelled through both the air and the mental link between them.
Indi silently let the hug embrace her. Sure, she knew that her mind had radiated enough by now that words were unnecessary. But they could have this moment? Couldn't they? Pretty please? Closing her eyes, she returned the hug. "You, too," she finally said, not wanting that moment to ever end.
"Have you eaten yet?" Whatever they had to face in the future, it'd be better on a full stomach than on an empty one. Sha'mer retained too many soldier reflexes from the past, but this one was actually useful. She didn't wait for an answer – if Indi had eaten anything at all, it was bound to be the horrible replicated stuff, hardly a decent meal. "Let me order something. Anything you fancy?"
About to answer she wasn't hungry, Indi scowled at the plate that appeared on the table. Not only was she apparently hungry, but she didn't fancy anything in particular either. A second later however, she scowl was replaced by a smile. She'd missed Cin more than she'd realised, and it was simply nice to have her home again. However long it wo--no, they weren't going there yet. "Don't forget yourself," she spoke as she sat down and eyed the food warily.
"Oh, I sure won't. You have no idea what ghastly food they insisted on serving us. All because they were thinking they had to 'honour' us in some way. You know the whole 'Let's try to appease the Terran Union any which way we can lest they bomb us back to the stone age'. If I never have to look another Kelpian in the eye it'll be too soon." Sha'mer picked up the bottle with the electric blue liquid and two glasses and set it on the table before sitting down herself. "And then, of course, some idiot did the exactly wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment and the whole shebang blew up in our faces anyway," she added. She continued the story of the disastrous diplomatic dinner in a light and airy tone, turning it into a funny tale. It had been funny, if your sense of humour tended to be dark.
Indi didn't mind the kind of humour. It temporarily distracted her from the PADD that was still stuffed in her pocket. Instead, she listened and mmhmm'd and nodded and oohhh'd at all the right moments. It was really nice to be home. Together. Just the mere presence was enough. For however long i----NO, still not going there.
It was by unspoken agreement that they both ignored the dark cloud which hung over them. It was seen, it was felt, but they both had ample experience in ignoring what was there. Whatever it was, it was a problem that could be dealt with by their future selves. She was more than happy to leave it for them.
But time moved on relentlessly, as it always did. Eventually the food was gone, the story was told and the bottle was half empty. Sha'mer reached over to touch Indi's hand. "I've missed you," she said softly. With a wave of her other hand the plates and cutlery vanished – the wave itself wasn't necessary, she used her own mind for it, but it had started as a silly gesture and had become some kind of habit.
"I've missed you, too," Indi sighed. As the plates vanished, she blinked. Not because she was surprised, she'd become just as used to it as Sha'mer by now, but because it meant they'd reached the inevitable point. The elephant in the room. She didn't want to leave. Didn't want to leave this behind. Slowly, delaying time as much as possible, she finally held out the PADD for her wife to read. It was easier than telling her. Fuck it. No. Nothing about this was easy. They deserved better together.
Sha'mer took in the contents of the PADD with a single glance. Questions flooded her mind. 'Ship out of time'? She hadn't been back from her mission long enough to catch up on the local gossip. People tended to avoid her anyway, afraid of what she'd pick up from them from a single glance. The three letters before the ship's name cued her in on its nature, though. 'USS' – denoting that the vessel came from that other place. That universe where the local denizens still seemed to try to insist that peaceful cooperation was a way of life rather than an unobtainable ideal. And now, once again, one of their ships had found its way here. And just why, in the name of dark space, did someone want to send Indi there?
She asked none of those questions aloud, though she was sure Indi would be able to pick them up easily enough through the link. The only thing she did ask was "When?" Obedience ran too deeply in any of them. The price of disobedience was too high, the other side of the coin for the good rewards of jobs well done.
The questions, born from frustration and unhappiness, hit Indi like a ton of bricks. Again. Nothing new. But this one took her a moment to recover. The feelings fed the ones she'd been feeling herself. Nothing about this situation didn't suck. Yes, they'd both chosen this life, but it still didn't feel fair.
She tore her hand back, away from her wife's. Not that they needed contact to share their link, but touch was a symbol nonetheless. And now Indi recoiled from it. Turned inwards. She couldn't take these feelings with her, they'd break her apart. "Tomorrow," she finally replied once she'd gotten up and physically grabbed a coke from the replicator.
Sha'mer muttered a curse in her native language. Vo'Sh'un was a great language for cursing. "How long is this assignment supposed to last?" The fact that there hadn't been a time mentioned was ominous. But maybe Indi had heard more when she had received the assignment. Or through the grapevine. One could hope.
With the coke in hand, Indi walked over to the window that allowed her to look far off into space. It was a melancholic gesture she didn't like doing very often. Space got a dangerous and edgy side to it when you stared into it for too long. "It's open-ended."
It made her feel like cursing again, but this time Sha'mer bit it back. It wouldn't help either of them. She rose instead and made her way to where Indi was standing, staring outside. She stood close enough to reach out and touch, far enough to give her the space she needed. Deep down inside thoughts were still bubbling up, insane ones like Let me try to pull some strings. But she knew the Commander of the Solaris Sector as a capable person. If she deemed it necessary for Indi to be sent to the ship, then she really needed her.
This has gone on long enough. Time for self-pity was over. She locked those thoughts away and turned her back to the stars. Softly, she said: "Tomorrow can wait until tomorrow. The rest of the night is for us."
~~~~
The rest of the night was theirs indeed. Back inside her office on the Odin, Indi got an alert she couldn't quite ignore. With a sigh, and great effort, she pulled her thoughts back to the present, and headed off in search for the cause of the alert.
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