-= Felix’s Ready Room =-
Of all a captain’s regular chores, this was Felix’s least favourite.
The importance of logging was not lost on the Lone Star’s life-tousled
captain. In the black boxes he’d excavated, the crews overboard he’d
rescued and the last-people-standing he’d interviewed rode the nearest
version of the truth as there’d ever be. A ship's logs could be the
fingerpost that highlighted a genuine history; fate’s wake scrawled
across a threadbare tapestry.
But, as an assembly of objects or array of furniture didn’t necessarily
constitute a home, neither did an armada of words simply become a log. A
captain’s, no less. Stare as he might at the 14th-dynasty Citimaic
vase, no particular sense of occasion was forthcoming. He was yet to
master the art of addressing an inanimate crowd, or the future.
“Computer, erase entry and restart.”
Felix might have heard a sigh, and prayed to deities he didn’t believe
in that Edie hadn’t introduced behavioural subroutines to the EPS
relays. Again.
“Captain’s log,” began the human male, providing the stardate and,
unnecessarily, his location. “While the remainder of Starfleet has
celebrated the festive period, the Lone Star has dotted herself around
the immediate vicinity of Kincardine Station, our current operational
HQ.
“Testing the slipstream drive and bringing her up to speed has been our
main concern, as has shaking the crew out, preparing them for a mission
agenda that includes the long-range, the tactical and the downright
strange. If our first big jump’s taking us most of the way to the Delta
Quadrant, then being ready for all that is breakfast. Nevertheless, the
crew is nearly complete and knows what’s likely to come at them.
“All that remains,” continued Felix, after a minute, “is to fly.”
That was the reflective introduction sorted. From a corner, Lester’s
bored, indiscernible eyes judged him. Captain de l’Isle looked back,
requesting moral support. His faithful, venerable dog suddenly found
preferable interest in his bedding.
“Of the hundred or so new crewmen we’re still waiting for some key
characters to rock up. I believe an XO’s supposed to be handy out in the
cosmos, and a helmsman. Time and experience have taught me I can’t be
both for myself.” The vase remained unchanged. “Starfleet wants me to
take on a communications officer, and have given me a shortlist of three
yeomen to choose from. I haven’t had a desk-jockey of my own since
Lewis Onara became CoB of the USS Lalibela, and I’m not convinced by any
of their options. We’ll see which of them copes.”
Someone, when they found the LS-S’s black box in however many years
time, could decrypt whether he’d meant with the anomalies inevitable to
interstellar travel – or to him.
He recommenced, still transfixed by the vase: his audience.
“With slipstream confirmed and most of our supplies now on board, I’ve
turned my attention to matters of morale. My senior staff, as they stand
at the moment, are invited to my quarters in three evenings’ time.
Lieutenant Commander Amino has already sent their apologies and will
select a departmental envoy in their place: probably the science
department’s inbound bridge officer. With luck, the good commander won’t
have a sense of humour about them on that day.”
He would remove the vase, Felix decided. Give it to the Admiral, or send
it to the Archaeology Council. In any case it looked more like a
collapsed shoe than an emblem of pre-Ionian spiritual exploration. Above
it, in a receded mahogany dresser, sat an exhibition of starship
models: effigies of vessels that had borne the name Lone Star.
Every six months or so he loosened the translucent frontage, rolled it
to one side and tweaked the orientation of a couple of the vessels. But
they had returned from the refit all entirely parallel, each keenly and
vigorously pointing due east, by the board. Felix stroked the glass,
underlining the Lone Star-A as he moved past. Starfleet, despite its
credo of individuality, had a banal way of trying to make everything
uniform.
“About four years ago I heard a story that the Lone Star-A was the first
vessel to visit the Galactic Core. The crew was lost in a fit of
hallucinations, having experienced the central point of all known
universal outcomes simultaneously. But two months after that I met a
Tellarite whose grandmother was the A’s helmsman. She told me the Lone
Star was ambushed on the Klingon border after system-wide computer
failure. The Klingons allowed them to escape in their pods. Five minutes
later they released a detachment of trainees to hunt them down.”
de l’Isle bristled, taking his eyes off the Oberth-class momento. “The
truth is, nobody knows what happened to the A. Most Lone Star events
have no primary source, seeing as most of its witnesses went down with
their ship. I guess that’s the fun with you, isn’t it, Lonie.”
Felix patted the vase. His future listener would think him a rambler.
His inbound yeoman would see a log entered against the day’s stardate.
And he would have completed a captain’s log and could continue with his
day.
“Who knows what’s legit? What’s the letter of history; what’s a
half-truth, what’s a lie and what’s a bit of poetic licence between an
officer and their imagination?"
Unexpectedly, the ceramic pot shone and twinkled, reacting to the heat
of his fingers. Felix smiled, illuminated by the glistering exothermic
projection initiated by his touch.
“What is the legend of the Lone Star,” he queried, “and how will we ever know?”
After a further five minutes the computer closed and committed the log
itself. Felix, deaf to its prompts, adjusted each previous Lonie to its
correct, higgledy-piggledy, unique course.
-=-=-=-
by Captain Felix de l’Isle, CO