New Adventures
Posted on 16 Nov 2022 @ 9:50pm by Lieutenant Commander Maurice Rubens
Edited on on 16 Nov 2022 @ 9:57pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: USS Plover en route to Obsidian Command
Timeline: MD07
1496 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure
“Excuse me, are you going to Obsidian Command?”
Rice looked up from the novel on his PADD to find a young woman, an ensign by the single gold pip on her purple collar. Her raven-black hair was pulled back and laced into an intricate bun, bringing into relief her sharp, pointed chin and high cheeks.
He was taken aback at her sudden appearance. Most ensigns refrained from approaching senior officer, but then he realized he wore no rank insignia. Upon boarding the supply ship USS Plover at Benzar, he quickly jettisoned the jacket and opted for the uniform vest. Rice’s whole ensemble of uniforms were new – he’d discovered the ones he’d worn a decade ago were woefully out of date – and he’d failed to attach his rank to four vests he now owned. To her, Rice looked like just another diplomatic officer.
“Yes. Boarded at Benzar a few hours ago. I needed to get out of the closet they assigned me to stretch my legs. As much as I can anyway.” He nodded around the Plover’s small lounge. A dozen tables with four chairs each and a six-foot long bar were tightly packed into a room the size of his old office on Earth. The ship was massive, but most of the space inside the hull was packed with supplies; the crew and passengers were limited to only a handful of decks at the top.
She indicated one of the other chairs at the table where Rice sat and he waved her to sit down. “I’m Izatti Sitio. Ensign,” she smiled warmly and self-consciously touched the pip with her fingertips.
“Maurice Rubens. Lieutenant Commander.”
Panic rose up in her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry…Sir. I’m bothering you, Sir.” She half rose up out of her chair, but Rice waved at her to sit down.
“Might as well stay seated. I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing on another again.” He tugged at the collar of his uniform shirt, the same shade as hers.
“Here’s your coffee, babe,” a man said as he fell into the seat next to hers sliding a thick clear cub over to her. He too wore purple and it too had a single gold pip. He held out his hand and smiled, “Iskander Huang bin Oman, but my friends call me ‘Isk.’”
Izatti’s dark eyes widened in embarrassment. “Isk this is Lieutenant Command Rice,” she whispered.
Isk’s smile deepened. He was an overly handsome man, hair parted and coifed to perfection, skin nearly sparkling. “Sweet. Me and Iz just got married and we’re on our way there, too. Finally. Schools out. Ready to tackle this whole Starfleet thing head on. Obsidian Command here we come! What do you do there?”
Without realizing it, Rice’s eyebrows climbed higher up his forward with each passing word until they reached their zenith. Meanwhile, Izatti had turned a deep shade of red while trying to desperately silence her jabbering husband by squeezing his arm. Isk just continued to smile, unaware or unconcerned by the pair’s reaction.
“I’ll be the Chief Diplomatic Officer,” Rice replied.
“Shiok! You’re the man lah! Babe, this is our commanding officer.”
“‘Sir,’” Rice said.
“Of course. Yes, Sir,” Isk’s smile never slipped, “I’m just really excited. I never thought, never, that I’d join Starfleet. Here I am! Both of us.”
“You didn’t go to the Academy,” Rice said as soon as he understood.
“No,” Isk and Izatti said at the same time. He continued, “University of Singapore for me, double degrees in political science and journalism, and –” Isk paused and dramatically gestured at Izatti.
Izatti rolled her eyes in exasperation at her husband’s antics. “Al-Azhar University in Egypt. Anthropology with a focus on dead languages.”
“Then you went through the officer’s training courses,” Rice said, filling in the blanks. To replace staggering losses in the early days of the Dominion War, Starfleet instituted a shortened officers training program for those who held degrees in a number of fields. Although it graduated much smaller numbers now, the practice had continued.
She nodded. “I’d always wanted to go into Starfleet, but my father didn’t support the direction after my mother.”
“Your mother was in Starfleet?” Rice asked.
“No. She was a civilian contractor at Utopia Planitia,” Izatti said.
Isk took hold of one of her hands and sadly smiled at her. “That’s how we met, actually," he said, "They call it a conference, but it is more of a mass grief counselling session. The Federation holds one every year. My dad and my mom were both propulsion experts with the Daystrom Institute. The were only on Mars for the day.”
He’d of course met people affected by the Martian disaster, but Rice’s role had been primarily dealing with the diplomatic fallout of a rescue operation suddenly stopped. Where Starfleet left off, the Federation Diplomatic Corps attempted to pick up. They of course had none of the resources – the Federation wasn’t dedicating anymore – so the entire department tried to cajole other powers, big and small, or even just individual ship captains. His proudest moment came when he convinced a Klingon cruiser to evacuate eighty Romulan children from a colony world to Bajor, an unlikely scenario considering those two species past. Unfortunately, it was his only success.
“I’m sorry for your loss. You couldn’t have been more than teenagers,” he said.
“I was fourteen,” Izatti said. “Isk was –”
“Fifteen,” her husband finished, “You know, it happens. I bet we’re not the only people you’ve met who’ve lost parents when they were kids.”
“You’re not wrong,” Rice replied; he left unsaid the deaths of his own parents on their colony during an attack. “How did your father react to joining?”
“He doesn’t like it,” Izatti shrugged. “He hates it. I think he’s started mourning me already.”
“My auntie, the one who took me in after, doesn’t love the idea either,” Isk said. “But this is Izatti’s dream and it’ll be exciting. Maybe a little terrifying sometimes, but exciting. The work is important, too, lah. So here we are on an adventure. And the best way to have one: together.”
When Rice’s had mentioned his quarters were the size of a closet, he was being generous. The closet in his bedroom on Earth measured at least two-square-feet larger. The space he was in now was barely big enough for the bunk, a thin mattress that was suspended from the wall with two thin cables covered in a dark blue blanket emblazoned with a silver seal of the United Federation of Planets.
Rice, dressed in a pair of Starfleet issued blue-cotton pajamas, was using the bed like a couch, back against the wall, feet on the ground. In this position he could easily manipulate the holographic interfaces projected on the opposite wall. He opened the interface.
When he left Earth, he toyed with the idea of going to see Moon. He hadn’t, hoping she’d found some peace after their split. Now, however, sitting with Isk and Izatti, a happy couple, made him second guess his decision. It’d been some weeks since the she’d rejected his proposal and he was now lightyears from Earth, but Rice wanted her to know…
Wanted her to know what? That’d he’d fled Earth to the outreaches of the Federation and it was her fault?
He closed the interface.
“Get yourself together, man. Don’t overthink it. It’s not some negotiation with the Romulans.”
Opening it once more, he summoned the courage (almost), left the view screen off, and told the computer to send a voice only message.
“Moon, hi. Uh. I don’t often find myself at a loss for words, but I left Earth suddenly and I…I had a nice evening with a married couple and it made me think of you. Of us. Um. I’m off on a new adventure and I just wanted…I just wanted you to know. I’m listening to myself and this was an idiotic idea. I’m going to delete this and go to bed…”
He reached out to the holographic interface and immediately touched the wrong button. The computer dinged and announced the message had been sent. “No. No. No. Computer recall message.” A disembodied voice informed him that it was unable to comply. “Well. Shit.”
For a split-second Rice considered recording another message then shook his head. It wasn't like he was going to run into her on the street.
"Computer dim lights to five percent, wake me when we dock at Obsidian Command.”
