Personal Log: Against The Odds

Posted on Thu Oct 2nd, 2014 @ 12:28am by Commander Andrew Matheson
Edited on Thu Oct 2nd, 2014 @ 12:29am

Well, that was unexpected.

Not the results from the science lab; that went about as by-the-numbers as an artifact analysis was ever going to go. The sum total of my contributions there were that the since-departed inhabitants of our mystery world apparently saw into the ultraviolet spectrum and they had a mild fixation on the number 13, as we would reckon such terms. I won't be offended if they don't ask to put my name on the monograph.

Not the results from the poker game; well, not entirely. We had the usual group from senior staff, with all the usual tells and unusual variants. I haven't played Tic Tac Toe poker in a couple years, and it was exactly as annoying as I remember it the last time round. Still, I came out ahead courtesy of hitting an inside straight in the hole and getting the XO to fall for it, so there's that.

The unexpected part of the evening came when I got back to my quarters. There were two messages waiting for me, one from Rachel and one from the Corps.

Rachel's message had come in first, so I opened that up. There was an apology, of sorts, for her message this morning. There was also an excited paragraph about a position in Betazed Civil Services for a senior mediator that my credentials would be perfect for. Rachel had even gone out of her way to get me short-listed for an interview. This, despite the fact that I know she knows that I know I'm not ready to become a civilian. I'm having the distinct feeling that our marriage is in a lot more trouble than either one of us is willing to admit at the moment.

I went ahead and opened up the Corps communique, and I saw that my transfer request to Starbase 80 had been approved contingent on the approval of my commanding officer. There was an itinerary for my travel, a bit of information on my replacement, and not a lot of information about the Starbase itself. I found myself wondering who in my earlier career I had annoyed when I saw that I had entered Starfleet before my replacement had started breathing.

Since it's what gamma shift would colloquially call oh-dark-thirty right now, I'll log a meeting request with the captain and then start packing. Then after that, I need to send Rachel a message and see if she can make any of these stopovers on my way out to my new post.