The Journey Here II

Posted on Mon Jun 7th, 2021 @ 12:05pm by Lieutenant JG Robert Zažeckis

518 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: What Lies Ahead, Between, and Behind
Location: Glacier National Park, Earth
Timeline: Before Departure for Haumea Colony

Icy rain spit down from iron-gray skies splattering Zaz's naked body as he sat cross-legged on a rise 50 yards from his tent. In front of him, steep mountains serrated the edge of a small glacial lake. Beyond those were other mountains in the distance, capped with snow.

He breathed slowly, filling his chest, pausing, letting the air pass out over his tongue. In that moment, any other sound he might have ignored. Too many years of conditioning opened his eyes though when he heard the chirp of his combadge left in the tent.

Trying to maintain his calm, he stood and trotted toward the sound. The metal delta lay atop his neatly folded clothes, the only electronic he'd brought with him, the only token of his decades-long career. "Zažeckis."

"Robert!" The familiar, enthusiastically modulated tone of his therapist acknowledged. "Did I catch you at a bad time?"

Zaz looked around and shrugged. "Nah, just out for a hike."

"Oh? An afternoon trip to one of the parks around base?"

"No. The last batch of cadets rotated out and I had a few months before the next came in. Decided to give the Continental Divide Trail a try." He reached into the tent again, grabbing a towel.

"That's. . . a long hike. The whole thing?"

Zaz dried his body then started to pull on his hiking clothes. "Most of it so far. I'm in northern Montana now. Like I said, I had a few months."

“Well, I guess you are making the most of your time. Plenty of open space out there. But I had some news. Remember how we’d talked about finding you a posting ground-side somewhere? Something more permanent. Were you still interested in that?”

“Sure.” Starfleet had kept him busy enough, but stints as a guest instructor for security cadets and a fill-in PTI seemed like a waste of his commission and experience. They had discussed that, If he was going to stay in Starfleet, he’d rather have something like his old job back. His level of anxiety being stuck on a ship had proven to be a challenge he couldn’t quite overcome yet though and a pretty harsh limitation for a career built on ships.

“Well, a posting just came across the wire. Haumea Colony. Some sort of joint Starfleet-Civilian venture. They’re looking for a security chief. You have the qualifications and it should allow you to stay on the planet. What do you say?”

Zaz looked around at the vista and took one more slow breath. If he was ever going to. . . “Yeah. Let’s do it. I’m about a day out from the nearest town though and not sure how long it’ll take getting back to Command.”

There was a pause on the other end then, “Just pack up your stuff. I’ll have a ride there for you in a couple hours.”

The suborbital shuttle that landed in the meadow to the south of his campsite looked completely out of place in this wilderness. He only hoped he’d fit in better where he was headed.

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