Dear Mr. and Mrs. Thompson:

It is with deep sorrow that I write to inform you of the death of your daughter, Yeoman Leslie Thompson.

There’s no easy way to say “Your daughter got turned into a cube and crushed.” There really isn’t. Trust me, I had Spock run it through the main computer five times. All of the options suck.

But that’s what happened. Our away team was captured by aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy and your daughter was turned into a cube and crushed by their leader, Rojan, as an example of his power after we were caught trying to escape. It happens. 

I knelt there on the surface of a nondescript alien world and cradled the ashes of your cube-daughter in my strong hands and I could only think of one thing:

Why couldn’t it have been Lieutenant What’s-His-Name?

I thought for sure it was going to be him. One male crewman and one female crewman get turned into cubes by aliens bent on conquering the galaxy and one of them gets crushed and it’s almost always the guy. As a matter of fact, your daughter is the only female to die coincidentally as part of an away team under my command. I’m usually more careful about the ladies. Your daughter was just in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong color uniform.

Anyway, I’m sure it’ll be of great consolation to you that we managed to patch things up with the Kelvans. Turns out the whole thing was a big misunderstanding resulting from them having been hideous squid creatures before taking human form. It’s complicated. We only finally sorted it out by drinking and making out with them. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.

I want you to know that our new-found friendship with the Kelvans couldn’t have happened without your daughter’s sacrifice.

Well, actually, it could have, now that I think about it.  But Starfleet protocol dictates that I must attempt to escape alien capture by any means necessary. (EDITED BY FIRST OFFICER: There is no such protocol.) And, as tragic as your daughter’s death is, it’s nowhere near as senseless as that of the 8 crewmen who were accidentally stepped on after the Kelvans turned the crew into cubes.

I don’t know how I’m going to write those letters. We haven’t even identified two of them yet. Have you ever tried identifying a cube? Ugh. You hold a picture up to the crushed cube parts and squint and…

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to lay my problems on you during this difficult time. Please accept my most sincere sympathies. Leslie was competent, strong and had exactly the kind of assets I look for in a female crew member, if you know what I mean. I’m sorry that she’ll never have the chance to get to know me better.

I mean I’m sorry I’ll never have the chance to get to know her better.

At any rate, please let us know what you want done with this vacuum cleaner bag full of your daughter.

Sincerely,

Captain James T. Kirk

Notes:

  1. lorelei-warner reblogged this from inthelineofduty
  2. inthelineofduty posted this