Except for Monday

Posted on Mon Jul 19th, 2021 @ 10:48pm by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell

Mission: Gamma Quadrant
Location: USS Sunfire
Timeline: Current-ish

The week was to put it mildly, weird. And for Bonnie, that was saying something. Reflecting back, she felt the trip through the wormhole tipped up a series of events that just seemed out of the ordinary. So far, there had been no logical reason put forth as to why the Sunfire had suddenly experienced such a rough ride. Numerous theories yes, practical conclusions, no.

Then came the communications issue. She understood Command ordering them into the Gamma despite a working communications system between data cores, but then once on the other side there was no relay to download the patch. She and Lt. Avarak had worked together to come up with something she thought was rather brilliant, despite the fact they had yet to get it working.

Not to mention the fact that somehow, despite not having a long range communications network, Starfleet had managed to forcefully request Command Officer recertifications. This, despite the fact they had just battled the Jem’Hadar and were still involved in the Gamma. None of it made any damn sense.

The battle itself was intense. She and her beloved data core fared pretty poorly, though aside from some mild vertigo, the rebuild had proceeded rather well. She was surprised the battle went as well as it did considering that when she pulled the logs, she noted a bandwidth gap between the primary Core and the engineering Core and thousands of dropped databits. At one point the navigation section had been taken offline and rerouted into tertiary data subroutines.

And that was all on a Tuesday, which tended to go a little sideways anyway.

There were good moments though. Her time working with Avarak was good. She felt as though she was making a new friend. Their time together helped her forget that Anna was gone, mostly through throwing herself into her work.

Then there was her time working with Avarak and Dean on the Bouncing Betty. And while she wasn’t completely confident in her own work, the Captain had been reassuring and Avarak had helped her to see her own mistakes. And then they took a break later in the day which she enjoyed thoroughly.

While the others were in their Command Recertifications, she continued to help rebuild the Core. Day after day, throwing herself into her work and her routine. All the while she continued to ponder an answer to making the communications device work, and failing.

She thought about checking on Dean when he got out of his recert, but was unsure if he would want company to talk about how it went. In the end she felt like he would want time to himself to ponder his choices and that he didn’t need her being a distraction. So she remained in her quarters that night, reading and hoping for a breakthrough.

And then her computer dinged, indicating an incoming message. She eyed it from across the room. ‘Who would message me’? She pondered to herself. Excited by the idea, she closed her book, stood up and crossed the floor without incident. She tapped the button to review her messages, it was an invitation from the Captain.

‘A party - more of a celebration of survival, strong will, tenacity and sheer willpower to get things done.’ She read the words and immediately her enthusiasm vanished. Other than the ability to get things done part, she didn’t feel like the rest applied to her. She wondered if she was expected to go, or if hiding her head in her sheets would count against her.

At the end of the email, she quickly made an impulsive choice and deleted it. And then she immediately felt bad for having done so. Turning around, she crossed the floor, crawled into bed and slipped under her sheets. “Computer, lights out, and lock the door.” And then she grumbled, “Let me know when it’s Monday.”