Interlude

Posted on Thu Dec 7th, 2023 @ 3:01am by Lieutenant Commander Kevin Lance

Mission: The Q Effect
Location: Earth
Timeline: Current

on:
{Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia Autonomous Zone, Earth}

Kevin pulled the small fishing boat ashore and retrieved the net containing the day’s catch of fish. Another fisherman a ways down the beach nodded towards him with indifference. It was an improvement from the open hostility that the Bajo locals had greeted him with when he first arrived. Like many indigenous people that had adopted traditional ways of life, the Bajo were suspicious of outsiders. He slung the net and the kedo-kedo fishing gear over one shoulder and began walking toward the small collection of huts that made up the town.

Though the adults were standoffish, the children took to Kevin with great zeal and five of them swarmed him as he walk. The children were fascinated by the tall, hulking stranger who seemed to possess the strength of a god. One climb on his back and two others hung off of his free arm while two more walked alongside speaking in an almost non-stop conversation in their own language. Without the translator function of the comm badge, Kevin had little idea what they were saying having only picked up a very few words during his stay.

Kevin smiled at the children and continued to walk as he let their words flow over him like a breeze. He had been invited on the camping trip by Commander Rodale and under normal circumstances he would have accepted but the recent encounter with the Q had brought to the surface feelings and emotions that left him in doubt of the prudence of accepting the invitation. Instead, he was half a world away working as an itinerate fisherman in a small village in Indonesia.

Kevin stopped at the fishmonger’s stand and placed his net upon the analog scale that was used to measure the day’s catch. The scale read 29 pounds, slightly better than the day before. The surly fishmonger babbled something to Kevin as he counted out six pieces of colored paper that the natives used in lieu of credits. The man had cheated Kevin out of a fair exchange in the first days that he had arrived but after observing the amounts that others had received in compensation there was a rather tense non-verbal confrontation between the two that resulted in a more equitable arrangement.

Taking the colored paper, Kevin smiled and expressed his thanks in the Bajo native tongue, one of the few words that he had been able to learn. With the children still trailing in his wake, Kevin walked toward the little hut where he had been spending his nights.

The hut was occupied by an elderly blind widow who survived on the charity of her neighbors. When Kevin arrived, they had been all too happy to allow him to take responsibility for being her provider. He had given the daily compensation for fishing to her as well as preform badly needed maintenance on the ramshackle hut. She called his name in greeting as he entered the abode but whether she was pleased at his presence he could not tell. She had the same time-worn, neutral expression as she always had as she took from Kevin the money and a fish that he had held out from the day’s catch.

Later, after the evening meal of spiced fish, rice and some local vegetables, Kevin become aware of a familiar chirping coming from his bag next to the bedroll that he used. It was his badge, inactive since the day that he entered the Autonomous Zone, program only to alert on a priority message or general recall of ship’s personnel. Retrieving the comm badge from the bag, he reactivated it. It was a general recall, giving him 24 hours in which to report back to the USS Chuck Norris.

With a sigh, he gathered the dirty dishes and walked outside to clean them. In the morning, he would make his way back to Manado to get a transport back to his ship.

:off

Lieutenant Kevin Lance
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Chuck Norris