Over the Rainbow

Posted on Thu Apr 11th, 2019 @ 8:39am by

Mission: S0E0: What Came Before
Location: Starbase 73
Timeline: A week before Ritter's arrival at Canopus

"Why you?"

It was the question Ritter had been asking himself for days, and still it grated coming from Lucy. She was still in the bed behind him, sheets tangled around her limbs like pythons keeping her trapped to recline in state, queen-like, as if at any moment he would be summoned to her to waft a fan and feed her peeled grapes.

He'd left the bed to wrap a robe around himself, sit in the armchair facing the window beyond which stars glinted and the traffic drifted, fine ships at this fine starbase in the beating heart of the Federation. A far cry from his destination, which in turn was a far cry from his destiny. He'd made plans, such plans. Canopus. Why?

Ritter reached for the table to top up his glass of red wine. It was just a Beaujolais, nothing special except that it was real wine, something Lucy had brought with her for their last reunion before his deployment. They'd popped the cork an hour ago now, the first taste proving it needed time to breathe. It was fine, now, rich and fruity and entirely not to his preferences in a red. But Lucy liked it.

Bugger Lucy. This was supposed to be his night.

"If a foothold such as this beyond the barrier is to be successful," Ritter found himself saying, voice low, "then officers of high calibre will be needed to secure that success. Else it's a waste of resources. And besides; it comes with a promotion, the billet of an executive officer."

"You could have found those anywhere," Lucy drawled, seeming to realise her fiancé was too busy brooding on his own circumstances to give her the proper attention her lounging deserved. She rolled to face the foot of the bed, lying on her front, chin in her hands as long legs folded up behind her. Even after the evening's diversions, her brown hair tumbled in artful locks to frame the petite features of gentle beauty Ritter knew disguised a diabolical mind. After all, that was the only reason she'd been more than a passing distraction to him.

"Have you spoken with Admiral Corrant?" she pressed on. "I've no doubt he -"

"Apparently, Command are intent that I be dispatched to Canopus," said Ritter with a sneer. "Of course I've thought of talking to people. There's nothing any of them can do." He sipped his wine. "The only person to not get back to me so far is Sebastian. But this is rather far from his area of influence."

"Maybe someone is desperate for this mission to be successful and they've decided only you can make sure of it." Lucy's voice took on that cloying, toying tone he'd never cared for, and he heard her slide from the bed to pad across the room to him.

"Likely. Considering this Ingram is nothing more than a scientific researcher. If they've put an academic in command of a frontier outpost, they'll need an iron fist inside that velvet glove."

"Ingram." The cloying tone disappeared, even as Lucy's hand slid across his shoulder. He looked up to see her gazing out the window, lips pursed thoughtfully. "As in, Nanoscale Solutions?"

"Oh, probably. I expect their grubby fingers will be all over the research prospects."

"I can't imagine an Ingram taking themselves away from the rest of the galaxy to conduct some quiet academia. I'd be a little more careful of your captain."

It was Lucy's job, far more than his, to know who was who when it came to influencing policy and politics in the echelons of Starfleet Command. She purported to be a researcher herself, part of a policy think-tank, but in practice was far more of a lobbyist trying to make sure the right resources got allocated to the right projects to support the interests of the right people. She was a player, and players had to know other players.

But Ritter was in far too foul a mood to countenance that she might have insights into his unique, exquisite pain that he had missed, and he swigged his wine with far more abandon than a decent Beaujolais deserved. How he despised her in that moment for not bringing him a good Vino Nobile. "If he's capable of dealing with the unknown threats out there," he sneered, "then they wouldn't be sending me. No, this is some egghead in Starfleet Science wanting to protect their expensive vanity project and I'm the big gun they've decided the situation needs."

"Oh, my poor Wolfie." Both hands slid over his shoulders, across his neck, and she nuzzled in against his cheek, soft locks of hair brushing on his bare skin. The cloying voice was back, the nickname he hated, and knew she knew he hated. "I'll miss you terribly, but it's still going to be important work out there."

It hadn't even occurred to him to care that he wouldn't see Lucy for months at the least on this assignment, so engrossed had he been in the pitiful state of his career and prospects. "Yes, well. I'm sure you'll distract yourself with work." As an afterthought, his free hand came up to hers for a perfunctory squeeze.

"Yes," she purred, because she liked to play the ingenue even if she held a doctorate in political science and could make Admirals cry with just the right application of pressure, "but I much prefer to distract myself with you."

It was, unwittingly, one of the more honest things either of them had said to one another. Years of a relationship, a ring on her finger, and yet when matters went serious they both of them thought of themselves, of what they could do to get through or get out of a problem. They were allies only of convenience, and otherwise nothing but cards in each other's decks, or hidden up sleeves, when it came to bluffing or brute forcing political poker. The rest of the time, all they did was keep each other distracted.

That, Ritter knew, was what he'd actually miss about her. The distraction.

He wouldn't miss her taste in wine.