Questions on the Shuttle In

Posted on Sat Jun 8th, 2024 @ 8:21pm by Lieutenant Astrid Nyx

770 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: To Boldly Go
Location: Runnabout approaching Mars Station
Timeline: Shortly before arriving on Mars Station

Two days aboard a Danube-class runabout made for tougher traveling than Astrid was used to, especially with Aurelia along. But the pilot and the three other passengers were all kind and doted on the seven-year-old to the point were Aurelia was starting to wonder if it was going to give her goddaughter a big head. Sitting at the table in the aft cabin, Astrid watched as Ensign Glimmit, an antaran, sat on the cabin's floor with Aurelia, playing a game. Aurelia was fascinated by Glimmit's deep occipital ridges, and though she was better about restraining herself from simply touching them like she might have a couple of years earlier.

It felt odd, looking at the little girl, sitting on the floor with the ensign, playing a game with some sort of antaran wooden toys that Glimmit had replicated the day before. Odd because Aurelia was hers, and yet not hers. Even after three years, she hadn't quite come to terms with the reality of this new life as a surrogate mother and guardian. And she still missed Edwin terribly. Her best friend had given his daughter over to Astrid's keeping, a trust she would forever honor, but as Aurelia grew older the similarities between daughter and father that started to emerge were sometimes startling.

Astrid sighed, glancing down at the PADD on which details of her new appointment as CMO of the USS Fenrir were displayed in bright lines of electronic ink. In just a couple of hours, she would be meeting Kit Hanlon, the Fenrir's XO and her new immediate superior officer. And, in a few days, she would be settling fully into her role on a new starship. Changes. Always changes.

After a time, Glimmit left to pack his belongings.

"Hey kiddo," Astrid said as Aurelia bounded over to her, "we're almost there. Want to take a look? I'm sure Mr. Spruce wouldn't mind." Petty officer first-class Emile Spruce, the runabout's pilot, had become just as much Aurelia's fan as the other passengers.

"Okay!"

The main cockpit's forward view was currently dominated by the gigantic mushroom-esque shape of the stardock class Mars Station. Spruce smiled at them from his pilot's chair, but then turned back to the task at hand as they moved steadily closer to their destination. Astrid took one of the ops seats and pulled Aurelia up onto her knee. Soon, the girl would be getting to big for this. It was so strange. Aurelia was clutching Turtle, her stuffed dragon, which she had been holding onto religiously the last few weeks. Astrid wondered if that was something to be concerned about. Aurelia hadn't been this attached to her stuffed animal in a while, but the changes seemed to have regressed something in her keenly.

“Mom, what if I don’t like it there? What if the other kids don’t like me?”

Aurelia wasn't looking at Astrid, but at the huge station ahead. A quiet tension seemed to run through the whole of her small body.

"Well, why do you think they wouldn't like you?"

Aurelia shrugged.

"Remember making friends on the Valkyrie?"

A small nod. Then, "Why do we have to move?"

Astrid took her time in answering. Ever since she made this decision, second-guessing it had become a passtime. But the Valkyrie wasn't designed for families, and its role as a fast patrol ship meant it saw combat missions seven times out of ten. That wasn't the life that Astrid wanted for her goddaughter.

"Do you know about Fenrir, the wolf?"

Aurelia looked up at her, brown eyes large. She shook her head.

"He was a great wolf in mythical Asgard, and there was this story that all the gods believed that he would one day grow so big that he'd swallow the world. But, he had this friend named Tyr who cared for him very much, and took care of him. That's what we're going to try and find here. New friends." Astrid carefully left out the rest of the myth, including Fenrir's betrayal and the loss of Tyr's hand. Mythology could get dark.

“Will you still be able to help people like you did on the Valkyrie?”

"Definitely. I'll have a whole team working with me, and we're going to be doing even more missions that help people than we did on the Valkyrie."

"Turtle will help. He likes keeping people safe."

Astrid smiled at the stuffed dragon that was suddenly being proffered into her field of vision.

"I'm sure he will, he's always been good at that. And I'll be with you too, every step of the way."

 

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