Sunset

[Guest TParek]

"Was that all, Admiral?"

 

Grey eyes cold as stone ran over the young aide for a long moment, scrutinizing and judging. After what seemed like an eternity to the auburn-haired lieutenant, he was answered.

 

"Yes. Finish the reports tonight -- I want them by twenty-hundred hours."

 

The slight, young human nodded once, curtly, straightening instinctively as he looked at his superior. "Aye, Admiral. I'll have the details added before then; I'll send you the drafts as they're completed." Then he left, hurrying more than he intended. Working with the admiral had seemed like a dream job, a resume-padder that would send him skyrocketing to the top of the stack for any job in the Fleet he wanted, but that didn't stop him from feeling... cold every time he was around her. It wasn't as if she were unkind, or cruel -- she ran a tight ship, but Lieutenant Davens had expected that coming in. No... this was... something else.

 

It was the way she looked at you and the way it seemed like she could... there wasn't a word for it. "The creeps" came close. Sometimes Nick wondered if his boss was more than just a touch-telepath.

 

* * *

 

The fog was setting in over San Francisco Bay. Years of insistence won her an office overlooking the water, but it still wasn't the same. She'd grown up twenty meters from the ocean at high tide, spent her better years in space... but the view came close.

 

After all, it wasn't like being situated closer to the Pacific would have helped. None of Earth's oceans compared, and even though she had a "family holding" on the banks of the Great T'Kala, well... that wasn't the same. The admiral slipped, then, thinking in a language she hadn't dared let cross her mind in nearly a decade. Elements. She missed ch'Havran.

 

As strange as a thought it was, though, Earth had become... not quite home, but somewhere comfortable. Two score and a century did that. She'd seen generations of Starfleet officers be born, learn, shine brighter than the stars, grow old, and die. She'd seen the Federation grow from a tiny Coalition, a headstrong Starfleet admiral's folly, to an institution that could rival her own Empire. She had seen her enemy heal, strengthen, and flourish right under her very nose. And really, it didn't even register anymore. Vice-Admiral T'Parek, formerly Sae'hala t'Vaehii, had acculturated long ago.