Lessons for Posterity
Posted on Fri Feb 26th, 2021 @ 2:46am by Lieutenant JG Moriah Ama
Edited on on Thu Apr 15th, 2021 @ 7:25am
Mission:
S1, E0: We need each other.
Location: USS Laënnec Shuttle Bay
Timeline: MD001, 1500 hrs
690 words - 1.4 OF Standard Post Measure
The bustle within the Laënnec’s massive shuttle bay ensured that the muffled patter of boots against deck plating resonated into the transport shuttle’s cabin well after its pilot and one of the passengers had disembarked. It likely became white noise to the remaining occupants, however; even those fresh out of the academy should’ve been accustomed to it since much of the requisite travel for their studies was by shuttle. The sources of the ambient din visible through the view ports seemed uninterested in changing that, though Midshipman First Class Jannali Thibault’s ears caught onto purposeful, intensifying steps.
“Did Thuy drink up your heart, lover b—" she began, having timed herself to catch the entrant as they emerged. Yet contrary to the nonchalant lift of her gaze from her tablet, she recited “-oy” as a startled exclamation rather than the intended completive. The dark-complexioned woman she met eyes with wasn’t familiar in the slightest.
“It’s still steeping,” retorted Lieutenant j.g. Moriah Ama as she darted past, her gold tunic a literal flash before Thibault's eyes. A Betelgeusian ensign in support services red followed with comparable haste despite needing to kneel to make the interior’s height clearance. His attention momentarily baited by her quip, Uawi directed a cordial nod to Thibault.
“Midshipman,” he greeted in passing.
“Sir.” Thibault’s progressive reddening belied her reply’s steadiness, prompting a snicker from her neighbor.
“Lieutenant, are you certain of this?” Uawi asked of his friend and shipmate, having shadowed her advance all the way to the controls. “I believe taking a commissioned craft you’re not specifically authorized to use constitutes theft.”
“Except that I’m not removing this craft from its original commission,” Moriah replied, shoving her duffel case into a stowage cubby before taking the pilot’s chair. “Just the custody of its pilot.”
“On what grounds?”
“He’s incapacitated,” Moriah said simply, her hands rapidly taking to the necessary inputs to start the shuttle.
The relative rigidity of Betelgeusian facial physiology failed to stifle a skeptical look from Uwai she felt despite not looking his way.
“An admiral stole my shuttle during my junior-year stint in transport detail,” she expounded, her tone hardened by indignance. “He used the same reasoning to not only duck charges but have me reprimanded for dereliction.”
“Were you also engaged in propositioning another to mate?”
A dark guffaw spearheaded Moriah’s rebuke. “I was repairing an inertial dampening delay he felt despite my attempts to compensate. I was pre-calibrating an external shear sensor I'd replaced when he decided that I was taking too long and left me screaming out my oxygen supply on the Moon’s surface.”
“So, you carry on the legacy of ego-driven bellendery?” posed a revived Thibault.
Moriah momentarily turned to indulge the midshipman. “I’m giving 'Lover Boy' a simulation of ego-driven bellendery so that he won’t catch the genuine article unawares like I did.” She recommitted her focus to completing the pre-flight, shortly after which the boarding ramp retracted, and the hatch closed and sealed. “But he gets the benefit of learning that lesson without a sixteen-kilometer lunar hike and someone he cares about on hand to fret over his well-being.” The hum of priming engines reverberated throughout the cabin, helping obscure her muttering, “God knows her empathy is the only hope those two have.”
“Alex, isn’t that your ship?” Midshipman First Class Thuy Quach inquired of the shuttle her peripheral vision caught hovering onto the flight deck.
Midshipman Alexander Merrill chuckled ruefully. “Is that your roundabout way of suggesting that I get going?”
“Yes! No.” The nurse resident quickly regained her bearing. “I do think you should go, but it’s because I’m serious,” she asserted, reinforcing her observation with a pointer. “I really think your ship is getting underway. Without you.”
By the time Merrill turned to look, the shuttlecraft placed under his competence by Starfleet Transport Operations was indeed taxiing out into space. . .
All characters in this post are written by:
Lieutenant JG Moriah Ama
Chief Flight Control Officer
