Sunni Day Part II

Sunni Moon caught up with April on deck four, as he was returning to his quarters.

"Admiral – for how I was acting earlier... I'm sorry."  Chin lowered, the blonde woman stared at the middle of April's chest for a second, then looked him in the eye.  "Admiral... sir... permission to speak freely?"

"Of course, Sunni."  April nodded, trying not to frown, but convey a kind, open expression, conducive to trust.  The moment felt so unsettling, for him, with her.  He feared one wrong look or word might scare her, or have an effect opposite of what he desired.  "You can always speak candidly to me.  You know that."

She nodded.  "You've always looked out for me, and tried to help me," she said, glancing away again, then, again, back.  "And I have to say, 'thanks'.  I'm glad you tried to help me.  I'm thankful, really.  That's why I'm sorry, but... I have to get off this ship.  I just have to get out of here; I can't take it anymore, being cramped up, no relief, no break.... I'm quitting."

April met her with a blank-faced stare, surprised.  "Quitting?  Starfleet?"

"Yeah...."  She nodded with some reluctance.

"Why?"

"I don't know... I mean, when we join Starfleet, everyone thinks we'll do it our whole lives, like it's all there is... and I know a lot of the crew have been here for years, and they're okay with it, and that's their bag... but I just..."  She looked at him.  "You quit Starfleet."

April paused, about to debate it.  "That's true."  For almost three years he had gone on his own, following another path.  Technically, he did not quit completely, remaining on call via a reactivation clause in his Starfleet contract.  But he had never expected to return when he left.  If things had worked out, he wouldn't be here now.  He could punish himself endlessly for bad judgment, but with no point.  He tried living another life.  There was no way he would have known it wasn't the right choice, if he hadn't tried.  "Then I realized I was meant for this, and came back."

"You never think you're missing out on something else?"

"Me, personally?  Of course.  Occasionally.  I'm sure everyone does, at one time or another."

"I'm tired of this ship.  All the time, every single day, all day long... waking up in the same quarters, doing the same things, eating the same recycled food, seeing the same people... never getting a vacation...."

"Sunni, you get vacations.  Everyone does."

"But it's not the same.  I know it won't last, and when it's over, I have to come back.  I want... I don't know... I want a break.  I want a different life like you did."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know.  That's the thing.  I don't know.  I need to get out, clear my head so I can think about it."

"I see.  Well, if you take that step, it's a big one," April said.  "Not everyone has the luxury of a reactivation clause.  Be sure you know why you're doing it, and that you're doing it for the right reasons.  Do what's right for you."

"So there's no coming back."

April thought about it.  "Well, you have a good record.  Starfleet can always use good officers.  If you want to get out for a while, that's your prerogative.  If you ever decide you want to rejoin, I can put in a good word for you... but you might have to take another ship, or a starbase position.  You still go where we send you."

Sunni ogled him.  "Is that it?  No, 'Let me try to talk you out of it, Sunni'?  Just 'see you, good luck, there's the door'?"

April blinked, taken aback.  "Sunni, it's not like that—"

"You could at least try to talk me out of it."

"You want me to?"

Sunni nodded.  April shook his head.  "No, Sunni.  Like I said, it's your decision.  If you want to stay, stay.  If you want to go, go.  But either way... don't do it for me.  Do it for yourself."

Sunni snorted.  "Thanks a lot, Admiral."

April didn't like the tone of her disrespect.  About to rebuke her, he pondered, then tried a different approach: "Do you love what you do?"

Sunni's eyes blue darted, perplexed.  "Sir?"

"If today was the last day of your life, would you be satisfied?  Would you be able to look back on it and say you're happy with what you accomplished?"  He paused to let that sink in.  "If not... then you probably should resign.  Go find what you love to do, and... just do it."

It was a rhetorical suggestion, not really requiring a response.  But Sunni responded anyway, with "I love some of the things about being here."  She was looking right at him when she said it.

April pursed his lips and glanced down the corridor.  He saw Lieutenant Libra.  "You have to think about it and decide for yourself, Sunni, what means the most to you – to you, alone."  He started walking, eager to speak again with the science officer.

"Admiral... sir..."  Sunni ran to intercept him, stopping him again.  "There's something I've always wanted to ask you.  I'd really be honored, sir, if you'd have dinner with me in my quarters."

April blinked, caught off-guard by her suddenness.  "Um... Sunni, I am married now."

For some reason, that didn't shock her.  She took it completely in stride.  "Oh it's not like that."  She giggled, a tad more of the old Sunni coming out.  "We can talk more about it," she said.  "Help me to make the right decision.  If I leave... I'd like to know we at least had dinner once, together.  You could say it's sort of been a dream for me."

April realized he was answering before giving it a due amount of thought, but he was anxious to speak with Libra.  "Strictly platonic?"  Sunni nodded, blonde hair bouncing.  "Okay, Sunni."

Sunni cracked her old smile, blue eyes lighting up.  "Okay, great!"

April turned as Libra approached.  A pang, of concern or hope, rushed through him: He was not scheduled to see the science officer again until the next briefing.  Libra showing up implied, perhaps, that he had learned something potentially helpful to the Memiklon mission.  But the rugged Libra did not come for April: He nodded to April respectfully, said, "Excuse me, sir," then asked Sunni, "Come see me when you're finished?"

"We're finished now."  Sunni walked off with him.  A ways down the corridor, they took each other's hand.  April raised an eyebrow.  Sunni Moon and Lieutenant Libra.  Well, they had served together for a while... yet it never occurred to him that Sunni might develop an intimate attachment among the crew.  Libra, at that.  It fully surprised him.  No wonder she didn't act the same towards Arcadia's former captain, these days.  Inside, he felt relieved.  One less worry to deal with.

Thinking of partners brought him back to his, as he turned towards the door to his quarters... and the dilemma he faced: His personal dilemma, versus professional.

Nothing brought that fact home, like having his wife suddenly walk up, carrying a travel-bag.  She dropped it on the deck and unfastened the front of her uniform jacket.

"Brenda?"

She smiled and gave him a brief hug.  Brenda was a slim woman, delicate yet firmly built.  When they embraced, they fit together well, as if their bodies were made for each other.  It occurred to April (as it had many times in the past) that he was always drawn to the opposite persuasion.  He had dark hair; he ended up with fair-haired women, more often than not.  Yet he instinctively preferred dark-skinned brunettes – a fact of which Cadie was aware.  How did that explain Brenda, then, who was somewhere in-between?, with brownish blonde hair.

For a moment he forgot all about his problems, and remembered why he married her; not only why he wanted, needed, a woman in his life, but this woman: A real woman, one with whom he knew where he stood, who shared his feelings, who could feel as he felt.  She was a captain, like him.  She could understand where he was coming from, as no one else could.

Didn't Cadie?

April smiled in return.  To arouse such a pleasant reaction, in a loved one... to make them smile... It sent him into the clouds.  It did something, inside; activated biochemicals, stimulating a sense of elation.  It made her smile brighter, brighter than all the suns and the moons and the stars, in his eyes.

"No, I'm not a hologram."  She slid her arms around his waist; they stood, rocking each other, swaying.  The corridor was vacant, or she would have kept a more professional poise.  "Did you forget Lib's on leave?"

A shudder of unease ran through April.  He should have been expecting this.  He knew Brenda.  Damn, he was screwing up.  He wondered how many wormholes she had busted through, to get here.

"How'd you beam in?  If you were detected..."

"Please Steve."  That was her favorite expression with him now.  "I talked to your attaché; I know all about the mission.  No borders were violated.  This isn't some first-year cadet you married... so cool it."  Soft brown hair rubbed against his face, on the top of her head.  "Mmm.  You smell good."  She pulled back and looked him in the eye.  "Who're you trying to smell good for?"

"Enjoy your trip?" he said, as if really he expected her, running a hand through her hair.

"Don't play cute with me, Admiral."  She poked him in the shoulder with a finger, then played with his collar, glancing at the door to his quarters.  April sensed a shift in her mood.  "Do you want to do this in there or out here?"

"Do... what?"

The women in Stephen April's life put him between a figurative rock and a literal hard place.  Between his wife, his ship, women on the ship he had feelings for at one time or another, and women on this ship who once had (or still had) feelings for him...  He wanted to roll his eyes and tear his hear out.  It was beginning to feel like he was living in a soap opera.  It made him wish he had stayed at Starfleet Command, or picked another ship as his command platform.  Maybe coming back wasn't such a great idea....

One of those 'women' wasn't really a woman.  Cadie stood beside him in the corridor, where she'd materialized, while April watched a holorecording made shortly after he beamed to Earth, when he was promoted.  A holorecording made by Cadie.

Starfleet discouraged gossip, rumors and 'talking' about others behind their backs.  On the grounds of that principle, he would have refused to view it.  But the psychological state of crew-members warranted concern, when it might interfere with their duties.  If something was wrong, they needed someone to know.  So he gave into Cadie's insistence, regarding one particular crew-member.

Alex Crimson had crossed paths with Sunni Moon in the ship's mess, and started a conversation.  April wasn't certain how his name got into it, but Sunni's reaction was notably opposite that of her usual, cheery demeanor.

"I don't want to hear about Admiral April," she told Crimson.  Both women sat at a table in the mess hall.

"Hmm?  Why not?"

"Look around," Sunni said with a wave of her hand.  "What do you see?"

"Uh... people?"

"The crew.  The members of this ship's crew, most of them hand-picked by Captain April, when he was still our captain.  And now where is he?  Sitting behind a desk back at Starfleet Command, leaving us all here."

"I don't understand what you're getting at."

"He betrayed us, that's what."

"Betrayed us?  Because he took a promotion?"

"We had faith in him.  Well, I did.  And I thought he had faith in us.  You know, crews have an unwritten contract with their captains, and captains with their crews.  It goes both ways.  We were supposed to always be here for each other.  He broke the contract... betrayed our trust in him, that he'd always be here for us."

"He has his own life to live, Sunni.  And so do we."

"No, you don't get what I'm saying.  Starfleet is our life.  It's a way of life in itself: a lifestyle.  We devote our lives to whatever ship we're serving on.  How many jobs, actual 'jobs', do you live at?  Where you live in the workplace?  That's why this is more than a job.  It's not a job, per se, at all.  It's a life.  And he walked out on us."

"He was a great captain.  He deserves to be remembered in a better way than you're giving him credit for, Sunni."

"I can't help it.  I feel betrayed.  We knew where we stood with him.  He isn't this captain we got, and this new captain isn't April.  I didn't want it to be like this.  I wish it wasn't."

"We can't always get what we want."

"Unless your name is Stephen April."

"You know what?  You're making me angry," Crimson scolded, her British accent surfacing.  "Your conduct is reprehensible.  You're a Starfleet officer!  And yes, a member of the same crew formerly under Admiral April's command.  How can you find it in yourself to sit here and talk about him?  You have no right to pass judgment on others.  Him, or anyone else."

"That's just the way I feel."

"Well, it's the wrong way to feel if you want to be in this kind of service.  Honestly, Sunni.  If you have that kind of attitude, then I don't know how you made it this far.  Perhaps you need to pull up the old Academy curriculum on Starfleet manner and ethics, and refresh yourself."  Crimson got up angrily and walked off, leaving Sunni to dine alone.

April started to understand why Sunni acted as she did earlier.  "Why are you showing me this?" he asked Cadie.

"She's not so sweet as you thought, is she."

"Have you been eavesdropping on my conversations?"

"You need to know, Stephen.  You need to know who really loves you."

"Why did you tell Brenda?  What gives you the right?"

Dishonesty was not something he would have attributed to Cadie's capacity.  She had not learned to 'lie' yet... he thought.  But this was damn near close.  She not only went behind his back, she went beyond that.

She adopted a sympathetic expression on her face.  She reached out with a hand to touch his.  "Oh, Stephen... I'm concerned about you...."

April resisted an urge to verbally tear into her, but stepped back.  "Don't touch me.  You had no right to involve Brenda in this."

Cadie's mood visibly darkened.  April felt a twinge of fright, within.  This was the risk of having a sentient ship, with moods and personality.  If angered, what might she do out of anger?

"She's your wife, isn't she?" the brunette stated.

"You violated doctor-patient confidentiality, Cadie.  I would have informed her in my own time, when I was ready."

"Would you?  I know how proud you are, Stephen.  You needed someone to talk to you.  You wouldn't listen to me.  I hoped you'd listen to her."

"Why?"