The Irrepressible Katie Harrigan

Posted on Sat Jun 25th, 2016 @ 7:56am by Commander Jordan Gunning
Edited on on Wed Jul 6th, 2016 @ 3:58pm

Mission: Lie Of Omission
Location: Starfleet Regional HQ - Cestus III
Timeline: Three weeks after departure from SB332

Katie Harrigan had been something. A firecracker he had known at the academy who was one hundred times smarter and one hundred times stronger than him. He had tried, on many a pathetic occasion, to get her to go to bed with him but she had no time for any 'meathead' who saw security as a noble pursuit. Katie had been dead set on a career as a Xenobiologist, after graduating top of her class, had gone out into the wildernesses of Ventax III and had never been heard of again.

"You won't stick with this, Jordan." She told him one night in the Swamp, one of San Francisco's less enticing student watering holes. "You never do. You'll get into a fight with some jobsworth superior and they'll pap you out or onto some garbage scow."

Jordan was seventeen with a fake ID that worked like a charm and a face like a porcelain cup. He sneered back over the whisky which he was convinced made him look distinguished. He glanced up at the bar where Ut, the giant Orion bartender who cared as little about what his customers thought as he did their ages was busy forcibly directing a drunken cadet to the door. "You won't be laughing if I get into Red Squadron."

"You're right, I couldn't care less one way or the other." She was older than him and her contempt for the competitive nature of Starfleet Academy was borne of a life spent alone with her head in a book. In hindsight, she had probably been right.

He felt a knot in his shoulder, the same distant ache he had felt time and time again ever since he had taken a bullet to the humerus while on an away mission from the Iapetus. The incongruity awoke him with a start, finding a boot resting on the offending shoulder.

His head instantly began spinning and he couldn't focus on the face which he assumed was looking down at him. He passed out again.

The boot lifted from his shoulder where it had been trying to shake him awake and the police officer moved away from the gutter in which he had found the sorry heap of a man. He pressed his communicator. "Control, unit nine-three-two. I've got another washout in the Harbour Quarter. Can you send a van?"

Jordan was back in the Swamp with Katie. They were alone this time, not a soul within a million miles. He could feel her touching his face, her eyes burning into him as they seemed to recede ever more, getting further away until her sockets were all withered away and her skin was tightening around her skull.

He opened his eyes and was hit full on the head by the freight train which carried his hangover.

"You look like crap." A uniformed woman told him from the other side of a force field. Cell duty was the worst job you could catch on the rotation and she was an hour away from freedom. "Any idea where you are?"

"I'm assuming it's not a hotel." Jordan said, pushing himself up to seated, a more laborious process than usual.

He looked around at the cell, a toilet, a tiny sink and the narrow bunk which he was now using to keep himself from falling through the floor. "Most winos sleep like logs when they're brought in here. You looked like you were going to have a fit."

He ignored her - what was she, a sleep scientist? "Have I committed a crime?"

She shook her head wearily. "Apart from being found passed out in a gutter and generally dirtying up the street, you didn't do anything. You're free to go once you're dried out."

"What time is it?" Prison cells weren't blessed with clocks.

"Nine thirty."

Jordan swore, louder than he should have. "I'm late for a meeting."

---

Jordan Gunning