Dyskrasia

Mentally Tristan Skye winced at the nickname but smiled at the monitor.  "Miss you too, love."

The blond woman on the small monitor atop the ready room desk gave him a reproachful look.  "Tristan..." she said, concerned, her accent an equal for his, thick with Yorkshire stress.  She knew when something bothered him.  He didn't call her "love" otherwise.

"Julia," he returned, noncommittal.  He had come here from the transporter room, not just another excuse to avoid Kostange for as long as possible, but knowing time-wise it was a rare opportunity to catch his wife able to receive calls.  She was a construction foreman on Praxiteles III.  Ravishing in a hardhat she was, that Julia Skye, long blond curls spilling from beneath.  She removed the hardhat while talking to him via subspace.  Behind her green trees swayed under a sunny sky.  Wherever she was, it was beautiful.  She graced that beauty with her own.  The sunlight on those radiant blond curls reminded him of the day they married.

"What's the rub, Tristan?"

"I don't belong on this ship, Jules."

She blinked, cocked her head.  He knew that caught her off-guard; he just didn't talk like that.  "But... it's only temporary, right?  I mean, that's what you do, isn't it?"

"Aye, it is.  But I've not heard a word of who they'll find to replace me on this tub.  Gives the impression I'm here for the long run."

Julia lowered her head in thought, looked up again.  "Maybe that's why this admiral wants to see you, then."

Skye shrugged.  "Perhaps."  He didn't believe that, though.

"Wouldn't you like a permanent command, Tristan?  For a change?"

Skye pursed his lips momentarily.  "I would... if it kept me close to you."  Deep down he'd desired that for a long time: an inner-Federation run which allowed him to see her periodically.  Long-distance marriages weren't always easy.  Tristan Skye was faithful to his wife, but that made him miss her only all the more, when he let it.  Ships didn't love a man back.

Her name echoed over a com PA at her location; Julia glanced over her shoulder.  "We'll see each other again.  Chin up, Tristan."

Skye felt an urge to roll his eyes.  She sounded like his mother on occasion.  Hearing it made him miss her more at this moment.  Before the communication ended, he said, "You going to let me see the hat on, then?"

Julia smiled again, kissed the tips of her forefingers – she had full lips, perfectly pink – and touched the screen.  "You silly crazy man."  She donned the hardhat.  "You'll be fine.  You'd better go." – Her reverse way of saying it was time for her to go.

A smile broke Skye's demeanor.  "I love you, Jules."

She blew a kiss at him directly that time, smiled with her full lips and blanked the screen.  It wasn't in her nature to say it back, and it didn't matter.  He knew she loved him.

Skye watched for a long moment the Federation seal which replaced her image, aware of the moments ticking away.  He tapped a few buttons and studied the new screen which had appeared: Crew roster changes.

The recent encounter with the mirror universe some hours prior was still fresh in his mind, but he was managing to put it behind.  All in a day's work he supposed, aboard Arcadia.  They had suffered only a few casualties.  Among them: the Andorian pilot, Theoden Kelennar.  Damn shame, Skye thought.  He'd reviewed the pilot's record upon boarding this vessel.  It read like a tale of adventure and sacrifice, with a hopeful outlook for the future.  Tragically that hopeful future ended abruptly when that mirror ship, the Titan, attacked the Phoenix, damaging Synergy attempting to land on its hull; Kelennar was killed.  Wayne told Skye earlier that Crewman Grok had made the odd request of being the one to physically conduct his body onto the starbase, where it would be held, morgue-bound, until proper arrangements were made with Theo's keth for disposal according to Andorian cultural dictates.  Wayne had given him permission.  It said something in Theoden Kelennar's honor that he could earn such respect in so brief a time from a Tellarite, which Grok was, despite their races' long history of enmity, and echoed the tenets and spiritual principles of the Federation of which Andor and Tellar were members.

Finalizing his notes on that grim matter, Skye shifted to new crew personnel.  Not many this time, but a couple caught his eye: Lieutenant junior-grade Eve Ordalani, who came from a very unusual background, and – Skye paused scrolling the screen, looked again – a chief petty officer named Dante... McTiese.  That would be Dante Winters-McTiese, then.  Harlan Winters' son – Captain Harlan Winters, who refused to join the Battle of Wolf 359 in the first Borg invasion.  Ironically, Winters' ship, the Samuel Adams, had suffered extensive damage in the battle with the Phoenix earlier (under a different CO).  Skye had heard about that particular dreary matter.  It had proved such an embarrassment for the younger Winters that he legally adopted his mother's name of McTiese.  Skye took out his PADD and made a note in it for Wayne to keep an eye on him, as the XO was responsible for the crew.

Other changes included the denoting of that odd fellow Carter Drake to the rank of acting ensign.  Seemed he'd done well enough on his tactical performance and reviews, after Captain April gave him a chance, to earn an acting commission in Starfleet.  He was allowed to continue aboard the Arcadia if that was his wish.  Skye made another PADD-note; another matter for Wayne to go over with the young man.

Finally he ran out of work, closed the terminal and sat fidgeting.  Looking around the ready room reinforced the sense that it was not truly his ready room.  It was April's.  The former captain wrote the book on this ship.  Skye felt him in the walls, though they had never met.  The only April Skye had the bad luck to meet was that sod of a mirror counterpart, whom he knew by reputation alone was nothing like the former Arcadia CO.  Skye had put his desktop decorations in the room's storage bin, in the eventuality that April might return.  April's quarters remained untouched all this time, locked by Skye's order.  Possibly Stephen April was still alive out there, somewhere, wherever he had vanished to after Atlantis IV.  The Detroit had something to do with that, he was certain, but Starfleet dubbed it a security matter, essentially warning Skye to keep out of it.  Skye didn't contest orders.  He followed them.

A com-chirp interrupted his silent reverie: