Settling In

Posted on Wed Oct 8th, 2014 @ 11:05pm by Commander Andrew Matheson

It feels good to have an office again. It feels particularly good to have one that isn't stationed in visitor's quarters where you have to return the nameplate to the quartermaster when you leave the ship. I guess I was a little farther out in the middle of nowhere than I thought I was - it took five ships three weeks to get me out here. But as I look around and realize that my entire diplomatic suite on the Solstice could fit in this office - and that my living quarters aren't integrally connected to my office - I'm beginning to feel it might have been worth it.

Hopefully I can convince Rachel of that the next time I talk to her. She managed to meet up with me a couple of weeks ago when I had a 36-hour stopover in my travel itinerary. She was incredibly happy to see me and she pulled out all the stops - great dinner, evening of music, and she even managed to get access to a couple hours of holosuite time for the beach I grew up a couple hours away from on Earth. I didn't know I'd left her a copy of that program; even in the hottest part of Earth's summer, that lake was too cold for her tastes. But there we were, having a moonlight picnic on the shores of Lake Superior.

The fight that ensued the next morning was... well, let's just say that no amount of soundproofing would have spared the neighbors if we hadn't been telepaths. As it was, we were the only two people who had headaches from all the mental shouting. As I suspected, she was still unhappy that I was taking another non-civilian position as opposed to coming home to Betazed. It's not that I don't appreciate what the Civil Service does for Betazed and the local environs - but I'm not ready to resign my commission to take a desk job where I mediate between branches of the waste management division just yet. And from the job description she was giving me, that seemed to be a distinct and not uncommon occurrence.

I figured that Starbase 80 would be a chance for both of us to make a new start and reconnect with each other. She told me six months ago that she was fed up with her current consulting position and had resigned, so I know there weren't any professional ties keeping her there. But she was insistent that she was tired of me only thinking of myself first and that if I left Betazed, I would be wise not to call ahead if I ever returned.

A few hours later, once we had both cooled off and I had gotten a message to report to my next ship ahead of schedule, she told me to scout the place out and give her a call in a month and we'd take things from there. So I've had that hanging over my head for the last couple of weeks. But from what I saw just on my way from the transporter room to diplomat country -- ad it's going to take a while to get used to the fact that diplomat country is an entire deck with three dedicated spacecraft in support -- there certainly seems to be a thriving and diverse civilian population here. I'll have to ask around and see if any of the Corps projects could use a civilian exobiologist --

*computer chime*

My reporting-for-duty interview seems to have been moved up. To be continued.