Busman's Holiday

Posted on 01/28/2020 @ 4:53pm by Captain Cian D'Anvers
Edited on on 02/28/2020 @ 6:57pm

Mission: S1E1: Out of the Barn
Location: Transport En Route to Starbase 614
Timeline: Day 1 at 0600

She arrived on the transport and went straight to bed. It wouldn't have mattered to her if they'd thrown down a pallet in a cargo bay or a wide double bed in the suite of rooms she was actually given. Door. Change into a simple pair of white shorts and white camisole. Standard bed attire then bed. In that order. Exhaustion claimed her from the moment her head hit the pillow.

Twelve hours later and not by choice, she was awake again. Blue-Green eyes fogged with sleep, she peered over the edge of the blankets cocooned about her as she impatiently shoved a length of white hair back from her face.

"Bridge to Commander Ysayne." The voice was way too perky for Sidonie's taste but because it was only a voice, the individual couldn't see the sudden, subtle glow forming about her head, a nimbus of entwining threads, black and red, gleaming against the smooth silk of her hair.

"Ysayne here," she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to bark out a command; the bridge crew on the Steady had always known how to approach a sleeping member of the command staff. I'm a guest here, she thought with a tired sigh. Be polite, she admonished herself. No matter what."

"Incoming message from Captain Watanabe, Ma'am," the perky voice said at once.

"I'll take it here," Sidonie said as she rose from bed to scrounge up a white robe from her carry-on bag. She wrapped it around her lean form and was just sitting down when the grizzled visage of her former commanding officer came into view. "Hey, Captain," she said as black strands of bare discernible color, shifted to a warmer brown.

"Bad news, I'm afraid," Watanabe said as he reached with one hand to draw a PADD in while the other remained firmly wrapped around his ever present coffee mug. He consulted the PADD as he spoke. "D'Roi Lyl escaped custody."

"Chikoshou," she said. The curse was Japanese because in the early days, when they were getting to know each other, the Captain and First Officer had exchanged their favorites. Before long he cursed in Invernian and she in Japanese. Watanabe, from all those light years away, watched as threads of black and pink began to creep outward from her scalp until with another sigh, the color faded and there was only white. "I thought he was on his way to a penal colony?"

"So did I," Watanabe said. "Turns out the family of one of the guards was kidnapped so he had help from the inside. Found the guard unconscious. D'Roi got away clean." His expression turned grave. "Watch yourself. You know him. He has a long, long memory."

"You too, Sir," Sidonie said. "Have you been assigned a new first officer yet?"

"We'll be going through repairs for a couple of months yet, so there's still time," Watanabe said as he lifted his mug and took a sip. "I'm going to send you what we have and I'm going to hound Intel about looking for him. He's good at hiding though so I'm thinking marathon not sprint."

Sidonie nodded. "Agreed," she said. "Marathon." Her pale features dropping into the frown she'd thought gone when they'd finally captured him. "One way or another," she said. "We'll find him and he will pay for what he's done."

Watanabe nodded. "That he will. Just wanted to give you a heads up in case he wandered out your way. However unlikely. And to offer my congratulations again on the promotion. Seen her yet?"

"I'm on the way to her now, Sir," she said as smiled at the man who had taught her so much. Thank you, Sir. And thanks for ... how do you call it? ... lighting a fire under me?"

"Had to be done." Watanabe chuckled, a harsh, raspy sound that not too long ago would have had her giving the doc a head's up on his condition. "You'd never have gone otherwise. Listen, I have to go. Got a meeting with Intel in about ten minutes. Keep in touch, alright? Just 'cause you have your own ship now doesn't mean we can't talk philosophy now and again."

"Vulcans are next, as I recall," Sidonie said. "I'll send you a reading list."

"You do that," he said. "Watanabe out." He closed the connection and left her sitting there lost in thought. After a while, she said, "Get me Doctor Mantal, Chief Medical Officer, USS Steadfast."

A Post by

Cmdr. Sidonie Ysayne
Commanding Officer
USS Crazy Horse