The Apology
Posted on 23 Mar 2026 @ 10:13am by Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan & Lieutenant Jorik
1,697 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Arawyn’s Itchy Trigger Finger
Timeline: After and during "Measured Fire" But before "Fault Lines Below."
The ship had finally broken orbit around Lathira IV.
No one said it out loud—not in so many words—but Engineering was collectively exhaling. The planet had started feeling less like a mission stop and more like a second, very unwelcome home.
It began with the tactical array rebuild during what was supposed to be shore leave. Every crawlspace tied to the system got a full tour from the entire department, chasing down power couplings that never should have been spec’d in the first place. Then came the planetary emergency—science, medical, and engineering all pulling double shifts until the crisis finally broke.
The Arawyn had lingered far longer than anyone planned. The crew was itching to put stars behind them again.
Elias Harlan was right there with them.
He’d only been Chief Engineer a short while, but the hours already stacked higher than any reasonable posting should demand. This wasn’t the smooth handoff he’d pictured when he accepted the billet—nor, he suspected, was he quite the Chief the crew had pictured either.
He was rigid in the right ways: procedures mattered, standards held, no shortcuts. But fair—always fair. He never asked anyone to do a job he wouldn’t crawl into himself, and he’d proven it more than once. The petty officers respected him for matching their pace (and occasionally outworking them). Even the senior chiefs had dropped the sideways glances; “sir” came easy now, no edge behind it.
Elias stood at the master systems display in Main Engineering, arms crossed, watching the warp field stabilize as the ship accelerated away. The deck plates hummed with that familiar, healthy thrum again—no longer the strained whine of prolonged orbit.
He allowed himself a small, private nod.
About damn time.
No speeches. No victory lap. Just the quiet satisfaction of a job finished and a ship finally moving under her own power.
He tapped his comm badge. “Harlan to all engineering shifts. Stand down. Secure stations, grab some rack time if you can steal it. We earned it.”
A chorus of acknowledgments rolled in—tired, relieved, a few with faint grins he could hear in their voices.
Elias glanced at the chronometer. Still hours left in the shift, but the pressure was off.
For now.
He exhaled, turned back to the display, and started reviewing the post-departure diagnostics. Routine. Predictable. Exactly what he needed after Lathira IV.
One foot in front of the other. Keep the ship running. Keep the crew whole.
That was the job.
Elias found himself in one of the forward crew lounges later that day—Deck 5, starboard curve. Since coming aboard, his world had shrunk to quarters, main engineering, and whatever Jefferies tube the tactical rebuild had forced him into. He hadn’t had time—or inclination—to wander.
The ship was finally settling back into routine now that they were underway. No red alerts. No cascading failures. Just the quiet hum of a vessel doing what it was built to do. He was curious, in a detached sort of way, what the crew actually did when they weren’t putting out fires.
The lounge was subdued: dim lighting, large curved windows that wrapped around the starboard hull, giving a graceful view of stars sliding past in long, silent streaks. Not the forward mess hall—no panoramic bow view—but peaceful. Empty enough that the soft murmur of conversation carried.
Then something caught his eye.
He did a double take.
Jorik.
The Vulcan sat at a corner table near the viewport, posture perfect as always, a cup of spiced tea steaming in front of him. Across from him—Nathan Caldwell.
Elias raised an eyebrow. Nathan—by-the-book, quiet, competent Nathan—was leaning forward slightly, speaking in a low voice. Jorik listened with that unreadable calm, head tilted just enough to indicate attention.
It didn’t compute.
Jorik didn’t socialize. Not openly. Not casually. His interactions were functional—professional necessity, duty rosters, medical briefings. Small talk was beneath him. Yet here he was, conversing with one of Elias’s junior engineers like it was the most ordinary thing in the quadrant.
Did they know each other? From before? From somewhere else?
Curiosity—rare these days, but persistent—won out.
Elias drifted to the bar, ordered a black coffee (hot, no sugar), and let the replicator hum while he watched from the corner of his eye. The conversation continued—low, measured, no laughter, no tension he could read from this distance.
Eventually he gave in.
He crossed the lounge, mug in hand, and cleared his throat quietly as he reached the table.
“May I join you?”
Nathan looked up first. “Uh—sure, Commander.” He stood quickly, almost too quickly. “I was actually just leaving.”
Before Elias could respond, Nathan was already moving—PADD tucked under his arm, a polite nod, and out the door.
Elias watched him go, then turned back to Jorik.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” he said, sliding into the vacated seat.
“No,” Jorik replied calmly, lifting his tea for a measured sip. His expression remained as composed as ever—unreadable, serene, faintly superior in that way only Vulcans could manage without trying.
Elias took a slow drink of his own coffee, letting the silence settle between them.
He was too tired for games.
But he wasn’t too tired to notice the quiet curiosity still simmering under his own skin.
“So,” he said finally, voice low, “you and Caldwell. Didn’t realize you two were acquainted.”
Jorik raised an eyebrow, “we met here, before the medical crisis on Lathira IV. I was having an issue with meditating and Lieutenant Caldwell, offered avenues to consider.”
“Was this the meditation technique you mentioned before?”
“Indeed.”
“So it was successful.”
“Very.” Jorik said quickly. “Elias, I owe you an apology.”
That gave him pause.
Elias froze mid-sip, the black coffee suddenly tasting sharper on his tongue. The lounge’s soft ambient hum—the distant clink of a glass, the faint whoosh of the environmental recyclers—seemed to drop away entirely.
Jorik had never apologized. Not in twelve years of marriage, not during the dissolution proceedings. The word hung between them like a misfired phaser shot—impossible, yet unmistakably real.
He set the mug down slowly, deliberately, buying a second to let his pulse settle. Jorik watched him without blinking, posture unchanged, hands resting lightly around the teacup as though the admission had cost him nothing more than a recalibration of variables.
“An apology,” Elias repeated, voice low, almost testing the word aloud. “From you. That’s… new.”
Jorik inclined his head a fraction—acknowledgment, not defense.
“I misjudged the parameters of your actions,” he said, tone even, precise, but carrying a quiet weight Elias hadn’t heard before. “I classified your acceptance of risk as emotional deflection when the greater variable was my own refusal to integrate what I felt. That miscalculation inflicted harm. For that, I am sorry.”
Elias felt something shift behind his ribs—old anger, older grief, and something dangerously close to relief he wasn’t ready to name. He leaned back slightly, studying the Vulcan across from him. Jorik looked exactly the same: dark eyes steady, uniform immaculate, faint steam curling from the tea. Yet there was a stillness to him now that felt different—not rigid, but… settled.
“You’ve never said that before,” Elias said quietly. “Not once. Not even when we both knew you were wrong.”
“I have not.” Jorik’s gaze didn’t waver. “Vulcan doctrine prioritizes logic over emotional restitution. I have… adjusted that priority.”
Elias let out a short, rough breath that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t hurt so much. “Adjusted how?”
Jorik hesitated—actually hesitated, a microsecond longer than his usual precision allowed. When he spoke again, the words were deliberate, measured, but stripped of the usual clinical distance.
“I permitted an emotion to integrate into my mental framework rather than suppress it. The result was strengthening. The lattice is more resilient because of it, not in spite of it. The emotion in question”—his eyes met Elias’s directly, unflinching—“was the one I once refused to name. The one that has persisted despite dissolution.”
Love.
He hadn’t said the word. He didn’t have to.
Elias’s throat tightened. He looked down at his coffee, watched the surface ripple from the faint vibration of the ship’s engines. When he spoke again, his voice was rougher than he intended.
“And now?”
“Now,” Jorik said, quieter but no less firm, “I am no longer fighting its presence. I am prepared to discuss what that means—if you are willing.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick with twelve years of unsaid things, unanswered messages, guarded planetside encounters, and one very awkward cup of coffee hand-off.
Elias exhaled slowly, rubbed the back of his neck—the old scar from that plasma arc on the Triton pulling faintly under his fingers—and finally met Jorik’s gaze again.
“You always did pick the worst timing,” he said, but there was no bite in it. Only exhaustion, and something raw, and maybe—maybe—the tiniest flicker of something he hadn’t let himself feel in years.
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice dropping to match the quiet of the lounge.
“But yeah,” he said softly. “I’m willing.”
Jorik didn’t smile—Vulcans didn’t—but the tension in his shoulders eased by the smallest measurable degree. His fingers shifted slightly on the teacup, almost as though he were steadying himself.
“Then perhaps,” he said, “we should find a place to speak without corridor interruptions or eavesdropping engineers.”
Elias huffed a small, genuine laugh—the first real one in a long time.
“Lead the way, Doctor.”
Jorik rose smoothly, leaving the half-finished tea behind. Elias followed, mug still in hand, the weight of twelve years feeling a little lighter with every step.
For the first time since the dissolution, he wasn’t walking away.
He was walking toward something.
--
Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
&
Lieutenant Jorik
Medical Officer
USS Arawyn
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