Trouble on the Home Front

Posted on Thu Apr 18th, 2019 @ 12:46pm by Captain Akiva ben-Avram & Warrant Officer Laena ben-Avram

1,590 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: S1E3: Barbarians at the Gates
Location: Stellar Cartography, Overwatch Station
Timeline: MD 1

Before getting back on good terms with Laena, there had been little occasion for Akiva to visit the lab. Any lab, really. Things had finally changed for the better. The Badlands had enough volatile activity that Memory Theta required a specialist to balance simulations and projections with recommended courses of action.

"Saving us from another super plasma storm?" Akiva quipped. When he entered, he had seen Laena in deep concentration and thought to quickly announce himself. By now he'd learned his kalla was not fond of surprises.

Laena stood in front of a massive holographic projection, one hand on her lower back, balancing out the bulge in her lower abdomen, and a stylus pen in the other. She nodded in silence as she pulled her pen against the holographic map, rotating it slightly. "We've dodged the first one just fine, it broke up on its course inward. But there's another that's concerning."

"Oh?" Akiva stepped behind her. His hand met hers on her lower back while the other cupped her shoulder. Tall enough to see over her head, Akiva still did his best to focus on the map and not the exotic scent of her hair. Even with pheromone suppressants, her smells always intoxicated him like nothing else. "What, uh, what are we dealing with?"

With her stylus and thumb, she caused the projection to zoom in on what appeared to be an empty pocket of space. "There's a stellar current here," she said, rotating her index finger around the area, "and it's pushing something inward towards us. The problem is, I can't quite see it yet. Which usually means it's either small enough that we won't notice, or so large that I'm only seeing a portion."

Even with her pinpointing the map, Akiva couldn't quite make out what she was describing. Still, he enjoyed the sound of her voice explaining it. "What do you recommend?"

"That's the hard part, there really isn't much we can do." Laena pulled away, walking towards one of the side consoles. "We can hope that it dissipates or breaks up, but the truth is, we're going to have to weather this. This storm is worse than any this station has recorded."

That meant altering the trajectory of Tartarus' slow movement through the Badlands, the traditional protocol, wouldn't work. "What if we somehow detonated the storm now before it had a chance to build?" Akiva wondered aloud, his inner thoughts bleeding over into the matter at hand. "You know, cut it off now before it gets any worse?"

Laena looked at the man, raising an eyebrow, "You're going to set off an explosion in the middle of nowhere and hope no one sees it? With the size of this storm, a detonation would have to be the size of a warp core breech or bigger to even scratch the surface."

"Yeah, I might be a little out of my wheelhouse here," Akiva said, cheeks blushing a little. "In fact, there's something else I've been meaning to talk to you about. For a little while now." His jovial demeanor began to fade into the old morose melancholy from when they first met. "I'm sure you've seen Mrazak's latest conscript. Have you talked to him since he's reassignment here?"

"I have," Laena said, though her voice becoming hardened, almost annoyed by the question. Things had been going well for the two of them, they were working through their problems and in two months would be welcoming a child into the world together. The last thing Laena wanted was drama messing it up. "Why do you ask?"

Akiva shook his head. She was getting angry. This wouldn't end well. "No... no reason." Oh, but that was the wrong answer too. He had committed to communicate. "I just... don't know what to think with him being here."

Laena's face softened a bit, "Do you think he poses a threat?"

The longer Akiva took to answer, the harder it became to form one. "No, of course not," he managed to croak out. "But... should he? I mean, rather, has he given up on you?"

Laena closed her eyes as she sighed. She had been stupid to ever think Akiva could ever be comfortable and secure in their relationship. "I don't know nor do I care," she said, walking away from the man, albeit a bit slowly.

"Well, what did he say?" Akiva tried to hide his frustration, knowing she would take it wrongly. "You know, it doesn't matter. There's no reason he should be bothering you anyway." Forcing a pleasant smile, Akiva said reassuringly, "I'll just have a talk with him."

"He's not bothering me, Akiva. He's a friend." Laena looked at him, then looked away. "I don't understand why you're like this," she said. "Am I ever going to not be on a leash with you? Will there ever be a time when you're not trying to control my life?"

Memories of the time Akiva and Ryland came to blows over Laena came flooding back. "He doesn't respect you. Or me. That means he doesn't respect 'us'... only harm will come from him being around. Why else would Mrazak bring him here? Him of all people..."

"Well, I didn't bring him around, Akiva. I'm doing my best to live this life you condemned me to. And frankly, I'm glad I have a few friends here. And whether you like it or not, Ryland is my friend and he does respect me." Laena didn't realize she was getting so passionate until she saw her knuckles were turning white as she gripped the stylus. Taking a deep breath, she gently laid the pen in its cradle and leaned against the console. "I'm tired of this Akiva. I'm tired of dealing with your insecurities."

"No. No, this is not happening." Akiva held up an imploring hand. "We are not going to fight over this. Even if I was insecure, which I'm not, you promised to be more considerate of how I feel. Whatever makes you think Ryland is your friend does not change the past, and it worries me for the future. I am trying to communicate my worries to you, and I would appreciate some arur consideration here. Can you do that? Can we talk without fighting or sulking or slinging accusations?"

"I'm the one who's wrong here?" Laena said, trying not to get more angry than she already was. "You're the one who started saying you're going to take care of something without even bothering to talk about it with me. You know what's really wrong here though?" she asked. "You asked what we talked about but didn't even bother to wait for an answer. You pretended to include me in this but then you completely shut me out and silenced me, as you usually do, and made a decision about how you were going to handle this 'situation'. I'm tired of it."

Akiva closed his eyes and shook his head. "Not fighting with you. I'm not doing it, kallati." He let out a breath, hoping it would ease some tension from his voice. "I'll be ready to talk when you're ready to stop jumping to conclusions. You can't hear about my feelings until yours are sorted, and that's fine, but I will not stand here and be disrespected over trying to sort mine."

Laena turned away, grabbing the stylus from the cradle. "Fine then, leave. It's what you do best, right?" she asked, rhetorically as she went back to her holographic projections.

"Fight or leave?" Akiva said to her back. "These are the choices you give me?"

"I didn't give you choices, Akiva. You said you didn't want to fight and you said you were going to leave." Laena turned to look at him, "Were you expecting me to beg you to stay? If you want to stay and talk, then do so. But I won't have you standing in my lab accusing me or questioning my relationships with other people."

"I never said I would leave," Akiva said gingerly. "You said that. After our time apart, I promised you I'd never leave you again, and I don't intend to. I... I just don't want to fight with you." He pressed his hand against his forehead as if to wring answers out like water. "I won't talk to Ryland about us if that's not what you want. The man is trouble, and I won't believe otherwise until I see it... but I don't want to hurt you either. I don't know what to do..."

"Do nothing," Laena said, taking a deep breath as she began to study the holographic projection again. "The only problem here is one you've created in your head. How about you take a step back, take a deep breath and just let us all do our work."

Akiva moved his hand back from his forehead to his temple. His other hand slid up to match it on the other side. "I need you to take a step back and listen to yourself. I want you to pretend the words you just said came out of my mouth. What would your response be? I think that you would feel differently than you do now." This was getting them nowhere. "You have work to do. I'll see you tonight." He cautiously leaned in to kiss the back of her head, hoping even that would not backfire.

Laena leaned into the man's chest, accepting his kiss. "I'll see you tonight."

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