Chapter 16: Making the Transition
If Lorca had known what a bad day it was going to be, perhaps he wouldn't have gotten up. He was already in a dismal mood as he walked to an early appointment with Ginfas. Bad news all around. The Klingons weren't giving up. Lorca only heard of T'Lara's death two weeks after it happened. Malek was back on Vulcan and not answering any calls, not that Lorca really knew what to say to him anyway.
He entered the psychiatrist's office. Ginfas greeted him with a gray box in his hands. Lorca froze and made as if to go away.
"Don't you think it's time you faced your past?" Asked Ginfas. "This box has followed you all over the galaxy."
"I can't. Not now."
"It's been sixteen months. And I don't know where to put it. The thing beeps every now and then and I can't make it stop."
Lorca took the box that he'd hidden in a storage room on Discovery. There was actually a special department that carried these boxes back and forth, for Lorca wasn't the only one reluctant to hear the "last" words and wishes of a friend. Feeling like he was sinking, he put his hand on the Starfleet logo on the box.
"Do you accept the last will and testament of Shweta Landry?" It asked.
After a gulp, Lorca said he did. A holograph of Landry appeared, sitting on a stool with a glass of wine in her hand.
"Oh my God, this is so depressing," she said. "They make us do this and it's my fourth try. I don't sound serious. I'm not sure if alcohol has made it better or worse but I'm just not going to review this one and close the lid. If it sounds like I find my own death funny, then fine, I believe in reincarnation anyway. By the time you're watching this, I'm probably in the shape of a…a space whale or something. Flying among the stars. Maybe I'll even remember you a little and wave a fin as I fly past our ship. But, look, they told us to keep this short and save the rest for the autobiography. So I'll try to be serious and professional at last."
She put the glass down and got off the stool, approaching the camera with her hands behind her back.
"Knowing you, I'm guessing it's been about a year since I died. Let me give you the advice that I am sure you would have given me in the same situation: move on. We had many wonderful adventures and a beautiful relationship. We knew the risks. I hope you haven't been taking it out on the crew. Don't push people away because of your pain. They will help you. Even Willoughby. Continue to take care of them like you have for the past ten years, in your own weird, slightly crazy way. Take care, Gabriel. Thanks for believing in me. Goodbye."
With tears in her eyes, Landry turned off the recording. The box opened to reveal what Ginfas took for a pen. Lorca picked it up and pointed it at Ginfas' computer. The tip of the pen glowed and it made an electronic whining sound.
"Sonic screwdriver," said Lorca. "I sat on it one time and she must have fixed it."
"Does it do anything besides light up and make a sound?" Asked Ginfas.
Lorca ignored him and said, "She didn't know they would all die!"
He turned to the back of the armchair and started to cry. Ginfas walked over to him and briefly put his hand on Lorca's arm, then left the room.
Ginfas took out a tablet and re-read some entries on the crew of the Buran. John Willoughby was Lorca's helmsman, an Andorrian. Their relationship was colored by frequent but apparently good-humored death threats on the bridge. The helmsman's wife Jane was in charge of weapons. In her spare time she wrote robot and various AI-themed erotica. Lorca had picked them both up at a bar during his first year as captain, and then hired them. He had a ton of ne'er-do-wells on his ship that nobody else would have hired. The ship's doctor was a somewhat crazy Vulcan who practiced recreational taxidermy and once got Lorca in trouble when they visited a monarchic planet and some prince's pet went missing. Landry showed up a few years later and received a promotion straight from lieutenant to First Officer, something that would never have passed in Starfleet.
Ginfas skimmed a few pages about Landry's attempts to manage the workload, instances where she messed up and Lorca covered for her, and vice versa. What a disaster! Thought the psychiatrist. But they somehow scraped by without major incidents and miraculously passed the inspections when the ships of S-VEG were taken over by Starfleet. And they even managed to play by the rules for two years as part of Starfleet.
This report on the Buran seemed to focus on the bad too much. Looking at other write-ups, Ginfas noticed that Lorca's crew actually did a sound number of successful public health projects, the scientific team made significant progress, and all these sheer desperadoes that Lorca hired lived up to their full potential. He had a talent for encouraging other people's talents, even ones irrelevant to their missions, like artwork and music. The Vulcan doctor, for example, became quite famous for her macabre work.
The psychiatrist wondered what it would be like to lose all these people. Ginfas had never deceived himself into thinking that he understood loss, though he liked to think he understood people's reactions to loss, a little.
He didn't want to disturb Lorca and moved his next appointment to another office.
Why don't we give Lorca some time as well? Especially since we're going back to the past. Some context will now be provided (though it may not be wanted or needed) on Lorca and Landry's adventures with the USS Buran.
Yep, it's another flashback chapter!
Eight years ago, Shweta Landry was scraping ice off an asteroid to help scientists obtain some samples. A couple of the scientists joined her but she volunteered to scrape off the ice alone, since she was ticked off and wanted to whack at something. The USS Explorer hovered nearby, waiting for them to return. Landry got hot and paused, looking at the ship. The Explorer was shaped like a pair of steps and for some reason the name of the ship was on the lower step. No windows looked out on it. One could not see the name of the ship from anywhere inside it.
The name had changed.
Landry blinked sweat out of her eyes, wondering if she was so tired that she was seeing things. But the scientists had just noticed it too.
"Ah shit, Mulberry will kill you," said one of them. "I bet it's been like that for at least a week!"
Indeed, Jack Mulberry took it out on Landry, as he usually did. He ranted and raged for a good fifteen minutes. He ordered Landry to scroll through social media and access any video feeds she could find to see if anybody had noticed. Of course, he guessed at the culprit.
"It's Lorca, damn him! He's never forgiven me for taking his job back on the Resilience. Find proof, Landry, or I swear…"
Mulberry often started to make a threat, then stopped and just gave people unreasonable deadlines or took away their shore leave privileges. Landry was supposed to watch her sister Priyanka's live performance as Lady Macbeth a few days ago but Mulberry had her supervising an exhibition to some ancient caves on a planet. Landry never learned to say no to her captain and was terrified of him. Priyanka was really disappointed. They'd had a plan to do their secret sister wave during one scene, connected across light years.
Universe 51 was unusual in that Priyanka Landry survived to old age. In most other Federation universes, she died in a shuttle accident on the way to a performance. This tragedy badly affected Shweta E. Landry, turning her into a cold, unfeeling, methodical strategist who hated the theater.
In this universe, Landry scrambled to carry out Mulberry's orders (she was a lieutenant in Security) and try to maintain some semblance of work life balance. After the incident with the ship's name, Landry decided it was time to transfer to a new ship. Mulberry was really pissed that she found no proof tying the damage back to Lorca. Landry doubted this Lorca did it anyway. Why would a Starfleet captain condescend to such silliness? As for social media, she didn't find anything debilitating to their reputation. Luckily, they had been far out of the way of modern civilization since the last starbase.
Whoever did it, Landry didn't care. She started using her meager amount of free time to research other ships. At first she considered the USS Shenzhou. She spent long hours writing up an application where she praised their missions and rambled about her own experience and desire to join them. She managed to get an interview. The process, by Starfleet regulation, was completely hidden from Mulberry. An officer below commander level did not even have to tell anyone he or she was leaving until they reached a starbase where the officer could leave. Starfleet figured that toxic situations could arise if people living and working on the same ship knew somebody was leaving.
Landry met with two ensigns from the Shenzhou and two lieutenants. The ensigns were OK but the lieutenants, Burnham and Saru, struck Landry as nuts. They seemed really hyped up on…work. They kept talking about how proud they were to serve with Georgiou and completely and totally dedicate their lives to the mission.
"So…how would you describe work life balance?" Asked Landry meekly.
They didn't seem to understand at first, then Saru said, "We maintain a very healthy schedule. I make sure to go jogging on the holodeck every day. I know Michael likes to practice Vulcan meditation every day too."
Burnham nodded and said, "We make sure to train all our senses and develop our communication skills through leadership workshops, seminars on emotional and social intelligence, and continuing education courses on topics like finance and economics."
"But what about…just hanging out?" Asked Landry.
Now they looked really baffled.
"You do not join Starfleet to hang out," Burnham finally said, pronouncing the expression as if it was something disgusting.
Landry spoke with Georgiou for about five minutes. The captain had reviewed the notes from Landry's interviews and didn't think she was a good fit.
"I admit that Lieutenants Burnham and Saru are too ambitious for their own good," said Georgiou, "but I do not believe you will enjoy yourself on the Shenzhou. I suggest that if you really want to stay in Starfleet, you try to obtain a position on the USS Echo. That is a place where people can hang out."
Landry moped for a while. The Echo was a giant space ferry. It didn't go on adventures to strange new worlds and new civilizations. Landry researched other ships and came to the conclusion that most were like the Shenzhou. People really didn't join Starfleet to hang out. Perhaps she should transfer to the Echo…
Mulberry called her into his ready room one day to go over the data from the last starbase they were at because he was positive they'd missed something regarding the ship's name change. Video showed that the name was unharmed before they entered the starbase. The Buran had been there a week ago! Lorca must have left a robot or something that changed the name.
"It's very hard to tamper with a starbase robot or bring in an unauthorized one," said Landry, stifling a yawn.
"I know he did it!" Said Mulberry. "Look over that repair log again!"
"Perhaps you could call and ask if he did it," said Landry, to avoid looking at the log for the tenth time. "Of course he'll lie but perhaps you could use Neurolinguistic Programming to figure it out."
She was just talking nonsense but Mulberry liked the idea and called Lorca. The other captain ignored him for five minutes, then picked up without his camera on.
"Oh, Doucheberry!" Said Lorca. "I was just thinking about you and then you called. I must be psychic."
"Were you thinking about me because of what you did to my ship?"
"Everything that's been done to your ship is your own fault."
"So you admit it! You changed the name of my ship!"
"No, I'm just pointing out that you're a bad captain. What did the name get changed to, anyway?"
"Never you mind," said Mulberry, who had never spoken aloud that one letter change. Everybody on the Explorer, though never specifically told this, somehow knew they were not to speak the fake name aloud.
"Who is that?" Asked Lorca about Landry.
"Nobody," said Mulberry. "Now cut the crap, Lorca, I know you changed the name of my ship! You're still envious that I took your job on the Resilience."
"You've got issues. I've been captain for three years and you for what, five months? If I've learned one thing, it's that nobody on my ship is a nobody."
Mulberry started to say something but Lorca interrupted him, "Listen, unknown officer, the question is not why are you still working for him but why is he still working for you?"
"You're full of talk, Lorca," said Mulberry. "Why don't you turn your camera on so we can discuss this on an even footing?"
"I'd rather not. I look like shit after a birthday party we had yesterday. Woo! Don't know how or why but I woke up practically in the warp core."
"Your ship is a disgrace and I know you vandalized mine."
"Oh, you think you know everything, D-berry."
"You can't even pronounce the name of your own ship!" Said Mulberry, but Lorca had cut the call.
"He really doesn't pronounce it correctly, idiot that he is," said Mulberry to Landry. "He says it like you'd begin saying bureaucracy but it's a Russian word, it's pronounced Boo-ran."
"Actually it's Boo-rahn," muttered Landry, but she figured a captain could pronounce the name of his ship however he wanted.
Mulberry sent Landry away. She thought about Lorca's comment. Why was Mulberry still working for her, and for the Explorer in general? He was a terrible captain. She was not the only one to have reached a limit. The crew suddenly scheduled some clandestine meetings to discuss Mulberry's behavior, decided against him, and wrote up a 150-page manifesto on his shortcomings (still not as long as the one Burnham would later write about Lorca!) He was gone within two weeks. He vanished from social media but was apparently just living with his parents and building model spaceships.
A new captain arrived within days and Landry realized she was still right about Starfleet ships in general. Sure, the new captain was not a tyrant, and Landry did make it to her sister's performances and had time to read or watch TV, but it was a very hectic existence. Starfleet Academy just hadn't prepared Landry for the job, or rather, she'd always assumed the training at the Academy and as an ensign was really hard so you'd be prepared for the higher ranks and could delegate tasks to others. No such luck. She had to learn new stuff all the time and was constantly being called to seminars, group activities, and meetings her superiors thought would be good for her.
One day she talked to her new captain about it and mumbled that she really didn't have time to write.
"So the great American novel is sitting untouched in your virtual attic," joked the captain.
Landry thought a Harry Potter fanfiction was no great American novel, but she didn't say so. The captain was supportive and also recommended transferring to the Echo. Suddenly, even though she had never thought about it before, Landry blurted out a novel idea.
"Perhaps I could transfer to the Buran."
She had never looked it up but if Lorca's crew had birthday parties that ended with the captain blackout drunk, it had to be less stressful than the Explorer! Her captain agreed.
"SVEG could be a good option for you. They don't do top priority work like Starfleet. I hear it can be rather boring, but better than a space ferry. Research all the ships, not just the Buran. I've heard…things about Gabriel Lorca. Not really bad things though…"
But Landry focused on the Buran. She scheduled some informational interviews with members of the crew. The lieutenants seemed nice and they certainly had time for hobbies. The only commander she spoke with, Jane Willoughby, didn't have her camera on for apparently the same reason as Lorca before, though Landry was too timid to ask. Jane Willoughby just didn't sound good.
"Are you on break right now or did you schedule this meeting with me as part of training hours?" Asked Landry.
"I have no idea," groaned Willoughby.
Did Landry really want to transfer to a ship where they partied so hard? She was not much of a party person. She decided to get the opinion of an officer who used to work on the Buran but transferred, ironically enough, to the Shenzhou. He was Georgiou's First Officer before Michael Burnham.
"Everybody calls me Captain America," he said at the beginning of their talk. "That's the nickname Lorca gave me and it's followed me here."
At first he acted like he didn't want to tell the story, but then he "caved" and explained that two years ago, when he was Lorca's First Officer, they helped people in a small colony build more efficient heating systems for the cold winters. The Buran stayed around that planet until the winter to make sure the equipment worked. There was a lot of messing around and snowball fights. One day Captain America went ice skating and fell through. Some folks took him into their house and he sat by the fireplace (which they kept despite the advanced heating equipment because what's a long winter without a fireplace?) Lorca heard about the accident and came down. Captain America had dropped his wet clothing in a heap on a chair and his red, white, and blue-striped boxers were on top.
"You could see the cogs whirring in Lorca's head," said Captain America. "He put two and two together. I fell through the ice and I had American flag underwear—Captain America! He finally had a nickname for me. I wonder what yours will be if you join?"
Overall Captain America recommended joining the Buran. He left because there wasn't much room for advancement in SVEG.
"He's got another Avenger in my place now," he said. "Lorca is…unusual. But he really cares about his crew and I would trust him with my life. But I've got to run. There's so much stuff to do. Fireball and Slim are out for my job and I need to get moving."
He paused and muttered, "Philippa really doesn't like it when I call them that but I mean, come on! It fits them to a T."
Landry applied to the Buran after all this. Again, she wrote up an essay about how much she admired the ship's work and how her achievements were a good fit. She started to prepare for the interviews. But Lorca approved her application without an interview. He had one comment about her application pack, regarding her secondary email address.
"Why do you still have a Yahoo account?"[1]
Landry didn't end up meeting with Lorca before transferring to his ship because of a bunch of scheduling conflicts (on Landry's end, mostly, Lorca had time. Landry's captain wanted her to check this, put away that, train a few people). The two ships were going to part ways for a while after going to the same starbase so Landry bade her crew of five months goodbye. She slowly walked toward the chute that connected to the Buran's hangar.
An Andorian woman, whom Landry recognized as Jane Willoughby from photos, came out of the chute, looked beyond Landry, and yelled for her to move. Somebody else yelled the same thing. Surprised, Landry looked around and was nearly bowled over by a Vulcan woman in a white doctor's uniform carrying a large sack.
"Get over here now!" Yelled Willoughby.
"Bring him back!" Yelled a man who appeared at the end of the corridor. He was wearing only pajamas and bedroom slippers.
Landry obeyed and ran into the chute after the Vulcan woman. Willoughby closed the chute and they ran onto the ship.
"I see your mission was successful," said Willoughby.
The Vulcan woman showed them what was in the bag: a large dead parrot-like bird. Landry thought the obvious and the Vulcan woman said, "I didn't kill it. Here."
She handed Landry her communicator, which was open to her, T'Veena's, blog. T'Veena was the ship's doctor and a skilled taxidermist. She was always on the hunt for dead rare animals and acquired them from zoos or people who had unusual pets. The parrot at the space station died four days ago and the owner refused to let it go. His family admitted that the last time a pet died, he kept the body in the fridge until it fell out on an elderly aunt and nearly gave her a heart attack. T'Veena pretended to be a friend of the family and sat with the man, drinking tea and eating more sugary pastry than the average Vulcan consumed in five years, until he finally went to the bathroom and she nabbed the bird from the fridge.
"They asked me not to send him the body after I prepare it," said T'Veena. "They're afraid he might lose whatever marbles he has left."
Landry was surprised that a Vulcan should use an expression like "lose his marbles," but T'Veena said grew up on Earth and went to school with humans until her parents, ambassadors, perished. She was sent to Vulcan where nobody ever really believed the human could be completely eradicated from her, and she felt alienated everywhere until she ended up on the Buran.
"So then why do you still act like you're alienated?" Asked Willoughby.
"It only seems that way to you because of your boorish mannerisms," said T'Veena.
Willoughby shook hands with Landry and said, "Please, call me Trinity. Willoughby is my husband, John."
"Like from the Matrix?" Asked Landry.
"Well duh," said Trinity.
"I wouldn't wear that if I were you, Trin," said T'Veena.
Trinity had just pulled her uniform jacket out from under a bench. There was a dusty footprint on the sleeve. Landry couldn't help but notice that the cut of Trinity's shirt was most definitely not regulation. Trinity left the dirty jacket on a bench and showed Landry to her room. On the way they ran into the First Officer, Robert Downey, AKA Ironman.
"How many times do I have to tell you to put your uniform jacket on, Commander," he said to Trinity.
"I'm not supposed to," she said. "Doctor's orders."
Downey did not believe her for a moment and pointed toward her room. Trinity waved cheekily at Landry and walked away, swinging her arms. Downey sighed.
"Whatever reception you received, I'm sorry," he said. "The captain allows misdemeanors of all sorts. Do you want to get settled in or go for a tour of the ship?"
Landry picked the tour and Downey showed her the cafeteria, holodeck, security center where she'd be working, etc.
"You'll spend a lot of time on the bridge, though," said Downey. "There's a rotation system and we don't have a large security force."
They ran into Lorca by the holodeck.
"Ironman, have you finished the departure procedures?" Asked the captain.
"Yes, I wouldn't have spent such leisurely time showing around Lieutenant Landry if I hadn't finished the departure procedures," said Downey.
"I know I can count on you, Ironman," said Lorca. "You're dependable."
Downey maintained a featureless expression but Landry got the feeling he hated the nickname, which Lorca obviously knew.
"So, new recruit," said Lorca. "Did Doucheberry start crying when he got fired? I wish I could have seen it."
"The decision was told to him privately," said Landry.
"Did you start crying when your captain told you to get lost?" Asked Lorca of Downey.
"She didn't fire me," said Downey. "I left."
"Ask him why he left," said Lorca.
"Just tell her yourself! It's not like the entire ship doesn't know," said Downey.
"He dated his captain but the relationship went south and he couldn't work with her anymore," said Lorca.
"We were dating before she became captain," said Downey. "And you're one to talk!"
"Indeed," said Lorca. "You're just too fun to mess with. Anyway, welcome onboard, Lieutenant Landry!"
The first week went by smoothly. They went to some space warehouses, picked stuff up, and took it to other places. Landry got to know the other security personnel. Then it was her turn to work on the bridge. Lorca only had Downey, Trinity, Willoughby, Landry, and a Tellarite named Sooze on the bridge. Willoughby was the helmsman, Trinity did weapons and communications, and Sooze, the Chief Analyst, took care of various monitoring systems. Lorca had two Tellarites among his crew. The second was his chief engineer, also called Ironman.
"And he actually deserves the name," Lorca frequently said to Downey, who protested that he never asked to be named anything! Not Robert, not Ironman, not anything!
Landry had been prepared for a rather informal bridge atmosphere but she had not expected to hear pretty frequent death threats.
"Oh, go choke on a banana, Lorca," said Willoughby when Lorca commented on their speed. Lorca wasn't the least offended.
"You really want to watch me choke on a banana?" He asked.
"I don't care what you choke on as long as you're dead at the end," said the helmsman.
"I don't want you to choke," said Trinity, "but I wouldn't mind watching you eat a banana."
Landry looked at Downey and he just shook his head.
Landry was kind of appalled about this sort of conversation at first. One time, Downey told Trinity off, for the umpteenth time, for not putting on her damned uniform jacket.
"But you're supposed to make accommodations for people with disabilities," said Trinity.
"You don't have a disability!"
"Menopause is a type of disability," she said. "I'm always hot!"
"You sure are, Trin," said Lorca.
"I don't want to ask to lower the temperature," said Trinity in a baby-sweet voice. "I think that might make other people feel uncomfortable."
"Nothing you do could ever make me feel uncomfortable," said Lorca.
For a while, Landry wondered if she had made a big mistake. Officers were not supposed to talk this way in the workplace. There was either something going on between Lorca and Trinity or they just liked making such remarks but it wasn't appropriate. Landry had just finished the training on sexual harassment in the workplace so it was fresh in her mind. She was going to bring it up with Downey but kept putting it off because she didn't want to be the new girl complaining about the captain. But the videos all said she should speak up. And she was going to, but one day Lorca turned his attention to Sooze.
"Sooze, Sooze, to you my heart I would lose," he said.
The Tellarite, not talkative during even the busiest times, just snorted in his direction.
"I get ya, Sooze," said Lorca. "I'd find it pretty annoying if somebody made up songs about my name too, like some doddering wizard."
Landry turned from her console and stared at Lorca. Did he just make a reference to the short story Two Hearts, the sequel to The Last Unicorn? She asked.
"What else could it be a reference to?" He said.
So far, Landry hadn't given much thought to Lorca's idiotic nicknames for people. The names were all from very well-known movies and books. This did not suggest that Lorca might be well-read. But he'd actually read Two Hearts? Why would a guy like him read something about unicorns?
"When did you read Two Hearts?" She asked.
"Undergrad, I think," he said.
Ah, well, many people read in undergrad but then stopped. She pondered if she should ask what he was reading this week when Trinity said, "It's a mystery how he manages to lead this ship, read a bunch of crap, get shit-faced drunk once a week, and…"
She drew out the last word and finished with, "What the hell else do you do?"
Lorca just responded with a line from The Last Unicorn movie, "Do myth and mystery lie, wherever unicorns go?"
Sooze snorted again.
"Go fuck yourself, Lorca," said Willoughby quietly.
Landry somehow forgot her issue with the inappropriate behavior and asked Lorca questions about various books he'd read or shows he'd watched. Boring shifts passed by quickly when they were chatting about Dr. Who. And the free time Landry had so desired on her old ship did materialize. She finally got back to her fanfictions, often inspired by her conversations with Lorca. She started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he would like to read them. But she knew that asking somebody to read your fanfiction is even worse that asking for help moving.[2]
One day she went into his ready room and he asked, "So what did you think of the ASS Explorer?"
Landry did a double take. She'd completely forgotten about that.
"It was just a stupid prank," she said.
"Stupid prank? It took weeks of planning," said Lorca. "Trin and I got blueprints of the station, hacked copies of the bots' software, learned people's lunch schedules, and just basically did really cool spy stuff. It was very challenging. I still can't believe we pulled it off and didn't get caught."
Landry let her mouth hang open, then said, "You actually did it?!"
"Well yeah, I knew something would push D-berry over the edge and it would be better if it happened on a normal day instead of on an important mission."
"So you did it as an act of charity?"
"Partly. Partly. But hey, check this out. I'm not the only one to have thought of changing the U for an A. Look, here's the ASS Expedition, the ASS Journey, and the somewhat less ambitious ASS Observer."
"You broke so many regulations."
"Didn't get caught!"
He went toward the door, then turned and said, "Um…I don't know you that well, though I think you have a great taste in literature, but if all of this nonsense makes you uncomfortable I'll gladly stop. I hope you've realized that Willoughby doesn't really want me to, what did he say last week, want me to breath in noxious fumes and blow up. And Trinity and I have a very close relationship. But if you think we should keep our personal business off the bridge then I promise it will stop."
Landry was surprised again and said, "I'm…OK with it, after being here a while, but I think you make Downey really uncomfortable."
"He doesn't really care. He just doesn't like us breaking protocol. Trust me, I have his best interest at heart."
This was an odd thing to say considering that Downey quit a few weeks later and went back to his old crew. Apparently his captain girlfriend wanted him back.
"And he went running like a dog on a leash," said Lorca on the bridge. "I bet she will throw him little treats."
"I can picture that very well," said Trinity.
"Some Ironman!" Said Lorca.
"Did you know he'd go back?" Asked Landry. "Were you being extra terrible to him to make him go back?"
"Yeah, were you?" Asked Trinity. "What makes you think you know what's best for him?"
"His place wasn't here, anyway," said Lorca.[3] "So, now I need a new First Officer. Who wants to be it?"
"Pass," said Trinity, and put her feet up on her console.
Sooze turned her head slowly toward Lorca with a tired look, then turned back.
"I'd rather eat nails than be your First Officer!" Said Willoughby.
"I'd didn't mean you anyway, you bastard!" Snapped Lorca. "So, how about Landry becomes my new First Officer?"
"What?" She said.
"Sounds good," said Trinity. "She has my vote."
"This isn't a democracy," said Lorca. "It's my decision. And hers, I guess."
"What? This is the first time I'm hearing that this isn't a democracy!" Yelled Trinity, standing up with her arms spread out.
"Wait, I can't be First Officer," sputtered Landry before Trinity could perform any more theatrics. "I'm not even a lieutenant-commander."
"Oh, right," said Lorca. "OK, I promote Shweta Landry to lieutenant-commander. Computer, you got that? Good, now I promote her to commander. Let's see if it works."
It actually didn't, the system needed 24 h to process the first promotion before it could handle the second one. In the meantime the bridge crew and Lorca went down to the cafeteria for some beers after another shift took over and Lorca tried to convince Landry to take the job. His main argument was that Captain America and Ironman were both First Officers before they joined Lorca's crew. They came with their own ideas about how to run a ship. Lorca wanted somebody new to grow with the crew and assimilate the culture. He also stressed that being First Officer on his ship didn't come with strings attached like in Starfleet proper. There, most First Officers continued to perform their old duties in Engineering, Security, etc. Landry could just make a break with Security and focus on managing the ship's day-to-day business alongside Lorca.
"But I've only been a lieutenant for a year!" Protested Landry. "I'm almost fresh out of the Academy!"
"Sooze, what do you think? Will Landry make a good First Officer?" Asked Lorca of the Tellarite, who nursed a very large mug of whiskey.
"Better than some," said Sooze, looking at Lorca pointedly. Whether she meant him or somebody he'd hired was unclear, and she didn't offer any other pearls of wisdom.
"Sooze spoke three whole words for you!" Said Trinity. "Take the job, Landry!"
Landry needed a few days to think about it. She got her commander badge, feeling disbelief. Her parents would never believe it either. She'd have to wait years before telling them. They considered her the slower of the two sisters. Landry spent hours considering the pros and cons of taking the job. Suppose she took it and failed miserably and had to go home and spend the rest of her life answering Priyanka's fan mail? But she felt like this crew could be a good home for her.
One day she passed T'Veena's room and the doctor pulled her inside to marvel at the parrot. Landry stepped back in horror, a reaction that didn't seem to offend T'Veena. The parrot had a horrible, gnarled, monkey head instead of its real head.
"It's a harpy," said T'Veena.
"You…you really have a gift," said Landry. After a few minutes of scrutinizing the awful thing, she asked, "How did you end up on this ship?"
"I was working at a hospital on Earth. I returned to Earth after finishing medical school on Vulcan. One of the Academy's pilot training centers was nearby and Lorca was doing a semester of mandatory teaching. His student crashed a helicopter onto the front lawn of the hospital. I came over to help. The student who crash-landed the helicopter was not badly injured but he was really upset. Lorca gave him a B.
'He failed,' I said, wondering if the human was being silly, or perhaps had a concussion.
'You only get As or Bs in flight school,' said Lorca. 'If you score worse, you're not around anymore to be upset about it.'
I do not believe the other instructors at the Academy agreed with him but I visited their site soon to do some First Aid courses and met Lorca again. We got to talking, I'm pretty sure he was hitting on me, but even after many years among humans I still find it hard to tell when that's happening. I told him about my passion for preserving and transforming animals and one night, he helped me steal an old boa constrictor from a zoo that refused to let me have it for some reason. The boa died a month later and I promise, I played no part in its passing! Lorca was about to leave and asked me to join him."
T'Veena showed Landry the boa, which was tied into an intricate knot and had lots of rhinestones embedded in its scales. Landry couldn't decide if it was pretty or pretty gross. She slowly moved out of the room, from which dozens of glassy eyes peered at her.
"So you really like Lorca and this ship?" Asked Landry.
"I do," said T'Veena. "Let me give you a Vulcan pep talk. You are uncertain about your future. You should trust the captain. He may be ridiculous at times, but he has experience with people and he can predict your potential. You found some common ground with him and you get along with the others. You have solid training from the Academy. As Lorca has explained, being First Officer in SVEG is not as demanding as in Starfleet so I think you should 'go for it,' as you humans are fond of saying."
T'Veena paused to wipe the dust off the head of a dog-sized toad.
"That being said," she added, "Lorca is human and hence, fundamentally illogical, so perhaps he is just stark-raving mad to give such responsibility to a new officer."
"I thought you said this would be a pep talk!" Said Landry.
"A Vulcan pep talk. Vulcans must always mention both sides of the argument, even if mentioning only one would perhaps make somebody feel braver."
Was Lorca stark-raving mad? What the hell, Landry decided to take the job!
Several months later, Landry didn't think she'd end up as her sister's publicist and the family's black sheep any longer. She really liked her crew and felt like they trusted her more every day. She still hadn't seen the "real" Ironman outside a Jeffries tube or space suit working outside on the ship. He had a room but he was never in it. His assistant brought food for him down into the tube. Landry had also never heard him speak a full sentence. Unlike Sooze, he spoke a lot, but only in some made-up language that sounded like cursing. It wasn't Tellarite or anything the Universal Translator could pick up.
Some days, Landry brought him food too and sat with him in the Jeffries tube. She passed him tools when he asked for them. It didn't smell great in that tube but Landry somehow got used to it. If Ironman really needed to communicate something that he couldn't convey with pointing and pictures, he used Morse code. Landry often suspected that Ironman had a tragic past. He had scars on his neck so maybe he'd been a slave and was beaten so badly that he couldn't talk anymore. Eventually she looked up his file and read that he used to work on Wall Street. She told him she'd guessed he was a slave.
Ironman paused in his mumbling over a circuit board and tapped out, "I was."[4]
There was definitely a lot more drinking on the Buran than just about anywhere else in Starfleet. Landry didn't drink and it was annoying in the beginning, fending people off. After a while they let her be and even drank less when she was around. Landry settled into the bridge crew's routine of hanging around in the cafeteria bar after their shift. Lorca had to be present during the other shift half the time. When he was at the bar, he often told inappropriate stories about booty calls across the galaxy.
One time T'Veena came over and Lorca said, "Ah, Scrubs! Why don't you tell our friends about that time we celebrated our friendship during your forced Vulcan sex time?"
"What is there to tell?" Said T'Veena. "Also, I do not wear scrubs."
"I wish you weren't wearing anything right now. But seriously, tell them about how I rocked your world for the…well yeah, I think it was your first time."
"It is just a biological function, like respiration and excretion, only it occurs less frequently. I usually take the day off and practice meditation to stave off the urge but that time, I had too many sick patients. I needed somebody to relieve my condition and thought of you immediately."
"Because we're such good friends and you trust me."
"Because you don't hide how much you sleep around."
Lorca sighed and looked at the group. He took T'Veena by the hand. She tolerated this, but just barely.
"How old are you?" Asked Trinity of the doctor, though she'd been told before.
"You should never ask a lady how old she is," said Willoughby.
"I am not a lady," said T'Veena. "I'm a Vulcan. And I'm 76."
She could have passed for a fresh college graduate.
"You promised that in four years when it's pon farr time you'll come to me again," Lorca said.
"Just make sure you get those vaccinations on a regular basis," said T'Veena, pulled away and left.
"I'm going to call it a night and go to my room to think about her," said Lorca.
"Think about me and her at the same time," said Trinity. "And invite me in five years, cause what the hell? I wanted some of that too!"
"You weren't here yet," said Lorca. "Or I'd have invited you."
"Oh, right," said Trinity. "I can't do math."
Although Lorca did leave alone that night, he often left with Trinity. Willoughby had no comment on this and went to his room silently. This went on for weeks until suddenly, randomly (or maybe because of the vodka shots), Willoughby didn't leave but decided to tell Landry his life story.
He trained as a pilot on Andoria and flew commercial spacecraft for a while, then got a job for a private shuttle service. There he met Trinity, who often rented the shuttles for her job as an ambassador. Both of them had different names at the time. John and Jane Willoughby are not exactly Andorian names. They fell in love, got married, and had a daughter. Trinity had to travel a lot. They enrolled their daughter in various schools or tried to home school her. When their daughter was 17, they lived on an Andorian colony that was fiercely fighting for independence. Their daughter took up with a group of local youth, spray painting slogans onto walls and setting off smoke bombs and during one such episode, the cops chased them. Willoughby's daughter was not caught but she took a bad tumble off a wall during the escape. She didn't feel well but was too scared of admitting her actions to her parents to mention it. She died suddenly of a concussion, while reading a book on the balcony. Trinity was the one who found her.
Trinity's ambassadorial career ended soon after she tried to break the arm of the boy who was in charge of the rebel youth movement. He had come to explain and apologize. Willoughby only stopped her by force or she would have succeeded. Trinity became unpredictable, sometimes crazy social, at other times reclusive. She insisted they move to Earth and change their names to start a new life but that didn't really happen. They tried therapy and group counseling. Willoughby felt that Trinity would leave him soon because he reminded her too much of what happened.
Some people in group counseling suggested having swing nights. Trinity loved the idea and for several months, they went to bars and she picked up strange. Willoughby tried too but he got pepper sprayed twice and thrown into a canal another time. He wasn't much of a ladies man. Finally, Trinity picked up Lorca at a hotel while Willoughby went upstairs with a creature that seemed to be a human female until it literally unfolded in front of him into a tentacled monster. He tried to stab the creature and ended up in jail.
"It wanted to suck my blood!" He wailed when Trinity came to collect him.
Lorca happened to know the tentacled creature and called her, "Crystal," to make sure she hadn't been traumatized by the event.
"What…she was traumatized?" Protested Willoughby. "Why am I the villain here?"
Nobody took his side but Lorca managed to comfort Crystal, who had a hurt tentacle that he kissed to make it feel better.
"Aw," said Trinity. "Seriously, John, why did you get so freaked out? She says she told you what species she is."
"I thought she was ordering some of this food here, that I can't even pronounce!"
"Oh, John."
"But she was going to suck my blood!"
"Not without your permission," said Lorca. "And it's not like she was going to bleed you white. She injects you with some kind of drug that just makes everything…crystal clear."
Lorca exchanged a few more cuddles with the alien and joined the Willoughbies on their way out.
"I'm sorry we didn't get to have a good time because of my stupid husband," said Trinity.
"I've heard that before," said Lorca, "but never in this context. It's all right, I thought it was pretty funny. How about tomorrow?"
"It's a date," said Trinity.
"I don't like him," said Willoughby, but he was ignored.
One thing led to another. Willoughby had continued to work as a shuttle driver on Earth and Trinity had taken up holodeck software engineering and video game programming. Lorca had trainees on his bridge crew who didn't want to stay so he offered the Willoughbies positions on his crew. Despite how much Willoughby claimed not to like Lorca, he agreed because after meeting the captain of the Buran, Trinity suddenly started treating Willoughby like her husband again.
"So the bastard that's screwing my wife also saved my marriage," concluded Willoughby.
Landry went to the holodeck and bumped into Lorca and Sooze just leaving it.
"I'll beat you next time, Sooze, you can count on it!" Said Lorca.
Sooze made a pistol shape with her fingers and pointed them at him without a word. She walked away while Lorca leaned on the wall.
"Tough training session?" Said Landry.
"Yeah, we were re-enacting some battles from WWIII. I think Trinity wrote some of the code for this program. Sooze is one hell of a sharpshooter. I don't know why she sticks with science. She could get a really senior position in Security just about anywhere."
"I guess she likes it here."
"Do you like it here?"
Landry quietly said yes and changed the subject back to the holodeck.
"How often do you do battle training?" She asked.
"Every few days. Just because we do routine work doesn't mean we won't get called to help with a skirmish, or worse."
"That's…uh…very admirable of you."
"It'll be admirable if there's ever a bad situation and it helps save our asses."
"I should probably do more battle simulations."
"You don't have to. The regulation-stipulated bimonthly training should be good enough for most situations."
He left and Landry went to her room instead of the holodeck. She dropped onto her bed and thought of the feelings she'd had the past few days. She hoped it wouldn't happen but it did. She had a thing for her captain. Ugh, what a cliché!
She didn't mention it to anybody for weeks and tried to act normal. One day they got a special mission. They had to pick up a group of religious leaders from some planet and take them to another planet to pray. Decades ago, some treaty was worked out where the people from this planet could come to their ancestral home once a year, which was now owned by another species. Things tended to go pretty smoothly, the two species just ignored each other, and Starfleet decided the Buran could handle it.
Everybody tried to be a bit more sober and less rude while the religious folk were on the ship. They arrived at the planet and Lorca went down with Trinity, Willoughby, and Landry to help the religious leaders set up a wigwam of some sort. After that was done, the Starfleet officers set up two tents of their own. They were to be there all night guarding the ceremony. Landry hadn't realized they only took two tents instead of four but this brought up an issue that she couldn't even mention or they'd know!
"We haven't camped since that concert on Sekor III," said Willoughby.
Trinity picked up a stick and beat out a tune, presumably from the concert, on a can.
Landry uncomfortably moved around, gathering her stuff. How was she supposed to share a small, snug tent with Lorca without freaking out?
"Hey, let's do guys and girls in separate tents!" Trinity suddenly said.
"I'm not sharing a tent with this bozo!" Said Willoughby. "I'd rather curl up inside a giant dead fish!"
"I could arrange that," said Lorca. "Next time we pass the fish market on Deep Space 22, I'll drop you off."
"Well, I want to have sleeping bag girl talk with Shweta," said Trinity, "so if one of you sleeps outside, I don't care!"
They didn't talk, however, because Trinity fell asleep immediately. The guys took the first shift and woke them up at 2 AM. Grumbling, Willoughby admitted it was too cold outside and got into the tent with Lorca. Trinity and Landry listened to the men bicker.
"Don't touch me or I will…ow! I just told you not to touch me!"
"I didn't touch you, I hit you."
"How is hitting not touching?"
"Oh, you'll know the difference."
"Don't you try anything with me! I let you sleep with my wife but that's because I consider you to be like a bar of chocolate or cake or something that isn't really good for her but makes her feel better and doesn't last!"
"A bar of chocolate? Well, I guess sometimes we do…"
Lorca said something quietly and cried out in pain as Willoughby hit him.
Eventually they settled down and went to sleep. Trinity pulled on a parka.
"So the menopause isn't keeping you warm anymore?" Asked Landry.
"I don't know. I've had menopause for ten years and it's still unpredictable."
"Is that normal for Andorians?"
"Fuck only knows, both John and I are half human so who can say?"
They chatted about school and movies until Trinity got up to warm herself. She peeked into the tent and indicated for Landry to have a look. Lorca and Willoughby, after all their harsh words, had cuddled up together in sleep.
"We won't mention it in the morning," whispered Trinity.
They checked on the wigwam, from which the sound of chanting emanated, and went over to a lake to watch the sunrise. Trinity put her hands behind her head and stretched in a manner that seemed meant to both turn you on and brush you off at the same time.
"So…you've fallen for Gabriel," said Trinity.
Landry stared at her.
"Save your breath, everybody knows," said Trinity. "It's a small ship. Nothing's private unless it's boring. When are you going to tell him?"
"Wait…what? If everybody knows, does he know?"
"Of course!"
"Did he say anything?"
"No, I haven't asked, but if I know, he knows."
"I can't just tell the captain I have a crush on him! You remember how harsh he was with Downey over his captain girlfriend."
"That was different. And don't think of him as 'the captain.' If you're going to be a couple you should think of him as Gabriel."
"But what if he turns me down? What if he treats it as a test? What if I tell him my feelings and he explains that we need to maintain a professional relationship in order to keep running the ship properly?"
Trinity gave this some serious thought, then said, "Yeah, I guess there are two versions. Version A is that he says yes and Version B is what you just described. But you'll only find out if you ask."
"So you actually think Version B is likely?"
"Yeah. I mean, Lorca messes around with some of his crew members, like me and T'Veena when she's up for it once every seven years, but he's wanted the perfect First Officer for a while. He seems to think that's you and if he feels that a personal relationship with you would jeopardize your job, he'll turn you down, no matter what his real feelings are."
"Could you ask him?"
"Nah, honey, you have to do it yourself."
Saddened, Landry followed Trinity back to the camp where they woke up the guys. Trinity made some minor fuss over who sat where for breakfast that Landry didn't pay much attention to until Willoughby stretched for the utensils across Lorca, couldn't reach them, and finally asked the captain to pass him a fork.
"Wouldn't you rather he passed you a spoon?" Said Trinity.
Willoughby looked away, muttering to himself, and Lorca laughed.
Landry did not tell Lorca about her feelings for seven months. Trinity gave up on her and only made the occasional jibe. Lorca never mentioned it. They did their jobs and Landry decided that her feelings would slowly fade away. It was better like that. They would never have that uncomfortable conversation that she felt would only end in pain. And this way, she could keep imagining that they could be a couple, and the beautiful stories she imagined would also end if she asked and he said no. After all, one only needs the most minor possibility to come up with fantasies. But what if he didn't say no?
One day, they went to a starbase to get some repairs done on the ship. For a change of pace, many people stayed at the starbase hotel. Lorca met two Bajoran Ph.D. students who were there for a conference on astropaleontology and they really hit it off. With a cheerful wave to his bridge crew, Lorca left with them that night.
"I saw them first," muttered Trinity, "but I was too busy eating these mini gherkins to get up."
The next morning, Lorca came down with the Bajoran women. They laughed in the lobby, exchanged some last words and hugs, and the Bajorans left. Lorca went over to the pool close to the lobby where Landry watched over Trinity's things while the Andorian took a swim. Willoughby got shit-faced the previous night and hadn't come down yet. Lorca looked at Trinity swimming but didn't seem to be focusing.
"Are they gone?" He asked.
Landry looked around and nodded.
Lorca collapsed onto a deck chair and said, "I feel like I got hit by a bus!"
He only made it back to the ship with Landry and Trinity's help and he had to go to sick bay. Willoughby, who didn't feel great himself, became invigorated at seeing Lorca so beaten up and didn't help in any way. Landry went to Lorca's living room a bit later to discuss business. He still rested on the couch and didn't feel up to moving.
"Either I'm too old or they're too young," he said. "I think this is an important lesson for me about biting off more than I can chew. Of course, I'm flattered that they went for me. And they're not just really attractive, they're also extremely talented. Look, I'm trying to read their paper (they're co-first authors and so much more) about excavating space whale skeletons from asteroids. It's very well-done."
Landry was surprised to discover that instead of being put off by Lorca's behavior, she loved him more than ever. She moved closer to look at the article on his tablet.
"Ow," Lorca moaned as he sat up to show it to her.
"You're so stupid," she said.
Then she started to talk and described everything that she had felt for him over the past year. It was a huge relief. She didn't invite him to say anything until she finished with, "And that's really it. I hope we can work it out somehow because I want to stay here no matter what your response is."
Lorca was lost in thought for a bit, then he asked, "Why do you think I have never given you a stupid movie nickname?"
"Because you know I want to be Hermione but you think it's silly to just call me by some other female name?"
"No. I give people names of superheroes and magical creatures, but that's what you already are to me, Shweta. I'm sorry you waited this long, and glad that your feelings lasted, though I can't really figure out why considering some of the things I've done…"
"So it was never Version B?" Asked Landry.
"Well, it was, but there was also a convoluted Version C and maybe D and so on and so forth and I don't really know by now. It was up to you! I'm the captain, I can't make any suggestion to sway you because of the power dynamic…"
"You could have said something! You're as much of a coward as me."
Landry threw her arms around him just as he said, "Please don't put any pressure on anything…ow!"
Ah, Bajoran women!
A few years went by. Lorca and Landry stayed together along with the Willoughbies and most of the other cranky personnel of the Buran. Landry often gave off the impression of long-suffering silence at Lorca's foibles, but she loved his nonsense and only pretended to be the adult just to keep up appearances.
At some point, Lorca bumped into Malek again for the first time since he became captain. It was during a Starfleet ceremony and Landry pointed out Malek in a cafeteria.
"There's a weird Vulcan admiral looking at us and ducking down behind the buffet every few moments."
Lorca called Malek over and they got a table. Lorca asked what the hell.
"I am given to believe," said Malek, "that humans find it unpleasant to encounter people with whom they had interpersonal relationships of a non-platonic nature."
"Interpersonal what…is that how you prefer to say, 'We dated?'" Said Lorca.
"I watched a documentary on human relationships," said Malek. "That is how it described the situations."
"A Vulcan documentary on dating?" Said Landry. "I'd like to see that."
"It does not present humans in a very favorable manner," said Malek.
"I didn't think it did," said Landry.
It was almost that time Lorca and Trinity were eagerly anticipating, T'Veena's pon farr,[5] so Lorca asked Malek a bunch of questions. Unlike T'Veena, who could discuss such details with clinical coldness, Malek really didn't like how loudly Lorca talked and that people were turning around to listen. After a few minutes, he faked getting an important call and left.
"He's the one who finds it difficult to bump into people with whom he's been in a…what did he call it again?" Said Lorca.
He looked around and realized that Landry had left too, she'd left as soon as he started discussing Vulcan orgasms during a meal.
Two years before the start of the Klingon War, a couple of SVEG starships gathered at a deep space station not far from the border. Lorca hung out by the bar and listened in to the conversations of some crew members from other ships. At first he was indifferent but some officers kept talking about what they would "do with the money." Were they naively imagining they could beat the rigged games at this station? Did they have a plan to cheat? Lorca noticed Kareen in the room, an Orion captain of another SVEG ship. Lorca paid for his drink and went back to the Buran.
"Please, please, please," said Trinity.
"No, never," said Willoughby.
"Come on, it would be so hot!"
"There are things a husband cannot do even for his wife!"
"But I would be so turned on! I can't imagine anything hotter than my husband and my lover making out. And perhaps you could do a little act too. You could take his head in your hands and say something like, 'I appreciate everything you have done for us.'"
"The thought makes me want to throw up! There isn't a still-conscious amount of alcohol that would induce me to even make a pass at him!"
"Shweta, can't you make him see reason?"
Landry stopped what she was doing at a control panel and looked sympathetically at Willoughby. Lorca showed up. Trinity was about to appeal to him but he was clearly in a "none of that shit now" mood and they followed him to the ready room.[6]
He called up some maps and pointed out the Somerlin, Kareen's ship. Kareen and some of the other captains in SVEG were often in trouble with Command for trading. Starfleet and the VEG are not commercial ventures and do not trade for personal gain (they do sometimes for various humanitarian/diplomatic reasons). Lorca and his crew knew all about this so Lorca didn't need to explain the situation in many words.
"I've got a bad feeling that Kareen's been trading with Klingons or planning to sell them something big. Let's figure out where he's been the past few weeks."
Trinity was the best at tracing a ship's passage and she soon discovered that the Somerlin had indeed been in Klingon territory. She couldn't narrow down the location to smaller than a solar system but it only had three planets. She tried to pull up the Somerlin's inventory but it was corrupted, which suggested they were trying to cover up illegal trading. Or was it something worse?
Lorca called Malek. The Vulcan thought the situation was quite serious.
"Those planets are Klingon rubbish heaps," he said. "I suspect Kareen went scavenging. Klingons do not take kindly to being robbed, even if it is garbage. We should have fired him years ago."
"I think it's worse than that," said Lorca. "One of those officers was quite drunk and mumbled that he hoped there would still be a Federation to trade with. This is a pretty wild guess but I think Kareen wants to start a war with the Klingons so he can trade weaponry. I bet he's got an Orion ship hidden somewhere full of Federation technology he's been stealing away over the years just ready to be sold to the enemy."
"That is quite an assumption," said Malek. "If you are correct, what did he do in Klingon space a few days ago?"
"He could have left a bomb on the junkyard planet. It will blow up and alert the Klingons to Federation people in their space. They don't need much incentive to go on the warpath."
"A bomb…it could go off at any moment. I believe your theory is sound. If we could find Kareen's ship and stash, we could prove it, but time is of the essence. Here is another situation where pure logic fails us."
"What do you mean, fails?" Said Trinity. "What's illogical about going there and getting the fucking bomb?"
They did go to Klingon space (with only ten crew members) and searched the solar system Kareen visited. Sooze quickly discovered Federation technology on one of the junkyard planets. It looked like a science outpost from the outside. They couldn't tell what was inside because the building emitted interference. Lorca guessed there was no bomb inside. Just a scientific outpost emitting interference could be enough to set the Klingons off. They often accused the Federation of overstepping boundaries "for the sake of science."
Landry and Ironman volunteered to beam down to the planet, deactivate the source of the interference and take apart the outpost so it could be beamed up piecewise. Up to the moment Landry went inside the outpost and couldn't be detected anymore, Lorca didn't feel worried. When he saw her life signal disappear, he suddenly felt chills. A few minutes later, Trinity detected a Klingon ship.
"It's far away and doesn't seem to have detected us yet," she said, "otherwise I'm certain it would have speeded up. This one mustn't have great scanners. But we need to leave, like, now."
"Landry's down there," said Lorca.
"We can't get a lock on her or Ironman. The Klingon ship isn't headed in exactly this direction. If we leave now without being detected, I think it won't come here. We have to go."
Lorca finally forgave Violet Perkins for making the call to leave his friends all those years ago. He finally understood what it took to make such a decision but he could not do it. He could not give the command to leave the person he loved most.
Without a word, he left the bridge.
Trinity ran over to the captain's chair, not surprised, and turned off voice recognition before giving the command to retreat as fast as possible. Sooze monitored the Klingon ship until they could not detect it any longer. It did not follow them. Trinity sat back with a sigh.
"I'm positive this whole thing will blow over," she said. "I'm sure you know why I turned off voice recognition. Once we expose Kareen, that's it for SVEG. There will be inspections and safety tests and all kinds of tedium. It's best if they don't know Gabriel didn't give that command. It'll be hard enough to meet regulations anyway."
"No brainer," said Sooze, the first words she'd spoken in eight days.
Willoughby was about to say he didn't mind if Lorca got sacked but kept quiet. After all, without Lorca, what were they? Just a band of misfits.
Trying to lighten the mood, Trinity said, "It's a good thing this chair doesn't have butt recognition or it would immediately tell apart my cute tushie."
Sooze turned around and waved her little hairy, curly tail as if to say, "A butt without a pig tail is not worth looking at."
They waited 24 hours. Trinity went down to Lorca's room and stumbled into the stuffed monster he left in front of his door to dissuade people from coming in. It was the upper body of a Great Horned Owl with wings outspread, attached to the lower body of an orangutan standing upright. T'Veena gave this to Lorca as a present on his birthday. She called it the Mothman, after an American legend about a monster with glowing eyes that was probably an owl.
"I know you're scared," said Trinity, "but Shweta's a clever girl. She'll be back before you know it so try not to drink too much, I don't think she's ever seen you really, disgustingly hammered. She'll finally dump your sorry ass."
Lorca didn't come out so she went back to lounge in the captain's chair and play with the controls. Finally they returned to the junkyard planet. Landry and Ironman waited for them next to a pile of material that used to be the science outpost. They got a little worried when the Buran flew away but kept themselves busy. Landry found an old Klingon cloaking device that Ironman fixed just enough to hide the science outpost. They took the building apart from the inside out. There wasn't anything to eat but their suits could keep them alive for a week so they didn't even start worrying about that.
Lorca forgot he left Mothman in front of his door (and Trinity had thoughtfully turned the thing around so it was leering at him), opened it and fell over, startled. Then he ran to the transporter room where Landry and Ironman were beaming up the piles of material. Landry didn't see him and cried out when he hugged her.
"I could have pressed the wrong button right now!" She said. "And why do you smell like you've been drinking all day?"
Months passed. Kareen and his co-conspirators went to prison. Four out of eight SVEG ships joined Starfleet successfully. The crew of the Buran grudgingly accepted more regulations and rules. Sooze resented being called Chief Science Officer instead of her old title, Ship's Analyst, because what she feared most but would never admit was having to give a talk at a conference. Ship's Analysts can sit silently but Chief Science Officers, she felt, inevitably have to get up and talk about slides somewhere.
For some crew members, the transition brought new opportunities. T'Veena's art became very well-known after she joined a Starfleet art organization. Ironman discovered an employee assistance group for people with speech disabilities that helped him be more social. He was actually seen outside Jeffries tubes.
One evening, the crew enjoyed a calm social gathering. They couldn't get away with quite as much raucous benders as before. Trinity leaned on a window and watched everybody, rubbing her antenna and wondering why she often felt foreboding. Andorians were rumored to possess certain telepathic/psychic/bullshit powers, so maybe she was finally coming into her heritage? She had felt guilty ever since she turned off voice recognition that day, not because she cared about breaking rules but because maybe, getting kicked out of Starfleet was not such a bad idea.
Landry and Lorca had been chatting together for a while and Landry now approached Trinity, smiling beatifically. Trinity guessed the reason.
"We're thinking of having a kid," said Landry.
"Will I be godmother?"
"Um…I don't know. I thought Sooze would be a better godmother."
"You wouldn't dare! I've had dibs on being the godmother of Lorca's child for years. I even get to pick the name because you two will pick something stupid."
"Of course, I'm only joking. But we'll probably wait a few years, until we're more settled in with Starfleet. I also don't feel mature enough to be a mom yet."
"Eh, you never do. But speaking of settling in with Starfleet, have you considered quitting this whole space business and working on a cruise ship? Lorca can still be captain and the rest of us can join. We'll have to dump most of the astroscientists but who cares. Your sister can come perform for the passengers."
"What, leave the Buran? Why? This is our home."
"It's not the Buran that's our home or these missions but just all of us. And recently I've been thinking that Starfleet is kind of dangerous. I mean, Lorca really went to shit when he thought we'd lost you in Klingon space. We've been lucky so far, really lucky. I dread to think how Lorca would behave if something happened to you for real, or to me or any of us. He considers us his family which is great and all but he's never learned to deal with some of the harsh realities of being captain."
Landry could see Trinity's point but at the time, everything seemed to be going great and people felt fulfilled and challenged in Starfleet, so working on a cruise ship seemed like giving up for no reason. Landry and Lorca decided to adopt instead of having their own child because the Buran was a home for the abandoned and Lorca thought insanity ran in his family. He didn't want to pass that shit on. Trinity continued to bring up the cruise ship idea every few months and certainly, it was on many people's minds the day they were called to the Binary Stars.
Footnotes
[1] People were already asking this in 2010.
[2] Alas!
[3] Just for the record, Downey and his girlfriend got married and lived happily ever after, cause someone has to!
[4] He had the speech impediment back then too, but since they talk gibberish on Wall Street anyway, I'm guessing he fit right in (no offense). Engineering was a hobby until he met Lorca, who convinced Ironman to screw finance and keep Lorca's rattletrap ship from falling apart.
[5] Landry was invited and politely declined.
[6] Just FYI, the situation Trinity wanted so badly did happen a year later and it was as bad as Willoughby felt it to be, but Trinity got some kicks out of it.
Author's note: To this day I still have not read "Drastic Measures," so I'm going to use my all-encompassing excuse of "it's an alternate-freaking-universe" to explain why whatever happens there does not occur here.
Another thing: even though I speak fluent Russian, I never realized the Buran is based on a Russian word for snowstorm (archaic, according to my mother). Despite how it was pronounced on the show, I pronounced it like "bureaucracy" and thought it was probably some dead general's surname, like Baran, which is a pretty common name. Clearly this whole fanfiction proves only that I believe what I want to believe.
So did the Russians, perhaps. They built a spaceship that was cooler than anything at the time because they believed, apparently, that the Americans created the Space Shuttle as a threat to the Soviet Union. The Buran was the first computer-piloted spaceship and many other components of its construction, such as the heat-absorbent hull material and the rocket Energia, were also really innovative. The whole project that cost ridiculous millions and required an entire town to be built in Kazahstan for the people who worked on it was abandoned. The Buran flew only once, and the ship was destroyed in 2001 when the hangar roof caved in, also tragically killing people who went to work up there.
Here is a recent documentary on the Buran. It's only in Russian, so grab a Universal Translator (or a Russian-speaking friend) if you're interested.
watch?v=O1WV5KzAUS8