Full Count, Part 2
Posted on Thu Oct 16th, 2025 @ 2:44am by Lieutenant JG Maël "Gideon" Beauregard & Lieutenant Nelar
1,458 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Tales of the Twenty-Third Century
Location: Houma, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, Earth
Timeline: 2378
Rose came jogging up, her auburn hair sticking to the dampness on her face. "You were throwin' smoke, Gracie. Tanner's just a freaky mutant. You pushed him to full count."
"Should've had more runs anyway," Gideon added. "Game ain't on you."
Grace sniffed, nodded, and let Rose help her up. They were walking toward the dugout when Grace broke free, ran back, and wrapped Gideon in a sudden hug. He froze, then returned it awkwardly, glove still on, the mask dangling at his side. She whispered thanks and hurried to catch up with Rose.
Across the field, Tanner was hoisted on shoulders, Mudbugs chanting his name, stomping the dirt in triumph.
Gideon scanned the bleachers. No sign of his mother. He checked both sides again--just the usual families, sisters with pom-poms, dads with mini-coolers. Except one man. He was unshaven, thirtyish, with brown hair and a sleeveless steveadore vest. His jeans were dusty. Gideon was certain he'd seen him at other baseball games before.
He blinked and looked again, but the moment was swallowed by the swirl of players and parents.
His mom had promised she'd try to catch the end of the game after her hospital shift. Probably got stuck doing overtime again. Maybe it was best she hadn't been there to see them lose again.
As he made his way to the dugout, Chet cantered past and clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll always have districts, Gideon."
The sky over Houma leaked its final bit of light in braids of rose and violet, the air still swollen with heat even as evening began to settle in. The ballfield behind him was empty now, the chalk lines all smudged and uneven, the faint smell of hot dogs lingering. Gideon walked alone with his duffel cutting into his shoulder, the gear inside clanking softly, his uniform damp and streaked. Each step seemed to lengthen, the night stretching in front of him in a wide, empty silence.
The transport hub was like a concrete hive only a few blocks away, the glass windows reflecting the sky's shifting colors. Inside, people moved in small knots, the departures and arrivals skipping across the hub's holopanels that were fixed visibly above each gate. The trains themselves were sleek and silver, like old bullets in revolver chambers, each one promising to fling passengers across Louisiana at speeds too fast to imagine. Gideon paused at the threshold with heavy heart.
Three lines, three destinations: Lafayette to the west, Baton Rouge to the north, New Orleans to the east. Each one announced in a soothing synthetic voice that carried across the area. Gideon stood in his catcher's gear, feeling like the youngest and oldest person in the room.
He dropped into a molded metallic seat, duffel at his feet, knees bent. A boy across the aisle licked at a popsicle, the syrup red and dripping down his wrist. A woman in a green dress shifted a sleeping baby from one shoulder to the other. The loudspeaker chimed the boarding call for New Orleans, and a group of university kids shuffled forward, their laughter carrying. Gideon sat still, the weight of the game replaying itself in his head: Draper missing the slider, Tanner laughing, Grace's shoulders crumpling. The sound of the bat hitting that last pitch seemed louder now than it had been on the field.
He rubbed his eyes, tugged at his shin guards, and wondered if his mother was still at the hospital, pulling another double, leaning over some stranger on a gurney. He imagined her hair tied back, her eyes red with fatigue, her voice calm even when her body likely begged for rest. She had promised to try to make it, and she hadn’t, and Gideon told himself he understood. He told himself this loss had spared her a kind of pain too.
A shadow stretched across the light above his head. Gideon blinked and looked up. Standing before him was a man he recognized--though he could not say from where, only that his eyes had caught his before, back at the ballfield in the bleachers, watching from a distance while Tanner was lifted on shoulders and Grace fell to the mound. The man looked older up close, maybe forty, unshaven, with jeans faded pale and a sleeveless vest darkened with sweat at the collar.
The man gave Gideon a soft smile as he took a seat across the aisle. "I saw you call for that slider tonight. Your team played a good game."
He started to open his mouth like he wanted to say more but he stopped himself, and settled uncomfortably into the bench seat. It wouldn't be a long wait.
Gideon swallowed. His throat felt dry. "That ball went a mile."
"Sometimes the other team just gets a shot, that's baseball. One swing can change everything, but that doesn't change how hard you played. Your team too." The older man looked rough, but his words carried a gentle sentiment that didn't seem to match his appearance. "You should be proud of how you played. It was a good game."
For a moment, they sat in silence--the man seated two seats away from a hunched Gideon, boarding calls echoing overhead. Then Gideon asked, "You got a kid playin'?"
The man's eyes remained focused on the slick metal floor of the train car, the boy's question daring to hit a tender spot in the man's soul he'd long since buried many years ago.
"No." He responded a bit more quickly than he'd intended, but he'd already committed to the answer. "No, just passing through."
The loudspeaker chimed again: Baton Rouge boarding. A small group gathered, the doors sliding open, and the man shifted his weight, as if deciding whether to go or to stay. Gideon stared down at his dusty cleats, at the dirt dried into the seams, and when he looked up again, the m,an was already walking toward the gates, his vest catching the orange light of the station, his shoulders set against the current of commuters.
Gideon sat very still, the noise of the hub moving around him like water might take two paths around a stone. His chest ached with something he could not yet name--loneliness, maybe, of the raw sense of being seen by someone who had no reason to see him at all. He thought of Grace hugging him, Rose's voice sharp with loyalty, Chet's joke about districts. He thought of his mother under fluorescent lights.
The man paused at the threshold of the train car, one hand on the rail, the other holding the strap to his duffel bag. He glanced over his shoulder at Gideon, and for the briefest flicker of a moment--less than a heartbeat--he winked. It was a sly tilt of the eye that said maybe nothing or maybe everything. Then he stepped aboard, the doors shutting behind him, and the pod levitated, lurching north toward Baton Rouge, a white bullet slicing through the Louisiana twilight.
Gideon stayed seated for a bit, after the high-pitched whine of the magnetic anti-grav system filled the station. He tugged at the strap of his own duffel and finally stood. His shin guards clicked against his cleats, his catcher's mask still dangling from his hand like some participation trophy.
He walked to the nearest gate, the holographic panels lighting up the silver lettering of the word Pirates on the chest of his uniform. The pale blue light also did a nice job of highlighting the streaks of dirt and sweat.
The voices of families, students, and daytrippers swirled around him like some collective murmur that rose and fell with its own rhythm. Gideon pressed forward, each step a little heavier than the last, and the dwindling heat of the September sun glimmered on the transparent walls, catching his worn and tired twelve-year-old eyes.
The New Orleans train waited, sleek and silent. He reached the boarding platform and absently licked at his lips, tasting the dirt and ballfield sweat that had made a home there. He stepped inside, shoulders squared, chin lifted enough to see the world ahead, and tried to break through the disappointment of another big loss on the field. But he could easily seek solace in the echo of bats and cheers.
Gideon plopped himself into a seat, dropping his duffel, mask, and glove onto the floor beside him. While the physical weight had been let go of, he still carried with him that stubborn quiet pride of a twelve year-old catcher who had just learned that sometimes, losing a game doesn't mean losing everything.
Maël "Gideon" Beauregard
Chief Operations Officer
USS Hecate
&
Lieutenant Nelar
Chief Medical Officer
USS Hecate
(as the 'Mysterious Man')
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