PL | Lt. James Stacker | "On Occurrences and Impatience"

Posted on Tue Oct 10th, 2017 @ 11:47pm by Commander James Stacker
Edited on on Tue Oct 10th, 2017 @ 11:50pm

Mission: The Round Table
Location: Civilian Transport 'Post No Bills', Approaching Cold Station Theta
Timeline: The Present.

They were happy to see him go.

It wasn’t that he’d done anything wrong. Far from it, in fact. His reputation as a competent and seasoned professional was secure. The CO had been genuinely sorry to see him transfer, and the XO had expressed similar sentiments at their courtesy-departure meeting. It had been, in part, due to his work that the command - and expeditionary unit - had a growing standing for excellence in the intelligence field. Something neither had been particularly known for in ages past.

So it was that he stood here, at the window, eyeing the station that was slowly growing with nothing wrong to his name. No, he reflected, it hadn’t been that he’d done anything wrong. It was that interesting things tended to follow him from post to post. At first it had been easy to dismiss the uptick in unusual events: the midnight intelligence developments, the calls back to post from his barracks room, the crisis situations that tended to occur an hour before he went off watch.

In time, though, that reputation had followed him like a pervasive stormcloud. One that tossed out the occasional thunderbolt to liven things up, but was otherwise content to hover at a distance. Long ago, he’d concluded there were two ways to deal with this: accept it as a fact-of-life, or be forever disgruntled by the fact that he was perpetually shadowed by strange occurrences. Others, unused to this simple fact, tended to vary in how they responded.

He caught himself as his mind threatened to dwell on the past, stilling a foot that was about to start tapping the corroded deck plate. It was an outward manifestation of … that feeling of being “ancy.” Eager. Impatient. He wanted to get off this old transport that had clearly seen better days. He wanted to do his job. His work. The thing that drove him onwards. Here, aboard a ship with unsecure communication links and a questionable crew, he couldn’t do that. It had been something he could tolerate for a few days, but the two weeks it took to reach Starbase 1170 was almost untolerable.

A smile ghosted the corners of his mouth as he reflected on the impatience. What was a few more minutes compared to the trip? Not long. But still … the ghosting smile flattened as he quashed the feeling and turned to the bags in the corner, heaving a sigh that seemed to take away with it that feeling of being cooped-up. They were packed firmly, secure, closed and buttoned up in a way any Starfleet officer would know and be instantly familiar with. For years of travel, it’s still not much, he thought to himself as a hand reached into the pocket of his uniform and fished out the datapad.

The direction he produced on the screen was simple and concise in only that way Starfleet could do. Transfer orders processed and approved … report to the Executive Officer upon arrival for orientation and quarters assignment … copy of orders forwarded to the Command Team - he snorted at this. The day a Command Team wasn’t made aware of a new transfer would be a frigid day in hell - required to report within seven days.

He turned it off and pocketed the device again. A heavy and grating alarm blared, twice. “All crew, man docking stations. Passengers prepare for disembarkation at Airlock Seven. See the Purser in the starboard passageway, Level J-6, for directions.”

=/\= End Log =/\=

Lt. James K. Stacker
Intelligence Officer
Cold Station Theta, SB-1170