New Adventures
Posted on 12 Jun 2023 @ 9:13pm by Major Porter Wallace & Olivia Winetrout
Edited on on 25 Apr 2024 @ 4:05pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Sickbay, Pathfinder
Timeline: MD11, 0920 HR
1571 words - 3.1 OF Standard Post Measure
The motion - up, down, up, down - became a dream in Wallace’s head. He’d been nine when his dad had loaded him up in the small fishing boat and puttered out into San Francisco Bay. He hadn’t particularly liked fishing, but he did enjoy spending time with his dad. The bay had been rough that day. His father had no concerns. He’d spent his youth sailing the world’s oceans and fishing wherever he could drop anchor. To Wallace, however, it felt like a hurricane. His dream put him right back in the boat again, clinging to the sides as the cold waves broke over the gunwale as the wind whistled and snapped at the tiny United Earth flag fluttering from the stern.
His eyes flung open and he quickly became attuned to his surroundings and the girl playing with the buttons on the side of the biobed. Wallace reached out and grabbed Olivia’s hand off the controls for the bio bed. Luckily, his grip was weak and blunted the adrenaline surge that would have otherwise strengthened it. “Please…stop.”
Olivia was shocked more than hurt. Wallace had been laying so still, so boringly still, and she had been amusing herself with the little switches on the sides of his bed, at first with the tilt settings and then making it rise. Then fall, and rise, and fall. Each time going a little further and wondering what the lowest and highest it would really go would be. And then all of a sudden on one of the trips down, he snagged her. She stared at him with wide eyes, somewhat awestruck. She half expected him to start shouting, even though he looked too frail to even sit up. But after a few seconds of expectant staring, she relaxed. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Don’t…worry…about it. Glowing…buttons. I get…it.” Wallace settled back into the bed and tried smiling, though it felt a little lopsided. “How you…doing?”
She scratched her collarbones through the sleeveless tank she was wearing. “Ibis made me wear a shirt. She said we had to get dressed to get our checking-ups. But that they’re going to have us take off the clothes again when they look at us. It’s dumb.”
“This is…all…I get,” Wallace said motioning down to the thin, blue hospital gown. “I would…love…pants. And a…shirt.”
She pulled at the collar of the shirt, not understanding why it was a thing people wanted. “It’s making me gag.”
“It’ll…take some…time. You’ll…get used…to it.”
“Ikemba has to have a new one every time we eat. It just comes out of the wall. Shirts and food.”
“Replicator. No more…seaweed.”
“Doors open by themselves. It gets light or dark any time you say Computer and then tell it. You can even make it warmer or colder.”
“Something else…it does…where is it?” Wallace rolled his head around and spotted the PADD on his side table. The medical staff had given it to him so during the few occasions he woke up he could read or watch a holoprogram, instead of just stare at his toes. Gingerly he reached out and snagged it with his fingertips. The effort looked intense, although the little thing was only a couple feet away. He took a moment to recover. “Computer, pull personal logs…for Lieutenant Commander Matthew Winetrout, USS Sunrise...prior to stardate…675..36..point 44...and personal logs for…Lieutenant Laura Winetrout…of the same vessel. Highlight…all logs…that mention daughter…Olivia. Also, access…personal files…for any media files.”
The computer acknowledged the order and Wallace held it out to Olivia. “Want…to see…your dad and mom?”
Uncertain what it could mean to see them, Olivia reached out for the thin flat glossy thing. It was a lot like the one he had saved but maybe longer and narrower. As she turned it, the dark glass began to glow to life with a bunch of little moving icons, miniature pictures of faces and people, and they all scrolled by slowly. Right away she recognized her mother in many of the icons. But she looked different. There was a man’s face in just as many of the little images. A face that she felt strangely familiar with, a rounded face, trimmed dark beard, and with eyes creased with a smile. As they kept scrolling, a small, chubby baby started to comprise more images than the rest. Thinking of the lighted glass of the space ship controls, and all of the surfaces she watched adults tap to order things from replicators or the computer… she touched one of the tiny images.
“Don’t drop her, Matt.” Her mother’s voice came out, small but near. Olivia lifted the pad slightly, as if there might be something under it; she couldn’t understand exactly that it had been her mother holding the recorder in the playback.
When she looked back at the top surface, in the image that suddenly filled the pad, the man was holding the baby over his head, making funny noises with his lips burbling. The baby was kicking her legs and spinning her arms laughing so hard with her entire body, it made Olivia light up watching. Then, a long trail of drool fell out of the baby’s lips, right into the man’s face.
“Oh! She got me! Olivia got me! Right in the eye!” He overacted playfully and then flipped her into his arms and blew a raspberry into the baby’s tummy.
As if she was close-by, her mother’s laughter laced the whole scene. “You had that coming,” Laura said.
The file data scrolled over the footer as the recording stopped, the picture frozen on the last frame of father and child.
“That’s me? That’s my dad?”
Wallace nodded. “Good…engineer. Bit of a…comedian. Practical joker. I didn’t…know him…that well, though. Ibis…maybe did. He loved…talking about…you…in senior…staff meetings. And your mom,” he indicated the rest of the sickbay with a small wave of his hand, “Your mom…worked in a…sickbay just like…this. Fixing up…people…who were…just like me. Well…maybe not this…bad.”
Olivia hugged the pad close and looked back at Wallace. It was bad. He could barely talk. “I thought you were killed by the Z’ala god. I held Ikemba. I carried the yellow box, and the other one of these.” She thought now that she understood. The other one was like this one. It had their memories in it.
“You did…good. Really. Very…brave.” Wallace motioned for her to take his hand. “As for…me dying…someone…reminded me…this isn’t even…the first time…it’s happened. Take more…than a so-called god…to stop me…getting back…to my family.”
“I’m sorry I told you I wished you would die.” She wasn’t sure which time she was sorry for saying it. All of the times.
Wallace squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry…about it. I know…you didn’t…mean it.”
“Ibis says we’re going away from the Korin. To a thing called a space station. She says we have to see more doctors there.”
He pointed back at himself and smiled weakly, “Who? Me? I don’t…need more…doctors.”
Olivia thought about what her mother might have offered when someone was in her clinic. She smirked. “I could get the computer to make fish broth.”
“Oh, god,” Wallace groaned, “I’ve changed…my mind.” He paused staring at Olivia for a while without speaking. “Are you…angry you’re…not on Korin…anymore?”
The question made Olivia stop and feel turned around inside. She felt the corner of the pad she was holding in her one hand. She was angry, but she was also not sure. “I miss my friends. No one here plays with me.”
He nodded slowly. “This is…a working ship…No families…No kids…The space station…don’t know…how big, but…thousands of people…at least…Will be kids…there. New friends.”
Thousands felt abstractly huge to Olivia. Both exciting and terrifying all at once. And none of them would be Korinn cubs. “Ibis told me I would get to join a school.”
“School. Heh. Not that…kind. Learn art…reading...physics…that kind of stuff.”
“Oh.” Olivia felt as if Ibis had lied. “I don’t want to join a learner school.”
“Remember how…the cubs…were always faster…and could…go deeper? Tell you…about things…in the deep…you’d never see?”
She made a face, like she had gotten saltwater in a wound.
“You’re going…places now…they’ll never go…Seeing things…they’ll never see…Going faster…than they…ever will…This is an…adventure…Your adventure…Learning is…so you can…be part of it.”
“My adventure,” she echoed, considering.
“Olivia—” Ensign Wonai waved to her from the other side of the sick bay. “It’s your turn. Come.”
Wallace gave her hand another squeeze. “Just remember…put your clothes…on after.”
Olivia chirruped a Korinn ‘maybe, if I feel like it’, and squeezed his hand back.
