Unwanted

Posted on Fri Jul 27th, 2012 @ 2:33am by Captain Elsie Halliwell & Captain Alexsa Kendrick
Edited on on Fri Aug 3rd, 2012 @ 6:46am

1,674 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Sowing the Seeds
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: T-6 Hours to Departure

Alex must have read the orders a dozen times, and despite her memory being as good as it was, the words still failed to embed into her mind. She was going home. At least where her home would, or should, have been. She'd read about it, heard about it, listened to stories passed down through the generations from her mother before she passed beyond the veil, but she'd never been to the area where her own people fought so hard and lost so much. Their world now no more, she had no reason to set foot in that area of space. With the tales and her younger self's imagination, it bore an uncomfortable reminder of what it must have been like.

But she read it once more--she was going home.

With her reports handed back to the brass regarding Captain Elsie Halliwell and the rest of the Ranger crew, Kendrick thought her job there was done. She'd out stayed what minuscule welcome she had, and on behalf of Halliwell it was bound to be good riddance. Except that's not what was to happen. Her time as an Internal Affairs Investigator aboard the Ranger had come to an end, but her orders were to stay aboard one last time, for one last mission as a Mission Adviser, all thanks to her heritage. She glanced at the half packed case and inaudibly sighed. One more job to do... "Computer, location of Captain Halliwell?" Alex asked to no-one in particular.

"Captain Halliwell is in her ready room." came the monotonous reply.

And at that, Kendrick headed out the door, took a turbolift to Deck One, and pressed the button releasing a chime throughout the ready room of the ship's commanding officer.

Starbase 116 had afforded Elsie some time away from Ranger. In the past three days she had only slept in her own bed once before she decided to secure temporary quarters at spacedock for her and her daughter. And she had relished the freedom away from the responsibilities and weight of command whilst wandering the colossal structure of commerce and variety without a care in the galaxy. She had also, once having arrived with Anaia on 116, even taken to donning plain, civilian clothing to distance herself from the captain persona whilst trying to embrace the mother laying dormant and lifeless inside. But the days away had gone quickly, and before she fully knew it, she was back in her tight collar and pips pouring over the repairs and maintenance reports the starbase crew had written and left to her. The chime interrupted her train of thought, but Elsie couldn't help but feel grateful for the distraction. Any distraction! She always found it somewhat difficult to align with the grooves of command once she had freed herself from their runs.

Once the command was given, the doors parted and Kendrick could not ignore the appearance of Elsie Halliwell. The Captain had had almost a week away from her responsibilities and binds that held her in the centre seat and yet she still looked tired, weary, maybe even a little bored with the daily grind. Unfortunately, Kendrick was not about to ease the troubled looking brow of her coming colleague. "Welcome back," Alex started as cheerfully as her darkened personality could muster. "I presume you received a copy of my report back to Headquarters?"

"I think that there's something to be said for a dispassionate statement of opinion, Captain," Elsie replied, not linking her fingers together and placing them on her lap. "And as an author, I can hardly be classed as an admirer of your work." She inhaled for a moment and then locked her eyes onto Kendrick. "It makes for fascinating reading; an outside view into your innermost thoughts."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry it was necessary." Alex said in an almost hushed tone, conveying the impression that it was not really meant; Halliwell would just have to wonder. "It was my job."

To counter, Elsie simply replied with "We all have our jobs to do, Captain. And we all have our peculiar methods."

"In any case," Alex cut in virtually ignoring the comments before anything more was said, "despite what we both want, my appointment to the Ranger has been requested to continue as Mission Adviser to your next orders." It was probably not lost that Kendrick's general expression and demeanour had changed from her previous appointment to the Ranger to this one. In all this time, over the past many years, she had managed to escape the nostalgia, to bury herself in her work, to conveniently forget the painful memories of her past--but now there was no escape, the running was to end.

"So I am to believe," Elsie said, tossing the data-PaDD that lay idly by her right hand casually between them both. "And as such, I have arranged for your current quarters to be continually assigned to you to minimise any upheaval."

"Thank you, captain."

"I also am lead to believe that your experience with this sector promotes you to my right-hand man. What can you tell me?" Elsie asked. Truth be told, she had had enough of her own behaviour with regards to their rivalry, let alone that of Kendrick's, and had decided, against her better, stubborn judgement, to attempt to bury the hachet for the time they were to be bed-fellows.

Kendrick wasn''t prepared for the request of a briefing so soon, she'd expected to be doing this in front of the senior staff in the conference room en route to their meeting with the USS Dubai. "Not much." she said plainly as she walked round the visitor's chair in front of her and took a seat, not without a split second's pause, and regarded the PADD in front of her. Alex didn't really want to be here discussing this as she sat back in the seat, but with her current mindset, where better than the apparent privacy of the Captain's ready room. "To be honest with you, I have never travelled through this area of space, despite my heritage background saying that my species originated there. But our world has long been destroyed." Alex's mind wandered a second thinking of a painting her mother had done. It was one of her favourite and most prized possessions until their homestead was burnt to the ground and she'd fled.

"Must have been tragic," Elsie replied poignantly, regarding Kendrick with a softer expression than was usual for her to display. "How did the planet come to its end?"

Elsie's tones brought Alex back to the present. "No-one really knows, it happened so long ago. I've heard stories that have passed through generations but..." Kendrick paused. "Have you heard of the phrase Chinese whispers, captain?"

Elsie's mind immediately shot back to her own situation onboard the Proteus when she was merely an ensign, rising through the Science department's ranks and to the personal scandal she suffered after the affair she embarked on with her head of department was exposed. The sting had never quite removed itself from her heart after his wife was revealed to be very much his wife, despite protestations to the contrary. The rumour mill began to turn and before the week was through, reports of her orchestrated mnage trois with the officers had reached fever pitch, laying down such falsities as a marriage of three and the prospect of Elsie becoming an official mistress. The flash of her eyes must have conveyed some wounded thought as Elsie's attention returned back to Kendrick. "I am very much familiar with its concept, Captain."

"To not put a stain on my parents memory, they had the air of those. Rumours, myth, and stories to frighten small children."

"And with the hindsight of wisdom and age, Captain?" Elsie then asked, regarding Alex with a questioning raised eyebrow.

Kendrick sighed. "Perhaps." After a short pause, she went on, "I was six years old when my mother passed giving birth to my sister. My father did his best to keep her memory, stories, and heritage alive, but it wasn't the same." There was another pregnant pause as Alex briefly reminisced, but just before Halliwell was gearing up to speak, she got in there first once more, and moved back down to business. "What I can tell you right now, is that the Calamai sector is virtually deserted, dead. Despite it being a blank area of space on a map between three major powers and several smaller ones, it holds little strategic value, at least unless this survey points to any natural resources not previously known about. My experience for lack of a better word can only get you so far in this I'm afraid, despite what the brass might think" Kendrick said as she stood, "the rest, we'll just have to wing it. When we get under way and closer, I'll be contacting the USS Dubai who are already cataloguing the sector and have been for some time, on subspace with a view to pooling our resources as I know the captain personally. Past that, I'm here if I can help, but this is very much your mission, captain."

Elsie's expression quickly turned to one of slight amusement as she thought to herself 'As was the last,' but she remained silent to keep the peace and abate the simmering tension between the two. "I'm sure whatever assistance you can offer will only help the situation." She sighed and then leant back into her chair a little to seem more relaxed. "I'll give the order to leave within the next six hours, captain, and I'll keep you informed of our ETA. I still have a few things more to tie up before we depart."

"Appreciated, thank you." Kendrick stated matter-of-factly before glancing at the small array of PADD's on Halliwell's desk. "I guess I shall leave you to said... things. Good day, captain."

 

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