Saying Goodbye...

Posted on Fri Jul 25th, 2014 @ 2:42pm by Captain Navala Cowell & Lieutenant Rainna
Edited on on Fri Jul 25th, 2014 @ 2:42pm

Mission: Temporal Integrity
Location: Cowell Family Property, Alaska
Timeline: Stardate 565314.2 (24 April, 2888)

Navala hadn’t been home to the large family dwelling her father had build in many years. She’d grown up in the large house, even if most of the rooms dedicated to the various children Nathan had fathered over the long centuries seldom frequented them. She could recall many a story her father had recounted about the various siblings Navala possessed from her sire’s many wives over the years. It was strange that the old man hadn’t started having actual families until well into the 25th century. Each time she had asked him, Nathan had brushed her off with some comment about time and the lack of it he had always been subjected to being the Captain of the Arizona, though several of them had been born on the ship.

As Navala walked through the halls of her old home, she gazed nostalgically at the many photos that lined the walls down the long hall toward the room that had last been constructed some fifty odd years ago… namely her own. Contrary to what people outside the Cowell family might have thought about the man, Nathan was extremely sentimental. He’d taken pictures of each member of his brood, each in front of their family home. One could track the changes made to the estate in almost minute detail simply by making the trip toward the back of the house. Navala wondered to herself as she made the trip to her old room if she would ever make that trip again before she herself joined Nathan in the World Beyond.

Being distracted by all of the memories she was reliving, Navala scarcely noticed her older sister, Aisling, who was departing her own room. The two collided and soon were pressed against opposite sides of the small hallway, staring at each other. Being firmly lost in her thoughts of the past, Navala found herself grinning much like she’d done many times when she’d run into an errant sibling.

“Watch out, people are walking here…” Navala repeated the words she’d heard her father use each time he’d had to push through a child on his way through the house. Even if she’d never before uttered those words herself, it just seemed right now that the man who’d made them a fixture was no longer around to do so.

Aisling smiled, rolling her eyes at the phrase she had heard their father utter so many times. It seemed right for Navala to carry on the 'tradition'; with so many of the children turning out to be more soft-spoken, at least one of the kids had to carry some of Nathan's colorful and ornery characteristics.

"Hey, I'm glad you could make it," Aisling spoke serenely. "Mum said you've been given a ship, we worried you wouldn't be able to stay for the funeral."

“Starfleet said that they wouldn’t dream of calling me away from his funeral. A lot of the brass wanted to be here but… you know how the brass is. Too much to do and not enough time to do it in… even after they invented temporal technology,” Navala smirked.

The woman pushed herself off the wall and took her sister by the hands, “It’s good to see you. It’s been… what? Thirty years?”

"Twenty-nine, but who's counting?" Aisling replied, smiling warmly as she gave her sister's hands an affectionate squeeze. "And I'm glad the Starfleet brass was too busy. This is a family matter, not a Starfleet one." Unlike her mother and father, Aisling and their other sister Niamh never joined Starfleet, preferring to wander the galaxy in a more bardic fashion as their ancestors did so very long ago. Aisling and Niamh never understood this commitment to Starfleet, but that didn't make them any less proud of Navala for finally getting her own ship. "Mum and Riordan are in the sitting room if you would like to see them," she offered. "Or did you need some more time alone?"

“I hadn’t realized they were here, to be honest with you,” Navala said, “They beamed me down to the kitchen of all places and I just came straight back here. Did Torak ever show up? I mean… I know he never did like the cold much, but you’d think a Klingon boy would at least be here to see his father off to Sto’Vo’Kor…”

"He's here, somewhere, I think," Aisling said as she hooked her arm with Navala's so they could walk together to join the others in the sitting room. "Mum probably knows where he is. None of us could ever hide from her, especially not in this house."

“I don’t know why you’d even try,” Navala rolled her eyes much like Nathan used to, “Papa would often complain about the grief he’d get having to listen to your mom gripe about where she found you each and every time and how much of a pain it was… I don’t know if Papa just liked to complain or if he honestly didn’t like it. My mother never gave him grief… she just threw whatever was handy at him and cursed him in her native tongue. I used to laugh when he would tell her he didn’t speak green-blooded hobgoblin when I know for a fact he did.”

Aisling erupted into laughter. "Yeah, that sounds about right!" Aisling said once her laughter had calmed down a bit. "What can I said, Dad was Dad, he did things his own way. Did you know he used to intentionally mispronounce my name? Niamh's too! Teasing Mum for choosing Irish names, but it confused us plenty growing up. At least you got an interesting nickname out of the deal. None of us ever got a nickname." there was a hint of jealousy in her tone. None of Nathan's children ever doubted his love for them, but there had been a special bond between him and Navala that Aisling and the others envied. For Aisling and her full siblings, this envy had never been enough to cause a rift. They acknowledged this feeling and accepted it for what it was, but they never resented their father or Navala for this.

Navala couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Her own mother had told her many times that she’d seen Nathan interact with her siblings, even before her birth, and he’d teased them all plenty. But nicknames… that was something Nathan didn’t share with a great deal of people in his latter years. After leaving the Arizona, it seemed that the man just didn’t get as attached to people to give them a unique moniker all their own. Navala wondered sometimes if he’d known full well what awaited his youngest child, and had revived the tradition in preparation for the day she would take his ship and carry on the Cowell legacy. At least… that’s what she liked to believe, Nathan hadn’t ever made any comment to support it and with his passing it would stay firmly within the realm of speculation.

“I’m not sure there’s anything to be envious of, everyone from primary school up used it instead of my given name. Half the people in town thought that was my given name for years. I almost wish Papa had just screwed it up,” Navala offered, even if it were only half true. Inconvenient it might have been as a child, the tradition it had come from was something that she alone had been brought into and she treasured it completely.

As the two girls entered the sitting room, Navala took sight of the family Nathan had built. Though the majority of his wives had preceded him, one woman who had shared the roof with him for well into a century sat in the chair Nathan had made for her, surrounded by the other children who each wore Cowell as not just a surname but as badge of honor. Navala’s eyes fell instantly upon her Klingon brother, who was sulking in the corner wearing his Klingon garb. Unlike the children born from Shae or some of the others that had given him children, Torak left Earth when his mother had, and hadn’t looked back for a minute. Much like Navala, he’d joined the service of his own home in the Klingon Empire, but he had not shared the same successes Navala had.

When Torak caught sight of the youngest of the brood, he straightened visibly. The Klingon boy stood quite a few centimeters taller than Navala, and his frame was much wider than her own. The few times they had met, the two siblings had thrown down the gauntlet and handed one another a healthy beating before Nathan finally broke the two up. Now, with their father gone, they had their chance to have it out without interruptions.

“I see you decided to come, you coward,” Torak hissed at his younger sister.

“At least I was there when he died,” Navala returned the insult with one of her own, “You were cowering in some corner in the Empire, afraid to see your father dying of age.”

“How dare you!” Torak fumed as he stormed forward, “You should not have even been born!”

“And Papa should have killed you for being a miserable petaQ and abandoning the family like you did!” Navala stood firm, her countenance daring the Klingon to act rashly.

"Enough!" The Chameloid woman sitting silently could remain so no longer, not with the kinds of insults being thrown around. Shae, Nathan's second wife but the first to give him any children, rose from her place with the other children. She was a small woman, but her short stature did little to hinder the authority she carried into the room. "You should both be ashamed of yourselves," she said as she stepped in between the rival siblings. "This is neither the time nor the place. You want to have it out, then do so tomorrow, after your father has been laid to rest, but if you continue this petty bickering I will put you both over my knee like the children you are making yourselves out to be. Am I making myself clear?"

“Bah!” Torak growled and threw his hands up, “You are not worth the time…”

For her part, Navala glared at her older brother much the same way Nathan had glared at people when he was seriously upset with someone. Of all his children, the youngest had inherited the most of his personality, save perhaps his rather abrasive choice of words. The Klingon returned to his corner and grabbed the goblet of blood-wine he’d been nursing since he arrived, doing his best to avoid making eye contact with anyone.

Navala turned to the woman who, technically, was her step-mother even if she’d long separated from Nathan before she was born, “I guess he’s dealing with it like a Klingon…”

In that, Shae had to disagree. Shae had seen Klingons grieve and Tarok was acting like a child. Navala's retorts to his jabs had merely made things worse. "He is handling it in his own way," Shae replied softly as she gathered Navala into a warm embrace. "It is good to see you, Navala. I'm glad you got the chance to say your goodbyes while your father was still alive. I think he had been waiting for you."

Navala returned the embrace, “I just wish he hadn’t picked then to do it… He always did picked the worst times to just decide things…”

"Would he have been Nathan if he had done things any other way?" Shae asked, guiding Navala further into the sitting room to join her siblings. "After everything was said that needed to be said, it was time to let go. I think he waited long enough."

Navala nodded but couldn’t summon a response to her words. She wasn’t even sure if she truly believed the old man was really gone. It would have been just like him to pop out of some corner and scare the entire family to death. She knew better, she’d watched him go… but it would have made it much better than the reality she and her family had to endure.

“I thought he’d live forever…” Navala said without thinking.

“We all did,” Riordan piped up out of nowhere, “And he was well on his way. We could all hope to live to be eleven hundred years old and be in the shape that he was in.”

“He lived an honorable life,” Torak cut in from his own corner. Rather than take the chance to strike back at the Klingon, Navala simply nodded and let it go. The room fell into a strange silence before too long, the gravity of the reason they had all gathered now almost an oppressive reality in all their minds.

“How did he want to be… um…” Riordan tried to find a nice way of saying ‘disposed of’ but couldn’t really do so.

“According to what he left with the duty staff at Starfleet Medical… and I quote… ‘Fire me out a damn torpedo tube and make sure I hit somethin’ expensive.’ I hate to think he was serious about that but I’m almost positive he was…” Navala answered.

"Oh no, he was serious," Shae said with an exasperated sigh as she returned to the chair Nathan had made for her. "I've made arrangements with Starfleet to have him shot into the sun, fired from the Arizona. I felt that would be a fitting end, especially since you are now in Command of the new Arizona."

“The sun is hardly… expensive…” Torak protested, “You should find a more fitting target.”

“Are you volunteering your ship?” Navala frowned at her brother.

For a moment, Torak thought to protest her words, but every retort he tried to summon in his mind just brought dishonor to their father’s memory and he shrank back down a bit.

“No… but I would like to honor him with more than simply a traditional send off,” Torak finally relented.

"Nathan knew I wouldn't do anything to condone property damage when he left his final wishes with me," Shae said as she settled back comfortably in her chair. "It's not expensive, but it's nice and flashy. It will have to do."

The Klingon shifted uncomfortably. Being the fourth child in the Nathan brood, he’d often felt rather outmatched by both Shae and her own three children. Nathan’s own feelings for the boy aside, his mother had been less than approving of the half-siblings and had used it as her excuse for leaving his father behind. In reality, his mother simply couldn’t abide the fact that she would die before her husband and her death might have actually been as… uneventful… as Nathan’s had been several centuries later. It had been everything she’d dreaded, a peaceful passing… though Nathan had been there when it happened despite the way they’d parted. Torak had always respected his father for doing that, which was one reason he’d shown up to his funeral to begin with.

“I know someone who runs a bone yard. I bet I could convince them to bring us a skeleton vessel if we really wanted to send Dad off with a bang,” Riordan offered a compromise.

“You know Papa would slap you for that, right?” Navala shot her other brother a dirty look, “Need I remind you of his speech on cutting corners?”

“If you can’t do it the right way, don’t bother doing it all because you’ll just fuck it up,” Torak parroted the very speech his Romulan sister mentioned.

"This is true," Shae said as she reached over to rap a knuckle on Riordan's nose, a gentle reprimand all her children understood. "If any of you are seriously bothered by the arrangements I've made, we can discuss alternatives later."

The room fell silent as it often did when any of the Cowell matriarchs had admonished any of the children. Though Nathan might have been the head of the household when he chose to be so, he’d left much of the actual rulership to the wives he’d had. It took a moment before any of the children decided to speak again.

“I would like to be there when you launch him…” Torak suddenly spoke up.

Navala didn’t immediately respond. While the Klingons and the Federation had been one people in all but name for a long time now, it seemed unusual for a member of the KDF to suddenly wish to be on her ship, even if for only an hour or so. She sucked in a long breath before she made her decision, not as his younger sister but as the Captain of the Arizona.

“Agreed… but you will keep your hands off my consoles… and you don’t get to fire him,” Navala said firmly.

Torak turned to his step-mother as if she were supposed to step in and make his sister cooperate.

"I'm sure Torak understands Starfleet protocol enough to keep his hands to himself," Shae scolded Navala mildly. "Although, I think we should all be there, if you'll allow it."

Navala nodded and shrugged, “Might as well do it now then. If it were left up to Papa, he’d have launched himself by now and left us out of the loop anyway.”

Shae nodded. "If no one has any objections to the arrangements, then let’s get this done," she said, sounding very tired quite suddenly. She had buried enough mates, but something about Nathan's death was hitting her harder than she had expected. Maybe some part of her had expected him to live forever…

Navala stood and tapped her commbadge, not willing to field any complaints if there had been any… which she knew there wouldn’t be.

“Cowell to the Arizona, six to beam directly to the bridge,” Navala said.

“Acknowledged, Captain,” the voice of one of her crew replied. Within seconds of the reply, the Cowell family residence was washed away in the sea of blue-white fog to be replaced promptly with the bridge of the Wells-class vessel that now bore the name Arizona.

Shae had been materialized, still seated, behind the operations console while the rest of Captain Cowell’s siblings had been deposited in various places around the bridge. Navala had been deposited in front of her chair on the bridge, which she promptly sat in and took control of the room.

“Helm, plot a course for Mercury, half impulse,” Navala informed the young Lieutenant manning her helm.

“Aye, Captain,” the man replied, making the required course inputs. For all the abilities the vessel possessed, there was something about doing it the old fashioned way that just felt right. While most Captains weren’t above using temporal rifts to travel distances both great and small, Navala had always felt that sometimes the journey was far more important to a moment than the moment itself might be.

The assembled members of the Arizona crew stood at their posts without so much as a word. Each of them had been briefed as to who the various individuals were and the cargo they had accepted some hours ago. Almost all of the men and women aboard the timeship had been briefed as to the history of the name, and the single Captain who had commanded the name throughout his lifetime. The few that hadn’t been at the initial briefing had been warned upon their arrival and were doing their utmost to make the event as flawless as possible.

As the small, agile craft pulled within the orbital range of the first planet in the Sol system, the ship’s helmsman turned to his Captain, “We’ve reach Mercury orbital space. The planet will pass us in thirty minutes.”

“Very good,” Navala said as she stood and straightened her uniform in much the same manner her father had done, “Attention all hands. Please pause for a moment as we honor the memory of one of our own. Admiral Nathan Cowell, the first man to ever command a vessel bearing the name Arizona has passed to the World Beyond. It is now our solemn duty, as we carry on the name and legacy he left behind, to see him off as he makes one final journey through the stars. Admiral Cowell served with distinction and honor in Starfleet longer than any other officer in Federation history, and received in his lifetime more commendations and accolades than even he would have admitted to. He was a legend in his own time, and he outlived a great many of the people who first spoke of him in reverence. We now commit Admiral Nathan Cowell to the void… may he watch over our ship… and our crew… no matter where he might journey.”

Captain Cowell turned to her tactical officer, “Ready a spread of twenty one torpedos to be fired directly before we launch the capsule.”

“Aye Captain,” the tactical officer nodded. Navala had done a great deal of research into her father’s ancient Earth military career, and the tradition of a twenty one gun salute seemed very much an appropriate send off for her father despite it being far less noisy than the ancient weapons first used.

“Torpedos loaded and ready at your command, Captain,” the tactical officer reported.

Navala turned toward Torak, who had been eyeing the console earnestly, “Mister Cowell, would you please alert Sto’Vo’Kor of the Admiral’s arrival?”

“Gladly,” the Klingon said as he shoved the Starfleet officer away from the panel and stepped into position. He muttered a funeral phrase of his own in Klingon before firing the full spread of 21 torpedos toward the sun, all of the warheads deactivated.

“Mom,” Navala turned to Shae at the operations console, “Or should I say… Captain Cowell… would you please do the honors and send Papa home?”

It was a good thing Navala had not asked her to speak, for Shae didn't know if she would be able to in that moment. A few commands into the console before her and the torpedo carrying her late husband was fired. Once a mentor and even a father figure, Nathan had been more than just a husband, he had been an eternal friend, and it pained her to see the torpedo drifting away from the Arizona and to the sun. She didn't wait for Nathan to finish his trip to the sun; she slowly rose from her seat and exited the bridge to the briefing room where she could sit in a contemplative silence for a moment as her heart ached for him.

Navala watched from her position as the TCARS display tracked the torpedo casing on the journey through the space between the Arizona and the surface of the sun that would vaporize the man’s corpse and return him to the stardust that he had been born of. When the ship could no longer safely display the image, it switched to a tactical readout, and until the casing was truly and forever gone, Captain Cowell would not take her eyes from the screen. A sharp pang in her chest resonated when the dot that had been his funeral capsule finally and forever disappeared.

“Helm…” Navala sucked in a breath before continuing, “Take us back to Earth… full impulse power.”

“Aye Captain…” the man nodded and carried out her order. The room remained silent the entire trip as everyone came to terms with it in their own way. For her part, Navala reflected on the countless stories her father had told her of his adventures as the master and commander of a ship named Arizona, and grew hopeful that she would be able to see his long legacy only strengthened by her work preserving the past that her father had worked so hard to build for 1100 long years...