Going on Autopilot

[Rachel E Garrett 0]

Going On Autopilot

 

"Huh?"

 

This was definitely not one of Rachel's more lucid moments.

 

"Five days. Barely. Fifth just started." Jeter Sedgwick looked up from tapping the padd in his lap and eyed Rachel. "It's only been four days 'n' change." He went back to his work muttering, "How time flies."

 

Rachel gave her coffee one more stir, licked the spoon and studied it for a minute, then raised her chin off the table just enough to take a sip. It wasn't bad, she decided, and took another sip. She picked at her muffin and scrambled eggs after placing her coffee spoon precisely aligned with the edge of her napkin on the right hand side of her plate, which was perfectly positioned far enough to her left so she could support her head with the table.

 

Rachel had actually taken time to sleep and felt worse for it. Once she got into bed, her body didn't want to get up; ruined her whole routine. Then Jeter had convinced her eat. Bad decision. Slowed her down even more, and the coffee that everyone swore was made from bilge water didn't even begin to cut the fog. She was definitely on autopilot.

 

Jeter "Sledge" Sedgwick had come aboard Aegis several years ago and seemed to have a handle on the goings-on. He also seemed to understand how Rachel's mind worked – scary though it was. Jeter was an easy-going roll-with-the-punches kind of guy with a shock of red hair, more freckles than stars in the galaxy, and a thick Texas drawl.

 

They called him "Sledge" from an incident aboard the USS Alpine when one of his repair crew disagreed that a piece of equipment wasn't working right. According to the crewman it was ship-shape and ready to go. After pointing out several problems and trying to pound some sense into the crewman's head, Jeter had given up and decided on another tack. He had picked up a sledge hammer, smashed the equipment, then turned to the crewman saying, "There. 'S broke. Fix it."

 

"Five days, huh?" To Rachel it seemed more like forty. Like the forty days and forty nights of the flood, or the forty days wandering in the wilderness. Or was that forty years?

 

"Five days o' binness as usu'l on a starbase mos'ly owned by the Ferengi, sittin' smack-dab in the middle a Cardassian space, and gettin' ready t' move t' Breen space." Jeter tossed the padd on the table and leaned back to a skillful two-spoint balance in his chair. He crossed his arms and grinned as Rachel glanced to the side, watching and waiting for him to fall. He never did. Well, almost never. Once, a long time ago, the IDS failed in a course change on a starship.

 

"So," said Rachel as the fog began to lift, the harbinger of at least a few lucid hours before the station began to move, "in four days we packed the station, got blockaded by the Ferengi, prepared for a Breen attack…"

 

"…that never came," Sledge interjected, cocking his hand like a gun and giving a little click in Rachel's direction.

 

"Yeah, but we didn't know that then," said Rachel, screwing up her face. The fog lifted a bit more.

 

Jeter shrugged.

 

"We got ready for the Breen," she continued, somewhat annoyed at the interruption, "unpacked the station so we could defend it and patch up whatever got messed up and whoever was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The captain got a new ship. We all went aboard the ship. Then we came back 'cause then we knew the Breen weren't gonna attack." Here she paused and pointed at Jeter in emphasis. "And here we are gonna move the station again."

 

"Yep," he said, giving his chair a bit of a rock like it was going to fall and grinning again at Rachel's alarm.

 

"All in five days?"

 

"Four days 'n' change."

 

"Gees. No wonder I'm tired."

 

"And ya slept in yer own quarters. I'm proud a ya." Rachel's eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth, but Jeter beat her to the punch, splaying his hands as he said semi-nonchalantly, "I checked yer fav'rit place."

 

She sighed. There was no getting around it. Sometimes she was sure Dr. Lepage had people watching her, and she was starting to get paranoid. Or maybe just tired? Anyway, the walls had eyes, the windows had eyes, the J-tubes had eyes, the….

 

Then it hit her. Her eyes widened and she straightened up, meeting him eye to eye. "Waidaminnit. How'd you know I wasn't in another favorite place? How'd you know I was actually in my quarters and not... sleeping on the cot in main engineering, maybe?" The fog had totally lifted and day had dawned.

 

The front legs of Jeter's chair hit the junior officer's mess deck with a thud. "Okay. Okay," he said, glancing around to see if anyone was watching. He held up both hands as if to fend off an attack and muttered, "I looked for your commbadge signal and it was in your quarters." He ran both hands through his thick, shaggy hair and the faintest sign of a blush colored his cheeks as he leaned his elbows on the table and studied his napkin.

 

Rachel backed off and stared at him for a minute, trying to figure out what was actually going on in his head. Finally she fumbled for her things that were, as usual, scattered around the table and on the chair next to her. "Okay. Well. I gotta go. See y'around."

 

"See ya," said Jeter without looking up.

 

Before the mess hall door opened, Rachel glanced back in curiosity. Jeter was still at the table, head in hands, studying his napkin.