Things Past – Incognito - Part 7 - M'Aidez
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
OLD:
"I'm not proving to be the most comfortable mission partner you ever had, am i?" (Cari) hung her head, heading off the expected reprimand, knowing full well how much of an understatement that was as she wilted under the stony look on his blood and grime stained face.
It wasn't really a good time to suddenly have the second penny drop, this time about how much effect those eyes were beginning to have on her, but then Chelsea never *had* been noted for her excellent timing. She blushed and finally fell silent, finding a spot on the floor *really* interesting to stare at.
Luckily, Baby Henry knew what to do instinctively. As Chelsea rose upwards, he held out his arms, gurgling for Rick, his jagged baby teeth more prominent when he was grinning and growling in affection. Chelsea invoked the Prophets silently for this to be a sufficient distraction to save her, at least temporarily.
NEW:
Rick cooed at the baby and smiled, he had totally fallen for its cute child tendencies and charm. He picked the baby up from Chelsea and started playing with him. His voice was all silly and childish as he went; “Who’s....a cute little man....who’s cute little man” and every time the baby would giggle Rick would Say “Oh yes you are” with a big smile on his face. How easily he had become distracted from the problems of realty. Actually it was more like those problems were not as bad.
Rick picked up a Phase coil resonator from the engineers tool kit. He started to explain what he was going to do to the little baby as he waved the instrument of engineering in front of the little baby's face “Now this is a phase coil resonator we are going to use to regulate the and Tune the metaphasic subspace collector with psilosynine subcircuits.” With one arm around the baby protectively he got to work still talking as he did.”Then, we need to Stabilize the synaptic intermix formula with Dermatiraelian algorithms.....if I just...” he took out another tool from the kit box. “This is a quatum flux regulator and I’m going to use this to balance the eisilium compositor with compressed controlled nitrium phaser buffer.....and then if a just....” he moved a couple of isonlinear chips into new sockets “...put that there then. Voila!” Nothing happened. The baby giggled.
Rick frowned at the exposed parts of the ships inner workings and pouted a bit. This time he was talking to himself rather than the baby. “Looks like plasma conduits are shot to hell.” He bounced the baby a bit in his arm as it gurgled despondently at this now lack of attention. “Ok...Ok" he said to the baby, giving it a sonic spanner to play with. He took out the Deuterium cartridges from the Antimatter relay and replaced it with a new one. He took our a large metal cylinder from his bits box of parts and started talking to the baby again. “Now this is a micro portable generator....though there is nothing micro about it, i can use it to recharge the dilithium articulation frame in the back up warp core to power up the crystals and hopefully.....” again nothing happened. He sighed a bit. “Ok we have serious problem on our hands."
There was no way he was going to get this ship back online.
Chelsea watched them, listening to the technobabble and getting more and more starry eyed over Rick. With the baby being cared for and herself decidedly *NOT* flavour of the week, she drifted to the aft, fetched the emergency supplies as bidden earlier and stacked them near the centre, within reach of Rick's hole in the floor. Then she went carefully to the bedroom, picking her way there by feel in the darkness and brought back some baby formula she'd had in there earlier. If the replicators stayed offline, they'd need all the babyfood they could lay hands on.
She wanted to ask how long they could last if it never started again and if they had distress flares but she didn't dare bring up the subject or draw attention to herself all the time the baby was getting her a respite from Rick's disdain.
When she returned Rick was sitting in his seat a perplexed look on his face and tapping the sonic spanner against his lips thoughtfully whilst cradling the baby in one arm. "I can't fix it. We're going to have to launch the emergency beacon."
Chelsea felt a wave of something creep over her. Some of it was relief that she wasn't going to have to ask him to do that and risk making him more mad with her, the rest was a form of alarm at the idea that he had finally been beaten when up to now he had proven infallibly ingenious and successful at pulling miracles out of his rear.
"Oh, okay" was all she said. "Are we......far from anywhere?" she ventured carefully.
Rick nodded sadly "Its called deep space for reason." he said more to himself than to her, he seemed to still be thinking out the problem at hand. "Can you do a supply check for me please?" asked Rick politely; they were after all of the same rank. "I'm going to see if I can increase the range of the Emergency beacon."
Chelsea was more worried by his politeness than the fear of his being cross with her. "Yes, yes of course...." she replied and obediently went off to do as she was asked.
Rick lined the baby's makeshift cot with extra insulation before getting on with his work. Somehow he needed to increase the signal range of beacon. He set about dismantling the couple of probes they had onboard and then use parts from that power up the emergency beacon. So by torchlight (having to have put the baby back in its cot) he got to work.
Chelsea took stock of their supplies, put the list onto a padd and put that on top of the now open and organised boxes. The baby was put out to have been put into his crib but seemed tired. Chelsea rocked his bed from side to side by holding the top and he protested less and less until he finally nodded off.
She then turned her attention to Rick and asked in a whisper. "Is there anything I can do?" she winced, waiting for him to tell her no, because the last time he gave her a job she got them into this mess.
"Yeah" said Rick passing her the torch "Hold this and shine it here, I need both hands for this." He removed the casing RM-6 Modular casing of the probe. His idea was to remove the sensor package from within it, take the power relays from the sensor package as well as it range focus devices then install them into the emergency beacon. "I hope this works" he mumbled to the room in general as he carried on with his work.
~So do I~ thought Chelsea. Much as she was becoming *taken* with this man, she didn't really want to freeze to death out here, even if it might be in his arms (which *would* soften the blow somewhat) and her mission was to save the baby and deliver him home so she didn't want to fail at that either.
Rick wasn't feeling the cold just yet, he was still being kept on the move by the work he was doing. After retreiving the parts he needed, Rick had to gain access to the emergency beacon. To do this he had to get to its launch tube which was built into the ship. This meant a space walk, so with the Orion's aid he suited up, grabbed the part he needed and headed out of the airlock after having to manually open it.
Space walks always gave him vertigo so he tried his best to keep his eyes on the hull as he clambered slowly of the exterior of the wrecked ship. Every step he took seemed to send noisy tremors through the hull. He reached his destination and had to use a crowbar to get the battered hull plating off.
Exposing the launch tube to space, he then opened up the beacon inside it, Rick had to fiddle with many tiny magnetic seals and self sealing stem bolts in a clumsy space suite, so the pace of his endevour was not fast. He did manage to get it open in the end however and he installed the extra parts then sealed it up. He activated his comm =^= Ok all done. Launch it. =^=
=^= What??? With you still out there? =^= Chelsea had been VERY worried when *Henry* had disappeared out into space. She had found herself very alone inside the ship with the baby and had felt very vulnerable. "Please... be careful?" she had entreated him, clutching his huge suited arm before he put the helmet on.
The idea that she should press any buttons at all had her very nervous now but the button to fire something so close to him was more than she could bear to risk.
=^= "I can't.... what if it goes wrong and you get hurt? =^= she pleaded.
His reply came quickly =^= Always a distinct possibility love. We are starfleet officers after all. It comes with the Job......Besides (he said a little nicer) I have to be out here to make sure it launches ok. =^=
=^= er... which button again? =^= she was in a flat panic now.
There was a loud bang as Rick banged the helmet of his space suite against the hull of the ship in despair. =^= Really? you have to ask that question? Did you not pay any attention in basic astro navigation classes? =^= A standard subject that all first year academy students had to take. Exasperated Rick said through gritted teeth =^= Its the big blue one marked emergency beacon =^=
=^= I paid as much attention to the Astro-Navigation class as you did to the basic First Aid.... okay? =^= she bit back, hurt. ~I can do this... I'll show you.. condescending prat... and if you get shot out into space... don't bloody come back!!!~ She slammed the blue button hard and there was an explosive noise on the outer hull.
She screamed and ran to the port hole. =^= NOOOOOOO.... I didn't mean it..... Don't be dead? =^=
Silence.......Then a cocky =^= I didn't know you cared =^= Rick was hanging in deep space. Only a thin metal cord stopped him from drifting into the inky blackness of space. He began to pull himself back to the ship after the small explosion had thrown him off the hull, but the beacon had launched successfully.
"bastard..." she half whispered, half sobbed, sliding down into the pilot's seat as if her legs wouldn't hold her up any more.
The explosion had woken Baby Henry who objected loudly. "Yeah? Just because you're name's Henry too, doesn't mean you have to be as horrible as he is.... I saved your ungrateful life...." she complained to the baby as she dutifully got up and picked him up, holding him against her in a comforting manner that was in complete contradiction to her words. The effect was to calm him down because he didn't understand the words, only the body language.
By the time Henry Senior had returned inside the ship they were a picture of domestic serenity. Cari in the deep bucket shaped seat with the baby in her arms, rocking him and cooing to him, telling him it was all going to be okay and that his Uncle Henry was going to get them home just as soon as he stopped messing about amusing himself by trying to scare them to death and got on with the real genius stuff that he was so good at.
Whether or not Chelsea actually believed that, was left totally for the *genius* pilot to work out for himself but he could've gleaned a clue from how pale the doctor was, even in the artificial *back-up* lighting.
Chelsea was beyond exhausted. It had been a difficult birth and she'd nearly lost both her patients at one point or another. She was a talented enough doctor to have remained calm until they were safe but it had been an emotional roller-coaster for a young newly qualified of only 22 yrs old.
Then she had gone through all these dramas and traumas since all that, only to find herself waiting for a rescue that was totally against the odds, in a cold dark piece of space junk, with a baby and a 'lunatic'.
She felt she was being very brave considering but she was sure that the nutter was more than likely to have completely written her off by now. It *was* after all, her fault they were in this current mess.
"We may be here a while" said the 'Lunatic' wrapping a thermal blanket around her. "Best to keep warm and start regulating your temperature." When she was wrapped up and had one hand free, he then passed her a hot drink. "Sorry its not very nice, just a self heating protein and nutrients drink from the survival packs. But it will help keep you warm" He sat down in the chair next to her grimacing from the taste after he took a sip of the drink.
Chelsea was appreciative of the care he was taking. He didn't *have* to take care of her at all and she knew this very well. It was actually very nice of him and that confused her, but in a good way. "Thank you" she said gently, taking the drink and sipping at it cautiously. "This would be a nice time to be able to ask one another what we like to do or where we grew up or stuff to keep our minds off our probable fate....." she said sadly, knowing they couldn't talk about things like that.
Rick smiled as he took a sip of the bad tasting hot drink. "I wish we could" he said agreeing to the un-said remark between them about not being able to talk on such matter and subject material. "How about we make up stories of what we would of done if we hadn't joined starfleet? Or what we want with our futures?"
Chelsea brightened and grinned. "Sure! That's a good idea!" she agreed happily. "You go first...... what would have happened to you if you hadn't joined Starfleet? I bet you'd have been a stunt pilot.... or a taxi-shuttle pilot out of the busiest space port out there."
"Historian" said Rick with a whimsical smile "I would've gone to the universities of Memory Alpha....maybe Earth and studied history and literature, maybe even done some writing of my own.....written a book or something." He coughed to cover his sudden embarrassment.
"Really?" her surprise was genuine but not critical. "Those are such steady, studious, gentle things for someone who flies like a bat on an opiate." she smiled, the metaphor more of a compliment when it left her than it might get taken as.
He shrugged nonchalantly "I didn't really get into flying until I joined starfleet. Before I did I had always been in to reading and books, they were like my friends" He took a sip of his drink again and then turned the tables on her. "What about you, what would of you been if you hadn't signed up ?"
"Apart from rejected by my Grandfather?" she smirked. "No, he wouldn't have rejected me but I know he'd have been *very* disappointed. As a child I always wanted to be an explorer.... but most of the universe had been discovered already so I had to settle for Grammy's back garden on a dog-sled with her poor old German Shepherd harnesed in, being longsufferingly patient with me." she smiled fondly at the memory. "Dear old Quinn"
Rick frowned that didn't really answer the question "so you would of been some sort of animal tamer......?" asked Rick tentatively wondering where the answer was in her statement.
Chelsea laughed. "Animal trainer..... that would have been fun but I wouldn't have wanted to be part of one of those horrible 'circus' things." she shuddered.
"No, I always wanted to be a doctor or a nurse or a Vet." she admitted. "So if I hadn't done that through Starfleet, I'd have been privately trained."
"Nothing else at all....nothing..you would've been a Doc or Vet or nurse....you've always wanted to be that and nothing else? What. Not even a Musician or ballerina or president...nothing else?" Rick thought her answer to be a little boring.
"I liked the things that little girls like, but I always wanted to make things better. " she answered a little awkwardly, painfully aware that she'd clearly disappointed him.
"You see, my dad was my hero and when he got sick, no-one could make him better. I was six and I couldn't understand why. In my child's mind I thought it must be that they should have tried harder but he would smile and hug me and say they were doing their best. He used to say it was the will of the Pr...... that....." She stumbled over the Bajorn connection again. "He said I was the only one who made him *feel* better and that I was a *natural* at caring for others." It was true, he *had* also said that aswell.
"What bereaved child could have failed to try to live up to that?" she finished explaining simply, the way it had felt to her as a child. "I never wanted anything more than how much I wanted my dad back and caring for the sick is the only way I have to feel closer to him again." She felt sad at the memories this brought back and shivered, pulling the wrap closer around her and the drink tighter in towards her in a little huddle but she felt her father's smile and strength from them too, as she often did when she thought of him.
"I'm going to be a great surgeon one day and make him proud." she announced with new courage suddenly. "I think *that* will be very exciting and much more rewarding than being a stuffy old ballerina." Her pout was cute but the corners of her lips were playing with a smile that soon emerged to show she wasn't really being insulting to dancers, just her slightly facetious sense of humour showing itself as it would do more and more as she got older and more confident.
Rick smiled and chuckled at her joke he opened his mouth to speak, he was about to say how she would make a great medical professional he was also hoping to build up the courage to say how cute her pout was. But he was interrupted by a pout of static an a garbled message coming from the ships comm unit.
=^= Thi........Star......ship.... US.......Co..Do... =^=
Static shot the through the comm unit. Then the Message cleared up =^= Repeat. This is the Federation Starship USS Constitution. Do you require our assistance? =^=
TBC
A JP between:
Cadet Rick Dunham
aka Henry the Vulcan
and
Cadet Chelsea Adams
aka Cari the Orion
by Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Incognito - Part 7 - M'Aidez | |
| Mission | Things Past | |
| Author(s) | Commander Chelsea Dunham & Commander Richard Dunham | |
| Posted | Fri Aug 19, 2011 @ 10:53am | |
| Location | Somewhere in Deep Space | |
| Timeline | 2874 |
"I'm not proving to be the most comfortable mission partner you ever had, am i?" (Cari) hung her head, heading off the expected reprimand, knowing full well how much of an understatement that was as she wilted under the stony look on his blood and grime stained face.
It wasn't really a good time to suddenly have the second penny drop, this time about how much effect those eyes were beginning to have on her, but then Chelsea never *had* been noted for her excellent timing. She blushed and finally fell silent, finding a spot on the floor *really* interesting to stare at.
Luckily, Baby Henry knew what to do instinctively. As Chelsea rose upwards, he held out his arms, gurgling for Rick, his jagged baby teeth more prominent when he was grinning and growling in affection. Chelsea invoked the Prophets silently for this to be a sufficient distraction to save her, at least temporarily.
NEW:
Rick cooed at the baby and smiled, he had totally fallen for its cute child tendencies and charm. He picked the baby up from Chelsea and started playing with him. His voice was all silly and childish as he went; “Who’s....a cute little man....who’s cute little man” and every time the baby would giggle Rick would Say “Oh yes you are” with a big smile on his face. How easily he had become distracted from the problems of realty. Actually it was more like those problems were not as bad.
Rick picked up a Phase coil resonator from the engineers tool kit. He started to explain what he was going to do to the little baby as he waved the instrument of engineering in front of the little baby's face “Now this is a phase coil resonator we are going to use to regulate the and Tune the metaphasic subspace collector with psilosynine subcircuits.” With one arm around the baby protectively he got to work still talking as he did.”Then, we need to Stabilize the synaptic intermix formula with Dermatiraelian algorithms.....if I just...” he took out another tool from the kit box. “This is a quatum flux regulator and I’m going to use this to balance the eisilium compositor with compressed controlled nitrium phaser buffer.....and then if a just....” he moved a couple of isonlinear chips into new sockets “...put that there then. Voila!” Nothing happened. The baby giggled.
Rick frowned at the exposed parts of the ships inner workings and pouted a bit. This time he was talking to himself rather than the baby. “Looks like plasma conduits are shot to hell.” He bounced the baby a bit in his arm as it gurgled despondently at this now lack of attention. “Ok...Ok" he said to the baby, giving it a sonic spanner to play with. He took out the Deuterium cartridges from the Antimatter relay and replaced it with a new one. He took our a large metal cylinder from his bits box of parts and started talking to the baby again. “Now this is a micro portable generator....though there is nothing micro about it, i can use it to recharge the dilithium articulation frame in the back up warp core to power up the crystals and hopefully.....” again nothing happened. He sighed a bit. “Ok we have serious problem on our hands."
There was no way he was going to get this ship back online.
Chelsea watched them, listening to the technobabble and getting more and more starry eyed over Rick. With the baby being cared for and herself decidedly *NOT* flavour of the week, she drifted to the aft, fetched the emergency supplies as bidden earlier and stacked them near the centre, within reach of Rick's hole in the floor. Then she went carefully to the bedroom, picking her way there by feel in the darkness and brought back some baby formula she'd had in there earlier. If the replicators stayed offline, they'd need all the babyfood they could lay hands on.
She wanted to ask how long they could last if it never started again and if they had distress flares but she didn't dare bring up the subject or draw attention to herself all the time the baby was getting her a respite from Rick's disdain.
When she returned Rick was sitting in his seat a perplexed look on his face and tapping the sonic spanner against his lips thoughtfully whilst cradling the baby in one arm. "I can't fix it. We're going to have to launch the emergency beacon."
Chelsea felt a wave of something creep over her. Some of it was relief that she wasn't going to have to ask him to do that and risk making him more mad with her, the rest was a form of alarm at the idea that he had finally been beaten when up to now he had proven infallibly ingenious and successful at pulling miracles out of his rear.
"Oh, okay" was all she said. "Are we......far from anywhere?" she ventured carefully.
Rick nodded sadly "Its called deep space for reason." he said more to himself than to her, he seemed to still be thinking out the problem at hand. "Can you do a supply check for me please?" asked Rick politely; they were after all of the same rank. "I'm going to see if I can increase the range of the Emergency beacon."
Chelsea was more worried by his politeness than the fear of his being cross with her. "Yes, yes of course...." she replied and obediently went off to do as she was asked.
Rick lined the baby's makeshift cot with extra insulation before getting on with his work. Somehow he needed to increase the signal range of beacon. He set about dismantling the couple of probes they had onboard and then use parts from that power up the emergency beacon. So by torchlight (having to have put the baby back in its cot) he got to work.
Chelsea took stock of their supplies, put the list onto a padd and put that on top of the now open and organised boxes. The baby was put out to have been put into his crib but seemed tired. Chelsea rocked his bed from side to side by holding the top and he protested less and less until he finally nodded off.
She then turned her attention to Rick and asked in a whisper. "Is there anything I can do?" she winced, waiting for him to tell her no, because the last time he gave her a job she got them into this mess.
"Yeah" said Rick passing her the torch "Hold this and shine it here, I need both hands for this." He removed the casing RM-6 Modular casing of the probe. His idea was to remove the sensor package from within it, take the power relays from the sensor package as well as it range focus devices then install them into the emergency beacon. "I hope this works" he mumbled to the room in general as he carried on with his work.
~So do I~ thought Chelsea. Much as she was becoming *taken* with this man, she didn't really want to freeze to death out here, even if it might be in his arms (which *would* soften the blow somewhat) and her mission was to save the baby and deliver him home so she didn't want to fail at that either.
Rick wasn't feeling the cold just yet, he was still being kept on the move by the work he was doing. After retreiving the parts he needed, Rick had to gain access to the emergency beacon. To do this he had to get to its launch tube which was built into the ship. This meant a space walk, so with the Orion's aid he suited up, grabbed the part he needed and headed out of the airlock after having to manually open it.
Space walks always gave him vertigo so he tried his best to keep his eyes on the hull as he clambered slowly of the exterior of the wrecked ship. Every step he took seemed to send noisy tremors through the hull. He reached his destination and had to use a crowbar to get the battered hull plating off.
Exposing the launch tube to space, he then opened up the beacon inside it, Rick had to fiddle with many tiny magnetic seals and self sealing stem bolts in a clumsy space suite, so the pace of his endevour was not fast. He did manage to get it open in the end however and he installed the extra parts then sealed it up. He activated his comm =^= Ok all done. Launch it. =^=
=^= What??? With you still out there? =^= Chelsea had been VERY worried when *Henry* had disappeared out into space. She had found herself very alone inside the ship with the baby and had felt very vulnerable. "Please... be careful?" she had entreated him, clutching his huge suited arm before he put the helmet on.
The idea that she should press any buttons at all had her very nervous now but the button to fire something so close to him was more than she could bear to risk.
=^= "I can't.... what if it goes wrong and you get hurt? =^= she pleaded.
His reply came quickly =^= Always a distinct possibility love. We are starfleet officers after all. It comes with the Job......Besides (he said a little nicer) I have to be out here to make sure it launches ok. =^=
=^= er... which button again? =^= she was in a flat panic now.
There was a loud bang as Rick banged the helmet of his space suite against the hull of the ship in despair. =^= Really? you have to ask that question? Did you not pay any attention in basic astro navigation classes? =^= A standard subject that all first year academy students had to take. Exasperated Rick said through gritted teeth =^= Its the big blue one marked emergency beacon =^=
=^= I paid as much attention to the Astro-Navigation class as you did to the basic First Aid.... okay? =^= she bit back, hurt. ~I can do this... I'll show you.. condescending prat... and if you get shot out into space... don't bloody come back!!!~ She slammed the blue button hard and there was an explosive noise on the outer hull.
She screamed and ran to the port hole. =^= NOOOOOOO.... I didn't mean it..... Don't be dead? =^=
Silence.......Then a cocky =^= I didn't know you cared =^= Rick was hanging in deep space. Only a thin metal cord stopped him from drifting into the inky blackness of space. He began to pull himself back to the ship after the small explosion had thrown him off the hull, but the beacon had launched successfully.
"bastard..." she half whispered, half sobbed, sliding down into the pilot's seat as if her legs wouldn't hold her up any more.
The explosion had woken Baby Henry who objected loudly. "Yeah? Just because you're name's Henry too, doesn't mean you have to be as horrible as he is.... I saved your ungrateful life...." she complained to the baby as she dutifully got up and picked him up, holding him against her in a comforting manner that was in complete contradiction to her words. The effect was to calm him down because he didn't understand the words, only the body language.
By the time Henry Senior had returned inside the ship they were a picture of domestic serenity. Cari in the deep bucket shaped seat with the baby in her arms, rocking him and cooing to him, telling him it was all going to be okay and that his Uncle Henry was going to get them home just as soon as he stopped messing about amusing himself by trying to scare them to death and got on with the real genius stuff that he was so good at.
Whether or not Chelsea actually believed that, was left totally for the *genius* pilot to work out for himself but he could've gleaned a clue from how pale the doctor was, even in the artificial *back-up* lighting.
Chelsea was beyond exhausted. It had been a difficult birth and she'd nearly lost both her patients at one point or another. She was a talented enough doctor to have remained calm until they were safe but it had been an emotional roller-coaster for a young newly qualified of only 22 yrs old.
Then she had gone through all these dramas and traumas since all that, only to find herself waiting for a rescue that was totally against the odds, in a cold dark piece of space junk, with a baby and a 'lunatic'.
She felt she was being very brave considering but she was sure that the nutter was more than likely to have completely written her off by now. It *was* after all, her fault they were in this current mess.
"We may be here a while" said the 'Lunatic' wrapping a thermal blanket around her. "Best to keep warm and start regulating your temperature." When she was wrapped up and had one hand free, he then passed her a hot drink. "Sorry its not very nice, just a self heating protein and nutrients drink from the survival packs. But it will help keep you warm" He sat down in the chair next to her grimacing from the taste after he took a sip of the drink.
Chelsea was appreciative of the care he was taking. He didn't *have* to take care of her at all and she knew this very well. It was actually very nice of him and that confused her, but in a good way. "Thank you" she said gently, taking the drink and sipping at it cautiously. "This would be a nice time to be able to ask one another what we like to do or where we grew up or stuff to keep our minds off our probable fate....." she said sadly, knowing they couldn't talk about things like that.
Rick smiled as he took a sip of the bad tasting hot drink. "I wish we could" he said agreeing to the un-said remark between them about not being able to talk on such matter and subject material. "How about we make up stories of what we would of done if we hadn't joined starfleet? Or what we want with our futures?"
Chelsea brightened and grinned. "Sure! That's a good idea!" she agreed happily. "You go first...... what would have happened to you if you hadn't joined Starfleet? I bet you'd have been a stunt pilot.... or a taxi-shuttle pilot out of the busiest space port out there."
"Historian" said Rick with a whimsical smile "I would've gone to the universities of Memory Alpha....maybe Earth and studied history and literature, maybe even done some writing of my own.....written a book or something." He coughed to cover his sudden embarrassment.
"Really?" her surprise was genuine but not critical. "Those are such steady, studious, gentle things for someone who flies like a bat on an opiate." she smiled, the metaphor more of a compliment when it left her than it might get taken as.
He shrugged nonchalantly "I didn't really get into flying until I joined starfleet. Before I did I had always been in to reading and books, they were like my friends" He took a sip of his drink again and then turned the tables on her. "What about you, what would of you been if you hadn't signed up ?"
"Apart from rejected by my Grandfather?" she smirked. "No, he wouldn't have rejected me but I know he'd have been *very* disappointed. As a child I always wanted to be an explorer.... but most of the universe had been discovered already so I had to settle for Grammy's back garden on a dog-sled with her poor old German Shepherd harnesed in, being longsufferingly patient with me." she smiled fondly at the memory. "Dear old Quinn"
Rick frowned that didn't really answer the question "so you would of been some sort of animal tamer......?" asked Rick tentatively wondering where the answer was in her statement.
Chelsea laughed. "Animal trainer..... that would have been fun but I wouldn't have wanted to be part of one of those horrible 'circus' things." she shuddered.
"No, I always wanted to be a doctor or a nurse or a Vet." she admitted. "So if I hadn't done that through Starfleet, I'd have been privately trained."
"Nothing else at all....nothing..you would've been a Doc or Vet or nurse....you've always wanted to be that and nothing else? What. Not even a Musician or ballerina or president...nothing else?" Rick thought her answer to be a little boring.
"I liked the things that little girls like, but I always wanted to make things better. " she answered a little awkwardly, painfully aware that she'd clearly disappointed him.
"You see, my dad was my hero and when he got sick, no-one could make him better. I was six and I couldn't understand why. In my child's mind I thought it must be that they should have tried harder but he would smile and hug me and say they were doing their best. He used to say it was the will of the Pr...... that....." She stumbled over the Bajorn connection again. "He said I was the only one who made him *feel* better and that I was a *natural* at caring for others." It was true, he *had* also said that aswell.
"What bereaved child could have failed to try to live up to that?" she finished explaining simply, the way it had felt to her as a child. "I never wanted anything more than how much I wanted my dad back and caring for the sick is the only way I have to feel closer to him again." She felt sad at the memories this brought back and shivered, pulling the wrap closer around her and the drink tighter in towards her in a little huddle but she felt her father's smile and strength from them too, as she often did when she thought of him.
"I'm going to be a great surgeon one day and make him proud." she announced with new courage suddenly. "I think *that* will be very exciting and much more rewarding than being a stuffy old ballerina." Her pout was cute but the corners of her lips were playing with a smile that soon emerged to show she wasn't really being insulting to dancers, just her slightly facetious sense of humour showing itself as it would do more and more as she got older and more confident.
Rick smiled and chuckled at her joke he opened his mouth to speak, he was about to say how she would make a great medical professional he was also hoping to build up the courage to say how cute her pout was. But he was interrupted by a pout of static an a garbled message coming from the ships comm unit.
=^= Thi........Star......ship.... US.......Co..Do... =^=
Static shot the through the comm unit. Then the Message cleared up =^= Repeat. This is the Federation Starship USS Constitution. Do you require our assistance? =^=
TBC
A JP between:
Cadet Rick Dunham
aka Henry the Vulcan
and
Cadet Chelsea Adams
aka Cari the Orion