Requiem For a Friend

Posted on Wed 26th Oct, 2022 @ 2:41am by

1,115 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Hunted
Location: USS Samurai
Timeline: MD 10, 1845

Riko entered Samurai the way she often had over the years she'd served on the ship with so many good friends, some now lost to the infinity of Elvis - by way of the transporter. As she walked the corridors to the lift that would bring her up to the bridge, where she was meeting Henry, her footsteps echoed with the emptiness. Not even the workers who'd restored her greatness were here any longer. She was awaiting a new crew and a new assignment ... and Riko wouldn't be part of either. Everyone had moved forward, even her beloved captain, and now the ship would, too.

She stepped off the lift onto the bridge, seeing Henry pouring two glasses of champagne on top of the Science station where she'd spent many hours. "Hello! So we're celebrating?" she asked as she moved toward him.

“Celebrating two things actually,” Henry said as he handed her one of the Champagne flutes. “You know, it was right here where we had so many conversations about experiments or battle plans. Seems like a lifetime ago doesn’t it?”

Taking the glass from his hand, McCord looked around the bridge before responding softly. "It does. I guess it actually was, in some ways. When I came on board Samurai, I was so young and confident of ... of everything, Myself, our missions, Suzuki, Starfleet, the Federation. Now I feel much older and less sure of anything. Do you know what I mean?"

“Yes and no I guess.” Henry said as he walked about the bridge of the Sovereign Class Starship. “I think we tend to forget about all the good we have done from these seats and consoles. I know not all the times were good, but even those bad times helped to shape us into who we are today.” Henry took a sip of the champagne and sat in the Captain's chair. He motioned for Rico to join him in the second command chair.

She walked over and settled on the edge of the seat. "I sometimes have trouble not letting our last mission color the whole time." She looked down into the glass and swirled the liquid. "I'm getting better at remembering good times, though."

A small smile curved her lips, as Riko looked up at him. "The dinners at the Winters were some of the best times I recall. They were all so different in personality, even though they looked so much alike. I could never really decide which one of them I liked best. I think we had to take them all together ... and then some were gone and it was like ... seeing someone with missing arms or legs, I guess is the way it feels.

"I remember one dinner, I think you were there, Hikari was, I know, me, most of the Winters. They were telling us a little about what it was like to grow up in the creche on their home world. It was so different from my family, who lived in a habitat around our planet. They made it amusing, though." She lifted the glass for a sip. "Do you remember that night?"

"How could I not?" Henry remarked while laughing. "That's the night they had those speckled eggs that I spit all over Hikari because they were so spicy." Henry held his head in his hand with embarrassment, but with a bit of jocularity. " Hikari was always so stoic, but the way she just stood up without saying anything and walked out of the room.....:" The engineer burst out with laughter as he kept imagining the face of his Captain.

"Man, I couldn't tell if she was pissed off, embarrassed or shocked." Henry said as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

McCord couldn't help laughing with him. "I know, and I didn't know who to look at - all the Winters continued eating, like one of their guests hadn't just baptized their captain with egg. Ah, laddie," she said, sobering, and imitating her great grandfather, "I dinna think we'll see their like again."

She sipped at her drink again. "Any of them. Here's to the Winter creche and the grandest captain ever." She held her glass out to tap his.

"Here's to the finest crew.... and set of friends one could have out here in the great vastness of nothingness." Raising his glass to meet Riko's. Henry closed his eyes, saying a quick prayer for those who did not make it back.

After a few moments of drifting in silent memories, Riko added, "I had a hard time coming back from that last mission, you know. We'd done so many that were fun, a few that were tense. But we'd hardly lost anyone, even when we were caught in the time loop. After that mission, when I went home again, I took out the historical records and read about their difficulties with a different eye. That Ivanova was a heroine who saved all my people, and I'd never known it.

"Anyway, I came close to leaving Starfleet, going home to become the scientist I always intended to be. Hikari talked me out of it. Not in the way that anyone else would, of course. She wouldn't interfere in someone else's decision. She gave me a different way to view things, though."

"Is it fair to say she gave you some perspective and purpose?" He sat forward in the Captain's seat, placing his drink on the floor between his legs. "Think about it. She kept her word to us. We all stuck together in the end, didn't we? How else do you explain that all three of us got the same posting? With me fixing our old ship and essentially commanding her?"

McCord mulled over his words. "Yeah, I expect that's what she did. The Winters wound up here, as well, and a few others. I think she kept close the ones Starfleet would give her." She grinned at him. "A real mother hen, in her own way. She knew we'd have a hard time, and she did what she could for us. And tomorrow, I'll be going out yonder with Isabella. Trying something different. Keeping secrets ... from everyone." She shook her head. "Not what I ever expected the first time I met Captain Suzuki."

After a minute, she glanced up at Henry. "So, want to buy me dinner at Orchids & Jazz? A little Death by Chocolate would make a good send-off on the new adventures."

"LOL come on Commander, Death by Chocolate never hurt anyone" Henry stated as he rose from the chair.

Riko tipped her drink back and finished it. "As the Commodore might say, 'Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish'."

 

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