Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Mail Call

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

Rick stared at the screen after it had gone blank. Guilt prodded at his senses. He’d missed haying season. As automated as it had become there was still physical effort that was needed. Rubbing his forearms in a memory of the pinpricks of the hay biting into them and how itchy they were later but how much fun he had doing it. That was one friendly unspoken competition he and Wallace did every year that he could remember.

Wallace had described it. A couple of his friends had helped, the Morgan twins from the neighboring farm, and it sounded like fun. They always had a pig roast at the end of haying with all the family and helpers, choosing one from the herd that dad kept. This would be the first time he’d missed it. Part of growing up, he supposed. What bothered him was that Wallace didn’t seem to be missing him.

Dad was quiet but he warmed up when he had spoken of upcoming calving season and what he was going to plant next year. He might look rough, Rick thought, but he had a soft spot for the land and beasts. There was something about nature that fascinated him. Rick never understood that. He ‘got’ the work ethic but dirt was dirt to him and a cow was something to watch that you don’t get a swatted with a sweep of horns while trying to feed them before it was yet light out in the dead of winter with the hay steaming in the stalls and the air thick with hide and manure. What caught him was his dad asking, “When will you be stopping by?” How did he tell him that they were a month and light years away from Earth and not just the county over?

Mom had worried, hoping that it wasn’t too dangerous. He wasn’t sure what she said after that; all that he could think of was Samuels laying on the deck, his face a tattered mess and his blood everywhere. It could have been him there, or well, anywhere near a vent that it had plunged through. Yes, Nessa and he had made the ship aware of it but then everything had happened so fast after that. Two people dead from it, another injured. How could he possibly even mention this to them? Mom would freak. His father was not happy to begin with about his decision to go into space and join ‘Starfleet’. Dad’s opinion on that was not secret. He could not fathom why anyone couldn’t be happy with the world they lived on and the town they grew up in.

Rick himself was mixed in his opinion. He found this exciting – well, until today. He missed home and his mother’s home made tomato herb soup and the smells of the house and the feeling of home and sometimes he just missed the boring life on the farm, well, while working on the base off the farm. And he missed Barb. What bothered him and created a small knot in his stomach that didn’t really need any more agitation today was that she was not there. And by a couple of the pauses he wondered if there was something not being said. Or was he imagining it in his own growing anxiety? Nothing of her own for him either? Barb had sent a message earlier after they had launched and had sent back no replies from those he had sent her. What was going on? Yes, she was not happy about him leaving into space either.

Reaching over he keyed a note to Liz. =^= Catch up with you soon. =^= A coffee couldn’t hurt and he needed to get outside of his own head after today. And some time to think about replying. They wanted him to live lives like them. Simple. Earthy. Before taking to space his dream was a life and family with Barbara, a garage of his own and a career as a mechanic. Now after this experience in space he had mixed feelings. Before today he was seeing a new career with Starfleet engineering. Today he was not sure anymore but it wasn’t like he could just catch the bus home. He felt he let everyone down today, himself included and now add in his family to that.
PO Rick Walters
.. to be continued ..

So that was that, then. His first rose colored glasses view of things in that transmission was just wrong. Well, Rick had seen it wrong. How could he have missed his father’s tone and the set in his jaw that had not changed - he never understood Rick’s leaving home for space, the loathing he felt for Rick’s betrayal. It wasn’t until the fifth or sixth viewing that he caught on. It wasn’t just news, it was guilt inspiring. And Wallace. They were so not on good terms to begin with ever being the rivals. He would never have been as chipper in a letter like this just because he missed him. No. Wishful thinking. It would make Wallace more than happy to be an only child.

Rick stared at the frozen screen. But he had seen it. That reflection in the glass of a cabinet behind them. A shadow passing over it. At first he didn’t think anything of it at all, not even noticing it. But then it changed and he thought it was just a cloud behind. But then it moved again. There was someone else there. Rick was not good at this sort of film forensics but some hours later it became clear and he saw it so clearly now. There were two figures working the equipment which figured as Wallace was just not that good with gadgetry. He had backed it up slowly and watched the figure. He couldn’t tell much detail until the very beginning. Wallace and the other was there and just before he moved around to join them he saw the two kiss. Rick’s slight snort froze as the figure made a profile where he could see highlighted in the reflection the person. Barb.

In that moment the few months before he departed becoming clear. Barb getting a job at the base canteen. Her attitude to him changing and the slight put downs that then were cute but now cutting. Glances between her and Wallace. And all the time he was the village idiot. He whacked his forehead with his wrist. How could he have been so stupid?! He desperately wanted to go for a ride on his bike careening down an unused strip at the base at full throttle, tempting death but cleansing himself of the toxins that were in his soul and needed purging. Needed redemption. But his bike was light years away. The smell of the synth-fuel, the vibration of the motor coursing through his arms in his barely held control of the machine, the roar of the much modified motor, the wind against his face nearly blinding him, and oh the freedom he felt!! And right now the four walls of his quarters seemed to close in on him, squeezing him in quiet accusation.
- Rick Walters, Eng