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Chapter Text

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X

Challenger docked with a shudder, slotting into her berth at the neutral space station of Tri-Solon. Ensign Sandoval, who had been on standby, flipped all-call active with a jubilant gesture. Sofia flashed him a grin before leaning forward.

“All crew, this is the captain speaking,” she announced. Applause and whooping were still audible through the two-way intercom feed, and Esther laughed, flashing a slightly pink Aleksi Lehtonen a thumbs-up. “My highest compliments to our helmsman, and to all of you, for getting us here. First Officer Yurovsky will be distributing our shore leave schedule momentarily; it goes without saying that I have every confidence you will represent Starfleet, and Challenger, to the highest standard in your conduct while aboard the station. Matos clear.”

It would be a rough interlude for the Science and Engineering departments, most of the crews of which would be necessary to oversee repairs. Still, Sofia had worked with her XO closely to guarantee that all of them would get at least some time off. They’d more than earned it.

“That means all of you,” she informed her bridge crew, making a languid shooing gesture toward them all. “Esther, I’m afraid you’re in for a hard time of it. If you have any objections to the way I’ve arranged your shore leave, speak to me in my ready room.”

Her Science officer waved a careless hand. “You need your mad scientist on-call to keep the yard dogs hopping. If I got cabin fever I wouldn’t be in space.”

Sofia’s lips twitched. “Dismissed, lieutenant-commander. And the rest of you as well. Get off my ship. Out.”

Yurovsky sent her a wry look as the bridge crew filed out.

“That is not how I arranged the shore leave schedule,” she said.

Sofia couldn’t help but laugh. No, it would be a terrible decision to give the bridge crew leave before the rest of the ship; they would get their time, but only after a respectable portion of the rank-and-file had gotten to stretch their legs, and Sofia herself was included in that. The overworked and grieving Engineering department would have gotten their first choice of time slots regardless; but she and Yurovsky had made sure every crewman in red piping was aware of the barrage of internal mail Atsa had been sorting over the past week from departments all across Challenger, volunteering to give up their rotations in order to let the Engineering team reserve whatever hours they wanted.

“My famous last words may well be that I didn’t expect my crew to actually listen to me,” she acknowledged. “What’s the situation on the starbase?”

Yurovsky promptly handed over a padd. “Discovery is en route, expected to arrive within the next six hours. Also docked at the station is a Tellerite ship. In orbit are a Vulcan science vessel; two Andorian ships, one military patrol craft and one civilian freighter; and the human Warp 4 freighter Stone Mountain .”

“What would I do without you, Commander,” Sofia said warmly. “The political situation?”

Yurovsky shrugged. “No noteworthy tensions, Captain. This is primarily a trading hub. It has no particular reputation for illicit goods or services, and with both Starfleet and the Andorian military present I see no reason to fear for the safety of the shore parties.”

“Thank you.” She meant it, too. “I’m glad we beat Discovery here. And only mostly for my pride; I’d hate to make them wait for us after Captain Brannon came so far out of her way.”

Aileen Brannon was a friend from Sofia’s training days. They couldn’t be more different in appearance or temperament—Aileen was stocky and almost alarmingly pale, her mouse-brown hair cropped shorter than Yurovsky’s, and had a kind of melancholy about her. But she also had a great deal of common sense and a deeply methodological approach to life, and they’d gotten along well. 

Captain Brannon’s appointment to NX-04 Discovery had been well-earned, and Sofia only regretted that Challenger ’s unexpected stranding had kept the crew from returning to Earth to watch their sister ship take flight, a mere two weeks after their own...eventful...maiden voyage.

“With your permission, Captain.” Yurovsky held up her copy of the shore leave schedule as politely as possible, and Sofia inclined her head.

“By all means, don’t let me keep you. I’ll see you in six hours, Commander.”

Sofia rolled her shoulders as she stepped into the turbolift. Tisarr was at least back from medical leave, which would help make the repairs go more smoothly. And with the data packet that had come through from Starfleet Command a week ago, they might be benefitting from her presence for longer than originally planned. In the meantime…

She didn’t intend to eavesdrop as she passed an offshoot corridor. She just had a naturally quiet tread, and Atsa Sandoval and Aleksi Lehtonen were clearly too engaged in their conversation to notice much of anything.

“...still on for tonight?”

“Definitely! I can’t wait.” Aleksi, as usual, sounded eager if a bit anxious. “It’s, um, it’s been a while, so I might be rusty.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s been a while for me too.” Atsa could match his helmsman in nervousness, sometimes; but both of them, Sofia had noticed, were transformed when in their element. He sounded confident and reassuring now.

“Did you get what I sent you last night? I had a burst of inspiration, if it’s too much I can tone it down.”

“No, no, it’s perfect! We might need to tweak some things once we’ve started to match the tone of the session, but it’s really important that I know what you’re looking to get out of it.”

Sofia raised an eyebrow.

Aleksi sounded embarrassed. “Yeah, I...yeah. I can get really into this stuff. You said we were going to start off with basic equipment, right?”

“Definitely. I’ll tell you more tonight, we’ll start slow just to make sure we’re on the same page. Honestly, it’ll be a challenge for me because I had to leave most of my hardware at home, so as dungeon setups go, it’s not much.”

Aleksi laughed. “That’s what imagination’s for! You’ll do fine.”

Briefly, Sofia wondered if she should say something. For all that they were the youngest officers on the ship, however, Atsa and Aleksi were grown adults. Technically, Aleksi outranked her comm officer; but Atsa was nowhere near a helmsman’s chain of command. So long as she had no reason to suspect their plans were anything but mutually consenting, there was no reason to step in.

And they’d be hideously embarrassed if they knew their captain had overheard them. Quietly, she turned to take another route down to Engineering.

“So it’ll be you, me, Jae from Astrometrics, and…”

“Esther, actually.”

...Hmm.

Esther Hasdai glared at her stellar cartography output, calmly and with great precision outlining exactly what she would do to it if it didn’t behave.

Jae rolled up beside her, peering at the detailed miracle of modern technology that was somehow convinced they were in the middle of the fucking Gamma Quadrant.

“No luck?” she asked, which seemed a bit redundant in Esther’s esteemed opinion.

“It was working just fine earlier,” Esther growled. “Until someone, Larry, decided to comment on how unexpectedly well the installation was going.”

Jae shook her head. “Dammit, Larry.”

Ensign Larold’s voice, slightly muffled under several bundles of cables, reached them from the other side of the room. “Sorry!”

“Save your apologies and do your penance, minion!”

Larry’s laugh was cut off by a yelp as a thick bundle of cables fell to the ground, taking a tray of padds with it.

Starfleet doctor Vena Atakan was technically on shore leave, and more accurately on the very definition of a busman’s holiday.

It was nice to get some time off the ship, if only for a change of scenery and some differently-recycled air. Tri-Solon was not a pleasure or tourist station, so there was no personal shopping to be done; they carried necessities, and dealt primarily with ships’ quartermasters for payment.

Which was all for the best. Challenger ’s medbay was well-provisioned; but after a dogfight against pirates and the bloodbath that was a Klingon boarding party, any medbay would begin to feel the strain. Vena would much rather leave her requisition orders with the relevant coordinator and direct them toward Starfleet’s purse than worry about chasing down every single bottle of chemicals she could conceivably need.

The issue arose when trying to find somewhere to have dinner.

Discovery, as well as Stone Mountain, had brought a respectable delivery of foodstuffs for Challenger ’s chef team. Still, things like water were a precious and prohibitively expensive resource to transport, and as always if they wanted anything fresh they would need to supplement their rations with alien food stores.

The long and short of it was, Vena had spent the vast majority of her day in conjunction with the greater Science department, running chemical analyses on every single variation of food available on the station to be absolutely certain it was both digestible and nonlethal to the crew.

She didn’t particularly enjoy having to perform the same calculations now, in her free time, just trying to find something vegetarian to eat that would probably not kill her.

Unconsciously, she ran fingers over the long points of her ears.

Sometimes, Vena thought to herself, she was very stupid. There were few enough private restaurants on Tri-Solon, but there were bound to be more catering to Vulcan physiology than human; and conveniently, many Vulcans were vegetarian, increasing her odds. It wasn’t the kind of thing that came up on Earth! Not anymore.

Of all the hardships she faced as chief medical officer on a starship, Vena had not anticipated that the most seemingly insurmountable obstacle on her maiden voyage would be finding a halal restaurant . 

A mere forty-five minutes and an exhausting conversation later, she had succeeded in locating a veggie wrap.

She’d also acquired seven and a half pages of notes on biohazards to humans in common starbase fare that she desperately needed to type up and distribute to Challenger’s crew. After she’d eaten.

She wasn’t alone; the Vulcan crew was clearly also taking shore leave, for a given definition of “shore,” and half of what had drawn her to this establishment was that it was popular among actual Vulcans in the area. She nodded to a group of them, receiving flat looks in return, and settled into a small table near a corner.

Within five minutes, she was fervently wishing her father had never taken the time to teach her the Vulcan language.

That was...new, and twisted in her gut like cold steel. She’s always treasured that knowledge, as part of her heritage. The Vulcan tongue and written script were both beautiful, and her ability to communicate with their first extraterrestrial allies had proven invaluable time and time again. It was half the reason she had ended up with this posting; xenobiology was a fledgling field with very few human practitioners, which was why the first two NX-class ships had alien CMOs. Vena’s ability to read Vulcan medical texts and watch video lectures directly, without having to wait for the long political process of translation, had placed her ahead of her peers.

Many of whom had resented her for it, as if she was cheating somehow. Vena had often joked, with her family, that half her classmates seemed to think she was born speaking Vulcan as an unfair perk of her green blood. It never seemed to have occurred to any of them that they could also learn it if they were so inclined.

No, no. Resenting the half-breed, not that they would ever be crass enough to use the word of course, was much simpler.

It seemed her mother’s people were not so different from humans as they appeared, the sole difference being it had apparently never occurred to these ones to assume she was capable of speaking Vulcan at all.

If Vena were being honest with herself, listening in on Vulcan gossip had at first been wildly entertaining. She’d grown up surrounded by whispers and stares; the Vulcan spacers were a refreshing change from the par-for-the-course gossip that tended to follow her around Istanbul. She couldn’t help smirking a bit into her wrap, listening to their utterly dispassionate and etymologically precise disparaging of her existence.

After “science experiment,” however, the novelty began to wear off fast.

It wasn’t, frankly, an inaccurate assessment. Vulcan-human hybrids were not meant to be viable pregnancies, and Vena had been no exception. She knew very little about the circumstances surrounding...the beginning of that story, for which she was infinitely grateful to her father. He had always told her that there were aspects of his relationship that a Vulcan would have to explain to her someday, but that day had yet to come.

(It was a fact most people were surprised over—as the first known human hybrid in existence, how could she not know?—until Vena pointedly asked them for the precise details of their own conceptions.)

Suffice it to say, for reasons her father always left vague, a female member of one of the early Vulcan diplomatic crews had for some reason found herself in need of a confidante. And, roughly six weeks later, missile tech Duygu Atakan had received a calm message from the Vulcan diplomatic corps.

Vena had gotten her steady hands from her father. She’d gotten...so many things, from her father.

It was a courtesy, more than anything; neither of Vena’s parents had ever intended a pregnancy and Vena’s mother had no intention of becoming a mother, but had no objection to returning to Earth to transfer the fetus into an artificial incubator, if Mr. Atakan wished. The answer should have been a polite no; there was no reason to assume it would be anything but nonviable. But, well. Vena’s father was a sentimental man, and the fledgling group of researchers that would become Starfleet within her lifetime had already risen to the challenge.

You are a miracle, he always told her. He said it to all his children, all of Vena’s adopted siblings; but he said it differently to each of them, meant it differently for each of them. A gift from God.

She shouldn’t have survived to term, let alone past infancy; the artificial incubators had barely a fifty percent survival rate for a perfectly healthy fetus with no complicating factors during incubation. Vena always credited her career in medicine to all the opinions she formed going in and out and in and out and in and out of specialists and hospitals for most of her life. Modern gene therapy was an incredible creation, though it paled next to the modern ethical oversight boards specifically for regulating gene therapy. In many ways Vena’s existence had marked a bound forward in medical collaboration between Earth and Vulcan.

It was, apparently, illogical to expect such an unprecedented hybrid to survive; but equally illogical, in this situation where all involved were consenting, not to make the attempt. If they failed, after all, no harm had been done; without intervention, the fetus’ death had been a certainty. If they somehow succeeded, the child would be wanted and cared for. Vena’s mother could not be harmed, as her identity had been carefully removed from any records to allow her to move on with her life. 

Starfleet Medical had expected only to increase scientific understanding in the process of trying.

Some had called it a waste of time. Some still thought it had been a waste of time, though most of them were polite enough not to double down on that when she was actually in the room.

She’d had just about enough.

Setting a few Vulcan coins on the table as a tip, she stood and tugged her uniform sleeves straight.

“I find your prejudice illogical,” she informed the nearby table in perfect Vulcan, and tried not to take a decidedly un-Hippocratic pleasure in the way their faces suddenly turned a sickly green.

Chapter Text

Esther hit a computer with a wrench.

“You know,” Jae remarked, popping a wheelie over a bundle of cables. “Someday the singularity will hit, and you will be public enemy number one.”

“I’ll be safe,” Larry announced. “The computers like me.”

There was a popping sound and a low whirr, and the internal sensors control unit went dark.

Very slowly, Jae moved behind the nearest monitor.

Esther just glared, banging her head against the underside of a workstation before emerging to scowl daggers into an appropriately sheepish Laurence Larold.

“What did I say about optimism? What did I tell you about being optimistic in my lab, Larry?”

“Not in front of the computers,” he recited loyally. “It gives them ideas.”

“They can smell it!” Esther carefully reconnected the master relay cable from the primary long-range sensor dish, which was officially no longer routed through short-range threat-detection and never would be again, if her laser cutter and thick non-conductive foam barriers had anything to say about it. “Right, that sounded like a power overload. Someone run a diagnostic on the EMS relays. I trust Engineering’s work, it’s the computers handling new relays that I’m worried about. I think we’ve actually gotten far enough now that our main problems will come from— fuck!”

Jae, who was officially jaded enough, pivoted just enough to let her commanding officer dive past her and knock hastily on a pile of printouts. In an emergency, paper had been wood once and was close enough.

“Where was I? EMS diagnostic, yeah, Larry?”

“On it.”

“You’re my favorite!” she called at his back, then returned to debugging the sensor array. “Jae, how are we on that new data-storage server algorithm? We stress-tested that yet?”

“It’s low-priority for now,” Jae called from where she was doing a bang-up job at methodically calibrating all the hundreds of wavelength isolation protocols that had to be fine-tuned every time the system reset. “We’re not likely to need more efficient data filing before we need scanners—” 

“Jae!”

“What—fine, fine, all right.” Jae crossed over to the door, where a large block of wood was bolted into the bulkhead, and knocked on it—though not without rolling her eyes. That was fine. Esther took a deep breath.

“If you’re done trying to kill us all,” she said, prompting snorts from around the room. “I gotta get down to phase-cannon control and run through their firing solution programs. You know those things never play nice with new sensors. I’ll be back, try not to miss me too much.”

“We’ll survive in your absence,” Jae informed her.

Pointedly, Esther jabbed a finger at her block of wood.

The doors opened with a hiss, and there was a knock on the doorframe; not from Jae, who had pointedly refused in favor of going back to her actual job, but rather from the Caitian leaning in the doorway, ears pricked as she observed the organized chaos.

“Hey,” Esther greeted her, brushing herself down as she stood. “What do you need, I’m your girl.”

Tisarr blinked at her in greeting, then tilted her head back to indicate the rest of the ship.

“We are having trouble with external hull sensors in the repaired section,” she said, in accented but perfectly fluent Standard. “We are running our own diagnostics, but it does not appear to be a hardware issue.”

Esther blinked, then grinned. “Called it.”

Tisarr’s eyes smiled, and she flicked her tail. “I do not want to do that again.”

Larry raised his hand.

“Should I tell him?” Esther asked. “Or should you?”

Tisarr pointed her ears toward Larry in a friendly acknowledgement. “There was no time for a traditional approach,” she explained. “Chemically-enhanced speed learning. Doctor Atakan arranged it. There is an experimental injection that increases n—neuroplasticity?” Larry flashed her a thumbs-up. “By several thousand percent, temporarily.”

It was a very new concept, and at the moment, very dangerous; under a doctor’s care the risk was mitigated, though, and Dr. Atakan wouldn’t have taken unnecessary risks with a patient’s safety on a whim.

Esther held out a hand, and Tisarr placed a warm paw in it. “You’re staying, then?”

Golden eyes flashed. “After that? I had better be.”

Yeah, that was the other facet of the experimental learning drugs. Three days of instant memory formation, the ability to do a thing once and remember it essentially forever; with a specialized program designed for maximum density of information, you could learn most of a language in that time...in exchange for a week of splitting migraine. There were things the human brain was not designed to do. Or the Caitian brain, apparently.

Damn, Esther thought. I’m gonna have to rephrase some of my hyperbole.

“Glad to hear it,” she said. “You said hull sensors?”

Tisarr made an affirmative sound deep in her throat. “It may still be an installation error; we will find out eventually. Do you have time? I think your people can handle things here without you for a little while.”

Immediately, there was a loud error tone. Warp Navigation’s display went dark, then began flashing a red critical-failure message. The failure cascaded from warpnav to stellar cartography, and within seconds the entire astrometrics section was nothing but error notifications.

Feeling her sanity starting to fray around the edges, Esther reached past Tisarr and tapped the block of wood.

She flipped open her sports bottle, chugged the contents for several unbroken seconds, then let out a long, slow breath.

“All right, people,” she announced. “Once more into the breach.”

Glass clinked softly in the NX-04’s ready room, and Sofia smiled.

Aileen Brannon nodded in warm agreement and sat back, taking an appreciative sip of what was in fact a respectable vintage, especially considering it had been launched into space. They were both technically on duty tonight, so they’d limited themselves to just the one glass. Sofia intended to savor it.

“Thank you,” she said. “We appreciate you coming out of your way.”

“Don’t mention it, my friend,” Aileen replied, just the hint of mischief in her bright eyes. “We’re glad to do something immediately useful on our maiden flight. Our previous assignment had us charting the KH-17 asteroid cluster.”

“And no one in their right mind would want to do that.”

Aileen took a delicate sip of her wine. “I would never say such a thing.”

Sofia shook her head and took a bite of her pasta. “I’ll admit, it feels odd taking on crewmen along with the food and hardware supplies. A bit rude, wouldn’t you say?”

Another slight smile. “I’ve been informed they exhausted most jokes on the subject by the time we arrived here themselves. I wouldn’t worry about causing offense, Sofia. Most of them are just thrilled at the opportunity to serve onboard a Warp Five ship.”

“I know the feeling. From their personnel files, most of them are from freighters with a handful shipyard techs, and only a few have Starfleet experience. That could be an issue getting them integrated.” Not much of one, hopefully; Challenger ’s crew had already learned its lesson with the Caitian visitors, all but one of whom would be disembarking at Tri-Solon. “But I am glad to know I didn’t just steal half your engineering department.”

“I would have to duel you for them, and no one wants that,” Aileen agreed. “The MACOs are very disappointed that you accepted this experimental Andorian security squad instead of inviting them onboard; and MACOs aren’t even spacers by trade, let alone Starfleet. Speaking of which. You’re certain you don’t want Lieutenant-Commander Huq? He’s senior, I know, but more than willing to transfer under your chief engineer. I sincerely don’t believe he would cause any trouble with your command team.”

Sofia shook her head, though she made no attempt to hide her gratitude for LC Huq’s good nature. “Frankly, he’s too good for that position. I know he’s eager to be on a starship and waiting for the next NX to commission has his feet itching, but he earned that chief’s spot. Coming out with us, who knows what might prevent him from transferring back?”

Aileen inclined her head. “And in the meantime, your engineering team could be bonding more cohesively. I understand. He won’t have to wait much longer, NX-06 was slightly ahead of schedule the last I heard.”

“Have they still not named her?” Sofia sat forward.

“Not officially,” Aileen said, wiggling her hand. “But I figure they’ll continue the theme and name her Endeavour. ”

“No sense in changing a pattern that works,” Sofia agreed, gesturing around them. “She’s a beautiful ship, Aileen, you deserve her.”

“She is.” Aileen smiled as she looked around the ready room. “I was glad to hear you convinced Starfleet to keep the diplomatic model. Once Challenger won that battle, it made it easier to spare Discovery as well. I don’t believe the next pair will be able to avoid a more warlike retrofit, Sofia. I don’t like that. I don’t like what it may mean.”

Sofia gave a soft sigh. “You know I don’t either. It may not be the worst thing in the world to have a dedicated escort class; I’m not naive, I understand not all of our neighbors are friendly. It’s the eagerness that bothers me.”

“Heavier weapons focus should be a careful decision, made out of necessity and cautiously employed,” Aileen agreed, grateful. “This...gung-ho attitude, it concerns me. We were meant to be explorers...”

Sofia reached out, briefly gripping her friend’s hand. “We are,” she promised. “We will be.” She flashed a grin, relieved as she saw some of the shadows leave Aileen’s eyes. “We’re out here now and these dilithium engines can run practically forever. I’d like to see them stop us.”

Aileen snorted, shaking her head as she dug into her own meal. “Can you imagine?” Setting her fork down, she lifted a bread roll to her mouth like a communicator. “I’m sorry, what was that, Command? War summons?” She made a very bad attempt to mimic archaic radio static with her mouth. “Sorry— chhh —can’t hear you, we’re going through a tunnel—”

“They have those in space, we’re learning so much out here!” Sofia added helpfully, leaning over to speak toward the roll.

Aileen laughed softly, shaking her head, and Sofia offered another, small toast.

“To Discovery, then,” she said.

Aileen lifted her glass. “To discovery.”

Chapter Text

Matos’ situation room door slid shut at her back, and Tisarr’s tail twitched.

It was a nervous tic, but an excited one; the tension of knowing you were so close you could taste something, and of knowing how easily you could lose it.

“I apologize for making you wait this long,” Matos said graciously. “Captain Brannon is an old friend, and I didn’t want to intrude on your free time.”

“It is fine,” Tisarr assured her, ears pricking hopefully as she glanced between Matos and the sheaf of papers in her hands.

The captain looked up and grinned, which was still unsettling; Tisarr focused on meeting her gaze and found it a much more natural expression, suddenly. That much, humans and caitians shared; the softening around the eyes, the relaxed body language. More to the point—if Captain Matos was smiling, it meant she too was happy about the contents of the papers, and Tisarr’s heart soared.

“Starfleet Command sent their confirmation through with Discovery in hard copy,” said Matos, not wasting any time drawing out the suspense. “Congratulations, Lieutenant. Your commission.”

Tisarr didn’t bother maintaining professionalism as she accepted the stack of papers; humans weren’t likely to know that a caitian tail curling so hard around its owner’s leg was considered an embarrassing loss of composure on her homeworld.

She couldn’t help it. Shol would say she looked smug as a treebeast who’d stolen its neighbor’s fruit, but she was happy. She loved deep-space work, and she’d given the Crirraa her all; but no merchant freighter could hold a candle to Challenger.

Accepting Matos' offer of a chair, she sat down across from her captain— her captain, now!—and borrowed her pen.

“I’ve marked the places you need to initial,” Matos told her, “but read through it first.”

It was fairly standard. Compensation—in Earth credit, with the right to convert it to certain market-value trade resources; a regulation handbook, disciplinary law and notification of her rights, a thick informed consent packet about shipboard dangers, harassment protocols, mediation, medical confidentiality, resources with which to report any abuse of power.

The only point of consternation was the final document, which asked for a formal signature. The line was laughably short; one might fit most Earth names into the space, but a full Caitian identity signature…

The others, she’d simply signed with her use-name. That was fine; easily ninety percent of Caitian legal documents accepted that simplicity. But this last, deceptively short form, on thick paper with Starfleet letterhead, asking her to formally accept their commission…

Tisarr wanted to do this right. She wanted to mean it.

Matos noticed her hesitation, straightened the other papers and set them aside.

“Talk to me,” she said kindly. “Before you sign it. Now is the time to ask any questions you might have.”

Tisarr folded her ears slightly, giving a self-conscious laugh. “It is not that. Caitian nomenclature is...complicated. For a formal document like this, I mean. There is very little room here for my clan name or tribal affiliation, or the names of my parents or my commanders.”

To her surprise, Matos didn’t even blink. “In that case, initial the signature line and use the blank space underneath. Ensign Sandoval uses something similar. What matters is that you’re comfortable and that the signature is your own. I will never ask you to be less than what you are.”

Tisarr pointed soft ears at her and closed her eyes for a moment, and hoped she would understand. 

“You really should ask me your questions now,” Matos pointed out.

Tisarr tilted her head and thought about it. “You all seem very straightforward,” she admitted. “I am not very confused. Would Starfleet consider allowing me to remove gravity plating in Engineering?”

Matos laughed. “Starfleet doesn’t get a say, not really; they can disapprove, but Challenger is my ship at the end of the day. It’s your department you should worry about convincing!”

Tisarr snorted and cast about for anything else to ask. “Well, that is good to know. I do not have any other questions.” Her eyes fell on the framed photo on the wall behind her captain. A group of seven, wearing blue jumpsuits similar to Starfleet uniforms and holding helmets. There was a model of some sort of white-and-orange craft on a table in front of them, an unfamiliar banner behind. “Who are they? I do not recognize you in the group. Are they Starfleet as well?”

Matos glanced over her shoulder. For a moment her eyes were sad; then her lips twitched, just slightly.

“No,” she said, voice soft. “And yes. You might call them our predecessors. Starfleet in every way that mattered, before Starfleet was born. Everything good that we are today, we got from them.”

Tisarr made an understanding noise. She had forgotten how young human spaceflight really was. “Your early explorers. The Warp 1 teams.”

Another, quieter laugh. “Oh, no. Not nearly. That’s the final crew of the Challenger, Tisarr. The very first. Her class of...starship...was still strapped to chemical rockets in order to launch, limited to operations in low Earth orbit, but the space shuttles were the first craft that could land and launch again.”

That sounded nothing short of insane, but the wistful tone meant it would be impolite to say so. “They would have had to be very brave.”

“They were. They knew how easily something could go wrong—but it never should have happened the way it did. Someday you should look up that disaster. We carry their legacy with us, after all; I’d almost forgotten that you wouldn’t know.”

She hadn’t meant to stumble over a human cultural tragedy; and yet Matos’ pain was not as sharp as Tisarr would expect. “What...I am sorry. You do not have to tell me right now.”

Matos smiled, without any edge but a quiet sadness. “I would be honored to, but I couldn’t capture the weight of it. The Challenger disaster is what happens when politics and power grow more important than our faith in one another. When we forget why we’re out here in the first place—to learn, and grow, and become better as a people together. The higher-ups ignored their engineers because they didn’t like the truth. It was groupthink that killed them, you know. An insular group pressuring everyone inside it to say what was politically convenient. But it wasn’t safe to launch, and no political talking points could change that. We forgot who we were, just for a moment...”

Tisarr hesitated. Then she reached out and placed a paw over her captain’s. It felt like the right thing to do.

Matos shook her head slightly. “In answer to your question, perhaps I should have said...if you feel eliminating grav-plating in the engine room would serve a purpose for the ship, write me a proposal. I will read and consider it; I promise you that.”

Tisarr dipped her head in acknowledgement, and picked up her pen again.

“Nobody...touch...anything.”

A room full of quietly humming computers watched her. Esther Hasdai watched them back. Somewhere, spiritually, a tumbleweed rolled past in the background.

“Larry,” she said, very carefully. “Talk to me.”

“Long-range sensors and triangulation—” Larry cut himself off, slowly pushed his chair back from his computer bank, and crossed the room with quietly measured footsteps until he could lean over and tap the wooden block. “Appear to be...working?”

“Jae,” whispered Esther.

Jae was a little wild in the eyes, but delicate and cautious as she tapped commands into her console one careful keystroke at a time. She held up a single finger, gingerly, so as not to attract the attention of the computers.

“Astrometrics, threat detection, and automatic damage compensation algorithms,” she said warily. “Have not...crashed...yet.”

“Not so loud.” Taking one last swig from her sports bottle for comfort, Esther edged forward, held her breath, and flipped a switch.

Screens and console boards lit up around the department. After a few breathless seconds, from other rooms, they could hear scattered applause and cheering starting to build. Esther’s eyes were glued to the main command readouts.

“Internal systems processing...appears…” She rapped smartly on her block of wood, then waited. The computers did not attempt further sedition. “Stable.”

The word rang ominously in the perfectly functional silence. 

Slowly, Esther’s shoulders relaxed, and she half-turned toward the intercom before whipping back around, pointing an accusatory finger at Astrometrics Central Processing before it could try anything.

“I’m watching you,” she informed it.

Indicator lights glowed calmly across the department. Esther took a single step back, wearing the appropriate expression for a woman facing a room of angry velociraptors and not quietly humming workstations. With one last warning look, she backed up and hit the comm with her elbow.

“Bridge to Astrometrics.”

“Mr. Hammond...” Esther informed her captain. “The phones are working.”

Vena tabbed down the document on her padd, marking off the last item on her stationside to-do list.

Sighing with relief, she cracked her back. She strongly preferred the more hands-on aspects of her job. The draw of this posting was, after all, the specific duties of a shipboard doctor . She was everything from primary care physician to head surgeon onboard Challenger , and she’d never been the type to back down from a challenge.

It was, she thought with a wry smile, quite literally in her blood.

But the position of chief medical officer involved more than simply her practical skills. Vena had administrative staff, of course, and a corps of nurses that was small but more than worth its weight in gold; but at the end of the day the Medical department was her charge, her ultimate authority. A CMO billet essentially made her as much hospital administrator as everything else.

All of the resupply for the medbay was taken care of by now, with assurances from Stone Mountain that the transferred medical supplies were meant to be sold and would not cut into the freighter’s own resources. Which only left...everything else.

Today, however, she was finally done. She’d organized and forwarded all of her records and observations on the process of altering Earth drugs and technology to suit Caitian anatomy, for the use of both Starfleet and Cait. She’d also spent several days constructing a comprehensive rundown of standard Earth vaccinations, post-exposure treatments, and symptoms to be sent back to Cait with Shol’s departing crew; the Crirraa had thankfully been insured, and Shol’s policy was paying for passage back to Caitian space on the Tellarite vessel they’d noticed. In theory, anyone cleared for service on a Starfleet vessel had been treated against such diseases and was not medically capable of passing them to an unvaccinated population.

In practice, Vena Atakan was not going to go down in history as the medical officer who wiped out the population of an entire planet because she forgot to warn them about measles.

She’d also put together a compilation of papers and treatments about common contagious feline diseases, and hoped it wouldn’t cause offense. Aleksi Lehtonen’s cat was also fully vaccinated and had been cleared by a veterinarian, and Caitian physiology was more similar to humanoids than a domestic cat; but caution and thoroughness required her to assume any life form on board was theoretically capable of infecting an alien population. Cait would determine its own quarantine measures.

Which was why Vena was here, rubbing her eyes outside the Tri-Solon communications section. Challenger ’s science department had finally come online for real a few hours ago, but by then she was already halfway through downloading the information packet the Caitian government had sent in return.

Disease transmission ran both ways, after all. They’d put all their guests through the decon chamber and kept standard medical barriers in place, they weren’t madmen; but they’d been a little preoccupied with saving lives at the time, and there was only so much that reasonable precautions could do. Who knew how long a virus might lay dormant in an alien environment or an alien body? The more they knew, the faster they could respond if anything happened.

It was nice, very nice, to have spoken with Caitian science institutes this way. They seemed to be a friendly neighbor, as eager to share knowledge and as willing to help in good faith as Captain Matos, and that was no small compliment.

Vena had a lot of reading to do. But that was, in the long run, much better than having nothing.

“I question the rationale behind finding you here again.”

Emotionally, Vena groaned. Outwardly, she pinched the bridge of her nose slightly harder before taking a deep breath and turning around.

Chapter Text

If she was honest with herself, she didn’t recognize any of the three Vulcans watching her; she hadn’t paid them enough mind, the other day, nor had she particularly thought about them since. In context, however…

They’d spoken in Earth Standard, so Vena answered them in Vulcan.

“An unusual way to open a conversation. Logically, there are only two places I would be, therefore your confusion at my presence on the station is a surprise.”

Another of the Vulcans spoke up. “You have made multiple visits between the station and your vessel, each time visiting multiple sectors of the station,” she pointed out. “The logical thing would be to organize those visits such that all relevant tasks could be completed at once, preserving both energy and time. Had you been raised Vulcan, such a thing would be second nature.”

“And yet here we are.” Vena was neither obligated nor inclined to explain time-sensitive prioritization, the differences between shore leave and focused on-duty tasks, or how the extent of Challenger ’s damage necessitated unexpectedly outsourcing certain tasks to the station. “If you will excuse me.”

“Is it not considered rude to exit a conversation so abruptly, among human cultures?”

“Human cultures are extremely varied, I wouldn’t presume to speak for all of them,” Vena said, reflexively. Then, “Have I offended you?”

“Offense is a human emotion,” answered the third member of the group, impassive. “We simply wished to clarify the situation and prevent misunderstanding. If your intention was rudeness, we would judge your conduct based on that objective measure.”

“As I have made clear,” Vena said flatly. “I find the kind of judgement you lay against me illogical. And it does offend me. Goodbye.”

“Prejudice is indeed illogical.”

Vena paused and turned around, feeling a faint stab of consternation. In her defense, mistaking a Vulcan attempt at apology for literally anything else was very easy.

“Surak’s teachings emphasize that,” she agreed carefully. “There is a very real risk of using logic as a weapon to justify one’s own prejudices. I know most Vulcans study very carefully to avoid falling into that trap.”

“Your information is accurate,” the first said, encouraged. He took a step forward. “We bear no prejudice against you for your simple existence, as that would be illogical. Our judgements are based solely on our own observation.”

And just like that, she regretted giving them the benefit of the doubt.

“By which you mean, I assume, that you feel I chose the wrong species.”

“Of course we do not,” said the third member of the group, who had lighter hair than his fellows. “Species is not a matter of choice. But your weakness for the easy, illogical choice of human culture is a failing of self-control. We have observed this.”

“I’m leaving.”

“A result of powerful emotion,” agreed the woman. “Emotion which runs unchecked.”

“In addition to the projection of emotion into neutral conversations,” added the leader. “You chose to interpret the simple recitation of facts as an attack on your person, when no insults were used.”

“And of course, your indulgence in human superstition and irrational belief systems. Vulcans have long ago abandoned such things.”

Vena, who had been walking away from this conversation just as she had every other identical incidence of harassment for her pointed ears in thirty-four years of being herself, froze and spun around.

“You will leave my religion out of this. ”

“You interpret this as an insult while simultaneously insisting that your choices are not cause for shame. I do not follow that logic.”

“Please,” the ringleader added, still speaking Standard out of apparently some perverse desire to pretend he was being considerate. “Do not feel obligated to engage in this discussion in our language. I am sure your native tongue is much easier for you to express yourself in, as well as to pronounce.”

Her Vulcan accent was perfect, as it happened. Vena was very confident in this; she was actually more naturally fluent in this particular language than Hoshi Sato, and wore that as a badge of pride. She certainly trusted the Vulcan diplomatic corps’ politely honest corrections over the years more than a band of bullies on the street.

She smiled sweetly. “Çok naziksiniz. Türkçe konuşuyor musunuz?”

The Vulcans stood awkwardly, glancing at one another as they tried to figure out whether they’d been insulted. Before they could gather themselves to come up with a retort there was an unfamiliar voice from down the corridor.

“All that time and effort to let me learn Earth Standard, and now the only one speaking it is this guy.”

Vena didn’t quite manage to smile as Tisarr joined them, but she tried. “It’s good to see you out and about,” she said, switching back to Earth Standard.

Tisarr’s shoulders visibly slumped with relief. “Oh, good. I was afraid it had stopped working. Speak Vulcan I enough good,” she said with passable pronunciation. “But only enough to navigate trading posts.”

Their new Chief Engineer hadn’t even broken stride when she came abreast of Vena, and they’d left their new acquaintances behind before Vena fully registered leaving. Part of her really was irrationally angry at that; there were fights she didn’t want to back down from. But it was impossible to get in the last word against an opponent who never intended to argue in good faith, and there was no sense in making herself miserable over it. What they wanted was to upset her, anyway.

Tisarr let her have several moments of silence to breathe and steady herself, and Vena was grateful for the consideration. “That wasn’t Vulcan, don’t worry. Or Earth Standard, actually. There are only a few people on Challenger for whom Standard is our native language, I was born in Turkey.”

Well, technically, she hadn’t been born anywhere, which had instantly gained her a yearbook vote of Most Likely To Kill Macbeth in her last year before starting university. And she had been de-intubated in a Starfleet hospital in Geneva, but her home was in Istanbul. None of which would be fair to dump on a Caitian who had only spoken the language since last Thursday.

Tisarr nodded slowly, tail twitching with agitation as her slowly rotating ears spoke of complicated calculations happening somewhere.

Vena took a moment to consider.

“...It’s also the name of a country.”

“Oh! Oh. That makes so much more—yes. Anyway. Were you busy? I can walk with you, to make sure they do not come back.”

Vena smiled much more easily at that. “Thank you, but no. I was going to see what the chef’s team has prepared tonight, it’s frankly much better than anything onboard the station.”

Tisarr flicked her ears in acknowledgement, pulling out a comm unit and checking the time. “You are welcome to join me, actually. I received an...odd, but interesting, invitation from Ensign Atsa this morning. You would likely be welcome also, if you wanted to come. He said he can help us dive right in, or we can just watch, if we do not want to participate.”

Vena nearly declined; she generally kept her evenings free, in desperate need of quiet time to decompress. At the moment, however...company would be welcome. She wasn’t likely to be able to focus on the Caitian material tonight, anyway.

“Thank you,” she said again. “I think I will.”

“All right, I don’t want to spend too much time setting up, so. Before we get started, does everyone have dice?”

“Never leave home without dice,” Esther said promptly, pulling out a large black case and opening it to reveal a silver, angled orb in careful padding. “I rolled the ones out of the good D20 before I left.”

Tisarr raised a finger, then seemed to think better of her question and lowered it again. Atsa grinned and pretended he didn’t understand her confusion. Clearly, Esther was just describing a totally reasonable practice.

“Statistics lies,” Esther informed her seriously. “Rolling the ones out is a real thing. We’re saving this beauty until we really need it.”

Aleksi raised his hand, sheepish. “I have everything but a d10, Moomin stole mine and I haven’t found where she hid it yet.”

Atsa checked his notes. “Well, you’re a rogue,” he reminded his friend. “Rogues don’t use a d10, not in seventh edition anyway. You should be fine.”

“Is there a reason every player needs their own set of dice?” Dr. Atakan asked, curious. “It seems as if a single set could be shared, but I’ve never played.”

Jae made a face. “Well, you can, but it’s bad luck.”

“It also makes the game go faster,” Esther allowed. “But mostly, uh...human brain like shiny. Take pretty dice, make biggest pile, establish dominance, attract virile mate. Suppress instinctive urge to eat.”

Dr. Atakan’s face went through several emotions before settling into a bemused smile. “You’re all worse than sailors, aren’t you.”

“The dice get tired if you make them work too hard,” Aleksi confirmed. “Plus, they work better if they know you.”

“See,” said Tisarr, who was an engineer. “That makes sense.”

“If you decide to join us, I have a few sets of spare dice you can use, don’t worry.” Atsa cleared his throat to get the conversation back on track. “We’re going to open based on a module I’ve run before,” he explained. “Just to let everyone get the hang of the characters and the group dynamic. Long story short, you’re all attending a harvest festival in the town of Oakpool. It’s up to you why you’re there; maybe you live there, maybe you’re just passing through—”

“What kind of village? Are we talking kobolds or elves here?”

“Human. So, you’re all attending the harvest festival, the layout of which I’ve marked on the map—”

Dr. Atakan leaned forward. “What kind of harvest?” she asked. “That is to say, what kind of biome…?”

“Good question! The module’s pretty clearly based off the American midwest, so we’ll stick to that. The harvest festival involves pumpkins, and I’m not saying that will be relevant, but I’m not promising it isn’t. I like to start in media res, so we’re going to open at the moment everyone realizes the forest around the festival grounds is on fire.”

“Nice,” said Aleksi, appreciative. “Two feet down.”

Atsa grinned. “First things first, everyone determine where in the festival your character would be hanging out...oh and, uh, if you’re eating the pumpkin pie, fair warning, you’re making a constitution check right off the bat…”