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Eternal Loser
Captain's Quarters, USS Enterprise-B
Stardate 24014.0
Her last day would be tomorrow. This was... her last night, with
Enterprise.
Nash had probably wanted something this hard before. She'd probably felt a heart-hunger as deep as the one that sliced into the core of her soul as sleep took her.
She couldn't remember when, though.
Nash ka'Sharren, captain of the USS
Enterprise, fell asleep. She awoke, in a different direction, into a realm at best vaguely connected to the ordinary dimensions of time and space.
Her heart leapt as she rose from her bed, walked to her door, to greet the visitor she knew would be there. A tall woman in the red jacket of a Starfleet officer, who looked human until you noticed the faint shine behind her eyes.
Consensus reality was
so overrated. Nash's arms slid around her love.
"You came!"
"Did you think I'd let you slip away?"
"No." Nash shook her head. "I just about jumped last year, when I heard Ensign Bessle humming your song."
Her dream smiled. "She'd had a rough patch. Needed someone to mother her through it."
"I'd thought maybe she'd heard the tune from me, some time..."
"I'm not saying she didn't, love. But she certainly got it from
me."
"Hey. Wait a minute. If you were mothering her, does that mean-?"
"What, don't you think the kids turned out all right?"
The reason for Nash's desperate desire to see her vision, her Enterprise, once again caught up with her. She felt her legs about to give way, reeled back across the room, sank onto the bed again. Worry on her face, her dream followed.
"I... I guess I'm leaving the family, tomorrow."
Her love knelt by the bedside, taking her hand. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault, angel; if I hoisted the Jolly Roger and sailed off into the black with you, I know the rest of the universe might yell at me, but
you wouldn't."
"No." She took Nash's other hand, now. "No, I wouldn't. All my lives- captain, they must add up to four hundred years, or five. It could be more, too; some of them got hazy at the edges..." she trailed off, looking somber. The little imp of perverse irreverence, which nearly always stirred just behind Nash's eyes, saw an opening.
"That- must add up to a lot of exes."
"You
would say that." Her dream stuck out her tongue. "But no, not many. Not really, not like this. It's been a long, strange time for me. I was... very different, once. Heh.
Je suis né Française, en fait." Nash blinked, and Enterprise smiled oddly. "Sorry, translators don't work in your dreams. It doesn't matter, love. But... captains like you aren't even once in a lifetime. They're once in a century. Sometimes not even that."
"You've a way of winning our hearts." Nash forced a smile, though the sentiment was real. "How can we go on to another love, after years with you?"
Her dream slid arms around her, then, and made a wordless sound. "Captain... after I lost him in '94, I wasn't sure that I'd ever be loved so much again. Shows what I know." Nash felt the vision's arms tighten around her, tensing. "I don't care
what they do to your uniforms, I'm going to be wearing this jacket for a long time."
Nash needed a moment to think that one through, to understand what the spirit was saying. When she understood, a tear broke loose, and she returned the hug fiercely. Her dream started speaking again, after that.
"It's like... he couldn't really be alive without me, and at the end when he was too old to keep coming back, he- ohhh." Her dream moaned sadly. "He gave up. He only ever knew how to be my captain."
"It was his destiny, I think. And mine." Nash smiled sadly.
Her dream's eyes suddenly flamed, the lines of her face settling into a combative, defiant form. The usual muted blue glow, so like the shimmer off a live warp core, grew, grew. Became almost too bright to look at directly. "No.
No. Destiny will have to get in line and take its kick in the teeth. Along with everything else that's tried to cross swords with us. I broke that poor man's heart, and I won't let the same thing happen to you."
Nash gulped, blinking back tears. "I- I'm not sure it's up to you, angel."
"Then make it so. Don't let us being parted be the end of your life, capt-
Nash." She'd half expected her dream's tears to shimmer like quicksilver, but they were very, very ordinary. "Don't let it happen to you. You're good, you are
very good, and mine isn't the only crew in the galaxy that could use you. You are
not done."
"But what am I, if I can't be your captain?" The wall Nash hid her emotions behind was a strong one. The burdens of command hadn't done a thing to weaken it these past ten years. But every mighty brick of it threatened to dissolve, now, at the end. "Will they just shove me behind a desk somewhere and forget about me? Where can I ever...
matter, the way I have with you?"
"I don't know yet, love, but I know you'll find a place. Or two. Or three." The dream shifted, pulling back a bit to look at Nash. "Look at Nyota." Nash needed a moment to place that name, but only a moment. "She was a treasure. Then, captain of
Courageous, and a good one, too. But that was fifteen years ago- and now she's seventy and still giving them hell! Not some dried-up old bureaucratic worker-bee. Not a has-been. Out there, on new worlds, putting boot to butt. There's your star to steer by. Be like Nyota. Or do her one better. You could, you know, love. You've got two thirds of your career left.
Use it."
Nash tried to let that sink in, through the layer of desperate uncertainty. Trembling inside, she knew there was something she'd have to say. "Angel?"
"Yes?"
Nash felt her voice tremble. "I'll miss science and discovery. I'll miss the travel. I'll miss my crew. But I think I'll miss you, yourself, most of everything. Wherever I go... I love you."
"Love you too." She smiled. "And thank you. Thank you so... But you promise me one thing."
Anything, Nash thought. "What?"
"Promise me you'll find a love you
can stay with. One without a warp core." The red-jacketed vision looked away, despondently for a heartbeat. "I can't make you happy forever, but you deserve to be happy again when I can't anymore.
Promise you won't let me break your heart."
Nash found herself not wanting to answer. The spirit's Cherenkov eyes danced, though another tear ran down her cheek. She raised a finger to Nash's lips. "I really have gotten to you, haven't I? Well, you don't have to say anything now, but remember. I
do expect you to keep this one, you hear?"
Nash nodded. "I hear you. But I'm still your captain, and don't you
ever expect me to promise to forget you."
"I'll never forget you, either..." Her dream shook her head. "They could retire me, pack me in grease, strip me down and paint a new name on my bones, try every trick they know to forget who I am... but it won't matter. 'Nash was here' will still be etched on my heart. They can pull you off my bridge- though I know you'll find a way back to me, one day. For old times' sake." Enterprise smiled, folding arms around back around her with fond protectiveness. "But before they do... mm. Let me help you, one more time."
Just being here was helping- she'd
dreaded not getting a chance to say goodbye. "What do you mean, angel?"
"Well." Her dream pursed her lips, then smiled. "I
have known an awful lot of admirals and office-politickers, over the years. Maybe I can remember a few pointers."
Nash didn't know what to say, for a moment. As had happened so many times in Captain ka'Sharren's forty years of life, one of her greatest strengths
and weaknesses took the helm. Her imp came to the fore. "Didn't you say you were five hundred years old? This sounds like it could take a while."
"Oh, we've got plenty of time, love. They can say what they like out there, and it may only be seven standard hours left for you to sleep, by the clock. But when you drifted off, you came aboard
my country. Now I've got you," her dream smiled mischievously. "And in here, I'm not letting you go any time soon."
Choking up, Nash simply whispered "...Thanks."
"You're always welcome. Now, I think you need to hear a few more songs..." And in Nash's dreams the spirit of Enterprise smiled, a bit of the playfulness back in her voice.
Her love's song had changed, subtly, over these eight years and more. It changed even more tonight. The vision's soprano lost its playfulness, taking on a
poignant, ethereal tone Nash felt down to her bones, and to her soul beneath them.
But some things were constant. Her love's eyes shone blue, her song was peace. Her words were balm... and
her kiss was promise, and adventure.
