Rick was having a glum day. After their time on the Bridge repairing things the Lt had sent them off shift a bit early. Admittedly Lt Green looked shaken from everything too but he was the hero of the day by the sounds of it and talk had already gone through engineering about how ‘heavy a hitter’ he was. And here all that Rick could say that was his claim to fame was that he had upchucked when seeing the grisly mess that the creature had done in the decon chamber. “Yeah, real brave,” he said to Nessa who had gone to her bed as soon as they had come to the cabin.

Sitting down on the bunk he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and felt a familiar roll of his stomach whenever he had replayed the events of that day, which he had done often. When he pulled back and looked at his hands they were shaking. Not as much as before though. Was that good? He looked at the cabin. It had long since passed the ‘new’ look and was now the ‘lived in’ look that was not atypical he thought when two guys bunked in the same place. That too had been new to him in coming aboard. He glanced at his few possessions out that he tried to keep apart, to keep a bit of himself separate from the homogenous mix here. Leaning back his hands felt the rumples on the bed. He could never make a bed right. There were always ripples and dents and things that made the cover look like a pond in the wind. His mother could smooth it with a wave of her hand; Rick just never got that gift of magic. At least Nessa didn’t seem to care. Mark, his bunkmate took to space like a fish to water. Why did he feel so .. dissimilar?

His eyes caught the flashing light at the console. A message for him. Who now? When he looked it was two messages. Sitting he punched the switch for retrieval. The first was from Ensign Hill. =^= Hey farm boy. Heard about all your excitement today and whew, saw the creature in the science lab. Crazy stuff. Drinks later? =^= She was starting to get a bit of a reputation and had her sights on him for who knows what reason. Yeah, him and a couple of others. Didn’t she know he had a girl on Earth? Maybe that was why she was chasing him these past couple weeks.

He keyed the second one. It was from home!! He perked up to listen to and see the recording. The image on the small screen flipped to that of a kitchen with its spotted and speckled black and white wall pattern. Behind on the stove a pot was steaming. Must have been done on a Wednesday, he thought. That was spaghetti day. His mother and father were there in the foreground sitting behind the kitchen table whose coloring reminded him of flattened parking lot gravel.

They hadn’t changed. His mother, pushing 50 now, still had her soft pudgy lines that spoke of welcoming hugs whenever he came home from work. Her smile showed her happy but never quite sure how to express herself while on a video call. He’d not really noticed the way her hair had been sprouting a streak of grey growing out from her temples. As always, Rick could count the few times on a normal day when she didn’t wear an apron. Today was one with large pink roses on it, one of her favorites.

His dad had not changed. Rick always remembered his craggy face, weathered by the work on the farm. Tanned with hair that had always frightened his friends, telling Rick that they were sure he was an axe murderer with his wild eyes and mountain man looks. Late in the year now he wore a woolen off grey turtleneck with the cuffs rolled up. As usual he wasn’t smiling. Now North of 50 his grizzled hair and scruffy face was speckled with more grey than dark.

“Are we on?” his mother said. She nibbled on the edge of a small bundle of hair. She looked off past the screen. “Recording now,” said a voice, that of Rick’s brother, Wallace. Two years his junior, Wallace, or WT as he like to be called – Wallace Terry Walters – was his father’s clone, or so Rick thought of him including the deepening lines about his mouth. A moment later he moved around to stand behind his parents. He looked the younger twin of his father, more filled out in the shoulders and with ample hair a chestnut color cut in the local style of a mullet. Rick had to admit it looked good on Wallace.

… to be continued …
- PO Rick Walters, Eng