Insomnia

Posted on 04 Feb 2017 @ 10:10am by Lieutenant JG Ian Beckett

1,100 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Endgame
Location: Emergency Quarters
Timeline: MD 12 || 0300

Ian couldn’t sleep, to put it mildly. The four hours he’d managed to get earlier were nice, especially since he’d started waking up early. But...there was just something about this ship. Maybe it was because it was older than the Chimera. There were times when it was so quiet at night that he swore he could hear the damn thing creaking. He quickly brushed those thoughts out of his head and rolled over. Maybe it was the crew. From what he’d heard they’d been though a lot over last few weeks. He’d even tried to step between a couple of fighting Ensigns in Ops last shift. Only thing that stopped them was when ‘the naïve Transporter Chief’ walked up. He guessed they needed a common threat. But at least they had stopped fighting. Everyone seemed like they were already cracking.

The dark haired young man rolled to his back and kicked the covers off, exposing his legs, chest and grey boxers. If it wasn’t the ship or the crew, then what was it? He got up and went to the bathroom. Placing his hands on the sink counter, Ian let the weight of his upper torso rest on them. He stared into the sink for a few seconds before looking in the mirror.

“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” he said to his reflection. “What are you going to do about it this time? Quit? Just like back then?” He stood up and ran his hand through his hair. No, that’s not option, he thought. Besides, I can’t give these people the satisfaction of seeing ‘the naïve Transporter Chief’ run. Yeah, a transfer would work for the short term, but what about the future?

Yes, what about the future? A question that hadn’t come to mind until now. Staying on this bucket would be the best thing. He could rebuild his life from the shambles that the Consortium left it in when they took the Chimera. And the longer he stayed, the more that messy business might fade into the background. He could prove himself on this ship. Show that he is more than what some of them think.

Ian left the bathroom and replicated himself a glass of ice water. The emergency quarters they had put him in at least had a chair. He ordered the lights to five percent, just barely enough to see where he was going, and found the chair. Ian sat down and stretched his legs out before swirling the water and ice around the glass. He stared as the small cubes as they gently twirled. He took a couple of drinks and set it on the arm of chair, still holding on to it.

There was no way he was going back to sleep. He couldn’t even if he wanted. He was stranded on the shores of wakefulness with only his thoughts to keep him company. Thoughts of the past. Thoughts of the future. Thoughts of the present. And thoughts of anger. He’d met a few of the crew members since coming aboard. That Ensign...Kelly, that was her name, Kelly had chatted him up. As a result, he was able to begin stitching up some of those wounds. To healing and friendship, they had said. Both were needed at this time.

Thoughts of the present took him to current assignment to Operations. He had yet to meet the Department Head as he was gone. And no one had really told him the reasoning, other than he was injured. He hadn’t even met the man who was the Acting Ops Chief. But he was just a transfer from an enemy controlled ship. At least that’s the impression he’d been getting. There was, of course, the fact that the crew of this ship was cracking due to everything that was happening. So he gave the benefit of the doubt and decided that he would get the pleasantries out of the way once it was all over.

Ian lifted up his glass once again to take a drink. The ice cubes were smaller now and the water slightly cooler. He swirled it again to mix it all up and sipped it before it had time to start slowing. None of it made any sense. The Consortium. The alternate dimension. His sudden onset of insomnia. None of it. He took another drink of water and then carried it to the recycler. Ian then crawled back into bed and stared at the ceiling.

Thoughts of anger. Why was he so damn angry? Was it the Consortium? No, he was over that anger. Maybe it was the way he he’d been accepted by most of his co-workers. While true that there were times he’d wanted to space a lot of them, he wasn’t quite sure that he could place all the anger on them. Some of it, yeah, definitely. Maybe it was the insomnia. Maybe he was angry at the simple fact that he couldn’t sleep. And knowing that he had a full shift ahead of him tomorrow didn’t help matters any.

The anger bothered him more than the thoughts that had crept through his mind earlier. This wasn’t him. He was always the fun guy that everyone could get along with. He was the one that people came to when they wanted help with something because they knew he would probably say yes. No, this anger wasn’t him. But, at the same time, he started to think that it was; that it had been there all this time. No, no that couldn’t be right. He’d been angry before, but had always gotten over it.

Ian thought he was losing his mind. He was furious, but didn’t know why or where it was coming from. And it was affecting his sleep. He thought about going to the gym and working it out. That had worked on the Chimera. But he didn’t even know if this ship had gym that was usable. He sighed and continued staring at the ceiling.

Sleep eluded the young Lieutenant for the rest of the morning. As a matter of fact, Ian was up, showered, and dressed before the computer’s alarm sounded. Upon ordering the alarm off, he left his emergency quarters and headed to the nearest turbolift. Time to see what this day brought with it for the Transporter Chief.

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