Using Terran dates still feels surreal to me. In truth, I almost called this in as a Captain’s Log. Logging my day’s events is one of many habits I have yet to break since my days on the Enterprise. I can do much worse for vices.
It’s been six months since the Enterprise crew returned from our deep space mission. With no new word yet from command, I’ve eagerly been waiting for a decision to be reached on a future, deep-space mission. But my hope is wearing thin. Ever since the mission’s end, command has been pushing me to take a position as an Admiral. Chief of Starfleet Operations, they said.
Title, glory, prestige, and stability. Sounds like a perfect life, but once you’ve been out there, in the vast unknown of space, even the gilded elite offices of Starfleet would feel like a prison.
I’d do anything to have the Enterprise back. My ship, my crew, my friends, and the scores of stars to chart. If I could have another week, or a month, or another year with them by my side, I would have all the perfection I’d ever wanted out of life contained in that tiny space of time.
But time waits for no one. Especially not me. Their lives are moving on, and so must mine. But I’m not ready to let go. I don’t think I ever was.
Which brings me to today. October 15th, 2270. I was notified this morning by Starfleet that Mister Spock had tendered his resignation, and was preparing to depart for Vulcan by the end of the week.
I’d almost be willing to believe that time does wait. It waits until it has an opportune moment to strike, but it doesn’t hit you with a vengeance, no! It hits you with a rush. And it leaves you intoxicated and giddy until you’re wasted. And it mocks your inebriation with the sobering fact that you’ve wasted weeks, months, years of opportunities. And now you have only days left, to try to say what should have been said all along. What could have been said in the halls, or in the rec room. Whispered casually, over dinner, or desperately, after either of us cheated death, once again. And now I’m departing for my hometown on a whim, because I thought I had all the time in the universe.
If all the time in the universe wasn’t enough to convince me to leave myself open and vulnerable to another being, I doubt that a few measly hours will be enough to convince him to stay. But it will have to do.
