Lifeboat

Posted on Oct 30, 2014 @ 3:47pm by Commander Jacob Crichton & Ambassador Xana Bonviva
Edited on on Oct 30, 2014 @ 3:48pm

Mission: Birth Of An Empire

=Lifeboat=
(cont'd from "Solomon's Story")

LOCATION: USS PHOENIX
SCENE: Corridor -> Bonviva-Crichton Quarters
STARDATE: [2.14] 1027.1927

Another day. One day closer to Limbo and whatever was waiting for them there. One more day of power fluctuations, subroutine failures, and a list of service requests that only grew bigger by the day. Power was still running a minimal levels for just under a third of the ship, and even the sections that seemed to be up to speed kept running into malfunctions: replicators would only produce a pulpy, tasteless mush, sonic showers would turn on and off at random, lights would flicker, consoles would die… and through it all, Jake Crichton and his team of overworked engineers struggled to keep all the plates spinning as their ship limped through space.

Jake was just coming off his third 18-hour day in a row. He was supposed to be off early, Maynell had even come in to pick up the slack, but then the forward sensor array shorted out when one of the engineering teams tried to tie it into a localized power grid as a way to help prevent the forward sensor array from shorting out. Jake had muttered something about irony, grabbed his toolkit, and dragged himself through the service access tubes beneath the bridge until he’d discovered the problem.

Once the work was completed, Jake made a brief stop at Main Engineering to drop off his tools and note the cause and fix of the sensor malfunction (his team was keeping detailed records of any system errors they encountered, as a way to speed up future repairs). Then, he made a break for his quarters, making sure to keep his eyes lowered so he wouldn’t make eye-contact with anyone who might need something.

He was so worn out that, when Jake stepped into his quarters and nearly collided with the large woodworking project that had suddenly taken up part of his living room, for a moment Jake was genuinely confused as to where it could have possibly come from. Then he heard his wife rummaging around in their bedroom, and suddenly Jake remembered what the last few days had been like.

The large block of wood that had invaded his living room rested on two wooden stands. The floor was nearly carpeted in wooden shavings, and the block had the beginnings of a sleek curve forming at one end. None of this had been here when Jake had left for Main Engineering this morning (Jake was tired, but he was still pretty sure he’d have noticed something like this), so it seemed that whatever it was Xana was doing, she’d been working at it pretty diligently all day.

“Hon?” Jake called, not taking his eyes of the block of wood.

“Yes dear?” Xana replied sweetly from the other room.

“Why is there a canoe in the living room?” Jake asked.

“It’s not a canoe,” Xana replied.

Erika emerged from her room to stare incredulously at Jake.

“It’s been like this all day,” she said. “This ship is half empty, does she *have* to keep bringing this stuff home?”

“She’s trying to stay busy,” Jake said. It wasn’t much of a justification, and it didn’t make Erika feel much better.

“Then can *I* have my own quarters?” she asked.

Before Jake could reply, Xana emerged from the bedroom. She was wearing what appeared to be a smock that went down just past her knees. A pair of transparent goggles rested on her forehead, and she was holding what appeared to be a wood sander in one of her hands. She smiled at Jake, then set to work on the block of wood, dragging the sander along the length of the curved edge with a series of slow scraping sounds.

“So now you’re into carpentry?” Jake asked, coming to stand next to her.

“It’s not a canoe,” Xana repeated. “It’s a Miradorn totem of good fortune. I thought once it’s done, we could put it on display, maybe in the ship’s lounge.”

“I see,” Jake said. “I didn’t realize you were interested in Miradornian cultural relics.”

“I’m not,” Xana said, still sanding down the curved edge of the block of wood. “I found the design in the computer. It seemed easy enough to make. And I suppose we could all use whatever help we can get in the fortune department.”

“Xana,” Jake said, trying to sound reasonable. “Honey. Pumpkin. Light of my life.”

“What?” Xana asked, not stopping her sanding. Jake finally reached out to place his hand gently over hers to get her to quit it.

“You know I love you more than words,” Jake said looking her in the eyes. “But you’re acting like a cartoon character.”

Xana stared back at him for a moment, long enough for Jake to wonder if he was about to receive a punch in the arm followed by some lonely evenings on the couch, surrounding by wood shavings. Then gradually, her expression softened into a smile, and she started to laugh. Jake joined her, and for a moment the two of them leaned against each other, laughing. Xana put the sander down, but when her eyes caught the tool she started laughing again, hard enough that Erika, who was still standing there, eventually rolled her eyes.

“You two deserve each other,” she muttered, disappearing back into her room.

“I’m sorry,” Xana said, after they’d had a moment to calm down. “I guess this is pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?”

Jake picked up a handful of wood shavings and let them slowly tumble from his hand.

“I suppose I shouldn’t ask where you got the hunk of wood,” he said. “The arboretum isn’t missing a tree, is it?”

“I’ve just been so *bored*,” Xana said, collapsing onto the couch without bothering to brush aside the pile of wooden shavings that had collected there. “I’m going stir-crazy here, Jake.”

Jake opened his mouth to say something, then realizing there wasn’t anything he could say, wisely shut it and instead opted to collapse on the couch next to her. If she could ignore the wood shavings, so could he. Exhaling he thought really carefully about what he was going to say and finally settled on something really simple. “What do you want for *us*?”

“Not this,” Xana exhaled. “And not what we had for the last 4 years.”

Jake didn’t need their bond to know what she meant by *that*. So instead they just sat quietly on the couch looking at the half finished totem for the longest time. Jake figured Xana didn’t have an answer (which was fair) until finally she surprised him with a one word answer:

“GATEWAY.”

Jake turned then to look at his wife and saw her already looking at him. “I want what we had on GATEWAY,” she said quietly.

“You want a war?” Jake asked.

Xana’s temper was so riled up at those 4 little words that she glared at her husband then flung herself up off the couch, making her way back to their bedroom. While doing so she tossed her words back over her shoulder thinking he’d follow. “Yes, Jacob, I want to be shot at and go through the time-space continuum where we see awful things happen to our family not to mention the time I nearly died or the time *you* almost died cause I don’t know it was a *Monday*.”

Thankfully Jake did follow her back into their room (mostly so the kids wouldn’t listen). Once safely in their room, Jake found Xana putting away her woodworking apron and goggles. “Yes all those things happened to us,” the engineer replied. “I was wondering if you remembered them.”

“Yes, of course I remembered them!” Xana snapped as she whirled around waving her hands with the goggles in them. “I also remembered we *both* had meanings to our lives, as opposed to you being bored on EARTH teaching or me being trapped on a ship with nothing to do. I remember us coming home to each other at night to each other, as opposed to separate rooms divided by quadrants and using that as an excuse not to talk cause we were so pissed at each other. Wait here’s a crazy thought maybe we *live* together like married couples do and after talking to each other *and* maybe after everyone goes to bed--”

Jake leaned in and kissed his wife. After a few minutes they leaned so their foreheads were still touching and their breaths were mingling. “I remember,” he sighed. Holding his wife close he said, “There just can’t be *one* place in the universe we both can work and live.”

“Okay, genius, go find another,” Xana half-joked.

“What about the PHOENIX?” he asked.

Xana rolled her eyes in exasperation, and to most people that would be the end of it. Jake knew better; he knew his wife, and he could also feel his wife’s unexpected hesitation and fear. “Michael Kane maybe a moob, but he’s a smart moob. He doesn’t need or want me mucking around his Command.”

“It’s not about him,” Jake said. “We’re still wearing uniforms, calling each other by rank, all of that stuff because it’s familiar and it keeps things running. But this isn’t Starfleet anymore. And if things start to get bad, people will start to realize that.”

“So what, we should overthrow the captain?” Xana asked. “It’s an interesting idea, but the campaign would get ugly--”

“Not mutiny, Captain Bligh,” Jake interrupted.

“Captain Bligh was the one who was overthrown,” Xana corrected. “In this example, I would actually be Fletcher Christian.”

“I think we’re focusing on the wrong thing,” Jake said. “The point is, you *are* in a position to help. You’ve captained a ship. You’ve had a career as a diplomat. You’ve been in desperate situations and worked with desperate people hundreds of times. We’re sitting in a ship full of people who’ve had their lives uprooted, who are scared and confused, and who are on the run from everything they thought they could believe in. If Kane turns down your help, he’s an idiot. And if you really can’t think of any way to pitch in…”

“Then I’m an idiot too,” Xana sighed.

“Well, I was going to go with ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, because I was hoping to convince you to sleep with me again at some point in the future,” Jake grinned.

“And they say *I’m* the diplomat,” Xana smiled back at him.

“Seriously, Xana… I know you’ve lost your home, you’ve given up your life or had it taken away, whichever way you want to look at it… and I know you’re worried about BOLARUS. You just want to feel like you’re in control of something. So I think you should do what you’ve always done best… throw your weight around. This ship needs your help as much as it needs mine.”

Xana rested her head on Jake’s shoulder and thought about what he’d said.

“And I guess now is probably a good time to warn you that Erika might try to hijack an escape pod if you keep making canoes in the living room,” Jake said.

“It’s not a canoe,” Xana sighed. “Oh, nevermind.”

=/\=

Shawn Collins
a.k.a
Jake Crichton
Chief Engineering Officer
USS PHOENIX

and

Sarah Albertini-Bond
as
Xana Bonviva