The way to home

Posted on Sun Oct 27th, 2024 @ 9:23pm by Captain Mira Rodale & Commander Kevin Lance

Mission: Deep freeze
Location: USS Chuck Norris
Timeline: Present

On:
{Captain’s and XO's Quarters, USS Chuck Norris}

Kolar's eyes widened as his mother walked in. "Mama! is the bad bad all gone?" Of course, that would be the most important thing to him. He hadn't known how badly she had been hurt or how much she hurt deep inside.

Mira nodded as she sat on the floor with him and hugged him to her. It had felt like forever to her since she had been able to just hold him. Zimia handed her Ashla. "Everything ok?" Zimia asked solfy. Mira nodded. "We set course for home."

Zimia nodded with a smile. "Replicators are off line, but now that we are free, I am sure they will start working on them."

Mira nodded. The kids would need to eat, and she was rather hungry. "Ask Walker to put it at the top of his lists of repairs. While I don't mind going hungry, all the children on this ship need to eat." Mira told her while she looked at her little red-headed daughter. She was an adorable mix of Kevin and her. That hair was much lighter than her own, so her father's blound coloring had changed it. "Zimia, did you bring them to sickbay when we came aboard?" she asked curiously.

"Yes, Ma'am you and Kevin sure do make pretty babies." Zimia told her, knowing that's what she was really asking about. "And no one else has been reported as pregnant or having a newborn. Well, all but Lieutenant JB Dersch wife they had a newborn going in. I didn't hear if the child's aged or if she is still a newborn."

Mira nodded, "how much do you remember?" She asked, wondering if she would have anyone to talk to about the craziness she had gone through.

"All of it." Zimia said with a frown. Some things were really bad but others had been really wonderful. Like her time with Chin, only he was acting like he didn't remember it. Zimia rolled her eyes. "Do you remember everything?"

Mira nodded "more then I want to." Mira said, not really paying too much attention to what Zimia was doing.

Zimia nodded "Ok I'll see about some food for you three."

Two children? Kevin and her hadn't when gotten around to talking about having a family, and here they had one. For some reason, she got an image of snow fill mountains and valleys. She held her arm out to Vaytoc, who joined the 3 of them on the floor, rubbing his face against her.

"Kolar, do you remember when I had Ashla?" Mira asked him. She wanted all the memories of that time.

"Faereyjar, Mama, it was cold." Kolar giggled has he wrapped his arms around himself pretending to be cold.

Mira concentrated on a door in her mind with frost on it. The memories came floating to her in a rush. Mira smiled.

Kevin entered their quarters with two sets of emergency rations. "We have started distributing food to our crew and refugees," he reported, "Per your direction, I have ordered half rations for everyone healthy and over the age of seventeen. Lieutenant Walker believes that he can get the replicators back on line in two days."

"So it would be prudent to preserve our food supplies," Mira finished taking the ration pack offered by Kevin. She opened the packaging and asked, "What would you like to eat first? Dehydrated fruit or potted meat?"

"That pack is all for you," Kevin said, "I will share my rations with Kolar."

"Why do I get a full ration," Mira asked suspiciously, "The Captain shouldn't get special treatment."

"But a new mother who just went through surgery does," Kevin objected forcefully, "Doctor K'ner insisted. Besides, if we aren't able to get the replicators reactivated, you might be forced to breastfeed the baby."

Mira blushed at the suggestion but she hadn't considered it. Without being able to replicate a baby bottle, how was she going to feed Ashla?

Kevin seemed to sense her quandary and handed her an insulated bottle and some medical gauze. "What is this for?"

"The Odinkus women had a way of giving nourishment to a babe that refused to 'latch on'," Kevin explained, "There is reconstituted warm milk in the bottle. Dip the gauze into the milk and offer it to the baby."

It was a simple and elegant solution. "Did you spend a lot of time amongst Odinskus children?" Mira asked teasingly.

Kevin opened his own ration in an effort to avoided her eye. "As an attaché, I was able to pick up quite a bit of trivia during cultural exchanges." He motioned for Kolar to join him.


Mira frowned "Hon is everything OK? You seem off. I don't remember us planning to have her but...." Mira bit her lip.

Mira tried to feed Ashla as the Odinskus did, but Ashla wasn't having it.

Kolar giggled "Mama just feed her like you did before." He shook his head her.

Mira eyebrows raised, and then she thought about Faereyjar. How had she done that? Adjusting Ashla protectively. She unzipped her hoodie. "You better know what you're doing, kido." She told her daughter.

Mira gave a little wince as Ashla latched on, but the sound from Ashla had her and Kolar laughing. "Well, I had been worried that wouldn't work."

Kolar frowned. "You feed her in that cold cave too Mama. You can do anything. Horse riding, and you can kill shark, too."

Mira smiled, thinking she had a lot to live up to. "What cold cave?" She asked, trying to multi task and feed herself.

"The one with that bad man." Kolar hadn't been looking at her but at his food, so he missed the pure panic on her face.

"ummmm." she swallowed hard, looking away for a moment as she was assailed with images she wasn't ready for. "Kolar, all the places we went to while in that place. They weren’t real." She told him.

"But you had Ashla there, and she is here now." Kolar told. "dada named her," he look to Kevin. "Mama kept saying Ashla was going to be a boy. We were right. Wasn't we, dada?"

Mira's eyes widened, but she smiled.

"I guess we were, Cub," Kevin smiled as he broke off a piece of dehydrated fruit and gave it to Kolar. "I don't remember naming her."

"What do you remember?," Mira asked.

"Between failing asleep in our quarters and waking up in the alien lab?" Kevin thought aloud, "Nothing really except I think that Lieutenant Walker punched me." He rubbed his jaw.

"Nothing else?"

"Had some confusing images, like from a dream, when I awoke," Kevin admitted, "But the specifics have faded. Now I just have feelings of deja vu. Like with Midshipman Tanner." He chewed on a piece of flatbread. "What about you?"


Mira looked to Kolar. Then, down at the floor. "When K'ner removed the devices...." she said carefully. "All the memories Rodale had flooded me. I didn't have the luxury to go through reach life I lived. I pretty much just shoveled all the memories into compartments in my mind. I will need to deal with each one, but for now, I think I have access to everything that happened. Some were very beautiful and fun....." she took a sip of water. "others were very bad."

Kolar nodded. "Like when the bad bad ate us?"
Mira's eyes widened at the reminder. "Yes, like that one." She looked to Kevin "raptors." she told him. "For the most part, we were all together, but there were times we weren't. Those weren't good."

She looked sad. "So you don't remember my pregnancy at all, not on any of our lives? Because I believe I was pregnant for most of it. Every time things would happen that the Masters didn't like, they would transfer us some place else and some times with other groups." She let that trail off. If he didn't remember, then he didn't. Perhaps it was for the best.

She put a piece of dry fruit in her mouth. "You named the baby Ashla a few times but if you don't like the name we could look at other names." she told him with a shrug of her shoulder. "I had boy names picked out."

"I like the name Ashla," Kevin declared, "It was my sister's name."

" Oh, well thats what you said when you told me her name." She grinned as she put a cloth over her shoulder. Moving Ashla to be burped. She had remembered to do that from taking care of Kolar when he was little. Before she sent him to live with her cousin.

"Now that Rodale and I are reconnecting. I may have some problems adjusting." Mira told them. She didn't want her son scared.
"memories...ah things that happened to me or us will hit me out of know where. " she winced trying to explain this mostly to Kolar. "Mama might wake-up screaming or maybe crying. But I am OK. I don't want you scared." she placed a hand on Kolars back rubbing it.

Kolar frowned "because of the bad bad? But the they gone now."

Mira nodded quickly "right but Rodale doesn't know that. She has been very afraid for as long as we were in there. She had no one to talk to and we'll when I get one of those memories I wouldn't remember the bad things are gone."

Kolar nodded "Oh OK so I hug and kiss you like you do to me when I get scared. it's okay Mama I portect you."

Mira blinked back a tear. "well Mama can always use the hugs and kisses."

=/\= "Bridge to Captain." =/\=

Mira tapped her commbadge, "Rodale here."

=/\= "The Klingons are requesting to speak with you." =/\=

Mira sighed. Kevin smiled, "No rest for the weary. You go. I'll take Ashla. It will give us a chance to bond."


:off

Commander Kevin Lance
Executive Officer
USS Chuck Norris

and

Captain Mira Rodale
CO USS Chuck Norris