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“Hey, kitten. Are you done pacing a hole in our floors?” Bemusement crept up in a smirk on Jett’s face as she watched Lura go back and forth. It wasn’t the largest space, her quarters on the Discovery, and Lura’s stature only made it feel smaller.
“I am not pacing,” Lura spat, stopping in her tracks to face her girlfriend. “I am thinking.”
“Yeah, you’ve been thinking about that assignment you’ve gotten all day. Wanna hash it out over dinner? We can do your favourite.”
“Impossible,” Lura snarled. “You refuse to add French-Klingon into your replicator programs.”
“Not exactly that. I was thinking we could have dinner in one of your holodeck programs. Lura-Delta-7?”
Lura swung around, eyes wide with embarrassment and indignance. “How do you know about Lura-Delta-7?”
“I did some snooping. Don’t worry, I only do that for the people I really, really like.” Jett came up to Lura, running a hand down her arm to soothe her before she could ask any more angry questions. “What do you say, hmm? I know you go there a lot when you think. And leave me here. Alone. Wondering what you get up to on the holodeck when you’re in a mood.”
“I was not in a mood.” Lura drew back with an indignant sneer. “And I am not in a mood right now.”
“Either way, I’ve already set it up. Are you coming?”
Jett didn’t have to ask twice to recognise the excited gleam of affirmation in Lura’s otherwise peeved gaze.
-
Despite her sleuthing, Jett hadn’t expected to come into the Enterprise-G’s captain’s quarters and find it furnished with carpeting. Certainly a design choice, retroactively added for the historic ship’s captain.
But the two women sitting at the table looked far less like legends of history and more like old friends, warm and eager to receive them. The First Officer, her curly hair bound in a high ponytail that fell to her shoulders, approached Lura with a ferocity in her eyes. “Commander Thok! yI’el!” she declared brightly, offering a greeting in Lura’s mother tongue.
“nuqneH!” Lura offered in equal zeal, clasping her arm around the other woman. “It’s good to see you, Raffi.”
“And you, Lura. Please, sit.” Raffi gestured to the table, where four dishes were laid. “We’ve decided to do a twist on your favourite turducken, but using exclusively Andorian poultry. Give it a try.”
Jett had to stifle a laugh at the way Lura growled with delight, glancing at her plate. To her credit, it did look amazing, despite the blue hues of the meat.
“And this must be Jett?” Raffi continued as she settled next to the captain’s seat.
“Hi. You’ve spoken about me?” Jett glanced at Lura.
“She has, many times, and has often suggested that we may have much to bond over by way of Temporal Mechanics.” The woman next to Raffi raised her brow, on which was a silver implant like a crescent moon, and extended her hand for Jett to shake. “Seven. Welcome to the Enterprise-G.”
“Hey, Seven. Hey, Raffi.” Jett waved to either of them, sitting next to Lura. “You know, it’s really awkward to think, I’m technically older than either of you, despite you existing a few hundred years before us.”
“Don’t get me started.” Seven put up a hand. “Let’s just say we’re all here, and leave it at that.”
“Or, rather, holoprograms of ourselves, as Lura knows.” Raffi turned to Jett. “Our organic selves believed strongly in holding an open space on the ship for our crew, and being an open book to those whom we pass on our legacy. Before they retired, they encoded a very detailed account of all their experiences, even that beyond Starfleet, into our programs, so that they may be accessed by anyone in Starfleet looking for a word of advice or a moment of kindness from Captain Seven or Commander Raffi. Or sometimes, as Lura does it, the both of us together.”
“Yes. In fact, that is what I wished to ask your advice for.” Lura set down her knife and fork in the middle of her meal, looking uncharacteristically pensive. “I have been offered a position as the First Officer to the USS Athena, which is also the training ship for Starfleet Academy. In essence, I am to become its Cadet Master. Pass on the legacy of Starfleet, in a way.”
“Woof. That’s a big one.” Raffi sat back in her chair, eyes widening in sympathy. “Before anything else, congratulations, honey. You must have done something right to be offered this role to begin with.”
Lura scoffed the compliment aside with a shake of her head. “What I have done doesn’t matter. I graduated from the War College, at a time when there was no Starfleet Academy. And now I am expected to lead it, and inspire the next generation - many of whom have never even seen a Jem’Hadar-Klingon hybrid in their lives. I am the first of my kind in Starfleet, of warrior races whose legends champion glory over peace - yet my mission is to teach them otherwise. I worry this incongruence will not serve me well. I worry I would not serve the role well.”
“That’s new. I have never heard you worry about being too scary.” Jett joked lightly, but slipped a hand in Lura’s anyway. A quiet sign of care. Of presence, as she spoke her case to the two holographic figures.
“Plenty of first-timers for anything in Starfleet.” Raffi said encouragingly, taking a sip of her replicated wine. “I personally know someone who was the first ex-Borg Captain in the fleet.” Her gaze danced playfully to Seven, who rolled her eyes with a half-smile.
“I’m sure what Raffi is attempting to assure you is that you are very much not alone in your position. I was also terrified when I was first asked to take on the post. An xB leading the flagship of Starfleet for her first captaincy, scarcely a year after an all-encompassing Borg attack? I failed to see the logic at the time.”
“But I didn’t understand it, not because it was illogical. It was because I was scared.
“Scared of what I would bring, scared of what I represented. Scared of what other people would think, or remember, when they saw me. Scared of what I would be passing on to the young, bright-eyed crew that looked to me for leadership. I had never had that before.”
“So what clicked for you?” Jett asked. “What made you take the leap?”
“Oh, I had some help.” Something in Seven’s eyes softened in adoration as she glanced at Raffi, slipping her hand into the commander’s. “But I suppose I should let Raffi tell the story.”
“There’s not much to tell, really.” Raffi gave Seven’s hand a squeeze. “I came with you. Simple as that.”
“Not that simple,” Seven corrected. “They offered Raffi her own captaincy after the events of Frontier Day, you see. A classified espionage mission, with her own tight crew. She could have had anyone - anything - she wanted. But she turned it down, as soon as she heard of my captaincy offer.”
“They told me Seven asked for me on the Enterprise, as her Number One. I told them to keep me on that ship for as long as Seven wanted me.”
“I tried to retract my offer after I heard Raffi was about to make captain, but she wouldn’t hear any of it. She insisted on being there for me. And I did end up needing her.” Seven’s voice wavered ever so slightly, in a show of emotion. “She gave me the courage to make the decisions I doubted myself in. She made me see that the crew trusted me more than I believed, by trusting me first. She was my anchor through it all.”
“Wow, that’s… actually really sweet. But a whole captaincy?” Jett looked at Raffi, bewildered.
“Easiest decision I’d ever made,” Raffi said breezily. “It’s called showing up for the people you love, you know.”
"Huh." Jett looked at Lura - her back straight against her chair, her hair flowing down her broad shoulders. She really would make a great Cadet Master, Jett realised.
“You won’t learn this in the history books, but Raffi did eventually leave the Enterprise-G.” Seven’s eyes gleamed.
“Computer, activate command-level access of current holoprogram.”
After Lura and Jett gave their authorisations, they watched before their eyes as the visage of Raffi flickered before reappearing, looking only slightly older than she had done. Instead of the bright red uniform, she wore a darker Starfleet-issue leather jacket; adorned on it were the four pips of a captain.
“You got your spy captaincy.” Lura mused with a grin.
“Only long after Seven found her stride. I left when I was confident she no longer needed me. In fact, I left when I thought she was starting to get bored of me.” Raffi winked at Seven.
“That’s quite enough from you.” Seven turned to Lura. “My point is, Commander Thok - Lura. It would do you good to remember that you are loved, and you will not be alone on this journey. One day in hindsight - when you write your memoirs, perhaps,” she said with a twitch of a smile, “you will realise that you were the perfect person for the role all along.”
“Thank you, Captain Seven.” Lura’s voice was soft, softer than Jett had ever heard from her. There was a reverence and a vulnerability to it that shocked her, and in it, she realised just how much being Cadet Master meant to her. It wasn’t just a splashy XO job, no - it was a chance to shape generations, to nurture them, to make them feel less scared and alone in the world. Less scared and alone than perhaps she herself had felt growing up. And suddenly, in that moment, something in her head clicked, like two rotating cogs finally being joined to form a larger machinery. And Jett understood.
From the glimmer in Raffi’s eyes as she sipped her after-dinner tea, it looked as though she understood Jett’s silent epiphany, too.
They spend the rest of their evening trading command stories over a game of Kadis-Kot - a favourite of Seven’s, according to legend. The two eventually send Jett and Lura out the holodeck with well wishes and a promise to not utter a word of the classified “Captain Raffi” to anyone else.
Lura left, still not entirely sure of her fate, but calm enough to no longer threaten the structural integrity of the ground she walked upon.
Jett left, and her road ahead was entirely clear, for the first time in a while.
-
Not long after, Lura rang Jett. “Shall we meet in your quarters on the Discovery?”
“Actually, funny story.” Jett pulled a grimace, betrayed only by the mischief in her eyes. “I don’t work there any more.”
Before Lura could reply, she continued.
“I was thinking we could meet on my new ship, or, I’m hoping, our new ship - the Athena.”