Back and Forth

Posted on Sun Jun 14th, 2020 @ 1:23am by

Mission: Cruel Meridian
Location: Hanover's Office
Timeline: MD 07
1924 words - 3.8 OF Standard Post Measure

A maelstrom of thoughts raged on in Jared's head. Every question that had been answered during his meeting with Cassie and Laural acted like a hydra's head, spawning two or more tangential questions each time they managed to track down a clause in the archaic betrothal contract to its source. Hanover closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the crackle of the wood burning stove in his office. The sound usually calmed him, but with current events raising more questions that added to the maelstrom, he was all too aware that the sound he was hearing was the output of a holographic simulation. Nothing more, nothing less.

In one precipitous motion, Hanover sprang to his feet before tempering off the sudden burst of momentum into his usual gait. He reached for one of his wall-mounted guitars, carefully lowering it before sliding the strap over his shoulder and back. Even before he had plucked a single string, he knew that the tuning pegs were programmed to keep each of the six strings in tune, but strummed a few chords to check the intonation anyway. Old habits died hard.

"Let's take a walk, old friend."

And so the executive officer walked, played, and sang his way down the corridor outside of his office. He made the loop around deck three once or twice, playing for a limited audience - the lack of which did not dampen his spirits. He waved as he passed by two engineers, hard at work replacing one of the integrated display panels on the wall of the corridor. A few passing smiles were enough to convince him to make another lap of deck three.

The sound of singing and strumming had drawn the security chief's attention, and he stepped outside, seemingly rubbing sleep from his eyes as he barred the XO's way. Beatrice and the children had gone out, which gave him the chance to catch up on some much needed sleep before his next shift. "What's going on here," he demanded, "what's all that noise about."

The music crunched to a halt. Hanover had been walking with enough pace that he ran into the Romulan Chief of Security, breaking his guitar strap, causing his favorite instrument to fall to the ground and crack along the side of the wooden body. He immediately regretted not looking where he had been walking and waking someone from a nap, but his regret quickly turned to melancholy as he noticed the damage to the guitar.

"Commander! I am sorry to wake you," Jared spoke in a quiet voice as he held the guitar by the neck in one hand and the remnants of the broken strap in the other. "I didn't think anyone on this end of the corridor would be sleeping, but it doesn't excuse me from making such a racket. I apologize."

The Romulan just stared for a moment, not having realized at all that he had just basically told off the first officer. "I was..." he stared, though he stopped as he sensed the sadness. The feeling was strong enough for him to pick up on, without any risk to himself for trying to do it. "And there are others on this deck who served a night shift," he added, not unkindly. "You are the first officer, you could probably do as you please where you please, but please remain mindful of other crew." He pointed at the instrument. "Engineering can probably repair that for you."

"Structurally, yes. But it won't ever be the same really," Hanover exhibited a sulky expression, but even in the moment he knew that Lhaes had been right about making too much noise. "I'll see what I can do to effect repairs. On the positive side, it'll be a nice little project for me. Again, apologies to you commander, I'll see you on the bridge."

"Of course commander..." Lhaes frowned, not sure why he seemed so sad about an instrument which could be repaired. "Why won't it be the same?" he asked curiously.

"Well, you're right, it'll be physically the same, but something about the repair process when the replicator reconnects the fibers of the wood changes the sound ever so slightly. Who knows, it could end up sounding better, but it won't ever be the same," Hanover explained, studying the break in the wood in closer detail. "A bit like me, really. A little older and definitely not the same as I once was," he chuckled.

"Why not replicate an exact copy?" the Romulan suggested, shaking his head. "No-one is ever the same as they once were," he added, "that's life commander, it changes us."

"Simply put, it was an antique that had remained in remarkable condition for well over one hundred years. It just," Jared paused, "wel it wouldn't be the same I'm afraid. It's hard to explain, really. Just a dumb, human sentiment more than anything."

"Nothing dumb about it." Lhaes shrugged. "Sentimental value is just as important as monetary value. What might be utterly priceless to me, could be utter junk to you." He gave a nod then started to move back to his quarters. "Just... keep it down a bit next time?"

"You've got it. Thank you commander, rest well."

Commander Hanover continued and walked past the door to his quarters to make the now familiar trek to his office. A closer examination of the guitar would be necessary before he replicated the proper tools for lutherie. While he could be a snob about stringed instruments and his refusal to replicate them, Jared had no such reservations about replicating the tools required to perform the work. In a pensive moment, he thought about Lhaes's words. If anything, the conversation had reaffirmed his conviction, but it had also given him the perspective to more deeply appreciate change. His guitar would never be the same, but another story would be etched into the wood grain for Jared to remember both Lhaes and the Majestic by when he was old and retired.

Something about the lighting in his periphery broke his inner discourse and caught his attention as he continued towards his office. As he looked, Hanover noticed the source of the issue - a flickering display panel on the outer wall of the corridor. He freed up a hand by draping the guitar strap over his shoulder to allow him to take his PADD and snap a quick video of the faulty panel. His hope was that the self-diagnostic function had already alerted engineering to the need of a repair, but he made a mental note to follow up and place a manual repair order if necessary.

The doors closed behind Commander Hanover as he walked inside his office, leaving the vacated corridor void of any movement or noise. Occasionally, the hum of the turbolift passing by the landing or the sharp hiss of a door opening or closing broke the monotony, but these sounds no longer registered to those acclimated to starship living. In the quiet, an unfiltered noise broke the silence. At first, it was an unintelligible mash of waveforms, almost as if someone was shouting underwater. But as the sound crescendoed, it became more and more recognizable.

It was the sound of a guitar being played.

Lhaes turned his head towards the sound which filtered into his quarters, annoyance creeping up on him. He had just been about to go back to bed, when a loud cajoling disturbed the peace. Angrily, he strode back to the door, just as the commander swung past. "Commander!" he called out, raising his voice to draw the Human's attention.

"Hello Mr. Sommers!" Jared called out cheerfully. The smooth mahogany sides of the guitar were blemish free. He ended his playing with a flourish, slinging his guitar over his shoulder in such a way that it hung upside down on his back. "I'm terribly sorry, did I wake you from a mid-afternoon nap?"

"Are you trying to play me commander?" The Romulan narrowed his eyes as he studied the first officer. "Because I don't appreciate being played with. How is your guitar still in one piece, when you just smashed it."

"I beg your pardon?" Hanover raised an eyebrow. "I take great pride in maintaining my guitars, none more so than this one. This is my pride and joy, a nearly two hundred year old original made by hand on Earth. Speaking of which, why on Earth would I smash my guitar?"

"And yet you broke it, only minutes ago," the Romulan insisted, "because you were careless." This was so strange, he clearly remembered the commander being sad over a broken instrument and yet here he was brandishing the same one, and in one piece.

One look at the Romulan Chief of Security's face was all it took for Jared to know that he believed what he said, despite the fact that he was standing there in front of Lhaes with guitar intact. Hanover thought back a moment to his meeting with Captain Saulitis. He hadn't told anyone else about his run-in with a future version of the captain, lest he pollute the timeline, but now the shoe appeared to be on the other foot. Now he was the one that was out of time, at least from Commander Sommers's perspective.

"Lhaes, listen," Jared spoke quickly but clearly. "I don't know how much time we have. These events that are going on around the ship must be interconnected somehow. I believe you saw me and my guitar just now - there are some temporal events going on that may be affecting time as we know it."

"That might be the case..." Lhaes nodded thoughtfully. "Not to mention that we both have seen ourselves. But...which of the two of you that I saw belongs in the continued timeline?"

"It's impossible to know without extremely precise tachyon scans. Maybe we can pull that off, or..." Jared's voice trailed off as a thought came to him. The executive officer's brow certainly furrowed the same, whether he was from this timeline or not. "Commander, doesn't it make sense that these events must be diverging from a single point in time and space? Maybe there is a way to track these divergences back to the source. If there's a pattern, it could be our way out."

"How?" The Romulan frowned as he gestured for the XO to come inside. It was sure better to talk in quarters than halfway in the corridor. "I'm intelligence and security trained commander, I'm not a scientist. I have a medical degree but that's hardly the same. I wouldn't even know what a tachyon scan does."

"Commander, I use the words we, us, and our quite literally," Hanover spoke quickly. Given the current circumstances, there was no certainty that they were going to be gifted the time to have a lengthy conversation. A sense of urgency crept into the executive officer's tone. "What I mean is - I don't know how long you or I or any of the crew have. Expand your team, we've got to find this pattern..."

The doors leading into Lhaes's quarters closed, but Hanover was no longer there.

Lhaes blinked, then gritted his teeth as he touched his commbadge. "Sommers to Saulitis, we need to talk. Now. Summon Commander Hanover as well... whatever version of him is available."

---

Commander Jared Hanover
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Commander Lhaes Sommers
Chief Tactical/Security Officer