Follow Your Spirit

Posted on 09 Nov 2022 @ 5:06pm by Lieutenant Commander Maurice Rubens
Edited on on 03 Sep 2023 @ 11:44am

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: New York City, Earth
Timeline: Backpost: 2 month prior to Mission 3
2824 words - 5.6 OF Standard Post Measure

A glowing marquee, Henry V scrawled across it in vibrant red, pulsated in time. It was a silent drum tapping out a march for the mass of people exiting under a canopy filled with bright yellow lights. Puffy white snowflakes fell on the heads of everyone who exited the overhanging structure’s protection. It was an early November snow, unusual and caught many people exiting the theater unprepared, hats and coats still draped over their arms. They quickly threw the warm attire over their bodies and then began to seek transport. Some peeled off toward the city subways or transporter pads two blocks away. Others stopped by the street curb waiting for the hover pods that would whisk them away to their apartments, hotels, or night clubs where they’d continue their evenings listening to jazz, new century techno, or, perhaps, the latest extraterrestrial beats.

Two figures exited the throng walking away from both transit stations and pods. They passed other theaters with bright lights casting euphoric colors onto the street below and silently carved their way through the crowds enjoying a winter’s day on Broadway. The sidewalk, warmed with artificial ice melt and the thousands of feet on the pavement, reflected a pale kaleidoscope back toward sky.

Intent on escaping more than anything else, the two men sought momentary solitude in a alley between two theaters. Snow piled higher there, finding refuge on ledges or turning to sludge on the still warm concrete. The two men emerged on the other side and found less people wandering the 7th Avenue pedestrian path. Carnegie Hall’s performance of A’jaro Tal’s Symphonica on the Ice Plains would run until midnight. The people walking here were streaming toward shelter of late-night cafés that lined the street opposite of the old hall or to Central Park, only a few blocks to the north.

The two belong to neither group. They walked together toward some unknown destination, a tradition they formed while working on Cardassia during the rebuilding. It gave them a feel for the people, for the streets that meetings with government bureaucrats never did.
At that moment, however, the people were less important than the walk. Both wore long thick coats that hung down to their knees, hands stuffed in the pockets. The taller of the two had wrapped a blue scarf around his neck, but wore no hat. Snow accumulated in his think iron-colored hair, adding dashes of white to the gray, before slowly melting away. The other, shorter and younger, wore a green-striped beanie covering hair that, otherwise uninhibited, would fall in waves of jet black that would cover the faint dots that descended from his temples, to his neck, and down his back. He wore no scarf, instead buttoning his coat to the chin.

They started to pass a small shop’s window, tucked on the bottom level of a ten-story Italianate building, skewed dentals wedged into the overhang betraying its centuries-old age, glowed with Christmas lights, but then stopped. There was something enchanting about the lights and the handwoven woolen hats and scarfs of spilled out across a table resting on a bed of fake snow.

Clouds from their breath battered the window, leaving small circles of moisture clinging it its surface. The younger man, Maurice ‘Rice’ Rubens, cleared his throat and tentatively tested a conversation. “I thought her costuming choices were bold. I’d never thought to leave Henry without clothes for the entire play.”

Chung Dae-Jung opened his mouth, but shut it again.

Rice pressed on through the silence, “Very bold. Though, I must say, the actor portraying Henry looked a little cold.”

The older man snorted. “He did look…shriveled.”

Their eyes met and both began laughing. As the peels subsided into chuckles, Dae-Jung shook his head. “You know she did this to spite me. I wanted her to go to the Academy and become an engineer. She had such a marvelous talent with mathematics. We had a big blow up over it when she was accepted to that design program. She said that she could apply all of the same skills to making beautiful costumes. What does she do with her first big show?”

“Made the lead actor nude.”

“Nude. I don’t care what the artistic argument is, no one is ever going to convince me that she wasn’t being vindictive. This is because I made her attend the Academy for a year.” He shook his head. “One of my favorite Shakespearian plays.”

“In her defense, he was very handsome and probably works out.”
Dae-Jung sighed, “Is the lead actor why she didn’t marry you?”

“Ah. Not that I’m aware,” Rice shuffled his feet, betraying some discomfort in the direction the conversation was suddenly taking. This was important, however, Dae-Jung was the closet thing he had to a father. Rice wanted to give him more of an explanation, although the words might sting. “She didn’t want to marry her father’s protégé and someone who, in her words, was more and more like you every day.” He forced a smile, “Understandable considering how much she absolutely loathes you.”

“That’s unfair to you,” Dae-Jung told him, not smiling at the jest.
Rice shrugged. “No, I could understand it.”

“Ever the diplomat.”

“I learned from the best.”

They turned away from the window and its hats and scarves, and began walking toward the park once more. The conversation tilted toward other aspects of the production and choices the actors has made in their portrayals. They agreed that Falstaff had been interpreted wonderfully; they disagreed over the Dauphin. Dae-Jung believe he’d carried the arrogance of the character too far, but not Rice. After a few more blocks, they lapsed into silence once more. Cakes of snow that had survived the onslaught of feet and ice melt, clung tentatively to the concrete path.

Dae-Jung brought the topic of his daughter up again to Rice's chagrin, “The rest of the costuming was superb. I can admit it when I am wrong – ”

“Begrudgingly.”

“ – but perhaps she wouldn’t have done as well in Starfleet.”

“She has a wonderful eye. Good instincts for the what the director was wanting to achieve. You know, it may have been the director’s request for the naked Henry.”

“I give it fifty-fifty odds.”

“I don’t. It was an odd choice, and Moon-Young doesn’t make odd choices. I think the director was going for some play on the emperor’s new clothes and a commentary about us aggrandizing kings and queens in our culture even after all these centuries.”

“Was that in the playbill?”

Rice shook his head. “At a party we went to some months back, I think she mentioned that the director was a utopian.”

Dae-Jung barked laugh dripped with ridicule, “Absolute democracy is a crackpot theory. Wouldn’t even work on Earth. Billions of people on this planet. How can you expect a chef or a teacher, no matter how intelligent and gifted, to have a full grasp of the vagary of law, government, and politics.”

Rice knew better than to the debate the point (not that he disagreed) and let Dae-Jung ramble on about political theories that he found intellectually vacant. Half-listening – if only so he could grunt at the appropriate moments – Rice considered the scenery. They’d entered Central Park now and were approaching the Dipway Arch, a long tunnel that had once passed under Center Drive that had been turned into a bicycle path more than a century ago.

The park wasn’t crowded, not like on a summer day. Still there were plenty of people here at this late hour. It was a pleasure to escape the urban landscape and watch the snow fall as it would in the deep woods of the Adirondacks, filling in the crooks and crannies of the hills. Nature, chaotic as it was, still could do beauty in a way that all the designers and engineers of all the galaxy’s races had yet to achieve.

“Does this sudden return to Starfleet, does it have to do with Moon-Young?”

The question caught Rice off guard and he stopped suddenly. Dae-Jung walked several paces more before realizing he companion was no longer at his side.

Rice hadn’t considered how to explain this to his mentor and friend. Funny, that. ‘Field diplomacy’ was what the UFP Diplomatic Corps derisively termed much of the work its Starfleet counterpart – a riff on field medicine where the goal was not a high-quality outcome, just a living patient – was a right of way that many sought to put behind them as fast as their careers allowed. Rice had skipped it all together, recruited by Dae-Jung into high-level inter-power diplomacy straight from the Academy.

“No. And yes. I’m not running from my broken heart, but her decision made me realize something about myself.”

“Is this the reason you could, uh, ‘understand’ her refusal?”

“Yes. Her life was being plotted out. By me, of course. I was going to take the position with the President’s office. She was going to continue with her career here in New York or in London or wherever. We’d talked about buying a house in Normandy, near the coast. I mean, we’d discussed getting married. At least, I’d discussed getting married. Looking back on it her life was being plotted out to the very end. There was no spontaneity.”

Dae-Jung rolled his eyes. “Just like her mother, and we made it work. For a while.” He puffed out his lips. “It always seems to come back to me. Naked actors and broken relationships.”

“Naked actors aside, in this instance I think it has more to do with me. You weren’t really an issue in our relationship.” Rice started to walk again. “Moon wants a life filled with something other than ten years of plans and a cottage by the seaside. She wants…I don’t know. Our relationship had become deliberate. It lacked impulsiveness.”

“Impulsiveness can lead to disaster and a whole other host of issues. Its why teenagers are impetuous and senior citizens are wise.”

“Age can also give the illusion of wisdom.” Rice held up his hand, fending off the rebuttal. “Did you know that she agreed to our first date after hearing about how I joined Starfleet the first time? Before that she wouldn’t give me the time of day. She thought maybe some of that kid who ran off to fight in a war might still be lurking around in here somewhere.

“That is you,” Dae-Jung protested.

“That was me. Ever since that decision – a spectacularly bad one by the way – but ever since I’ve been trying to control every aspect of my life. The jobs I’ve done for the Federation were nearly planned out before I even left the Academy. Starting with a position as your attaché.”

“As I recall,” Dae-Jung protested, “I chose you to work with me on Cardassia.’”

“Did you?” Maurice stopped again. He was not in the habit of revealing his methods. Like a poker player, he preferred to never show his cards when he folds and to keep his tells in check. Ever since the disastrous proposal at Laurentian Seafood Bistro, however, it just didn’t seem to matter as much. “Where did we meet?”

“Your final year at the Academy. I was impressed by your report on the need to not just rebuild Cardassia’s art sector, but to support it so that it rivaled anything the Federation could produce. ‘Where art is at the core of a civilization, openness follows.’”

“Exactly. Do you know why I presented?”

“I assumed your instructors had selected you.”

“I volunteered to present because I knew you were going to be there and I thought working for you would be a good first job. Rebuilding Cardassia, at the time, seemed to be our generations diplomatic equivalent to negotiating the Khitomer Accords and achieving eventual peace with the Klingons.”

Dae-Jung brow rippled as he considered the new information. “Ambitions not a bad thing. The report was good regardless.”

With a wink, Rice added, “The night before, I peppered the report with quotes from your favorite poets and playwrights.”

“How did you know who they were?”

“I spent three weeks researching you. First, I found out you were passionate about poetry and theater from an interview you gave after the Dominion War. Then I sifted through countless art publications. You attended poetry readings by the Ma’b…"

“Just because I went once...”

“…three different times. Once in college, once in the 2350s, and again just after the Dominion War.”

“How…”

“Its odd what people publish in poetry news publications. I assumed that there were plenty more times you went that weren’t recorded for posterity.”

“Well, I like the Ma’b, but as for the others...”

“You served on the Edith Kovinsky Association board on two different occasions, once in the late 2360s and again during the Dominion War, and gave two lectures on “Diplomacy in Shakespeare,” at Oxford in 2370.”

“Not unusual…”

“Shakespeare was easy, but I went a step further and worked a quote from Nathalie Rivere de Carles into the report. ‘Shakespeare’s plays tell us how to see through the tempting snares of populism which please individual instincts at the expense of the individuals themselves and for sure at the cost of a sense of a collective present, notwithstanding the future. Populism is a conversation with a blind and deaf self.’”

A smug Rice added, “Fits your extreme dislike of the utopians and all other forms of populism, which I had also discovered.”

“Well. You’ve always been an excellent researcher. Shit. I have to sit down.”

They found a bench, pushing the snow off its wooden slats and sat. Through the leafless trees and bushes, Rice could see the red-and-white brick building housing the Central Park Carousel. The doors, painted to mimic the bricks’ pattern, were shut hiding the ancient ride inside. Rice had grown up in Mott Haven and trips to Central Park offered an escape from his otherwise dim childhood. In his memory, he could still feel the slight chill of those beautiful carved and painted horses on hot summer days.

“You could’ve requested another assignment in the Federation Diplomatic Corps. You didn’t have to go back to the Starfleet. You know what they’re like these days. Who was that admiral you got into a tiff with when you were a Deputy Head of Mission on Cardassia Prime?”

“I honestly don’t remember her name. But she didn’t eat the soup. Worse than that she pointblank refused to have the soup even be put on the table in front of her. Complained about some sort of allergy.”

“You have to eat the soup.”

“You have to eat the soup,” Rice parroted in agreement. “If the choice is death or soup, you eat the damn soup. As nasty as it is.”

“Raw baby eels. Not the best of Cardassian cuisine.” They both watched the snow falling. “You won’t have the protection of courtesy ranks anymore. No dressing down rear admirals who don’t eat the right thing or sit the right way.”

Rice nodded and then chuckled, “I’m not even sure what my rank is and I can’t remember the last time I was in uniform. Eight? Nine years ago?”

“I’m sure admirals all over the fleet are licking their chops to give you orders, now a minor diplomatic functionary instead of a special advisor to the President. A simple cog in the once-great Starfleet diplomatic machine which is slowly descending into obscurity.”

“Maybe.”

The snow continued to fall, punctuating the silence that enveloped the two men. Like all their silences, it was an easy one between two people who’d spend the better part of sixteen years working closely together. Ironic that Rice would have such a relationship with Dae-Jung and not with the daughter he still loved.

“You should work at your relationship with Moon. She’s a remarkable woman,” Rice said.

“You still love her. You should do it. Maybe your sudden move to deep space will win her back. Its spontaneous enough.”

Rice sighed, a cloud escaping into the winter air and then gone. “I’ve orders to report to Starfleet Command in the morning for a briefing. Something about this place I’m going and its significance in Romulan and Federation relations in that sector.”

“A whole sector. Wow,” Dae-Jung replied dryly.


“Could be worse.”

Dae-Jung began ticking off on his fingers, “Unknown rank. In Starfleet. On a space station. Engaged in low-stakes diplomacy. That will kill your career. And alone. No, I don’t see how it could get any worse.”

“I could be doing it naked.”