All By Myself - Part 6 (BACKPOST)

Posted on 29 Jul 2025 @ 6:05am by Lieutenant Commander Raviran Dattek-Winters & Lieutenant JG Cajag Lagnas

745 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: The Festival of Unity
Location: Cag's Temporary Quarters - Starbase 375
Timeline: (Backpost)

Previous:
Caj in an attempt to save a little more of his dignity came out the bathroom wrapped in a towel.


New:

He moved towards the replicator. Switched it off. Cleared out all the cuddly pandas. Then croakily ordered two glasses of ice cold water. The replicator made a familiar humming noise. There was a coalescing of energy particles and the two glasses materialised on the pad. Caj moved towards Rani, swaying slightly and he offered her a drink. He then went over to the Lama and offered the lama a drink as well. Asking it politely if it too, wanted some water.

"How did you turn off the replicator and then get water out of it?" Ravi asked, looking suspiciously at what Caj had just handed her. "Oh and by the way, if you want to give the Llama a drink - of which by the way, I approve - it will need a bowl to drink it from because these glasses are too small for its muzzle.

".....and do you have any memory of what happened to us last night?"

"I bypassed the repeat phase variance in the inducer matrix and used a feed back loop to carry a termination signal........I turned it off and on again" Caj looked concerned at the Llama "Hey let him say that....said Caj a little disapprovingly when they were talking about the animal "Are you sure you dont want a glass of water are you sure want it in bowl..." He then looked at the doctor "He does not seem a very talkative fellow?"

"You bypassed what and then terminated it?" Ravi wasn't any the wiser. "Are you telling me you've.... we've.... been messing with 'timey-wimey stuff' - as the TD used to be referred to in the 21st C?" she drank the water she had and then took the glass that Caj had been attempting to offer the Llama and drank that too.

"He didn't want it without Whiskey in it" she said, holding her head and submitting to the madness of whatever this was that was happening around her. She lay back down and covered her head with the rug in the hopes that she might fall asleep and wake up to find this had been a harmless nightmare that she could forget had ever happened.

"What are you on about.......I'm federation Court mandated not to time travel anymore! Do you know how much trouble i could get into travelling through time outside of a lab?" he waved his hand at the replicator "No. I just switched the bloody thing off and on again!...." Caj stuck one thumb over his back and gestured to the lama, "and why is our friend here being so quite?" Clearly we just got very very very inebriated"

"Clearly" she submitted. "Why shouldn't your 'friend there' be silent, he can't get a word in between your denials about Time Mandates and my constant questions about how this happened. It's not normal. Those equations aren't the normal work of someone, or even several people, so totally inebriated that they can't remember any single second of what they were doing? And what did we drink that was SO toxic and or amnesia-inducing that could make us brain-wiped and hallucinogenic about a llama? - that isn't here, obviously!!" that tirade had begun perfectly friendly and humorous but it sounded (even to Ravi, now she thought about it) a bit irritated.

To prove her point she approached the Llama and attempted to put her hand through whatever illusion it was and found herself touching a warm, furry, slightly startled animal in real, physical space and time.

"OH!" she pulled her hand away and looked accusingly at Caj.

Caj smiled a small lopped sided smile, as he wrapped himself in his towel and sat crossed legged on the floor like a little Buddha. "Computer " he said out loud. The monotone voice of the stations computer began to reel off what a Llama was and where it came from "Computer Halt." "Ahhhhhhhh sorry i thought it was sentient. Like us. and as for that." He pointed at the scribbles on the wall "I mean....I do that sort of thing on Tuesdays. I am a Science officer after all."

"But it's Sunday" was all Ravi could think of to say in response to all that.

TBC

A JP by:

Lieutenant Raviren Dattek-Winters
CMO - USS Cygnus

and

Ensign Cajag Lagnas
Science Officer-USS Cygnus

 

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