Out of the Pan

Posted on Sat May 30th, 2026 @ 11:14pm by Lieutenant JG Kate Kono & Ensign Aidan "A.J." Reid & Lieutenant JG Benjamin "Ben" Dalton

941 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Sins of the Empire
Location: Into the fryer
Timeline: Current

Kate stepped into the Intelligence Department and stopped. Kevin's desk sat exactly as he'd left it—a coffee mug still on the corner, a jacket draped over the back of the chair. Her throat tightened and she turned away before the tears could come, pressing her knuckle briefly to her lips.

The door opened and AJ came in with Na'Riss, both of them carrying the weight of everything that had just happened in the set of their shoulders. AJ took one look at Kate's face and crossed the room to the weapons locker without missing a beat.

"Ey, don't go fallin' apart on me yet," he said, his accent thick and warm as he threw the locker open. "We got plenty more people to kill before you allowed to feel like dat."

Kate laughed in spite of herself, a wet, broken sound that surprised even her. She pressed the back of her sleeve to her eyes.

"I do not see the logical inference to an increased body count under these circumstances," Na'Riss said.

The laugh that came out of Kate then was real. She patted Na'Riss's hand and shook her head, still wiping her face.

"Oh stop it," she managed, and tossed AJ a rifle. "Na'Riss, you need one of these or are you pulling from Engineering?"

"Neither. My focus will remain on damage control, should those services be required."

The door opened again. Kate didn't even look; she just grabbed a rifle off the rack and held it out, and when she saw it was Ben Dalton she walked straight into his chest, her face turned deliberately away from the desk in the corner.

AJ found Na'Riss's hand without looking, and Na'Riss leaned in, and together they watched Kate and Ben hold each other.

Ben's face was an unreadable mask. His eyes were on Kate as she walked into his chest. His arms came up and around her holding her in a tight embrace. As he held her one hand came up and gently rubbed her back. No words were spoken. None needed to be.

Kate closed her eyes and let her breathing slow. She pressed her cheek against Ben's chest, her arms finding their way around him the way they always had, the way that had always been enough. She could feel the steady rise and fall of him beneath her. Whatever the last year had taken from her; and it had taken so much. It had never managed to take this. She stayed there without speaking, without moving, her whole body going quiet against his.

"At least we contributing to something everybody can understand, yeah? Doesn't get more tangible and black-and-white than this," AJ said. "The Romulans and Klingons, dem like angry cousins at a family reunion, mon. Always plotting, always scheming, trying to get one over pon the other. Only the Klingons, dem trying to play it right and honorable, and still getting suckerpunched every single turn."

Na'Riss squeezed AJ's hand and tilted her head up toward him.


"A word of advice," she said, in the measured, unhurried cadence she always used, as though she were reading from a manual. "Do not compare Klingons and Romulans as family members while Klingons are present. The resulting decrease in your life expectancy would be, by any calculation, significant enough to decrease your ability to live long and prosper."

AJ's shoulders started to shake. Kate, still holding onto Ben, caught the tail end of it and lost her composure entirely. The laughter spread between them, deepening the more they thought about it.

Na'Riss stood still next to AJ as laughter rippled through the room.

"Do you mind?!" Kate sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "—trying to be sad here and you're all ruining it!" She let out a wet laugh, clutching Ben tighter.

"Wha' inna yuh right mind," AJ said, his voice rolling with intermittant laughter, "mek yuh tink yuh could be sad—round yuh boyfriend, a Jamaican, and a Vulcan?" The laughter in the room swelled.

Ben did what he did best, he provided emotional support and never ending love for Kate. He didn't laugh at Na'Riss and her comment or AJ's laughter but he did grin and hold Kate closer even as she let out a wet laugh.

"We have a lot of work cut out for us in the next few days. Especially you," Kate said, pointing to Na'Riss with a small smile. "The kind of damage Shran is probably going to put this ship through might be enough to finally give you emotions."

"I do not believe structural damage to this vessel, however extensive, constitutes a sufficient catalyst for the development of emotional response," Na'Riss replied evenly.

AJ laughed and pulled Na'Riss into a hug. Kate turned and squeezed Ben tight, then stepped back to look at all three of them.

"Seriously though. This department is going to be stretched thin, and we're already down a man. We need to be sharp, all of us, and ready to give the Captain whatever he needs to get us through this crisis."

"Relax Kate." Ben's calm self assured voice replied, "We've got this. anything the captain needs we can handle. We're the Four Musketeers. All for one and one for all."

"Better than being Five Guys, at least. Nobody's going to want Cajun Fries with their intelligence briefing." Kate tilted her head, considering this.

Na'Riss raised an eyebrow. She glanced up at AJ, who answered with a shrug; his expression as blank as hers.

Ben looked over Kate's shoulder at AJ and Na'Riss, shaking his head slightly from side to side at Kate's comment.

 

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