Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Rovan Moor (Engineer/Pilot) in Rovan Moor: Arrival to the Athena
The Runabout had docked with the huge ship easily, neatly and efficiently. It was only to be expected when you let a glorified taxi driver control a machine meant to feel the open spaces of the Galaxy and the invisible currents that real pilots knew existed in space.

Rovan felt sorrow for the Runabout as he stepped out of the passenger door, for once not being the man in the pilots seat. He remembered that he didn’t like that feeling, not being the one flying the machine and it made him tense in the way that every fighter pilot was when a stranger was at the controls of a machine. In the sky you trusted yourself and your wing-man, in a space taxi you trusted a second rate Ensign to press the right buttons at the right time. Rovan had flown fighters in combat for too long to trust a two bit Ensign to push the right buttons, especially when the docking had been done as automatically as you would expect from a procedure drilled shuttle lackey.

It honestly scared him a little and as he stepped down, the Ktarian placed a hand on the hull of the runabout and paused slightly. To many the gesture would go unnoticed or even earn a second, odd glance. To any real pilot, even an Engineer, they would understand that Rovan was taking one small moment to give his thanks for safe passage not to the pilot, but to the beast that carried him here.

While the new, uniformed crew of the Athena moved past the Ktarian and towards the docking bay doors he finished the quiet, whispered words of thanks and hefted his simple kit onto his shoulder. Off duty, Rovan preferred to avoid wearing his uniform. He could relax better out of it, become somehow less noticeable in a crowd as people focused on the uniformed officers. When on a transport or in a bar, he often found people bothered him less when he wasn’t in uniform. It gave him an air of anonymity that was refreshing as others had to think more about how to approach him if he wasn’t advertising his profession. Adjusting his high collared overcoat around his neck and kit bag, he began to follow the rest of them. Signing in with the Duty Officer watching arrivals he got his room number, and made his way through the decks, following the markers on the wall given to him by the computer and arrived at his room.

He let the light stay low as he unpacked in the largely empty room. He didn’t posses much, he had taught himself not to worry about material items as he moved too often. Even a couple of years on a Starship was short when you had to pack up your room and move light-years away, so he only carried the items he treasured most. The rest went back into replicator credits.

With a few hours yet before he had to check in, the Ktarian decided to sleep. He hadn’t slept at all on the journey to the Athena, he wasn’t at the helm and that didn’t feel right to him. Now he could sleep and he lay on the bed, his hand falling on something hard beside him that had half emerged from his mostly emptied kit. His fingers closing on it, he picked it up and brought it in front of his eyes.

In the low light, with his bed beside the view port with the stars of the Galaxy beside him in the wide open spaces, Rovan looked at the picture of himself and a Human woman. Both in uniform, he of gold and she of blue the two of them were smiling at the camera. Rovan was behind the woman who was only slightly shorter than him. Her dirty blonde hair was loose here and rested on her shoulders. He smiled as his eyes moved over the picture, she normally wore her hair in a ponytail but when she wore it loose he had loved the way it hung and how she would move her head to get it out of the way. Her orange-brown eyes looked straight at the camera and were full of life that was mirrored in her smile, and that caused his own smile to falter as he looked at it.

Last he had seen her she was lying eyes closed in a bed in sickbay. Comatose, the doctors had not known if she would ever wake. Last she had seen him, they were looking at each other and smiling as the doors to a turbo-lift closed and Rovan had returned to his quarters after their final date. He had never even told her just how much he had felt for her, about how he had been able to talk to her like nobody else. He had never shown her how much he had begun to care for her by touching his lips to hers. His eyes returned to the picture and he noticed that his hand was around Allison’s waist, his other hand pressed against the tree where they had first sat and talked. The tree where they had their first date, although neither had realized it at the time. In this picture, Allison’s hands were over his own around her waist, holding it tightly against her and his eyes returned to the smile and light in her eyes.

She hadn’t even known of his people in her time, when Humanity first began to explore the stars. Never seen many species other than her own and Vulcans. Yet despite her sorrow at being torn from her world, family and time she had accepted him, opened up to him and he in turn had spoken to her about things in his heart he had told no one.

His own smile slowly returned, and he placed the picture on his side table facing him before turning his head to look out the window at the stars outside. Comfortable here, he fell into a sleep from which he could wake rested and begin his duties. Now that he was back in a place where he could communicate and send messages, he was going to try to get word of Allison and if she had woken. She may have no memory of him or have moved on, but he wanted deeply to know that she was alright.

Lt (j.g) Rovan Moor
Engineer/Pilot

A few days after Rovan’s arrival on the Athena, he received the very word he had been hoping for, in the form of a collection of recordings Allison Fleet had sent him, one every week or two since she had woken up from her coma. The first message had been sent nearly seven months ago, according to the time-stamp, June 23. The backdrop was the familiar medical bed she had been laying in the last he had seen her, the background sound of beeping monitors and such just audible over the sound of her voice. She looked thin, almost emaciated - although she had been fed a steady drip of nutrients during her four months of lost consciousness, that wasn’t the same as real food.

“Hey there, pilot extraordinaire,” she said, smiling. “Um… I’m awake now. I woke up two days ago and only just managed to get enough energy to record a message. So, any time you feel like coming back to the Genesis, feel free,” she chuckled lightly. “All the doctors will say is that you left to go on some crazy secret mission, so I’m not sure when this message will get to you, if ever, but a girl can dream, right? I’m awake now, everyone seems pretty shocked regarding that particular detail. Apparently I was hit so hard on the head I shouldn’t even be alive, let alone awake and talking rationally. Guess whatever those aliens on my planetoid did to me was a little more lasting than I thought. I’ll be in here for a while, but I guess once I’m better I’ll be back to work in the astrophysics lab, or whatever they have me doing. Um… that’s all for now, I suppose. Love you,” she said sweetly but a little jokingly, lifting a hand to wave at the camera.

The picture fizzled away and was replaced by another message sent two weeks later, July 7. Allie was looking much more healthy, and was wearing her civvies. The backdrop this time was her crew quarters, which he would remember being notably smaller than the quarters assigned to most ensigns. Even given the option to have the same quarters as most her rank, she had chosen to take the smaller enlisted quarters, citing a discomfort with the large space. She was just… more comfortable with a smaller space, more like what she had been used to before her time on the planetoid. She was relaxing in her desk-chair, her original uniform framed up on the wall like it had been since she had been convinced to stop wearing it as PJs.

Her expression was quieter that it had been in the first video… more sad. “Hey, Rovan,” she said, leaning forward towards the camera. “I miss you…” she trailed off quietly, biting her lip for a moment. A motion Rovan would be familiar with, seeing as she did it every time she was struggling for words. “I really hope you’re getting these messages, but from what I’ve been able to gather, you’re out of communications range or something. I’m going to be sending my messages to a buffer, it’ll pass them forward as soon as you’re back. The Genesis is quiet without you around, and,” she glanced away from the camera for a moment. The video flickered somewhat, showing that there had been a cut in the footage. Her eyes looked a little redder than they had been before the cut. “Sorry. You don’t need me piling all my burdens on you,” she said quietly. There was silence for several moments before she spoke again. “Love you, Rovan Moor,” she said, and the recording ended.

The next one began to play a few moments later, showing her in her Starfleet Uniform - the modern one. She was in her bedroom again, but the angle was different, and there was a determined but sad look on her face. Her blonde hair was tied up neatly, and from the look of it she was as healthy as she had been before the accident. The time-stamp showed that it was July 28, just over a month after she woke up. “Hey Rovan,” she spoke, and there was a dull quality to her voice that hadn’t been there in the previous two messages. “I really do miss you… Like… I can’t sleep some nights, knowing you’re out there among the stars and you’re probably not even getting these messages. Knowing that you could be dead and I’d never know, doomed to just send you messages one after another until I die… But that’s not what I’m recording this message about. I’m… I’m leaving Starfleet. Just thought I’d let you know just in case you do get these messages and want to get a hold of me. I’m not leaving Starfleet forever, just for a little bit while I get a hold of myself and all. I’ve got to figure out who I am outside of Starfleet, how I can fit into this crazy world.” She didn’t say it out loud, how she had always felt right at home in his arms, like that was where she belonged, but it showed in her eyes as she glanced at her framed copy of the same photograph that was beside Rovan’s bed. “If you’re looking for me, you can find me at Cavendish Tree Nurseries, Toronto, Ontario, Earth, etc…” She let the moment linger for a few moments, then almost whispered, “Love you…” before the third recording ended.

Recordings of Allison Fleet