Posted by Lieutenant Sheleah Ruby (Diplomatic Officer / CNS) in Holodeck 2: Little Lost Rex (tag: Hannah)

Posted by Lieutenant Hannah Lori Asimina (Medical Officer) in Holodeck 2: Little Lost Rex (tag: Hannah)

Posted by Lieutenant Sheleah Ruby (Diplomatic Officer / CNS) in Holodeck 2: Little Lost Rex (tag: Hannah)
Posted by… suppressed (20) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip
“Hmmm I thought I saw him move that way.” Hannah pointed across to the other bank. The river was deep enough to swim and, since it was holographic water, once she stepped back into the corridor she would be dry. So she dived in, using sure powerful stroked to reach the opposite side. “The ground is a bit muddy here. We might find prints if he did go this way.”

Hannah

Sheleah thought Hannah was on the right track but she wasn’t as fast of a swimmer as Hannah so it took her a little longer to get to the other bank.

When she got to the other side she began looking for paw prints in the mud.

“Yeah, you’d think we’d find him here wouldn’t you? I’m not seeing any prints though. Maybe some of these low trees? Oh look! Blackberry bushes!” she said pointing a little further down the bank, “He likes to hide.”

She made her way slowly down tot he blackberry bushes but, again, no Rex paw prints and no Rex.

“The reason I don’t just end the program and find him the easy way is because the last time I did that, he was eighteen feet up a rock face. I don’t know if he was scared or what but, the sudden shift was very disorienting for him so, it’s hide and seek for a little while longer.”

• Sheleah

“We could easily mitigate that. Have the computer isolate his location, bring the elevation equal with outs and maintain the location 5 feet in each direction and then end the rest of the program. That way he doesn’t get so disoriented or risk getting hurt.” Hannah moved further off the bank, still barefoot, and looked for signs of Rex. He could have jumped rather than walked from the bank. “But I don’t want to end his fun either.”

Hannah

“Exactly! I don’t want to end his fun either. Sometimes I feel guilty taking him from his natural environment but, by the time I left Brazil, it was really the only solution.”

Sheleah knelt at the edge of the thicket of blackberries and gingerly parted some branches close to the ground.

“Yey. Are you in there little guy? COme on, you’re tiring momma out.”

She paused for a few minutes to listen and then stood up quickly.

“I think I heard something a little further down stream.”

• Sheleah

Hannah moved down stream to meet up with Sheleah. “So you have an Ocelot and are the counselor and diplomatic officer on board a battleship. What do you do for fun?” She cast her gaze around and moved softly along. She didn’t want to startle poor Rex, but Sheleah seemed concerned so she wanted to find him.

Hannah

Sheleah laughed.

“Aw come on… This is fun. Well, it’s even more fun when he doesn’t get himself lost. I like my job. I read a lot. I just try to find my place wherever I go. If we find a planet that has real horses, I’m happy there but, I think that’s best on Earth.” she said backing out of the blackberry brambles.

• Sheleah

“I have never ridden, I’m looking forward to it. But honestly if we didn’t have holodecks I don’t know what I would do. I would quickly tire of the gym. I mean I like books and music and games, but I have to active.” Hannah looked around. “Does he like to climb? Those trees down stream are pretty tall.”

Hannah

Sheleah looked up at the trees and began walking towards them.

“His sisters used to like to climb more than him but Sam has lost track of them in the preserve so I’m not sure anymore but, let’s take a look.”

Sheleah stepped over a fallen log and began crunching over fallen leaves towards the stand of trees Hannah had indicated.

“I don’t think I would be much use on a ship that didn’t have some type of holodeck situation. If we don’t burn off some of the energy we’ve got, through physical exercise, we become very hard to get along with.” she said scanning the trees.

Through the wind Sheleah thought she heard some soft meowing and turned in the direction it had been coming from.

“Up this hill where the trees thin out.”

• Sheleah

Hannah had to agree. “It makes me stir crazy. My last ship was at a dry dock for 3 weeks, we ran out of things to do. We all got a little nuts. Our security chief replicated toy guns that used these foam darts and we had an all out battle all over the ship. We were finding darts for months.”

Hannah followed Sheleah up the hill she closed her eyes and reached up to adjust her i.plants slightly trying to see if she could hear the sift cries any better.

Hannah

Sheleah laughed.

“Oh that must have been hilarious. I bet you found them in the most interesting places.”

Hannah nodded, “We did. The seat at the helm station wouldn’t pivot…there was a dart stuck in the joint, behind access panels, in the Jeffries tube. Everywhere.”

Sheleah stopped and listened for Rex. Glancing back, she saw Hannah making adjustments but didn’t think very much of it. Now Rex’s soft meows seemed to be coming from a slightly different direction.

“Damn that boy of mine. I’m going to need a hot fudge sundae by the time this day is over and somebody’s going to be in time out for making me worry.” she said. Her tone was a mix of exasperation and love for the little creature.

“That way? Maybe?” she said pointing in a different direction.

• Sheleah

Hannah nodded, “Sounds like it.” Shebfollowed Sheleah toward the sound. “Maybe we should have the computer limit the size of the program so he can’t wander forever? Or place us within so many feet of his location?” Hannah asked.

Hannah

“Aww I can’t bare to do that to him, at least not yet. Another half hour and I’ll consider it. If you think it’s hard for us to be cooped up, imagine what it most be like for a creature like him. Sam was very upset with me when he found out I wasn’t taking a planetside post. He thinks this atmosphere is too confining for Rex and that we’re much to dependent on each other. I think it’s straining the last bit of our friendship to the point of mere colleagues.”

Sheleah glanced at Hannah, there was sadness in her blue eyes. She hadn’t ever opened up like that about Sam or Rex before. What struck her the most about everything she had just said is that she would rather loose Sam than Rex.

“Aaaa, we’ll find him. Do you smell honeysuckle too?”

• Sheleah

Hannah didn’t say it, but she agreed with this Sam. It didn’t seem fair to keep an animal like Rex on a star ship. Of course on the flip side if Rex was attached to Sheleah it wasn’t fair for her to give up her career either. Sometimes you do the best you can. “I mean he is in the holodeck and the safeties are on. He really isn’t lost. Do his cries mean he is in distress?” Hannah inhaled. “It’s strong, might be Jasmin instead.”

Hannah

Sheleah listened to Rex’s cries for a bit longer.

“Distressed, hungry, a little lost. Could be a combination of all three.” she explained before beginning to call for him again.

Hannah nodded, tipping her head to the side like she was listening, “The cries seem to be getting further away. It’s hard to tell with my implants and the way the holodeck distorts sound to fit the program. It doesn’t always sound right.”

Sighing, she decided that it was time to call the game.

“Computer, show me Rex.”

The computer chirped and a rainbow appeared in the sky. Sheleah and Hannah were instructed to follow the rainbow and they would find Rex. That sent Sheleah into a giggling fit.

“Okay, that’s adorable. Let’s go find the pot of purrs at the end of the rainbow.”

• Sheleah

A rainbow? It was pretty and fanciful. She wondered what other little tweaks the program had. “Pot of purrs?” Hannah was missing a reference. The only rainbow reference she could come up with was from The Wizard of Oz. She didn’t remember anything about a pot at the end.

Hannah

Sheleah had a strong sense that they were walking towards the beginning of the program and expected to see picnic tables at any minute.

“I guess leprechauns on Earth were always hid their pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. When Rex and his sisters, Bella and Estrella, were little, they liked to hid in this one little spot that one of the old women swore looked like an old cooking pot set into one of those dug in firepits they used to have hundreds of years ago. Sam and I used to call it the pot of purrs.”

The cooking pot concept Hannah was familiar with. When they went out on observation trips back home, they would cook like that. Hannah was unfamiliar with what a leprechaun was. Apparently they liked to hold onto their wealth.

As they had been walking and talking Rex’s cries had stopped which meant he was either sleeping or tired. Sheleah saw the picnic tables ahead and a furry lump under one of them.

They were making their way in a round about circle back to the head of the trail. Hannah always had a good head for directions, even on a holodeck. In a moment she and Sheleah had cleared the trees back at the picnic area.

“Would you look at that. He made his way all the way back here and we missed him.”

• Sheleah

Hannah grinned, “Aw, looks like your boy tuckered himself out. Looks like he wasn’t lost at all. He knew exactly where he was going.”

Hannah

Sheleah knelt down and ruffled the fur between Rex’s ears.

“Yeah, he was going to where the good snacks are. I brought us a whole lunch just in case the program turned out to be more challenging than advertised. Do you have time to join us?” Sheleah asked as she shuffled some things around.

This caused Rex to wake up, climb out from under the table, and sniff around a patch of grass a few feet away before coming to rub against Hannah’s leg.

• Sheleah

Hannah knelt down and ruffled the cats ears like she watched Sheleah do. “Did you have fun Rex? That little treat earlier wasn’t quite enough was it?” Hannah considered, “Computer what is the time?”

“1730 HOURS” Hannah gave a little nod. Daniel wasn’t off duty yet. She could stay a bit longer. “I do have a little time. Thank you.” After giving Rex some more attention, Hannah moved over to a table and sat on a bench. “So how did you end up going from a rainforest studying ocelot to the counselor on board a battleship?”

Hannah

Sheleah sat down across from Hannah and poured out two glasses of iced tea. She also set out sugar, lemon, and mint.

“There are sandwiches and things in the cooler.”

“Thank you,” Hannah nodded her head in thanks and sweetened a glass of iced tea. She took a piece of fruit from the cooler and took a bite.

Glancing down, she scooped Rex onto the bench next to her and gave him several pieces of boneless chicken.

“Well that’s kind of complicated. I was actually trying to have a relationship 18 months ago. Sam was a biologist that I had known off and on for a few years and, when my last assignment ended, we crossed paths and I decided to go with him when he decided to take some leave from Star Fleet to do this study. I guess we lasted about 6 months then, when Rex was about 3 months old, and it was clear we were just better friends, I got an assignment to Utopia Planetia so, of course, I had to take him with me because we were basically imprinted by that time and it would have been cruel of me to leave him there. My assignment lasted a lot longer than either one of us thought it would.”

Sheleah paused and thought about that for a few seconds.

“This made Sam really upset with me for quite some time but, in the end, it’s what’s best for all three of us besides, it turned out we didn’t want the same things anyway.”

• Sheleah

Hannah finished the bite of the fruit she had taken. “Relationships are hard enough even when you do want the same things. And even then people change over time. You are constantly having to get to know each other. Were you able to stay friends even if he was upset with you?”

Hannah

Sheleah dug through the cooler and fetched out a sandwich for herself. She was also able tof ind a bunch of bananas and began peeling one.

“We’re kind of like long distance co-parents. I think that’s all his new wife would really allow for anyway. he wants readings and measurements and observations on Rex’s growth but he doesn’t really like the comments regarding his socialization. He’s very keen to tell me about Rex’s sisters in the wild though. I keep reminding him that he sent Rex with me for a reason and I’m just trying to do what he asked of me. Other than that, we try to keep it friendly.”

• Sheleah

Hannah smiled, “I have a friend like that. She’s absolutely brilliant. An amazing doctor. Youngest to make AMO of a hospital ship. But man give her anything subjective and she just looks at you like your crazy. She wants hard data points.” That thought made her grin widely. That was also why her friend was having such a hard time trying to plan a wedding. If she thought she could swing it she’d try to go, but it was just too short notice.

Hannah

By this time Sheleah was wiping crumbs from her lips and tucking banana skins into a garbage bag.

“The thing is, Sam really has a big heart as long as that heart has every puzzle piece in it’s place. We just didn’t fit in each other’s puzzles but I think we’re happier this way and he did give me the most amazing gift.”

Smiling, she glanced at Rex who was now cleaning himself in the sunny patch of grass he’d found a few feet away fromt he picnic table.

• Sheleah

“That makes sense. Sometimes pieces fit in the puzzle, just not in the place we thought they would. And sometimes that leaves us open to amazing opportunities when stop trying to make them fit.” Hannah glanced at Rex, “He seems quite happy though. You and Rex seem to be really happy together. I remember my mom told me this quote once, ‘People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime (Author unknown).’ It sounds like he was a reason, and it was Rex.”

Hannah

Sheleah thought about that for a little bit.

“Your mom sounds like a very wise woman, that makes perfect sense to me. I think Sam’s found his person and we’re nothing alike so, even if I had stayed with him, we probably wouldn’t have been very good fro each other in the end.”

• Sheleah

Hannah nodded. “My mom is full of things like that. I guess it is all about perspective. Cherishing the time you have rather than you don’t have it any more. Then again I’m stubborn.” Hannah grinned and finished the last bite of the food she had chosen.

Hannah