"Home For a Rest"
Posted on Thursday 2 August 2018 @ 19:41 by
Edited on Friday 3 August 2018 @ 12:57
1,060 words; about a 5 minute read
Upon waking up to the door chime, Lt. Stephanie O'Hara was aware of exactly three things. Her first realization was that the door chime sounded a hundred times louder than it normally did. The second thing was that the room seemed impossibly cold. The third was that it was spinning.
In an effort to get her universe to right itself, or at least settle itself down a bit, she slipped one foot out from under her blanket and put it on the floor. She noticed, much to her shock that she was still wearing her uniform. The overly loud bell chimed again. "A'ight!" she exclaimed in her thick Irish brogue. "Wha' in th' bloody Hell d' ya want?! Open!"
The door slid open and a man entered the room. She wished she could make out who it was. "Computer, lights." she groaned. It took her all of half a second to realize this was a mistake. The computer brought the lights immediately up to full intensity, which elicited a muffled cry of anguish from the stricken Lieutenant. Bringing her hand up to her face she managed to croak out "Lights, Ten percent intensity." As she waited for the spots to clear from her field of vision, the man who had been standing in the open doorway cleared his throat as a reminder he was still standing there.
"Good God will I be glad to be rid of you," Came the gravelly voice. His features finally came into focus as O'Hara's vision tried to clear itself. "I don't know how you've managed to survive in the service this long, O'Hara. You're a disgrace to the uniform."
O'Hara groaned again. Even if she couldn't see the man, she would recognize the disapproving tone anywhere. "Commander Jameson," she said in a tone of voice that almost verbally implied she was rolling her eyes. "T' what do I owe the pleasure." She swung her other foot down to the floor and made a shuddering attempt to sit upright. As she did so, an empty bottle rolled across the floor, stopping only when it tapped the Commander's boot.
Jameson reached down and picked the bottle up, examining it for a moment. "Well," He glowered. "I hear 2309 was a good year for Bloodwine." He noticed O'Hara's attempt to sit herself upright and grimaced at her. "Don't get up on my account, Lieutenant. I'm just your commanding officer. I don't need any respect."
O'Hara fell back over on her bunk. The voice of reason was telling her that he was being sarcastic, but the aches in her body and brain didn't care and welcomed the reprieve. As a red alert klaxon began playing a private symphony for her between her ears her bleary eyes finally managed to fix on Jameson and before she knew it, a PADD was hurtling at her, landing squarely on her stomach. Waves of nausea passed over her and she knew Jameson was still droning on but she had stopped listening to him, instead concentrating to fight back the urge to vomit. She was snapped back to the present when Jameson said "Lieutenant? Are you listening to me?"
She tried to answer but what came out wasn't words. It was the contents of her stomach upending themselves on the floor next to her bunk.
"That's vile!" Jameson now looked like he was fighting to keep his own lunch down. "I expect you to have that cleaned up before your shuttle leaves."
"Shuttle?" O'Hara looked bewildered.
"Didn't you listen to anything I said?!" Jameson barked. A vein in his forehead began throbbing and the tips of his ears turned red. "The Merlin needs a Chief Engineer, and for reasons I can't even begin to fathom, you got the nod. The flagship? Did you blow an admiral? Your shuttle leaves at 1500 hours."
"Computer, Time," O'Hara commanded. This was as much as to get the time as it was to shut Jameson up, at least momentarily.
"The time is 1300 hours, 49 minutes, 27 seconds," The computer responded dutifully.
Some of the Commander's good humor seemed to return. "You have a little over an hour to pack up, clean these quarters, and make your flight. Failure to report for duty is a court martial offense."
Stephanie had recovered enough to stumble to the replicator and ask for a glass of water as she stared at the PADD, that's when it hit her. She turned to Jameson, who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Sir," She said coldly, spitting the word out like it was curse. "These orders 're dated a week ago. I've seen ya at least a dozen times since then." She fixed a stare on him that could have melted the ice caps of Andor. "Why is this th' first I've heard of it?" She set the PADD down on the desk.
"Must have slipped my mind." The air of smug superiority he was adopting was enough to make O'Hara want to take a swing at him. She had to fight to relax her fist. "Go ahead. Try to file an appeal. Who do you think the Admiralty will believe? A tenured officer with twenty years of service, or a worthless drunken hacker? You have been the stone around my neck for six long years, O'Hara. This is win-win for me. Either way, I'll be rid of you. You best get to work."
Jameson turned to leave, and before she realized what she was doing, Stephanie had drawn back her arm and hurled the glass of water as hard as she could. Much to her chagrin, the only thing it hit was the closed door.
Against all odds, an hour and nine minutes later, she was standing on Landing Pad Gamma boarding her shuttle, the Red Alert Klaxon still blaring between her ears. Her final act of rebellion was the broken glass shards and the puddle of sick adorning her barracks room floor.
Thankfully the two day long shuttle ride was time enough for her hangover to subside.
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