Remembrance - Part I

Posted on Thu 18th May, 2017 @ 10:34am by Colonel Horatio Drake

1,609 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: For The Uniform
Location: Deck 27: Drake's Quarters
Timeline: MD-01: 0225 Hours

"Take care of yourself Chief, it's been a pleasure" Drake spoke with a wide smile on his face.

"I wish you'd reconsider this Drake, a lot of people here are going to miss you!"

"We've been over this one Graham! You know that I can't, I need to concentrate on what’s important in my life now. That’s why I’m leaving!”

The Sergeant Major didn't reply, just simply smiled.

"We'll keep in contact mate, don't worry about that... our drinking sessions are far from over!"

Whilst the two officers had very little in common they shared a love of scotch - many a night they could be found finding the bottom of one bottle or another!

"Well they better not be" he replied in his harsh Irish accent "I'll see you around Drake".

With that said the shook hands and embraced each other with their free arms. The Chief produced a mock salute, smiled again and disappeared out of sight down the corridor back into the USS Ronnau.

Drake took one last look at the interior of the Nebula Class ship and knew a large part of him would miss is badly; after all it was his first command. But the time had come to now start concentrating on life itself. Starfleet had played its part and Drake had given them some bloody good years. But now he was going to give the rest of his years to Patrick… someone infinitely more important than Starfleet.

Walking down the docking corridor he felt alive and invigorated - he had booked a month shore leave now, followed by a quick few weeks wrapping up affairs and then he’d hang up his uniform for good. Many a night he and Graham had discussed his predicament, until eventually he had decided that enough was enough.

He emerged into the main arrivals area and searched for his family and whatever friends had come to greet him. After a few minutes of searching he spotted his mother and father near a wall on the far side of the disembarkation area.

He walked quickly towards them with a big grin on his face!

"Mother! Father!" He shook his Father’s hand and gave him a half hug. Then kissed his Mother on her cheek.

"Horatio" She said, with what seemed like a forced smile "how have you been?"

"Not too bad" he said with a suspicious tone "looking forward to the next month, that's for sure!"

Neither of his parents smiled, but instead looked uncomfortable. Something suddenly dawned in him.

"Where's everyone else?"

"They're back at the house" his father replied.

"And where's Patrick? I would have thought he'd be here to see me arrive!" Drake's grin returned as he searched around again.

His parents once again looked uncomfortable and sneaked an uncomfortable look at each other - something was wrong with this picture.

"What's wrong? What’s happened?" Drake was starting to get worried, this was unusual and suspect behaviour for them.

"Listen... Horatio... something happened..." his father started, just to be cut off by his mother.

"Sweetheart" she said, putting a hand on his shoulder "it's about Patrick... there was... an accident... two days ago... Starfleet said that your ship was incommunicado and…”

"What? What sort of accident? Is he alright?" His heart started racing.

His mother squared him straight in the face, "Sweetheart... he... the accident was severe... he... he didn't make it"

He froze. The world around him stopped moving.

A tear ran down his mother's face, something he had seen only once before, "he's dead".

At that precise moment... a moment that would haunt him for the rest of his life... his entire world came crashing down around him. He didn't feel his bag fall of his arm, or here the crash that it made.

He stumbled into the bulkhead and braced himself against it, before resting his back on it and sliding down to the floor. He couldn't cry, he couldn't speak, he couldn't breathe - it was as if a phaser rifle beam had just smashed into his chest, reality seemed to freeze. A million and one things raced through the logical parts of his mind, urging him to discover what had happened and obtain as much information as possible in order to reason with this. But the emotional part of his mind had paralysed him, utterly and completely.

Five minutes ago he had been a young, promising and relatively experienced career officer with what could have been a glittering career ahead of him, should he had wanted it. But he was to leave the service and spend it with the love of his life. Now he was a broken man… he didn’t know it at the time but the rules and morals that he had lived his entire life by had just been erased in a singular stroke.

For the first time in his life he felt disgusted to wear the Starfleet uniform... the decisions that it had forced him to make... the way that it kept him away from home for such long periods of time... kept him away from the man that he loved.

==

Drake sat on the floor leaning against his bed with music playing that Patrick used to like, he felt drunk but it wasn't a nice feeling as it had once been. He looked down at the bottle he was clutching in his right hand - it was half empty - then looked at the glass in his left hand - it was completely empty... he refilled the glass and downed it in one. He had never been a heavy drinker - but had relied on it for the first few months after losing Patrick. Recently it was infrequently... but when he did drink, he indulged heavily.

Nearly two years had now passed since the shuttle accident that had taken Patrick away from him. Some weeks after the accident, certainly details had been brought to light. The investigation could not conclude whether the fault on the shuttle was accidental or not.
Rumours had started circling, initially, that this was a terrorist attack… however it was isolated and hardly a target rich incident. Soon blame started being shouldered on Starfleet… poor service and maintenance through a lack of parts and skilled technicians had resulted in the catastrophic systems failure. Every time he thought of Patrick in those last moments, his mind turned into a chasm of fire… he always needed something to dampen the flames. It when thoughts like that entered his mind that his nocturnal movements were decided - his quarters with a bottle of something strong.

Starfleet put him on compassionate leave and for nearly six months he went into seclusion, until his friends and parents forced him to get help. For the last three months he had been in a series of intensive counselling sessions... he had told the counsellor what he had wanted to hear... the sessions came to an end, a psychiatric review was carried out and Drake was deemed as fit to return to duty.

Something had changed though... something deep... something sinister.

He had always held Starfleet in the highest of regard; he had always seen them as the absolute good guys. Everyone was aware of the decisions Starfleet had to make during the Dominion war... everyone was aware of the morally grey areas they entered... some disagreed with the actions they took... Drake thought he understood though... despite being too young to be involved in the war, he agreed with every decision and course of action they had taken. He defended them whenever the subject arose... Starfleet was very much his life... them and Patrick.

He would go on assignment or a tour and promise Patrick time after it... that time rarely came in the abundance that was promised. He had never meant to, but had always seemed to put him secondary to Starfleet – despite the fact that they had never forced him to delay or cancel shore leave, they had never forced him to put the hours in that he did, they had never forced him to do anything – he felt duty bound to do so... he enjoyed what he did, he thought he was making a real difference.

This commitment, this pride, this passion had now mutated into something sinister – he now felt hatred, despise and anger in everything that he did and towards everyone that he met. He had convinced himself that if he had gone on shore leave when he had originally planned to, that Patrick would never have boarded that shuttle and the fateful accident would never have taken place. If one could call it an accident.

Deep down – somewhere in the deepest of crevices inside him, he knew that it was just an accident – but the alcohol, mourning and sorrow had buried the truth... he had utterly convinced himself that something sinister lay behind it. The uniform that he once felt proud to wear, he now felt nothing but disdain towards – he took a sideways glance and saw his tunic slung over the floor to his left.

The wound that loosing Patrick had caused was not healing – it hurt nearly as much as it did the day he found out. He felt cold and numb – the duties, which, at one point, gave him meaning and purpose, now, gave him nothing – he was as autonomous as a computer. He felt the sorrow swelling inside of him again, finding it hard to breathe... with a fresh set of tears running down his cheeks he looked at the glass... it was once again empty... he refilled it.

 

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