Trip to Aquil

Posted on 10/03/2022 @ 5:22am by

1,144 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Mini Mission: When The Cat's Away
Location: Poseidon - Shuttle Bay
Timeline: MD 5 1140

Emma, along with the three young artists who had invited her - going by the names Paint Warrior (Andorian boy), Silent One (Vulcan girl) and Not a Scam Artist (Ferengi boy) - were now gathered inside an Andorian shuttle. Its name, unpronounceable, meant something close to ‘Martial Eagle’ although she had been told that, unlike the majestic predator, the shuttle was rather slow. Slow but sturdy. As far as she was concerned, this was good news, for she wasn’t keen on space trips. She would endure them when necessary, with a lot of objections, used as a distraction between departure and arrival.

Besides, this shuttle wasn’t particularly comfortable. The passenger area consisted of just two long upholstered benches facing one another. There were no seat belts and no replicator for refreshments. People with no style, they were a pain...

“When are we supposed to leave Poseidon?” Emma asked, while outside various directives were repeated time and time again, for the safety of those civilians who had elected to go to Aquil. This prompted the Vulcan girl to go outside as it had just been announced that supplies were being distributed.

“We have to wait for my parents, of course,” the Andorian boy said. “I can pilot and it’s tempting to just go, but they will get mad at me, and well... I might just not survive.”

“It’s true, you don’t know his parents, Mrs Moreau. I would rather face the Breen, honestly.” The Ferengi boy remarked. “I brought snacks for everyone, if you are interested.”

Emma sighed. The idea that the Andorian boy could even approach the pilot seat gave her stomach cramps. “It would be nice to hear you say something clever, for a change, young man.” She said to the Ferengi. “Anyway, I’m not feeling too good. So my interest in your snacks is very low. Thank you all the same.” She went to sit on one of the benches, as close to the hatch as possible.

“Right, you don’t feel good,” the Ferengi continued, and of course, he had the gall to sit beside her. “Terran ladies are often like that, I have found. Very... fragile. My English teacher, Ms Sommers, is just like you. The slightest little hiccup and she gets a nervous breakdown.”

“Don’t listen to him,” The Andorian added. “By ‘hiccups’ he means pranks. He is torturing that teacher every morning.”

“She is the one doing the torturing with her Shakespeare and Jane Austen! With such nonsense as “Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.” The Ferengi said in a high-pitched mocking voice. He then unpacked one of his snacks, some kind of soup, and a weird smell, almost fishy, spread inside the shuttle.

“What are you doing?” Emma asked, staggered by the look of that soup. There were a lot of floaters in there, some green and some white.

“I’m having a little collation, for the journey.” The Ferengi explained. “As short as the trip to Aquil is, my parents told me to eat well. So I’m having some white ant eggs soup. It tastes like shrimp, and it’s very nutritious. You should try to relax, Mrs Moreau. This little exile, it’s like a holiday, really. We are going to get some fresh air and discover a great landscape. Can I call you Emma?”

“No, you can’t. I told you that I’m not feeling too well. Go eat your insect eggs elsewhere!”

The Ferengi did so, carefully, so as to keep all the soup in its bowl. “All right, all right! Hewmons, I swear. They’re only happy when they bark orders!”

“He is teasing you, Mrs Moreau,” The Andorian remarked. “That’s the only way he knows to get attention.” He sat on the other bench, in front of her. “So from what I understand, we are going to Sapphire Island, which is a Federation protectorate. And Aquil, as idyllic as it may seem to Station people like us, is rather humid and exhausting. Still, I hope to get some inspiration for my art down there. There should be some nice seascapes.”

It is odd how a single word can trigger an avalanche of memories. In Emma’s case, the mere mention of the sea transported her back to 2362. The summer of all disasters. It had been the fashion in her younger days to go to one of the Moon Bases. You could party there all weekend and be back on Monday morning at 0800 sharp for class. Only one Sunday night, the shuttle she was in crashed near Ushant Island, off the coast of Brittany. She could still visualize the broken images of the fall, like a holonovel gone mad. The sky, the sea, the rocks by the shore, and oblivion. That’s how you derail a life.

The Andorian, concerned by her silence, told her that, if she didn’t like the idea of going to Aquil, it wasn’t too late to stay on Poseidon and take shelter at the Elements. Emma, forced herself to smile. She was more scared of the Breen (knowing her lack of luck, if she stayed on the station, she would be the first one to be butchered by the invaders) than she was of the sea.

“I’ll be fine, really.”

The Vulcan girl came back at that point, followed by the Andorian parents. Introductions were made with great effusions. Goods were distributed: respirators, blankets, water and emergency food, wrapped in those weird metalized plastic pouches. It made it all look like they were going away for a long time.

So when Emma returned to her seat, she sighed again, and to kill the time, she retrieved the small PADD that she always kept in her back pocket. How many Counselors were there on the station? A lot more than she expected, it turned out. Could it be so easy though? You offload your drama onto someone paid to listen and you feel better? How can you talk of certain things, when you don’t even have the courage to bring them to mind?

Seconds later the Ferengi marveled very loudly at the presence of a D'Kora class vessel in the vicinity. They could see a portion of it through the shuttle’s left windows. To Emma it looked like a giant trilobite, there was nothing graceful at all about it.

“It says a lot about the situation if even my people are prepared to fight,” The Ferengi commented. “What a beauty! It must have cost a fortune to bring that ship here.”

Emma kept quiet. She was having one of those ‘are we there yet moment’. She wanted the shuttle to land, asap.

.........................
Mrs 'Emma' Moreau (pnpc played by Brek)
Graphic Zest Art Gallery
Poseidon

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