The Lost Love of Koshic N'Dak

[NDak 0]

Lt.(Sg.) Koshic N’Dak

USS Arcadia

SD 0412.05

 

>Begin<

 

As the Arcadia-E cruised towards Danter at a brisk clip, Koshic N’Dak stood at the window of the main observation lounge just off of the bridge.

 

“By the flames of Naziul,’ he said to himself in the darkened room. “You just had to bring her into this, didn’t you Koshic…”

 

He didn’t need to answer himself—he already knew the response to his query.

 

The “her” was indeed as N’Dak had told Lo’Ami an old friend. But not one he had spoken to, let alone seen since his Academy days. Images of his lost love began to filter into his conscious mind.

 

They had been buried for years—and now they resurfaced. His thoughts had begun to drift from what was at hand to those buried memories that had began to pour through the now reopened wound in his psyche.

 

 

~~~

 

“Oh Halle,” Koshic said, laying beneath a silent blue mountain sky, “It’s so good to be away from it all, just the two of us.”

 

He moved to put his arm around the dazzlingly striking Trill female that sat beside him on a blanket, high in an alpine meadow in the Ural Mountains of Asia. But instead of leaning close to him as she so often did, she leaned away, took his arm and lowered it, running her hand down the arm to meet his.

 

Koshic looked at her, gazing into her eyes, he felt something was not right. “Koshic…”

 

“You didn’t bring me here to be romantic…did you?”

 

A rhetorical question, as Koshic knew from her thoughts that she had something to tell him, something that was troubling her,

 

She looked deep into his normally sparkling green eyes, which mellowed and melted as she brought her other hand to his face with a warm touch.

 

“No,” she said looking away to hide the tears that were welling in her eyes. “I didn’t.”

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

Koshic didn’t have to be a telepath to know that something was not right. The slender blond Trill gathered herself slowly, and turned to her companion.

 

“I should have known from the start…” her voice full of remorse and sadness.

 

“Known what?”

 

“That we,” she pointed to him then to herself, “could not be…together.”

 

Koshic blinked, shocked at the words that had came out of the mouth of his closest companion for the previous two years.

 

Halle slipped her hand away from N’Dak’s wiping the tears from her eyes. “Yes…I am sorry Koshic.”

 

Only one word, one thought could Koshic muster, through the tears that had began to form and streak down his own face, he mouthed one solitary word. “Why?”

 

Halle smiled ever so meekly. Trying to calm her companion. “It’s complicated…”

 

Hurt, Koshic tried to control his emotion, but it was beginning to overcome him. “Just tell me why?”

 

He was sobbing openly for the first time since his father had died, and he buried his head in his hands trying to hide the streaks of tears pouring from his eyes. He had become so close to Halle—closer than anyone he had ever known. And now, with out warning she was…leaving him.

 

Halle placed a hand on his shoulder, he gathered himself and brushed it off. She sighed deeply, as Koshic slowly recomposed himself.

 

“I think the least you can do is tell me why,” he said now more bitterly. “I think I am old enough now for a better explanation that ‘it’s complicated…’”

 

Halle wiped a streaking tear from her own eye. “Oh Koshic,” she said trying to think of words. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you…”

 

“Then…”

 

She held a finger to her lips.

 

“Koshic…I loved you father…”

 

Koshic blinked, he could have been pushed over with a feather. She loved his father, she would have been only a teenager when his father had been alive. He looked at her in total befuddlement.

 

Gauging his response, “Not Nautlia,” she said slowly. “Two Hosts ago, Lexi…”

 

He gave her a glance, still not quite sure that what was happening was happening. “But your not Lexi…”

 

She nodded. “It was while Lexi was joined to me. Your father was a young ambitious Ambassador. It was at the Gal’Tar Conference that they met. Lexi was on the Federation Negotiation team with your father.”

 

“Why didn’t I know this before?”

 

She looked away again, then after a few moments looked back. “It was a secret. Lexi was married at the time…and…”

 

Nautlia Halle paused, biting her lower lip, she continued. “Niether of them could afford the scandal so it was kept very quite, just between them. And when I saw you Koshic…you look so much like your father, I just…I just…I am sorry…”

 

“How long we’re you in love him,” he said, slowly in measured tones.

 

“Dano and Lexi kept their affair quite for many years, until Lexi was injured in shuttle accident. We had to transfer…me…to a new body…” Halle’s voice was weak.

 

N’Dak knew that such a topic was taboo for joined Trill to discuss because of the emotional pain it caused the symbiot, he didn’t press her for more details.

 

“Koshic,” Halle said after what seemed like an eternity of silence. “Koshic, there are laws against this…its called reassociation…”

 

“I know…” he said lowly.

 

“Had you known Nautlia before we were joined, it wouldn’t apply…and…”

 

“I understand…I just have one question…”

 

She nodded, knowing that her actions made her fair game for any questions he had.

 

“Why now, when everything seemed so perfect. Why not earlier…before we were so…entangled.”

 

She sighed deeply. “If it were up to me…it wouldn’t be this way. We both love you very much…but…”

 

He knew there was a but in there somewhere.

 

“I said the affair was secret, but some people knew about it. Including my father.”

 

Koshic looked at her, “Your father…”

 

“Yes…my father,” she said lowly. “He never made the connection until a few weeks ago.”

 

He sighed deeply, realizing that indeed their relationship was over.

 

“He pulled some strings with the Symbiosis Commission and no charges are going to be brought, but we can’t be together any more Koshic.”

 

~~~

 

Koshic starred out the window. He hadn’t talked to her since that evening. The wounds of past had never fully healed, simply scarred over.

 

However, he had always kept up with her career. Nautlia was as brilliant of a woman as he had ever encountered—and tenacious. In four years in the fleet she had worked her way up to Lieutenant aboard the USS Byrd, serving as her Chief Science Officer.

 

But then, for some reason, she resigned her commission as a Starfleet Officer and took a position on Danter as a Senior Researcher at the Federation Embassy.

 

Even though he’d been through that sector a few times, he’d never stopped by to see her, or find out why she left the fleet. Now through, it looked like he had little choice but to ‘reassociate’ with Nautlia Halle.

 

He just hopped that when he did, it would be less painful than the last time he spoke with her.

 

>End<