“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” 

Henry David Thoreau

“The Hell you say!” Jimmy smiled easily as he flicked his wrist and cast his line to arc out through the crisp alpine mid-morning sky to gently plop into the waters of the lake, disrupting its placid surface as it sank.

Satisfied he turned back to Mike Ayres with a wry look etched on his pugnacious face and set the improvised fishing rod down against the rest made from a ‘Y’ of foraged branch and eased himself back atop the flat boulder edging the shore of the lake and continued.

“Sugar Ray Robinson was a wicked awesome welterweight, no doubt, one of the best ever. 91 fights without a loss? That’s a mad impressive stat, and the guy knew how to put on a show, for sure.” Conrad conceded to his companion as he took a long draw from his canteen.

“But for my money, I’d lay it down on “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler.” Jimmy looked out over the mirror – still waters of the crystal-clear lake and the mantle of the surrounding mountain peaks.

“At six years and seven months, Marvelous’ reign as the top middleweight champ was the second longest of the 20th century, gettin’ voted boxer of the decade in the ’80s and boxer of the year twice. Sure, he wasn’t no flashy sonofabitch like Sugar Ray, but let me tell ya, sometimes grit matters more than all the bells and whistles.” Jimmy nodded, as if that settled the argument.

“Still Sugar Ray. Showman, sure, but I’d rather be fast and adaptable than stick to a losing strategy. What do they say? The boxer to watch out for is the one who doesn’t look like he’s taken any hits,” Ayres didn’t expect to be enjoying the company or the conversation. 

But he was.

The morning had unfolded with a slow, golden tranquility, the sun casting a warm, honeyed glow over the landscape. The serenity was interrupted only by the gentle sound of water brushing against the smooth rocks edging the lake and the soft wind weaving through the tall pines. Ayres sat on a large, flat boulder by the lake, a smile playing on his lips as he watched his fishing line arc gracefully into the crystal-clear water. The lake accepted the disturbance without protest, the ripples spreading outward like silk, only to fade back into the mirror-like calm. 

“I’ll give you one more thing then, Jimmy,” Ayres glanced at the other man before turning his head back toward the lake, “it was a damn shame that Hagler retired after that. He deserved better.”

Ayres leaned back, propping himself with one hand while loosely holding his rod with the other, balanced against the rock. His expression shifted from casual contentment to one of thoughtful reflection, his eyes tracing the water’s surface that mirrored the cloudless sky above. His eyes tracked the ripples where Jimmy’s line moved, though his mind wandered elsewhere.

Conrad peered at his bearded companion, pursed his own lips wryly and raised the flask in salute to both the sentiment and the man. Mike Ayres had initially seemed a little bit distant, standoffish even, but a shared interest in pugilism had been the catalyst for connection and as the morning wore on, Jimmy found that he had developed a causal affinity for his compatriot’s world – weary manner.

“You know what Mike?” Conrad nodded slowly & frowning, as if deciding something of great import, “You’re alright.”

For Jimmy this was the closest he’d likely come at any given moment to a compliment and the doughty little Bostonian lifted the flask to his lips and savored the burn of the 400 year old Speyside single malt and winced a little as he handed it over to Ayres to share.

Far over further along the shoreline Jimmy could see the other campers heading down to the water’s edge, on the distant far – shore,  to indulge in the subtle art of “killing – fish” themselves. Maybe because the crews of the Fresno and Carlsbad naturally tended towards married couples and pairings that Jimmy had paired off with Mike Ayres. Two miserable bachelor bastards together, right?

Conrad smirked ruefully, maybe that was it?

Who was he kidding? That definitely was it. They were a swell bunch and all, but the obvious, easy closeness of Kirok and Sophia especially just reminded Jimmy about what a mess he had made of his own marriage. Though he’d tried to make things work with Sarah, it grew painfully apparent and increasingly obvious to both of them over the short time that they were together, that Jimmy loved the stars that little bit more than he loved being married. Conrad supposed it was probably a blessing in disguise, that they had not opted to have children after all?

By that same token he realised that he’d probably been subconsciously avoiding that Councilor – Ramón over the course of the morning, as they had prepared to head out. Sarah had always told Jimmy that he was “therapy – resistant” (something he put down to his stubborn – Irish blood and an overdeveloped sense of ‘Catholic – guilt complex’) and there again she was probably right on the money.

Jimmy Conrad supposed that, at the end of the day, that maybe he was probably just meant to be alone.

He looked out over the placid surface and realised that, completely unbidden, his mind had wandered out over the lake and had taken him to a deeper, darker place.

The long weeks of uncertainty when the USS Speedwell and his crew had spent in hopeless isolation, one of the first vessels to be dispatched to investigate the beginnings of the phenomena that became known as “The Blackout”. Stranded out beyond the borders of Federation – space,  their struggle had not been against the Vaadwaur (they’d encountered absolutely no one at all) but with the nagging specters of their own fears as they faced the prospect of being forever marooned in an endless atoll of subspace, estranged from the rest of Starfleet and without any realistic prospect of rescue.

Only by working together, hard – science and the vagaries of good luck, had the fast – cruiser eventually found its way home.

Jimmy suppressed a shudder and focused on his own fishing – float, desperate for any distraction to dispel this mordant fugue.

“So, what was it like for you and your people out there?” Jimmy asked Mike without meeting his eye. “Was it bad?”

Ayres coughed, half a laugh and half a derisive sound, “Over and over again. I’m not shy of hardship, but it was a special kind of hell to combine horror and exhausting repetition,” he brought his free hand up to his beard and and rubbed his face, “We had some of the best allies you could imagine – we were stuck around a Klingon system, Boreth – but that place has some damn weird, cosmic-level insanity around it”.

He brought his hand back down, forming a fist and absently tapping his thigh, “They have these time crystals, I don’t know how they work, but whatever those Klingon monks did to buy time for reinforcements came at a cost. Imagine the hardest match you’ve ever been in, punch after punch after punch, and then imagine that the rounds go on indefinitely,” Ayres paused, sighing, “Hard to explain. Some of the crew fought for longer than should be possible, taking injuries that – when it all ended – disappeared. Leaving the memories of pain. It was messed up, Jimmy”.

Conrad nodded as he stared out across the lake (where the fish seemed uninterested in the bait) and replied roundly.

“Yeah, well those Klingons and tough sonsabitches and no mistaking.”

The weariness in Ayres’ voice almost gave way to something else, a feeling of empathy for the crew who had not deserved what they experienced, “How about you? Your people?”

Conrad shrugged and diverted, “What’s to say? It was wicked hard, but we got through it – we’ll stick together and tackle the next one, I ‘spose?””

Jimmy looked out at the other group on the far shore and hoped that they had more luck than he and Ayres, in more ways than one.

He stood and dusted off his pants, turning to his companion saying, “Aw, this is a total dud! Hope the others score better, ’cause it ain’t lookin’ like we’re servin’ up dinner tonight. C’mon, Mike, let’s go grab some more wood for the fire, least we can do is stay useful, right?”