Short Stories
 
  Unrequited

Written by William C. Searcy

Setting: Transporter Room, Starship Tristan
Stardate 00059.4 / August 5th 2300 Six days after the events of “Pride and Prejudice”

The transporter room shimmered with its quiet violet radiance, the light rising in slow pulses around the platform.

Dr. Anderson stood on the pad, hands clasped behind his back, posture perfectly composed—medical officer, scientist, Vulcan-trained in discipline if not in origin. To anyone else, he looked calm. Controlled. Unmoved.
But the glow betrayed him.

It reflected in his eyes as he looked down at Captain Privette one last time.

She stood just below the platform, close enough that neither of them needed to raise their voices. Close enough that distance, suddenly, felt like something vast and irreversible.

“Your departure is. . .strategically sound,” Anderson said carefully. “Starfleet Command will benefit from your leadership.”

Privette gave a faint, almost amused smile. “That’s the most clinical goodbye I’ve ever received, Doctor.”

A pause.

The transporter’s harmonic tone deepened.

Anderson’s fingers tightened—just slightly—behind his back.

“There are variables,” he added quietly, “for which I have no adequate preparation.”

Privette’s expression softened. She understood. She always did.

“Take care of my crew,” he said.

“They are our crew,” she corrected, voice barely above the hum.

Another pause. Longer this time.

If either of them moved—one step closer, one word more--the moment might become something neither duty nor distance could contain.

Privette stepped back instead, onto the deck circle below.

Anderson turned his head toward the console.

“Energize.”

The violet light surged, rising around him in luminous columns. His form began to dissolve, particle by particle, the glow still caught in his eyes as long as they could see each other.

Then he was gone.

The transporter room fell silent.

Captain Privette stood alone beneath the fading light, looking at the empty space where he had been--at everything they had never said.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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