A Glimpse of the Past

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 8:44am by Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD & Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 1:51pm

Mission: Into the Wild
Timeline: Lieutenant K'Laus' Birthday

A Mission Post by Ensign Vecon Fick & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD
Mission: Into The Wild
Location:
Timeline: Lieutenant K'Laus' Birthday
Wed Dec 27th, 2017 @ 6:17am


ON:

It was only a week away and Fick was starting to get anxious. He had no ideas as to what exactly to do for K'Laus' upcoming birthday. He wondered if Talarians celebrated birthdays. Regardless, Fick wanted to do something for the tall, handsome Klingon. He wanted it to be special. He wanted it to mean something. Sure dinner was good, and Fick would do that, flowers were good, he might do that too, but he wanted that perfect something that was just right. He performed his duties with all seriousness, but for the better part of several days all he could think about was what he should gift a Klingon, and a Talarian raised Klingon at that.

It had been a crazy few weeks between the two. They hadn't wasted a whole lot of time, but initially there had been quite a bit of hesitation. Fick was not one to be quiet about anything though, so openness was rather forced until a comfort level was reached. They'd recently been talking about ditching one of their quarters, but they'd had a hard time deciding which one and continuing to return to their own quarters, but sometimes they fell asleep. It was happening more and more often as time went by, where either one of them would sleep through the night in the other's quarters.

They had fallen easily into routines together. They would often use the holodeck together for workout programs and training exercises. Fick loved to learn anything and everything that K'Laus was willing to teach him about Talarian routines and he was also willing to teach the much taller Klingon about the things that he knew and practiced. K'Laus was many things that Fick had expected from deciding to take a Klingon lover. He was aggressive, snarly, surly and loud, but he was also many things that Fick had not been expecting, such as tender, loving and thoughtful.

It was one of the nights that Fick had fallen asleep in the K'Laus' quarters when it suddenly struck him. He sat bolt upright in the middle of the night knowing exactly what he was going to do for the Klingon's birthday. He snuck out of the bed, where K'Laus was still sleeping and went straight to the computer in his quarters. It was true that K'Laus was a Klingon, but he had been raised by Talarians and knew very little of own Klingon heritage. Most Klingon warriors wore a baldric. K'Laus didn't have one. Fick had seen everything that the Klingon owned and a Klingon baldric had not been among those things. He knew they were usually based on Klingon houses for coloring and design, but what house did K'Laus belong to? Fick was awake the rest of the night and into the next morning scouring databases for information or anything he could find on K'Laus' family.

When the Klingon woke, confused as to where Fick had gone and wandered into the front room, Fick shut down what he was doing and blew it off as early morning work to be done and they went about their morning routine together. That same evening he was back on the computer continuing to dig. K'Laus' records were sort of confusing to Fick. The man that they had listed as his father was a Talarian, but Fick knew that there was no way the Colonel Rukar was K'Laus' biological father. So he had attempted to follow the Klingon line back through K'laus' mother, L'Kara. It seemed that she had left the Klingon Empire from the Qu'Vat Colony, but what happened before that or who she might have been involved with, or what house she herself came from, was all still a mystery to Fick.

He found that the Qu'Vat Colony wasn't just one colony, but three. One on the northern continent of the moon and the other two in the southern hemisphere. They were large, bustling population centers, estimated in millions of Klingons. He also found out that the Qu'Vat Colony was where the Klingon Augment Virus was started, but none of these things told him who K'Laus' biological father might be or why L'Kara had fled the Colony. He would have blamed the Augment Virus, but she was gone long before the virus took hold. He also didn't understand why Talarian. Maybe it was because the cultures were similar, maybe it was because the Talarians were also not friends with the Federation. He spent the night trying to find the ship that she left the Colony on.

By the next morning there was still not much to be told. He had found the ship, simply called Yln leng, but it had completely disappeared from record after leaving the Qu'Vat Colony. Fick would have to try a different approach if he was to get any further with his investigation. His next plan was to go straight to the source.

Mid-shift... Next day...

"I'm telling you, the ship was a transport vessel... A civilian transport vessel and there are no records telling me who owned it. We were at war with the Romulans. Records were lost..." The old Klingon on the console shifted in his seat and sighed at the Starfleet Ensign on his screen.

Fick frowned. "What about birth certificates?" Fick had been bothering the poor man for almost an hour. He had to get back to his station or start to get tardy marks on his attendance record.

"Boy." His tone was stern. Of course a lot of Klingon's had a stern tone to the way they spoke, but this one suggested that Fick was starting to try the man's patience. "I also told you that I have no record of anyone named K'Laus being born to anyone named L'Kara."

"Can't you just check again..." Fick was running out of options now. It seemed that he might not ever be able to get to the bottom of who K'Laus' father was or which Klingon house he belonged.

"I have checked twice already," the Klingon replied firmly and meaning that he wasn't about to check again. "Contact the Qu'Vat Colony directly. Perhaps they have the records you seek."

Fick sighed. He had to admit though, that for a Klingon he had been annoying for a while, the man at the archives had been more than patient. Fick nodded. "Thank you for your help." Klingon's didn't really say goodbye so Fick disconnected the call. "Damnit... damn... damn... damn." He sprinted back to the command deck and his station to slide into his seat right on time, problem was, he didn't eat lunch.

After shift...

Fick rushed back to his quarters. He was often off duty about an hour before K'Laus was. Sometimes the Klingon didn't come by until after he had gone to his own quarters to shower and change. He didn't bother to change but sat himself at his console and made an attempt to contact the Qu'Vat Colony.

The results were no better, but the woman that he spoke to for almost an hour promised him that if she ever came across any information regarding K'Laus' mother, she would let him know. Fick disconnected the call and sighed in frustration. What was he going to do now? His whole birthday idea for K'Laus had been shot down, but Fick was never one to just give up. If he couldn't find K'Laus' house then he would make up a family patch for him.

He did his research when he had time and wasn't with K'Laus and eventually he ended up with the symbolism that he thought best suited K'Laus' personality and heritage. He thought it was important that Klingon symbol was included as well as two Bat'leth. Fick thought that for K'Laus the Bat'leth were also important because they symbolized the Klingon people. Both of K'Laus' parents had been Klingon, hence two Bat'leth on the patch. He also included the Klingon letter "K" for K'Laus and for his mother L'Kara. There really wasn't a "K" in the Klingon alphabet, but the letter he chose was often used for "K" when translations were necessary. It also represented the letters "Q" and "U" but Fick didn't let any of that bother him.

He had everything designed how he liked it. He was actually rather proud of himself. He wasn't much of an artist, but he did understand balance and composition. He just had one problem. How to get the patch from his design board to an actual patch. Most of the patches were embroidery. He couldn't use the replicator because it would replicate millions of patches that were already in the database, but it wouldn't produce him a custom patch. He needed desperately to find someone who could sew, but who did that anymore? He was sort of at a standstill. He could still get the baldric, but part of the package when wearing one, at least for Klingon's, was that it was a place to display their houses and achievements. Without the patch, the baldric was sort of useless and the Klingon's day of birth was fast approaching.

((Link to the patch: Copy paste only: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fv8Q5nNj2ZYfQrRpFvymITJ6Lc0J3eb2/view?usp=sharing))

He was very close to giving up the idea of the baldric altogether and was already making a list of other ideas, but he was disappointed. Sorely disappointed and on this particular evening the Klingon was working a night shift. Fick was alone for dinner. He didn't feel like being in his quarters alone. He made his way to the lounge, armed with a PaDD, a pad of paper and a pen. He picked a table that wasn't quite in the center of the room, so he could see all around himself, ordered himself some food and a drink and got comfortable.

Shae was sitting at the next table over waiting for Cailus to show up for their usual lunch date. While she waited, she stitched little fish onto the hem of a new dress for Aoife; the child was growing like a weed, so the little fish weren't all that intricate knowing the dress would soon be outgrown, but Shae loved adding these little personal touches to the clothes she replicated for her daughter. She had chosen fish because Aoife loved to swim, and she used bright, colorful threads to add dimension to the fish, humming a merry little tune as she stitched.

Fick was lost in his studies, desperately trying to come up with a better idea for K'Laus' birthday. He had actually looked over at Shae several times and not really looked at what she was doing. On his fifth look he paused, watching the doe eared woman's hand rise and fall from the cloth in a smooth steady rhythm. He was mesmerized by it for several moments before he realized what was actually happening to the cloth with the thread and a needle. He jumped, almost knocking his chair over. "She's sewing!" he announced, apropos of nothing. Several heads turned to look at him. Fick threw his hands up in excitement, ignoring the attention. "I mean... you're sewing!" He walked straight to Shae's table and sat down in an empty seat next to her. "Hi! I'm Fick!" He was grinning.

Shae was dumbstruck and stared at Fick at his announcement, blushing slightly when she realized that he was drawing more than simply her attention.

"Hello, I'm Shae," she said shyly when he sat down and introduced himself. "And aye, I'm sewing; just prettying up a frock I replicated for my daughter," she explained as she resumed her sewing.

"You have a daughter?" Shae didn't look very old to him, but he had seen her at senior staff meetings. "What's a frock? Do you ever make things that are a little more complicated?" He was peering at what she was sewing. "Awww! They're fishies!" He grinned again. All of this came in a rather rapid fire manner. He bounced a little in his chair, his chocolate brown eyes following her hand.

Shae chuckled in amusement at his rather tangential stream of thought, then held out the little dress for him to get a better look. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be some very faint lines on the fabric where she had drawn out the design and then she carefully filled it in with the fine stitchwork, and any remnants of the lines would be washed away the first time the dress was laundered. "Yes, I have a daughter; her name is Aoife and she's just wee little thing. A frock is another name for a dress, and I can make more complicated designs, but I'm just keeping it simple for now since she's growing like a weed and she won't be in this dress for too long. I chose fish because she loves to swim and her first introduction to the water was at the beach where she became entranced by the marine life." She glanced around to see if Cailus had shown up yet, but given how late he already was, he probably got held up with something and wasn't going to show. No big deal, these things happened, she would simply make some extra time for them tonight.

Fick reached out carefully to touch the dress. "Wow! This is really amazing! You're amazing! I really can't believe it!" He looked around the dress at Shae, grinning broadly. "Do you believe in fate?" He thought about that line after it came out of his mouth and realized that Shae might take that the wrong way, so he backpedaled. "I mean... uh... lemme show you!" He jumped up from his seat and ran back to where he had been sitting before and snatched up his stuff, hauling it back to her table and plopping down again. "Okay... so I have this boyfriend..." he started and then just sort of stopped as he looked for his design on his PaDD.

"Fate? Ah, no, not really," Shae replied with a slight shake of her head as she resumed her stitchwork. Then he jumped up to get his stuff, and while he was away, she waved over to Huyo that she was ready to eat. "Yes, I know, you are involved with K'Laus; He's so wonderfully grumpy!" she replied with a giggle. Huyo came around and Shae smile. "Hello, Huyo, I'd like my usual lunch, and can you have something sent to Cailus? I think he may have gotten caught up at work and I don't want him to go hungry," she said to the lovely Deltan.

"I most certainly can," Huyo assure Shae, then looked to Fick. "Will you be needing anything from the kitchen?" she asked the rather flustered looking Fick.

"Racht? Maybe? If it's still alive... I know it's getting late," he responded to Huyo. "Thank you!" Then he turned his attention back to Shae. "He's adorable, right?" He chuckled. "I really love that about him. So... I'm glad you know cause less explaining... so it's almost his birthday. I had to go look to find out when his birthday was... cause you know, grouchy... But yeah, his birthday and I wanted to do something really special cause I noticed he doesn't really have a whole lot of Klingon stuff so I thought I would get him a baldric..." he paused and looked at her. "You know what a baldric is... right? Of course you do! Anyway, I wanted to find out what house he was from so I could put their patch on the baldric... you know... like they do... but I can't find anything. I even talked to a really grouchy Klingon in their big archive... but nothing. So I sort of made my own..." He presented her with his computer generated house patch. "Is it a stupid idea?" He sort of deflated a little, maybe fearing her answer.

Huyo quickly retreated to get their orders while Fick rambled on, all the while Shae chuckled softly as she folded the dress and put it in a little bag to keep everything neat. "Goodness, child, do you even breathe?!" she remarked with a giggle. But she looked at the patch he designed and smiled warmly. "But I think your idea is brilliant and so thoughtful. Although, you do know that he is not just Klingon, right? I know biologically he's Klingon, but culturally he's Talarian. Maybe you should look into Talarian culture and see if there's something you can add in there to reflect that as well?"

Fick nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah I breathe sometimes... I thought about the Talarian side, but his parents were Klingon. Something happened. You know... it's the weirdest thing too. I looked and looked and looked. All I could find is that his mother left the colony they were on... like out of the blue. Then the next time anyone hears from her she's on the Talarian planet. Her transport ship just... disappeared. Like there are no records of it going anywhere but off the colony. Anyway... I thought about the Talarian thing, but he grew up that way. This is traditionally Klingon and I want to keep it that way. I also don't want other Klingon's making fun of him if they catch him wearing it." He paused for that breath he wasn't taking. "That made me sound like his mother... didn't it?" Fick rubbed at his face.

Shae tilted her head curiously, a small smile glowing on her face. "No, not at all," she replied with a shake of her head at his final question. "I think you have a good heart, Fick, and I'm sure he'll appreciate this gift. I'm guessing you're telling me all this since you've seen that I can sew, you're hoping I can help you make the patch?" she ventured, smiling warmly. In the back of her mind, she was thinking about K'Laus' story and she idly wondered if there was anything she could do to shed some light on what happened to his parents; after all, she had resources that neither K'Laus or Fick would have access to...

Fick lifted his gaze, his eyes totally filled with hope. "Would you please? Please please please help me?" he begged. He even went so far as to put his hands together on the table in front of himself and literally beg. "I... I don't know what I can do in return... maybe some good booze? Food? Rare cloth? I mean not that you'd want to eat anything I could cook..." He shook his head like the prospect of him cooking was scary. "Babysit? Anything... I would literally do just about anything..."

Shae laughed, and about that time Huyo came around with their orders, Racht for Fick and some pasta with chicken and veggies for Shae.

"Seems like you two are having fun over here," Huyo remarked as she set their food on the table. Shae wrinkled her nose at the wriggling worms in Fick's bowl, but still she was smiling at his excitement.

"Thank you, Miss Huyo," Shae said as she calmed her laughter, then looked at Fick. "Alright, I'll help you, but we can talk about terms later. For now, just send the designs to my personal terminal and I'll get started as soon as I can. Uh, but I guess I should ask, when do you need this to be finished?"

Fick thanked Huyo for the food and then immedately grabbed a worm and sucked it down. When Shae asked about the timeline he made a face. "Like 10 days?" he almost squeaked the words. He had a feeling that 10 days was not ideal, but he hoped that it would work. "If I have to I can put it off... for a few days. I mean I don't think he knows I even know."

"Ten days is tight, but not completely unreasonable...." Shae thought it over as she started eating, nodding slightly as she worked through the design in her head. "Yeah, I think I can do it. I will make the patch on a small bit of cloth, and then when you bring me the baldric I can fix the patch to it. Unless you wish me to make the baldric as well, I will definitely need more than ten days for that."

Fick sagged in relief. "Oh thank the gods." He shook his head in response to her question. "No no... you don't have to make the baldric part. I've got that covered. I've already picked one out although..." He looked at her. "You might be able to help me with color choice. They do all these metallic colors of them. I really like the copper colored ones... but there's also a dark sort of steel color, like gunmetal... and then of course bright silver and gold, but the brighter colors just don't seem like K'Laus. Like, most of his civilian clothing is dark... earth tones... you know what I mean. I don't want it to be too flashy for him. Ya know?"

Shae smiled warmly; Fick has such a wonderful energy about him, and she was happy to help him with this project. "Well, the color is important, especially when I chose the thread colors for the patch because we wouldn't want them to clash," Shae remarked. "I think you should trust your instincts and go with something darker and earthy... Maybe a tarnished gold, like it's aged, weathering the test of time."

Fick beamed. "Do you want me to bring it to you when it's done? I think I can have it to you tomorrow. I've picked out a pattern I like... it's... strong and sturdy." He looked at her, grinning. "Kinda like him!" He snatched up his PaDD and started searching through it. After a few moments he pushed the PaDD back towards her. The baldric on the screen was composed eight sided links, but they weren't even like a stop sign, two of the sides were longer, giving the baldric a sort of armored appearance. "This one's my favorite design... but not my favorite color..." The one pictured was a bright shiny silver.

"Oof, that is way too shiny, especially for him," Shae said with a shake of her head. "But I like the pattern; it's bold, like... armored scales," she said approvingly. "Whatever you chose, just bring it to me and I will get right to it."

Fick stared at her for a moment, his brown eyes teared up just a little, but he blinked them back. "Thank you so much! You don't know what this means to me. I wanna get it just right. I hope he'll like it. I really hope he'll like it. I'd almost given up on it. I was trying to find something else for him when I saw you sewing. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"You're quite welcome, Fick," Shae said brightly, her heart warmed at the sight of how moved he was; she was happy to bring such joy to this wonderful soul, and hopefully to his grumpy partner as well. "Now, I must finish eating and then move along, I've got things to do before I can call it day. But I expect I'll be seeing you soon with that baldric!"

"Oh! Dang. I'm so sorry. I interrupted your meal, but thank you! Thank you so much!" Fick stood and started to gather up his things. He was still grinning, even though he was being apologetic. "I'll get the baldric and bring it straight to you. Thank you!"

"It's quite alright, and you are once again welcome," Shae replied with a smile, then continued eating so she could get back to work.

Fick wasn't sure how he got back to his quarters. He might have floated there. He was pretty sure he didn't remember moving his feet at all. He was only there a few moments before he was bored and wanted to find K'Laus. He would get the baldric tomorrow. He had some time slotted to spend with the industrial replicator. It was the only way he could get the baldric without making one and the metal components of the item required that he use the replicator in one of the cargo bays.

To be continued...

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