Family Affairs, part one
Posted on Wed Sep 11th, 2024 @ 12:27am by Captain Aisling Banerjee
Edited on Wed Sep 11th, 2024 @ 2:08am
770 words; about a 4 minute read
Aisling had forgotten what a bath felt like. A luxurious soak in hot, scented water, with steam wafting all about. It was...magnificent. She decided she would have a view screen mounted on the wall opposite her and she would run the ship right from this wonderful sunken tub.
She smiled wryly. It was certainly a long way from the Cigni, she thought. She had more space in her quarters than she knew what to do with, and that was not just because of her petite stature.
She stretched out her legs and for a long, long moment she just indulged in doing absolutely nothing at all. She knew it would not last so she savored every pico second. After some minutes a nagging thought occurred to her and much to her self annoyance it would not go away.
"Elle," she said.
"Yes, Captain?" the AI's voice answered from above.
"You haven't been...screening my calls, have you?"
"You mean have I been pretending to be you when people want to talk to you in order to afford you an opportunity to savor these moments of silence?"
"Aisling stared up at the ceiling, "You haven't..."
"No," the amusement was evident in the AI's voice, "The ship is docked and the non-commissioned officers are insuring everything is running smoothly."
"Hmmm. Why haven't you appeared as a hologram?"
"You mean while you are laying naked in a tub? I didn't want things to get...weird."
Aisling giggled, "Fair enough. But that wouldn't stop you from seeing and hearing everything."
"Yes but if you can't 'see' me then at least you can fool yourself into thinking I can't see you. Self delusion is a useful coping mechanism for sentients, I have found."
"Hmmm. You haven't mentioned the book in almost twelve hours."
"It is going to be a long voyage. My goal is to insure we are still on speaking terms by the end of it. So I thought it best to speak about the book when you felt like it, since you cannot escape your collaborator."
"I could always leave the ship-"
"Why would you? You have a bath tub and a cat; what more do you need? I-whoops!"
Aisling blinked. 'whoops'? Just then the comm chirped. Aisling sighed: the vacation was apparently over, "Banerjee here."
"Captain, a call for you from the surface. The caller says...it's your Mother."
"Oooooh," Elle's voice whispered excitedly, "Plot twist!"
Aisling's response was to sink her head below the water. Perhaps if she drowned she would not have to take that call...
* * *
*Your Mother is persistent,* Elle noted over the transponder.
Aisling grunted as she stalked down the corridor toward the transporter room. She had used-or, attempted to use-the argument that with her senior staff gone she could not possibly leave the ship. So of course Mother was coming to her.
Chief Quirke was at the controls, he offered the captain a friendly smile. Then he saw her expression and suddenly found the control panel to be of great interest.
*Not his fault,* Elle murmured.
Aisling took a deep breath. No, in fact, it wasn't. "Chief Quirke."
Quirke looked up cautiously, "Captain?"
"Would it be possible to misplace the incoming transporter pattern for a few days? Then send it back?"
Quirke's lips, well, quirked in a sly smile, "I think I could arrange that, Captain."
Aisling smiled despite herself, she sighed, "Well, let's get this over with."
Quirke nodded sympathetically and contacted the ground side transporter station in Bangalore. A moment later Quirke was accepting the signal when the transporter station on Earth made a frantic call, something about someone else coming up!
Aisling immediately tapped her comm badge and barked "Red alert!" as she dashed for the weapons locker on the wall, the guard at the door already has his phaser in hand. Quirke, Aisling noted, had placed his hand on a phaser under the console, which was not regulation. But hell, she thought, as she armed herself it should be. The beam coalesced, two of three phasers pointed at the person beaming in with Quirke looking quite calm and deceptively harmless.
The person standing on the transporter pad was clad in traditional Indian garb, pleated gold palazzos with matching sandals and a shimmering dark red off the shoulder mid-length kurtis. Her brown hair was worn loose over her shoulders and she was smiling radiantly, her green eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Hello, sis!" Anjali Banerjee said as she held out her arms, "How about a hug?"
*Oooooh, another plot twist!*
Anjali would never know how close she had been shot and stunned into unconsciousness...
RSS Feed