From: Joy Phillips (jkatjovi_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Apr 30 2007 - 06:47:24 PDT
"Midnight Bloom"
(Cont'd from "Catching Up")
Location: GS-2
Scene: Memorial garden
Stardate: 2.70430.1445
The memorial garden was empty when Kat stepped from
the walkway that connected it to the promenade. The
unobstructed view of the gamma quadrant stars
surrounding her took her breath away like it did every
week she came here, and as usual she found herself
admiring the engineers that had managed to make the
small memorial garden feel like it was floating in
space.
Stepping down from the walkway her foot connected with
the footpath that meandered through the small space.
She began following it taking in the perfectly
manicured flowerbeds and lawn as she did, on her right
at all times was the tall monolith with the names of
those that had lost their lives in the 2421 terrorist
attacks on the station.
She passed one woman and her daughter who were talking
in hushed voices as though afraid to disturb the dead,
she greeted them with a nod of her head but didn’t
slow down as she found the bench she was looking for.
She lowered herself into it and glanced out across the
stars.
“Commander Gorman?” The voice was too familiar to
ignore as the stations head gardener came to stand
near to her with out obstructing her view. “How are
you today?”
Kat smiled slightly and glanced up at the slightly
older man, Darrian would look to be in his late 30’s
compared to a human, in actuality he was somewhere in
his 150’s, he was in good shape though thanks to the
amount of shifting and carrying that came from
maintaining the arboretum and memorial gardens on the
station. He’d also managed to become something of a
counsellor to the Commander since the opening of the
memorial gardens.
“I’m good Darrian, you?”
He smiled slightly and sat down on the other side of
his bench and rubbed at his shoulder to ease a kink
out. “Well let’s see, the kids are visiting, I think
my eldest is about to announce his engagement, the Mrs
wants me to pay for her to go on holiday with the
girls for a week, and the magnolias in the terran bed
are refusing to bloom.” He shook his head sadly,
“Sometimes you Starfleet officers don’t know how good
you have it.”
Kat grinned at this. “I know, I mean look at me,
pregnant and relaxing in a garden.”
“Well it is a good garden.” He joked. “I’m proud of it
especially after the amount of work we had to do to
make it light in here without destroying the view.”
“You did good.” She nodded her head in response and
then drifted back into her own thoughts and silence.
“So I guess becoming XO will mean less work for you,
less stress.”
Kat smiled slightly. “I remember being an XO it’s not
less work just different, and as for stress some of
that depends on the CO.”
“So what’s this Kane like?”
Kat glanced at her friend, “how much do you hear?”
“I’m a listener.” Darrian pointed out unashamed of
admitting he heard a lot on the rumour mill.
Kat shook her head slowly and then shrugged, “then you
probably know as much as me,”
Darrian smiled slightly, “you’re worried about what
he’s going to be like, I’m sure he can’t be all bad.”
She laughed softly, “you’re kidding me right? I
remember seeing him on a fednet interview, he exuded
bad temper and grumpiness,”
“that was an interview.” Darrian pointed out and
smiled, “anyway with you on the charm offensive he’ll
mellow in no time.”
Kat burst out laughing, “right, I don’t think that’s
commands plan.”
Darrian smiled back and then pointed towards an area
nearest to the clear bulkhead where a flower was
starting to unfurl.
“What…?”
She was shushed by a look and went back to watching as
a large white bloom unfurled and an intoxicating smell
filled the small memorial gardens. After a moment
Darrian sighed. “Epiphyllum oxypetalum, or midnight
bloom, it will die now and we’ll have to wait until
next year until it blooms again.”
Kat watched it for a moment. “It’s beautiful.”
The el’aurian nodded and then sighed and stood up,
“well back to work, the arboretum has been slacking
while I’ve been waiting to see if that beauty will
bloom.”
He walked away without a backwards glance and Kat
turned back to see the flower slowly dying.
***********
NRPG: thought I'd add another NPC and an area.
Joy Phillips
Commander Katlina Gorman
Executive Officer
GS-2
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