Backpost: Seven Days at Pathfinder Station: Day Six; People watching and Other Activities to Pass Time

Posted on Sat Oct 25th, 2025 @ 11:02pm by Lieutenant JG Theodor Wishmore & Ensign Kaelira Tamsin

Mission: Port of Call
Location: Station Main Promenade
Timeline: Mission Day 13 at 0900

Pathfinder Station had begun to feel like purgatory with good lighting. Six days of waiting — same viewport, same half-finished raktajino, same journal with its neat, hesitant lines. Routine, he told himself, was a form of control. Even in orbit.

He had started to recognize the other regulars. Faces blurred into patterns: the engineer who always argued with the replicator, the Bolian who played chess against himself, and her — the woman with the upright posture and the faint scar above her brow, who seemed to move through the café as if the station’s gravity obeyed her rather than the other way around.

He’d noticed the small things first: the scuffed boots of someone who’d earned them honestly, the way her braid never quite stayed in regulation order, the data-slate tucked under her arm like a promise she meant to keep. She always paused at the same place, eyes flicking to the departure board that still read U.S.S. Sojourner – Delayed.

Six days of the same ritual. This morning, when she hesitated again by the viewport, he found himself closing the journal and speaking before the moment could pass.

“You’ve been waiting for her too, haven’t you?”

It had become a habit, hoping that time she walked past that the board had changed and she'd been there for coming up close to a week now with no updates. Kaelira hoped that she wouldn't be getting penalised at all by her new department head for not being able to arrive on time as requested.

She turned her head in the direction the voice had come from and saw who it belonged to, someone she'd seen around as well. "I have been, yes," her voice was soft and warm as she gave him a smile. "You've been here a while too, haven't you?"

For a moment, he was caught off guard — not by her answer, but by how uncomplicated it was. No hesitation, no defensiveness. Just acknowledgment, warm and human.

He found himself smiling faintly, half in apology, half in relief.

“Six days,” he admitted, glancing toward the viewport as if the stars might confirm it. “Long enough to memorise the lighting cycle and start naming the ships that come and go. None of them ours.”

He nodded toward the empty seat opposite him, a gentle invitation.

“If we’re both waiting on the Sojourner, we might as well wait together. The coffee’s dreadful, but at least misery enjoys company.”

He set his journal aside — a small act of trust for someone who rarely left it out of reach.

“Theodor Wishmore,” he added after a beat, with a trace of wry formality. “Assistant CMO... or I will be, assuming the ship ever arrives.”

"Yeah, the coffee is definitely not the best around here, but I think I'm starting to get used to it," Kaelira replied with a laugh. "Kaelira Tamsin, I'll be the trauma nurse on board, so it looks like we'll be working together which should prove to be a good time, right?"

Taking the seat opposite, Kaelira put her own data slab on the table just to the right of her and let her hand linger on it for a moment. "Once the ship does finally get here, it's got to be nicer than this place, right? I'll admit now that I don't know much about it, just that it's been highly talked about."

Theo’s smile deepened, the first genuine one in days.

“So it seems,” he said softly. “A doctor and a trauma nurse stranded in purgatory. There’s probably a metaphor in that somewhere — I’ll find it once we know what’s keeping her.”

He reached for his cup, grimaced faintly at the taste, then set it down again with a quiet chuckle.

“They haven’t said much, have they? Just that the Sojourner’s been delayed. Every time the board updates, it’s the same line — awaiting arrival.”

Outside, a supply tender drifted past the viewport, light sweeping briefly across her features. The moment stretched — a soft quiet, full of the unspoken question that had lingered for days.

“Still,” he added, with a trace of optimism, “when she does make it in, I imagine we’ll have no shortage of work waiting for us.” It wouldn't be until later that afternoon, when the - heavily redacted - report of Sojourner's contact with Subrek and the Kordra-Lisrit started to filter through, how right that comment would prove.

A small pause, the corners of his mouth lifting.

“At least now I’ll know one familiar face in the chaos.”

"Agreed," Kaelira admitted. "I have no doubt we'll be kept busy for a while. How do you deal with mass casualty situations and non-stop action?" It warmed her heart to know that there would be someone in the trenches with her if it came to it.

Her question drew a quiet huff of amusement from him, though it wasn’t dismissive — more a reflex against the weight of the topic.

“Badly, at first,” he said after a moment. “Then methodically. Then… hopefully, a little better each time.” He leaned back slightly, gaze flicking toward the viewport where the station’s lights reflected against the black. “It’s the stillness that’s harder. The waiting, the silence between alarms. I think that’s when you start remembering faces — the ones you saved and the ones you didn’t.”

He caught himself, a faint crease forming between his brows, and exhaled softly.

“Apologies. That’s not exactly light café conversation.”

A small, almost self-effacing smile followed.

“What about you? You seem… steady. I imagine triage looks different through your eyes.”

Kaelira nodded. "I find I thrive best in the chaos," she replied in a slightly amused tone. "It did take a while to learn, but I've come to understand every patient and their needs are different and can't all be solved the same way, and I just need to listen."

She thought about an incident she helped with as a civilian and how it could've gone wrong in an instant. "My grandmother constantly reminds me to take a break and just remember to breathe when things get too hard or overwhelming." She missed her grandmother a lot even though she was only a call away.

"You're right though, the stillness does get hard when you're too used to action and being in a loud environment." Kaelira said gently with a soft smile. "And I like to think of it this way, that all the people we have lost and may lose in the future, we're keeping their memories alive just by thinking about them, so they won't be forgotten at all."

He listened in silence, the kind of silence that wasn’t empty but attentive. Her words carried that practiced calm of someone who’d seen the worst and refused to let it harden her. He found it… reassuring.

“That’s a good way to see it,” he said quietly. “Memory as a form of care. My mother used to say something similar — that every name we remember is a promise kept.”

For a moment, his expression softened, the faintest trace of that old ache showing before it passed. “You and your grandmother sound alike,” he added, a touch of wry warmth returning to his tone. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe we both ought to take her advice while we still can.”

He gestured toward the viewport, where distant docking lights flickered like slow-moving stars.

“Who knows? Maybe by tomorrow, we’ll finally have a ship to breathe aboard.” If only in that moment the pair of them had known what that ship had been forced to endure as they waited.

"Well," Kaelira said as she pushed fhe chair out and stood up, "Mister Wishmore, if you find yourself needing to breathe for whatever reasons, I can help with that, free of charge."

He rose slightly as she did — a reflex more than a thought — the faintest smile curving his lips.

“I’ll remember that,” he said, tone soft but edged with genuine gratitude. “And the same offer applies, Nurse Tamsin. Should you ever need a moment to breathe — or a passable cup of bad coffee.”

She turned to go, and for the first time in days, the station felt a little less suspended. As he sat again, the journal remained closed beside his cooling raktajino — the entry for today already written, just not in ink.

They didn’t know it then, but only a few hours later the first reports of Sojourner’s contact with the Kordra-Lisrit would begin to filter through — heavily redacted by whatever intelligence office had seized them first. What reached Pathfinder Station was fragmented, sanitised, but enough to hint at the truth: that life on the frontier was never as safe or simple as the stars made it look. And for those waiting on the ship now limping home, the news offered only the faintest glimpse of what kind of help they might soon be called to give.

---------------------------------------------------------------

A Joint Post by Sojourner Medical Professionals;

Lt(JG) Theodor Wishmore M.D
Asst. Chied Medical Officer

and

Ens. Kaelira Tamsin
Trauma Nurse