See You Sooner Than You Think

Posted on Wed Jul 10th, 2013 @ 2:42pm by Commander Ehlana Winter

Mission: Breaking New Ground
Location: Ehlana's Quarters

Ehlana sat down at the terminal in her quarters and pressed her hands to her eyes a moment with a sigh. It had been a long few days - bewildering days. The weird visions that had plagued the station from top to bottom had inexplicably stopped. It had been two weeks without a single one. What this told her was that whatever event had set it in motion had now ceased. Something had righted itself, for lack of a better term and now she was mired eyeball-deep in going over every single notable event that had happened on the station from just before the first sighting until the last one, looking for clues. The beep of her terminal pulled her back to the here and now and she opened the channel.

“Yes?” she said, her eyes still closed.

"Ehl?" A gruff voice called her name, sounding worried. "You look tired. Are you sleeping enough? Eating? You need to keep up your strength, you know."

“Earl?” Her eyes popped open immediately and she smiled. “I am so glad to see you! How are you?” She positively lit up, something that might have surprised Marie, had she seen it. “I miss you so much.”

"And I miss you," he replied. "Tell me what's wearing on you so much?"

“Weirdness Earl. All over the station people began to see people they knew, but people that it could be proven were light years and whole galaxies away, or dead, or not born yet, or much older than they should be and thinking it was decades later than it was. Then they’d vanish. And then, two weeks ago, the visions just stopped.” Ehlana shook her head. “So now I'm looking for a needle in a haystack.”

"Can you come back? If you're looking for a needle, then you're looking at reports and that can be done from here instead of there." He frowned.

“No, unfortunately. But I have to say, life out here is interesting, Earl. Come here? Please? There’s a lot going on here and we’ve been approached by the Dendrian Order to establish a Federation outpost on one of their planets. It’s a huge step for us. You’d love it here I think, and would get along with the Admiral very well. He has a bit of a twisted sense of humour as you do.”

"Twisted? There's nothing twisted about my humor, woman!" He shook his head, causing his gray hair to wave about. "But I would like to get off this station... You know my buddy, Solis, is leaving, too? Headed your way. I could just go along and get my orders changed on the way."

That bit of news surprised her. “He is? But what about --?” She dropped the question for now. There was plenty of time to catch up on the news later. For now, she had Earl to herself and that’s what mattered. And if he could come here? To 900? “Could you do that? I’m sure Dr. Harding would be glad to have another pair of hands here. Or at least someone he could call if they get overrun.”

“To be with you, I can do anything,” Earl smiled warmly. He wasn’t kidding: he was older than dirt and had a rather wide range of favors he could request from various powers that were. “Maybe I could even convince the captain of our transport to speed things along and get us there sooner.”

A sudden sneaking suspicion hit Ehlana and she looked closer at Earl’s background in the monitor. “You’re not on DS10 are you? Earl?”

His bushy eyebrows went up and he looked behind and around him then moved closer to the camera to block out more of the background. “DS10? Of course... Where else would I be?” Surely he wouldn’t already be on the transport en route to SB900....

“Earl....” There was a suspicious note in her voice as she spoke, but a smile tugged at her lips. “‘Fess up. How far out are you?”

“Ah, well...,” he looked sheepish then smiled, “Blame Solis! He’s chasing after Jules. Can’t imagine why; she’s a cold, mean one, you know.”

“A lot of people think that of me as well you know.” She gave in to the smile as she looked back at him. “But those outside a relationship rarely see how things are inside it. My assistant Marie is going to be surprised to hear about you.”

“You? Cold and mean? Never!”, he looked aghast as he said that. How could anyone think of his Ehlana as mean? Julisa, on the other hand, Earl knew, first-hand, just how blunt and uncaring she could be. “Why doesn’t Marie know about me yet?”

“Because I don’t run around telling people my life story. You know what it’s like for me Earl. People get only what they need to know.”

He grunted, “I know.” He was often one who got only what he needed to know. “Anyway, I don’t know how far out we are, though I could ask Solis. I think he’s been counting down the seconds.”

“You do that. And I can check to see who’s coming through the wormhole. Tell me that I’ll at least have time to get from my quarters to the docking bay?” She reached out to brush her finger over the screen for a moment. “And time to inform Marie I’m taking the next two days off?”

“I’m fairly sure you have longer than you need for that, my dear. Solis isn’t yet to the ‘crawling the walls with excitement’ stage, so I think we have a while longer.” He looked behind him then turned back to the screen. “I love you, Ehl. And I’ll see you soon.”

“I love you too. Give Solis a kiss for me?” She winked at Earl. “And yes, I’ll see you soon.” That was one thing she was very sure of.

“Ah... kiss?” Earl’s brows rose again, but he was speaking to a blank screen. “I’d sooner kiss a targ,” he grumbled, though he couldn’t remain unhappy for more than a second: he was close to seeing his lovely Ehlana, in person. Life was good.

Ehlana’s gaze lingered on the blank screen as a smile slowly spread over her face. “Computer, trace the origin of that last communication.”

=^= The channel was opened from the USS Envoy =^=

“And the Envoy’s location? Time to arrival?”

=^= The USS Envoy is currently located in the Beta quadrant. Distance from SB900 is one day, seven hours, twenty-nine minutes =^=

That news made her smile brighten considerably. A day, more or less. She suspected it wouldn’t be long before she was at the ‘crawling the walls with excitement’ stage.

************
Commander Ehlana Winter
Waiting For The Man

Dr. Earl D. Crane
Rushing Headlong