Passing the Torch...

Posted on Fri Jul 25th, 2014 @ 2:37pm by Captain Navala Cowell

Mission: Temporal Integrity
Location: Starfleet Medical, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: Stardate 565301.9 (20 April 2888)

Captain Navala Cowell walked through the corridors of the Federation’s most prestigious medical facility. She had walked through the corridors within the building many times before growing up, and in recent years she had made the trips more frequently. Her father had been hospitalized two years prior when his health had degraded well beyond his ability to survive living on his own. Navala’s mother had passed away four years prior to her father’s collapsing health, which at times made the woman wonder if his decline was more firmly rooted in her mother’s death than the doctors might have believed.

As Capt. Cowell stepped into the room that had been her father’s home for what seemed like forever now, she could tell he wasn’t too far off. He barely turned in her direction and merely lifted a finger in greeting as if that were the extent of his strength. To see her father in such a state was heart-rending. She could recall the years of her youth when he was far more energetic and full of vigor, even after a thousand years of life. The fact that he now looked the full measure of each and every year he had struggled through was a testament to both the longevity of his race and the cruelty he had endured at the hands of time.

“Hello Papa,” Navala said in a low voice as she sank into the chair next to his bed.

“Navi? Is that you?” Nathan Cowell muttered as he turned his nearly milk-white eyes toward her voice.

“Yes, Papa, it’s me,” his daughter affirmed, reaching out and taking his hand. The weak squeeze the old man gave it was all the more disheartening, a shadow of the strength with which he had once held that same hand in her youth.

“What brings you here today, kiddo?” Nathan managed in one breath, a feat of stamina that he had rarely ever attempted in the recent months.

Navala struggled to fight the tears as she summoned the courage to tell him, “They’ve finally given me command of a ship...”

The old man seemed to perk up slightly upon hearing those words, “Oh have they? Well?”

Navala cupped Nathan’s hand and gave it a tender stroke, “They’ve named her Arizona, she’s a Wells-class… third to bear the name…” Navala sniffed forcefully as she told him the name of her ship. She’d remembered the stories he had told her of the crews that had served faithfully on the first two incarnations of the ship. He’d been the only man to ever sit in the center chair, and upon his finally departure from Starfleet Command nearly two hundred years ago, they had retired the vessel and the name. She wasn’t entirely sure how her father would react to the news of it. His near sermon-like stories of his days spent aboard the Arizona… his Arizona… had seemed more like myths than memories and something sacred that she could never hope to be worthy of.

“So they brought her back…” Nathan said as a small smile graced his time-worn lips, “And they put a Cowell on the bridge.”

“Yes Papa… they did,” Navala nodded, the tears started to tumble unseen down her cheeks.

Nathan turned toward his daughter, a product of a love he’d shared with a Romulan woman nearly a half century ago. Though he couldn’t see her with his eyes, he knew she was there and he knew the face she was making.

“You’ll do fine, kiddo…” Nathan said as he pulled his hand away from Navala’s and stroked her cheek, “Get out there and do good things… the old girl won’t ever let you down… not so long as Arizona is etched in her core.”

Navala began to sob violently at the sentiment her father had shared with her. All her life she had heard the declaration that no man or woman alive or who might ever live would ever be able to do the chair of that ship or any ship called Arizona the proper justice. And now he was basically handing the ship over to her.

“But she was your ship…” Navala couldn’t help but protest, as if somehow driven to do so to defend his honor as her only Captain.

“She was… and now she’s yours. I can’t think… of a better person to carry on the name… than my own daughter…” Nathan struggled to speak through haggard breaths.

Navala took Nathan’s hand as he gently cupped her cheek, “I’ll make you proud, Papa…”

“You already… have…” the old man said as he exhaled for the last time. Navala held his hand for several long, agonizing moments, wishing that it would be enough to keep him with her just one more minute. When the medical monitors finally registered that the ancient man had passed away, several members of the medical staff entered to room, taking up positions in various places, patiently waiting for Navala to have her final moments with her father.

It took the woman a long while to finally accept that the man she had known as her father, the fixture that had dominating a half century of her life, was now a memory. Navala finally set Nathan’s hand on the bed, giving it a final pat before she stood. At first her legs did not wish to comply, and she nearly sank back into the chair. It took great effort to stand above the lifeless form of her beloved father and take in the reality that though she had half-siblings elsewhere in the galaxy, the last person she had known as family all her life was gone.

“Take care of him,” Navala said to the attending physician standing off to her right. The man nodded solemnly but said nothing as he waited for her to leave before he carried out his duties. Captain Cowell made it as far as the reception desk before the weight of everything that had just transpired finally hit her, and she collapsed in tears and violent sobs. An era had ended… and though she wouldn’t realize it for some time to come… another had just begun.