Feels Like Home

Posted on Mon 8th Oct, 2018 @ 1:56pm by Commander Mikaela Locke

558 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Oblivion
Location: Mikaela Locke's Quarters - Decks 27 & 28
Timeline: MD: TBC, 0317 hrs.

[ON]:

The doors slid open and Mikaela Locke wearily entered her quarters, dropping the Starfleet-issue duffle bag that she had travelled with just inside.

"Computer, lights," she said, through a yawn, and the computer complied, raising the lighting levels in the room to her preferred ambient day setting.

It had been a six-day journey back from Alcafe VI where she been consulting on a research paper for Starfleet Intelligence, and, while the journey itself had not been particularly difficult, the U.S.S. Odyssey had arrived at the station in, what was effectively, the middle of the night. Thus, not wanting to mess up her 'body clock', she had been awake since oh-seven-hundred the previous morning.

She crossed to the replicator. "Computer, coffee - variation Locke-zero-one." The replicator hummed and soon, in the aperture, materialised a cup of steaming-hot coffee - decaffeinated, medium strength, with milk and two shots of vanilla syrup. She had programmed this particular variety into the replicator system shortly after she moved into the command suite she now occupied on decks 27 and 28 - one of only two non-diplomatic suites that covered two decks, the other belonging to Captain Suzuki. In the end, it had boiled down to not wanting to repeat the very specific way that she liked her coffee over and over again. She took the mug and crossed to the couch, subconsciously unzipping her uniform jacket as she did so.

She took a sip of her coffee and glanced towards her desk, visible through the opening that connected the lounge portion of her quarters to the office. She let our a slight groan at the thought of the hundreds of messages that would be waiting for her when she logged back into to her terminal. She briefly considered having a quick glance before retiring and then thought better of it. Anything that required immediate action would have been forwarded to Commander Graves in her absence, and anything else could, at the very least, wait until morning. While, technically, she was on duty for tomorrow's alpha-shift, she had negotiated a swap with Lieutenant Eberstark on the journey home, meaning that he would be the duty officer in Ops and she would work out of her office. She yawned again, just as she reflected on what a good idea that had been.

She finished her coffee, put the cup on the small table in front of her and headed up the narrow spiral staircase that led to her bedroom. Five minutes later, she had changed out of her uniform into her nightwear and was tucked up in bed.

She closed her eyes and, in the darkness, found herself appreciating how good it was to be back in her own bed. The guest quarters on the Odyssey had been fine of course...
'But it's good to be...'

She stopped herself mid-thought and a smile creeped across her face. After everything that she had been through, after all the trauma and all the questioning, she had returned to One-Oh-Nine finally understanding that she was exactly where she was supposed to be. And, for the first time in years, she felt like she belonged somewhere.

And, as Mikaela Locke drifted off to sleep, she realised that she was finally somewhere she could call...

'Home.'

[OFF:]

 

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