Fleet Admiral Dreams, Ending

Posted on Sun 6th Sep, 2020 @ 6:10am by Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD & Carlo Rienzi & Kendra Lincoln

1,094 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Dhuro Lanis' Quarters
Timeline: MD 13, 2345

Previously, in his dreams, Lanis reveals his past posting ...

"Well, don't keep me in suspense, Lanis! What did you discover? Is there a new species out there or not?" Lincoln demanded, only half teasing.

"It's out there, but apparently it's in some other dimension, the way the Q Continuum is. Don't ask me; I don't do interdimensional physics. Someone's planning a mission to find them."

What does the dream reveal about Dhuro?

"Ah, yes. Being an admiral has its disadvantages, doesn't it?" Kendra sipped at her drink. "Well, then, now that you're an admiral, what's next for you, if you can't go back to research or exploration?"

Lanis took another sip of his springwine and shrugged. "I always thought, by this age, I'd be retired and gone home to Bajor to study for the priesthood. Instead, I think I'll do more research. I haven't decided what sort yet. What about you? What do you want to do?"

"The priesthood?" Kendra stared at Dhuro as if he had two heads. Then she shook her head. "Just when I think that nothing could surprise me. That would be a little tame for you, after a career in Starfleet. Research is more your style, I think." She pushed the remains of her appetizer around on her plate, and then looked up at him.

"I don't have to think about it for a while. "I do think about it from time to time, but nothing has solidified yet. I can't see me knitting and gardening into the sunset, that's certain."

Lanis had to laugh. "No, I can't see you sitting around, quietly knitting, either. You're much more active than that."

A moment later, Carlo returned with a pitcher of water, a refilled glass of water for Kendra, and a refilled glass of springwine for Lanis. "Your pizzas should be coming out of the oven in just a moment. You had the one with anchovies on it, right?" he asked Lanis with a mischievous look.

Lanis mock-punched him. "Don't even think about it. Those things are as nasty as palukoo."

"Hm. Palukoo on a pizza. I wonder how that would taste?" Carlo mused as Lanis shooed him off.

"Who or what is Palukoo?" asked Lincoln, amused at their interplay.

"It's a Bajoran creature, similar to an Earth spider, that we used to hunt and eat during the Occupation," Lanis said. "I would eat it if I had to, but the meat always had a bitter, gamey taste to me, so I wasn't fond of it."

"Frankly, it doesn't sound appetizing. I don't want any of them, either," Kendra smiled at Carlo, thinking that one of these days she'd send a Palukoo pizza to Lanis's address, as a joke. Carlo seemed like the kind of man who might get a kick out of being part of that joke.

Carlo returned Kendra's smile with a wink and then disappeared into the kitchen. Within a couple of minutes he had returned with two pizzas on metal frames. "Pepperoni and pineapple with extra cheese for the lady and pineapple with ground beef for you, sir. Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"I'm going to be really bad and have the canola filling for dessert," Lanis said to Kendra. "Care to share, or would you like to try something else?"

"I'm good with your decision ... at least in this case, Admiral," she grinned at him. As it happened, it was a favorite dessert of hers. Turning her eyes to the owner of 10-42, she added, "I'm sure there's enough to share in one order. The pizza looks remarkable, and it smells just perfect. I count on dessert being no less perfect."

"It isn't every day that two fleet admirals grace my pub," Carlo said with a smile and a modest bow. "I suspect that, even now, my staff are trying to outdo themselves. You two enjoy your meals, and dessert will be out whenever you're ready."

Kendra watched the pub owner walk away, but her mind was back on her previous conversation with Lanis. Taking a piece of pizza onto her plate, she salted it liberally, and then, before biting the tip off, she glanced at her dining partner and asked, "So what would you research? I realize I have no idea what your area of interest might be, other than the sentient life you mentioned. Is that your total focus?"

"You're going to give yourself hypertension if you keep that up," Lanis mentioned as he watched Kendra salt her pizza.

The woman just grinned and took another bite. She wasn't worried.

He picked up a slice of his own and bit into it. After a moment, he went on. "I'm interested in developing a way to treat trauma with a combination of replicator and transporter technology. For most things, I'm just as happy to simply use my hands. But sometimes, you get patients who are so severely injured that no pair of hands in the universe would be fast enough. But if you could rapidly scan a patient and just as rapidly extrapolate the body's characteristics in perfect conditions, it could be possible to save lives that we can't save today.

"The EMH on Voyager kept a patient alive with a vaguely similar technique when the patient's lungs were harvested by some bizarre alien race they encountered in the Delta Quadrant. He used a bioscan of the patient's lungs from a past physical exam, aligned the scan with the patient's internal anatomy, and created holographic lungs to keep him alive until they could get the original lungs back, if I remember it correctly."

Wiping her mouth with a napkin, Lincoln said, "Now THAT sounds like science fiction!"

Lanis chuckled. "Doesn't it, though?" He sprinkled red pepper flakes on his pizza--and then he sneezed.

In the next moment, Lanis awoke in bed and sneezed for real--or perhaps for the second time; he had no idea. He shifted into a more comfortable position on the mattress and yawned. Wonderful, he thought, now I'm craving pizza. Fleet Admiral, eh? I suspect that dream is the closest I will ever come to that rank. I wonder who the lady was?

Then he rolled over and soon fell back asleep.

Authors' Note: The "Fleet Admiral Dreams" posts were written courtesy of the fact that the two named characters were both at one time or another listed as Fleet Admirals on the NPC Character Management page. We decided to have fun with it!

 

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