One Last Moment - Part 4

Posted on Sat Aug 8th, 2026 @ 5:19pm by Captain Marc Steyn & Commodore Charlotte Reyes & Lieutenant Commander Maximo (Max) Vero & Lieutenant Vireya Talvaren & Lieutenant Syvar MD & Lieutenant Reruk & Lieutenant JG Charlie Johnson & Lieutenant JG Maec O'Donnaghue & David Steyn & Leia Beaumont
Edited on on Sat Aug 8th, 2026 @ 5:59pm

3,073 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Season 1, Episode 1: Ashes of Wolf 359
Location: Lower Veranda - Steyn Residence : Cape Town

ON

Reruk had retreated into the shadow of the pool house standard meters before the splash. From his vantage point, the mandatory pre-launch gathering had devolved into precisely the chaotic, emotionally volatile display he despised. His brown eyes flicked impassively over the scene: the Commodore nursing her survivor’s guilt by the water's edge, and Max—flailing, dripping, and stammering—turning a simple evening into a public spectacle. It was a stark reminder of why he treated military protocol like a court order and maintained his aloof distance from career Starfleet personnel.

Without a word, Reruk set his untouched glass on a nearby stone table. He adjusted the collar of his uniform and slipped silently back into the dark interior of the house, successfully executing a strategic withdrawal before anyone could draw him into their high-energy drama.

"Not liking the crowd either?" Syvar asked, still nursing the same drink Vi had given him. "They do get a little loud, don't they?" Bright green eyes studied the other alien, their owner's expression of someone who was expecting an answer.

"Noise is predictable; irrational sentiment is dangerous," Reruk said, his tone clinical and flat as his eyes locked Syvar's. He brushed a non-existent speck of dust from his sleeve. "I prefer environments where the variables don't flail around in swimming pools.

"Irrational sentiment?" Syvar arched a single eyebrow at him in question, clearly confused by the statement. "Variables, is that how you see your fellow crew members? Surely, you could do with a few friends? Why not join them and get to know them?" He twirled the drink around in his hand before taking another long sip from it. "Unless of course you can't swim.."

"My ability to navigate a body of water is irrelevant, Lieutenant," Reruk said, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp, clipped monotone while his posture hardened into a wall of absolute, uncompromising ice. He stepped back from the doorway, ensuring his shadow fell entirely away from the pool area. "And I view this crew as officers whose competence determines whether the ship stays intact. 'Friends' are an emotional liability when hard tactical choices have to be made. I am here to fulfill my duty, not to seek companionship."

"You may yet need a friend at some point," Syvar suggested, "don't alienate them even before you get to know any of them." His cheeks flushed as he drained the last of his glass. "But suit yourself," he added, aiming to set the glass back on the counter and sorely misjudging the distance.

Reruk didn't jump, nor did he offer a hand to steady the flushed officer. He simply reached out with one foot, using the polished sole of his boot to nudge a stray shard away from his uniform trousers with calculated precision. "Case in point," Reruk remarked, his voice flat, razor-thin, and entirely devoid of sympathy. "Coordination compromised by voluntary neuro-chemical toxicity. A prime example of irrational sentiment overriding basic operational discipline." He stepped around the spill, taking a single, rigid step back toward the shadow of the interior corridor.

"I suggest you report to medical for a blood-alcohol purge before shift rotation, Lieutenant," Reruk added coldly, his posture unyielding as he prepared to turn his back on the mess. "I have no intention of covering your console if your motor functions remain impaired at launch."

"What?" Syvar stared at him in open surprise. "I am a doctor, and I've not had alcohol. I only had this one fruit drink, nothing more." His eyes narrowed as they focused on the rigid officer, not sure if he should feel offended by the very suggestion. "I doubt you even could cover anything in sickbay," he shot back.

Reruk’s dark eyes narrowed to cold, razor-thin slits as Syvar’s counter came. He didn't blink, nor did his expression soften even a fraction at the revelation regarding the drink. Instead, the alien Lieutenant doubled down into his scientific specialties.

"Then your sudden loss of spatial awareness is far more alarming, Doctor," Reruk said, his tone dropping into a flat, clinical drone devoid of sympathy. "If a single fruit beverage causes spatial miscalculation severe enough to shatter glassware at your feet, I suggest you run a comprehensive neural diagnostic on yourself before report time." He took a slow, deliberate step backward into the cool gloom of the hallway, letting the darkness envelope his frame. "As for my qualifications," Reruk added with a sharp, arrogant tilt of his head, "I hold a doctorate in Cellular Chronology. Rest assured, if I were forced to step into your sickbay, it would not be to treat bruised egos; it would be to ensure no one under your care subverts the biological order."

"In that case, consider yourself drafted in an emergency situation," Syvar told him, and it didn't sound like a suggestion.

"Drafted, Doctor?" Reruk repeated, his voice dropping an octave into a smooth, clinical purr as a razor-thin, deeply mocking smirk touched the corner of his mouth, "You would only be so lucky to have me. My intervention would instantly raise the operational efficiency of your department by several orders of magnitude... assuming, of course, you could keep up with me."

He took a slow, deliberate step back into the shadow of the corridor. "Regrettably for you, I am the Second Officer of the Genesis, not your triage assistant. I suggest you utilize what remains of your spatial awareness to clean up your shattered glass before someone steps on it."

With a final, sharp tilt of his head, Reruk turned on his heel and disappeared into the quiet interior.

Stunned, the Vulcan doctor stared after the retreating Hekaran. "There's nothing wrong with my spatial awareness!" He called after the man, "and you will assistant when needed!" The usually very mild mannered and friendly doctor seemed quite the opposite now, to the point of being angry and a little lost.

Charlie had managed to get herself a glass of Sancerre and had watched the drama unfold in the pool. She was out of earshot, so was not sure what the Xo had said to the Commodore, but it looked rather intense.

"Charlie," Marc called gently, catching her attention with a light touch on her elbow before she disappeared back into the crowd.

"Would you do me a favour?" he asked with a smile. "Could you gather the senior staff down by the pool? I think it's about time we had a toast."

As she nodded, Marc glanced towards Reruk and Syvar.

"You two as well, if you wouldn't mind. Help spread the word."

With that, he made his way towards the kitchen island, retrieving a polished silver tray before carefully arranging a collection of champagne flutes upon it. A chilled bottle rested in an ice bucket nearby, condensation beading down the dark green glass as he lifted it free.

The evening had already become everything he had hoped it would be.

Now it was time to say a few words to the people who, by this time tomorrow, would no longer simply be guests in his home.

As instructed, Syvar went out on to the veranda and blinked against the bright sunlight as he stepped outside, finding it unusually bright all of a sudden.

Charlie had done her best to round up the few senior officers she recognised and was now standing, waiting for the Captain to speak.

Happy they had salvaged something that could grow into a real friendship after their hot and heavy first meeting which almost blew everything up, Max noticed the noise had died down. "We best go join everyone no?" he said to Charlotte.

Luckily for him, South Africa was very hot. So he was actually drying out faster than he anticipated. Unlucky for him he knew the Science chief had witnessed his fall in the pool. Perhaps even more people.

Charlotte hesitated for a second. She could see Marc and come of his senior crew ahead; while part of her wanted to meet them all before launch part of her also didn't want Marc left feeling that she was watching over his shoulder. This was his show at the end of the day. "Sure...ok. but I might just hold to the back a bit if that's ok? I don't want to impose."

Marc had spotted Charlotte and Max by the pool and started towards them. As he drew closer, however, he noticed that Max was dripping from head to toe, while Charlotte looked thoroughly amused. There was an unmistakable tension between them—something crackling just beneath the surface.

By then, it was too late to turn back. They had already noticed him.

"I'm sorry to... erm... interrupt?" Marc asked uncertainly, glancing between them. Receiving no immediate objection, he pressed on.

"Max, I was hoping you might join the senior staff. Commodore, you're more than welcome to join us as well, if you'd like."

Charlotte winced a little, she had hoped to break that news to Max herself but it seems Marc always had a way of getting there before her. She also hadn't lost sight of the look Marc had given her that suggested after this he had intentions of interrogation. "Sure. It'd be good to meet your whole senior staff before you jettison out into the universe."

The Commodore looked across at Max with an apology in her eyes.

Max's mouth dropped and he looked like he had clonked his head a second time. He tried to make a smooth recovery. "Si Captain. I errr. had a little fall in the pool or fall out with Poseidon.

Only me Si," he forced a smile not trying to focus now on apparently that he had had a night of passion with the big boss.

"I go now," he said leaving them to stand with the rest of the Senior crew.

Reruk remained in the doorway’s shadow, hands clasped behind his back in a stance of rigid efficiency. He ignored the proffered champagne flutes; ethyl alcohol was a toxin that degraded tactical response time, an illogical indulgence before deployment.

His dark eyes flicked over the dripping Executive Officer and the carefully poised Commodore, taking in the performative cheer with clinical indifference.

Syvar stepped further outside, squinting as a flash of golden light from a firework assaulted his eyes. He too ignored the champagne, the very smell of the drink already making him feel sick.

Marc, his champagne glass hanging loosely in one hand as his thoughts drifted back to what he had witnessed between Charlotte and Max a few minutes earlier.

It had been subtle.

A glance held a fraction too long. A smile that neither of them had seemed entirely aware they were wearing. Marc wasn't one to leap to conclusions, but he'd known Max long enough to recognise when something—or someone—had caught his attention.

He smiled to himself.

Whether there was actually anything there remained to be seen, but it was certainly something he intended to investigate at a more appropriate time. At the very least, he could enjoy the privilege of being the first to start the inevitable rumours aboard Genesis. It was one of the few perks of being captain that wasn't mentioned in any Starfleet training manual.

His attention returned to the gathering as he glanced around the garden.

Everyone had finally arrived. Conversations had naturally begun to merge into one another as officers and civilians alike gravitated towards the pool, while David was making his way between them with a tray, carefully handing out champagne flutes with the seriousness of someone entrusted with an important duty.

Marc's smile deepened with quiet pride.

"Commander Vero... Lieutenant Reruk," he called, raising his voice just enough to carry across the conversations. He looked around, trying to work out where the pair had disappeared to amongst the growing crowd. "Would you both join me over here, please?"

There was just one more thing he wanted to do before the evening slipped away.

Max dutifully came up. All eyes were on him soaked but hey it was only water. He’d been in more embarrassing situations. Luckily he chuckled to himself that had been back in time. No one here knew those.

Reruk took up position on one side of Marc, with Max settling on the other. As the Hekaran reached him, Marc produced a champagne flute from the tray with a practised sleight of hand and pressed it into his hand before the scientist had any opportunity to object.

Only the faintest twitch at the corner of Marc's mouth betrayed that the manoeuvre had been entirely deliberate.

Raising his own glass, he waited until the conversations around the pool subsided once more.

"On behalf of myself," he began, nodding first to Max, "Commander Vero, my First Officer..."

He then turned to Reruk, allowing himself a faint smile.

"...and Lieutenant Reruk, who has very graciously agreed to serve as Genesis' Second Officer..."

He looked back to the assembled crew.

"...I'd like to offer a toast."

Marc raised his glass.

"Firstly, I'd like to thank every one of you for being here tonight. Tomorrow, we stop being individuals drawn together by Starfleet orders and begin something altogether different."

He glanced to Max and Reruk before looking back across the familiar faces surrounding the pool.

"We become a crew."

A quiet smile spread across his face.

"I know many of us arrive carrying a little more baggage than the uniforms on our backs. Some of us have known loss. Some of us have known fear. Every one of us has a story that brought us here."

He paused.

"Wolf 359 cast a long shadow over Starfleet. It tested us in ways none of us expected and left wounds that won't disappear simply because time has passed."

His gaze drifted for a moment towards the lights of Table Bay before returning to the group.

"But tomorrow isn't about looking backwards."

"It's about taking the first step forwards."

"Genesis wasn't built to be warship. She was built to remind us why we first put on these uniforms. To explore. To discover. To meet people we've never imagined and see places no one has ever seen before."

He smiled more broadly.

"There'll be challenges, without question. There'll be long nights, impossible decisions, and I'm sure Commander Vero will occasionally have to remind me that my plans aren't nearly as clever as I think they are."

A ripple of laughter spread through the group.

"And if he doesn't," Marc continued, gesturing towards Reruk, "I'm certain our Second Officer will."

More laughter followed.

"That's exactly how it should be."

He lifted his glass a little higher.

"My hope is that somewhere amongst the stars, while we're chasing new horizons and writing the first chapters of Genesis' story, we each find something we didn't realise we'd lost."

"A little wonder."

"A little peace."

"And perhaps, without even noticing it, a chance to heal."

He looked around the circle one final time.

"So, to Genesis. To exploration. To friendship. To second chances..."

His smile became unmistakably that of a man looking forward to tomorrow.

"...and to the greatest adventure of our lives."

"Cheers."

Max smiled clinking his glass with Reruks far more enthusiastically than he knew the man wanted or would like and thoroughly enjoying doing so. He caught Charlotte eye and smiled. So what she was a commodore. Their commodore. There were stranger things in this time, these Borg for one. What if they came back?

Syvar listened to the speech and smiled. He was looking forward to exploring the ship, and hopefully make new friends. The smile withered as his gaze fell upon the second officer, wondering if they could rely on a man who decidedly was a loner who clearly wouldn't offer assistance if someone might need it.

Vireya had been smiling through most of the toast, but somewhere around Wolf 359 the expression changed.

Only slightly.

Her fingers tightened around the stem of the glass as the words found places she had been carefully avoiding for weeks. For a moment the veranda, the pool, the lights across Table Bay all seemed to recede behind another memory entirely. Hevol’s face came back with uncomfortable clarity. Not their last argument, or the formal notification afterwards, but something smaller. The way he used to look at her when she was pretending she had already made up her mind about something.

They had left too much unfinished between them.

There would never be another conversation in which either of them could decide whether that mattered.

Vireya lowered her eyes to the champagne for a second, breathing through the familiar ache until the night around her found its way back in. Marc was right about one thing. Tomorrow could not simply be an answer to what had happened at Wolf 359. If Genesis became nothing more than Starfleet’s frightened response to the Borg, then they had already surrendered something important.

Her gaze moved around the people gathered beside the pool. Some she barely knew. Some she was already beginning to understand. By tomorrow they would be trusting one another with considerably more than conversation and drinks in a Cape Town garden.

That thought should probably have frightened her more than it did.

Instead, something quieter settled beneath the grief.

Vireya raised her glass with the others.

“To Genesis,” she said softly.

The words were simple, but she let herself mean them. Not as a replacement for what had been lost. Not as proof that she was ready to leave any of it behind.

Just as somewhere new to begin.

"That was a good speech dad," David whispered as he walked up to his father, "it looks like your words did what they meant to. Just look at them..."
And, if he was being completely honest with himself, it was beginning to feel like something more than an assignment. The faces around him were no longer simply names on a crew manifest or officers he had been ordered to command. They were becoming people he trusted, people he respected, people he was already beginning to feel responsible for.

A crew.

His crew.

The thought settled over Marc with a quiet sense of satisfaction. Genesis was no longer just a ship waiting to launch. Somewhere along the way, without him even realising it, the people standing around him had started to give her a soul.

END

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