Not the Reunion He Wanted

Posted on Thu Mar 12th, 2020 @ 7:40am by Division Admiral Thomas Lasky
Edited on on Fri Mar 13th, 2020 @ 12:56am

Mission: Mission 91: The Sum of All Fears
Location: USS Dreamcrusher - High Orbit over B Kayor.
Timeline: June 6th, 2392

Commander Tom Lasky was tired, he was also worn out and in desperate need of a vacation, he was also processing the loss of his first command, the USS Roanoke, as he had been the one to sacrifice her in an effort to stop several missiles from hitting Gornar, by far and large he had succeeded but using his personal transporter unit he had with him on Rachael Yamaguchi-Cullen, had left him almost ended up dead. It wasn't until Abbado had beamed over and recovered him, that Lasky had escaped.

Now Tom Lasky was on his way home, the war was over and he was almost desperate to see his son again, to hold him and tell Kurt that he had been missed. Lasky arrived at the guest quarters where he had been living.

Lasky sighed softly, his fingers gently touched the door release, it slid open almost in silence before he entered. "Hey. I'm home." he greeted the occupant within.

Melanie Walker smiled. "Hey, Tom. It's good to see you, I heard about your heroics over Goranar. I'm sorry about the Roanoke and her crew."
she sighed.

"So am I Melanie. Hows Kurt?" Lasky inquired of her.

"Well, he's asleep right now but.." Walker paused and that was enough to tell Lasky that something was badly wrong. "Go on?" Lasky responded, picking up the less than subtle hint that something was wrong here.

"He's almost not developing Tom. He should be crawling around and reacting to things. He's not. He doesn't react to the sound of my voice and he's not crawling around at all." Walker explained. "I'm worried. He does have a developmental disorder but I'm not sure which one. I never had the chance to get him looked at."

"No worries. I will take care of that." Lasky answered. "Where is he now?"

"In the next room," Walker explained. "I'm sorry that things aren't where you left them but things have been a little crazy," she added.

Lasky looked around and he saw that some things had been moved but it wasn't anything overly serious, he dismissed her concerns and worries with a smile. "It's fine. Don't worry about it," he commented.

"Okay. So I can leave him with you then?"

"Well let me cook you a meal before you leave," Lasky answered.

Walker raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Tom. I'd hate to impose but-"

"You just spent the last few months looking after my son. I can at least cook you a meal in addition to what I'm paying you." as he went over to the replicator, he requested the items he wanted as he turned to her. "What did you want for dinner?"

"Well, I've been living on salads and simple fare the last while so a Pizza would be good. Load it with salami, ham, and cheese." Walker responded, smiling. "Are you sure about this?" she inquired one more time.

"I am," Lasky answered as he went about starting to prep the dough for cooking. "Let's see if I recall how this is done," he said, more to himself than to her before he smiled. "Kidding," he added.

Suddenly there was a loud growling sound as Lasky turned. "Did the cats cause you any issues?"

Walker raised an eyebrow. "It been... a handful." the young woman responded with a smile. "Shadow does not like me sitting on that chair." she indicated Lasky's chair nearby. "She tends to sit there all the time."

"I can understand. I feed Shadow treats and spend time with her while I'm doing paperwork. I assume Shadow sits on the top of the bookcase?"

"Yeah." Walker nodded. "She loves that bed up there."

"Shadows space is up there. The other cats tend to be a little unusual." Lasky explained. "Did they do anything stupid or anything like that?"

"Actually no. I read the instructions and I followed them to the letter. I fed meat to them on a nightly basis." the young female smiled. "After a week or so, the pack came to accept me as a member but they didn't come to curl up with me in bed or anything like that. No, they were wild kitties." she paused. "Where did you find them?"

Lasky kneaded the dough. "Well that's a good story, when first air wing was assigned to the original USS Roanoke, the old Nebula class ship that was my last assignment, we were getting some castoff starfighters that had been sitting planetside for several years," Lasky explained as he applied sauce to the now prepared and rounded Pizza's. He then applied a healthy amount of cheese after he inquired which she wished on her pizza.

Lasky then added the meat before he tossed one piece onto the floor. "Here you go Typhoon," he added, for Walker's benefit. "A warrior shares his food with his companions." before he offered a piece of ham to each cat in turn before Shadow came down from her perch to see what the commotion was about. Lasky regarded Shadow. "Hello sweetie." he addressed his cat as she peered at him with her yellow golden eyes.

Shadow moved over towards Lasky before she lept up on the countertop, landing a moment later, the Russian blue colored domestic shorthair came over before she gently touched his hand with her nose. "It's good to be home kitty." before he offered her a piece of ham.

Walker regarded Shadow. "She did do that with me. Why does it do that with you?"

Lasky regarded her while he placed ham and salami onto the two pizzas. "Well. Let me finish telling you the story. With those fighters, they were all flying wrecks and Shadow was sleeping while staying inside one of them. When we cracked them open, out came a fox, a raccoon, several cats, a dog." Lasky paused as he thought about it, a smile gracing his lips as he thought about it. "Oh, I inherited her because I wanted her in my life. Warrant officer Yamaguchi inherited two others, while Commander Dvald inherited the Bengal cat." he paused. "Wukari inherited the last kitten." he chuckled. "along with about thirty thousand hornets. Oh yeah, what fun that was."

Walker smiled. "Sounds like quite a story."

"Hearing it is one thing but we have vid footage of a great deal of it. You simply need to look up the investigation of First Air Wing from late twenty-three nighty." Lasky explained. "It's all there, the thrills and the spills."

Walker chuckled. "I'll do that." as she watched Lasky place the pizzas into his oven. He smiled. "Now we wait for thirty minutes," he commented with a smile. "I'm going to take a moment and check on Kurt, see how he's doing."

Walker nodded her head as she gently ran her fingers over the fur on Echo's head, the cat did not seem to mind the attention. Meanwhile, Lasky went into his son's room, he kept the lights off as Kurt was asleep. "Hey, Kurt," Lasky commented softly.

His son simply ignored him which set alarm bells ringing inside Lasky's mind. 'I'm gonna have to do something about this.' Lasky thought as he returned to the main living area. "I see what you mean. I'll take Kurt in tomorrow and get him looked at, maybe we can find a way to deal with things," he explained. "For if not then I'm looking at having a child with special needs his entire life."

Walker nodded her head. "Okay, that sounds good to me." as Lasky went back into the kitchen, he did a quick check on the pizza's before he returned to the living room.

"I'm sure this can be sorted out," Walker said quietly.

"Perhaps," Lasky answered. "Perhaps," he added a moment later, in a more subdued tone of voice.