"New Beginnings; Forgetting the Past"

[Benjamin Robair 0]

Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Robair

Second Officer/Chief of Security

USS Agincourt | NCC-81762

 

March 12, 2397

 

"New Beginnings; Forgetting the Past"

 

It had been several years since she had been killed. He tried not to remember it - and the easiest way for him to do that was to get caught up in work.

 

That was precisely what he did.

 

Benji Robair was caught up in the final preparations of the USS Agincourt. He was at spacedock, going over checklist after checklist of what was to come soon. He had received most of the crew manifest, and read over many of the names. Very few did he know, though there were a few more that he could guess their parents. In essence, Benji had been around the fleet for many, many years. If his math was correct, it would be about 18 years. Benji was a few years younger than his new Commanding Officer - Captain Davies - who Benji had only fondly heard of. Benji had only saw pictures and reports with that Captain's name on it, but even that was rare in such a large fleet. It was easy to tell that the captain had many good years in Starfleet, and was close to some of the Admiralty.

 

Robair had first laid eyes on the ship a few weeks earlier. The ship itself was entirely finished, with only a few items yet to be aboard. With only a few days left before launch, Robair figured it was as ready to fly as it ever would. The ship itself was beautiful. The paperwork was tremendous, but it kept him from thinking of... her.

 

She was remarkable. A successful businesswoman, the two had met at a large convention, long ago, somewhere warm. He couldn't even remember where the convention was that they first met. It had to have been one in the Caribbean, or Cancun, or Hawaii... some place warm, of course. They had met because of Robair's parents, who were in the same business as her. How remarkable... and what a small world it truly is.

 

Then the year came that she didn't go to the convention. She had taken over her father's position in the company, and was due for a business trip just two systems away from Earth. Something went wrong - Starfleet reported that they never really knew what it was. Nonetheless, something went wrong with the port engine, causing a loss of control at faster-than-light speeds. The ship just couldn't stay together. She was gone forever.

 

It was the work Robair did that kept his mind off of his previous love. Previous? No, no... he still loved her, in spirit. She meant more to him than anyone - the Norwegian from his childhood, his first crush - all of them. She was his fiancee-to-be, but fate interveined.

 

Fate. Oh, how Robair despised fate. He no longer believed that anything happened for a reason. It all just happened, and if you were lucky enough for it to work out, it was wonderful. When it didn't, it wasn't fate: it was hatred. No one could have been blamed for the shuttlecraft incident she had been in, but that doesn't mean no one is scot-free either. Robair loved that woman, and he would never forget her. He just had to keep busy: it was the only thing that kept him sane.

 

The Agincourt was coming along nicely. Everything was ready, except the deck layout. It seems that several factors quickly arose with this vessel, in which some items were moved around the ship. Robair was suppose to have the updated deck layout over the weekend, but that kept looking more and more grim. For the time being, he was on his own, just walking the decks of his soon-to-be home for the next undetermined amount of time.

 

It may have been safe to say that Benji did not particularly like Starfleet any longer, after the accident that killed his fiancee. However, it was the only thing that Benji had ever done, and he couldn't stop now; he couldn't give himself time to think about her. He knew Starfleet vessels, and that was all the mattered now. He was good at his job, and that is what was needed at the current time.

 

He was a troubled man during this time period. Actually, he had been troubled over the past three years. His Leave of Absence after the accident proved that. He know longer knew if it was his will to succeed and get everything done correctly that motovated him. It could just as easily be the fear of not doing anything, and recollecting about the past he lost, and the future he could have had.

 

This was his future now. The Agincourt. It held the key to everything he had to offer now. The peacetime warship was now his home. The irony of the vessel went quite well along with that of Benji's own personal life. They both also held a unique future: the future of undertermined ages.

 

Remarkable.