Fidget

Posted on 17 Mar 2021 @ 3:58am by Lieutenant JG Charles McCullen

911 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Extinction
Location: Bridge
Timeline: Mission Day 19 at 0000

The Black Hawk was on course, running through the search grid, full of contained power. The deck plates vibrated softly, transmitting ever-so-slightly up into his chair and console. The ship hummed a low rumble that permeated every molecule. His uniform was hot and oddly uncomfortable, he could feel the fabric under him, feel the slight tug at his neck. Uncomfortable prickles itched at his lower back and posterior and his fingers felt tense.

Charlie forced his hands to stay still, gripping the edge of the console. He forced his eyes to scan the console again, forced his brain to take note of the figures displayed, broadly identical to what they had been the last time he had looked, an entire ten seconds previously.

A dozen urges came and went. His mouth wanted to make sound, any sound. His fingers wanted to scratch at his skin, his feet wanted to tap an unknown rhythm, his body wanted to move. He tensed his muscles and relaxed them, working from his toes and going upwards, trying to convince his body that it was moving instead of flexing. It helped a little, but not enough.

Fidgeting. It was a weakness he'd never overcome. Sitting still for any length of time was, sometimes, almost physically painful. He had never been able to figure out what triggered these little attacks of almost anxiety, the sudden rushes of physical energy and urges to sing, dance, jump around, run, anything but sit at his console, had never been able to determine how to ease them aside from riding them out.

The lieutenant's fingers on his left hand began a rhythmic drum on the sidewall of the console. His right foot started tapping as his fingers found a groove and stuck to it. He cut it off before the humming and head-bobbing started, clenching the offending hand into a fist and driving it down onto his left knee. But the tune had a grip and he found himself breathing to it, silently whistling to the song that had appeared from the electrical storm that was his brain.

'Warp factor eight from Utopia Planetia to Vulcan. Calculate. Course zero-five-four mark three. Time to destination, four days, thirteen hours, forty-two minutes.'
'Warp six from Vulcan to Bajor. Sixty-five point seven light-years. Course three-one-two mark one. Time to destination, two months, one day, three hours, eight minutes.'
Bajor to Cardassia prime. Three days travel time. Six-point five-four light-years. Course two-oh-niner mark six. Required speed, warp seven... point four.'

Doing navigational calculations in his head helped to distract him, through constant practice he had gotten very good at navigation without the use of the computer. Not that he used it often, he hated those incredulous stares and side-eyed glares he got when he did it aloud. Not that Starfleet would trust him to use those calculations anyway, everything had to go through the computer by regulation. It was frustrating but he understood the need for it, an incorrect calculation could send a ship into a black hole, or crashing into an asteroid field, or cause any number of calamities. Seat-of-the-pants flying was emphatically not encouraged for starship pilots.

Charlie began to daydream of flying free of restrictions through space, imagining the imaginary course plots for the imaginary ship, imagining imaginary orders from an imaginary captain, daydreaming about being the...

*beep beep*

The helmsman's focus shifted instantly, eyes dropping back down to his console and fingers moving automatically to investigate the offending pair of beeps, but it was just a notification from somewhere deep in the bowels of the operations department reminding the crew not to leave beverages on consoles. He dismissed it, frowning softly at the console for a moment and taking the time to re-check the helm figures.

The impulse took him and he brought up library access on the information display panel, accessing known asteroid fields and aimlessly browsing them, compiling a pointless mental list of interesting asteroid fields to fly through, creating slalom racetracks and twisting courses through narrow gaps. It passed a depressingly short amount of time and then he was riding through another wave of the fidgets.

His console beeped again, just as he felt a tap on his shoulder, "Lieutenant, I'm up." His replacement, a young ensign on the gamma shift, was waiting to take the seat. Charlie gave her a megawatt grin and pushed off from the console with his left leg, spinning the chair and standing at the same time. "We're on course at warp two, search grid alpha six, eta to the next turn is two-five. Have a good shift." He told her, and then he was heading for the turbolift.

Barely, just barely, he resisted the urge to pirouette on the way, his body wanted to dance. He had to bite back a laugh at the idea of bridge officers dancing as his head painted a Black Hawk version of 'HMS Pinafore', the vision of Lieutenant Commander Di Pasquale and Captain Geisler standing at tactical singing 'When I was a Lad' nearly broke him and he had to duck into the turbolift, garnering a couple of weird looks at the stupid grin he had plastered all over his face.

As the turbolift doors closed, the singing started, "When I was a lad I served a term, As office boy to an Attorney's firm..."

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