MIA -- 0401.24

[Marris Krax 0]

MIA

0401.24

 

It seemed that time off the ship had not broken Marris' habit for wandering aimlessly down corridors when she was deep in thought. Or bored. Considering that the habit had started well before she had even considered joining Star Fleet, this was not overly surprising. Actually, it was a sign of just how far she'd come since her departure months ago...but Marris didn't really want to think about that just now. No, instead, she was content to just let her mind wander as she herself wandered, not really looking where she was going but navigating by instinct, her eyes on her toes. She would dodge ship personnel, walls, random equipment when her feet managed to take her into a cargo bay, all without looking up, all without really noticing they were there. As far as she was concerned, she was alone in her thoughts, and that was fine by her.

 

Well, at least sort of fine. Her thoughts weren't as carefree as her path of travel. They'd started out well enough, when she had been patting herself on the back for being such a helpful interviewee. But the sheer lack of questioning, the abruptness with which the interview had ended...this was troubling her. She couldn't put her finger on it, but that was just odd. She couldn't shake the feeling something was a little more than wrong with that...and maybe that was the point. Maybe they were trying to make the crew feel uneasy for some reason or another. But that didn't make much sense, did it? They were here to figure out whether Kris and Day were responsible for the deaths of...erm, Marris didn't want to think about that, either...for the incident, right? Well, they clearly had evidence, safely littered throughout the computer, that there was more going on, that there had been another party involved that didn't want to be known, although they had done a sloppy job of covering it up. No, there was definitely more going on here, and Marris had made sure she'd told the investigators that. She'd done her duty.

 

Then there was a vague wondering about what Alex had been up to lately. She hadn't seen him at all really since they'd had the spat in Astrometrics, and she knew with a 99% certainty that he was avoiding her. Her thoughts about him didn't really progress much beyond that at the moment, though; she was hurting, too, and didn't want to cause him or herself any more pain by bringing it all up again. If he was avoiding her, fine. She'd wait for him to make a move, now.

 

Her thoughts were transitioning away from Alex and back toward the uneasy feeling she had about the interview when she noticed she was near her quarters. She paused in front of her door, wondering if it was late enough to give Aldo his lunch. She stepped forward and the doors whooshed open for her to walk in. Alex had chided her once about not giving the cat lunch, but back then Aldo really hadn't been her cat. Now, and especially after living on a farm for five months, Aldo was used to three meals a day, and it showed. As the doors whooshed shut, Marris saw that he was napping on one of her sofa cushions, a blob of black and white fur. He wasn't really fat...just sorta chunky. Still, Marris had put him on a diet kitty food, which he seemed to enjoy. At least now he enjoyed it. When she had first put him on the low-fat stuff, she'd had to pick up kitty-kibble for hours.

 

Marris walked over to the couch and gave Aldo a quick scratch behind the ears, then continued onto the replicator for a small bowl of cat food for him and a turkey sandwich for herself. Aldo was immediately awake as Marris put the food down on the floor, and she took his vacant spot as he bolted for the bowl. She watched him eat as she munched on her sandwich, wondering what she should do next.

 

The sandwich plate resting in her lap, she reached over to the end table and grabbed a medium-sized book, bound in red leather. The book was a journal she had started at the recommendation of the counselor she'd seen on DS9 while working on her reinstatement. Marris had thought the woman was bonkers when she had said that getting all the worries and fears and such down on paper was good therapy, but in the long run it had really helped. She'd taken to writing down more than just her problems, though, as reading back over it sometimes was just depressing in its own right if there weren't bright spots to counter the bad ones.

 

She wrote about the interview, what she had said and the things that hadn't been said that troubled her. She wrote about Alex for a while, again wondering what he'd been doing for the last week or so. Then she put the book down and wondered whom else she should be wondering about. She hadn't spoken with her folks in a while, or her brother, Ferk. She'd been in close contact with them when she first came back to the Excalibur, to keep them from worrying too much about her and to keep herself on an even keel. But she'd adjusted back to ship life pretty well, she thought, and quickly if unintentionally weaned herself off of contact with her family.

 

Well, there was no reason she could think of to keep that trend going, so she set her plate of sandwich crumbs and the journal down on the end table and moved over to her desk. She activated the display terminal, typed in some access codes and called up her personal messages.

 

"Whoa," she said as a couple dozen unread messages popped up on the screen. She'd really been out of touch. She started with the most recent ones first: a couple letters from old Academy friends wishing very belated Happy Holidays, an invitation from the NAV department for poker night (she dashed off a quick letter of apology for missing the message, saying she was game for the next one)...

 

...and a very strange looking message from her parents.

 

Marris frowned and paused as she looked at this next message on her list, dated three days ago. It was a video transmission, no subject. And it was marked high importance. It was clearly from her parents -- the transmission came from Hanolan, and their names were on it -- but the urgency flag and the lack of a subject made Marris' heart sink a bit in apprehension. She opened the message.

 

Her family's living room blinked onto the screen. Her father was at the terminal, his lumpy Ferengi head filling the left half of the screen, a very worried look in his eyes. His ears, beginning to spot with age, seemed to droop while the lines in his face were drawn deeper than normal. Behind him, Marris could see her aunt and uncle consoling a very distraught Mrs. Krax. Her mother wasn't one to cry, and Marris didn't think she was crying as the video played out, but her eyes were wide in shock and her face was pale. Marris immediately wondered where Ferk was.

 

"Marris," her father's recording said, "we're sure you know by now, but," he looked back at his wife, "just...call us as soon as you get this? We need to know you're okay."

 

And that was it.

 

Oh sh--...

 

Marris scrambled through the rest of her messages, ignoring most of them, not knowing what she was looking for, because she hadn't known what was wrong, when her eyes fell upon a transmission titled, Star Fleet Personnel Notification: Lieutenant Krax, Ferdinand. Her hand trembled as she opened it.

 

Lieutenant Commander Krax, it began.

 

We regret to inform you that the USS Ixion has disappeared near the Coal Sack region. The USS Falstaff was sent to investigate, but could not turn up any sign of the Ixion. All crew, including your brother Ferdinand, are now listed as Missing In Action until the ship's fate is determined. We are sorry for your loss and hope that your brother is returned to you safely.

 

Commander Paul Weston

Star Fleet Personnel

 

Marris stared blankly at the screen. Her thoughts were dancing numbly around in her head. She vaguely thought of the journal sitting next to the couch, but Marris didn't think that was going to work just now. She needed a face. And she could only think of one face to go to.

 

Marris shut down her terminal and dashed out of her quarters, not realizing that there was another message she should have read. It was titled, No Worries, and it was from one Ferdinand Krax.