The message was sent, and seconds later the door chime sounded as Sonak took the cue to arrive. Greeting him at the door, her heart still leapt at the sight of him, as Rita Paris ushered him inside. "Welcome to Casa Dox. Our hostess is taking an ordered long hot shower, and will be expecting me to be gone and you to here in my stead to listen, counsel, answer questions and be your usual brilliant self."

The smile that spread across the face of the human bride of the kolinahr was one of joy as they were behind closed doors, and she had allotted a few minutes to themselves. Stepping into his personal space, draping her arms over his shoulders, the bright blue eyes of the out of time officer sought the steel-grey gaze of the extradimensional explorer whose love for her had driven him across space and time to find her. The earth woman's attention flickered between his eyes, the delight of being in his presence and in his arms making her heart swell.

Good morning, t'hy'la, she thought, knowing she could communicate far more through their bond than she could every express in words, yet often framing it that way as a means to organize her own thoughts sufficiently so it was more than just an outpouring of her affection and devotion to him. Instead it was a concept, which she had learned from him long ago made their communication easier for her to accomplish, and now she applied without a thought given as to how.

T'hy'la; apart and never parted; not touching and touched. I hope you are well his thoughts conveyed to her mind.

He might have no emotion whatsoever, yet his link to her was from his soul itself, beyond the mere feeling of desire and even the very sentiment of love. The bond between the star-crossed lovers was beyond explanation. It was. Now and forever. And that too he sent her through their bonding link as much as through their impromptu mind meld.

Touching her forehead to his, they stood silently in one another's arms for a moment. She channeled the events of the evening through the filter of his perception, and expressed her thoughts and feelings on the subject. Which in turn enabled her to process her own feelings, and feel the benefits of a moment of meditation with him. It would not empower her as it would him, but still it would help her through her day, and send her off centered and well-prepared to face the day.

His sharp hearing heard the water shut off, and they knew it was time. Pulling back slightly, she then hugged him tightly, pressing her soft cheek against his own clean-shaven one. Then she stepped back, separating from the intimacy of their moment together through the bond they shared.

"Duty calls, my love," she offered with a smile as she headed for the door, waggling her fingers cheerfully before blowing him a kiss.

Stepping out of the shower in the bathroom, Melanie Dox heard the exterior door to her quarters, letting her know that Lieutenant Sonak was there. Grabbing a towel to dry off, she felt herself get a little nervous again. As she said to Rita, she trusted her Vulcan husband, but she was still anxious over what he might say.

As she was off duty, she didn't want to overdo it and put in a uniform, but she still wanted to be presentable and put together. She quickly got dressed in a casual black blouse and pants, pulled her shoes on and took a deep breath before stepping out of the small bedroom into the main quarters.

Looking up at the stoic Vulcan science officer, Melanie held back an awkward smile. "Uh... Good morning, Lieutenant Sonak."

"Good morning Lieutenant Dox. I have been made aware that you might require some help from me. I shall of course do so to the limit of my capabilities, once you explain to me the nature of your need."

Stepping over to the small couch, Melanie sat down not quite knowing what to say. "I don't know how much you know about what I talked to Commander Paris, but my recent encounter with the creature, Anansi, had revealed memories that I since learned I had repressed at a young age."

"I've since learned that when I was five, I was surgically altered. Genetically manipulated to look... Like this. More human. My father had serious issues with my being part Romulan and I guess... now I don't quite know how to move forward with knowing what was done to me and what that means about who and what I am, now."

Sonak thought for a moment before replying.

"You are a child of two worlds. It is notoriously difficult for persons such as yourself to reconcile a dual nature, even for Vulcans; all the moreso if family or society does not provide acceptance, or even mere support. Carrying the blood of a current enemy makes life harder even in the best of circumstances."

Obviously seriously pondering the problem, Sonak paused a moment before continuing.

"That being said, it is an undeniable fact that refusing to embrace oneself fully is the greatest obstacle to self fulfillment and happiness. Thus, the first question is logically to you; have you decided to recognize for yourself, and accept who you are? All that you are?"

Sitting quietly for a moment, Melanie thought hard on the question and wanted to answer it as truthfully as she could. "I'm still trying to figure out what all that is, really. It's... extremely difficult knowing that I actively blocked out parts of my own childhood. Even my own name."

Pausing for a moment to collect herself and not allow her emotions to overwhelm her as they did the night before was a major effort. But Dox pushed forward. "I want to find out who I really am with all these parts put back together, if that makes sense. The good and the bad. I don't feel like I can be... me... whoever that is... If I don't accept it all."

The Vulcan thought some more before speaking.

"Reasserting your true physiology and appearance should be a an easy first step to restore you to your true self. I would assume you have already discussed this possibility with sickbay. From there, it would become easier for your mind to fully accept naturally that truth which your spirit seeks. Given enough time and with patience, and support from those who care for your well being, your harmony should be achieved; this time based on your true, fully assumed self."

"I've had additional exams from Doctor Dael. They found that other than the surgical alterations, the doctor's that messed me up also did some kind of genetic alteration to my DNA. Something to try and force my father's genes dominance artificially, Asa thinks. It's not something that ever came up on tests that weren't looking for it, but they ran a ton of tests and are still running more before they feel comfortable doing anything." Melanie rubbed an ear nervously. The idea of trying to restore what would have been her appearance had definitely been weighing on her.

"The doctor wants to start me on gene therapy as soon as they get all their data back. They think that they can undo that damage, at least." Dox looked up at Sonak, embarrassed by her feelings. "I just don't know if I'm prepared for... Changing what I've seen in the mirror for most of my life."

But she was beating around the bush of what was really worrying her, which Dox knew was pointless and counterproductive. She sighed, then spoke.

"Growing up, my mother raised me Romulan. I spoke Rihan till I was sixteen almost exclusively. I was raised to be proud of who... and what I was. At least as much as I could with what I was allowing myself to remember." Melanie hung her head and sighed.

"I didn't learn to be ashamed of being what I was until they sent me to Earth to live with my father's parents." She flumped back slightly, rolling her eyes at herself. "I know it's stupid... but I think a part of me is scared I'll lose what I've found here. In my head, I know it doesn't make sense... but you can only be told you're trash for being Romulan so long before you believe it, I guess."

Sonak nodded.

"I will not pretend that I can understand the emotional implication of your situation. Even less than other Vulcans am I able, since I do not merely control my emotions; I have none. However, I am bonded with a Human female; through that bond I have gained a practical knowledge of what emotions are, and how they relate to thought and self. Thus, I know at least on an intellectual level how you must feel."

Uncharacteristically, he then seemed to hesitate a moment, but then nodded to himself before resuming.

"I once had the opportunity to mind meld with the katra of the late ambassador Spock. He too, like you, was half-human, half Vulcanoid, and had managed over his long life to achieve balance of his dual nature. Through that meld, I gained an awareness of his thoughts, his... feelings... of his life."

He looked at her with his steely grey eyes.

"I can offer you what he shared with me."

Listening to Sonak's words, Melanie was taken somewhat aback. It was the reunification movement of the legendary Vulcan, Spock, that had been a driving passion in much of her mother's life. "I would... Appreciate that very much hearing that." The nervous young woman replied.

"I can offer you more than a report," the Vulcan answered with his grey eyes still locked into hers. "If you so wish, I can mind meld with you and give you his very thoughts. What he experienced as a dual being and what he achieved in harmony, I can make your own."

He paused to let that sink in. Then he added:

"However, you should be aware that a mind meld is no mere telepathic transmission. It is a complete fusion of the minds. I would also share with you all my thoughts; and you will share all of yours with me."

Without consciously thinking about it, Dox's body went stiff and a brief moment of panic flared up in the young part-Romulan. Instantly, she was embarrassed by her reaction. She had told Rita Paris the trust she had for her extended to Sonak, but the truth of that statement she had believed so firmly not so long before was now being challenged.

Taking a deep breath, Melanie summoned all of her strength, which felt insignificant at the moment and responded. "I... I'm scared. I shouldn't be, but I am." Then her mind slipped back to the attack she had experienced which had set all of this in motion.

Closing her eyes she could see the black, shining eyes. She could hear his voice clicking in the back of her brain. A chill went down her spine and her hair stood on end.

"Anansi... he... he invaded my mind. No matter how hard I tried, I... I couldn't keep him out." She was now feeling on the verge of panic as she spoke, desperate to maintain her composure. "He... He..."

Then, Melanie thought of Rita the night before holding her in her arms so tightly she felt like nothing could touch her. She thought of Asa Dael squeezing her hand and staying by her bedside as she recovered. She thought of having pizza with Thex to take her mind off of it all. And she thought of Sonak, standing before her now. Offering to open up the totality of his own mind, his very being, to a woman who he barely knew... just to help.

Pulling back a welling up of tears she felt threatening to overwhelm her, Dox replied again. "He's not you. And I won't... I won't allow myself to let him to make me scared anymore." She stood up in front of the far taller Vulcan and took a breath.

Sonak nodded to her.

"Your courage humbles me. If at any moment you feel uncomfortable, you will be able to break the meld yourself. Only the tips of my fingers will be touching you. A mere jerk of your head will end contact. You will be in control of your own body and of the entire process, as much as I."

With one hand, he invited her to sit in front of him.

Taking the seat, Melanie felt as far away from courageous as was mortally possible as she steeled herself, putting her hands on her knees and closing her eyes.

Sitting in front of her, Sonak rubbed his hands together very slowly as he seemed to study her head as if looking for the best places to place his fingertips. His hands spread like the petals of an opening flower, and just as delicately touched her temples.

"My mind to your mind... Your thoughts to my thoughts..."

Sonak usually eschewed the basic ritual phrasing, as he was experienced and skilled enough to establish instant contact with the merest touch. But he knew the soothing effect of his soft, deep calm voice would help the half-Romulan woman relax. She was both Human and Rihansuu; two highly emotional races, but both with the firm potential for rationality. That was the anchor he sought to give her within the tumultuous sea storm of her feelings; his own emotionless mind, acting as a lighthouse, a beacon for her.

Once their personas fused, he opened her to what he had gained from his meld with Spock's katra; the soul of another half-human vulcanoid who had achieved full serenity of his dual nature when touched, after a lifetime of interaction with remarkable human beings, by another uber-being; V'Ger, the cosmic-sized sentient living machine that had accumulated the entire knowledge of the universe.

Of course the brief glimpse of universal knowledge Spock had experienced had been far too much for a mere organic mind; he had almost fallen into a coma from it. But it had brought him even beyond kolinahr and back to his very human nature. Feeling had become thought, thought had become feeling; reason had understood emotion, emotion had inspired reason. His being was not of a dual nature; he had been whole, an entity born of two worlds but a fusion of them, complete, unique, precious, and valuable.

Out of the meld, the echo of a memory of the legendary Vulcan came to them both; the voice of a human male, gruff and with some distinctive Terran southern accent, as heard from the ears of another Terran, the closest of friends, collected once through another mind meld. And the voice said:

In this galaxy, there is a mathematical probability or three million earth-type planets. And in this universe, three million, million galaxies like this one. And in all this... perhaps more... only one of each of us.

Within this moment, Melanie felt the maelstrom of anger and fear and depression settle in her mind. She felt a wave of calm. She was aware of the sea of conflicting emotions that swirled ever present within her and could feel them all wanting to tear her down, but she was anchored by Sonak's logic. Filtered through her own emotions, it became a wave of serenity.

She saw in her minds eye her own face, restored to what it would have been. She saw her mother crying over her as a young girl. Looking down, she saw Rita Paris smiling up at her.

The voices that would have tried to tell her that the words and thoughts coming from her mind meld we're lies were quickly silenced. The fear that she was useless, meaningless and less than either Romulan or human fell quiet.

Through this clarity came focus. She could see herself not through the eyes of her own self loathing, but as she truly was. Both Romulan and Human. Melanie Dox and Mnhei'sahe. Neither separate beings but one woman.

No longer did she see her future as a series of painful choices; but instead as a single and unwavering path forward, built upon all that she was. She saw herself complete.

Sonak did not end the meld immediately. He took a good minute of concentration before finally removing his fingers from the side of her face.

"I have left you with mental shields from my own mind to protect your psyche from further intrusions. Being yourself part Vulcanoid, your mind is naturally built to posses those. It only needs the proper guidance, just as it had been for the Vulcans of antiquity, our common ancestors. Later, if you wish, I can teach you mental exercises that could help you strengthen them even further."

Removed from the mind meld, Melanie began to feel her own emotions return to her. But they weren't a flood she felt she couldn't control in the moment. Enough of Sonak's mental discipline still remained within to buffer them, allowing her own mind to process what it had taken in more gradually.

Nevertheless, the young officer was taken aback by the event, and sat quietly for a moment, processing both Sonak's words and his thoughts.

"Thank you, Sonak. For everything. And yes, I would very much like to learn whatever you could teach me in that regard." Thanks to being of one mind for a time, Melanie hadn't needed to express in words her desperate desire for help strengthening her own mental defenses against future attacks. Sonak clearly sensed the need and responded, for which Melanie was grateful.

He just nodded once.

"I come to serve."

Her words were unusually calm and we'll chosen for her, a lingering effect of the mind meld she knew would fade shortly. But in the moment Melanie continued to enjoy the sense of clarity.

"And thank you... for letting me see myself through your eyes." She said somewhat flatly, her usually turbulent emotions still returning calmly to balance. "It was... beautiful in your mind. Absolutely beautiful."

Sonak's usually imperturbable face had at this moment the merest shadow of a smile; a fleeting but lingering effect of her own soul onto his, something no one but his wife had ever seen.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What you saw was your own inner sight, one which always sees things clearly, most of all about oneself. You just have to be aware of it... and acknowledge it. No one can determine your worth... save you."

Emotions began to normalize in the young pilot and a tear fell from her eye, but it was one of joy and clarity. "I... I'm glad for you to be have able to see that from mine."

"Would that everyone could join minds as we did, this universe would be much less... chaotic," he simply commented. "But at least we can start by resolving the chaos within ourselves. If you so wish, I can take a few minutes to show you the basis of Vulcan meditation. It could prove a useful tool for you, to lead your journey back to yourself."

Smiling warmly and enjoying the feeling of calm over her that felt like might never happen again, Melanie nodded as she replied. "I would very much appreciate that, yes."

Again, the Vulcan's hand invited her to sit, this time on the floor. he went to the replicator and ordered it to produce a small brazier which he ignited before placing it in front of her.

Sitting, cross legged on the floor, Melanie felt a little of her more customary anxiety in her belly. She had seen Vulcan meditations before growing up but had never participated and was slightly nervous- but this time, with a flavor of anticipation, rather than trepidation.

Moving past her initial feelings, she shifted her focus up towards Sonak, listening intently to him.

"The flame's light will help you focus your thoughts and with them the heat will channel your emotions. Just breathe slowly in and out from nose to mouth. like your eyes blinking, do not resist nor linger on any thought coming to your mind or any feeling coming to you. Let it all come and go, like each flicker of the flame. You are like the flame. You breathe like the flame. You move like the flame. You are heat and light and movement, just like the flame. Let yourself be the flame. Let the flame be yourself."

Letting her eyes drift to the flame, Melanie began to breathe as instructed and listened.

His calm, soft, deep voice was modulated to help her recall what their mind meld had briefly brought to her and use it.

Feeling the warmth of the candle and the steady vibration of Sonak's voice, Melanie felt herself almost drift out of herself as she breathed. She felt a flavor of the serenity she felt when she was one with Sonak's mind and it was a welcome feeling indeed. But focusing on his words, she allowed the thought to drift away and kept breathing with the undulations of the flame.

As he had expected, the echo of their mind meld had assisted her Vulcanoid physiology adopt quite naturally the proper state to free her mind, and achieve the meditative state. He now knew that she would be able to do so by herself, and benefit from the mental exercise as much as any Vulcan would.

For now he remained silent, waiting for her to complete her meditation.

For Melanie Dox, time seemed slow down as her sense of visual perception seemed to filter out everything except the small, pulsing flame. In her moment, she heard her own breath and her own heart beating. She felt perfectly still and closed off from anything in the universe outside of her focus.

In the silence, she heard a distant voice that at first, she didn't recognize. Then she heard it again, clearer now. It was her mother's voice whispering softly, "Mnhei'sahe."

It was a gentle sound that felt warm to her as she felt herself returning to her quarters. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

Sonak was looking at her.

"Your Rihannsu heritage is making you naturally proficient; and your Human heritage makes you appropriately driven. Well done. From now on, you should be able to guide yourself on your own path."

Taking a moment to collect herself and readjust, Melanie let out a long breath. There was a wide smile on her face as a tear rolled down her cheek. In that moment, at least, she no longer felt embarrassed by her feelings, as they were simply another part of the entirely that was her, and she simply allowed herself the moment.

"I don't have the words to properly express my gratitude. Really, to you, Asa or Commander Paris. But you know that well enough having been in here." She tapped the side of her head lightly.

"But it is... very good to know that while I'm here, I never have to walk that path alone."

"Gratitude is unnecessary; we are all here for one another. That is what this crew, Starfleet, The Federation, are all about. Indeed, that is where life finds it's true meaning and purpose.You are now finding your meaning and your purpose. We shall all do this together."

"Or as she who is my wife would say; that's what are friends for."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DohRa9lsx0Q

Leaving Deck 8 first thing in the morning meant morning muster on the bridge. Rita Paris had left herself enough time to stop off at her office, gather a PaDD and have herself a little musical interlude to get into the mood before arriving on the bridge a few minutes early. Now she roamed the stations, collecting reports from those who had them ready, which most did. The engineering ensign reporting in was apparently working in some recent developments, and Rita offered to him to take his time- the time constraint was less important in developing events than a succinct report.

Today was another day at warp, so the briefing was light. Science would be calibrating some of the long range sensor packets and swapping out some of the experimental palettes, with reports on scheduled times for experiments and potential effects for the Hera at hand. Thorough and informative, as she'd come to expect of her guy, as she still found she liked to refer to Sonak, the brilliant chief science officer.

Engineering was apparently unlocking the god code, and unlocking the artifacts of legend Hera had been storing in her basement. Hera herself might know a bit about the legends and lore of the artifacts she'd held- that might be a visit to the VIP quarters worth taking. She'd have to remember to ask the captain's permission to bring Hera out and about for a walk, something to see other than movies and the walls of her very nicely appointed prison cell aboard the starship that bore her name. With a security escort maybe?

There was a golden apple in that lot of trouble Thex had dug up on Meroset 347. That was a bucket of trouble waiting to happen all by itself, Rita was certain.

Ops was quiet. Dauntless had vanished into her quarters and not emerged. Subspace traffic in and out of her quarters on the channel she'd worked to hard to insure would remain undetected had been detected- her routine comm burst pattern had given her away. Being a creature of routine gave her away. Now that she'd been threatened with expulsion, the question was whether this would make her realize that her 'mean girls' act was a dead end, or would she just transfer out without a word, and go chase whatever nefarious purposes she intended to pursue elsewhere.

Security had follow-up reports on the intruder alert, including how Lieutenant Junior Grade Dox had not shown up in any sensor readings for periods of time during the intrusion back on the Worldship. Anansi was a very impressive intruder indeed, she'd defeated him and he had apparently retreated. Science was determinedly trying to track him down, and Dedjoy had the helmet in one of the vaults in the intel pod.

Flight Control reported all was well, although the assistant chief was covering for the chief, who was on restricted duty today. Tapping away a message, the curvy commander requested a corroboration from the chief medical officer. Given the reasoning she was reasonably certain the physician would concur. More than likely Lieutenant Junior Grade Dox could count on a house call from the ship's surgeon.

Sickbay had multiple reports, most of which were business as usual. A case in the isolation ward, Crewman El'iash, who was on day 124 of quarantine due to him having developed a mutation upon exposure to the Rigellian flu which transformed him into a carrier for the disease. He was dealing with it well, working on a novel series that was catching on with the crew. A random assortment of injuries from falls, accidents and the high incidence of holodeck injuries. Which was considered acceptable in modern Starfleet, because they worked hard, they played hard, and that was healthy for them. And Sickbay kept their skills sharp, a win/win.

Security was rotating a small pool of guards, who were allowed to interact with their 'guest' and were required to check on her at shift changes. They had been informed by the Commander that they were to be polite and to treat the reforming goddess as a guest, not a prisoner. They in turn were being closely watched by a dual operation of the medical and security teams to see how Hera tried to influence them. So far she seemed to appreciate seeing another face a few times a day, which broke up the monotony. A few minor unrelated discipline items, and one Lieutenant Garfield, who had apparently had a glass of Romulan Ale, gotten into an argument and slugged one of the enlisted men.

Lieutenant Garfield was sleeping it off in the brig. Rita put in a request to be informed when he awoke, as she planned to have a conversation with the young operations officer about choices and consequences. Giving those little talks and helping others turn things around was immensely satisfying to her when it worked. As it so often did for her, which made her an effective executive officer. Although she still preferred the old-fashioned term 'First Officer', a preference that was well known throughout the starship.

The departments were all checked in, the Captain wasn't due on the bridge for another hour, which meant that it was time for Paris' morning rounds about the Hera. "Ensign Itxycoatl, send me that report when it's ready, or update me on the situation in 10 minutes whichever comes first. Miss Tyler, you have the conn."

Terms like that which were old naval vessel holdouts even in her day were indications of the able astronaut's anachronistic origins. These days Starfleet personnel called the deck 'the floor' or 'the ground', because they viewed the floating palace of technological wonder upon which they served to be their world, so thinking of it as a ship, a vessel, was a difficult concept for them to grasp. But Rita didn't care. She'd still call the bulkhead a bulkhead, a hatch a hatch and the surface upon which she stood would remain the deck. Because those old traditions were still good traditions, and Rita Paris would be happy to keep them alive in the distant future.

For the hundredth time she plucked at the crimson uniform that depressed her. She missed her old uniform. It wasn't just the color, it was the cut, the style. It was marking herself as an anachronism, a little piece of way back when that walked and talked and spouted Starfleet slogans. She was still debating approaching the Captain about it- after all, she'd done her duty and ushered in the sea of red, while Sonak had modeled the blue- which, she realized, he wore the uniform cut well. But she missed her old uniform, even though the captain had told her she'd expect to see her in this from now on.

An ongoing debate in the mind of Rita Paris as she began to go about her day, keeping tabs and solving issues on the mighty starship that was her home- the USS Hera.

Sitting on the back corner of the bed in her senior crew quarters, Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox fumbled through a small box between her legs. One of three on her bed. The last few weeks had been something of a roller coaster of emotional revelations and stress that left the young, part Romulan pilot exhausted more often than not. And as an anxious, nervous woman who was woefully inept in social situations, she tended to spend the majority of her time off-duty in her room. But tonight was ever so slightly different.

The box was one of three that she had put in storage when she came on board the Hera. Boxes Melanie had put in storage over six years ago as she was leaving for Starfleet Academy. She had been living with her paternal Grandparents since she was sixteen in Ohio, which had been an extremely turbulent period in her life. As an angry young woman, she had made no effort to connect with them while they were still alive and had spent years being conditioned by life on Earth to try and hide her Romulan heritage. This was made slightly easier by having a largely human looking appearance as she lacked the characteristic pointed ears of the race, a fact that filled the conflicted young officer with resentment.

Thinking back, she nervously rubbed an ear as she recollected. It was a habit she had for her entire life. A habit she had only recently learned was due to her human father having had her Romulan ears surgically altered when she was young enough to block the traumatic memory out. And that was only the tip of the iceberg of revelations.

After she had recovered from her injuries, the ships Chief Medical Officer and her friend Asa Dael let her know the results of an extensive genetic scan that revealed that when her ears were surgically altered, she had also underwent somewhat sloppy genetic manipulation to make her appear more human. It left her blood a strange brown hue for years and Asa was concerned that if left as it was, would end up causing deteriorating genetic damage as she got older.

Looking at her hand, she couldn't help but notice a change in her skin tone. She was only a day into a gene therapy regimen that would last another five days. It made her nauseated in the morning and just a little constipated, but it was also regulating her system and her copper based blood was clearing itself of the side effects of decades old sloppy tampering. Within a week her blood would be as green as any other Romulan and her complexion was becoming decidedly more olive as a result.

Grabbing a glass of syntholic Romulan Ale on her nightstand and taking a drink, Melanie rolled her eyes at herself. She was trying to make an effort to stop obsessing over what had been done and move forward while trying to rediscover herself. And she felt that the three boxes in her room we're a first step in doing so.

This was the new Melanie Dox, or Mnhei'sahe, which she now knew was her original given name. And she was going to stop beating herself up over her past of it was the last thing she did. She took another sip, wishing it were the real thing as it would make forgetting her anxiety more than a little easier. The thought gave her a smile as she set the glass back down and pulled the lid off of the first box.

It had been years since she had seen any of the items. Possessions from her childhood that she tucked away to avoid unpleasant memories and reminders of past pain. A trend she was only now realizing was more than a little problem for her. On the top of the box was a dusty, high school yearbook that she began to think through. She had only the one picture in it, a three dimensional bust of a nineteen-year-old Melanie with a slightly dour expression on her face, largely hidden behind an unkempt mane of curly auburn hair. The other faces blurred together in her memory for the most part. A collage of people that had little impact on her other than the background noise of bullying that reinforced her introversion.

She tossed the book on the floor by the side of the bed without much of a thought and continued to dig through the box, pulling out an antique jewelery box. Melaine pulled open the lid, which stuck a little from not having been opened in years. The slight smile on her face broadened into a wide grin as she pulled out a handful of various coins. Old Earth coins, Ferengi Latinum, Klingon Darseks, and more.

Letting the coins run through her fingers, she looked at them and her mind drifted back. Physical currency might not have been used on Earth but such things still had an appeal to Melanie.

Friends were not a commodity she had any stock in during her few years on Earth as a sullen little ex-smuggler. But she had skills that at least attracted her share of acquaintances interested in the things she knew how to get her hands on. Real Romulan Ale, for instance. And while the coins had little real value on Earth, they were still hard to get and Melanie found value in the stories they reminded her of. And the bitter teenager liked sending people who wanted Romulan Ale or Klingon Bloodwine on wild goose chases for actual money. It was one of the few little pleasures she allowed herself to enjoy in those years.

She set the box aside on her nightstand next to her drink and kept digging. Most of the items were casual things that didn't mean much to her. Old shirts that stopped fitting years ago and meaningless paperwork she long ago forgot why she thought it was important enough to keep.

Getting up, she put the first box in the back corner of her small closet and tossed the yearbook on top of the lid. The box of coins, she placed on the single ornamental shelf she had in the corner of the room next to the framed picture she kept of the senior staff of the Hera.

Swapping the now empty glass for a freshly replicated drink, Melanie flopped back onto the bed with legs crossed in front of the other two boxes. She pulled the tops off of both, looking inside. In the second box was a series of older books she had had for years, some from the modest library she had as a child growing up on the smuggling ship, the Forager.

The first she pulled out was a thick, dark green leather-bound hardcover tome. Taer'thaiemenh, by the Romulan author V. Raiuhes Ahaefvthe. The book where she first read about the Romulan principal of honor defined as 'ruling passion'. Or as it was known in Rihan, the Romulan language: Mnhei'sahe.

This time, the rush of emotions was a positive one. She had read the book a few times growing up and could never understand why it was so important to her. The memories of the name her mother had given her were buried with those of the violation of having her appearance surgically altered against hers and her mother's will. Suddenly, seeing the old dog eared book, she was flooded with the emotions of old memories. Of the feelings of happiness before she learned to feel shame at being Romulan.

Wiping the dust off of the old book with the bottom of the t-shirt she was wearing, she set it gently beside her with a smile. She was as much Mnhei'sahe as she was Melanie and she was learning to be comfortable with that idea.

The other books were a mix of books from Earth and Vulcan. Surak's Analects, A Wrinkle in Time, Falor's Journey, and more. Books she hadn't read in years that she suddenly felt like revisiting. Looking up at her sparsely decorated quarters, Melanie scrunched her face and tilted her head.

"Computer... Project holographic representation of available... Four shelf bookcases in that corner of the room." Melanie gestured with her hand as she spoke towards the wall opposite the small couch along the windows of her room.

=^=There are 1,877 currently available design options in the replication catalog. Please refine search parameters.=^=

Rolling her eyes and sighing at the somewhat pedantic response, Dox replied. "Cross-reference designs using similar materials and designs as the existing shelf unit on the opposite wall, please."

=^=There are 19 available designs. Beginning holographic presentation cycle.=^=

Getting up from the small alcove her bed was in, Melanie grabbed her drink and her copy of Taer'thaiemenh and walked over to the living room as the first Holographic representation of bookshelves began. The designs were all fairly simple, and after about a minute, she smiled. "Computer, pause."

Holding her book up to see that it would fit easily between the shelves, Melanie smiled again and took a sip of her drink. "Perfect... Computer, please order shelving unit 7 and replicate in place as shown."

The computer chirped, and moments later a shimmer of light and the hum of energy flared in the room leaving a very real set of shelves where moments earlier was only a hologram. Melanie placed her book prominently in the center, smiling.

About twenty minutes later, the medium sized shelves all were about half filled with the remaining items from her three small boxes. In the middle, was her modest library of books. On the top shelf was a small model of a Romulan D'deridex class Warbird that she had built as a young girl that was missing half of one nacelle with the paint faded and chipped.

Laying next to the model was her previous uniforms Comm Badge. The Symbol of the Federation she had first worn when she came on the Hera before changing the emblem for the one on her new uniform. On the shelf below the books was the Romulan disruptor she had purchased at the auction she had attended with Captain Telvan and the Baroness, deactivated of course. Next to the disruptor was a small identification document with her picture that read 'Baroness Fifth Class Melanie Dox of the Artan Family', given to her by Captain Telvan on that same mission.

Barely filling out the rest of the sparsely populated shelves was her academy class ring and her small but seldom used keyboard along with the small Vulcan Brazier given to her by Lieutenant Sonak to aid in her mental training and meditation.

It was a small collection of memories, but it was a start and sure to grow the longer she served on the Hera. The pieces of her lives didn't need to be sources of pain or regret anymore unless she let them be and she was determined to figure out not only who she was but everything that she could be.

It had been days since Melanie Dox mind melded with the HERA's Vulcan science officer, Lieutenant Sonak. The meld was to help her mentally and emotionally process the damage that had been done to her mind by the god Anansi, and to help her reconcile the damage done to her body as a child at the hands of her father.

Sitting on the floor in her sparesly appointed senior crew quarters, the young Junior Grade Lieutenant was relaxed, focusing on the flame of the small Vulcan brazier Lieutenant Sonak had given her for this purpose. Her breathing was slow and steady and her room was completely quiet, but for the ever present hum of the Nebula-class Starships warp engines.

She had been told that the effects of a mind meld would often fade within a few hours at the longest after the connection was severed. But Melanie found that she still retained a strong echo of the event and that through meditation, the emotional clarity Sonak had helped her see as a possibility became easier to remember. Perhaps, Sonak pondered, that it was the physical make up of Melanie's mind that was helping her hold on to the positive effects of the meld as she was Romulan on her mother's side. Romulans were, after all, a sister race that splintered off from Vulcan generations ago. But it left the two peoples with essentially identical biologies.

Regardless of why she retained such strong memories of the mind meld, Melanie was determined to continue to work on it. The meditation technique was one that Sonak had been teaching her to help her strengthen her mental diciplines and her mental defenses. The invasion into her mind had been extremely traumatic and she was determined to do whatever she could to keep it from happening again.

In these meditations, she also sought to add clarity to the memories she had all but forgotten from her early childhood. And in the moment, as she breathed softly, a face came to her in the calm darkness of her own mind.

It was a Romulan man, maybe 45 years old. He was somewhat handsome, but with a weariness about the eyes. She could see her was wearing a Romulan uniform, and on the collar the insignia of the Tal Shiar. A Romulan intelligence force feared throughout the system. But the face didn't inspire fear in her memory, as it smiled softly down at her.

"Farewell, little Mnhei'sahe." The man said with a sad smile, speaking in Rihan, the Romulan language she had grown up speaking. It was her true name and upon hearing it again, she was taken out of her meditative state by the surprise of it.

The face was different, but familiar. Dox knew she had seen it before as her mind raced trying to remember. Then, as if opening a door to see an old friend, it came to her.

Standing up, she stepped over to the shelf across the room to replace the brazier, and after doing so she picked up another item. It was an identity card that read 'Baroness Fifth Class Melanie Dox of the Artan Family'. It had been given to her by Captain Telvan for a mission she had taken with the Captain and Baroness Schwein von Alcott. And it was there, when the trio had been at a secret auction off ship that she had seen that face.

------------------

After a quick call, Dox threw her uniform back on and made her way down to Shuttlebay three, and the small Romulan ship that was kept there. The 'Fluffernuttenfaust' was the property of the Baroness Schwein von Alcott, and she was exactly who Dox hoped had the answer she was looking for.

Standing now just outside the open hatch of the refurbished Charon class shuttle, Dox called into the open hatch. "Lieutenant Melanie Dox requesting permission to come aboard."

Schwein had been doing some minor maintenance on her ship and generally been taking it easy since her recent traumatic injuries and had decided to take a break, having just poured a glass of Romulan ale and sat down in the small modified lounge. She'd been ordered to take it easy, but the trip with the Captain and Melanie had aggravated her injuries and she didn't exactly want to tell the ship's doctor about it so she'd been hiding out on her ship for a while, recovering. Since all the doors were open, it was easy to hear Melanie approach so when she called out, Schwein called back. "Permission granted! I'm in the lounge!" She then poured the Lieutenant a glass of the blue ale as well, just in case.

"It is good to see you again. Romulan Ale?" asked Schwein with a smile as she offered Melanie a glass as she came aboard. Instead of her normally elegant and regal outfits, she was in blue work clothes which had been stained with grease and her normal eyepatch was missing, her cybernetic eye glowing with a golden light.

As the anxiety that was her standard operating system had returned in full, Dox welcomed the offer and took the drink as she stepped in. "Thank you, I could certainly use some of the real stuff right about now."

Noticing that the Baroness looked a little tired and well aware of the injuries she was recovering from, Dox paused before drinking. "How goes the recovery?"

"Slower than I'm used to, but fast enough," Schwein replied with a soft smile. "Please do not worry yourself. I will be fine in time. I just won't be able to go fighting any Amazons any time soon, ja? Now please, relax, drink."

Smiling, Dox took a drink. Dox noticed the somewhat beautiful glow of the Baroness' cybernetic eye, which was a part of what she was there for. But she also didn't want to be overly rude to the friendly greeting in spite of her preoccupation.

"Nice. I have to remember you have the good stuff." The young part-Romulan who knew her Romulan Ale commented with a smile. "May I?" She gestured with the drink in hand to a free seat opposite the Baroness.

"Please, you are my guest." Motioning to the seat, Schwein leaned back in her own chair and sipped her own ale and relaxed. "It is a good day to rest, I think, ja? But you seem stressed over something. Is there something I can do for you?"

Sometimes it bothered Dox at just how clearly it showed on her when she was stressed or preoccupied, but she tried not to dwell on that. "Sorry, yes. I've... well I been... dealing with a lot of stuff lately." Dox didn't know the Baroness nearly as well as her other shipmates, so she felt a little reserved at first.

"To make an extremely long story short, I've had... Well... memories of things I forgot from my childhood brought to the surface lately." She nervously rubbed the edge of one of her cropped ears as she spoke. "And one of them... I'm hoping you actually might be able to help me with."

Her tone shifted to an apologetic one. "It's about... Well... And I am EXTREMELY sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds..." Dox took a drink to calm her nerves. "You used your eye to scan the room when we were at the auction. Does it... keep recordings of anything you see?"

For Schwein, Melanie was another sister in arms so even knowing little about her, with Enalia's trust in the woman, that was enough to place her full faith in Melanie's hands. "For a cycle or three. Sometimes I keep special recordings as well. Our recent adventure is one such recording."

Finishing off her ale, the golden eyed woman set aside her glass and grabbed a Romulan PaDD out of a wall alcove and started tapping at it, bringing up a copy of the recording in question. "My eyepatch blocks about eighty percent of what my eye can see to help reduce migraines. I had it off for most of the time there though. For... Intimidation..." Satisfied with the results, she handed it off to Melanie. "If there is someone you need more information on, you let me know."

Taking the PaDD in hand, the Romulan controls were second nature to her at this point. She was somewhat surprised at how readily such things she had thought forgotten were coming back to her. "Thank you."

She gave a glance at the Baroness as she spoke, thinking again that she found the golden glow of her eye far more interesting and even pretty rather than intimidating. But her focus was on the PaDD as she scrolled through the files, logged with time indexes.

"There was a Romulan male there. The one I mentioned got his pockets picked. About... 70 I would figure. And he..." Then the image came up on the screen and Melanie's eyes went wide.

"YES!! There he is!" She said, not noticing she had slipped into her native Rihan for a moment. "Sorry..." She corrected herself in English. "This is him. I... I KNOW him. From when I was a kid. He's different, but I KNOW I know him."

"I have done work with him, I think. He trades information, ja?" Grabbing another PaDD, Schwein started rifling through more old files, going back years looking for the guy until she found him again, this time up close and personal in a back alley dressed in a Tal Shiar uniform. Schwein handed this off to Melanie as well. "Same man, from when I joined the Artan Pirates."

The image matched the man in her mind, and she sat back in her chair in shock as a flood of memories entered her brain.

After a full half minutes just staring that the screen, Melanie spoke again. "Dralath... Dralath tr'Rul. I... remember him. He was with the Tal Shiar. But... he... something happened. He knew my mother, I think." The memories were still a jumble in her minds eye.

"What's the plan then?" Schwein sat there, half a grin, waiting and hoping they could go out and either find him or get Melanie's mother. "Whatever it is, I'm with you, Sister."

Sitting, somewhat lost in thought, the Baroness' words snapped her out of it. "Huh... Plan?" She let out a heavy sigh. "I have no idea, Schwein. I need to find out everything I can about him, do you have any file access?"

Schwein pulled out another PaDD and started pulling up even more data, the golden light of her cybernetic eye twinkling merrily as she worked. "I have access to Starfleet, Klingon, pirate, Cardassian, Ferengi... Many databases, many files... Ah, three matching records. Starfleet Intel, Ferengi Liquidations, and Tortuga Station." Making sure the files were copied to the PaDD securely, she handed that one over to Melanie as well, then refilled their glasses with more Romulan Ale. "I will need more PaDDs soon, I think, ja?"

Talking another drink, this time a longer swig, Dox looked at the PADDs intensly. For the slightest of moments, she was concerned that this might not be strictly within Starfleet regulations. But considering that she was sitting on a Romulan shuttle re-fitted by the Baroness docked in a secret shuttle bay on a starship headed by a Pirate queen, the thought left as quickly as it came up.

"It says here that he was a Tal Shiar investigator. He defected during the Reman occupation of the Senate and used the chaos to clear most of his records from Romulus. He's been dealing in black market information ever since. Officially, he's been off the grid for...about fifteen years."

Looking at the PaDDs, Dox looked forlorn and had a sad expression on her face. She let out a heavy sigh and cleaned off her drink. "Thank you. I really appreciate this. I just need to figure out what it all means, I guess."

"We could probably track him down at Tortuga station, if you want to visit there." Schwein finished her own glass again, then refilled both once more. "He might have some answers. He might also have trouble."

Melanie smiled at the Baroness' willingness to run off at a moment's notice to answer her questions. It was yet another example to the young Officer that the Hera was something special. "Thanks... but I think some of what I need is up here." She pointed to her head.

Letting out an awkward chuckle, Dox continued. "It's... Uncomfortable... knowing that you chose to forget parts of your own life because it was too hard to remember."

"Ja, this I understand well," Schwein chuckled softly as she sipped at her ale and leaned back in her chair, relaxing once again. "When I was growing up in the training camp my fellow orphans and I faced many ordeals, but now I look back on them and I do not remember most of them. I barely remember Dummerchen or Hahnchen or Motzen... Even though we shared so much together."

"I'm sorry." Dox replied. She didn't want to go into her own traumas as they felt insignificant in comparison. "They were your friends?"

"As much as anyone is when you are an orphan in a super soldier training camp." Shwein shrugged and took another drink of her ale. "We fought together and learned teamwork. We were indoctrinated together. We almost died together when the Syndicate attacked. I hear that you faced a much harder enemy though. Rather than scientists we hated, you had to combat yourself and your own parents growing up. I cannot imagine a worse foe."

Slumping slightly forward in her seat, Melanie took a breath. Part of her didn't want to call it all up again, as she had been making significant progress processing it all. But the Baroness seemed genuinely concerned. "It... was my father."

Dox paused for a moment. "He couldn't stand having a Romulan for a daughter. So, when I was barely five he... Kidnapped me. Took me from my Mother and had me surgically and genetically altered to seem more human. More like HIS daughter."

Rubbing and ear, she looked up and nodded at the Baroness as she spoke. "Had my ears cropped like a dogs. Had my... DNA altered to try an repress my own genes, which turned my blood to mud. And apparently I was awake when this happened... so I blocked it all out."

Taking a breath, Dox closed her eyes for a few seconds, thinking of the flame and her training from Sonak and she felt a center of calmness inside of her that she held on to as she opened her eyes. "My mother... she let me forget to spare me the pain. Stopped using my... my real name because it gave me flashbacks at the time. 'Melanie' was the closest human approximation my father called me and it's what stuck."

This was the first time Dox had thought of it as her real name and the idea was somehow empowering to her in that moment. Without being asked, she smiled at the Baroness and spoke again.

"It's Mnhei'sahe. That's my given name."

"It's a beautiful name, Mnhei'sahe." Schwein smiled softly, her German accent coloring the name a bit as she said it. "This explains your nervous habit of rubbing your ears at least. This may not be my place to say, but the Doctor is a skilled surgeon. They may be able to unravel your DNA and restore your original code and your ears. If you choose to do so. Your memories are your own to reclaim and I recommend you fight for them. No matter what you decide though, as your Sister in Arms, I will support you."

Holding up her arm, Dox pulled the sleeve back to show the veins in her wrist clearly. "Doctor Dael already corrected the DNA damage. It's been... weird watching my blood change colors in my own veins. Skins gotten a little thicker and changed color a little, too. It's taking some getting used to." She chuckled, with a little nervousness in her voice.

"I've been on the fence about... the rest." But the anxiety vanished as quickly as it arrived. Suddenly, the thought wasn't quite as frightening. "But thanks. I do appreciate the support." The smile on her face was warm and sincere.

"Maybe your anxiety will fade away as well, ja? Explains the odd scans when you entered. I thought it was nervousness and did not want to pry so I asked rather than scanned further." Schwein finished her drink and once again refilled their glasses with the good stuff. "Either way, you have something to celebrate I think."

Taking a drink, Dox thought on her words. It felt good to feel like another piece of the puzzle that was her past was in sight. She may have more questions than answers, but they were questions that kept her moving forward.

His name was Dralath tr'Rul. That much Melanie Dox was sure she remembered. The information she had gotten from her friend and fellow shipmate, the Baroness Schwein von Alcott confirmed her memories that he was a former member of Romulan Tal Shiar intelligence.

That information said that he escaped his service in or around stardate 2379, taking advantage of the short-lived Reman coup of the Senate and the ascension of Shinzon of Remus to the seat of Romulan Praetor. It was a turbulent time on Romulus that also effectively put an end, for a time, to the Reunification movement designed to bring the Romulan and Vulcan people together again.

As such, it effectively put Melanie and her Romulan mother Jaeih out of business. They were smugglers, but what they smuggled most were refugees, intelligence, and supplies in aid of that movement. After that point, they were forced to return to more... general smuggling to survive.

In her quarters aboard the U.S.S. HERA, Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox sat in the center of the floor, trying to lose herself in thought. Concentrating on the small flame In the Vulcan brazier before her. Her initial memory of Dralath tr'Rul's face came to her practicing the meditative techniques she was being taught by her fellow officer, Lieutenant Sonak. Sonak was one of the many friends she had made since coming on board not that long ago as a pilot and being a Vulcan Kolinahr master, his mind was among the most disciplined in the Galaxy.

As she slumped back, flat on to the floor with a sigh, Melanie Dox groaned loudly, lamenting the decided LACK of discipline in her mind today. Today, her Romulan physiology was not helping her dredge up any further memories concerning Dralath tr'Rul.

She couldn't remember how or why she knew him. And she certainly couldn't remember why she knew that he knew her. In her vision, she saw his face clearly, from what had to be nearly 25 years ago speaking her true name with a warm smile. She could still hear his voice in her mind as she thought.

"Mnhei'sahe." Echoed in her mind.

She thought about contacting her mother, but as their holographic communications, we're not only closely monitored by Starfleet intelligence, as Jaeih was a political prisoner carrying out her sentence on Earth in service to them, that wasn't the best idea. It also wasn't wise to drop the name of a former member of the Romulan Gestapo on a subspace channel a thousand plus light years from Earth. That was a quick way to get your signals too much attention.

It was probably the copious amounts of Romulan ale provided by the Baroness earlier that evening that was making it difficult for Melanie to concentrate and clear her mind. She wasn't quite drunk, as the young part-Romulan could hold her liquor fairly well. But she wasn't 100% sober either. The thought of being completely drunk sent a shutter down Melanie's spine, as it made her think of her human father and what he did to her in a drunken fit of jealousy. Kidnapping her to have her surgically and genetically altered to appear more human to sate his disgust at having a Romulan daughter.

Her memories of Declan Dox were few and far between and rarely pleasant. He was not a significant part of most of her life and the parts he was there for tended to leave her more damaged than not. As her mind wandered, she saw again the face of Dralath tr'Rul smiling at her. Her given name again echoing in her memory. Dox sat back up slowly, with a quizzical look on her face.

The extremely detailed genetic tests that Doctor Asa Dael performed proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that Declan Dox was her father. With the alterations he had performed on her genetic code now repaired, her DNA was now predominantly Romulan, but just enough DNA from her human father was still present. But suddenly she was questioning that relationship. He was her father biologically. It was he that changed her name to 'Melanie' to further distance her from her Romulan heritage.

She knew that Declan was only around for at LEAST the first five years of her life, and she barely remembered him. But now she began to wonder if Dralath tr'Rul had been there instead during those forgotten years. Her mind kept wandering to him when she thought of her father, and the questions were maddening.

Again, she focused on the small flame in front of her and took a deep breath. Releasing it, she began to breathe slowly again. In and out in time to the pulsing light of the flame. If the memory was truly within her, she knew that clearing her mind with Sonak's techniques would be the best path to recovering it.

As she silenced her mind, she muttered under her breath in the Romulan language of Rihan. "Who are you, Dralath tr'Rul?"

"Who am I?"

The door chime sounded about 0.4 hours sooner than Lieutenant Junior Grade Asa Dael was prepared for. Granted, not much was going to save their attempt at cooking, but the doctor had still been hoping for a bit more time to prepare.

As the door gave entry to Melanie Dox, Asa ran their hands through their closely shorn hair. Scrambled eggs with bacon and toast had seemed like such a safe plan. That was before Asa learned how much bacon grease pops when cooked, causing them to need to change shirts twice, and leaving the doctor thankful there was no need for a fire alarm in their quarters.

Outside of the kitchen area, the rest of their quarters was as austere as when they first moved in. Aside from a few pictures of Asa’s late mother and brother, they had not individualized the space. It was moderately embarrassing, but there just had not been time to fret over such frippery until the last few days.

“Um, Hi Melanie, come on in,” Asa called over their shoulder.

A little ball of nervousness in her stomach tightened slightly as Melanie stepped in, a small canvas bag in one hand. Almost any kind of social scenerio tended to get to the anxious young pilot, but she was determined to continue pushing past that with the friends she had been making on board the Hera. And she certain counted Asa among the best of those.

"Hey, Doc. Uh... sorry to pop over early... Um... But I thought maybe I could help." The short, rotund young part-Romulan smiled awkwardly as she stepped in. "But also, there's no bulkhead thick enough to block the smell of bacon." She chuckled slightly as she spoke.

"Right??" Dael replied enthusiastically, "It's not hard to see why 20th Century eathers started the tradition of putting bacon in so much of their food. If you want to grate some cheese, that would be good. I was just about to scramble the eggs...as soon as I remember how to do that. Hey, how you feeling with the DNA patch? Those green veins are looking goooood!"

Dox put her bag down near the door and sheepishly looked at her wrist as she stepped over to the cheese Asa had gestured towards. As the skilled El Aurian doctor had mentioned, her veins were visibly green now as a result of extensive genetic therapy to repair the recently discovered genetic manipulation Melanie's father had done to her as a child to try and repress her Romulan DNA.

"Yeah..." Melanie chuckled awkwardly. "This... Is going to take some getting used to, ya'know? It's weird." Not wanting to allow herself to wallow in her own tendency to overthink and lament the events of her childhood that she had only recently learned about, she decided to bring the tone back up.

"And hey, you may get a really good look at how my veins are doing depending on how well I can handle this thing." Melanie said with a more relaxed laugh, holding up the cheese grater and waving it back and forth.

Peeking over at Melanies arms, Asa nodded to themself, happy with the progress thus far. "Weeeeeeeeellllll, let's not get quite that close a view, if you don't mind," they said with a wink.

"I'm not the best cook ever, but I generally try to avoid seasoning with blood. Gotta keep work and home separate, ya know? You ever wanna get super weird, there is this outpost near Fluxon 9 that sells tablets that turn make your blood glow under black light, so when they party with black lights on, you can see everyone's veins gyrating to the music. Always sounded like a bit of a weird fascination, but hey, to each their own."

"Oh my... seriously? Yeah, no. Just green is weird enough right now. Nobody needs to see me looking like an emergency glow stick." Melanie chuckled as she grated the cheese.

The doctor snorted a laugh at the mental picture.

"Now, I can't cook to save my life, but I brought over some stuff I programmed into the replicator." Melanie gestured with her head towards to the bag at the door. "Been trying to kind of reincorporate some old dishes my mother used to... well... replicate. She can't cook either." Melanie chuckled lightly as she spoke. "Romulan stuff that I haven't really let myself eat in years."

"So, for desert I brought over some Romii tree candy, Osol twists, AND a bottle of lehe'jhme wine that the Baroness gave me."

"Never had any of it, but I do love dessert, so I'm sure it's great!" Asa enthused, "And I always thought blacklight veins was weird myself. Imagine what its like after filtered out by the liver and kidneys....does it make your pee glow? As a person, I'm curious. As a doctor, I'm a bit mortified."

When the bacon had cooked as was coming out of the oven, Asa reached for an oven mitt, and noticed the mitt was beige. The walls were beige. Their bed cover was brown. The whole dang quarters was brown, beige, or gray. Having not spent too much time in their quarters, the doctor had not noticed previously.

"Melanie....it's really sad in here, isn't it? Good grief, Starfleet loved some earthen tones when they decorated in here. I need to spruce this place up. What do you think, you up for some decorating tonight?"

"Ouyyirev, you're asking ME? Asa, you've been in my quarters. It's the same room, except I finally put up a shelf." Melanie laughed.

"A shelf." Letting out a chuckle, Melanie continued. "But we are two reasonably competent Junior Lieutenants. We should be able to handle this." She shot a smile over her shoulder at Asa.

Giggling Asa realized they had just asked someone with no decorations in their quarters for decorating advise. The doctor was putting the eggs on to cook and replied, "We are a bit silly, aren't we? Rita's quarters look like she has lived there forever, and she hasn't been here much longer than us. I guess some people just have the touch. Gee....I wonder if the holo-projectors work on the wall? How cool would that be to have walls that change color and design on a whim? Bad day? Turn on the groovy space wall. Tired? Moonlight over an ocean. Think about it Melanie!"

By the conclusion of their speech, Asa was all but bouncing with the possibilities. While they were not really a decorator, the doctor had dabbled in art from time to time and had a general idea of what they were looking for. Mainly, color. And lots of it.

As Asa spoke, the much lower energy pilot couldn't help but smile. Melanie found Asa's enthusiasm infectious and very fun to be around. "Well, I can tell you know that yes, the holoprojectors can do that. I used them to pick out my... shelf." Letting out a chuckle at herself.

"Ya' know, just the one. Don't want to go crazy." The cheese was fully grated and she brought the bowl over to Asa. "And look, no green garnish on the cheese."

"Hm, ok". Asa plated the bacon and eggs, sprinkling the latter with cheese. They poured grits on each plate and all but drowned the grits in more cheese.

The doctor grabbed the plates and took them to the table, already replete with cutlery and tea. Motioning Melanie to have a seat, Asa continued, "well naturally not. Two shelves would be crazy talk. What about holo projected metallic sparkly curtains between rooms? Too much?"

The question was posed with a grin, indicating Asa qas not serious....well, not entirely serious.

Taking the plate offered, Melanie inhaled deeply, smiling as she spoke. "This smells absolutely delicious, Asa." However, over the last couple of days Melanie thought most foods smelled significantly better or worse than they would have before her gene therapy began.

As she set her plate down, Melanie took a sip of her tea while looking at the open partitions in the room and squinting. "Nah. Get real ones, they'll pick up and reflect the projected colors nicer."

Giggling, Asa replied, "I'm going to make this place look like a color addicted magpie. I do enjoy shiny things, and colorful. Screw it, I'm a professional all day. We're gonna make this place look HAPPY."

The young doctor beamed, picturing shiny curtains, glowing pictures, water features, and all the things they dreamt of growing up in the middle of nowhere. Of course, this would ruin any facade of adulthood to anyone who came in, but everyone deserves an oasis.

"Hnave, it's your room." Melanie interjected, tossing in a Rihan expletive for good measure. "I have a friend I think would tell me to not worry about what anyone else thinks about such things." She smiled, taking a bite of her eggs and making a long, moaning sound of enjoyment as she did. "Or words to that effect. Go for it."

With a snort, Asa began to eat and voraciously consumed bacon at a rate that would seem to belie their small stature. "True. What's a pretty world you can think of? I think a holo-projected landscape with a waterfall would be great. It could even transition from day to night lighting to help keep natural sleep rhythms. I just don't want to do Bajor...too many memories."

Pausing for a few seconds, Melanie took another bite to let her process Asa's last statement. She had read all of the senior staff bios when she came on board and so knew the broadest strokes of Asa's childhood on Bajor. But the talkative and energetic doctor rarely went into details on themselves. However, they were also having fun and so Melanie felt unsure as if she should ask further or let her friends happiness continue, and bemoaned internally how bad she was at socializing in any way.

Thinking about it, she decided to respond in order. "Well, I was a space baby. The only planet I ever lived on was Earth from... 16 until I graduated the academy. Couldn't get off it fast enough, so I have No idea. I'd probably do nebulas and spacescapes or something like that." Taking a drink between thoughts, Melanie leaned in a little.

"Your time on Bajor is something you've not talked about much? Did you want to?" Melanie felt awkward, hoping she didn't just upset her friend.

“Ooooooo Nebulas,” were the first words out of Asa’s mouth. The young doctor loved everything about space, and found so much beauty in the universe. Then, as if hearing the rest of Melanie’s question, they continued, “I don’t mind talking about it. I guess I’ve been reluctant because, to my people, I’m still a child. Not in the way all 50 year old humans look at 20 year old humans and say ‘kids’ these days’ while shaking their head, but, an actual child.”

The doctor reached towards their neck with their left hand, rubbing the back of their neck in a self-soothing gesture. They took a sip of tea and wolfed down a piece of bacon before continuing in a softer voice, “See, my people don’t have a home world anymore. The Borg put paid to that, and then there was that whole everyone-caught-in-a-Nexus-and-now-we-all-have-dormant-abilities-activating-when-we-almost-die thing, which would have been nice to know about before meeting freaking Hera by the way, thanks Dad,” the last was said with a sneer.

Smiling as she listened, Melanie took a bite and commented. "Yeah... what our parents don't tell us, right?"

Realizing they were ranting, Asa’s cheeks blushed slightly, then they continued, “Sorry, anyway, my parents moved to Bajor to live as Bajorans largely live and let live. Once they were living there, onc of the religions based around the wormhole started to infect our colony. Dad went full on religious nut-job, barring us from public schooling, medicine, most of the things great cultures are known for. His ignorance caused my mother to die in childbirth….My baby brother was sickly his whole life. I did what I could for him with the herbs and stolen medicine I procured from nearby villages, but it wasn’t enough. Ultimately, he died. I left home shortly after that and haven’t looked back. The planet is beautiful, and Bajorans were kind people for the most part….but when I see images of Bajor, I just see what I’ve lost.”

Hopping up and walking to the nearby desk, Asa grabbed two small pictures, one of a serene looking woman, similar to Asa but with a more voluptuous form, and a 14 year old boy, frail and skinny, but smiling hugely while reading with Asa nearby. Asa handed the photo’s over to Melanie, saying “This is them. It’s all I took from home when I left. I knew I was clever enough to get into the academy, so I did that. My father has no clue where I am, and if El-Aurian elders got wind of that fact…well, I might need some help not getting kidnapped and taken back home.

Looking at the picture, Dox chucked. "You've met the rest of us, right. I'm fairly certain that between the Captain, Commander Paris and Baroness von Alcott alone they would knock over three systems to stop that from happening." Taking a big bite of bacon, Dox mumbled with a full mouth. "Nor am I above excessive violence, liberally applied as needed."

The androgyne took their seat again, this time with ankles tucked under hind-quarters and arms wrapped around their knees in a self-soothing gesture. In an attempt at levity, Asa continued, “Whenever that last bit of puberty kicks in and my voice starts cracking and I get acne, that’s going to be super embarrassing. “

"I'm sorry to say I have remarkably little knowledge of El Aurian puberty. When the timeline for that. I know your people have extremely long life spans and honestly, that's about it." Dox was slightly embarrassed by her ignorance and blushed a dark green. "Sorry."

Reaching over to lightly punch Melanie's shoulder, Asa chuckled, "Not your fault, my people are annoyingly secretive about everything. As if it would somehow destroy our mystique for people to know we mature physically. Gasp, right? What about you, what was puberty like for you?"

"Aehallh... a nightmare." Dox laughed, rolling her eyes. "I was stuck on Earth, which I hated, living with grandparents I barely liked, surrounded by human teenagers that already gave me a hard time for being part-Romulan. Plus... I was mainlining largely unrestrained Romulan emotions which I managed as well as you can imagine. I was... not pleasant to be around."

Taking a drink of tea, Dox continued. "And that was with those genes artificially surpressed. Lately, I've been feeling like I'm in puberty, part two with my body chemistry finally being righted."

"Puberty buddies!" Asa cheered, toasting with their glass of tea.

"If we get sassy like normal teenagers do, imagine Rita's face!" Asa concluded with a poorly concealed smirk

Snorting and gagging in her tea as she laughed at the idea, Melanie laughed out loud as her throat cleared. "If I get a third as moody as I got the first time around, I think she would just jettison me out into space."

Chuckling Asa's face lit up. It was obvious a thought had just occured to them.

"Computer, holoproject The Avenue of Baobas as surrounding view to all walls please."



The walls shimmied as their appearance took on that of a blue sky, red dirt and grass, with alien looking trees that rose high into the sky with no branches until they rose into a crown atop the tree.



"What ya think?" Asa inquired sheepishly.

Standing up from her seat as her plate was now all but licked clean, Melanie walked around the room taking the projected views in, while sipping her tea. "It's... beautiful. Where is this?"

"Madagascar, on Earth," Dael replied, "I always meant to go, but just never had the time. I was thinking to have this during the day cycle and for night cycle transition to an all-starry sky. Any night time vista you recommend?"

"All I ever saw while I was on Earth was San Francisco and Ohio. It wasn't anything half this interesting." Dox mused. "As far as spacescapes, there's always the Serpens constellation in the Eagle Nebula, the Paulson Nebula or the M8 Lagoon Nebula. Those are all stunning."


"Ooooooooo nice," Asa replied, hopping to their feet and programming both into the computer to project on the walls during the evening time. After setting the program to run on rapid cycle ( about 60 seconds per image), Asa came back to the table and asked Dox, "So, what'cha think? Also, feels like I'm missing furniture. All I have is a love seat, a bed, a desk, and a workstation in the kitchen. What'cha think I need?"

Smirking somewhat awkwardly, Melanie stepped back to look at the room as a whole, with holographic images projecting across the walls. "Well, I have a punching dummy, but I wouldn't call that 'furniture'. I'm not sure... Maybe more places to sit. Like some chairs for visitors around a... What is it called... Coffee table?"

With a laugh, Asa replied, "That's way too grown up. How about an area full of bean bags and pillows and blankets and everyone can just lounge? That's WAY more fun. Plus if I get sick of it, I can just throw it all in the corner. Plus I need rugs. And a dresser. Short to the ground table can't hurt either."

In a dash, the young doctor had run over to grab a PaDD and was typing in specifications for what they wanted. "Purple, red, green, and blue, all gem tones....ok check. Cherry wood on the dresser....ok.....Hey, it's asking me for what type of fabric. What's that soft stuff called? Ankele?"

Walking over to the door where she had put down her bag, Melanie picked it back up pulling out the bottle of lehe'jhme wine and placing the rest on the table with their dinner plates. She held up the bottle, wiggling it from side to side as she spoke. "Would you like a glass?" Then answered the question asked to the best of her ability. "Soft stuff? Asa, I have no idea. Velour? Silk? No, not silk. We'd all slide off and end up on the decks." Dox chuckled as she spoke.

"Chanille? Are you thinking of chenille?" Melanie responded as it came to her.

"YES! That's it!!!!" the excited physician cried. They bolted over to the replicator, producing a pillow made of chenille in purple with emerald green piping. "Feel this stuff, how great is that?? And no, no silk, that stuff always made me feel weird. Like I was trying to get away with something and needed to be slippery...."

Feeling the pillow, Melanie smiled thinking about the threadbare, thin blanket in her quarters that she's held on to since childhood made of the same material. It was no longer soft, but it brought back pleasant memories. "Yeah, this is so very you."

Taking the initiative, the young pilot poured two glasses of the lehe'jhme wine as they spoke, handing Asa a glass and placing the bottle on the counter.

"Actually, If you're still in ElAurian puberty, am I allowed to offer you this?" The part-Romulan Officer smiled as she joked, although hoping she wasn't actually doing anything wrong.

"Wellllllll, I think the medical degree negates that, don't you? I always found cultures that would let people have careers or die in the military before they deemed that person old enough to drink to be odd, don't you?" Asa replied with a giggle.

"I'm... not the best person to ask, really." Melanie took a sip of the wine. "I kinda grew up on this stuff. I guess like the... what is it... the French culture on Earth. I'd drink this with dinner as a kid."

They accepted the drink, taking a huge sip at the fruity flavor, then turning bright red as the alcohol burn kicked in. "Wowza! That's something isn't it?" the surprised physician asked.

"It certainly can sneak up on you if you're not careful. So, a glass with dinner is good but I wouldn't suggest much more if you're not used to it, Doc." Smirking slightly as she spoke, Dox tilted her head back towards her bag. "Of course, I did bring dessert to soak it up. Do you like it, though? It's pretty sweet, but I know you like sweets."

With a mischievous smile, Asa reached out and grabbed some treats from the bag. "When have you known me to turn down dessert? That's the whole point of the meal!!"

Taking another sip of wine, Melanie smiled. "Hey, you introduced me to fondue. Now I can return the favor with some Romulan treats. Hope you like them."

There was nothing hesitant as Asa tried the candies. They immediately put one in their mouth and their face lit up with joy as they consumed the sweet food. "These are awesome! I swear, I could live on candy alone if only stupid nutrition would let me," the doctor said with a smile.

After that the doctor quickly finished replicating pillows, bean bags, rugs, and blankets, all in gemstone colors. Turning sheepishly towards Melanie, Asa asked, "So, um, what do you think? Too much?"

Putting her drink down on the table, Melanie smiled broadly at her friend as she eyed a large, green bean bag. "What do I think?" Flumping down lightly onto the bean bag as she spoke, Melanie looked up at Asa.

"istaere'edh. It's perfection, Asa. It's so wonderfully, perfectly you and I think it's fantastic." In the few months that she had been on the Hera, Melanie had made some of the only friends she had ever had in her adult life. Rita Paris had become something of an older sister to the young Romulan woman, and in turn Melanie felt a similar and familial relationship to the younger ElAurian doctor.

Growing up an only child, suddenly Melanie felt like she had a big sister and a younger sibling and it was a very good feeling. "But the number one, most important question, is do you like it?"

Taking a sip of wine and cuddling into a bean bag with a huge fluffy blanket atop them, Asa smiled hugely, “I love it. Life is hard enough, ones quarters should be comfy cozy.” The doctor snuggled in closer as the lights on the wall slowly rotated, showing different angles of the nebula and casting faint shadows and aura’s around the room.

All was peaceful for a moment until the doctor issued forth a huge hiccup. “Um, maybe that’s enough wine,” was all they said before reaching up to a nearby table and placing their wine cup.

Trying to contain a laugh, Melanie let our a harsh snort at Asa's hiccup as she leaned forward to get up, and failed at the attempt. "Yeah..." She chuckled as she talked. "I'd grab you your tea or a water or something, but your furniture..." She mock-struggled against the plush seat. "Your furniture appears to have eaten my ass."

Raising both fists high in the air, Dael replied, "Success! My diabolical plan has worked! Now you shall be stuck here forever! Mwahahahaha!" The doctor mock cackled at bit before rolling out of the bean bag and hopping up to grab some water. The sudden motion was a bit too much for the slightly intoxicated doctor, and they stumbled forward, caught themself on a nearby chair, and worked with gravity to do an impromptu somersault over the obstacle.

Standing up and looking quite pleased with the result, Asa said, "You know, I couldn't do that on purpose in a million years."

After a second of stunned silence, Dox let out a deep and throaty laugh, throwing her head back. "Nouhha, grab me a glass please. I need to not have anymore wine myself."

The young pilot barely had a single glass and could handle far more before it became a problem, but she wanted to keep her head clear to say what was on her mind, and had been all evening.

"Uh... I... Um... I have a question, actually, Asa." Nervously, she rubbed one of her ears. "A... request... Actually." Melanie's face went green as she blushed.

"I think... I think I'm ready for... A little remodeling of my own." She tugged on her ear conspicuously towards the doctor, hoping her meaning was clear.

Skipping back with a glass of water for Melanie, Asa threw themself on a nearby beanie and considered what had just been said.

"Yeah, of course. I was wondering if you wanted to when we started the gene therapy. Probably going to make your hearing sharper too, so you will get the joy of hearing every time I sing in the shower through the wall," Asa said with a wink.

Joking to somewhat relieve her own stress, Dox chuckled. "It is a price I am more than willing to pay, Freddie." Which was a reference to Asa's performance of a classic song by the Terran band 'Queen' on Ten-Forward a while back.

"Not going to lie though, it will hurt like a bitch the day of. Of course, we can manage the pain, but I don't want you to be surprised. We'll need to re-calibrate your helmet as well, but we need to do that anyway with all the new Romulan-ess in your system now. How has that been acting, by the way?"

"Well, I figured regrowing cartilage on my head wasn't going to be overtly pleasant while it was happening. It's not like a cosmetic prosthetic or anything. But even Lieutenant Sonak agreed that it would likely help me process what was going on inside better if my outsides matched what I saw in my head, if that makes any sense." Dox replied, somewhat more thoughtfully.

Then, after a somewhat strenuous effort, she sat upright in the bean bag to continue. "But it's been going... good, I guess. It's a lot of little subtle things I can just kinda... feel. Tiny things I guess I learned not to think about in day to day living. Like I was saying with Dinner, like things taste a little different. Everything is a little more... more.

"Like... Did you ever have pain that was so consistent you tended to forget it was there? Like a shoulder pain from just sitting hunched over your station weird every day at work. Then you get relief and suddenly you remember there was pain. It's like that, I guess. Like, I got so used to my body being out of whack, that you fixing it is a relief I didn't know I needed." She tugged on an ear, nervously. "Sorry, I'm rambling again."

Thoughtfully, Asa replied, "I think I know what you mean. It was like when as a kid I was forced to sit still too long listening to the elders. My butt would get sore, and then when I moved the thrill of movement bringing back sensation was uncomfortable at first, but ultimately felt sooooooo much better."

Taking a bite of on of the Osal Twists, Melanie nodded. "Yeah, that works too. So, now I can feel my butt again after it's been asleep." She moaned slightly at the taste. "See, this tastes better than I remember. Everything kind of does. Or extra worse." She chuckled while chewing.

"Still, I have to admit that I cannot imagine you have to sit through any elders speeches. I don't know a thing about ElAurian elders, but I'm general, if you hear about any cultures having 'elders' and you know your in for a loooonnngggg speech."

Forgetting her earlier restraint, Dox picked her wine back up and took a drink. "If you don't mind me asking, how old is "elder" where your people are concerned?"

"Around 850 or so, though most resent being called that till some time in their 900s. And you are sooooooooo right. Every time the kids act up, the elders have so much material for how things were better in their day, imagine being lectured how you dont appreciate things because you grew up since the discovery of warp drive technology? Or after the industrial revolution? The lectures were endless. But since we are supposed to all be great listeners, it was not acceptable to show any impatience. Sooooo boooooooooring" the doctor concluded, rolling their eyes for emphasis.

Dox rolled her eyes in mutual sympathy. "My mom was only... 47 when she had me, but was still more than capable of lecturing me into a coma when she wanted to. I can only imagine the ammunition having twenty some odd times the life experiences gave them for lecturing."

Sitting back in the bean bag, Dox took another drink and sighed. "It's weird. Until you fixed my DNA... I just figured my life span would be human. When I didn't now I'd been... broken. Now I'm looking at a potential life span more that twice that expectation. It... changes your perspective a little."

Stopping herself, Dox grunted as she pushed herself up from the ass eating seat. "Sorry. I don't mean to keep getting morose. I guess it's my base setting." She chuckled slightly, trying to bring her mood back up.

"Pfft, no worries. You are way too young for a existential crisis though. Besides, we serve on the Hera, I would say that takes your doubled life span and cuts in half again, so, net effect zero? I really don't dwell on the centuries ahead of me. There is no telling what any of that holds, for either of us. Just try to take each day as it comes, and know that I'll be here, next door, in my psychedelic, over-pillowed quarters, without a shelf," Asa concluded with a grin and a wink.

“Oh hell no.”

Those were the first words Lieutenant Junior Grade Doctor Asa Dael saw upon seeing the vacated office of the ship's counselor.

The office was bare. A water pitcher and a few glasses were on an end table, and a chair for the counselor with the requisite couch for the counselee were all the occupied the room. No art remained on the wall, no little touches to assure the person who entered that this was a place of listening, caring, and compassion. In short, oh hell no.

The slender doctor set about replicating some comfortable throw pillows for the couch, as well as a water fountain made of stone and purple geode’s to burble quietly under a floor lamp in the far corner from the door. The light was glowing with a soft amber yellow glow that cast a cocoon-like hue to the room. They then procured a blanket made of incredibly soft material and a diffuser that could disperse various scented fragrance oils when needed. A mirror was hung on the wall, but it was inside an ornate black and brown scrollwork frame that closed as if it was a dartboard or projection screen. After all, the doctor had learned in Starfleet Medical that sometimes a patient needs to speak to their reflections….and other times it can be harmful to even see it, so they decided to be prepared for both eventualities. Another piece of artwork was hung on the wall over the sofa that had an ornate iron looking frame and could have a variety of images displayed, all able to be changed through an interface on any PaDD.

A white noise machine sat next to the fountain, in case the fountain itself was not enough, and was programmed with over 1000 biorhythms and soothing tones with known therapeutic benefit, and quite a few that just sounded cool. The other two corners not already occupied were furnished with small ficus trees, similar to those often used to decorate the lounges at Starfleet Academy.

Taking in the overall appearance of the room, Asa decided to holoproject a light sky blue paint scheme on to the wall. (After all, that color was known to provide calming environments also) The final touch was a red/brown/navy Persian style rug. “There,” Asa said as they placed it, “That really ties the room together.”

The finishing touches put together, Asa sat down to prepare for their first counseling appointment. After events on the Worldship, Melanie Dox was in need of a bit of therapy, and the doctor had happily volunteered to serve. They were concerned about their own counseling abilities and had stayed up most of the night studying old coursework and reviewing techniques they would likely need in the coming days and weeks. At first, Melanie seemed to think it peculiar Asa wasn’t using their own office for the sessions, but the doctor felt that space to be so….well, clinical. While of course psychology was a science, in order to succeed it needed to feel less sterile and medical for the patient. So, the doctor had decided to set up this space to conduct all counseling needs for the crew. If a future counselor decided to not utilize this space, well, at least Asa knew they tried to set it up well.

Soon enough the door was chiming and the doctor was opening it to admit Melanie.

Stepping in the office that she had hated under its previous occupant, Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox was stunned at how different it had now looked. Dox knew full well of Asa's love of color having assisted in decorating her crewmates own cabin just a couple of evenings ago. And it was on that same night that the young part-Romulan had expressed to the ships Chief Medical Officer that she had made a decision and wanted to have the pointed ears that had been surgically removed against her will as a child restored. But a part of that process was the requirement to see the ship's councilor. It was a concept Dox was terrified of under the aegis of Avender Jurot but 100% comfortable with her new best friend.

However, Dox didn't want that friendship to interrupt what she knew was also a new job for the ships CMO. "Doctor, I'm here for my appointment."

"Please, come have a seat," Asa replied smoothly. They had been told at Academy that one of the hazards of being the CMO is often loneliness- along with the Captain and First Office, a ships doctor knew more about the crew than their own spouses did ofttimes, and that can breed isolation and loneliness.

Once the shy pilot was seated, Asa decided to set some ground rules.

"So, this could be either really great for both of us, or it could be counterproductive and harmful. We both have an equal say in which direction we take. We are going to discuss things in therapy that you might now want to discuss in any other environment. I may need to make suggestions you don't like. It is part of the process. So, I am going to make a commitment to you here and now- barring concerns for your safety or the safety of others, nothing said here makes it out these doors. Ever. So if Asa your goofy next door neighbor is supposed to know something, you are going to have to tell Asa your goofy next door neighbor. Right now, this is Doctor Dael. Doctor Dael knows all about people's warts and woes, and will only act as a professional should. Also, as things told to your friend should not be automatically known to your counselor, so if you want Doctor Dael to know something, you have to tell Doctor Dael."

Gathering steam, the doctor continued, "So if you ever feel that Asa is acting too much like Doctor Dael, or the reverse, just say 'Flip mode'. This can be our code that if things are ever getting too close to a line you don't like, you have a safety phrase to let me know. No one will ever know what it means, but I promise to you to react accordingly as soon as you say it. Also, if we are ever pushing harder than you like, or if things are getting too intense, just let me know. The usual phrases for that are yellow to slow down, red to stop, but you can customize that to how you want. OK, that's a ton of words, too much? I want your feedback on how things are going, so I'm asking now, does the proposed plan sound like what you are expecting or needing?"

Smiling, Dox resisted the natural urge to make a joke with their friend, realizing that they were likey as nervous as she was in the moment. Instead, the redheaded Romulan answered more directly but still warmly. "Absolutely, Doctor Dael. That was just the right amount of words."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Dael replied, thankful their friend had understood the need for a bit of compartmentalization. Truth be told, Asa was concerned about how to maintain the professional detachment required as a counselor, but they figured if they could dig around in their friends bodies, they could have a clinical conversation as well.

"So, how would you describe what brings you here today, Lieutenant?" Dael began the session.

Taking a moment to collect her thoughts, Dox struggled to find the right words. "Closure, I suppose. From a technical standpoint, I require clearance from counciling in order to go ahead with restorative surgery. But ultimately, I need help dealing with a number of... issues that I'm still struggling with in the aftermath of my attack."

"OK, that all sounds reasonable. Those two items are tied together. Part of surgical clearance is the evaluation that your request is not made as a temporary reaction to any recent events, but is instead a long term decision you are certain of. It seems to me you will feel more confident of your choice if you had more clarity on recent events. Would you concur?

The anxious young pilot didn't want to recall the events that precipitated the path she was now on, but she knew that Doctor Dael was right. "I do, yeah."

"Ok, lets start with defining the attack. Can you describe what happened and how it made you feel?"

Taking a deep breath, Dox started. "The recent events... they aren't where this started. Anansi... when he invaded my mind and pulled out my memories... he brought it all out. But what he brought out. It had been building to burst for years, I think."

Sitting further back in her seat, Dox looked down towards the ground. "But Anansi made me face it. Remember it." Taking another moment to collect herself, Dox started over.

"When we were docked at the Worldship, one of the entities that attacked the ship targeted me. He called himself Anansi, the God of stories. He wanted me to give him the experimental flight control helmet. In exchange, he promised to tell me secrets I had forgotten about myself. When I said no... he did it anyway."

"That sounds very cruel to take away your free will. Is what he told you what you say has been bubbling up? What did this bubbling up look like in your life before?"

"H... he didn't tell me as much as show me." Dox said, her voice cracking slightly. "He made me relive the events in my own mind as if they were happening right then. Every smell, every sensation. I could feel how cold it was on the ship. But before that, it was nightmares. Dreams. Feelings. Looking in the mirror and just... knowing that what I saw was somehow wrong. It's hard to put into words."

"But once Anansi pulled my memories back to the surface, I started putting the.pieces together. What I remembered was supported by the physical evidence you found in Sickbay. Eventually, my Mother confirmed the rest. That what I was made to remember was real. That it had always been real."

Scootching back up in the chair, Dox cleared her throat. "From there, I've been dealing with it all the best I can. With help from you, Commander Paris, Lieutenant Sonak."

The doctor tapped their chin with their fingers thoughtfully for a moment. They leaned forward and kept their face soft but professional, and once establishing eye contact with Dox spoke softly.

“Dealing with it is good, but we can do better. We can process our traumas and move forward with health and clarify. From what you have said, a lack of clarity looks like bad dreams, feelings of foreboding, and dissociation from your mental image and physical form. That’s a good baseline for what you want to change. What would being “better” look like to you beyond the cessation of bad dreams and dissociation? Think in terms of what you want long term, and we can set the path to get there.”

Sitting in her chair, Dox found it difficult to maintain eye contact with Asa. The conflicted pilot couldn't separate the Doctor from her friend as well as she had been trying to and was terrified to say how she really felt. It may not have made sense logically, but Dox was still afraid to show just how broken she was and risk pushing her friend away.

But she closed her eyes tight for a moment, trying to quiet the angry, scared voices that dogged her throughout life. "Sorry. It's... I'm not."

Stamering, Dox pushed the words out. "I want to be... whole. I know I can't undo what happened, but I want to at least try and put the pieces back together so I can have a chance at not being... being broken all the time."

"I've felt like huge chunks of... who and what I. have been missing my entire life. Suddenly, knowing what some of that is has... helped. Knowing I wasn't just crazy, that something was taken away from me has helped a little already."

Nodding their head in understanding, Asa waited to make sure Dox was done speaking before they said, “Validation is very important, and can greatly help us in our recovery. Part of being whole does sound like it will be restorative surgery to allow your physical appearance to match you internal sense of self. That is important. I would ask you to consider that you are not broken though, no matter how much you feel like it. If you met someone who had their bodily autonomy taken away from them as a child, would you consider them broken? Or would you consider the acts that were done to them to be the issue? What level of compassion would you offer that person? I ask you to please try to show that same compassion to yourself. So, let’s try that now….imagine you have just met someone who had their body scarred and their identity erased as a child. They tell you they feel they are worth less than others because of this. What would you say?”

Asa sat back, waiting patiently for an answer. They knew this was the hardest part of therapy. Each person tends to view themselves in a harsher light than they would others, and helping patients to view themselves with compassion is often a first step, one Asa was not sure they were qualified to help Melanie take. It took iron resolve to keep the “doctor face” as Dael referred to it in their mind in place, but Asa was determined that Melanie felt cared for and knew that she had value.

Leaning back in the chair, Dox let out a heavy sigh and shut her eyes tight again. The awkward aviartix fidgeted in her seat for a full minute.

Putting her fist up to her mouth, under her nose, Dox's eyes were now open, glistening with the tears she was forcing down. She was angry now. Not at Asa, but at herself for knowing the answer and not wanting to say it. Sniffling, Dox finally spoke again with a slightly broken voice.

"I'd... I'd tell them they were wrong. I'd tell them that what... what happened to them wasn't their fault but that they had every RIGHT to feel hurt and angry and betrayed. I'd tell them that it would get better because I wouldn't let them face it alone."

Tears flowed freely down her plump cheeks as she paused, her face scrunched into a knot as she whispered. "I'd tell them it... it wasn't their... their fault."

Asa reached behind their seat and grabbed a box of facial tissues they had stashed earlier and passed them to Melanie wordlessly. Once the pilot had a chance to breath for a moment, Asa said in a soft voice, "It wasn't your fault. I won't let you face this alone."

With the tissue in hand, Asa's words were one step more than Dox could handle and the fragile young woman finally let herself just cry for a moment. Slowly, the tears stopped and she paused to take a breath. Feeling self conscious again, she muttered. "S... sorry."

"Lieutenant, you may be feeling silly or like a burden right now. A lot of people do when they first start therapy, or they feel like their honest emotional reactions are too much. Let me make sure you understand something today- emotional reactions are good. For sentient beings that have emotions, when we bottle them up, it causes more harm than good. I'm so proud that you are letting yourself feel things. The fact you can describe how the floor felt, or the physical sensations around your attacks is also very promising. It means you are not dissociated from the events- you didn't go away in your head, and you are allowing yourself to remember. Fully incorporating the trauma into your psyche is how you are going to be able to look at it and see it for what it was- something that was done to you. It does not define you, and it does not lessen you. We are going to move past this, together, I promise you. Have you done any journeling around the events?"

Her voice was quiet and still cracked as she answered. "N... no. I tried recording a log but I just stop and delete everything."

The doctor nodded in an understanding manner and replied in the same gentle tone they had been using, “I’m going to recommend using old school pen and paper for this one, actually,” Asa replied, “There is something therapeutic about putting it on physical paper, the physical connection to what you are writing is cathartic. So, that’s going to be homework for next time. I guess I should have mentioned, each session we do will have homework to be completed before our next appointment. Sorry about that…Anyway, for next time, replicate yourself a journal. A pretty one, or a functional one, or one that in some way gives you joy when you see it. Then get yourself a pen you want to use. I don’t care if it’s a feather or scented markers- just something that you will enjoy the physical act of using. Then write the memories of what happened when you were a child, but instead of focusing only on events, I want you to write what you felt. I want to know when you felt something cold, or what sound was in the background, if you bit your lip and tasted blood, or if there was an itchy loose string in your clothing. On top of all that, I want you to write down what thoughts you remember thinking in that moment. I’m going to give you an example…”

Bending between their legs and under the chair, Asa picked up a small journal, bound in deep crimson leather with an embossed tree on the front. It was battered looking and appeared to have been used often. A few loose pages attempted to make an escape, but were gently tucked back in by the doctor.

Sensing the question in the air, Asa said with a slight shrug, “This is my journal. I’ve had it for about 2 years, and I used it to process some things I went through as a child as well. I’m going to read you a brief few sentences from an entry about hiding from my father.”

”I am hiding in the corridor in the rear of the assembly, I can feel a pebble in my right shoe trying to work its way from my heel to the toe. It is hot outside, too hot to enjoy, and I think that the heat is going to make father angrier. I am afraid of his anger and try to make myself smaller. There is a smell of petrichor in the air, and I hear steps approaching my hiding spot.”

Listening intently, Dox's stomach tightened. In that moment, hearing of Asa's own pain, she found it impossible to separate her friend Asa from her Councilor, Doctor Dael.

The book journal closed gently as Doctor Dael made eye contact with Melanie again. “Now, you aren’t going to get all those details at first. This was after years of practice on my part. And you may not be able to do the whole thing on the first try. Honestly, I’d be surprised if you did. Just write what you can, and when you are done, write how you feel after journaling your memories. Then, the next day, re-read what you wrote and journal how reading it makes you feel. Repeat that process each day until same time next week, sound ok?...Does that sound achievable?”

Bringing her focus back to what Asa was saying as a Counselor, Dox nodded silently at first before speaking. Her face was flush with a twinge of green around her eyes where she had been crying and her voice was still broken. "Yeah." She sniffled. "Yeah, I can do that. yeah."

"Thank you," Asa replied with sincerity, "Now, I don't want to end on a negative. So, let's picture what your life will look like as you heal, not in terms of what you don't want it to be, but in terms of what you dowant it to be? What are three things you can work towards over the next year that will mean healing for you? Something that doesn't rely on any external force?"

Without really thinking, Dox muttered out an "I don't know... I don't..." Then stopped herself and gave it the proper thought. Running her fingers awkwardly through her hair, she sat and thought for a good minute and a half, just staring blankly.

"I want to work harder on my meditation techniques. The one's Sonak has been teaching me. It helps with the... the nightmares. And it's been making it easier to remember things. And... and I hope that it can help me not automatically default to being angry all the time." She rubbed the back of her hands, which showed the faintest of green bruising from the somewhat agressive over use of the practice dummy in her quarters.

"I want to start... being better at not always hiding, I guess. Hiding... myself. Leaving my quarters more and not just assuming everyone is thinking the worst of me."

Then she hung her head low and paused again, fidgeting again. Glancing quickly up, then back down towards her fidgeting hands, Dox took a deep breath. "And... I need to... I need to learn how to start letting people in more. And stop being... being afraid that sooner or later, everyone will abandon me when they've had enough of my problems."

Dox shut her eyes as she exhaled. "Like... maybe turning the sound proofing field off in my quarters that I activate every night because I'm afraid that the person whose quarters are right next to mine will get sick of me waking up screaming in the middle of the night, even though they told me I could always go to them if I was... if I needed help."

Fresh tears slipped down Dox's face as she spoke, unable to make eye contact with Asa out of shame. Even as the words were coming out, she knew she was blurring the line between her friend Asa and her Councilor, Doctor Dael. But it was something she needed to say.

"It seems to me that if someone were to tell you that you could go to them anytime that they wouldn't mind a disturbance, and would be honored to receive your trust," Asa replied quietly. The doctor was young, and as green as Dox's now-Romulan blood when it came to counseling, but they knew a cry for help when they heard it. And compartmentalization was to protect the patient, but there are times when any decent doctor knew to drop the professional detachment and just be a person.

"Anger is good. It has a purpose. It protects us until we have the ability to heal. It's ok to be angry, dont feel like you shouldn't me. It's how you deal with anger that matters. From what I see, you are taking the brave steps to reach out and accept help, you are learning to trust in spite of a history of betrayal, and you are learning new techniques for emotional regulation. If anger helps gets you motivated to achieve your goals, it's doing its job. I will help you learn how to tolerate the negative feelings that come, and in time there will be more positive than negative. I promise. And talk to your neighbor- let your friends help in ways that a counselor can't. You may be surprised at how much people care."

The last was said in a voice heavy with emotion, after all Doctor Asa Dael did truly and deeply care for Melanie Dox, as a physician and a friend.

Wiping her face dry, Dox tried to compose herself. "Imirrhlhhse..." She cursed at herself. "Thank you. I'm... I'm trying. And I'll... I'm going to keep trying."

With a somewhat awkward but sincere half smile, Dox continued. "And, I'll have to remember to tell my friend next door that i'm really sorry, too. I did believe them when they said they would be there for me and I trusted them, but I think that that scared me a little. Im not always comfortable with... being comfortable."

“You are doing more than trying, you are succeeding,” Asa replied, matching Melanie’s half smile.

“I’m going to schedule the reconstruction surgery for next week. I believe this is an informed choice on your part, and one that accurately reflects your internal, lasting self-image. That said, we have some work to do to get you to a place where you accept yourself more, and where you can process the traumatic events from your past. For now, let’s plan on sessions once per week…we can always increase that if needed, but it’s a good starting point. Do you have any questions for me? Or anything you feel you need from therapy that I can better provide?” Asa inquired, truly wanting to provide the best service possible, and also feeling a tad insecure about knowing what the heck they were actually doing.

Smiling, and starting to feel a little better, Dox replied. "I can't think of any specific questions. At least not right now. But I can say that when I got sent to Earth as a teenager, I saw 3 different councilors over as many years and a few more in the Academy. Most just sat there and stared at me while I talked, so you're already ahead of the curve there."

Chuckling slightly, the anxious young Officer continued. "And you never once bragged about your ability to enter my mind at will, so that's another plus. So, thank you. I'm hoping this is finally the right path for me."

“Thank you,” Asa replied with a slight blush, “I…I do my best. Never was a fan of one sided conversations, and the only way I can enter your mind is surgically, and I think we already did that one, yes?” they concluded with a wink.

"Yeah, once was enough." Dox laughed. "So, I'll see you next week Doctor Dael. And I'll see you later, Asa." As she headed towards the door, Dox offered the slight joke to her friend. Smiling, she stepped out into the corridor.

With a giggle at the joke, Asa walked Melanie to the door. Once they were alone in the office, Doctor Dael let out a breath they didn’t realize they had been holding.

“Ok, maybe I can do this,” they said to the empty office, then indulged in a thirty second victory dance that would likely eradicate any image of professionalism the crew had if they had seen it.

Cabbage patching complete, the doctor put on their professional smile and went back to Sickbay to see their next patient and contemplate the next challenge.

While this had been in the planning stages for a while now, Mona was still rushing around trying to make sure everything was at least some semblance of perfect. She'd moved all her cushiony cultural furniture to the side and moved in a more Federation standard table and chairs big enough for everyone invited to the dinner party she was hosting and now she was working on preparing all the dishes. She'd checked everyone's profiles just in case and no one had any allergies at least.

But she still worried. Most people found it odd that a race that evolved from birds of paradise would eat a mainstay of eggs, but that was how it was. There were other dishes on the menu, but the main course was something akin to the Earth breakfast burrito, but a lot bigger and a lot more hearty, since the outer shell was cooked directly to the egg. Either way, her guests would be arriving soon and she had a dozen of the large burrito shaped, egg, tomato, and pepper filled bundles in a warmer. She just had to finish making the side dishes now... Stir fried vegetables in a light savory sauce, strips of baked porcine product, and melted white silken cheese to top it all with. All of which were traditional dinner foods from her homeworld.

Meanwhile, Looking in the mirror of her quarters at herself, Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox couldn't believe that she had gone through with it as she brushed her thick, auburn curls back behind her ears.

Her very pointed, fairly large, very Romulan ears. It had been weeks since she had learned that these ears had been surgically altered as a child by her father in an attempt to make his daughter look more human. And in those few weeks, so much had changed in the young pilots life as she had been uncovering lost memories and working with the ships Chief Medical Officer, Asa Dael.

Her young ElAurian friend spent considerable effort undoing the damage done decades ago. They had reversed genetic damage that was done to her very DNA at the same time her ears had been cropped that restored her blood to its original green hue and this was the final step that Melanie took a bit longer to come to grips with. But it was done.

She poked the edges, flinching slightly at the sensation, still surprised that the restoration technique had been so much more than a simple cosmetic prosthetic. Asa was able to regrow them as if nothing had ever happened.

While there were some people that had their body altered in such ways almost on whim as a fashion statement, this was a much bigger deal to the young part-Romulan young woman and why she had been struggling with the decision. If she did it, that was it to her.

It was only recently that she had began to learn how much of her anxiety and sense of disconnect was linked to the internal idea of what her body was supposed to be compared to what she had lived with for much of her life. And suddenly, she was feeling oddly more complete. At least physically, which she, Rita, Asa and even the impeccably logical SONAK agreed would help her to reconcile some degree of her ongoing internal conflict.

And for the moment, Melanie agreed. It felt extremely good to be physically complete for the first time in her adult life. Of course, now she just had to show the crew. The dinner party was something Mona had been planning for a while, and when Dox mentioned that she was going to be off duty for the day to finally get this done, the enthusiastic Miradonian pilot suggested that it would be a good way to show the crew rather than just showing up for duty with new ears.

The anxious part-Romulan officer generally cringed at social events, but Mona had a way of being very persuasive and talked Dox into it. Talking a deep breath, Dox straightened the tunic of her uniform and left her quarters.

Looking up at the chrono over her stove, Mona rushed to add the last of the spices to the veggies before checking the cheese. It was just getting to the right temperature and soon she'd be able to place it in the warming pot for the center of the table. as for the rest of the food, she'd be placing most of it in two communal bowls for serving and laying out the ten inch egg burritos on individual plates soon.

Checking the oven, some steam escaped, indicating that the Miradonian bacon was just about perfect. Wiping her hands on the yellow chick apron she was wearing, she pulled the baking sheet out and set it on a cooling rack so it could cool and finish the last little bit of cooking while she finished the veggies and cheese.

As she approached Ensign Gonadie's quarters, Dox sighed as her stomach tightened with anxiety. She desperately hoped that she wasn't the first person to arrive as she pressed the chime at the door.

"Come in!" Mona called as she dished up the veggies, looking up to see Dox as the doors opened. "Do you mind giving me a hand in the kitchen real quick? I'm almost done, but it's been a while since I've cooked such a large meal."

"Uh... sure, what do you need?" Dox walked over, happy that Mona hadn't yet made an overtly big deal about her ears. So far, only Doctor Dael has seen her as she performed the procedure aside from crewmembers in the hall that she didn't actually know.

Handing off both bowls of stir fried veggies, Mona smiled at her boss and friend. "Take these to the table and set one at either end, then come back and pull the egg wraps from the warmer and set them near the center? You look great, by the way." Turning her attention to the Miradonian bacon, she started moving them to a paper towel lined bowl so that they would soak up the excess grease and be easier to get at.

"Do you think a hundred strips of bacon are enough? I know bacon from my world is a bit narrower than most, but that should be enough, don't you think? And a gallon of melted silky white cheese?" Getting close to throwing her first large dinner party on the USS Hera and considering she literally gave someone an allergic food poisoning the last time she tried a small one, the brightly plumed pilot was a bit nervous and it was starting to show.

Picking up on Mona's own anxiety helped Dox relax a little as she now had a task to focus on, but also wanted to alleviate her friends stress. "Thanks."

She put the bowls on the table as instructed and walked back over to grab the egg wraps. "And Everything smells great. As for the bacon, 100 strips are good for me, but what's everyone else going to eat?"

Mona looked at Melanie in horror and a bit of panic, handing off the egg wraps and the full bowl of bacon. "I... What... That's... All the Miradonian bacon left on the ship..."

That was when the door chime rang, as another guest arrived.

"Come in!" Mona called out, still trying to process things. "Please make yourself at home."

As the door wooshed open, Dox turned to Mona with a awkward smile. "Sorry, Mona. I was just kidding. I'm sure that will be plenty. I love bacon but I couldn't eat quite that much."

Mona sighed with relief as she turned to check on the cheese. "You scared me..."

Arriving with a wide bottle in her hands was Rita Paris, clad in a long sweater dress of pale blue, the old Science department color of the uniforms of her day. The large cowl of the garment allowed her to wear it off one shoulder, lending it an angular look that was casual and comfortable. As with everything everyone on the ship wore, it was perfectly tailored to her form, so it required no belt. On her feet were some cute strappy black ankle boots with a 7cm heel, and her hair was actually brushed up and back in a rather pronounced pompadour.

"So am I to understand that this is a girl's night, and we are being sexist to the men? Because this was totally a shipboard thing back in my day," Rita greeted the assemblage cheerfully as she approaching in those long authoritative strides. Stopping before the entry to the kitchen, the pinup girl of a bygone era struck a pose as she presented the bottle. "I come bearing champagne, which is customary for a celebration on my planet. Synthehol, but I'm a teetotaler. And we can whistle up orange juice for mimosas, but that's kind of a brunch thing, so I didn't want it to clash with the menu."

"Hello, Commander." Dox replied officially out of habit, then blushed awkwardly as she squinshed her face in a tell-tale, embarrassed smile. "Sorry, Rita." She chuckled slightly, trying to relax.

"I's all good, Dox, I'll answer to either of them," Rita grinned. "Starfleet tradition held that most service people were just known by their last names, so you could just as well call me Paris, and I'll know who it is you are addressing."

With a pair of thermal gloves, Mona carried the hot bowl of silken white cheese to the table and placed it in the warming bowl, then turned her attention to Rita, smiling as brightly as she could. "Welcome! Does that need a bucket of ice? Champagne needs ice, right? Does everything look good to you? Serving utensils!" Realizing her lack of preparedness, she headed back into her kitchenette and rummaged around for a nice set of utensils to serve everything with. "At least the table is already set, right?"

Wanting to help and take some of the pressure off of Mona, Dox walked over to the replicator. "I'll get some ice." She leaned away towards the frantic Miradonian, then back to the replicator. "One ice bucket, 18 centimeters deep, half filled with crushed ice, please."

As the bucket and its contents sparked into existence, Dox carried it over to the table.

"Miss Gonadie... Mona?" Rita Paris stepped into the personal space of the fluffed and flustered hostess. "First, thank you for inviting us to your quarters, it was very kind of you and we are honored to be guests. Now, a little advice from an old hand at this?" Placing her hand on the harried hostess' shoulder, Paris made strong eye contact.

"No one is judging whether you are a perfect hostess. We won't be mad if the food is burnt or if the champagne is flat. We're shipmates and friends- we're all here together and we're enjoying one another's company. You have already succeeded, because you could not fail. So relaaaaax," the cheerful commander made a silly face at the plumed pilot, and offered the champagne. "You can chill it in a bucket of ice or stick it in the replicator and replicate it at a colder temperature. The wonders of dinner parties of the future."

Mona took a deep breath and tried to relax, running one hand over the plumage on her head. "Sorry... The last time I tried this, I sent someone to sickbay because of an allergy to hot peppers so I'm just really worried and nervous is all. On the bright side, I think everything is done and ready." Holding up a handful of serving-ware, Mona smiled as best she could up at the Starfleet bombshell.

"I'm not allergic to anything I know of, and everything smells absolutely delicious. So, yes. Thank you for the invitation." Dox smiled without the awkward anxiety which was slowly starting to go away. "Anything else you need me to grab?"

"Well you're the guest of honor..." As Mona thought of what might be missing, her cuckoo clock went off, chirping five times. "Ah! Drinks! I don't have any Miradonian drinks prepared! I knew I was forgetting something."

"No, no, no. No 'guest of honor'. Dox whispered to Gonadie.

"You have a cuckoo clock!" Paris crossed the room to stare up at the small clockwork birdhouse on the wall with a clock in it's face, her face a display of radiant cheer at the nostalgic artifact of her homeworld. "These are classic Earth kitsch! How did you come across one?"

"It was kind of a gag gift from my boyfriend at the Academy, actually." Setting the serving-ware around to the various dishes, Mona joined Rita at the antique clock. "His father carried on the tradition of building them and he got me one for graduation. It was made in a place called Swissyland, I think. We drank a lot together, which is why it reminded me..."

"It's delightful. I should think the Swiss would be very proud to know that one of their greatest cultural exports survives into the 25th century. And is enjoyed by an avian from another world, no less. Bridging cultural gaps by seeking common ground," Rita shook her head. "So is that breakfast food I smell, Mona?"

"Actually, it's traditional Miradonian dinner from the area I'm from. Roasted or stir fried vegetables, baked strips of meats, and egg wraps filled with roasted hot peppers and tomatoes. I'm told it is quite similar to Earth breakfasts though... Especially the bacon. But you'll likely not find a breakfast burrito as hearty as a Miradonian egg wrap!" Beaming with pride, Mona motioned to the stack of forearm sized bundles. "And be sure to smother them in the cheese too! That's the best part!"

Smiling and inhaling deeply, Dox replied. "Well, I can't wait for everyone to get here. It all smells wonderful. Although everything that smells good smells that much better to me lately. Still getting used to the body chemistry changes. But I think I'm going to have to work out twice as long in the morning after this."

The door chimed again as another guest arrived.

"Come in!" Mona called again.

Stepping through the door was Thex and Tathaa both wearing a copy of the purple dress Thex had worn for her dinner with the captain. Both gave a polite smile as they stepped into the room Thex handing over a bottle of andorian wine they had brought as a gift. " Thank you for the invite Mona." Thex said politely.

Smiling at the arrival of the ships Engineer and new partner that she had yet to meet socially, Dox was trying to contain her embarrassment. Blushing, her face turned green as her mind raced. 'Brilliant. You're the only idiot that thought to wear her UNIFORM to a casual dinner, but you also totally forgot to bring anything with you. Just perfect!' She thought, chastising herself.

"Thank you for coming. You both look lovely. Does this need to be put on ice? Andorian wine is supposed to be chilled, right?" Looking down at the bottle, Mona was pretty sure it was supposed to be served cold... "I'll put it on ice just in case."

On her way to the kitchen, the brightly plumed pilot poked Melanie in the ribs and whispered to her. "In my bedroom's nest, there's a present for you. I hope it fits. It's made of fabrics and feathers from my world."

Even more embarrassed by Mona's efforts, Dox whispered back. "Fvah, really? Mona, seriously. You didn't have to..." Then she stopped herself, not wanting to let her own insecurity ruin Mona's gift or upset the equally nervous Miradonian. "khnai'ra... um... thank you, I mean." The nervous part-Romulan tended to slip into her native tounge when her social anxiety was ramping up and tried correcting herself.

"Uh..." Dox turned to the room and spoke, "I'll be... um... I'll be right back. Excuse me."

To say that Mona's room was designed for an avian species would be putting it lightly. The standard dresser was there... But all of her clothes were hung on perches above it well out of reach of normal humanoids. As for the bed, it looked more like a bird's nest than a bed, being a large round basket filled with padding and pillows, slightly canted to the side. There was even a swing over top of it. Sitting in the entryway of the nest though, was a large colorful box which contained Melanie's present.

Taking in the room for a moment, she couldn't help but think it was somehow perfect. It just felt like an extension of Mona and Dox smiled as she finally brought her attention to the box. As she slowly opened it up, she gasped, putting a hand up over her mouth as tears welled up in the shy pilots eyes.

The ship's doctor had arrived around the time Dox went to change, wearing ..a dress? The young El-Aurian had decided pants were for work hours and was sporting an ankle length white shift dress that would have fit in anywhere from ancient Rome to modern starfleet. They had flips flops on just long enough to enter the room, whereupon the doctor elected to go barefoot and bring their offering of nanda juice, a fruity type if beverage common on Bajor that was almost, but non totally, unlike orange juice.

After a couple of minutes, the door to Mona's bedroom hissed open and Melanie very slowly stepped out. She had a broad but nervous smile on her face and she hoped nobody could tell she had just been crying. Gone was her crimson uniform as the redheaded Romulan was now wearing a brilliant, high necked green dress. The material shimmered with a faint pearlescence in the pattern of faint scales it was made of as it criss-crossed in an x below her waist flaring out along the floor at her feet. Across her right shoulder, the deep green material flowed over her side like a mid length cape that was edged with feathers that gradated from the green of the dress to a teal and ending at a bright lavender. The same feathering trimmed the sides of the dresses neck and the hem at the bottom.

She stood there for a moment, fidgeting like an excited child, looking down at herself and feeling pretty for the first time in a decade.

Mona was the first to notice, finally pulling off her yellow chick apron to uncover the pink and yellow dress made of similar material to Melanie's underneath. "You look absolutely stunning. I'm so glad it fits you so well."

Blushing even harder, Melanie but her bottom lip, smiling up at Mona. "Khnai'ra... sorry... Thank you. Thank you so much."

Springing to their feet, Asa rushed over to Dox, huge smile in place, and asked "So, um, are you too pretty to hug? Because you look AMAZING!"

Smiling awkwardly, Dox shuffled on her feet. "Yes, Asa. Hugs are allowed." She chuckled and opened her arms. "You look great too. Everyone looks great."

Permission granted, the enthusiastic physician pounced and gave a huge bear hug to Dox, beaming with happiness for their friend and happy to celebrate her personal journey.

"Thanks... now administer some oxygen, Doctor." Melanie laughed as she talked during the enthusiastic hug returning it.

"Why Miss Dox, as I live and breathe," The Commander emerged from the bathroom where she'd been during Dox's debut, and struck three strikes of a slow clap. "Green is your color, and I'm just gonna be the one to say it- your ears really complement the waves of your hair. It's got an elegance to it that is quite delightful to behold. I daresay you have officially come into your own, my friend." Taking in the room, Paris expanded on the thought.

"Doctor! That look is so timeless, well chosen. And I approve of the courteous and comfortable footwear. Thex! Tathaa! That dress looks equally as stunning on both of you, and matching is definitely a couples convention where I come from. Mona, you look dazzling and your quarters are lovely and welcoming. Ladies and persons of the Hera, I propose a toast." Paris grabbed a glass of water off the table from one of the place settings and held it aloft, extending it towards the nervous young woman who hated being the center of attention.

"To Miss Melanie Dox, the USS Hera's resident Romulan, and 'Hotshot' pilot. Here's to our friend, on the first day of the rest of her life."

"To Dox!" Asa cheered, enthusiastically supporting their friend on her debut.

Tags for comnents-

Feeling her still newly restored ears get hot as her face went flush, Dox rolled her eyes but couldn't help but smile broadly at the gesture and the sincerity of it. "Good thing green is my color since I'm pretty sure my face matches the dress right now." She said, laughing nervously as she spoke. "Thank you, everyone."

Feeling herself getting a little emotional again, Dox needed to say a little more. "I don't think I would have been able to... take these steps anywhere else in the galaxy... with any other crew."

"Nonsense," Mona insisted. "With as lovely as you are, any proper crew would have welcomed you with open arms."

Not about to bring her friend down, Melanie smiled gratefully without elaborating on how miserable her last two starbase assignments had been. Instead, she simply replied with a sincere "Thanks."

That was when the door chimed once more. "Come in!" called Mona again, this time a bit closer to the door and finally a bit more relaxed.

As the door wooshed open, it revealed the Baroness Schwein von Alcott, dressed in a white pants suit with a variation of her tasseled shoulderpads that had a capelet over her right shoulder. Cradled in one arm, she carried a bottle of Romulan ale lined with silver and gold filigree. "Sorry I'm late. I had a hard time picking out something to wear. Would you believe I don't own a single dress?"

"I didn't either until literally five minutes ago." Melanie replied with a smile, welcoming Schwein in and eyeballing the bottle of Romulan Ale as a very welcome addition to help calm her overactive nerves. Then gesturing down at the dress she was still amazed at, continued. "Mona got this for me. I'm still kind of in shock, but I love it."

"Baroness von Alcott, good to see you!" Paris called out from the table where she was hovering, trying not to be intrusive yet social. "Sayyyyyy, that looks like a mighty fancy bottle, there. Is Romulan Ale still contraband in the Federation these days?"

Grinning, she handed the bottle over to Melanie to deal with. "Thankfully, after the Dominion War the ban was mostly lifted, though it's still exceedingly hard to get the good ales. And you don't get anything much finer than a bottle of fifty year old Praetor Select. I heard congratulations were in order in more than one way, so I figured now was a good time to make a gift of it, ja?"

"More than one way?" Mona eyed Schwein suspiciously. "Do you know something we don't?"

"Just what rumor tells me," Schwein replied innocently.

Having opened the bottle, the young part-Romulan in the stunning green dress inhaled deeply. Growing up on a smuggling ship that traded mostly IN Romulan ale gave her a nose for the good stuff. And as always, the Baroness had brought the good stuff.

Once more the door chimed, but this time the tone was a bit different for some reason. Looking around curiously, Mona decided to answer the door personally, pressing the door controls to manually open them. As they whooshed open they revealed the bright red uniform of the Captain standing there, hands clasped behind her back. "Captain! I... What brings you here?"

Smiling politely, Enalia took a half step into the room. "Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I need to give Lieutenant Dox something and the computer said she was here."

At the main table, Dox was pouring out glasses of the Romulan Ale the Baroness had provided when she froze momentarily at the Captain mentioning her by name.

Placing the bottle down, she turned to face her Commanding Officer at attention, wishing she had kept her uniform on and fighting down the ever present knot of anxiety in her stomach that was tightening back up. "Yes, Captain. What can I do for you?"

“Calm down, Dox- she’s here casually even if she is wearing her uniform and you are going to spook her being stiff and formal. This is why she doesn't mingle with the crew. Just be respectful and friendly and welcome her,” Paris whispered, although despite the distance between them Melanie could hear her just fine, she realized.

The somewhat improved hearing being a welcome side effect of the restored ears, Dox did her level best to relax and she loosened her posture a bit.

Stepping over towards Melanie, Enalia pulled a small black box out from behind her back. "I normally have a uniform to pin these on, but I guess I'll just hand these to you." Opening the box, the spotted captain revealed two solid pips, offering the box and contents to the Romulan pilot. "Due to your impressive service over the course of the last mission, I hereby promote you to full Lieutenant, effective immediately."

"Uh..." Dox's jaw dropped open for a moment as she looked at the Captain, then down to the box with the pips of a full Lieutenant that she slowly took in her hands. "I... I don't..." Realizing she was rambling, Dox took a breath to re-center herself.

"Thank you, Captain." Dox had been taken completely by surprised and was still stunned by what had just happened but still had Rita Paris' whisper from moments ago rattling in her brain. "Um... I'm... I'm honored, thank you. I also am... I'm really glad Schwein brought the good stuff. Would you like some, Captain."

Then the nervous knot in her stomach snapped loose with a surprising light chuckle. "I want some. Would you like some?"

"My wife has tacos waiting for dinner tonight..." Enalia paused, weighing the odds of Maica being upset. "But one celebratory drink won't hurt."

Smiling, Dox handed Captain Telvan one of the glasses, still trying to process what had just happened. She stood silently for a moment just staring at the rank pips shining in the small box in her hands.

The andorian engineer at smiled at Dox as she offered her a hug. "Congratulations Melanie you've earned it."

Dael was beaming with happiness for Melanie, they knew the escape from the worldship would not have been possible without her, and Melanie had paid a high personal price on the last mission, she deserve all the happiness the universe could offer.

Snapped out of her momentary daze, the freshly minted full Lieutenant turned to Thex and returned the offered hug. "Thanks."

“I offered the first toast, Miss Dox. Perhaps it should fall to you to offer this one… perhaps a bit of your native color…?" Paris offered, as always hoping that she was nudging at the appropriate times and encouraging the officers beneath her to reach and achieve. In this case, Dox certainly cursed enough in Romulan, perhaps she could cheer as well.

Picking up a glass of Romulan ale, Dox turned with a slight, playful smirk towards Rita Paris, then took a light breath. Holding her glass aloft, she spoke to the assembly of her fellow officers. "Ssiun na d'kunhri nnea na rrhiet Hera, rham daehlen u'rham shikaen, rhanne khnai'ra."

Letting the breath out, she repeated the toast in Federation Stanbdard. "For the grand crew of the Starship Hera, my friends and my new family, I thank you."

After that heartfelt speech, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

If there was one thing that the newly promoted, full Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe "Melanie" Dox had learned in her time on the U.S.S. Hera, it was to always be ready for things to change. Today, that meant that the young part-Romulan flight chief checking the duty postings for that day and finding that her own schedule had been changed.

So, instead of heading to the Flight Control office, she was walking with a slightly quicker pace to the Security Armory on Deck 11 where she was now scheduled to report. While walking, the anxious Officer was typing away at her work PaDD, updating the flight crew rotations for the day and messaging the Assistant Flight Chief, Ensign Gonadie, to make sure she took over the office duties until she returned.

As she rounded the corridor and the Security Armory into view, she saw First Officer Rita Paris standing outside talking to 2 security officers, looking like she was showing them her vintage-styled type 2 phaser. The Commander had her usual bright smile on her face as she talked, but was wearing a black bodysuit with gold plated armor along her upper torso and her era's Starfleet emblem on her chest.

As Dox filed her reports and sent her message, she couldn't help but notice just how easy talking to the crewmembers of the Hera seemed to be for Rita Paris. Basic socialization was still a struggle for the nervous pilot and when she saw how natural connecting with people seemed to be came to Rita, it fueled her own sense of inadequacy even more than Paris' Amazonian figure did.

Plus there was the fact that the gold and black armor was an EVA suit, assuming a helmet came up to cover the head. Which meant they were going spacewalking... at warp...?

Catching sight of Lieutenant Dox, in her peripheral vision, she nodded to her and wrapped up her conversation. It was surprising to see her in action and act like 'one of the boys' with male crew members, but it struck the young pilot that Paris never seemed to have trouble getting anyone to listen to her. The friendly demeanor did a lot of the work, and as she flashed that dazzling smile, it clinched the deal. Laughing and clapping the security officer on the shoulder, It was clear they were sharing a joke, even though it was a violation of Starfleet policy for the superior officer to have violated her subordinate's space. Were the situations reversed it might not have been- yet he took it in stride, and the duo waved as the returned to their duties.

Striding over to the newly pointy-eared pilot. Paris seemed a bit shorter in the armor, though she lost nothing in impressive stature. If anything it made her more closely resemble a modern-day Valkyrie. A machete of sorts seemed to be attached to her back with the hilt sticking up over her left shoulder armor, while there was a cylindrical club strapped to her right thigh. When she walked, the footfalls were not the heavy thud one might expect from magnetic boots. In fact, her footfalls were quieter than normal. The armor itself didn't seem to make any sort of clanking either as the armored Rita Paris extended her hand in a handshake as she so often did.

"Welcome to the ship's armory, Lieutenant. I think it's time we suited you up for exploration and combat, so that's going to be your duty shift for today. Ready to boldly go?" There was the grin this time, not the dazzling smile. The grin from your big sister that said 'let's get in trouble'.

Returning the handshake, the knot in Dox's stomach loosened up just a bit as the situation clearly wasn't an emergency. "Aye Commander. I've filled the flight crew rotation on the way and informed Ensign Gonadie to hold down the fort."

"Good work," Paris nodded, beginning to move into the Armory with that martial stride. "So, first we have to get you fitted for the body suit. So you get to stand there for about three minutes with your arms out while you are measured holographically with a body suit replicated from the perfect measurements of the scanner. That will give the computer what it needs to produce the base body glove for the rest of the suit to connect with- a plugsuit, if you will, as all the armor plugs onto it. We'll get to that, as well as the customizable options for the hard points and the gear it is adapted to carry and you choosing a sidearm."

Following Paris' into the armory, Dox looked at her own body and her face dropped.

"But for now," the curvaceous commander- who still managed to have a great figure even in a somewhat bulky hardsuit- paused before a cylindrical chamber lit from the inside with clear walls. "Here's that scanner. You can wear your uniform for this, the scans know the difference. Future tech," Paris grinned as she gestured to the scanning booth.

"That... That is a good thing." Dox squinched her face ever so slightly trying not to look as uncomfortable with having to have to wear a body glove on her short, rotund frame. She stepped into the chamber, holding her arms out as described. "Like this?"

"That's it. Computer, please engage scanning protocols for MACO power assist EVA underbody armor fitting." As Paris called out instructions, the circular scanning chamber activated and while there was nothing visible save the white light of thew scanners, Dox noticed that no one else was present save the two of them. Which seemed odd, as security always seemed to be people bustling to and fro.

"It seems remarkably quiet in here today, Comm..." Dox cut herself off mid sentence as a thought occurred to her. "Did you clear the room because I'm going to have to change into this suit in here?"

"Maybe." Paris shrugged, leaning against the bulkhead and crossing her arms, which looked a bit funny over the tortoise-shell like clamshell that comprised the upper torso of the armor. "For what it's worth, I understand having body issues. Mine's a little different- for most of my adult life, people pretty much always want to see me naked. Which is uncomfortable for me, because the age I came from wasn't quite so enlightened, so I'm a little... prudish, I suppose. So knowing people want to see me in the altogether makes me self-conscious. Especially if it is in front of the crew, because stories abound about me- they always abounded back in the day, and I am sure I attract plenty of attention and scuttlebutt. Part of the looks."

"Not exactly the same as your particular feelings about being seen in public in a skintight suit," the curvaceous commander admitted, "but connecting that personal knowledge to you likely preferring your privacy is one I can understand. I'd offer you some reassurance about how good you look and that you are beautiful the way you are, but we both know the truth that we are our own worst critics. So external validation is a real pisser, because you immediately discount it in your own mind, because we always see all of the flaws, seldom the good whole."

Smiling sincerely and without her characteristic anxiety, Dox replied. "Thanks, Commander. I appreciate it." Sighing lightly, she continued "How much longer is the scan?"

"One point four three minutes," Paris responded, checking the comm unit on her wrist. "So, now that you've come out and been around people with the new ears, how's it feeling? Do you find yourself looking to see if people are staring or are you disappointed when people seem not to notice?"

Chuckling slightly, Dox replied. "It's me, so I'm dissapoined if nobody notices and irritatated if they stare and embarrassed if they mention them, even complimentarily. Standard operating procedure."

Feeling comfortable around the First Officer, Dox elaborated a bit. "I'm just trying to not dwell on that. It's not always easy to, but it's... weird. It's like... even when people do stare, it still feels better to have what I see in the mirror match what I always saw in my head, if that makes any sense."

"Computer, please give me a lifesize holographic replica of file PR11-ALT, standing 1 meter to my left. please." As the holographics hummed to life, a human blonde girl materialized beside Rita. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severely controlled ponytail, and while she was the same height as Rita, she was very thin. Even her rib cage seemed to small for her body, while her head, hands and feet all seemed to be somehow too large for the frail thin girl, whose head sat atop her body as nearly the biggest part of it. A smile was there, but it was hesitant and self-conscious as she hunched a bit as she looked out at the holocamera. She was clad in a 'St. Eustacius' basketball uniform, with droopy athletic socks and athletic shoes. Tucked under one arm was a basketball.

"This is me... well, the local version, but this is pretty spot-on. Age 11 I started growing, and my body couldn't keep up. I hit 177cm by the age of twelve, but still weighed only 38kg. I got to enjoy the nickname 'Beanpole' until I hit puberty at 16, and by the time I turned 18 the only people who called me beanpole were the jerks. I was clumsy, uncoordinated and overall miserable. Throughout all of that, I felt like an alien in my own body, which had done something weird. I went from being this little princess to this big gawky stork over a few months, so maybe that's kind of like what you're feeling? And the scan is done, you can put your arms down and come out now."

Dropping her arms somewhat comically, Dox stepped down. "I guess it's a pretty universal feeling, sometimes." She smiled as she stepped over to look up at the holographic young Rita Paris. "Feeling like you're in the wrong body."

Turning to face the real Commander Paris, Dox stood a bit straighter and folded her hands behind her back in a semi relaxed but still professional posture as she shifted back to the business at hand. "So, what's the next step?"

"Next the industrial replicator over there spits out your bodysuit, and there are changing rooms over there. It's actually a surprisingly giving fabric until it's activated, so it isn't hard to get into. So, pick up your bundle of black and I'll give you some time to change before we move on to the hard carapace and the customization options." Paris explained. "And you're very generous, I realize my analogy was crap, there," Rita chuckled. "Computer end, image display please."

Stepping over to grab the freshly replicated body suit, Dox responded. "Well, it doesn't need to be a one to one comparison to get the meaning across." Smiling back at Commander Paris, she added, "Or the intention. Thanks."

Grabbing the newly replicated garment, Dox stepped into the dressing room. "Be right out."

A couple of minutes later, Dox stepped out in the snug, form fitting black bodysuit and held her arms out a bit, presenting herself. She was still feeling a little self-conscious about what her more than ample rear and thick stomach looked like in the revealing outfit, but Paris' efforts to put Dox at more easy about her body were bearing fruit as Dox let out a somewhat playful "Ta da!" with a smirk.

"I'd ask about the fit, but I have the utmost faith in the Hera to scan and produce," Rita patted the bulkhead fondly, as she often did when speaking of the starship as an entity, which she often did. "If you like, we can skip the customization loadout so that you can review those options later and just get you set up in a core MACO EVA and getting used to the core arms and armor. Your call, Miss Dox? What strikes your fancy?"

Looking down at herself, somewhat impressed with the fit herself, Dox agreed. "Yeah, it's actually surprisingly comfortable. But yes, I'm good with skipping ahead to the function and worrying about customization later."

"Outstanding," the combat veteran of dozens of battles replied with a friendly smile. "So while you were getting dressed, I took the liberty of preprogramming you a basic armor. There's a specific way to climb in and out of the breastplate, while the arms, legs and boots are pretty intuitive. Or you can have the computer transport it onto you, which again, she does with alarming precision. Careful about asking for your armor- she interprets that literally unless you specify a holographic reproduction of your armor. But the point is would you like to learn how to climb in or learn how to climb out of it when we're done?"

Thinking for a second, Dox replied while rolling her shoulders to stretch them out in the new undersuit. "I suppose I should learn every way to do it, as you never know when the computer might not be available to do it for me." Pausing for another second, she added. "And it sounds like I'll also need to learn the right way to ask."

Standing up straight and stepping a few feet back from Rita, Dox looked up, raising her arms from her sides. "Computer, please initiate armor up procedure as programmed for Lieutenant Melanie Dox." She squinted slightly, hoping she had asked correctly and a little worried about Paris' slightly cryptic warning.

Seconds later, the computer chirped and with a melodic hum and a shimmer of lights, plates of crimson armor materialized on the young officer as she stood there.

"The hard plates can resist ballistic impact, thus the rounded shapes," Paris lectured as she checked the fit, while Dox moved about experimentally. "Designed primarily to protect you from micrometeors, they also offer considerable resistance to ballistic impact. They are also covered in multiple layers of a refractive coating that makes them somewhat resistant to energy weapons such as phaser or disruptor fire. Your strength is enhanced by a factor of three in the armor, as are your reflexes, which can be disconcerting. You can leap about like a grasshopper, though landing can be challenging. The helmet has the visor attachment as well as the headset, all of which are redundancies of the HUD in the helmet. All of which is an interface for a full tricorder loadout, as well as your vitals being monitored and likely transmitted back to the Hera."

"All of this can make you considerably more effective on the battlefield, but always remember- first and foremost, this armor was designed to be a spacesuit. It is designed to enable our fragile pressurized forms to survive the decompression of the void of space. It does not make you Supergirl nor Iron Man. You are just a little bit better in the armor, and augmentations will only amplify the actions you take, which need to be smart. Does that make sense?" Paris wrapped up the lecture. It was important to her that the young officer understand just what the MACO armor could and could not do, and thinking of it as a tough spacesuit seemed to set the right tone she thought.

The specifics of the pop-culture references were lost on the part-Romulan pilot, but the meaning was fairly clear. In spite of the density of the armored pieces, Dox felt almost no resistance as she moved her arms confirming the speed and strength enhancements Paris mentioned.

"I believe so, yes. At least largely in theory at this point." Dox replied as she continued to move and stretch in the armor. "It's remarkably easy to move in, especially when compared to anything I used in training at the academy. This is light years beyond and environment suits OR tactical armor I've ever worn before. I can absolutely feel the enhancement effect in just basic movements."

"All righty then. Now that you're outfitted, what do you say we go see the holographically simulated galaxy and shoot at things?" Paris asked with a mischievous grin.

Returning the smile with one of her own, Dox replied. "Aye, Commander."

Striding through the corridors of the USS Hera in a suit of powered EVA armor was a new experience for Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe "Melanie" Dox. Her footfalls were heavier, but nowhere near as heavy as she would expect. Following the confidently-striding first officer, she was still getting a feel for coordinating her enhanced body movements, although keeping pace with the Commander’s martial stride was actually helping her quite literally get a rhythm. After all, Paris simply marched most of the time, and anyone who had ever been a Starfleet Academy attendee learned how to march and double-time, two of the Commander’s favorite speeds. So keeping in step with her was more intuitive than most would imagine.

Thinking about it, the young Romulan pilot was glad for her occasional holodeck runs with Commander Paris that have made her more accustomed to keeping pace with her significantly taller First Officer.

The duo was getting some odd looks, Paris in her golden and black armor and Dox in her suit of crimson and sable. But Rita Paris was the first officer of the Hera, and with her helmet down and her visor flipped up, she was clearly recognizable. Thus the rest of the crew tended to gangway when they saw her armored presence coming through. And Dox was still focusing on not falling over or over-striding into the corridor wall in the EVA suit to worry about anyone staring.

Stepping into the turbolift with Dox and a few other crewmen, Paris smiled and nodded socially. “Deck 11. How’s everybody doing? Having another fine day in Starfleet?” Even armored and prepared for action if not warfare, Paris could still put people at ease with a smile and an unexpected chuckle, and she was working that charm to keep her fellow turbolift passengers calm. When they arrived and disembarked at Deck 11, Paris offered a jaunty two-fingered salute to their fellow travelers before continuing on.

“A normal officer would have beamed over to the appropriate holodeck,” she observed, “which of course I’m not about to do. But walking familiar halls and getting a feeling for… whoops, I gotcha, there ya go, keep walking…" The short, squat young pilot stumbled over her own feet, but was caught by the more experienced Commander with ease, as if she'd been anticipating the stumble. "Getting a feeling for how it handles in familiar surroundings should give you a little more confidence. And while it isn’t common practice for EVA suits to be on deck outside of a crisis, nobody’s going to have any complaints, unless they file it directly with the Captain, and that will get them their own blistering for skipping the chain of command. And here we are,” Paris stopped and pivoted on one heel before the entrance to Holodeck 3.

For her part, the stout redhead in the crimson armor was not half as winded as she usually was keeping pace with the leggy Commander thanks to the enhancements in the EVA suits that increased strength and reflex time. "So, where will we be going today?" Dox asked, somewhat enthusiastically.

“That’s an excellent question,” Paris responded. “Honestly, there are probably a wealth of tactical simulations and target practice in rough terrain. Or we could relive some of the Rita Paris Greatest Hits collections of battles I’ve participated in the past. But I don’t really want to just drop you in the deep end, and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.”

“I don’t know how much you might have taken in the geography of San Francisco’s surrounding environs when you were at the Academy,” Rita lied, because she already had a sneaky suspicion that the shy and anxious young woman who had not enjoyed the Academy experience of the human girl from the planet in question, “but south of the bay is Mount Talampais- you might have seen it from the Academy or at the very least the nature trail on the eastern grounds. I was thinking we could hike it while learning how the different rounds and grenades and functions of the TRC-116 C2 operate, while giving you some challenging terrain to overcome. Think you’re up for it?”

"That sounds good to me, Commander." Dox replied, deciding to not go into too much detail on what she felt Paris must be picking up on. "Yeah, I... didn't get off campus much."

“Most cadets don’t,” Paris replied easily. “Between the workload, the inclusiveness of the campus and the fact that most of them are far from home in one way or another, they tend to be head down, focused on getting through the next challenge or hurdle and seldom do they take in the mountain ranges in the distance and think about taking a climb. Unless they grew up there, know the shuttle routes and have enough local knowledge to plan and organize a trip- and who fulfils those requirements at Starfleet Academy? Heck, human cadets aren’t even as common as they used to be I’d wager.”

When she spoke like that, it was clear that Paris had come from a bygone age, because she had to imagine what life at Starfleet Academy was like in the modern day. Looking to the overhead, Paris spoke directly to the ship’s computer rather than accessing the control panel- another giveaway, Dox realized, because it was entirely possible that the Commander genuinely didn’t know how to operate the Holodeck, and instead simply asked the ship’s computer for what she needed and it obliged her.

“Computer, please give us a recreation of Earth, California, Mount Tamalpias, southern face, base of the mountain, modern day. 10 Am local time, sunny weather please. Eliminate any air traffic that should exist and no other climbers or hikers, please.” Hearing the computer’s confirmation code, Paris tabbed open the door, and the fresh air and chirping of birds emerged along with the smell of a coniferous forest.

“After you, Miss Dox” the first officer offered obligingly.

Stepping slowly into the chamber, looking around at the holographic Vista, it somehow looked more inviting then it had when Dox had actually been on Earth last. Perhaps she was seeing it through Rita Paris' eyes, or perhaps it was simply that she was learning to let go of her old angers. Whichever it was, she smiled at the scene as she turned back towards the golden armored officer.

Stepping into the forest, the eyes of the Earth girl lit up, and a simple smile of joy settled onto her face. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply of the air, smelling the pine of the forest as a slight breeze ruffled her hair. The dappled cover let through beams of sunlight, and she looked skyward as she shaded her eyes with her hand.

"I miss it, you know? My home planet, Earth. It's funny, now, because somehow no one in Starfleet is from Earth anymore. I think that's kind of wonderful... so many races peacefully intermingling and working toward one common ideal with all of us bringing our diversity to the table. All that exploring and those first contacts and weird adventures we had back in my day, were for the dream of something like what the Federation seems to have become. Starfleet at the very least."

"But there's no place like home," Rita Paris sighed as she inhaled deeply again. "I haven't been home in three years. Or a hundred thirty something if you count the passage of real time."

"The town I grew up in, the Academy I attended, the Starfleet Command that I knew... they're all long gone, even if they are the same in this universe." Paris paused, realizing she was being maudlin and straightened up self-consciously. "But the mountains are still there, and the bay is still out there, and there are a few timeless elements of the skyline. It's nice being able to see them here, but as convincing as it looks and feels, it's not real. This isn't really Northern California, and this is just a simulation of Mount Talampais."

"I'd like to see it again, connect with it... does that make sense?" Paris peered at her junior officer and realized that she was supposed to be training her subordinate in how to operate lifesaving combat armor and a weapon that would render her a one-woman army. Not wax metaphysical about being homesick for Earth. Get it together, little missy! she heard her father bark in her head, and she shook her head sadly." Ah... sorry, Miss Dox. I am old, and I tend to be distracted at times. We should get started."

"I get homesick for a planet I've never set foot on, Commander. It's a different flavor, but I understand." Dox replied, but quickly followed Paris' lead to get back on track. "You said we would be working with the... TRC-116 C2, I think?"

"TR-116C2, yes. Computer, please holographically reproduce a TR-116C2 for each of us, with an additional powerpack. Slung right-handed for both of us. I'd hold your arm up and get ready, Miss Dox, it's got some heft to it."

As the leiutenant obeyed the first officer's suggestion, the holodeck produced two large multibarreled rifles, with a box at the end of the longer barrel. The pistol grip was reinforced to the shoulder stock by a brace, which indicated that it was built to expect or dissipate recoil. The shorter barrel beneath the one ending in a cube was wider, but not exceptionally so. The most exceptional thing that she noticed was the weight. While the weapon seemed balanced holding it by the pistol grip, which was wide enough to accommodate her armored fingers, it felt heavy in her hands. While she'd been told that the suits amplified their strength, this still felt like she was toting 10 kilos worth of weapon here. Also, she noticed there appeared to be an ammo clip on the ground beside her.

"First things first, Miss Dox. This is your weapon, so trigger safety protocols are in effect. It had a shoulder strap if you wish to use it, but I personally prefer," Paris turned her back to Dox and levered the weapon over her shoulder, not pointing it at the Romulan lieutenant on the way, but ending the over the shoulder with the rifle practically leaping from her hand onto her back. Turning to face the redheaded pilot, the supercentenarian space explorer smiled. "Electromagnets in the weapon and the armor activated through the HUD, designed to attract one another on command. Range of about a meter, but that usually does the trick. One of my customizations I installed into your armor. Try it out... and you can come up with your own variant of course. This is just my preferred version for stowing it for hands-free or mobility."

Having watched Paris' demonstration, Dox then turned her attention to the TRC-116 C2. Keeping the barrels down and away from both officers and her fingers clear of the trigger, the young part-Romulan pilot ran her eyes across the weapon with the see focus she would give to the helm of a ship, taking a mental note of the various interface controls before bringing the barrel up, parallel to her body.

Mimicking Commander Paris' actions, Dox turned the weapon over her shoulder, but found herself straining to reach a little more as the electromagnets pulled the weapon hard against her back, slapping her forward a half step. With a slightly awkward but.thoughtful half smile, Dox commented. "I'm going to have to practice that." Then held her thick, stocky arms slightly up. "Short arms and all. Might need that strap for retrieval purposes."

Then focusing her attention back to Paris, Dox had a somewhat quizzical look on her face. "How much does this actually weigh? 75, 80 kilos?"

"Excellent observation, Ms. Dox. Seventy eight kilos with this loadout, which is the full complement. Now for the reason why, grab your spare ammo and figure out where to store it because you're going to need it, and you'll recognize why the weapon is so heavy." Bending at the knees, the Commander grasped the clip of the weapon, which looked only perhaps twice the size of her phaser's handle. Gripping it carefully, she hefted it up to clip it to her left hip where a clip designed to hold it awaited it. "Dense matter. The weapon is not a traditional firearm- it's a portable transporter slash replicator with a dedicated menu. This is what it uses to produce the wonders it can eject. Understood?"

Picking up the hefty ammunition pack and pondering it for a moment, Dox felt around to the small of her back opposite the side the weapon was slung. Noticing a small rigid plate, she alligned the ammo pack as it magnetically locked into place.

Walking to where Paris was kneeling, Dox mirrored her commanders position and strained to reach the stock over her shoulder. After a slighlty too long reach, she pulled the weapon free and into position. "Yeah, shoulder strap will make that a lot quicker for me." Then looking at the unsual device In her arms, elaborated on what Paris was describing.

"With the proper programming and matter load, this could generate an almost... infinite variety of potential payloads. And looking at the construction of the stock, this almost looks more like a launcher designed to withstand significant kickback. Mag rail propulsion for payload delivery or something similar?"

"Oh yes. And transported rounds. Fire in a random direction, the firearm beams it into location with the velocity intact and pre-programmed away from you." Pausing for the expression that wrought upon the face of the young Starfleet officer, Paris nodded ruefully. "Welcome to the weapon of the soldier of the future, Miss Dox. For now, get it slung. Because in any mission, before the shooting comes all that running to get there or get away until you can gain advantage and attempt to turn the tide. This is Starfleet, this is part of what we do. So gear up, so we may mount up, Lieutenant."

That was a snapshot in her mind that Mnhei'sahe Dox would always remember- standing in the woods at the base of a mountain, fumbling with a deployable shoulder strap. While there in a patch of sunshine, in gleaming golden armor, looking to all the world as if she were the reason it was all there, stood Rita Paris. The soul of confidence, grace and competency- what every officer aspired to be, all rolled up in a bombshell body with the face of an angel and the heart of a heroine. In her later years, when the portly pilot thought of the woman, the image of this moment would stay with her.

At which point Paris paused, raised an eyebrow then checked her six on the HUD in her yellow anti-glare visor. Seeing nothing behind her she scanned the area as a matter of course, then realized Doz was still staring. Leaning in quizzically at the shorter crimson armored command trainee, Paris offered concern. "Dox?"

Realizing she was staring like a starstruck little girl, the embarrassed Lieutenant slung the massive weapon over her shoulder, using the newly affixed shoulder strap to lower it to her back more smoothly where it snapped into place.

Her blood felt like it was rushing hot under her skin as she spoke. "I apologize, Commander. It's just... Sometimes it's very... easy to see why you were on that recruitment poster."

Mention of her old 2257 Starfleet recruitment poster made the model's face light up, and it was clear on Rita's face that brought a story to mind, and memories danced behind those baby blue eyes of the earthling. But duty called, and she'd already let this bog down in a lot of distraction. Thus all she offered in response was, "You are very kind, Lieutenant. Thank you. Now, you're all loaded up- ready to run up a mountain?"

Getting her mind back to where she was and what she was doing, Dox replied. "Aye, Commander. So, since you had mentioned we would be shooting, what kind of resistance can we expect on this hike? Or is it an 'expect the unexpected' scenario?"

“Glad you asked,” Paris replied. “Partially this will be a hike up a mountain, since this mountain is 750… sorry, 784 meters tall, this will be a little bit of a hike. So we’re going to practice running and climbing in the EVA armor, pausing along the way to take breaks to shoot at things as we ascend the peak. For added difficulty, we’ll make this a timed test- a mountain this small we should be able to ascend in that time if we hustle, and that’s the purpose of the exercise. Getting you used to moving, jumping and scrambling in a hurry. Because if you are wearing this armor and carrying this firearm, you are likely going to need to be doing all of the above.”

“Ready?” Paris asked, limbering up and doing some stretches before they began. The Commander was a big fan of limbering up, Dox knew from experience.

Deferring to that experience, Dox followed suit, stretching out and shaking off some lingering nerves before taking a deep breath. Pausing for a few seconds, Dox let out the breath. "Aye, Commander."

Which was when Rita Paris bolted through the treeline, bounding up the low hill of the base of the mountain.

The speed with which Paris took off almost looked like she had launched into a run to Dox, who stood, slightly shocked for two seconds before breaking into a run to catch up. The enhancements the armor provided made catching up both easier and harder at the same time. Dox was moving significantly faster but also covering so much more ground with each step that she was struggling to not overshoot each step and slam into the side of the hill.

Looking ahead, Rita Paris looked like she had been born in the suit and was virtually floating up with each perfectly timed bound. In comparison, Dox imagined she must've looked like an injured animal stumbling on ice for the first time. But after a brief moment, the young part-Romulan pilot started to get the hang of running uphill in the armor. Which is, of course, when things got more interesting.

As the foothills gave way, the trees cover lessened, sparser now as the soft earth gave way forst to gravel, then to larger rocks. Paris plotted a course on the fly, dodging the larger stone, vaulting them when she could not and generally maintaining speed and sprint. Thanks to the HUD, she could see how Dox was doing without having to look back to check, and she could see the heartrate and vitals of her charge as they performed maneuvers, insuring that she wasn’t pushing the portly pilot too hard.

All of which was going well until they encountered a sheer face, perhaps 20 meters tall and stretching for a considerable distance to either side. Turning, Paris waited the few seconds for her crimson-clad copilot to arrive, as she had been scrambling to keep up and doing well. Not having the chance to overthink it and needed to make it happen was the best way to build confidence in the young Romulan helmsman, and as her superior Paris knew this and worked with it.

“All right Miss Dox,” Paris paused, catching her breath as the little Lieutenant caught up. “Challenge- how do we ascend this rock face?”

Placing her hand flat against the rock face, Dox’s mind raced for a few seconds. She may not know how to talk to people but she knew how to solve problems and her mind was tightly focused on the problem at hand.

“What we have on our backs aren’t guns, they’re mobile replicators. We could replicate and fire climbing spikes into the face at proper intervals, and with the enhanced strength should be able to make it up fairly quickly so long as the rockface itself is stable enough to withstand repeated pressure and puncture.”

Her eyes darted back around as she thought. “The weapons could theoretically provide sufficient thrust to literally propel ourselves vertically like a rocket but I’m not sure the strength enhancements would be sufficient to allow us to make the trip with them and we wouldn’t be able to control the direction of ascent.”

“Another idea could be to replicate a winched grapple mechanism to pull us up. That’s likely the quickest and safest option.” She looked at Paris for confirmation hoping her ideas didn't sound too crazy.

“I may have misrepresented the capabilities of the firearm in my description,” Paris admitted with some chagrin. "I don’t believe it could be used to propel an armored body up the mountainside, not that far at least, and not without structural damage to the armor and likely the wearer. Spikes hard enough to penetrate the granite sufficiently would likely use up the ammo pack, assuming it could produce those, which I don’t believe is in it’s presets. And it is definitely not a full scale replicator capable of producing a winched grapnel mechanism. The TR-116’s capabilities for replication are limited to rounds small enough to emerge from one of the two barrels, bullets and grenades I’m afraid. Again, it seems I grossly misrepresented the firearm as a multitool- that’s on me.”

“Now, without using the firearm, we could try the climb, as we have enhanced stretch and reflexes and they would help ascending this face. We could go around, as the terrain to either side is likely not as steep. We could, in a pinch, use armor-piercing rounds to gouge out hand and footholds to climb. We might take a wirepoon loadout with a winch on the armor if we chose,” Paris held up her right arm, upon which there was a bulky unit attached to her forearm. “You were on the right track, but replication in the field is seldom a good plan. So, would you like to try some amateur cliff climbing- keeping in mind we are on the clock- or do we go around?”

For a second, Dox's mind flashed back to the first time the two officers went jogging in the holodeck. They were running on the exterior saucer section of a simulation of the U.S.S. Exeter and Dox ordered the holodeck to remove an obstacle for them, but Rita canceled the order and the ran around the obstacle. There was a lesson in that. Dox was learning there were lessons in most of the things Rita Paris said and did where she was concerned. You can't make obstacles go away, so sometimes you need to find a way around them.

"Climbing would probably be fun, but with a clock counting down, every second counts. We can run in these suits FAR faster than we can climb. Plus, there's the risk of our blasting handholds destabilizing the rock face. I think we need to find away around." Dox replied, less like a question or even a suggestion and with intention.

The smile which greeted that statement showed no small amount of pride, which was not an expression to which Melanie Dox was accustomed. But she was learning that Commander Paris was absolutely the worst at hiding her emotions, and when the young pilot did or said something that made her First Officer proud, it showed. “Excellent call, Ms. Dox. Now how do we make the determination which way to go- port or starboard?”

Stepping slightly back, Dox looked in both directions with a slightly quizzical look on her face for about one second before rolling her eyes. Calling up the heads up displays of the sensor arrays built into the gear with a few quick eye motions quickly gave Dox a virtual wireframe view of the terrain in 360 degrees. A virtual plethora of data scrolled in her field of view. Another couple of seconds later, the stout Romulan looked back at Commander Paris.

"Port is rockier. More footholds and landings to run up. Starboard is more level but comprised on mostly loose gravel and stones. Port will be tough, but much more stable considering the weight of our gear." She answered with just a touch of unconcealed excitement in her voice. In spite of the effort and tension, Dox was feeling like she was legitimately getting into the proverbial zone.

“I concur. Let’s go, Miss Dox- on the bounce!” Paris exclaimed, although the statement didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But off she ran like a great golden jackrabbit, bounding and running to make time with their path now chosen and the terrain expected. She was fully halfway up the slope when Paris' footing appeared to give out, and she began to slide back down the incline as she scrabbled for a handhold to slow her descent.

Without thinking, Dox's mind went into flight mode as if she were back at the helm with a crisis in front of her. Since she was still behind and now below the slipping form of Rita Paris, she lept into action... literally.

Using every iota of enhancements that the armor could provide, Dox launched herself up towards Paris as she began to fall and twist towards Dox. Aiming her leap, Dox slammed hard against her Commander pushing the both up and against the sheer rock face to the side of them.

In one motion, Dox punched her armored fingers into the rock face behind them, digging in just enough to pin the two officers to the side. The unfortunate side effect of this maneuver was in planting the much shorter Lieutenants face squarely in the center of Rita's golden breastplate, which was fortunately just a rounded shell and not form-fitted to the executive officer’s abundant curves.

Jerking back quickly as soon as the two were stable again, Dox pried her fingers free and stepped on to a small platform of rock beneath the two. "Hnave! Uh... Sorry Commander. Are you... Are you okay?"

“Sorry for what, Lieutenant? For saving me from a potentially nasty fall had I slid over that cliff face, or for assisting a shipmate while on the course of the mission? Quick thinking and well done, Miss Dox!” With a nimbleness that decried her momentary slip, Paris planed her feet and stood, offering her hand to the crimson-clad commando with a grin that somehow indicated all was right with the world. “C'mon… let’s get up on top of that ridge up there and we’ll review some ammunition options, eh?”

"Aye, Commander," Dox replied as she took the hand up and followed behind Paris as they continued. In the back of her mind, Dox had to question if Rita's slip had been yet another test, watching now how smoothly Rita ascended. But the thought left her brain as she focused on the task of keeping up as best as possible.

The hike was equal parts exhilarating and exhausting. Each step was enhanced, but no less a challenge as the thickly built young redhead felt herself sweating as the duo reached the top of the ridge. Rita Paris at least had the good grace to appear winded.

“Hydration break, Miss Dox. We’re doing well, a good third of the way up the mountain and we still have 40 minutes to go. Take a minute and catch your breath, then we’ll review some live fire options,” Paris ordered, following her own directions and taking a bit of water from the suit, which extended a drinking straw for her to access the life-giving fluid commonly needed by most humanoids. “The system will recycle your waste into pure water- sweat or urine- which can keep you going on a long EVA, aside from the armor’s small reservoir. I pack a few nutrition bars in mine, because I’ve needed them before. You okay on calorics?”

Watching Paris' motions, Dox mimicked the actions to call out the straw on her helmet for a drink. It was surprisingly refreshing compared to the recycled water on the ship she grew up on. While taking a quick drink, Dox read the biometric data on the heads up display. She looked confused for a moment at the data before remembering that the corrections to her DNA that Doctor Dael had completed restored her body chemistry and functionality to a Romulan baseline, meaning the extremely low blood pressure, even exerting herself, was actually perfectly normal, as were her current hydration levels.

The readouts gave her all the information she needed, combined with what a lifetime of trying to lose weight had taught her. "I'm good on calories. The joy of a hybrid metabolism with Vulcanoid muscle density. Romulans may not have Vulcan's physical strength, but the bone and muscle density is the same, so it takes me 3 to 4 times the effort to burn the same amount of calories a full human would. Though I AM hoping it will get a little easier now that my Father's overweight, Scottish DNA has gone recessive again." Dox laughed, smiling at Rita as the pain took a momentary break.

“Ach! The divvil ye say?” Paris rolled out with a fair Scottish brogue, which earned her a blank stare. “Right… well, I shouldn’t worry, Miss Dox. I’ve tested your physical fitness and it is exemplary. So anyone who judges you on your shape is a fool, and their comeuppance is well earned.” Pausing for a moment, Paris held up her left arm and tapped a few commands into the data device on her forearm, pausing the countdown. “Lets take a break here, because I think it’s time we had a talk, you and I.”

The typical know in the anxious aviatrix's stomach tightened up just a little, but not quite as bad as it usually did. After the last couple of months serving together, Dox was finally getting an idea that when Rita Paris wanted to have a sit down like this, it generally was for a good reason.

Taking a seat on the ridge with the ground cover and the forest laid out before them, with more woodland spread out as far as the eye could see with the occasional ribbon of roadway cutting through it, Paris inhaled deeply, then released it to look the Romulan pilot in the eye. “You see, Mnhei'sahe Dox, you are a Romulan, and having embraced your heritage, now you must fully understand the other part of your heritage. All of the great races of the Federation- well, nearly all- can somehow manage to interbreed with another race. Occasionally it will result in a mutant strain, such as the Neko Caitains, the half-human crossbreeds who combine elements of both species.” Paris smirked, shrugging slightly. “We humans are breeders. We took to the stars, and started humping.”

“Which is good. Because all of you humanoid races out here that we intermarry with our genetics, it seems more often than not, what you get is an exceptional version of the other species. One with all of the capabilities of the other race, infused with the drive of humanity to explore, to achieve, to reach for the stars. And while so many of those races are stiff, inflexible and some might say stagnant, Humanity are some of the most adaptable creatures in the universe.”

“Spock was half human, yet he was arguably perhaps the greatest Vulcan since Surak. He pierced time, learned to navigate it, and even pierced dimensions, altering destiny. Sela is half human and reputed to be one of the most Romulan badasses to ever come along. Like them, you, Miss Dox, are half human.”

“While we humans might not have done very well by you, as you move into the future, I want you to remember that you’re also half human, Miss Dox. To my mind, that means you are capable of doing anything a native Romulan can... and far, far more. We’re an unexceptional species from a backwater planet that nuked their own world repeatedly, poisoned it and practically sold it for profit. But within us are the seeds of greatness, and you carry that heritage within you. So no matter how far you go and however much you embrace your Romulan heritage, always remember that part of you came from the third rock from Sol- and that birthright grants you unlimited potential, Miss Dox. So reach for the stars, because we’re with you too. Okay?” Knowing that she’d been long-winded and preachy, Paris smiled to offset the weight of what she’d tried to impart to her young charge.

For her part, Dox was smiling broadly. As usual, Rita Paris could see deep into her heart and cut right through her in the best way. She looked out over the breathtaking vista as she spoke. "I hated this place. Earth. It felt like a prison I had been condemned to. It was where he came from. I didn't want anything to do with it."

She turned to look at Rita for a second before continuing. "I couldn't see... this. I didn't want to see this. I mean, in my defense I was a perpetually angry 16-year-old being told to not tell anyone what I was when I got to Earth." Dox chuckled slightly as she recollected. "But I know I didn't ever give it a chance. Humanity, I mean. Sure, I played up looking mostly human but that wasn't me embracing it or anything... it was just a defense. A poor one that... well... didn't really help."

Thinking, Dox hung her head slightly as she continued. "And now... it's hard to look back with anything but regret for the missed opportunities. But I guess I have a new one now. To... not put either part of myself back in a box."

"We are the sum of our physicality, spirituality and mentality, as my guy likes to say," Paris replied with a relieved smile. Often she launched into these sort of mentoring moments without a clue where it's going or what she's doing. Speaking from her heart tended to work though, and she felt it was important for Dox to not abandon half herself as she sought to understand who she was and who she was becoming.

"We can't change the past- wait, scratch that, I don't think I'm allowed to say that anymore. Most of the time we can't change the past," Paris amended as she looked out over the mountains and the coastline, feeling the wind and the hint of the salt of the sea. "But we can let those regrets and missed opportunities guide us into the future, having taught us to not repeat those mistakes. We are all of us a lot of people- look at the Captain."

"Pirate princess of the Artan family which, according to her, she arranged herself through some shady time travel. Starfleet captain of a ship of secrets, sent where the trouble is unbelievable, following a madwoman. Wife to a photonic version of another photonic being. Unruly daughter to the stern matriarch of the clan. Savior to the Baroness. A woman who is, at heart, lonely despite always being surrounded by others. She is all of these things and more, but she doesn't put them in boxes- it is the blend of all those features, all those lives, all those experiences that comprise who she truly is as Enalia Telvan."

"Same goes for you, Lieutenant," Paris placed her fist against the smaller woman's shoulder and gently nudged like a slo-mo shot in the arm, smiling affectionately.

Returning the smile, Dox chuckled. "Yeah, probably best to fake the punching in these things." Dox looked down at the crimson armor she was wearing, shining in the simulated sunlight. "I feel like I have a better handle on operating this EVA suit then I do of being half-human sometimes. But going one way or the other hasn't really worked in my life, so might as well try being exceptional for a change. At least I know I won't be trying on my own."

Sitting atop a half recreated, San Francisco mountain top, Commander Rita Paris and Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe "Melanie" Dox had paused for a brief rest after hiking up the rock face in the EVA armor they were wearing.

In the simulated sunshine, Paris's golden plated armor glistened like something out of mythology. By her side, Dox sat, looking over the artificial Vista in similar, though crimson colored, plates.

Looking back at Rita, Dox smiled sincerely and with a somewhat unfamiliar confidence in the moment. "So, what's next?"

"Target practice. Time for you top see what these things we've been lugging up a mountain can do." As the Commander stood, even in the power-assisted spacesuit she was wearing, Rita Paris' hand instinctively went to smooth out her skirt when she stood up. Reaching over her shoulder, she grasped the large heavy weapon and released it from her back. Readjusting her grip to hold the pistol grip, Paris showcased the weapon like a salesgirl at an arms convention.

"The TR-116C2 model C was designed for more efficient operation against Borg and similar targets, using a magazine filled with dense replicator matter to feed a micro-replication system. This creates a string of 2.2mm tritanium bullets and varied ammunition types as needed. The normal capacity of the replicator matter magazine is 80-120 rounds depending on settings. Normal ball point, hollow point, incendiary, delayed tracer rounds, and marker rounds are the most commonly programmed ammunition types."

"Only single fire and three round burst are enabled," Paris continued, reading off the sales pitch on her HUD. "The gyrostatic stabilization system can be unreliable during high rates of fire, but is fairly consistent in keeping all 3 rounds on target as long as the operator waits for it to resync between cycles. The main unit is powered by the same dual regenerative power supply used in the standard issue proton rifle. Along with this, it uses the targeting microcomputer from the same rifle. Because of the power supply, it still functions in environments that normal phasers are useless in, and has greater effectiveness against energy shielded targets. A transporter module and exographic targeting system can be attached for stealth sniper missions, but is not part of the normal loadout. Clearly these are not the normal loadout. Questions?"

Tugging with her left arm on the shoulder strap of her weapon, the stock and handle snapped free of her back and rotated quickly forward into her waiting right hand for a much quicker deploy then her first, fumbling attempt. "I think I have the basics. At least technically."

Holding the TR-116C2 horizontally in front of her, Dox pointed with her thumb to a small control panel just above the handle. "Is this the controls for switching firing modes? Annnd what kind of kickback should I be expecting? Based on the firing stance you took earlier, I'm guessing a lot."

"Nope. Recoilless, unless you are throwing out something big from the grenade launcher. The key thing to remember with all of these various ammunitions- which you can also voice program, so you just call out your desired ammo like Judge Dredd. The key is ammunition application. Okay, computer, give us some angry slobbering dog-like things from wherever, about a meter in length each, none too fast, ascending the hill below us. Safety protocols on." As the holodeck complied, a gloopy gathering of tentacled beings that looked like tumbleweeds made out of roiling tentacles and slime appeared on the slope.

Taking a mental note, the young part-Romulan pilot reminded herself to look up what a 'Judge Dredd' was later.

"Sulamids? Okay, fair." Rita actually identified and, apparently was not threatened by, the hentai monsters. "So, we want to stop their advance non-lethally or discourage them? Rubber bullets. This is the 'middle of the warzone rioting peasants option. Hollow points and incendiaries at the rock face would discourage them without harming them maybe, but tricky because of ricochets and shrapnel. Tracer rounds are really more so you can hit a moving target like aircraft. Marker rounds are to paint something to the sensors so that we can target for artillery support, which could be a runabout or the Hera herself. Ever seen the phasers from the ship strike the planet?"

Dox paused for a second at Paris' last question before answering. "I've... not from the Hera, but yeah, I've seen it. That could be an ideal situation, but I have to imagine it's not always a feasible option if we're, say, not outside." Bringing the subject back to the threat at hand, Dox brought the handle of her weapon up towards her chest, keeping the barrels facing down and away from herself, Commander Paris and the oncoming threat.

"Discouragement would be ideal. They're moving slow enough that we can certainly start with that and ramp up as needed to non lethal rounds and beyond only if absolutely necessary." Dox continued. "Rubber projectiles to start?"

"Fire at will. Burst fire or single shots, are you thinking?" Paris was still casually holding her own weapon pointing downrange one-handed as the moment.

Keeping her eyes on the advancing simulated Sulamids, Dox called out her answer so as to load the proper ammunition and firing setting as Paris had told her. "Rubber projectiles, single shots." Then the crimson armored officer glanced back at her gilded Commander to confirm her readiness, raised her weapon to aim and fired once.

The first shot hit the ground, low in front of the rapidly quickening creature. Dox squinted, reminding herself to not try and compensate for the recoil that wasn't there as she pulled the trigger a second time, hitting her intended target.

"All right Miss Dox, we're getting older and they're getting closer. Single shot is still as fast as you can pull the trigger, and rubber doesn't take up much density." With that said Paris raised her rifle and pumped three rounds in rapid succession into three of the tentacled horrors in what passed for center mass. "Nice and quick- mark your target, fire, move on, watch your perimeter. Smartly now, Lieutenant!"

"Aye." Dox replied without taking her attention off of the creatures, adjusted her firing settings and followed Paris' lead, opening fire on her targets with increasing success as they moved.

"Good, now we're making progress. Computer, please keep them coming in waves, increase the sulamid's movement by 50% and now, Lieutenant, we have a ridgeline here, let's use it. Move and fire, we're going to try flanking first, southwest heading 213, firing as we move," Paris called out the orders calmly, not barking them like a sergeant, but explaining to step up the exercise as if she were instructing flying lessons to a new pilot learning to bank.

As both officers were pilots, it was a mutually understood language and without really having to think about it, Dox began moving on the heading instructed, maintaining a consistent fire while monitoring her ammunition supply projected on her heads up display as the number very slowly reduced with each pull of the trigger.

Watching the situation develop, Paris was pleased- as with all things, Dox caught on quickly, and she was firing with more confidence now. “Firing line, take a knee and give me an autospray to discourage a charge. No recoil so just point and shoot, but get a feel for how far you can sweep with burst fire.”

The golden girl of the Hera stopped firing, so that the hotshot pilot would get a better feel for how the automatic fire option performed in the field. With rubber bullets they weren’t making a bloody mess of the sentient slimy tumbleweeds pursuing them, which would definitely be more conducive to the young Romulan learning how to handle the weapon without squeamishness.

"Aye," Dox said flatly, following the instructions now with the most basic of verbal responses, Dox was purely focused on the task at hand. Even before attending Starfleet academy, she was raised, trained and, to a degree, conditioned to respond to orders quickly and dispassionately. A learned skill that made her cool under pressure at the helm of a ship and was serving her well with a weapon in her hand.

Dropping quickly to one knee, Dox locked the butt of the weapon into place as Rita had showcased earlier, switched the setting to rapid fire, and began to lay down a sweeping line of fire. As Rita had pointed out, the rubber ammunition took up precious little matter from the weapons supply, but Dox kept a watchful eye on the readouts as she fired.

As for her targets, multiple impacts from the bursts definitely took their toll. Some rounds went to the second and third ranks and some shots were wasted, but the aerospace ace was definitely getting a feel for the spacing and use of autofire in this capacity. Watching for a moment, Paris patted the portly pilot on the shoulder.

The instant Dox felt the pat, she pulled her finger off of the trigger and pulled the butt of the weapon up while tilting the barrel down towards the rock face they both stood upon.

“Well done, Miss Dox. All right, would you like to get a feel for the rest of the ammunition?” the commander inquired, wanting to satisfy any curiosity her pupil might have in regard to the weapon. “Recoilless means that the hardest-hitting rounds feel the same coming out as rubber bullets, even the alloy ‘god rounds’ Lieutenant Commander sh’Zoarhi programmed into some of the models, which affect those specialty life forms that are immune to phaser fire and seem to penetrate the forcefields that some of them naturally generate, such as the Minotaurs and such.”

With the initial moment past, Dox let out a deep breath and felt a rush of tension release from her shoulders. "Uh... Yeah. Wow." Then she turned towards Paris. "Yes, please."

That earned a chuckle from the first officer. “Yeah, it’s pretty impressive, I’ll freely admit. Since you’re still on autoburst, try the tracer rounds option. Computer, please pause the sulamid horde and let’s change the time of day to a 23:00 night sky, clear weather, winds from the west at 25-30 kph. Give me some large drone targets moving at 40 KPH at a range of 30 meters” As she spoke the command, the computer obliged and the holodeck conditions changed to night time on Earth, stars filling the sky and a aerial drones blinking as they circled past them.

There was no need to order the junior officer to action, Paris felt, as she knew what to do.

In an instant, Dox felt almost fully in her element as this style of targeting and firing was remarkably similar to ship to ship combat, something she had been training for and enganging in, since she was 10.

Flatly, she said "Tracer rounds" to the weapons computer as the ammunition program adjusted. She brought the barrel up and began following the first drone with her eyes. No more than a second after raising the weapon, she squeezed the trigger lightly, firing just ahead of the drones flight path as a small cluster of flaring projectiles raced through the sky to hit their target.

Following suit, Dox began stepping to the side to match up with the motion of the drones as she squeezed off more rounds, pegging each drone in sequence, until all had been hit. Not every round hit it's target immediately, but she had not had to fire more than twice to hit them all.

“Very well done, Miss Dox!” the commander clapped slowly, an odd sound with her hands clad in the armored gauntlets made of high impact polymers. “Feel free to test any of the other rounds you’d like to test- fire at will.”

Allowing herself an ever so slightly smile, the normally anxious pilot was legitimately excited at the point. Calling up the full available menu of ammunition available and deciding to cycle through in order. Pausing, Dox tilted her head back slightly and spoke. "Need something to shoot at, I suppose."

"Computer, please set up a new sequence of firing targets. Standard targeting program options, varying speeds and numbers of targets, scattered attack formations. Begin on my mark, thank you." Dox took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then said flatly, "Mark."

Instantly, a group of very large Tiberian bats shimmered into existence to the left of Dox, scattering in the air. Raising her weapon away from Commander Paris, Dox called out to the weapon for the hollow point ammunition and began firing. Unlike the drones, the bats flew erraticly and we're much more difficult to predict or hit, but the rapid fire setting compensated and one by one the targets were taken down.

As each wave of targets was eliminated, a new grouping would appear. Some land based, running at Dox at high speed. Some flying. Others bounding off the rock face towards the Romulan officer. With each new attack, Dox called out a different option from the menu trying her best to choose the most ideal ammunition, each with varying degrees of success.

Midway through the assaults, Dox ejected the empty ammunition cartridge which fell to the ground lightly. As a Klingon Targ began cresting the edge of the rock face, running towards the duo, she reached around to grab the extra ammunition cartridge and tugged it free of the electromagnetic connection.

But forgetting that the ammunition was, in fact, the heaviest aspect of the weapon due to the density of the matter load it contained to replicate rounds, the overzealous young officer fumbled the cartridge, almost dropping it.

As the Targ got closer, Dox began to panic as she tried to get the ammo into place in time. As the cartridge clicked in, the simulated beast leapt inside the range of Dox's weapon, bowling her over to slobber and snarl atop her armored chest.

"Safety protocols are on, Lieutenant. He can't hurt you, just inconvenience you." Paris stepped in with a long stride and with practiced ease punted the targ off the crimson clad cosmonaut. Between Paris' runner's legs and the power assist combined with her 'took my time setting it up' placement, the Klingon pet/foodsource/predator flew a good two meters to northeast. Whereupon the golden armor roared with a human cry amplified and directed. The targ ran off with it's tail between it's legs. "Playing on the easy level. Those ammo packs are heavy- I fumbled it the first time I pulled it out of the weapon."

Offering a hand up, Paris called out to the night sky, "Computer, cease hostilities. I assume that was all self-explanatory, Miss Dox? The various round types and their practical application?"

"Thank you." Taking Rita's hand, Dox was pulled back to her feet, the only injuries to her pride. Standing stable again, the embarrassed officer pushed past her own tendency to beat herself up to simply answer the Commanders questions. "Yes, Commander, it was. It's extremely intuitive."

"Right? Even the safety is where you'd thing it would be and works the way you would expect it to. And the heads-up in these visors is a little disorienting at first, but once you get the hang of it they coordinate quite handily with the weapon. We are some dangerous explorers."

"Okay, let's review the grenade options, shall we?" the gold-clad commander hefted her weapon then shifted it to her left hand. Plucking the antique phaser from her hip by releasing the magnet holding it, the old school officer gestured with her her old school phaser. "I prefer to use my phaser for any actual fighting, because it is non-lethal and versatile if I need lethality to the landscape or lifeforms. But not everything is vulnerable to a phaser. Which is where the mobile artillery option becomes handy."

"The MACO modified TR-116-C2 carries an 18mm barrel that can be used for more specialized grenade ammunition. Standard preprogrammed munitions are rubber, micro-airburst, smoke grenade,tear gas, flash-bang and low yield plasma grenade. This reduces a magazine's rounds to 6-12 depending on the munition produced. But you heard me right- a stun round for something like a mugatu... or a plasma grenade." Paris looked solemn. "It's a court of last resort, but there is very little matter that can survive contact with plasma in a 4 meter radius burst."

"That's both... impressive and honestly... frightening." Dox replied, processing not just the technical information but the gravity of how Commander Paris presented it. "From the section reports that I've read from just the last couple of missions, it's... distressing how often this level of armament seems to be necessary."

The young Romulan pilot looked at the powerful weapon in her hands for a moment, thinking about it more deeply than before and sighed lightly. "Sorry... Please continue."

"No, no, you're on the right track, Lieutenant. We are... I am an explorer, Miss Dox. I joined Starfleet to seek out strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go. This is the Hera, a Starfleet Intel ship that follows a woman whose penchant for trouble puts mine to shame. We're the ones called in when the explorers who came in peace are dead on the floor. They send us when the diplomatic delegation were all petrified. If it's bad, they send us."

"This is a hell of a weapon, and these armored shells are less spacesuit and more trooper armor." Snapping down the visor and sealing the systems, Paris spoke through the comms, lending her voice a slight mechanical quality. "I'm an explorer, but sometimes I'm called upon to be a soldier. Maybelline, load plasma grenade."

Following Paris' lead, Dox sealed the systems of her own suit in anticipation of what was next.

Turning to point at the face of the mountain, Rita Paris fired the grenade with a 'phoont!'. When it struck the mountainside it explodes into a coruscating sphere of plasma that generated a mild shockwave radiating outward from it. When the explosion subsided, there was now a hemispherical hollow in the mountain they could see clearly, the surface rough and pitted. Watching it smolder for a few seconds, Paris turned to lock eyes with Mnhei'sahe Dox.

"The key is that sometimes you have to shoot a few people to get people to listen to you. I'm a fan of a phaser on stun or a kick in the privates to convince someone to be reasonable. But in this universe... on these missions... that's not always an option. So you look for your opportunities to offer mercy when you can, and when you can't, you do what you have to do. It's called 'cowboy diplomacy'- peace negotiations work better when you've got a gun trained on the other party."

The concept of 'doing what you have to do' wasn't a new one to the young woman raised on a smuggling ship that ran back and forth across the Neutral Zone, but it never seemed to make the idea any easier to stomach. She held the weapon up, looking at it and taking in just how powerful it really was.

Then, her eyebrows knitted as her head tilted slightly. "Maybelline, Commander?"

"There are many like it, but this one is mine. Kidding- I didn't name the weapon. As sentimental as I am, I also have a tendency to lose things. This is not my phaser from 2268. This is not the armor I wore in the Battle of Hera's Planet. This is not a firearm I have held before- it's a hologram. Besides, I always thought it was creepy to name a gun." Paris rolled her eyes and slung the rifle over her shoulder, where is snapped onto her back with magnetic precision.

"I just prefer a safeword. I don't want to be discussing what I might do and have my ammunition cycling, so I added an attention-getter. The ship's computer responds if you just call out 'computer', but it responds based on conversational patterns- it doesn't ask you what you want just because you said the word. The weapon isn't that sophisticated, so a word I cannot imagine saying on a battlefield other than intentionally was Maybelline," Parish shrugged a bit sheepishly. "An ancient cosmetics brand of my people that's still around, and I'm definitely not giving beauty tips on the battlefield. I don't have to tell it to load I suppose, but I prefer for my orders to be orders, not just nouns."

"Hmm, that makes sense. Thanks." Dox replied with a light smile. She had gotten into the habit of making mental notes whenever her shipmates dropped names or references that went over her head to look them up later. It seemed to work better for the Romulan girl raised in space, who never even tried to absorb Earth's pop culture, rather then constantly having to ask and feel like an idiot for not knowing what flying monkeys or Judge Dredd were. But in the case of 'Maybeline', asking seemed prudent at the moment.

Taking note of Paris having stowed her weapon, Dox raised hers in a position, barrel up and away, to either be used or stowed itself. "Are we back on the move, Commander?"

"Well, we blew the time limit on getting up the mountain in an hour a while back, but giving you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the TR-116C2 was much more important. Besides, in the lower climb you showed you had the coordination with the suit down. You want to switch back to daytime and get up there?" Paris chucked a thumb up toward the mountaintop, a shadow barely visible in the night-time conditions. "Even in these power assisted armor suits, it would be a challenge with no climbing gear."

Looking up at the faint shadow of a mountain, Dox tilted her head slightly. "I'm not against a little more challenge." She replied, calling up the HUD displays various menus and using the scanning equipment to overlay a 3-D wireframe of the mountain into her visor. "With all the data this helmet is gathering, what else do we have that could compensate for the lack of light? It's not like we would be able to just turn the sun back on in an actual mission."

“Check your visor… we have the scanning capabilities of a tricorder built into these suits, and imaging resources that make us more sharp-eyed in the dark than we are in broad daylight with the naked eye. We can certainly accommodate a night-time mountain climb. Plus I did schedule you for training for the whole day. So… Per aspera ad astra, Mnhei'sahe Dox?”

Pausing with a quirky tilt to her head, Dox froze on the Latin phrase. "Uh... I need to brush up on my Latin." The crimson clad young Lieutenant scrunched her face as she thought.

"Something... 'to the starts with... difficulty'?" She turned back towards Rita Paris, asking. "If that's even kind of close, then yes." She smiled.

“Starfleet Academy motto, Miss Dox, and you are quite correct in your translation,” Paris explained, which might have been a rebuke, but not in the tone in which she delivered the statement. The feisty first officer knew Dox hadn’t had the best Academy experience, and lacked the pride in the institution that Rita carried. Something Rita Paris had resolved to work on as part of her long-term plan, because when she arrived at her own moment in time to instruct, she’d be damned if she would like a kid like Melanie Dox walk out with an education marred by bullying and spite. As she couldn’t change the past, as always, Rita focused on the present as she built toward the future.

“C’mon…” Paris looked up to the mountaintop and set her jaw, then turned back to Dox with a smile. “As the lady said, ‘I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night’. Let’s climb up so we can get a good view, and as a reward, we can enjoy the view of the stars, as seen from where we all started this trek through the stars.”

Sitting at the small, plain dining table in the middle of her otherwise sparse quarters, the newly minted full Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe "Melanie" Dox was plinking at the small keyboard she had been neglecting since coming on board the Hera. As a girl, she used to play more regularly, creating melodies and largely just making up tunes. But her duties on the Hera and a slighlty growing social life had cut into her practice time and she was failing miserably at getting back into it. Perhaps it was partly due to her sore muscles, still loosly aching from her recent armored exercises with Commander Rita Paris. Regardless, she found no joy in practicing her old keyboard, and rolled it back up to put away.

The duty shift was over and she had already eaten a light dinner in her quarters when a chirp came across the PaDD on her nightstand. Prepared for a lazy night in, her uniform top was tossed on the end of the bed and she was wandering about in her work pants and a basic, black bra. She picked up the PaDD to see a private message.

Checking it somewhat curiously, it was from the Captain of the HERA, Enalia Telvan. An off duty request to see her in her quarters at the earliest convenience. Dox looked at the message and actively quelched the anxiety that lived permanently in her gut. If something was wrong, this would be an official message. At least, if something was wrong regarding ships business.

Concerned, but refusing to allow herself to stress unnecessarily, Dox put her uniform tunic back on, straightened it out and headed quickly out of the door after sending a reply message that she was on her way. It might not be a ships emergency, but Dox didn't want to take any chances and dawdle.

A few minutes later, she arrived in front of the doors to the Captains quarters. The anxious young Romulan pilot had only had a handful on off-duty interactions with Captain Telvan that had all went very well, but she still couldn't quite calm her nerves that something was wrong as she pressed the door chime.

The door opened on it's own, letting the ship's CFCO in and revealing a highly decorated set of quarters filled with antiques from all over the galaxy. Shelves of tea sets lined shelves, tapestries on the walls, and even the furniture looked luxurious and so far removed from Starfleet issue it was like stepping into another world. "Please, come in," Enalia called from the couch by the windows. She and Maica were snuggling and with a kiss and a silent understanding both got up. While Maica headed into the kitchen for refreshments, Enalia headed towards the small yet ornate dining room table. "I was hoping to have a chat with you to see how you were doing. You've gone through a lot lately and I just wanted to make sure everything was going well. Will you join me for some late night tea?"

Relieved that nothing was wrong, the knot in Dox's stomach loosened up a little as she looked around the ornate quarters. "Thank you, Captain. Yes, that... that would be nice."

Remembering Rita Paris' words from the other night to try and relax more and in particular, not be overly formal around the Captain while off duty as, shock of shocks, Captains get nervous and self conscious around people on occasion too, Dox had her hands folded behind her back. It was a casual stance for the young pilot as she stepped slightly further in, taking in the details surrounding her.

"Wow. This is amazing. I... I have a lot of decorating to do. I've got, like, two half empty shelves." Dox smiled and let out a light chuckle as she spoke.

Slipping into one of the seats, Enalia chuckled softly as she too glanced around. "Thanks. I have a castle on Earth and a castle on Trill full of antiques, plus the family fortress with its collection, so everything here is a replica. Sorry... That's not... I don't mean that as bragging..."

It was that time that Maica returned with a ceramic and jade tea set detailed in a very Romulan manner on a silver tray. The smell of ginger and camomile filled the air as she poured the tea into the two cups. "What she means is that she's spent most of her life building up her collection and she's very proud of it. The replicas here are some of her favorite pieces so thank you for noticing." Smiling brightly, she took her leave, leaving the tea set on the table as she headed into the office area. "If you'll excuse me, I'll leave the two of you alone. Please call if you need anything."

"Uh, thank you. It smells lovely." Dox commented, somewhat awkwardly, though she was trying to not let her anxiety show. While there was an open seat that she assumed was intended for her, Dox stood near it not wanting to make a social blunder. But she also decided to be a little bluntly honest about her concern.

"I... I'm sorry, Captain. I know I'm standing here all stiff and I'm really not trying to be weird." She let a smile creep out. "Most of my training In life... well... really didn't cover how to... um... relax."

"Yeah, same here, actually..." Enalia motioned to the open seat as she spoke. "Please, sit. Right now I'm not Captain and you're not Lieutenant, we're just one friend concerned for how the other is doing. Though to be fair... I've read the reports... I have a few ideas... I want to know how you feel."

Taking the offered seat, Dox put her hands in her lap and was fidgeting slighlty, but starting to relax a little more. She paused for a moment, thinking about the question, wanting to not just throw out a perfunctory 'fine' or something similarly meaningless.

"It's... It's getting a little better. A little easier. I'm still..." Dox paused for a moment, pushing past her natural defense mechanism of shutting up to continue. "I'm still having nightmares about what happened. About Anansi and... But I'm getting through the night and sleeping a bit more each night. I have Sonak to thank for that."

Thinking about the psychic attack that had instigated what became weeks of major upheavals in her life, Dox rubber an ear nervously. An old tic she still fell into when she wasn't thinking. "He... mind melded with me to help me reconcile the memories that Anansi unearthed. And he's been helping me with meditations and training so maybe I can stop the next thing that tries pushing into my brain."

"Being able to have actually talked with my Mother... that helped me at least understand the other stuff. What Anansi showed me. Helped me at least have an idea of why he..." Dox trailed off, realizing she was starting to ramble. "Why my father did what he did to me. Changing me."

Then she brought her eyes, which had been largely focusing on her own feet until now up to meet Captain Telvan's. "I have to thank you for making that possible. Things are... tense... but we're talking at least."

Enalia smiled. Not one of her fake or piratical smiles, but a true, warm smile from the heart. "That's good. You're here on your own merits, but I wouldn't be lying if I said I picked you out of a list of fifty or so because I recognized your family name. As for your mother, I kind of feel like I owe her, for your sake and for hers, so... Yeah... Family is complicated for both of us, I guess. In a way, she reminded me of my own mother when I met her."

"Intel is ok with a twenty minute call every weekly rotation, so I'd take advantage of it. They're monitored still, but not directly at least." Sighing heavily Enalia sipped at her tea before continuing. "Growing up I was raised to be a pirate queen. Lead from a pedestal and inspire fear. Dine with the unwashed masses, but not to socialize with them. My mother was strict and nothing I did ever lived up to her expectations. My sister was trained to be a fleet commander and excelled at every task set before her. After my father's death, which they both blamed on me... Things got worse... So I ran off to the Trill Self Defense Force, then Starfleet when that wasn't far enough away. My mother even conned me into being Joined. Now she's disappointed I haven't given her an heir to take over the family."

Grinning wryly, Enalia looked up at Melanie. "Sound a bit like someone you know?"

Smiling as Enalia talked, Dox replied with a light chuckle. "Yeah, that's all more than a little familiar."

But then, thinking on her Captain's words, Dox's head sank again. "I think that's what Starfleet was to me, at least at first. An escape. A way to get away from her and my past and my father's planet. Just... away."

Slowly, her head raised back up. "I don't think I was ever really running towards something until now. Until getting here, if that makes any sense."

"Well, I'm glad you're here and I know a lot of other people are as well." Enalia smiled warmly again. "You're a part of the Hera family now, like it or not. Oh, and the Artan family, lest we forget. You can run towards us all you want, we'll be here for you."

Lightening her tone a bit, Dox smiled broadly now. "There's no forgetting that. I put my Artan ID up on a shelf in my quarters. I'm just about as proud of that as I am these pips in a way... because of what it means."

She paused for another second then continued. "With what you've all done for me. Yourself, Rita, Asa, Sonak, Thex, Schwein and everyone else have been here for me in ways I honestly thought didn't really exist. I meant what I said with that toast, Captain. Every word."

"And I believe it." Enalia sipped at her tea as she considered her words. "I would welcome every member of the Hera crew into the Artan family if I thought Command would let me get away with it."

Smiling as Enalia spoke, Dox paused for a moment and her face went a little more serious. "Captain... before... you said something about your mother conning you into being joined? I'm sorry if I'm asking too much, but what do you mean?"

The concept of bodily autonomy had become a very sensitive subject for the restored Romulan woman and she was concerned with the choice of the word 'conned'.

Enalia cupped her teacup in her hands and stared into it as she went over the tale. "Ah, well, in Trill society, it's a high honor to be selected as a host for a symbiont. I'm sure she paid a great deal to rush me through the selection process. That, coupled with my natural leadership abilities led me to be a natural choice, despite my background. However my first symbiont had to have an emergency host implantation on the way back to the homeworld so I wasn't selected in the end. Then some time later, I found out she had pulled some strings and changed some minds. The Commission had found a new symbiont for me. At the behest of my advisors at the Academy and my mother, I returned to Trill for the Joining... To find out afterwards that... And I tell you this in the strictest of confidences... I would be the first host for the young symbiont Telvan. It took us six months for us to even figure out how to sleep right again."

Putting her hand to her mouth, Dox gasped ever so silently. "Taeth Nouhha" she whispered slightly, a Rihan equivalency for the Terran phrase 'my God.'. Slipping into her native tounge was something that happened with increasing frequency after her childhood memories had been unlocked, but in the moment, Dox wasn't even aware of the slip.

"I... I can't even imagine. I am so sorry, Captain... That's just..." She replied, rambling somewhat now in federation basic. "And, of course. Yeah. This goes in a... cloaked asteroid in the.middle of a minefield in the Neutral Zone under constant guard."

"But hey, Joined Trill. Just what all Trill aspire to be, right? Lifetimes of experience behind me. Or so people have to think, otherwise I'm at risk of kidnapping. Young symbionts are rare and are usually kept in well off families in compounds where they're safe." Enalia finished her tea and poured herself another cup. "But I want to know more about you. How's your gene therapy going? Recognize the woman in the mirror yet?"

The Captain's last comments were loaded with ideas dropped rather casually that the young pilot was still wrapping her mind around, but took the change of subject as a cue to not press any further down that road at this time. Although the risk of her Captain being kidnapped and the question of if being joined is what Enalia truly wanted would be stored for later.

Instead, Dox picked up the cup of tea and took a sip as she thought. "According to Asa, the gene therapy should be pretty much complete. They will be making regular genetic scans a part of my checkups for a while to make sure everything is stable again, but so far the results have all been good. The genetic alterations that had been done to repress my Romulan DNA had caused long term damage that Asa estimated would likely have lead to a complete DNA break down in... my 60's or 70's. It was never picked up on since it was just assumed that being a hybrid of two races considered generally incompatible without significant assistance, I was just supposed to be that way. Doctors never dug all that deep, so they told me whatever they thought made sense. I was told that having brown blood was just a genetic mutation. That I was likely sterile since I never had a period. That..."

Again, Dox found she was rambling. "Sorry. long story short, thanks to Asa I've got 9ish pints of green blood, undamaged DNA, the ears I had as a kid restored and a potential two hundred and thirty years ahead of me." She paused to take another sip. "But yeah, the most important part of all of that for me is looking in the mirror and seeing the woman that I always knew was supposed to be there. That's..."

Pausing to collect herself as she was finding herself getting emotional, Dox took a breath as she spoke. "That's been... pretty amazing, really. To finally at least partially know who you are after a lifetime of questioning is something I didn't think could ever really happen. But I'm getting there."

Wiping a tear that had escaped from her plum cheek, Dox chuckled awkwardly. "Sorry. I swear, half the ship has seen me cry now. It's just still all a little overwhelming. To see myself as I've always been in my head. To know the name my Mother called me as a child. It's a lot, but it's good. The rest, I'll figure out."

"And Doctor Dael didn't even need to use the biomimetic gel we have stashed on board. Though, if you decide to go that route to speed along the genetic changes..." Enalia offered, knowing just how strictly controlled that stuff was. "Either way, I'm happy you've found yourself. Everyone deserves a chance at that."

"Thank you. And thank you for the help in doing so. If I had been anywhere else, with anyone else, I don't think I'd be who I am right now. Honestly. And it's nice to like that person for a change." Dox replied, smiling as broadly as her thick cheeks would allow.

"And you need to stop by for a massage sometime soon!" Maica interjected, coming out of the office and coming up behind Enalia for a bit of a snuggle. "My schedule for the next two weeks is a bit full, but just say the word and I'll make sure there's time for you."

"Seriously, she gives the best massages you'll ever have. Just don't be shy," added Enalia with a wink.

After the meal, all French could think about was getting ready for the mission. They were going to a location that for all intents and purposes was never meant to be visited by anybody other than Section 31 personnel! This sounded very much like a search and destroy mission. In fact if you went looking for people and things that never wanted to be found, a battle usually ensues!

So, EVA suits would be the order of the day. Body armour and protective clothing would be mandatory. All security would carry extra mags and she would suggest that they take something with them that they knew well, this would be for their comfort. Then she remembered that the new MACO EVA suits were in the replicator yo be fitted. So what better time than the present to take a look at what was available.

"Computer, a holographic image of file PR11-ALT if you please!" Requested French
And after a few moment, this amazing holographic image floated in front of her. She reached out and turned it so she could examine the EVA suit from all angles. This was amazing she thought to herself.

"Computer, give me the stats on this suit." And she waited, and as the mete rial ca,e across the screen in front of her her eyes got bigger and bigger. Being a student of old classic Marvel films, the only reference that came to mind was. "Tony Stark eat your heart out." As she realised how advanced and amazing a tool this was.

She thought for several moments about what she had just saw. Experience over the years had taught her. When dealing with wearable tech, put it on something not living first. "Computer, take my exact measurements and create a holographic double of me." She ordered, seeing that this was one of several locations in Security with holographic capability.

Within moments, she stood there looking at a version of herself, and the first thing that came to mind was, it's time to see a stylist. Her hair was all over the place. But she could tackle that later. "Computer, add armour and weapon to the EVA Suit."
And she got what she asked for. The suit stood in front of her as she reached out to pull this and push that checking its functionality. Knowing the only way she would get the full jest of what was going on here was to made the real deal and working model.

"Computer, transfer all this data we just compiled to the industrial replicator. Keeping the and all data, produce a working model of this EVA suit. Authorisation French Alpha Beta Golf 3577." And she waited. It took a few but before long, the replicator gave her something she could work with, minus the rifle. Those were stored in the armoury as per protocol!

French took off her duty u Ivor, and without too much difficulty slipped into the EVA armoured suit. Once she added the plating and activated the suit, she mouthed the words,"Pepper Potts would be proud." As she raised her hands in front of her face. And felt the assist from the suit kick in. This was much more than it read on the can, this was serious kick as tech here, and French was dead set on mastering it. And once she did, she would get Alex to do the same. So she began be play a bit. After awhile, she ordered the helm that came with it, and completed the ensemble. Heads up display and all. From the integrated circuitry to the voice command changing of ammunition, this suit was more than any Security Officer could ever hope for in his or her Christmas stocking. This was Nervana.

After all the playing around and adjustments, she stood there in Full EVA with a holographic replica of her weapons and she looked bad ass. Now practical application. Live fire she thought to herself. Time to head for the training Holo decks and see how it faired under fire.

Lt. Seregon French
Chief Security Officer
USS Hera

The request had been made, and it had been established that the request was actually serious. So since it was easily granted through the miracle of 24th century holography, Commander Rita Paris found herself standing in the black room with a safety yellow grid pattern on the bulkheads, deck and overhead. Beside her were one Lieutenant Melanie Dox, the Hera’s resident Romulan pilot, and Lieutenant JG Asa Dael, the ship’s surgeon.

“So you want a tour of the old girl, eh? The Constitution class?” The anachronistic astronaut who been slung out of that time period only months before shook her head and smiled. “What used to be my daily life is now historical tourism. That doesn’t make me feel old,” Rita Paris joked good-naturedly.

While she was physically only in her early thirties, chronologically speaking the time-tossed temptress was 163 years old, as she had been born in 2233, yet here she stood, bigger than life. Prone to freak transporter accidents, her latest incident had hurled her through space, time and dimension to be captured by the warp field of the Hera, then reassembled once more. Recognizing that her pioneer spirit and optimism might just serve the Hera well, Captain Telvan had recruited the curvaceous chrononaught to be her first officer. The love she'd been torn away from had pursued her through space and time once she sent him a clue as to her whereabouts. Now they both lived happily ever after, in the final days of the 24th century.

Which was why she found it odd that the ship's pilot and ship's physician wanted to go sightseeing in the good old days.

Standing between her friends and fellow crewmates, Melanie Dox smiled as broadly as her chubby cheeks allowed. It was an expression that was coming to her with greater ease these days, having worked hard to overcome long-standing issues with her Romulan heritage. "Well, we jog on the projection of the exterior of her hull once a week, Commander. I can't help that I'm curious to see her through your eyes."

It was not all that long ago now that the young pilot had learned that when she was a child, her human father had had her surgically and genetically altered to appear more human. But thanks to DNA therapy and restorative treatments, the physical damage had been undone, though the perpetually anxious young woman was still getting used to the restored green blood and freshly pointed ears that were the result. "If you want, I'll give you a tour of the ryakna plaerre of a freighter I grew up on."

"Sorry... 'Garbage Scow'." Dox chucked, slightly embarrassed as she had accidentally slipped into speaking Rihan, her native Romulan tongue, a habit she was finding herself doing more and more.

"You want to wear the minidress too, Miss Dox, get the full experience?" Rita teased gently, knowing that the body-conscious redhead with the stout midsection was highly unlikely to be seeking that particular experience.

Standing in her standard Starfleet uniform that the rotund young part-Romulan felt uncomfortable enough half the time in the sea of red that was her tunic, Dox looked up at Paris with a wry smirk. Her once nervous demeanor around her First Officer had melted away the closer they became as friends, and when they were off-duty, Dox was finding it very easy to just be herself.

"It's a tour of the ship, not my lumpy knees." Dox chucked slightly as she spoke. "You are relentless. We... don't have to dress up for this, do we? It's not like the ship is going to have interactive characters."

"No, of course not. In the modern day when I wore it, the first question, whether they asked it or not, was 'That's not the uniform of the day, is it? I don't have to wear THAT, do I?' I get it- the old minidress is an acquired taste, sexist as hell and does leave one a bit vulnerable if you aren't exactly used to wearing her." Clad in her old uniform, the gold stretchy velour uniform clung to her abundant curves and just thoroughly flattered Rita Paris- but then, so would a potato sack.

"Oh heck, it's just us three, I'll wear one if you will, Melanie," Doctor Dael chimed in. The young doctor's androgynous features and complete lack of a gender would make it a somewhat odd proposition, but the doctor was comfortable with their two friends here. Besides, it might be fun to get out of pants for a while. Who knows, maybe the dress wearers were on to something. "Well, as long as it has pockets. It has pockets, right Rita?"

“Ah, no,” Rita admitted. “There’s a slit that can be used to holster a phaser on the right hip, and on the right dorsal there’s another slit made to accommodate the old communicators, but, ah,” Rita blushed a bit then stuck out her prodigious and abundant bosom. “Back in the old days, we gals tended to use our brassieres as pockets in this uniform.”

"See, no pockets." Dox put her hands in the pockets of her uniform pants in a somewhat exaggerated gesture for humor's sake. "Pockets are wonderful. I love pockets." She grinned with an expression of fake indignation. "Now you're tag teaming me to get me into a skirt. It's hardly fair, but I'm fine in my regular uniform."

“I don’t do peer pressure, Miss Dox. You are welcome to try it if you like, but we’re not ‘ganging up’ on you. You are more than welcome to explore in your own uniform,” Paris replied, thawing as she spoke. “We’re not on a time travel mission where we have to blend in. I wasn’t even planning to have crew on board for the tour, as the corridors are a little tighter than you might be accustomed, and the rooms are certainly smaller.”

Blushing slightly, which was now a decidedly greener affair for the young Pilot, Dox was fairly certain Rita knew she was kidding, but still insecure about her body. As such, she appreciated the reassurance.

“Which leads me to my next question- there were a dozen Constitution class heavy cruiser vessels that served in the five-year mission era between 2255 and 2271. Some are legendary, some are infamous and some were not terribly noteworthy. Which would you prefer to see?” It was a rhetorical question to Rita’s mind, as she was certain her sightseers would of course want to see Kirk’s Enterprise, the original 1701. The most famous of all the Constitution class vessels, she survived to make it to the refit era, and wrought technological advancements that influenced Starfleet for decades to come.

This was a question that Dox has already been expecting, and had thoughts about. "Every day I sit and look at a model of the refit of the Exeter. I think I would really see what she looked like for real on the inside. Asa?" Dox has the model of the ship that Rita Paris had left there when she passed the Flight Control Office to the young woman and she regularly imagined her First Officer standing on the bridge of that miniature giving her advice on the job, thought she had no plans of admitting to that at the moment.

“Well… truth be told, you have to remember, I’m from an alternate universe,” Paris admitted somewhat sheepishly. “The closest to my version of the Exeter on which I served, at least in this reality, appears to be the Ambassador class, and there was never an Exeter in that line. Since the refit model is closer to what I served on, I parked it on my old desk. If you want to go back to the minidress era though, that would be the original Constitution class. Sorry… alternate timeline problems.”

"Yeah, I'd say the original Constitution Class version, for sure." Dox replied enthusiastically. She had seen recreations in the Academy and plenty of ship recordings of the era, but she really wanted to see that era through Rita Paris' eyes.

“Okay, that settles the era and the model. Have a ship in particular you'd like to tour? We can call up the Exeter under Ronald Tracey, or the Lexington under Wesley, the Excalibur under Johnson, the Constitution under Jeffries… or the Enterprise under Kirk. Your call- I served on a few of them, and I know my way around all of them,” Rita offered, trying to give her modern friends seeking a glimpse into the past an opportunity to see what interested them, instead of what she chose to show them. “While they were ideally very similar, each starship had her own quirks and unique elements.”

Looking over to Doctor Dael, Dox smiled. "Still voting for the Exeter. What do you think, Asa?"

"Um, Exeter, sure! And I do want a minidress. I'll never be brave enough to wear one outside of here, and it might be fun....even if it is sadly lacking in pockets. It will be fun to play doctor with you two in the Sickbay!" the doctor enthused.

A bemused smile graced the face of the forward first officer, before she looked to the overhead. “Computer, if you please, I would like a full scale reproduction of the bridge interior of the USS Exeter, circa 2265. We plan to take a tour, so if you would be so kind, have the rest of the deckplan available for us to explore the starship. Thank you.”

With those words said, the black and yellow gridwork pattern of the stark walls of the holodeck faded to the much brighter colors of a bygone age, with a starship bridge vaguely reminiscent of the one with which the young officers were familiar, while it was a wave of nostalgia to Rita Paris. Pale blue was the predominant color of the bulkheads, while the deck was covered with a durable brown tight-weave felt designed to give traction. The upper bridge was separated from the lower bridge, the upper stations versus the battle bridge. In the center sat the captain’s chair, black upholstery with white formica composing the chair, while buttons and rocker switches adorned the armrests.

The seats for the forward stations, as well as the upper stations were white plastic with small black upholstered pads on swivel chairs that very much reflected the era from which they had come. The angled panels on the bulkheads were all black formica with blinking lights, knobs and rocker switches that looked somehow ill-suited to the operation of a starship. Meanwhile the upper bulkhead where the top of the bridge angled had screens tuned to starscapes rather than relevant data. It was stylish, to be fair, if dysfunctional.

As for the woman who had lived on this bridge, lived and fought and cheated death, her eyes misted over as she took it all in. As the steady sounds of the bridge operations began, their whirring and humming and pinging so much louder than their modern equivalents, Rita Paris became lost in memory- caught up in the sights and sounds of where she had come from, and where she still belonged.

Even though this was technically not Rita Paris' Exeter, Melanie noticed the emotions dancing across Paris' face and Immediately became concerned that her choice had been a mistake. But this had happened when the two women first jogged on the holographic representation of the exterior of the same ship, and Dox knew Rita just needed a moment to take it all in. So she smiled knowingly at Paris and tried to give her friend a little time.

Moving slowly, as if sleepwalking, the lost navigator traced her fingers along the orange rail that separated the battle bridge from the upper stations before stepping down to the battle bridge. Those probing fingertips slid across the console of the navigator station, turning the chair as if she’d done it a thousand times and slowly settling her rounded rear into it. Turning to face the station, she was struck by a wave of homesickness. It wasn’t her Exeter, it wasn’t quite how she remembered it. But it felt so much like home that she couldn’t help but be swept away by it, as her brow furrowed and her eyes shone with restrained tears.

Fingertips lightly dancing across the panel, she knew every keystroke, every rocker switch, every pushbutton. There was no mystery for her here, no confusion of encountering an interface she’d never seen before and had to struggle to comprehend. It was simpler, easier... uncomplicated. It was who she’d been and the life she’d led, and seeing it all like this struck her, reminding her just how out of place she truly was in this far flung future. Where the only way she could visit what had been her life was through technological illusion, that was as alien to her understanding as the incredibly advanced starship upon which she served.

Stepping over to the helm, Dox slid into the seat to look over the now antiquated console that nevertheless wasn't that foreign to her, having grown up on a dilapidated old freighter. Switches and rigid buttons were not that much of a shock even if the design was significantly more simplistic than anything she had flown before.

"There's impulse control... Maneuvering thruster control... Switches for warp speed control. It's all here." Flipping a small panel on her left, Dox smiled. "Ohh, is this targeting? The structural technology is basically the same. Plus we'd get to sit next to each other." Dox smiled over at Rita, hoping to focus on the similarities.

Called back from her reverie, Paris struggled to reorient herself, looking around and blinking rapidly until she refocused, first on Dox, then on Doc. This wasn't real. It wasn't her ship. This was just a museum display now, antiquated and outdated and barely recognizable by later generations. The two officers she had brought here to play tour guide were here, in their modern uniforms, waiting for their first officer to return to reality. Way to inspire confidence, Rita.

"I... uh... sorry, I..." she began, not looking at her friends, but running her fingers along the angled silver wide, tall and flat control panel with the gentle affection of a lover's caress. "I didn't think it would be so close, you know? This was... this was my life, and it wasn't that long ago. I mean, it was now, but... not for me, it wasn't."

"You're allowed, Rita. You lost so much that was taken from you and you're entitled to miss it as much as you want." Melanie smiled, feeling emotional herself for her friend, while choosing to eschew rank for the moment, as they were off duty and among friends. "But I also can't help being glad you're here. And if you'll forgive my being greedy, our universe and time is much better off now, right Asa?"

"Yes indeed," the doctor replied enthusiastically, "Heck, I'd probably have been dead on Meroset if you weren't here...assuming I wasn't still serving under that joke of a CMO that preceded me. Honestly, the fact he didn't plan ahead for everyone's health...." Asa trailed off, silently fuming.

Remembering the goal of the mission, Asa put a smile on their face and continued, "Well, you may both know all about this ship and type, but I'm at sea. The closest I have seen to some of these terminals were the classroom training modules used growing up. I'mma go poke a button."

That said, the doctor skipped over to communications, fiddling around for a moment then sitting down and pressing the correct sequence of buttons to signal a ship-wide intercom announcement, "All hands, brace for pleather seats! All hands brace for pleather seats!" the diminutive doctor said with a playful smile.

A thick chest laugh cracked out of Melanie Dox at the Doctor's joke. The usually hyper-anxious pilot found Asa Dael's energy completely infectious and a joy to be around and couldn't help bet relax just that much more. She smiled over to Paris, hoping it might have a similar effect.

It was all that was needed for Rita Paris to shake off her sad reverie and return to the moment where her friends, the friends she had made here in the distant future so far from her origins, welcomed and encouraged her. Blushing as she giggled at the young physician’s jocularity, the Starfleet siren turned to face them both, knees tightly welded together as was her habit in the seat on the bridge she knew so well.

“Thanks, you two… I know I get a little melancholy and sentimental about the past, but I’m… I’m here. I have my assignment, I have a good captain, a good ship and a good crew here working with me. And I have good friends,” Rita smiled warmly at the two brave souls who’d taken the time to get to know her and liked her for who she was, “Old fashioned I may be, but friends like you remind me that not everything has changed. Marie Adler used to sit at that station, Asa, and Lieutenant Ilya sat where you’re at, Melanie. Well, until she was called away to the Enterprise and I ended up piloting and navigating and firing the weapons and managing the shields all at the same time. So, what would you like to see first, or would you like for me to take you on a tour of the bridge stations?

As she spoke, it was visible that the time-tossed temptress’ mercurial mood was stabilizing once more into the cheerful, outgoing sailor of the stars that her cohort knew well. Rather than the distracted displaced damsel to which she sometimes defaulted, when faced with her faraway existence a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Happy to see her friend feeling a little better, Melanie looked around the replica of the antique vessel's bridge with a smile. "I would like to see it all, Commander. I'm not picky about the order. What about you, Doctor? Sickbay?"

The siren-like red alert blared across the bridge, practically a shriek to the 24th century natives. As the trio of officers looked around in confusion, the uniforms of Melanie Dox and Asa Dael rewove themselves through either holographics or replication into the same minidress uniform their blast from the past commander sported.

The redhead was no longer in command red, but now sat in a fitted stretch velour minidress out of her nightmares in mustard gold. Meanwhile at the comms station, the adrogyne found themselves in a tailored minidress as well. Only it was not medical teal, but bright crimson.

Tugging at the material and staring down in surprise, Asa stood up quickly, noticing the breeze on their legs and turned in a confused circle, then staring at the other two exclaimed, "I'm a redshirt? Um, Rita isn't that super bad here? I swear I remember you said something about that ..."

"Imirrhlhhse! What's going on?!" Looking down at her ample middle pressing taunt against the gold velour, she slammed her knees together in shock as she continued to shout Rihan profanities. "Imirrhlhhse! Hnave! Commander, what's..."

Looking over, Dox noticed a similarly surprised look on Rita Paris' face and realized something was wrong on the Holodeck.

That's when holographic personnel suddenly fazed into holographic life, and Rita Paris heard a voice she'd last heard on Talok IV... where they'd left him.

"Raise shields, Lieutenant Paris!" barked Captain Ronald Tracey, the tall, solidly-built silver-haired captain in command gold. "Didn't you hear the red alert, or were you daydreaming again? Helm, come about 123 degrees, mark 18, full impulse. How many of them are out there, Mister Bhattacharyya? Miss Dael, contact Starfleet and tell them we're under attack by the Klingons. Miss Paris, if you've managed to raise the shields, have you achieved a targeting resolution?"

Fingers dancing lithely over the keyboard, Rita fell naturally into the scenario. The Klingons were running with shields down at the moment, and there was only one of them uncloaked right now. She gave the order to load fore and aft torpedoes, although she didn't have time to rig some mines, and she locked on with the forward phasers.

Still in a moment of shock, Dox watched Rita Paris slip into action with her plump jaw almost hitting the deck. Suddenly, she realized 'helm' was her and turning back towards the ancient console, Dox hesitantly hovered her fingers over the controls. With an expression of intense anxiety written across her face, she entered the instructions into the helm controls and sighed in relief as the viewscreen showed the ship had begun to move appropriately.

"Single target locked, shields down, phasers at full and torpedoes online, Captain. They're in range of the tractor beam if you're in the mood, captain." Rita Paris rattled it all off as she did what she'd always done- rise to the occasion.

Stunned, but playing their part, Asa sat down and stuck the communications headset into their ear, input what they believed to be the correct frequency and relayed the message. Turning to the holocaptain they replied, "Message sent, awaiting response Captain. "

Finger snapping one of the switches on the right armrest of his chair, the blue-eyed starship captain barked into the receiver. "Lieutenant Stuart, what's going on down there? Are we under attack from boarding parties?"

At that, Rita Paris' head snapped up, and she looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"In a way, sir. The Klingons beamed at least three large loads, full to capacity transporter pads worth of tribbles down here, Captain. They're all over the place, and they're spreading fast," came the voice from engineering, and the color drained from Rita Paris' face.

"Computer, pause scenario. Computer, arch," Rita Paris said quietly, her voice somehow louder as the red alert klaxon ended, the red lights still in effect and the symbol glowing to life in situation panels on the bridge. But the computer simulation continued unabated, and Paris exchanged meaningful glances with the others.

There was no pause. No arch appeared.

Tapping her comm badge, the reproduction of the starburst of the era, there was no accompanying chirp of response. Comms were cut off from the rest of the USS Hera.

They were trapped in a holodeck scenario that they hadn't engaged, in a simulation of 2265.

Red alert lights flashed across the bridge of the 23rd century starship, the U.S.S. Exeter as it was stared down by a D-7 class Klingon cruiser across space. On the bridge, Commander Rita Paris, Chief Medical Officer Asa Dael, and Lieutenant Melanie Dox of the 24th century Starship Hera were at a loss for what was happening.

What had begun as a simple, informal tour of a holographic representation of a starship from the era Rita Paris had recently hailed, had become something else altogether- something troubling. The Holodeck had taken what was an empty replica of the Exeter, and filled it with holographic simulacrums of it's crew while it created a conflict scenario, seemingly out of nowhere. And they appeared to be trapped here.

The Holodeck had failed to halt the program or respond to orders in any way, and Rita Paris' communicator wasn't functioning. From the helm, the young part-Romulan pilot looked at the antiquated warship with a nervous expression. Following Paris' lead, she tapped the badge on the left breast of her uniform. But like the uniform itself, which had been replaced by the Holodeck with the short, velour gold minidress of 2265, her comm badge was now nothing more than an embroidered patch of the Starfleet Delta.

Leaning slightly towards Paris, who was seated next to her at Navigation, Dox whispered. "C... Commander, this is not good. If the Holodeck rearranged the molecular structure of my uniform without approval, it's a good indication that the safely protocols might be disengaged."

At the communications station, Dael was beginning to panic. They had inkling of the beginnings of an idea how to work the station, and were not entirely sure how to make an exit or talk to the other two.

"Um Captain, I think I hit my head, permission for Commander Paris and Lieutenant Dox to escort me to sick bay?" The El Aurian inquired.

"This is why we don't want women on the bridge," Captain Tracey muttered none too subtly. Swiveling to look at them and leaning in from his chair, he eyed Dael like a disapproving father. "You can be relieved without every girl on the bridge going with you if you can't take it, Lieutenant Dael. Man your post or stand relieved, I don't have time for you. If you're staying at your station, open hailing frequencies."

Suppressing indignation at both the insult and incorrect gender, Asa replied, "Hailing frequencies open, sir."

At the helm, Dox's eyes narrowed as her cheeks flushed green, angry at the Holographic Captain for his comments towards Asa.

For her part, Rita rolled her eyes and nodded subtly to the pilot with an unspoken, Yeah, he can get away with that. Glancing over her panel, she realized she didn't have any way to message the comm station. Score another one for the future.

Suddenly, the viewscreen filled with the image of a decidedly unusual looking Klingon Commander, bearing a gold sash that looked like it was woven rather than armored mail. "I am KRALL , Commander of the Klingon cruiser Toj Wov! As you no doubt are now aware, you are surrounded, and very soon your pathetic starship will be overrun by the instruments of your imminent destruction."

Flashing an extremely confused look over to Paris, Dox tilted her head at the image of Krall on the screen. He appeared almost human, with a messy, short cropped haircut, bushy eyebrows, a thin moustache and a generally mottled, brownish hue to his skin. "To whom do I have the... pleasure of addressing?"

That got her a confused shrug, as from what Rita had heard the Klingons were still around, so she didn't understand the confusion. Because Rita had not actually encountered a 24th century Klingon in person, nor in image.

"This is Captain Ronald Tracey of the United Federation starship Exeter. We haven't attacked you and we aren't at war. What's the meaning of this?"

"Of course the ever benevolent Federation always cries in the face of war, but relishes in stabbing others in the back. Or did you think there would be no... retaliation for your sister ship's affront to the Klingon empire with the very same destructive parasites we now... return to you?!" Krall sneered on the screen, almost cartoonishly.

Dael thought the Klingons were somehow being projected wrong by the malfunctioning holodeck, but upon seeing Rita's expression, they realized this is how Rita thought Klingons looked. Huh.

Suddenly, the headpiece Asa was wearing was filled with a high pitched musical purring. It felt almost calming.

The captain rose to his feet to swagger a step forward, raising his finger to point at the Klingon commander onscreen with righteous indignation. "If you think a few tribbles can cripple a Starfleet starship, you've got another thing coming, mister! If we were surrounded, the rest of your cowardly Klingons would be visible out there right now. So I'd get out of here if I were you, while you still can. Before Miss Paris here slips and I launch a photon torpedo straight up your-"

The image onscreen vanished as the Klingon commander cut off the rant of the gold-clad starship captain, who smugly settled back into his chair. "Commander Bhattacharyya, mobilize security to start gathering up the tribbles. Clear cargo bay 13 on Deck 19 and seal it so we can begin dumping the tribbles in there, since they're mostly isolated in the engine room-"

Pressing a finger to their ear, Asa listened and then announced, "Captain, we have reports coming in from Deck 6, Sickbay, Deck 10, Primary phaser control and Deck 20, the botanical garden and lab section of... tribble infestations."

Slamming his fist down on the arm of the chair, the Captain swore. "Dammit! They knew just where to hit us! All nonessential personnel are on tribble hunting duty, as of now! Withdraw the shuttles and dump them into the shuttlecraft bay. I want those things off my ship before they overrun it. You two," Captain Tracey faced forward to point at first the pilot then the navigator with his piercing blue eyes. "Take your poor injured galpal there to sickbay, and help them clean up some tribbles. Make yourselves useful."

Wordlessly Asa walked to the entrance of the bridge, holding their head with one hand and hoping their grimace was taken for one of pain and not the disdain it actually was.

Rushing from her seat at the helm, Dox shot past the insufferable Holographic Captain to move towards Asa. "Aye, Captain" She said with a bit more venom in her voice then she should have let show before stumbling slightly in the too-tight velour mini-dress and significantly higher heeled boots that she didn't think about on her feet. "Hnave." She muttered, cursing under her breath in Rihan as she tugged down on the dress, awkwardly clomping towards the turbolift door.

The captain caught the arm of the lost navigator as she passed the command chair, even as her replacement slid into her station. Yanking her in closer to the chair with a continuing disregard for her personal space and the professional boundaries of officers, the holographic Captain Tracey hissed to Rita Paris. "I thought Vulcans were supposed to be emotionless. Is she cracking up?"

The placid expression that settled onto the face of the career Starfleet officer native to this era was one that would be at home on a cheerful schoolgirl, as she leaned in and conspiratorially whispered something in the ear of the tough-as-nails Captain that made him go white, look back at Dox somewhat fearfully, then back to Paris.

"Eh, best to keep her off the bridge then..."

With a chipper cheer that would have been at home coming from a yeoman on her first cruise, Paris smiled that million-watt smile of hers and declared, "I'll see to it personally, Captain!"

In three long strides she was up off the bridge, and with the fourth Rita Paris was stepping into the turbolift. Grasping the handle at shoulder level, the doors slid shut, and she turned the lever, declaring, "Deck 3."

Turning to Rita, Melanie was still fussing with the bottom of her skirt. "Did I hear him right? He thinks I'm Vulcan? What did you say?" Then Dox turned towards Asa sharply, "Wait..." She interrupted mid-thought. "Are you okay, Asa?"

Standing up in a flash, Asa smiled nervously and said "And best actor goes to...? But seriously, Rita? Did those Klingons look....right to you ?"

Rolling her eyes with a smirk at the doctor's performance that had worked on her, Dox turned back back to Paris. "Uh... yeah, there's that, then the other question, then literally everything else!" A flight challenge was one thing, but Dox was feeling aggressively uncomfortable and out of her element and it was showing.

The doors slid open, and Paris strode out with authority, taking a sharp turn to starboard before marching down the corridor. Clearly she expected the other two officers to be in step behind her as she briefed while she moved. "If this simulation is doing the mishmash that I think it is, which is bizarre in and of itself, then my office should be here, and if not it's a conference room, either of which will serve."

Following behind, Dox was a little slower than usual, still trying to get used to the boots while nervously tugging the short cut skirt down over her more than ample middle and wide rear.

The plaque on the wall read "LTCDR Paris, R. 2nd Officer". Taking a deep breath, Rita tabbed the door control, and with the slightly slower and lower 'whoosh' than her 23rd century compatriots were accustomed to, the door slid open.

The sight that awaited them inside was a conference room that had been converted into an office, the triangular table and plastic chairs were still here, although only three of the chairs- one at the point that was clearly the seat behind the desk, the other two facing the broad flat edge of the triangle.

The surface of the desk was cluttered with piles of the clunky PDDs of the period and flimsiness jutting out from between, on top of, below and all over the desk. There were also a few models of starships on the desk, who apparently lived in fear of demolition by a PDD avalanche. Additionally there were more than a couple alien artifacts of some sort or another stacked on the desktop, with tags on them but still clearly between destinations. There was no part of Starfleet in which this compartment could pass inspection.

On the walls were various bookshelves covered with actual books and bricabrac interspersed with pictures and images as well as awards and honors. One entire shelf held a collection of children's toys that were a uniform greenish-yellow color. There were a number of images featuring Sonak, Rita and a handsome dashing fellow in command gold and a complex pattern of ribbons on his sleeve that probably made him the captain, given the ones on Rita's sleeves. Images of the trio on what looked like a sailboat during a breathtaking sunset, the trio on the bridge, each flanking that handsome fellow in the center chair. The three of them in the odd formal uniforms of the period at what looked like a trial. A photo of a young man who looked like he could be her brother, with the same blonde hair and bright blue eyes and a smug smile that gave the impression that he might be a jackass. And directly behind the desk was the autographed image of Admiral Jonathan Archer himself, smiling benignly.

"This... it can't be, this is... this is my office, from the Exeter..." Rita Paris, who had planned for this to be a sanctuary to regroup, was knocked off-balance by the bizarre sight of her old office. "This never existed in this reality, only in the universe we came from..."

"So this isn't just a malfunction, then, Commander?" Dox replied.

"Give me a scientific reason how this could be happening..." Rita muttered as she moved in, running her fingers along one of the shelves on the wall that held a model of the space shuttle USS Colombia. "The only place this all exists in this reality is in my head and Sonak's. No records, no holos... besides, the Rita Paris of this reality was turned into a ghost in 2260. She never served on the Exeter in 2265. Besides," Rita was snapping out of the shock of seeing her old office and coming round to bear on the issue at hand. "We WERE at war with the Klingons in 2265, and the Federation didn't come into contact with tribbles, nor did the Klingons, until 2267. All of this is a hodgepodge, and we've somehow been shoehorned in as the rats in the maze. And I don't get it, what about the Klingons is strange, Myx Dael?"

Fixated on Paris' earlier comments, Dox interjected before Asa could respond to the Klingon question. "Sorry. I was just thinking. When I was attacked by the trickster god, Anansi, he could pull out your memories... trap you in them." The memory gave Dox a momentary flash of old fear that she quickly worked to squash. "But Sonak has been tutoring me... Helping me strengthen my mental defenses. If this was Anansi, I feel like I would... feel something at least trying to get in, and I'm not."

Feeling momentarily embarrassed to have interrupted, Dox turned towards the doctor, deferring back to them. "Krall didn't look like any Klingon I've ever met. What about you Doctor?"

"Um, no, definitely not. The lack of ridges along the forehead is inconsistent with any known modern Klingon physiology" Asa replied, tapping their chin thoughtfully.

"This is only in your mind, Rita, but the ship did recently undergo a massive psychic occurrence when approaching the world ship. Could that somehow have altered the adaptive circuitry in the holodeck?" The doctor inquired.

"No, this isn't only in my mind, because you two are seeing it. I mean, you are seeing this, right?" the time-tossed temptress gestured to the cluttered chaos of her office a universe away. "But this is exactly what was happening when we were caught in that dark matter ion storm and the holographics started going haywire. It was creating and running us through scenarios like tests. Like it was trying to test our morality, our determination and our intelligence. Like specimens. This reminds me a lot of that, and that's what I'm guessing is happening. Because there are far too many inconsistencies here to be a fluke of the holographic system, the ship's computer or the Holodeck."

Carefully touching the model of the Columbia, Dox turned to Paris. "We're all seeing this. But if this is some kind of test... what do we do next? What worked best during the ion storm incident? Ship reports weren't specific." Then the young part-Romulan tilted her head again and tapped her recently restored ear. "Wait, Commander. I heard what HE said, but what did YOU sat that made him turn white?"

The smirk that graced the curvaceous commander's face as she turned to face the shorter pilot was priceless. "I'm from this era, so I knew what would throw him off the trail easiest. You notice all of the crew here are human, right? Remember, most people in this day and age have never even met a Vulcan, forget about serving with one. So since the simulation wanted to play on that, I just played right back. I told him you were on your Vulcan monthlies, and that you get a little aggressive around this time of the month. Which, being an average starship captain of this era, he easily accepted as fact since he knows practically nothing about a menstrual cycle, women or Vulcans. I just instilled in him fear of the emerald tide."

Going flush with that same green blood, Dox's eyes went wide with embarrassment at the idea. "Oh, Nouhha, I am SOOO glad he technically doesn't exist." She buried her face in her hand before readjusting her awkwardly short dress that kept riding up her more than ample rear. She kept to herself the fact that since the Doctor had restored her Romulan DNA, and with it get green blood, she was actually dreading her first cycle.

"As for what we're going to do, we play out the scenario and save the Exeter from being overrun by tribbles. Doc, we need to get into sickbay with a sample so we can determine their reproductive rather and see if there's a way to interfere with it, because for the scenario I suspect they're breeding faster than usual. Then we need to figure out how to get them off the Exeter and ideally not space them like Tracey is clearly planning to do, because they're still sentient lifeforms, and we're not monsters. Easy, right?" While she spoke with confidence and outlined a plan, Rita Paris had no idea how they were going to accomplish any of this. But first, a direction. As for a plan, she was stuck in this scenario with two of the Hera's best and brightest- they'd work it out.

Thinking for a moment and grateful for a task to focus on, Dox had a thought. "You were at navigation, Commander. Where are we, celestially? Anywhere near a class-M planet we could transfer them?"

"Welllllll, about that," Paris looked a bit sheepish as she rolled her eyes, sliding behind the desk to lower herself gracefully into her chair. "We're on course for Omega IV. Which has an awful contagion that's going to be brought up from the planet by Tracey, which will wipe out the crew and strand Tracey on the planet, where he'll throw in with one of the local tribes and become a warlord. So short answer yes, we'll be in standard orbit around a class-M planet within the hour."

"So, Klingons hovering nearby, an infestation of Tribbles AND an oncoming plague." Dox stood for a moment, thinking on the scenarios unfolding before the trio. "And we need to solve all three crisis's to get out of here." Then, a thought came to the young pilot. "Wait, this all happened 130 years ago. What was the contagion, Commander? Do you remember?"

"Not sure," the statuesque starship siren admitted. "It didn't play out quite the same way in my universe, and the CMO managed to cure some of the crew before it killed them all."

Turning towards Doctor Dael quickly, Dox continued. "Maybe it's something that's since been cured or solved since all this originally happened in our universe?"

"If this were a normal scenario, I would agree," Asa replied, "But if the simulation is trying to test us, I doubt it will be anything quite so easy as that," the young doctor mused for a moment before continuing, "Tribble birth control would be easy enough to come up with though, and the Klingons could be out maneuvered by Melanie I'm sure, or we could at least boost the shield with our knowledge of the technology from our time, correct? And if we know there is contagion, basic bio-hygiene practices will go a long way. Or is that somehow interfering…?"

The chronal cosmonaut considered and chose her words carefully before answering. “If we can gas the tribbles to slow their birth rate without harming the crew, that would be ideal. I assume we’ll need access to Sickbay for that, then Engineering for environmental control- no, scratch that, it’s on Deck 7,” Paris amended as she spoke, recalling the layout of the starship she knew like the back of her hand.

“The Klingons don’t want a fight, otherwise they wouldn’t have started by shooting off their mouths instead of disruptors. They are aiming at an ironic victory, I’m sure. So hopefully we won’t have to engage, although if we do I have confidence in Ms. Dox’ ability to fly circles around them, even in this old girl.” Rita reached up to pat the bulkhead affectionately. “And if it comes to that, I’ve yet to meet a lone D7 I couldn’t cripple with some well-placed torpedoes and phaser fire.”

“As for the Omega IV contagion, with a little luck we’ll be able to handle this scenario before the plague comes home to roost. We will need cooperation from Engineering to use the cargo transporters to get rid of the tribbles, or the main transporter rooms, but since the cargo transporters are on Deck 19, we should be able to use them while we invent site-to-site transport, using the buffers for a bit longer than they were intended in this day and age. I can coordinate it with Michael down in Engineering, and if he presents the idea to Tracey it might fly, since he’s a man and his ideas are always far better than any female crew member might offer.” The alluring anachronism smirked at that, given that equality was much more firmly established in the time period from whence her fellow officers hailed.

"If we can get the Klingons to engage their cloak, their shields will have to go down. D7's couldn't manage the power to cloak and do almost anything else." Dox added, deep in thought and pacing slightly. "And I cut my teeth learning how to maintain cloaks. That model has a ton of holes we can pinpoint it's exact coordinates through with the current sensors on the Exeter. It's just... elements they didn't know to look for back then. Gravometric distortion, poor optical refraction, ionized plasma discharge."

Turning to look up at Commander Paris, Dox stopped pacing. "We could send the tribbles right back where they came from if we wanted to."

“Except that while the Klingons would have to gather them up, in order to be beaming our shields would be down as well, so there’s nothing to stop them from beaming them right back aboard. Better to drop them off on Omega IV I think, so that the tribbles are no longer the victims in a custody battle,” the curvaceous commander replied, thinking it through.

Scrunching her face as she thought, Dox replied. "What about the contagion? We don't want to send them there just to sentence them to death somewhere else?"

“Miss Dox!” Rita drew herself erect, and behind her old desk with the founder of Starfleet and the Federation looking over her shoulder, somehow one got the impression that her presence in this place was considerable in its day. “The contagion on Omega IV is neutralized by a sufficient stay on the planet, and I would never condemn lifeforms to a death like that. Even holographic simulated semi-sentient life. That was the point of not letting Tracey vent them to space, which is why he is having them gathered in the shuttle bay I am quite sure. I would never mistreat a sentient lifeform like that- well, semi-sentient. And yes, I know the crew of this vessel will suffer that precise fate, but it has been drilled into all of us that changing past events can have hazardous repercussions on the future.”

Embarrassed by both her comment and her ignorance about the Omega IV contagion, Dox lowered her head slightly as Rita Paris spoke. She hadn't intended to imply that she thought they would actually choose to condemn the holographic tribbles, but felt that if the implication was there, then she needed to re-evaluate how she chose to express her thoughts in the future. And study her history better, obviously.

"Aye, Commander." Dox replied with a hint of sheepishness to her voice, hoping to not dig herself into a deeper hole. "I agree, it makes the most sense that we should proceed as if this scenerio we're taking place for real. Do everything as we would with all of the real stakes on the line. Protect the timeline. Maintain the Prime Directive."


“Quite right, Miss Dox,” Rita Paris replied, realizing that her strenuous objection might have been a touch too forceful in remanding the junior officer.” Your point was not ill-conceived, you just didn’t have sufficient facts. I know about this situation only because I studied up on what should have been my past here, and I lived through a version of the aftermath of this scenario once myself. At least your objection is raised in the defense of compassion, and that is something of which we must all be keenly aware, yes?”

"Aye." Dox replied, picking her head back up slightly and looking towards both Paris and Doctor Dael as the knot in her stomach loosened slightly.

"Never thought I would be gassing a Starfleet crew, but hey, if it works, it works," Dael replied, already mentally making calculations in their head based on what they knew of Tribbles, "Um, are there any Caitian's on board? As long as no, I can safely put a stop to the next 10 reproductive cycles of the tribbles, give or take a cycle or two," Dael concluded.

Fingers tapped away at the clunky old-fashioned PDD in Paris’ hands, which she managed to make look natural. “How about that, my old login still works too. Definitely an odd scenario. One Tellurite in the engine room, one Andorian in science and the rest of the crew are all human. You are a go, Doctor. How can we accomplish this? I don’t think you can reprogram or filter the environmental controls from here- can you?” While her knowledge of this particular vessel was comprehensive, Rita Paris was no engineer nor biologist, so she wasn’t certain how the good doctor was going to accomplish this feat.

"Pfft, not bloody likely," Asa replied, "We need to go to Sickbay and run them out. Once there, I can combine birth control agents common in mamalian creatures that stops implantation with a metabolic agent designed to eliminate their hunger. When the metabolic processes cease all energy will go into keeping the Tribble alive, and they can live for upwards of 20 days on stored calories as long as they are not reproducing. There is still going to be a batch born from those currently pregnant, but none of the new ones will be born in the family way, and all of them will cease reproduction for at least 10-15 days, giving us more than enough time. We will then take the medicine to where all air goes to be cleaned and inject the meds directly into freshly cleaned air, where it will be taken all over the ship and absorbed within minutes. I can target the metabolic alterations to be specific only to those with the NG-H helix along secondary RNA, which will narrow those impacted to be only our furry little friends."

The doctor had been walking while talking and only then realized, "Um, Rita, where is sickbay?"

Listening to the young doctor speak, the corners of Rita Paris’ mouth curled up in a smile that was wry and a little sad, perhaps a touch forlorn. Once the moment came to answer the frail physician, the blonde bombardier sighed. “Sickbay is Deck 6, and occupies most of the deck. That’s the center of the saucer section… well, in this day and age at least,” Paris added. “As for kicking everybody out, that’s likely not going to happen. I can get us a lab more than likely and get us some privacy to work, but, ah… how to put this so that it won’t sound terrible…”

“We’re in the 23rd century. Earth took a great big jump back to ‘conservative’ values in my lifetime, and suddenly they were revisiting earlier conservative eras. Which meant a return to the societal inequality of the sexes. Which means that wearing that minidress means your opinion is mostly discounted as you not knowing what you are talking about and expecting to be patronized, condescended to and generally considered mobile scenery.” While it all sounded insane coming out of her mouth and explaining it to a woman and person who grew up in the far more progressive 24th century, it was solidly factual and Rita needed to prepare her shipmates for the truth of the matter, in case they hadn’t picked up on it when they were on the bridge. The holodeck was doing a great job of reproducing the sexism of the era, to be certain, and she needed to inform her shipmates what to expect from the ‘locals’.

"But, I'm a doctor? And I know more than them? That has to count for something, right? Besides, I'm not mobile scenery...I'm not any kind of scenery, just look at me! And how dare they treat ANYONE like that?! It's unconscionable. " Asa replied, frustration evident in their tone.

With a sigh of resignation, Dael continued, "OK, well, what do you recommend? Aren't they going to want to know who Dox and I are? They may recognize you, but we should be strangers....so why weren't we?"

"The Captain identified us by name, and our tasks on the ship seemed to be dictated on where we were sitting when all this started. It seems like the holodeck incorporated us into the program based purely on that, since he was barking communication orders at you." Dox was thinking out loud in response to Doctor Dael's question. At least the question she felt qualified to answer.

"As for the rest, I guess we just need to imagine we're stuck on a Ferengi ship and we're not allowed to just stun everyone no matter how much they might deserve it." Dox hoped a lighter tone might help. "Or throat punch them." She was angry but wanted to try and hold that in for Asa's sake.

“This is where I get to point out that I come from an age far less enlightened than yours, and apologize for where I come from,” a chagrined Commander Paris admitted. “Seeing a lady starship captain was a revelation to me. But I should be able to secure Doc a lab and supplies, although you need to remember replicators just make food around here. Industrial replicators for the ship’s stores are strictly controlled by the Quartermaster, so we’ll need a shopping list in advance so we can get it all together for you in one place.”

“Fortunately, feminine wiles work wonders in this day and age, given the sexual repression so prevalent in such societies. So, you two leave getting a lab up to me. Doc, you work on sterilizing the little buggers. Meanwhile, how’s your hand with a transporter, Miss Dox?” Rita Paris asked it with a casual air, but the mere consideration of getting near a transporter caused beads of sweat to form on the transporter accident prone adventurer.

"I'm no engineer, but I had to learn how to work with or fix just about every system on the freighter I grew up on at one point or another." Dox could read the anxiety on Rita Paris' face and hated seeing it knowing everything that her friend and first Officer had been through. "I can handle the transporter room and get it reworked to our needs."

While she was moderately confident that she could do what was needed, Dox had no intention of letting Rita anywhere near the transporter room, Holographic or not, if she could help it.

"Hopefully a little bluff and bluster can get us what we want, but if not we might need a backup plan, and that's often a do it yourself project," The old school Starfleet officer observed, spinning her chair to take in the walls of her old office wistfully. Idly waving a hand to it, she shared a bit of truth. "My therapists recommended that I become more materialistic because it helped me feel more present if I could see changes to my environment that I caused. Plus stuff," she sideyed her shipmates, "Surrounding myself with little mementos and treasures served as reminders of places I'd been, things I'd done, people I'd known served to remind me that I existed, that I was real, and that I'd touched lives."

Taking down from the wall the autographed photo of Admiral Archer, Rita Paris sighed and shook her head. "But sometimes you have to leave the past in the past, because that's the only place it still exists. Time to deal with the present to build ourselves a future. Doctor Dael, got that Tribble neutering gas shopping list just about ready?"

With a determined nod, Asa replied, "Yep. All of it should be in Sick Bay...or the zoology center. I'm assuming foreign creatures were routinely examined in Sick Bay, so everything should be there. The only other things we will need is a bit of the breathable fire suppression foam from engineering and a way to engineer an opening into the ventilation system- a pipe cutter and welding sealant will work just fine. And I leave the feminine wiles to the two of you...I am neither feminine nor wiley....except perhaps Wile E. Coyote, but I doubt anyone needs an anvil dropped on them today.,..." the nervous doctor trailed off.

While Dox had no idea what Asa was referring to, she certainly felt qualified to comment on her own lack of feminine wiles. "If feminine wiles are required here, I think only Commander Paris is making it out alive." She followed the half-joke with an extremely nervous laugh, trying to bolster her own confidence.

"Hopefully it's still standard for the maintenance equipment for the transporter systems to be kept in the cabinet in the control base. That should be all I'll need to rework it for a site to site beaming." Dox continued. "But once Asa's set up to work, we might need you on the bridge to run interference, Commander."

While it was partially said out of strategy, Dox also wanted to make sure Rita was nowhere near the Tribbles if their plan worked and a mass beaming was possible, but hoped she wasn't projecting that concern.


“We shouldn’t have to cut into the environmental control system, there are accesses on deck 7,” the Constitution-class expert offered. “As for the transporter access and the medical supplies and feminine wiles, leave all of those to me. There’s a first officer on this ship, and he’s a 23rd century man. I’ll do what I always did back in the good old days before I was assigned to the Exeter under Sonak- I’ll make a great plan, then hand it to a man, to make him think it’s all his idea, after which he’ll take credit but it’ll get done.”

The CMO cum Communications Officer shuddered at disgust at the thought; the doctors opinion of Rita had improved from its already lofty opinion. Anyone who could survive this....mess.....with a smile deserved high praise indeed.

“That will get us access and authorization. Doctor Dael can devise our contraceptive, Dox can rewire the transporter for site to site beaming. We’ll need to get a cargo container in the shuttlecraft bay to collect the tribbles- Lieutenant Dox, you handle that as well. Doctor, go to engineering and secure the supplies we need once the first officer is on board, then we’ll reconvene in Sickbay. Then I’ll go make that distraction on the bridge as necessary. We’ll keep it on channel 13 on our communicators to coordinate as needed. Everyone clear?” Taking charge was not native to the plucky gal sidekick from this era, but she was very familiar with the art of concocting a plan and delegating duties. Plus a few months of acting as first officer on a starship of her future had done wonders for her practical command ability.

"Aye, Commander... Um..." Dox replied, before pausing with a puzzled look on her face as she looked down at the embroidered patch on her skimpy good velour uniform, then around her waist and rear.

Rolling her eyes at even needing to ask the question to the far more experience temporal astronaut, Dox followed up. "Uh... this is going to be... stupid. But, uh... where is the communicator on this uniform?"

At that Paris facepalmed. “Of course we don’t have communicators on, because we were on bridge duty. Communicators are issued for away missions. I’m an idiot- sorry Lieutenant. I’m used to keeping mine clipped onto my uniform, and I forgot you two are unaccustomed to communicators that are not part of the uniform. We’ll just have to go our separate ways and assume we all succeed in what we’re after. Give me a 10 minute headstart so that you’ll have authorization from Commander Bhattacharyya, and we’ll make this work.”

While she was still anxious, being able to focus on a task always calmed Dox down. "Rewire the cargo transporter on deck 19 and find something to collect the actual tribbles IN once they're gassed. Aye."

“Remember, they are being dumped on the shuttle bay deck right now, so just organize the crews. You are…” Paris paused to tap at the PDD in her hand to confirm, then nodded and continued. “You are still chief helmsman in the manifest, so those fellows down there might be a little less than eager to take your orders, but they’ll obey them. So use your command influence.” Unconsciously Rita slipped and used the more archaic term for flight control, but to be fair she'd been using it for a lot longer than the modern equivalent.

Trying with all her might to not let her facade crack in front of her Commander, Dox thought to herself, 'WHAT Command influence?'.

But with a nod, she shorred up her confidence as best as possible and replied. "Aye."

Fidgiting with the too-short hem-line and running their hands through their hair, Dael was not feeling over confident in their part of the plan, but pasted on a smile and responded, "Um, aye, engineering then sick bay. Right, I mean, aye." The usually manic look in their eyes was a bit overwhelmed, but the young doctor was trying their best.

While she was no supragenius like her better half, one thing Rita Paris understood was people. Seeing the anxiety clearly written on both the faces of the junior officers in her care, Rita knew this was weirdness to which she was accustomed- but these were officers who lacked her experience with the odd curveballs the universe seemed to delight in sending her way. Placing one hand on each of their shoulders, she looked down at both Dox and Dael, and tried her best to inspire them.

“I know this wasn’t the tour that you signed on for today, and while I am sure the Academy has changed a lot in 130 years, I suspect nothing like this was ever covered anywhere in your training.” At that Paris offered a wry grin and neglected to mention that it wasn’t covered back in her day, either. “But I know you- both of you. You are capable, exemplary Starfleet officers, and you can do this. The plan will go wrong and we’ll have to improvise, and that’s okay. I believe in both of you, even when you have trouble believing in yourselves. You are going to go out there and make Starfleet proud, because you are both so much greater than you know. Failing that, ask yourself what a hero would do, and make me proud, okay?”

Tilting her head slightly, Dox scrunched her face into a wry smile as the absurdity of the situation hit her. "No pressure there." She said with a somewhat unexpected lightness in her voice before resuming a more professional posture and tone. "Aye, Commander."

Face brightening, Dael looked genuinely chipper once more, and they replied, "Wasn't What Would So-and-So do some trend on 20th century Earth? With some minor demi-god or something? Well, nothing for it, let's go kick some holo-butt!"

Walking as briskly as was possible in the short, gold velour mini dress and virtual platform boots of the 23rd century women's officer uniform, Lieutenant Melanie Dox was mortified.

Herself, Commander Rita Paris and Chief Medical Officer Asa Dael had somehow become trapped in the holodeck of the U.S.S. Hera in a functioning replica of the Starship Exeter and incorporated against their will into a scenerio that was now playing out. The trio had determined that the scenerio would have to be seen to the end for the program to release them and they all had tasks to complete.

The young part-Romulan pilot was making her was to the main Shuttlebay to try and wrangle the first of their mission objectives: the phalanx of Tribbles reproducing on the simulated starship. Rita Paris, a native of this era, had warned her to expect a level of sexism and pushback from the Holographic crewmembers, which would have been bad enough if she had been in her real uniform.

Instead, the short, rotund officer found herself in the low cut minidress that Rita wore like a warrior goddess but fit Dox like a too-tight body sock that rode up her more than ample read end with every step.

"Imirrhlhhse." She muttered to herself, cursing in Romulan as she stumbled down the corridor towards the nearest turbolift. She had only passed a handful of faux-crewmembers but each had either a smug smirk at her size or a cruel sneer at her appearance as a Romulan.

Of course, since within this simulation nobody even knew what a Romulan looked like, the sims all assumed she was Vulcan. And for their plans to work she would have to at least try and act the part. So she resisted the urge to sneer back at them as she walked past.

At the turbolift, the doors wooshed open and she stepped in to see another simulated crewman. A young looking human Ensign in a red uniform top, apparently from engineering based on the symbol on his service patch. As she tugged down awkwardly on the hem of her skirt, he tilted his head and chuckeld out loud.

Running out of patience, Dox stood ramrod straight, arching her upturned eyebrow towards the artificial officer that at least she outranked and shouted, "WHAT?!

As the lift went awkwardly silent, she grabbed the handle on the side of the wall and loudly spoke. "Shuttlebay." She desperately hoped her friend, Asa Dael wasn't dealing with the same nonsense.

Humming to themself, hoping to successfully play the part of the vapid girl, Asa exited the hallway to engineering. There they found another crew member in a minidress and approached, "Um, can you help me? I need some parts to repair my station... I hit my head on it, and the Captain thinks I will learn to behave in emergency situations better if I make the repair myself, and I dint know where to look. I can't get in any more trouble, I just cant!"

It didn't take much for the crew member, one Ensign Blackwell, to agree to help the beleaguered doctor. Soon they were bustling around engineering acquiring all the needed parts.

Meanwhile, Commander Bhattacharyya arrived at the Deck 3 office of Rita Paris. While her initial plan had been to work her seductive wiles, first she had to endure a five minute dressing down about how slovenly her office was kept and how the Commander was going to recommend to the Captain that her privilege of an office this size was a waste of resources squandered on an officer who was clearly undeserving of such accommodation. Taking it all meekly in stride, Paris nodded wide-eyed, seeming to take it all in as she bustled about trying to tidy her perennial hurricane of an office. When he had run down, she asked him about the tribble problem, and confirmed that they were multiplying faster than even tribbles tended to breed.

That was when she suggested that maybe they could pump something through environmental controls to neuter them, and he laughed at her. When she suggested the humane thing to do would be to beam the tribbles down to the planet instead of venting them to space, he laughed at her again. When she asked if he could at least get her the current number of tribbles, he logged into her desktop station and showed her, and she thanked him for listening to her crazy ideas and she promised to clean up her dirty, dirty office even as she invaded his personal space, getting a little too close for a tantalizing second as she slid past him to get to her desk. Tugging at his collar, the hot and bothered first officer beat a hasty retreat.

Leaving his open login on her workstation. Which Rita Paris went to work to use, issuing a few orders in the Commander's name.

Meanwhile, standing a few feet from the doors to the Exeter's Shuttlebay, Dox adjusted the hem of her skirt one last time before she knew she had to step forward. She had been standing there for what felt like an hour but had only really been seconds, stalling.

Tugging on the end of her pointed ear, she bit her lip and took a deep breath to regain her composure and began to stride towards the door as it wooshed open. She folded her hands behind her back, arched an eyebrow and tried her level best to seem as commanding as possible.

The room was chaos, as a team of ensigns scurried back and forth, each with armfulls of cooing tribbles as they tried moving the generally harmless creatures near the rear doors of the shuttle bay. 'Rita was right.' she though, watching the young men scrambling as another with a bundle of Tribbles in his arms shoved past her from the corridor to add to the pile. ' That Hhakh of a Captain is going to open the doors and let them be blown into space.'

Clearing her throat loudly in spite of her fear, Dox shouted over the chaos. "ENOUGH!" Startled, the young crewmembers stopped in their tracks and jerked towards the front of the room where Dox stood as straight as she could.

"It... appears I've arrived just in time as you all clearly require assistance." She paused, trying to mimic every Vulcan she had ever known to the best of her ability. After a moment of confused looks and smirks from the assembled men, they quickly went back to work, Ignoring her as Rita Paris had predicted.

Irritated, but doing her best to channel it into action, she walked briskly into the middle of the group, stopping directly in the path of the crewman who snickered the lowest. "I apologise for disrupting your labors... Ensign." Tilting her head to look at the rank bands on his sleeves. "But I believe that when being addressed by a superior officer, the correct protocol is to listen... Intently."

She then raised her voice for the room to hear fully. "We are reorganizing our effort here to contain the... expanding threat. I have been assigned to oversee this effort by Commander..." Suddenly Dox went blank trying to remember the name of the Exeter's First Officer. "Bacharah." She bit her lip realizing that she butchered the pronunciation of his name.

From behind her, one of the crewmembers called back. "I think we can manage here by ourseves without any female interference, Vulcan or not." He stepped up to Dox, looking a full head taller, smirking smuggly. "So, why don't you go back to flying where the Captain tells you and we'll..."

Without blinking, Dox snapped back, interrupting him. "I am not here as a pilot. I'm here as a LIEUTENANT and BRIDGE OFFICER with orders from the First Officer of this vessel to manage this situation to a level you are eirher incapable or unwilling to do properly." The ball of anxiety that lived permanently in Dox's stomach tightened as her face went flush green, but she pushed past it.

"Now, as these creatures are reproducing at an artificially accelerated rate..." She scooched her foot away from a cooking Tribbles that had wandered on to it. "And your current strategy of piling them in a corner is hardly any effective means of containment, this is what you're going to do..."

Suddenly, another crewmember interrupted. "Look, lady. The captain is just going to dump them out into..." At which point, deciding she had had enough and being angry enough to push past her anxiety, Dox cut the young man off.

"I am to be addressed by one of the following, Only: Lieutenant. Lieutenant Dox, Ma'am, or Ms. Dox. Address me as anything else again and I will have you put on report. HAVE I ELOQUTED MYSELF CLEARLY ENOUGH FOR YOU?"

Turning away from the young man and towards the pile of tribbles, she continued. "We are collecting the creature for humane relocation to Omega IV. I will be overseeing the transportation protocols, while all of you will be emptying the cargo containers along the port wall to place them inside. These orders are from Comm... The Commander." Skipping over his name, Dox pushed through. "If you feel so inclined to question those orders with HIM, you may do so when your shift is over and hope he will be more lienient with your insubordination then I am."

One of the crewmembers stomped over to the control panel and began pushing buttons as Dox's stomach began doing cartwheels. After a moment, the crewman looked up with an irritated expression. "Orders confirmed from Commander Bhattacharyya... Ma'am."

Silently swallowing with relief that Rita Paris has succeeded in running the necessary interference in time, Dox began walking as briskly as possible, desperately trying to ignore that the skirt was beginning to ride up her wide hips as she spoke again. "You have your orders. Snap to it. I will be in the Cargo Transporter Room."

As she exited the room and the doors wooshed close behind her, she stopped, bent over with her hands on her knees and let out a muffled chuckle. "Hnaev, I can't believe I pulled that off."

With a sincere word of thanks to Ensign Blackwell, Asa carried the engineering supplies towards the lift. They saw a communication panel and paused briefly, contemplating calling Paris, but continued on as ordered.

Soon enough, the doctor was approaching Sick Bay, arms full of parts, and hoping they would know what to do when the doors opened.



Meanwhile, Rita Paris was having a reunion of a sort in Sickbay.

That sandy brown hair, with those piercing blue eyes. That shy smile that was somehow hangdog yet hopeful. That self-depreciating chuckle, those eyes, ever alert, ever seeking the horizon. That innocence that somehow the universe was going to be all right. Rita Paris hadn't seen him in a few months, but there he sat. Just as accident-prone and foul-mouthed in this universe than he had been in hers. Apparently he'd gotten a plasma burn, ans he used to complain of in his captaincy.

Clad in the crimson of Engineering instead of the gold of Command didn't suit him as well, as she saw him that way every day on the wall of her quarters, alongside her old uniform and a holo of an Exeter that was like theirs, yet was not. Seeing him here made her heart pinch in her chest, and her pretty face furrowed unpleasantly as he called after her.

"Hey, Lieutenant! Lieutenant Commander!" He'd do that so often- call her by the lesser rank, then correct to the full rank. That just irritated her more, and the dimensionally displaced dame kept on walking as behind her his uniform shifted to gold. The shift charge nurse confirmed the orders then offered to show her to Med Lab 4, but Rita Paris declined, explaining that she knew it well. After all, the sickbays of the Constitution and the Exeter were identical. And on the Constitution, Med Bay 4 is where Nathan Lang MD had worked on her case, fervently trying to find some shred of hope in it.

Which, four years later, Ensign Larry Wells had run across while repairing a holoscoping anatomical imager. Seeing in the doctor's notes the final piece of the puzzle, he had solved the mystery of the 'ghost' of the USS Constitution, NCC 1700. Thus had Rita Paris returned to the world of the living, only slightly worse for the wear. When the door to the lab whooshed open, the socially awkward yet brilliant engineer who had saved her life turned to stammer at her.

"OUT!" she fairly roared, pointing to the door with all the commanding presence she could muster, and the engineer scampered out the door. Eyes pinching shut, Rita Paris inhaled, her breath hitching a few times before she got a good lungful. As she fought of the wave of emotion, the kolinahr's wife focused on what was really going on here.

"You may not understand it, but this is cruel. Showing me all of these pieces from my past, these people here in this place- I didn't ask to see them. It damages me emotionally to encounter these sights, these people. They are lost to me, and I have accepted that. Please, if you have to study us then know what is a kindness and what is torture." It was the best way she knew to explain it to an alien intelligence that was studying them, so she offered it now, alone, so she might not freak out her shipmates stuck in this scenario with her. Stepping out of the lab, Rita went to fetch Dox and Dael from the Sickbay waiting area to show the doctor to their lab.

There was no way to be sure that her words had reached whatever was behind this. But as always, Rita Paris had hope.



Hopping from foot to foot in the Sickbay waiting area, Asa lit up when they saw Rita, but then immediately tampered that emotion when the stormcloud on Rita's face was apparent. Sensing silence was the better part of valor on that front, the doctor attempted to waive at Rita, and promptly dropped half of what they were holding in their right hand.

In the process of bending down to pick everything up, the awkward El-Aurian lost their footing even more and wound up falling face first on to the floor, all the parts from Engineering being dropped in the process. Dael quickly bent to pick everything up, and completely missed the breeze that had infiltrated their hind quarters, so by the time Rita approached Asa, the doctor was standing ass in the breeze from their too-short dress hiking itself up during the proceedings.

Never one to hold onto anger for long, the curvy chrononaut squatted, knees together, to help the anxious physician pick up the collection of parts and chemicals they had gathered. “Maybe squat when you ben over if you don’t want to advertise your scants, Do-“ Rita whispered, then paused, catching herself before amending, “Myx Dael. Come on, I’ll get you to the lab so you can get to work, and I’ll fetch Miss Dox when she arrives.”

With an armload of components, Paris turned to smile at the assemblage of Sickbay personnel who had gathered to observe. Smiling that cheery million-watt smile, Paris giggled mindlessly and flounced forward in a manner designed to draw attention to the giggle collection of curves, and ignore the person in Engineering red following her.

Ears bright red, Asa scuttled in behind Rita, allowing the door to the lab to close behind them.

“Thanks for that, I, um, well, I’m not very good in this getup I don’t think. I don’t know how you did this every day,” Asa said. They deposited their supplies onto a nearby table and began bustling about the lab looking for the needed medicines.

“I still do, remember?” Paris quipped, then explained. “Back in these days it was actually something that you made peace with early on, and I always wore it as a badge of honor. The fact that it was so sexist and demeaning just made me work it harder- anyone who was distracted by it was a win for me. One of the reasons I fell for Sonak was, honestly, the fact that he saw me as a person, not a collection of sexually desirable parts. Not that he didn’t gain an appreciation for the rest of the package eventually…”

“So, mission success for you too?” the doctor inquired.

“So far so good. If Commander Bhattacharyya follows traditional protocol, he won’t even notice orders were issued in his name until the end of his duty shift, so we should be clear to operate under his authority so long as no one argues too strenuously and seeks him out over it.” Looking around the medical lab, Paris sighed as the large wall of Nathan Lang MD’s notes on her disappearance and his subsequent studies and hypothesis were still on the wall. “Other than the simulation messing with my head a bit, I’m fine.”



Meanwhile, just outside of the Cargo Transporter Room, Dox had climbed up into a bizarre, diagonal Jefferies tube of the era , working on rerouting power from non-essential systems to make a transporter that wasn't designed to perform a site to site beaming on hundreds of small lifeforms do just that. And to her surprise, the technician on duty was remarkably accommodating. He stood nearby with a bag full of maintenance tools.

"Mr... Fitzsimmons. If you would please hand me the splicer." She held her hand down as far as she could out of the tube, struggling to keep her thick thighs together as her rear was mostly sticking out into the corridor.

Quickly, she felt the correct tool placed into her hand and she continued to work. "Here you go, Ma'am. And if you don't mind me sayin', I never woulda imagined a transporter could be rigged like this. You may be a helmsman, but you sure do know your way around my systems."

Not thinking much of his overly friendly comments, Dox tried to focus on her work, but felt the need to provide him with something of an answer so as to not raise any suspicions. "As a child, growing up on a... on Vulcan... I regularly worked on remarkably similar technology. I was not afforded the... luxury... of a single dicipline."

Growing up on a virtually antique smuggling ship, the statement was true and she knew jist enough to be useful in this situation. Reaching back down, she handed off the splicer. "Phase variance sequence converter."

"Uh... that must be some Vulcan tech I ain't heard of, Ma'am." He spoke with a mild southern twang that reminded her of the ever shifting accent of the HERA's own Intel chief, Clemens. However, she rolled her eyes realizing she was asking for a tool that didn't yet exist.

"Fvadt!" Without thinking, she let out a harsh 'damn' in Romulan before wincing to herself at the slip. "Uh... Hand me the tricorder, needle nose players and some wire cutters, then."

Handing her the items without delay, he responded in a way that was most unexpected to Dox. "If you don't mind my sayin', Ma'am, Vulcan sure is a pretty language. I had a cousin that served with a Vulcan diplomatic delegation for just about ten years, an' he would tell me all about it growin' up. A beautiful culture, really."

Burried in the tube, disassembling the tricorder to rewire it into the transporter systems, Dox rolled her eyes. "That's... Facinating, Ensign." Which seemed like an appropriately Vulcan response.

Suddenly, she heard the footsteps of two crewmembers approach in the corridor, then quickly pass. As they did, her sensitive Romulan ears picked up cruel snickers. As she winced at the sound, she heard Fitzsimmons shout back.

"As you were, gentlemen!" He sounded angry for a moment and Dox was simply relieved it wasn't security there to stop her.

"You'll have t' pardon our shipmates, Miss. Dox. Not everyone on this boat c'n... appreciate... th' beauty of the Vulcan culture." Confused, Dox stopped for a slight moment and looked down the tube incredulously at what she could see of Fitzsimmons, whose head was out of view.

"My... culture... Is focused on our task at the moment." Twisting the wires from the tricorder into the wall with the players, Dox tucked the equipment into the tube, securing it to the wall with sealant tape. "Please reactivate the system power, Ensign."

With a flick, power was restored and Dox saw all green lights flash on the tricorder display. "It appears our efforts were successful, Mr. Fitzsimmons. I thank you for your assistance."

"Aye, Ma'am. It appears we made quite th' connection here." There was a strange lilt to his voice as Dox shimmied back down to her feet. To her surprise, the young Ensign was standing remarkably close to her as she turned around.

"I don't mean t' be too forward, Ma'am. But word around th' ship is that you've been... uncharacteristically emotional... today. Something's about this bein' some kinda' special time f'r Vulcans." He placed his arm against the wall over Dox's shoulder as the awkward young pilot pushed her back against the bulkhead behind her, not understanding what was happening.

"My brother, he tol' me all about what happens t' Vulcans every seven years..." Dox's eyes went absolutely wide as her cheeks flushed green with embarrassment. 'Imirrhlhhse! He's... He's hitting on me?!?' Dox thought, mortified.

As her mind raced, she reached up to rub her ear nervously, as the Holographic ensign grabbed her wrist swiftly, but still gently. "N' I just wanted t' say that I'm a man that c'n... appreciate that kind of a need, if you understand, Miss. Dox."

Desperately wishing she was dealing with another room of sexist assholes, Dox pulled her arm free and slowlt pushed his shoulder away from her as she slid out to the side. "Mr. Fitzsimmons, whatever you may think you know of Vulcans, allow me to assume you, is insufficient to prepare you... for such a transaction." She stammered slightly as she struggled to think of what to say. But her protestations seemed to only spur him on more.

"Oh, I know Vulcans are was stonger than Humans, Ma'am. But you should know that I'm not afraid of playin' a little... rough." At which point, Dox had had enough. In her time at the academy she had had run-ins with cadets that wanted to check 'Romulan' off of some kind of horrible list of sexual conquests and the experiences left Avery bad taste in her mouth that lingered in this moment as if a fresh wound.

Spinning around, she realized that in this instant, however, harshness wasn't going to work. She thought of how Rita Paris seemed to have such a powerful control over her sexuality and it's influence over others and had a thought. "Mr. Fitzsimmons..." She said with a slight smile forced across her face.

"When this mission has concluded, I may..." She swallowed bile rising in the back of her throat as she put a finger on his chest in as seductive a manner as she could imagine. "Examine just what kind of stamina you can muster, Mister."

Then, pulling back, adjusting her I'll fitting skirt and taking on a very professional and stern demeanor, finished. "But until such a time, we will both remain focused on our duties, is that clear?"

The holographic ensign stood at attention with a slimy smirk on his face. "Aye, Lieutenant. Understood. Very understood."

Gesturing into the transporter room, Dox allowed him to walk in before her. As he passed, she shuddered at the thought, praying that the program would disengage and allow them to leave once complete as Commander Paris had theorized.

Back in Sickbay, Asa arched an eyebrow at Rita, knowing that "messing with her head" was likely an understatement from the time traveling temptress, but also knowing Rita would say more when she was ready. The doctor followed the commanders gaze to the notes on the wall and read them silently without comment.

Well, that would do it. Still, the inconsistency this would cause if the appearance of the Commander was remarked upon might be an avenue we should discover later, if all else fails. Perhaps we can force a logical shutdown or something.

By the time Asa had finished bustling about, there were four cannisters of various medicines on the work table, and the doctor realized they were in need of a hypo to withdraw precise amounts.

"OK, we need a hypo or an eyedropper or something, a pressurized beaker for mixing gases with liquids, and a solution of type H progesterone. I can't find any of that in here. What are our chances of finding it out there?" they asked Paris.

“Awesome. You are an engineer on assignment down here to cook up a contraceptive delivery device, so your requests will be met with agreement or they can check the orders from the first Officer. But since we’re a team, you chase the shopping list and the stupid pretty blonde will run interference.” It was easy for Rita to slide back into expecting sexism and underestimation in the surroundings- after all, it had been most of her Starfleet career before she had been assigned to the Exeter. A vapid expression slid into place on her face like a mask, which was mildly unnerving to the El-Aurian physician who knew her far better than that.

Stepping into Sickbay, Paris plucked a tribble out of the arms of a passing crewman who was bearing an armload of the furry cooing menaces out of Sickbay, and idly began petting it as she turned to the disguised doctor and ask, in a tinny high-pitched voice, “What was the first thingie on that list?”

"A hypo that can measure liquids when extracted, please," Asa replied in their best impersonation of the Commanders voice. The effect was offputting, not quite high enough, but also lacking in tenor notes, providing a noise like a confused balloon.

While Rita was procuring the hypo, the doctor opened the doors to the nearest cabinet to the gynecological biobed, assuming birth control would be stored there. Their suspicions were proven correct and they secured the needed amounts. The final item....that would be harder.....Asa was not sure it existing or not at the moment.

The doctor placed the birth control with the other supplies in the lab and began to look around for the pressurized beaker. Upon receiving dirty looks from a nearby male officer, Asa said, "Um, maybe you can help me? I was looking for something to complete a project for the Commander and I need a pressurized beaker to mix the gas and liquids together in a controlled, sterile environment. Point me in the right direction?"

The officer, a doctor perhaps?, snapped, "If you don't know where to find things, why are you even here? Don't waste my time, I have a tribble infestation to worry with, I don't have time to give the grand tour!"

Feeling unsure and mightily pissed off, Asa replied levelly, "Perhaps you did not hear me. I. Am. Here. On. Orders. If you will just point at the cabinet, I will be happy to do everything else myself," With that, the androgynous doctor crossed their arms, met his gaze, and waited for a response.

Sliding in smoothly and practically interposing herself between the doctor at the end of their patience and an annoyed Sickbay jerk. “Hiiiii, I’m so sorry, this is a project that Commander Bhattacharyya ordered us to work on and you know how engineers are with people skills. Is there somebody maybe that we could ask where we might find what they’re after?”

The most winning smile of 2257 didn’t faze the grumpy doctor in the least. “Find a nurse,” he snapped, making to snatch the tribble from Paris’ hand as her hand moved out of his range and the smile froze and became something else entirely.

“Well, since we’re working on that problem ourselves, perhaps-“ she started before he cut her off.

“I neither know nor care what your problem is, but either help with the situation or get out of Sickbay!” With that he stomped off in a huff, even as a nurse tapped Doctor Dael on the shoulder, holding a self-warming pressurized beaker.

“Is this what you’re after, sweety?" the nurse asked solicitously even as she threw a subtle dirty look the gold-clad commander’s way.

With relief palpable on their face, Dael replied, "Yes! Thank you! You are a life saver!- literally!"

After an awkward side-arm hug to the nurse, Dael returned to the lab and began tinkering away. They grabbed a pair of safety goggles (considering the impromptu nature of the equipment in use, an extra precaution best used), and placed some out for Rita as well.

Muttering something about "if I spill anything, this so-called dress will burn right off" the doctor began slowly extracting liquid birth control and mixing it with a wide-dispersal gas in the pressurized beaker. The beaker made a few groans of protest, but soon enough was allowing the liquid and gas to mix.

“I call it a uniform, myself,” Paris muttered to no one in particular. She knew the minidress was unpopular, but the good doctor had asked to wear it and been quite game until they experienced the practical reality of it. Which led her to realize the third member of their trio was still absent.

"OK, that has to cook as it were for about 5 minutes, it will turn green when it's ready. Let's keep our heads down till then?" the doctor half inquired, half asked.

“Understood. You stay here and keep an eye on this, if you please, and I’ll see if I can’t hunt down our Miss Dox- hopefully she’s in the waiting room by now and I can get her back here without incident,” Paris slipped off the goggles and stepped out of the lab. With a little luck, this plan was going to come together and they would be able to successfully complete the scenario and escape the holodeck.

Good luck was usually not the kind that accompanied Rita Paris, in her experience.

Making her way down the corridor, Dox was finally feeling like she was getting the hang of walking in the elevated heels of the knee high boots of the uniform of the period, though every few steps she had to resist the urge to tug down on the dress. She was still embarrassed and still fighting down her anxiety, but she was managing it better in spite of the amorous attentions she had just escaped.

Stepping into the waiting area of the main sickbay, in a remarkable coincidence, Rita Paris was just arriving from the lab. Sighing in relief at the sight, Dox smiled. "Commander. Unless something else goes wrong, the Tribbles are being organized up in the Shuttlebay and the transporter has been reworked for a site to site."

"The chief on duty, Fitzsimmons, is on board and is prepped and ready to lock on and move them on my orders." Dox followed up, trying to mask the revulsion on her face for what had just happened.

The curvaceous commander did a double-take at Dox' expression, as that revulsion played out across it clearly, but being the professional on a schedule, the first officer of the Hera pivoted with Starfleet military precision and began leading the chief helmsman of the Hera back to Med Lab 4. "Excellent work, Lieutenant. Myx Dael is just finishing cooking up the contraceptive and so long as the tribbles are actually in the bin, we should be golden. See!"

The ancient astronaut who hailed from this era pointed to their uniforms. "Fire tests gold, good as gold, we'll be golden. All of these and so many more more were prideful points of the gold uniforms. I'll never understand why they went to red. I STILL miss this uniform," the pretty pilot pouted.

The pout told Dox it was okay to take the moment to speak a bit more casually. "I like the red. But, I guess it's all I've ever seen. Command and helm has been in red as long as I've ever known, but I think... I kind of understand why you own this uniform so well." Dox tugged down on the skirt a bit as she spoke. "Gold, blue or red... you had to own it to be taken seriously."

Taking a moment to smile at her friend from the future visiting her past, Rita Paris nodded. "Quite astute, Miss Dox. But the gold does suit you, for what it's worth. Rank hath it's privilege though- no one's asked about my communicator nor my pips"

Stepping into the laboratory, the far-flung first officer nodded in approval. "Myx Dael, are we green?"

Popping their head up, Asa replied, "Green means go!! Yes maam. "

"Then let's get this to Deck 7 to Life Support, get the tribbles to stop reproducing so fast. Then the locals can get the existing tribbles ready for transport, and we can call this mission to an end." Leading the way out of Med Lab 4, Paris ran squarely into Commander Bhattacharyya, flanked by two rather neckless gentlemen in red shirts.

"Just where do you three mutineers think you're going...?"

"Imirrhlhhse!" Lieutenant Melanie Dox cursed in Romulan, pacing angrily in the holographic simulation of the 23rd Century Starship Exeter she was trapped in along with Commander Rita Paris and Chief Medical Officer Asa Dael.

Their attempts at escaping the holodeck program by solving the simulated crisis had been discovered by the Exeter's First Officer, Commander Bhattacharyya. As their solution had involved Rita Paris issuing a number of orders in the his name against the ship's Captain's orders, the 24th Century trio found themselves in the brig as mutineers, despite their protestations. Struggling against the burly security officers had produced a similar effect, thus their position in the brig.

Calming herself down a little, Dox leaned against the wall near the open forcefield of their cell and sighed. "It's been well over an hour, now. Do you think that Captain Tracey jettisoned the Tribbles by now, Commander?"

Sitting on the hard rack that jutted out from the wall, Rita Paris had been uncharacteristically quiet for a few minutes, apparently meditating. Rousing slightly, the lost lieutenant opened one eye and sighed. "I'd like to hope that since we provided them with a plan, a means to execute it, and explained it all to them that they might have erred on the side of the angels. But I'm starting to suspect that the tribble crisis and the contagion from Omega IV might not have been the kind of test we thought it was, but a test of another sort."

Coming down from her anger, Dox paused for a moment to ponder Paris' words before responding. "Not... if we can solve the problems the holodeck throws at us... but how we solve them?"

"Maybe?" Paris held up her hands in a shrug. "It was like the computer wanted to see how we'd react to stimuli, not like it wanted to test our problem solving ability. My old office. Michael Stuart, Nathan Lang's old lab, Ensign Wells- none of that is in the computer's databanks. It was pulling that from my head, which makes me wonder if maybe it gave us something to do so it could expose us to stimuli, like an experiment. How about you two- did you encounter any unusual situations while you were about the 'Exeter' here?"

Leaning her head back against the bulkhead with a thud, Dox groaned slightly. "You could say that." She rubbed her ear nervously as she spoke. "The Shuttlebay... It went pretty much how you predicted. Actually, it went exactly how you predicted. Sexist, dismissive and difficult with them only responding to me being focefull and... commanding."

Dox pushed off the wall, pacing again. "But I leaned heavily on the idea that they thought I was Vulcan. I was terrified it would backfire on me, though. Then it did." Turning to face Paris and Dael as she talked, Dox's face went flush again with embarrassment.

"Fitzsimmons... the character in the transporter room. He wasn't acting like a sexist ass. He was accommodating and helpful." Dox rolled her eyes and sighed. "He... had some kind of Vulcan... fetish. He was... HITTING on me, believe it or not. Aaaaand to get him to comply with orders I had to let him think I would... reciprocate... after the mission."

"Why Mnhei'sahe Dox! You Vulcan vixen you! I am so unbelievably... proud... of you..." Paris' exuberance at Dox using her wits and wiles in a tight spot quickly drained away at seeing the miserable expression on the young Romulan's face.

Trying to allow a smile at Paris' compliment, Dox simply couldn't. Groaning softly and turning away from her shipmates, Dox was trying to push past her embarrassment. "The whole alien fetish part was... a little... personal. And specific. I mean... in hindsight, it might have been pulled from my own memories. I mean, that's how I lost my..." The young pilot froze mid sentence. "Sorry... yeah... too much information, there." Dox turned back with an embarrassed half-smile.

Dox turned to Doctor Dael, not so secretly hoping to hand Paris' question over to them and get the conversation off of her awkward sexual history for the moment. "What about you, Asa?"

"The way the man in Sickbay spoke to me... it was just like my father. Utterly dismissive and acting against the best interest of himself and others. He even looked a bit like images I have of the man, from his youth. Plus the whole aerosol medical solution to fix biological issues without a patriarchal figure knowing or stopping me? That has tailor made problem written all over it now that i think of it..." the Doctor concluded with a sigh.

"So, something is going through our heads." Dox's face went white as her stomach tightened with a rush of mild panic she did her best to put the thoughts out of her head. After a brief pause, she stood back up straight and adjusted the gold mini-dress uniform and collected herself.

"That means this is being directed by an intelligence for some reason. But why?" Dox's frustration and anxiety was mounting, but she was doing her best to manage it.

"Logic, Miss Dox," the kolinahr's wife replied. "Be calm, and think it through. Whatever agency is behind this, it locked us in here, and it can seemingly access and reproduce parts of our past. It's jamming comms. Now it seems to be trying to get us to react by prodding us with memories and situations similar to those we've faced before. I've been in and broken out of this cell in the brig of the Exeter. This is from my memory as well. I've never had super-fast breeding tribbles threaten the ship, but I have faced them in Captain Telvan's quarters."

As Rita spoke of tribbles, one bounced along the corridor outside their cell not unlike a tumbleweed.

Shaking her head and chuckling, the Commander held up a finger. "So logically the first question is, what about the facts we know has a common thread running through it?"

Mentioning logic and practically channeling her husband's clarity of thought reminded Dox of the meditation techniques that the Vulcan officer had been teaching her. Closing her eyes and focusing on her breathing for a second, Dox replied. "Well, the primary scenarios are all drawing on individual traumas, tribbles notwithstanding. Strong emotions are... disorienting... distracting. Assuming it has a goal beyond simply traumatizing us, could there be some other goal it doesn't want us working towards?"

"Seems unlikely. It locked us up in here, remember? It even foiled our answer to it's scenario, and dumped us here where we have nothing but time to think. So it doesn't seem to be wanting to keep us away from something so much as moving toward something. Trauma..." Those bright blue eyes of Rita Paris unfocused for a moment as her mind made connections. "That tribble encounter with the Captain was pretty traumatic at the time, actually. Trauma. It's trying to oh so gently traumatize us..."

Literally connecting dots in the air in front of her, Paris poked the air with each point. "We flew through the body of a forming titan who tested us, probing us, studying us. As it used the ship's holographic system to do so and this is a holographic scenario, we suspect a connection. This presence is now trying to emotionally distress us and is holding us captive. What if..." Commander Paris stood, wagging that finger before her as she hypothesized. What if we took a bit of that titan with us when we escaped the storm, some small sliver of its consciousness that remained undetected? What if it isn't here as a spy, but as a bit of it that is traumatized by the separation from the rest of it's form, and is trying to communicate with us that it is being traumatized itself by being kept from the the storm, that forming titan...?"

Leaning back against the wall, Dox looked at her friends and flow officers as Rita's words sunk in, and in her heart they felt true. "I think you're right. But it wasn't just showing us trauma... It was seeing how we dealt with it. Maybe it doesn't understand it's own pain. Can't process it... express it... it's..."

"It's... alone." Dox said the words not as a question, but felt it. "That's why it brought us back together."

Looking to the overhead, Rita Paris smiled a little piper's smile as her hand reached out to touch the bulkhead. "Hello... my name is Rita Paris. This is Mnhei'sahe Dox, and this is Asa Dael. We are travelers, and explorers. We think we understand- you are alone, and you don't know why. But you want to go home, don't you? Back where you belong?"

Looking up, Dox put her hands on the arms of her friends. "I was... I was alone once, too. So was Rita... and Asa. You... you saw that in us. In our minds. But we're not alone anymore. We're never alone anymore."

Gently, Dox touched the Starfleet badge on Rita Paris' chest, then the patch on her own. "That's what that means. It means nobody has to be alone. And now... you're not alone. You have us, too."

Throughout the conversation, Dael had taken on a serious look and was slightly squinting. After Dox finished speaking, Asa whispered, "That's it. That's the.....not right....feel to all of this. I can feel it now, I can feel the isolation. The loneliness...this was not meant to be. But it's ok, we can fix it, now that we know about it. If you can hear me....I'm a doctor, fixing things is what I do."

"If we've guessed right, we'll explain to the Captain, and we'll get you home. That's what friends do," Paris smiled at the two friends there with her in the antiquated brig, truer friends than one could ask for. "They help one another."

As Cell 4 of the brig of the USS Exeter vanished, it was replaced by the black and yellow gridline walls of the Holodeck.

Looking first at Asa, then down at herself, Dox chuckled slightly as they were still in the velour minidress uniforms that the holodeck had replicated their uniforms into. "I guess we get souvenirs, Asa." She smiled, no longer feeling quite as uncomfortable in the uniform, remembering what it all stood for, regardless of when.

"Oooooo, I love a good souvenir!" Asa proclaimed.

"Good as gold, Commander?" She said, smiling at Paris.




Later, the smile that lit up the face of the first officer was one of pride in her proteges and and joy at having done something right. As they sat in 10-Forward, still clad in their anachronistic uniforms, they drew a few stares and looks, but no more that usually accompanied anyone in a holodeck costume in the ship's lounge. Raising a martini glass with three olives speared into it, Paris proposed a toast.

"We made contact with another lifeform, and we found a way to reach out and help one another. The very spirit of Starfleet- still alive and well at the close of the 24th century. I suspect the Captain will want a hunk of a developing titan off her ship, so we'll get them home soon enough, and help a friend get home." The blonde in the old gold dress raised her glass a bit higher, looking at each of her shipmates in turn. "To Starfleet"

Smiling with a glass of Romulan ale held up to meet Rita's, Dox chuckled as she spoke. "To Starfleet. And to my not having had to sleep with a hologram to get out of there."

Snorting a bit at Dox's second statement, Asa lifted their glass high into the air saying, "To Starfleet, and to friends!"

Making the walk from her quarters down to the holodecks on Deck 11 in her running clothes wasn't such a rare occurrence for the throwback officer- after all, she regularly jogged certain decks just for scenery and evasion. But there were holographic vistas she enjoyed as well, so Commander Rita Paris spent some of her allotted time in the holodeck, pursuing locations other than the corridors of the mighty starship which was her home.

Today she had come for that reason and another- to share with the entity recently discovered to be trapped in the ship's holographic matrix in some fashion that so far their best engineers and scientists couldn't fathom. Magic, Rita Paris was observing, seemed to be genuine Nietzschean will to power. Belief in it made it what it was, and it had sentience and life and power.

The titans might just have operated on a different principle entirely. Whatever their deal was, the friendly first officer was still reasonably convinced that there was an entity in there, and it was a chunk of the storm they'd accidentally taken with them, the end of the tendril of itself it had been using to hunt them with holograms, to pursue the crew of the USS Hera like rats through mazes. It was cut off from all that it knew, could see into their minds, their experiences and emotions, and it wanted to communicate that it wanted to go home.

Having established that theory which seemed to be holding, Rita Paris made another broad assumption based on available data. If it was here, and it was lonely, then if she were to treat it as a friend, she would visit them. As Holodeck 7 had been the one in which she, Dael and Dox had encountered the sentience, she figured she would try it again. For all she knew it might just be restricted to this system. Keying in her code to the archway control panel, the doors slid open on the black room with the yellow grid pattern imprinted upon it.

"Hello! I've come to visit you again- we're still a few days out from our next stop, then we should be able to rendezvous with the storm and return you to where you belong. So, since I know you are here and you are probably homesick, I thought I would share my home with you. I'd like to go for a run today, please. Starfleet Academy nature trail, modern day. Five minutes predawn, please? I need time to stretch. Begin... thank you."

As the base of the nature trail, Rita stretched her legs and her long muscles, limbering up quickly and efficiently. Most of the initial ascent was a one kilometer straightaway followed by a double back of the same distance, as the trail led up in two steppes. Thus the darkness would not hinder her, and she would be facing the horizon to the east, to see the dawn.

Stepping off and pushing into a loping run, Rita Paris spoke to her imaginary friend.

"This is my homeworld, Earth. It's an M-class planet, third rock from the sun in a system of 9, although we keep Pluto as a courtesy because technically it's not a planet. But this is my world, where I was born and raised. This is North America, one of seven continents. This is the west coast, so the sun rises in the east and sets in the west from our perspective according to our clockwise rotation around Sol, our yellow sun as the planet rotates counterclockwise around itself." Running at this speed, the experienced runner could still hold a conversation. She wasn't in a hurry, not today. This run wasn't about a speed trial. It was about education.

"The city nearby- we'll see it soon- is called San Francisco, named for one of the most venerated religious figures from an influential sect from our history. It's the home of Starfleet Command, and the seat of the United Federation of Planets. I grew up here, all my life until I graduated the Academy and shipped out to Mars, the 4th planet in the system." While she had no idea if any of this was relevant, or if she was making a terrible mistake giving secrets to an enemy, Rita didn't know. But she came in peace, and none of what she was explaining was any less than any schoolchild in the Federation knew.

Stepping up the pace, the human girl stopped talking and pushed herself, so that she could see the dawn, the sun breaking the horizon, the start of a new day on Earth, and it filled her with wistfulness. "My people are diurnal- we can see better when there is light, so we are connected to the dawn, and to the day of the planet's cycles, as is most life on planet Earth."

Taking the turn, having greeted the dawn, Paris pushed herself a bit to talk while exerting herself harder for the next 1K distance on the switchback of the trail. "This is my world, this is my home, the town where I grew up. I have not set foot on my world for 131 years, although it has only been three years to me, because of a time travel accident. It looks different than I remember, because cities and civilizations grow and change. The evolution of societies is evident in preserving some of the old while creating anew. I miss my homeworld- the rolling hills, the great seas- my world is 71% water, and we are not amphibian. It has every type of terrain, and it is beautiful to my eye."

Pushing up the hill, her breathing was more labored now, but she was nearly arrived at her destination, the overlook that began the long slow track around the hill which would wrap up the first 5K, giving the runner the opportunity to proceed or take the steps down to opt out of the remainder of the course. When she had time, sometime Rita did wind sprints up and down those steps built into the hill. But not today. Today she wanted to see the city of San Francisco, and to share it with an entity who might or might not even be listening.

But it hurt no one for her to give a travelogue to no one she could perceive as she ran the simulation of the nature trail.

As the time-tossed temptress approached the rise, the lights of the city were still twinkling below, as while the light of the sun had yet to reach it, the city was still slowly awakening. Jogging up to the edge of the hill, with the blend of old and new combining even as worker bees and shuttles darted and swooped about the city, Rita inhaled deeply, a smile settling onto her face.

“This is my home, the city I’ve known for more than half my life. The planet of my birth, so far away and so far removed from the city as I last saw it.” Even as she spoke, the scenery shimmered slightly as many of the buildings changed, the styles of architecture becoming more familiar to her, as did the various craft in the sky. Sitting down on the edge of the trail, Rita Paris crossed her arms on her knees and appreciated the view.

“Yeahhhh… this is the way I remember it, you’re right,” she admitted to the presence that she could not detect, yet was clearly at work since she hadn’t asked for a 2255 version of the skyline as a vista. Yet it was still comforting to her, and she lingered for a bit. “This is what is familiar to me. This is my home, as I remember it. Where I belonged, where I came from."

"But change isn’t all bad," The athletic executive observed. "I've made friends here in the future, good friends. This is a good ship with a good crew, and a good captain. I'm the First Officer- that means I keep the captain aware and keep the crew on task so we can accomplish what the captain needs- that's how starships work. So I have my work and a home, and my t’hy’la is here… my spouse, mate, partner, husband. We are together in exclusive bonded mating, and he is everything to me. In him I see the wonders of the universe, and someone who understands all of that... and me."

"As far as I was flung and lost, still he came for me," serenely sighed the sentimental spacefarer.

"So long as he is beside me, I can be happy. I would have made do without him if I’d had no choice, but there would always have been a part of me that was missing. I guess you understand that pretty well, don’t you?” Pausing to let that sink in, she nodded. "I know how that feels. No matter how different we are, there are always things we'll both understand. That's the theory behind the Federation. It's in finding common ground with one another, celebrating our diversity but unifying behind peaceful principles of mutual cooperation."

"That's a long-winded way to say friends help each other. That's the Federation. We're Starfleet- we're the ones who go out there to find those new friends and offer them a seat at the table and a voice in a greater community." Standing there on the bluff, the sun coming up behind her now, casting the first rays of the dawn across the city as night gave way to shrinking shadows.

"There. There's the UFP headquarters back in my day. What does it look like in the modern day?" Rita asked of the holodeck, and the scene shifted to the modern incarnation. The UFP chambers and hall had taken over much more of the city, even as Starfleet had built upward. But some landmarks remained. The Transamerica Building's trademark spire still thrust into sky, catching the rays of the dawn. The Golden Gate Bridge was still maintained as an historical landmark. Alcatraz still sat out in the bay, although it had long ago been converted to Starfleet Marine Sciences, even in Rita's day.

"They come here, because we're the explorers. We're the ones who went looking for who else was out there and what wonders the universe held. We went out into the universe to make friends. And because it was our idea, we became the center of this great alliance of societies, of worlds coming together in harmony." Standing with her hands on her hips, Rita smiled as she peered back over her shoulder toward the dawn.

"I'm proud of us... of my people. My people explored and sought and boldly went. These are their great grandchildren, and look at how well they have done- not for themselves, but for the universe. That message of peaceful cooperation we took to the stars came home with us, here on planet Earth, and it has enriched us all for the experience. I know it's probably speciesist or just rude, but I am proud of us," the native Earth girl admitted. "For a backwater planet that darn near killed itself for profit, we did all right. I'm very glad that I got to see the future."

"This is what I wanted to share with you. We can't talk about your people and where you come from because you don't seem to communicate that way. Which is okay, because at least we can communicate, and that's a start. So today I just wanted to share my homeworld with you. I miss it, maybe a little like you miss the rest of your... forming celestial presence."

The explorer of another age paused, considering what she'd just said, then shook her head. "Hearing it out loud kinda makes it sound a bit of a reach. But at the very least I came to visit and communicate a bit. So I've probably got enough time left to finish the course. You are welcome to come along?"

No other joggers joined her on the trail, but Rita wasn't alone.

Standing outside of the doors to the holodeck, Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe "Melanie" Dox was nervous. It had only been a few days since she had been trapped within the walls of this room along with Commander Rita Paris and Doctor Asa Dael. Trapped within a recreation of the 23rd century Starship Exeter. by what they believed to be a fragment of a cosmic Titan.

Before Dox had been assigned to the Hera, the ship had been trapped in an dark matter Ion storm that was, in reality, the body of one of these ancient cosmic entities. It had at that point used the ship's holographic systems to test the crew in a variety of strange ways. They now believed that a piece of that titan may have become trapped in the ship's holodeck, and had begun using the programs to try to call attention to it's plight- to call for help.

The trio of officers promised to help, and offered the being their friendship. As for Dox, she knew she needed to prove that with more than just words. Still, it was a frightening concept to contemplate, having once before barely survived a god-being rifling through her mind. She felt herself frozen for what felt like an eternity at the door.

The anxious part-Romulan pilot straightened the crimson tunic of her uniform, took a long, slow breath and walked up to the control panel.

"Computer. Ten-Forward lounge of the U.S.S Hera. Empty of personnel. Begin." With a chirp, the doors opened and Dox stepped into a perfect holographic replica of the HERA's own recreational lounge.

When they had become trapped before, they began with an empty replica of the Exeter that the entity took over, filling with characters that it tried using to communicate with. Dox walked over to a seat near the windows, thinking that if the entity wanted to talk, this might be the way to instigate that.

"Hello. It's me, Mnhei'sahe." In the original scenario, Rita Paris introduced Dox with her true, Romulan first name. It was a leap of faith that she felt best to go with, and one that felt more and more right to her. "I thought I'd come and see if you wanted to talk."

The room was silent, so Dox sat down and waited. "This... This room is called 'Ten-Forward'. The real version isn't actually that far from here. We come here to relax and talk with our friends when our duties have been done for the day. And since I'm now off duty... it seemed... appropriate."

The simulated lounge was calm and peaceful. All Dox could hear was the ever present hum of the ships engines. As she sat, wondering if she was talking to an empty room, she heard a hiss as a young Romulan woman stepped out from the back of the bar area. She was dressed in a servers uniform, with a Starfleet badge on her chest and walked over with a PaDD to take an order, smiling pleasantly.

"Good evening, Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe. Would you care for something to drink?" The woman seemed somehow familiar to Dox, thought she couldn't place the face. But it was clear that the entity was making it's presence known and, like in the Exeter similation, creating characters to interact through.

"Just a water, please. And whatever you'd like. Thank you." Dox replied, gesturing to the seat opposite her.

Tapping at the PaDD in her hand, the server smiled absently. A glass of water beamed into being in front of the puzzled pilot, as the young civilian server looked curiously at the Starfleet officer. Then a squarish tumbler of hand blown clear glass materialized opposite her, a quarter filled with pale blue liquid, which was apparently not very watered down if at all. The tumbler looked like the one she'd seen her mother use to test ale when they ran it, which was often in her teen years. It was where she had learned her own knowledge of the finer vintages of Kali-Fal, what the rest of the galaxy called Romulan Ale.

Sliding into the seat opposite the redhead, the young woman with the dark pointy bangs, asymmetrical bob haircut whose almond eyes were not that dissimilar to Melanie's own sat down. Picking up the tumbler, she swirled it under her nose, and Dox realized why she looked familiar.

This was her cousin, the Kali-Fal smuggler, Lhi. Her name meant 'a game of wits and riddles', and her mother had been remarkably cautious when dealing with her. But this was part of the smuggler's ritual- each shared a taste of the same drink, to insure quality and forestall treachery. She had only met the distant relative once, and they had not even spoken directly. But this was her, from her memories, taking a sip from her mother's cup, before placing it deliberately before the young officer so far removed from the girl she'd been then.

It was a trust exercise, Dox felt. The entity could pull all of this from her mind, and likely felt her anxiety. But the young officer was committed to overcoming her fears and helping however she could. Without hesitation, she picked up the glass and took a drink.

The ale was strong and clearly not a syntholic creation. Although her skilled palate could tell it was a replication. A good one, however.

"It's good, thank you Lhi." Dox replied with a smile, speaking now in fluent Rihan, the Romulan dialect she knew the real Lhi spoke as well. It made her feel slightly more comfortable to do so and she hoped the entity would sense that.

"I'm glad you came, it's good to see you." Dox spoke, in truth, to both the Entity and the image of a long lost relation. "How have you been?"

"Good," the hologram replied, seemingly pleased at the shared drink, the accepted offer. "I'm going back home soon, looking forward to being back where I belong," the server who wore her cousin's face said. "What about you? Are you going home soon?"

Relaxing slightly, Dox looked out the simulated window into the streaking images of stars. "I feel like... this is home, for me. I think... I hope I belong here. On the Hera."

Turning back, Dox was momentarily startled at the sight of an empty chair where the image of Lhi had just been. All around her, the simulation of Ten-Forward had begun to bustle with activity.

Some were crewmembers that she half-recognized from about the ship, some were faces she remembered from past postings on Starbases. Others still were familiar in ways that she couldn't place. But regardless of if the images presented at Starfleet or civilian, they all wore Starfleet comm badges.

Feeling nothing particularly wrong, Dox nevertheless knew the entity was in her mind pulling faces from her memory and the thought of it caused a ball of anxiety in her stomach to begin to twist slightly.

The guy who had turned her down junior year when she had asked him to prom walked by, looking at her nervously. Which, oddly enough, didn't increase the tension in her innards, her soul not tying itself into a tighter knot as her anxiety was wont to do. Instead, she felt- exactly, precisely as much tension as that memory caused. No more. No less. Which was so rare for her, that the realization of that fact eased her tension slightly.

Thinking on the feelings, they felt like a reflection. The memory of pain only, preserved in Amber. The first, a memory of family not seen in years was positive. This, of unrequited affection, negative. "Is this what you're feeling, too?" She asked to nobody in particular in English again, standing up as the room seemed to ignore her.

"Unrequited..." She muttered out loud. "Do you need us... want us to feel differently?" Then a thought occurred to her.

"Not us... me. You can feel what I'm feeling. And you feel my anxiety, don't you? You feel that I'm... afraid and... friends shouldn't be afraid." The thought made Dox feel shameful.

From behind, she heard the voice of her Mother, speaking in Rihan. "Are you even your own friend, Mnhei'sahe?"

As she turned around, the room shimmered as the image of Ten-Forward was replaced bay a small, sun-lit room. Her dorm room in San Francisco at Starfleet academy. Standing in the middle of the room was Jaeih Dox, Melanie's mother. Standing next to her, was an image of Melanie herself as she appeared when she attended the academy.

Looking at the image of her younger self, the young part-Romulan pilot was taken aback. Her hair was longer and pulled back into a large, messy bun. Her skin was a paler shade of pink and her ears were rounded at the top as the restorative work that Doctor Dael had completed to restore her Romilan appearance was years away.

"Why don't you like her?" Her mother asked, gesturing to the image of the younger Dox.

Stepping slightly back, Dox was confused but tried to form an answer. "I don't... I don't... I didn't know who I was then. Who I wanted to be. I... don't know if I do now."

Then, she thought she might at least in part understand. "I was broken. I still am, at least partially. I wasn't complete. But I'm trying to be. You're broken, too. In pieces, right?"

"I don't... I don't... I didn't know who I was then. Who I wanted to be. I... don't know if I do now," her earlier self replied, explaining through the experiences of another.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'." Melanie sighed lightly, starting to at least thing she understood. "This me... This is Melanie, I guess. She was a part of me that I learned to hate. I'm trying not to do that anymore. It's... okay to not know who you are sometimes. You can rediscover it every day. That's what I'm trying to do. My friends are helping me. Rita and Asa."

Dox looked at the image of her mother. "Even her. And I guess I'm scared to find out if I can like myself. It got... comfortable... to hate who I was. Easy."

"Maybe we can help each other... figure out who we are today." She looked up towards the room in general, not at the figures before her.

Standing in the still room, Dox waited for some kind of a reply in silence. It seemed as if the entity didn't know how to communicate directly and Dox hoped she was interpreting it correctly.

After a long moment, the images shimmered, leaving Dox standing in the plain black and yellow grid of the holodeck. Standing before was just the image of her former self.

"But I'm trying to be." It said, mimicking Dox's words from earlier before vanishing itself.

Standing alone, Dox didn't know what to think. Did she help the entity or hurt it more? She hoped it was the better of the two.

"I'll come back... maybe tomorrow." She turned towards the door and stepped forward, but the door didn't open.

Turning over her shoulder, Dox looked around and said softly, "I promise."

After a few silent seconds, the door wooshed open. With a slight smile on her face, the young Officer stepped into the corridor as the doors closed behind her.


Tag-

Sitting alone in her quarters after the end of her shift, Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe “Melanie” Dox was nursing a hot bowl of beef stew as she sat, looking at the small notebook in front of her.

The notebook was a part of her ongoing therapy with the ships new Councilor and existing Chief Medical Officer Asa Dael. By leaps and bounds, Asa had been proving to do the job of a counselor far better than the ships previous one and Dox was happy for that. It was a little strange trying to mentally separate your counselor from the same person who was also among your best friends, but so far it was working.

The idea of the notebook was to try and write out your memories and feelings in journal form. Doctor Dael suggested that the tactile act of doing so with pen and paper had a theraputic value and could help Dox process her most recent traumas. Most specifically the fears and anxieties caused by her encounter with the entity called Anansi and the fall out from the repressed memories the so-called 'god of stories’ had unearthed from her own mind.

But as a journal, it also could serve as a catch all for what she was thinking and feeling and hopefully make it easier to process the massive changes that had taken root in the young part-Romulan pilots life.

There were a couple of pages already filled. Memories of her lost childhood she had written down. But tonight, she had a different set of thoughts she wanted to collect on paper.

Picking up the replicated ball point pen, Dox began to write, putting her thoughts down as the came in her first language of Rihan, which came easier to her these days.

-------------------

Journal Entry #2. Mnhei'sahe Dox

That's a weird thing to write. My name. When Anansi called me that for the first time it was immediately familiar. I mean, beyond my obviously knowing the meaning of the word itself. For Rihannsu, the word is the name of the cultures principal philosophy. It would be like a human naming their child “karma” or I suppose.

But what I mean is that it felt natural. It felt familiar to me AS a name. As my name. My mother later clarified the details of why I had forgotten it and why she let me forget. But in the moment in which Anansi told it to me, I knew it was the truth.

After I told it to Commander Paris, she began peppering it into our conversations. Using it in little ways here and there. But what was weird to me was that it felt right. I liked hearing it. It felt good.

Inversely, I've found my feeling torn on being called 'Melanie’. Knowing that it was a name that my father pushed on me when I was about 4 as a part of his attempt to somehow pretend that I wasn't Rihannsu has tainted it. I find that I actually cringe a little inside when I hear that name now. I wish I didn't, but it's true.

I've been trying to explore each aspect of my past and my heritage and just who I am. Rita talked with me recently about not forgetting that half of that heritage is still human and I understand what she was telling me. I'm never going to be just one thing and if I try and forget either part of myself, I'll do myself more harm than good. But I don't know if I can keep being 'Melanie’. What it means has become painful to me.

Mnhei'sahe is my given first name. Melanie was something put on me out of hate and I can't use that knowing it. Dox, however, my last name means more than just my father. His parents, my grandparents, were as good to me as I would allow. I regret not letting them in and wish I could go back and be better to them, but I can't. But I can carry that name and try and do right by it now. It's a reminder that I am as human as I am Rihannsu.


Rihannsu are supposed to have four names. Their given first name, their second name denoting where they were born, their family or house name and a fourth name they learn later in life. I don't actually know where I was born, but if it was on the ship I grew up on, I'm not adding 'i'Forager' to my name. And it seems I have two given names and two house names. My Mother's house name is t'Aan and Dox comes from my father. But it sure feels like my given Rihannsu first name and that fourth name... Called ones 'true name' might just be the same.

I've updated my personnel file to reflect this and submitted it to the chain of command, but after a lot of thought, it's what I needed to do for myself. To feel a little more... complete. That rest I can work out in time.

------------

The young pilot closed the book and put her pen down, smiling. This felt like an important step on this journey she was taken trying to accept herself. Each night, her nightmares were getting just a little better the harder she worked at reconciling the conflicting sides of herself.

But she was glad to have help. Asa has been both a friend and a sage council. As has Rita Paris and Sonak. Baroness Von Alcott and Commader Thex have held out their hands in welcome friendship. Even Captain Telvan has worked to let her know she was not alone on this journey.

It was an extremely new idea to the redheaded Romulan, but a very welcome one.

Like any forward-thinking officer on a modern starship, Rita Paris did a lot of her work through shared messages and datapackets. And of course, a calendar, that enabled her keep the Starship Hera running like clockwork. Things had changed, but the job remained the same. Keep the ship running properly, deal with problems and bring big issues to the Captain, as well as tend to whatever orders she sent down.

Another element of this particular skillset job, which had so been for Rita Paris from the first starship posting she achieved, was to be a conscience to those above her. While she was no saint, the plucky explorer from another place and time had always felt strongly about what was right, and what was wrong. While there were always to be shades of grey, her moral compass seldom required alignment, always pointing truly north. Thus she often found herself counseling her superiors in the delicate art of right and wrong. In this particular case, she had made a discovery, and the reaction of the Captain was yet to be seen. But she was prepared to defend her request if need be. Because in her heart of hearts, Rita Paris usually knew what to do, in the spirit of the Federation and Starfleet.

Enalia also had a moral compass, but due to her upbringing, it was a bit more skewed at times than she cared to admit. She'd sacrifice anything for her ship and crew, and do just about anything to complete the mission, which sometimes meant that some rather grey decisions had been made in her past. In the end Intel Command had deemed them necessary, but she was the one that had to live with the decisions, even if the results were deemed the best possible outcome. This was another reason she valued her new first officer- you needed checks and balances on everything and she saw Rita's moral compass as a perfect balance to her willingness to make the hard decisions.

On that calendar that kept the ship running, an 11:50 meeting with the Captain had been scheduled, which would end with lunch. Thus Rita Paris chimed the door of the Captain's Ready Room at 11:50 hours.

"Enter," the spotted captain called, looking up from her desk terminals hopefully. She was about done with reports for a while and was ready for some lunch. "Is it that time finally?"

"Almost, not quite, Captain," Paris strode in, stopping short of the Captain's desk. She debated coming to parade rest, but this wasn't a formal report. "I've got a little moral conundrum, and I think my moral conundrum might be our moral conundrum."

A nod from the ship's mistress and commander was all Rita Needed from there to get to the point. "We encountered a reactive sentience in the Holodeck who could reproduce memories from my mind, that never existed here. Things it would be impossible for just a holodeck recreation to accomplish, to rule out computer malfunction. Doc, Dox and myself spent a very weird trip back to my old ship, and my theory is that whatever chunk of the dark matter ion storm, that we later found out was the forming body of a Titan? I suspect that when we successfully created a warp bubble, we accidentally trapped the tendril of itself that was manipulating the holographic system. It isn't able to communicate per se, but we believe it is trying to tell us that it is alone, and it is lost, and it wants to go home."

It took Enalia a moment to process this, but when she did, her eyes widened in realization. "Ohh... That's... Oh my... I guess we'll have to go back there soon then. We'll need a way to separate it from the ship and a better method of scanning though." Motioning for Rita to sit, she tapped all her terminals off and leaned back in her chair. "What sort of communications have you been able to engage in?"

"Ehhhh, mostly it was interpreting what it was showing us. It ran us through what looked like problem-solving exercises, but the exercise wasn't the mystery it was trying to get us to solve." As she spoke, Rita waved off the offer of a seat to pace slowly, talking with her hands. "Eventually, locked in the brig, we figured out that it was communicating with us, and we deduced the how and why... and the entity turned our comms back on and allowed us to leave."

"I've visited it again to insure it wasn't a fluke, and it showed me my old San Francisco from the Academy nature trail. With the differences in our universe, every detail couldn't have been right unless it was from memory. So something's in there. It isn't malicious, it didn't try to hurt us. I believe it has power over the holographic system, what it was put here to do, but that's about it other than a rudimentary sentience. Or it might be cosmically aware for all I know, but it doesn't speak directly through holodeck characters. Just experiences and stuff pulled from your head."

"I ran a series of tests, and it seems to be relegated to Deck 11, Holodeck 7. It doesn't seem to be manifesting anywhere else, although Science can't verify the presence of any dark matter, but there could be lot level ionic energy that would be practically impossible to detect in the holodeck's circuitry web. According to Science. So," Rita shrugged and spread her hands. "Can we take it home...?"

"The USS Amaterasu is running scans of the dark matter ion storm now. It may be some time, but we should be able to pass that way again before too long." Enalia steepled her fingers in thought. There was an alien entity living on her ship that showed clear signs of intelligence and she had responsibilities to see to. "You say it's stuck in holodeck seven... If so, we shouldn't have to worry about security, but does it have any dietary needs? Companionship? Should crewmen be mindful about how they use that holodeck? When we get close to the storm, how do we transfer it?"

"I restricted access to myself and lieutenants Dael and Dox, as we had already managed peaceful first contact with the entity. Dox verified an experience, so we knew it wasn't just me. Doc hasn't been back, but they're pretty busy actually running sickbay quite often. Workaholic, our wee physician- not that anyone is complaining, they're doing a fine job." The First Officer stopped her pacing and lowered herself down onto the bench off to the side of the Captain's desk that she tended to favor. "I think this is going to be one of those 'we'll have to get close enough to find out' how to transfer it back. We'll get Science on it and I'm sure Sonak will have an idea. He has all of Vaemyn's research from our last encounter to work with."

"Wow. I really liked that cheerful scientist. A Vorta from the Founders culture who were clones created to serve the Dominion. But he was a brilliantly eccentric genius who honestly seemed to delight in exploration. I miss him," Paris, prone to distraction, rambled a bit since the subject had come up, and the Earth girl wore her heart on her sleeve, always.

The Joined Trill captain couldn't help but chuckle softly at the thought. "I miss him too. If he knew we were going back, he'd kick himself for not being here, but I'm sure he's doing good work for the joint operations between Starfleet and the Dominion. We've got a lot of smart pastries on board though - I'm sure we'll crack this walnut."

"Indeed. So far... we visit it. Them? Doctor Dael is making me more pronoun aware in describing alien life forms. The future, amirite?" Paris quipped. "I'll let them know that we're getting there, but it will take us a little while to get there. In the meanwhile we'll visit with them and try to keep them from being alone. That much we can do for the entity. Welcome to investigate yourself, ma'am. It reproduced my entire office from the Exeter in the kind of perfect detail Sonak has. It was surreal."

"Ah, no thanks..." If it read Enalia's mind, it might think twice about being friendly. "I have enough issues in my past that I don't need a mind reading entity reproducing it for me. Let's just stick with people we know it's friendly and comfortable with and go from there. Besides, being raised to be the heiress of a pirate family might not be the best ambassador to such an entity."

"See, there I think you might be selling yourself short, Captain," the first officer spoke frankly. "You are a good person, you make good choices and you work for universal harmony. You might have had a violent past, but in our line of work, most of us do. We lead dangerous lives. That doesn't disqualify you from being a good contact with another life form, be it with an alien race, or a child, or even the crew..."

It was at this point that the alarm in Rita's head went off. This was the one that said she'd overstepped her bounds. and rather than being preachy, she had made it a bit personal, mentioning that conversation with the Captain's mother she'd forwarded to Rita. Or pointing out that she could engage more with the crew, which was something of a sore spot for Enalia Telvan. But the words were out there, and to her mind they were the truth. So now she waited to see just how they would be received.

Enalia thought on that for a moment before sighing and dropping her hands back onto her arm rests. "I was raised to lead from a position of power... A veritable pedestal, as it were. Being in Starfleet there are many leadership styles, but mine got me to this command in near record time. It's not perfect though. I'm having to learn many social skills that I'm sure most of the crew take for granted. Like how to make friends with someone rather than intimidate them."

The Trill woman then turned to stare at her aquarium. "And then there's the matter of my family. With that issue on my mind, I'd rather you be our ambassador for now. Though if you have some advice on that front, I'd welcome it."

"Donate some eggs, procreate through a surrogate with whatever genetic donor your mother wants and satisfy her desire for an heir or any number of them while you continue your career." The words were out of Rita's mouth before she realized it, and once they were spoken she realized she had been speaking from a position of scientific logic, sans emotional content. Although the facts were still true.

Enalia turned back to glare at Rita for a moment before returning to staring vacantly at the aquarium. "If I actually do that, she reclaims the family and I surrender my claim to any part of it. It would all pass back to her and my so called offspring with whatever genetic tampering she did to it... No, the best answer would be to find a way for me to provide an heir before then. Unfortunately, we still haven't found the genetic template that the original Maica was based on, let alone a doctor that would attempt a hologram-Trill DNA hybrid. I suspect my mother has her hand in foiling that effort. She sees Maica as nothing but a sex toy after all."

“Ah,” the first officer held up her hands in surrender. “I apologize, I had no idea that’s how pirate family politics worked. I thought you had a solution in my DNA or something? I apologize, I was never quite clear on what you had in mind.” Already having misstepped, Paris wasn’t keen on venturing further into the subject, but she figured if it only made the captain madder, her reproductive woes were not actually Rita’s problem.

"Only if you're volunteering. There's a doctor on Earth that we think could do it, if you're willing..." Enalia trailed off, not even sure if that's what she wanted any more. "But Then I'd be pregnant... Have to raise a child... We'd have to make sure it's female..." Leaning her head back against her chair, Enalia groaned softly. "Stupid archaic matriarchal rules..."

“Somehow I doubt insuring the chromosomal mix for genetic gender determination isn’t exactly much of a trick for modern physicians,” Paris ventured. “Well, back at the Academy this was what we called an example in values decision making. Do you want a child? Do you want to keep the family business. Do YOU want a child. Does Maica. Are you willing to be… I will admit I have no idea how your people reproduce, but if it is anything like mine, it’s 9 months of discomfort and raging hormones. All of it is possible, it seems. The question is more to the point- what do YOU want?”

"Ten months, but otherwise, almost identical to humans, other than the symbiote pouch issues. I'm joined so there are a few extra complications there." Pausing and thinking it over some more, Enalia still didn't know. "Maica and I have discussed it quite a few times. We do, but not yet. We also don't want to subject any living being to my mother's parenting skills. I'm also not getting any younger..."

“All of which evades my question,” Paris redirected, keeping the conversation on topic. “What do YOU want? Your mother cannot force you to reproduce, and if you are the key to the heir question then she still has to be dependent upon your decision, correct? So the question remains, how do YOU want to move forward? What is YOUR take on all of this? What do YOU want?”

"Honestly?" Enalia stared at the aquarium for several long moments before replying. "I'm happy with the way things are. I'd rather name a successor than an heir. I'd love to have a daughter someday with Maica... But on our own terms. And I'd like to raise her without the pressure to be the leader I was expected to be."

“So with that said, what’s the solution to your maternal problem, Captain?” Hopefully Rita had provided enough of a sounding board with her directed questions to give the starship commander the answer via the logic exercise she had been engaged in by Paris.

Enalia's brows raised hopefully, only one solution springing to mind. It was a despicable, piratical solution, but it was a solution. "Defeat my mother in a duel to the death?" she asked, looking to Rita, hoping that was a good answer.

“Does that solve your problem, or leave you trapped as the matriarchal head of the Artan family?” Paris countered. Likely Enalia was just needling her to get a rise because she didn't want to face the answer- the woman was notorious for distractions and misdirections, particularly with uncomfortable subjects. But Rita lived with the greatest comedy straight man in the universe, so she wasn’t that easy to rattle or to throw off the point. “Or does that mean that you get to change the rules because you are the head of the clan, and you can do away with the parts of which you feel are no longer viable?”

"It means I can change the rules uncontested. I could probably even name a man the head of the family if I wanted to." The spotted woman was definitely serious. "As for killing my own mother, she did it. I kind of figured I'd have to one day have to do it as well. How do you think she got the name Artan the Black Thorn? She's ruthless and merciless."

“Uncontested- is there a way to contest the rules then?” Now this was getting interesting. While piratical politics and matricide were not her strongest suit, manipulating a bureaucracy was something the career Starfleet officer from the days when women were considered ornamental on a starship was a subject with which she quite a deft hand. Maybe there was a non-murderous solution available.

"I could demand a tribunal..." Enalia began. "Which would be overseen by the current ruling body of the family. Headed by Captain Magnus, the thirteen or fourteen Baronesses... Depending on if they recognize me making Lieutenant Dox a Baroness for this. If one side doesn't have a nine tenths majority after six months, it'll still end in trial by combat, the method of her choosing."

“That would buy you time, then, which makes it seem like a viable option that might not necessarily end in bloodshed. Of course, she might also challenge you to a test in which she knows without a doubt you have less proficiency than she herself which could be completely non-combative, no? Taking a step back, her whole 'pushing you to meet with suitors' and all- does she have recourse if you are obstinate and refuse to comply?” Paris was into it now. She’d maneuvered around her father to finagle an Academy posting, and had been working the system ever since. Unjust and unfair that could be overcome by knowing and taking advantage of the rules was something she seldom had call to use anymore, but this was definitely bringing old skills online.

"This is true. I think I have the backing of most of the family already, especially Captain Magnus, but I'm worried about the old crews that still fear my mother." Enalia tapped her desk a few times thoughtfully. "They may decide to back her or abstain. As for getting the tribunal moving, that would only take three of them, which if Magnus backs Melanie's appointment and the Tribunal, her hands will be tied for a while at least and I can at least worry about convincing the ones that aren't on my side to support me. I'll also have to worry about my mother killing the ones that don't support her..."

“And here I thought Starfleet politics were brutal,” Paris muttered. “Well, again, let’s take a step further back- is that something that you want? Or would you be happier letting go of the family business? Or naming a successor? You do seem to be working hard to straddle both worlds.”

"Well, I have the castles on Earth and Trill I'd like to keep... Those I earned myself. Plus I have a lot of my antiques inside the orbital fortress that I have nowhere else to store." Enalia shook her head. "No, as far as I can see, she's likely determined to do just about anything to get me into... Just about anything... But not completely destroy the family..." A sly grin spread across Enalia's face. "I think a tribunal is exactly what we need, but for a different reason. On the grounds that her actions are trying to tear the Artan Family apart and she should be completely removed from all power. That sort of investigation by the Baronesses would take a while longer than six months and be a lot harder to disprove. Plus her attempts at fearmongering would just add proof to it. On top of that, if I name Magnus's daughter as my successor..."

“I like where this is going…” Paris smiled, encouraged that the captain was seeking a bloodless solution in the rules of politics and using them to her advantage. “So why name the daughter as the successor? That’s the only part I don’t understand.”

"It would show less favoritism. She's been mentored by my mother, myself, Schwein, her father, most of the other Baronesses..." Enalia waved one hand in the air as she spoke. "Even by my late sister to take over for her father as Captain of the Fleet - the person that runs the show when I'm not around. That way, when she's ready to take the mantle herself, she can just step in and take over. Plus the old guard would have fewer complaints about things if I named a woman as my successor than if I named Captain Magnus."

“So wait, I don’t understand. It sounds like that solves the problem- so why the Tribunal?” This was like chasing a chicken, since clearly where were labyrinthine politics abounding in all of this and now Rita just felt dumb and ham-fisted asking questions that were clearly obvious to the captain and left her clueless. Suddenly she was reminded of how she felt during her first month aboard the Hera, when every conversation was just her asking more questions whose answers she didn’t understand half the time.

"Because even retired, she still has a large say in the family because I'm in Starfleet. If I go off and name someone successor rather than provide an heir, she can start a tribunal for the same reason, forcing my hand in either doing what she wants or my retirement to run the family directly to force her out." Enalia explained. "It's... Likely going to end with one of us trying to kill each other either way..."

Raising a finger, Rita prepared to launch into some cracker barrel philosophy about how turning an enemy to a friend was always a better option. But then, her own father had spent a lifetime discouraging her, gotten her turned into a warp ghost, tried to brainwash her, then poisoned her...

"I really want to say there must be some way to win her over, but frankly ma'am, if you're both hellbent on it... maybe that's a discussion you two ought to have? Just have it out, say everything while you slash at each other with sabers or however this is done by your people. But it might solve things, from what you are saying." It was odd to be the one advising violence, but it seemed like the right thing to say to Rita Paris.

"Sabers... Starships... Phase pistols... Yeah, whatever the duel entails." Enalia nodded solemnly. "The last duel was with sabers and was rather civilized. Well... Other than someone dying... I suppose that wouldn't be considered civilized by most people."

"Some families are more violent than others. Well, sounds like you have a plan. Oh!" Paris snapped her fingers then wagged her finger. "I almost forgot to ask you, I'd like to get Hera out of her cell and walk her around a bit, let her see the stars and people and more than 4 walls."

"I'll be responsible for her, of course. But I honestly think she's reforming, Captain. She's still imprisoned, and she seems pretty depowered... it's something that I think would be good for her, ma'am. She was supposed to be in prison and went willingly, and it's my fault she's here now, and... I feel responsible, Captain." Of late the friendly first officer had been quite confident in her declarations and decisions, but on this topic she sounded less sure of herself, and more guilty. "I busted her out by accident, when she was content to just do her time. I feel like I ought to do right by her, ma'am."

The spotted captain pursed her lips in thought, debating the wisdom of such an action. In the end, she relented though. "Ok, but only for a short walk, under guard, and under controlled conditions. That being said, some time in the arboretum might do her some good."

The first officer nodded respectfully to the captain. "Thank you. I'll not endanger the ship, but it just seems like the right thing to do. Thank you for trusting me, Enalia." When she said the captain's first name, Rita's face contorted a little as if she was a bit unwilling to spit the word out, but while the syllables were a bit elongated, they still managed to form the captain's first name. In private, at least, she was making progress.

Enalia gave a lopsided piratical grin, having easily caught how uncomfortable her first officer was using her first name. "You're welcome, Rita. And let me know how it goes."

"Aye ma'am," Paris rose, smoothing out her skirt before pivoting in place before striding to the door.

"You get all the best reports..."

Permission had been sought and granted, so it was time to go have a conversation with the USS Hera's resident captive goddess, the Greek mother of the gods, Hera.

While on a planet very close to a spatial rift at the galactic core, some casually spoken words and errant thoughts had interacted with the unique and bizarre energies of the cosmic entity known as Log'yerm/// to literally summon Hera from her imprisonment on the Odin's Breath. This of course made Rita look forward to the next time she ran into the Asgaardians, as they were likely none too thrilled about one of their prisoners being summoned away by one of the agents of the Federation who delivered her to them. Also, Hera herself might be in more trouble for escaping, despite the circumstances, because who knew how divine court precedings actually worked.

Not Rita Paris, that's for sure.

For now, she'd insured that the captive, depowered and so far convincingly reformed former despot of worlds had nice quarters instead of a brig cell. While she didn't know the goddess' tastes, Rita had provided her with books and holos for entertainment and enrichment. But for the most part the Goddess had been denied any actual sentient company or companionship, unless the meal delivery changes counted... which really did not.

Thus did Rita Paris approach the VIP quarters with the two sturdy young women with no-nonsense expressions standing at parade rest before the door. Checking the duty roster, the Hera's first officer verified security officers Vlaniczek and Yao on duty as indicated. Offering a nod as she approached, Paris called out in advance.

"At ease, ladies. I'm here to see our illustrious guest. Unseal hatch, VIP Quarters 8, authorization Paris, R, LTCDR, 867-5309," Paris said to the overhead as she approached. The computer chirruped, then asked her a question.

=^= What is your brother's middle name? =^=

"Michael," Rita responded, and the doors slid open for her. Striding between the twin towers of beef guarding the door, she poked her head in. "Knock knock? You up for a little company, Hera?"

Looking up from the book she was reading on her fainting couch, Hera smiled brightly and set aside her reading. "Rita Paris! It's so good to see you again, my dear. Please, come in and talk with me awhile."

"Actually, I've a request. Would you care to accompany me to the ship's arboretum? The real thing, not holographic mimicry," Paris asked plainly with a simple close-mouthed yet impish smile.

Hera stood up, somewhat startled. "As in a garden? On your ship? With real plants? May I?"

"You're still a prisoner, but this," Paris waved her finger around the VIP quarters,"wasn't your doing. I feel that while you're here, as you have been on your best behavior, it can't hurt to extend a few basic kindnesses. A change of scenery from your four walls- with an escort, who in turn comes with escorts. Cap'n recommended the arboretum, so we're clear to traverse the decks. So, ground rules."

"Keep interactions with the crew to a minimum. Not saying I don't want you talking to anyone, but first time out let's try not to spook the locals. Please, no power stunts. If we go peacefully to and fro then the captain will likely be a lot more amenable to these trips, and I want to be able to give you a little freedom now and then. As a personal preference?" Rita winced a bit, and her hands seemed to now know what to do with one another. "Please try not to tell me stories of horrible things you did one Meroset Prime or in ancient Greece or what have you, because it makes me very uncomfortable. I know you were a terrible person- reminding me of it just makes me feel badly for believing you can change."

"Deal?" Paris asked, extending her hand to the goddess to seal the deal... a far more dangerous proposition than she might have imagined.

"Ah... A handshake..." Stepping forward with trepidation, Hera reached out and slowly took Rita's hand. "I will do my best. Of this I swear to you, Rita Paris."

Grinning at the goddess, Rita's brows rose a bit as she pumped the handshake once. "That's all I can ask of anyone."

Stepping to the door, Rita called out, "Computer, unseal hatch, VIP Quarters 8 please. Authorization Paris, R. LTCDR, 867-5309."

The computer responded with a chirrup and a question.

=^= In what year did you transfer to the USS Antares? =^=

For a moment, Rita had to think about it. "2257."

The door slid open, and Rita spoke to the security officers. "Vlaniczek, Yao? We're taking Hera for a walk to the arboretum and back. We're going to act like this isn't a prisoner escort but a VIP bodyguard duty, understood?" When the duo looked at her curiously, Paris rolled her eyes. "It's still a prisoner escort, we're just trying to lend her a little dignity, understand? Phasers on heavy stun, keep them holstered, but if there is trouble you know what to do."

Gesturing to the namesake of the starship, Paris ushered Hera out for a stroll on the deck.

Her head bowed, Hera stepped out of her quarters and looked around, not really knowing what to expect, but these drab walls were not it. "These halls are... Hmmm..." Biting back her comment, she decided to instead be happy that she was allowed this small freedom. "Thank you for this small freedom, my friend. Which way shall we walk?"

“Least I could do since I got you stuck here again. Aft toward the centerline, ma’am. The turbolift awaits, and well take the short way there then the long way back, eh?” Paris stepped off at a slow and deliberate pace rather than her usual martial stride, as she wanted the security personnel to adapt to the situation, and Hera wasn’t exactly the powerhouse she used to be. Besides, Rita’s manners were old school, and you always slowed down for the elderly and if they wished to walk faster, they would set the pace.

“So, ah, how’ve you been…?” the Starfleet siren asked solicitously, making small talk but also checking on her charge.

As they walked at a leisurely pace towards the turbolift, Hera smiled kindly. "I have to admit that I prefer imprisonment on your vessel over that of the Asgardians. The short time I was there was not unkind... But it was far smaller and the walls were clear and the only thing I had to read were Asgardian law... Being here has been much better for my mind and soul, I think. Thank you. And thank you for the books. Your culture has written some amazing things in the time that I've been away and I'm overjoyed that I've gotten the chance to read even a few of them. The arts and beauty have flowed from the cultures of your world and it fills my heart with..." Sighing happily, Hera smiled radiantly. "I'm not even sure how to express it."

“Pride? Joy? Happiness? Excitement?” Rita took some shots in the dark. If she had seen the classical culture of ancient Greece, the modern equivalent might fill Hera with something akin to maternal pride, knowing that she’d had something to do with the culture that had grown from her interactions with it. “Or at least, I’d hope something in that neighborhood.”

"Something like that, yes. These are good feelings, and I've had little experience with positivity with them in ages." Hera just kept smiling as they walked along. "But enough about me. What about you? How are you doing, my dear? I sensed a lot of energy flying about when we were near that... Unpleasant... Thing... Are you alright?"

“Not sure which unpleasant thing you might be referring to,” Rita laughed. “There were a few encounters down there. But really, it was a cosmic being who was trying to do a good thing, and in the end it didn’t work out so well for him… hopefully not an object lesson there for me. But yes, I’m fine. I’m Rita Paris, girl adventurer, nothing gets me down for long, and despite the universe’s efforts I’m still here. Thank you for asking though, that’s very kind of you.”

Either Hera had learned to fake it like a champion- which, given her age and experience was certainly possible- or she was showing concern and empathy. Choosing to believe the latter while being aware of the former, it made Paris feel a little better about her decision.

“Well, you and your fellow gods inspired theatre, painting, sculpting, literature, and founded many of the basis for what we would revere as heroic odysseys and adventures in the centuries that followed. So if you enjoy what we produce now, you can at least take a little credit for helping inspire it all.” Stepping to the turbolift, Yao pressed the button and preceded them into the turbolift, as Vlaniczek followed them and blocked off the exit. Security knew what they were doing, and if Hera was duping Rita, they at least were on the job.

"We sent mortals on adventures and we inspired written and spoken language articulated enough to tell their heroic deeds. If your people had neither the courage nor the talent to begin with..." Hera looked around the turbolift rather confused. "Why are we in this closet?"

"Deck 7," The first officer called out, and in the time it took for her to turn her head, they had arrived and the doors were opening again. "Elevator? A shaft with a closet like a capsule that moves on tracks throughout the ship."

Extending her hand, Rita indicated to Hera to exit ans the security officers secured the perimeter, then cleared them to advance. As they exited the turbolift, Paris watched Yao discourage a pair of crewmen from getting too close.

"So how's the 'subsisting on good deeds' life working for you?" It might have sounded flippant, but the ancient astronaut was serious. Hera was attempting a serious physiological transformation, a hell of a thing for a being as long-lived as she. In truth, Rita was equal parts concerned and fascinated.

"Ah, well... That's an interesting way to travel..." Fascination spread across Hera's face as she exited the turbolift into the new hallway. "I was able to get some small amount of research material on the subject while with the Asgardians. They subsist on service in a similar fashion. Also, I was able to confirm that Apollo has been living like that for the past... Since your era, I believe. The actions I took for your Doctor... It was like... Rather than being fueled by raw, unbridled energy, I felt as if I was powered by a spring breeze. Nowhere near as powerful, but more pure in so many ways."

"Well, they and we are grateful for that. I think it's opened doors for Asa, really, although they don't talk about it much. So that's wonderful it's working for you!" Paris grinned ear to ear, happy for the reforming goddess. Which, she realized, validated her belief in Hera. Which in turn made her actually believe in her more, like she would a junior officer she was mentoring. Which she in turn worried might adversely affect her since she used to be able to process belief. There was no help for it- if it hurt the woman she'd say so.

"Officers, do we need to clear the arboretum or can we play this by ear?" Paris asked. The two security officers shrugged and nodded, and Paris accepted the assent. "By ear it is. So you could sense those demons all the way from the ship?"

Hera's mood clouded a bit as the memory of what she sensed came to her. "Yes... I sensed the Dollmaster... We were within his domain. There were a lot of other lesser energy beings as well. Then a demonic being was summoned, followed by the building energies of a Ruler of Demons... I feared your you and all those aboard this vessel, but I knew courage would win through so I did the only thing I could think of. I prayed for your safety."

"That's... impressive. Well, incredible, really, but also impressive. You can just... it's all part of the goddess gig, you just understand what you sense and recognize them. Huh." They walked a few steps in silence, then the crimson commander peered out from under her bangs at the patron goddess of women. "You prayed for me? That's... that very sweet of you, thank you. Considering what we were doing, I did come out pretty much unscathed, unlike the poor Baroness. Somehow I didn't expect crazy heroics from her, but she's always a surprise."

"To be fair, it did take a few hundred years..." Hera did have to admit that one at least, strolling with Rita at her side. "It warms my heart to know that you were uninjured. Your Baroness... Did she make it ok? Is she recovering?" Pausing in her walk with a look of concern, Hera placed a hand on Rita's arm. "Please tell me she didn't..."

"Speaking of her in the present tense, not past. You've met our doctor in more ways than one. Kyre Aesclepius of the 25th century indeed," Paris quipped. "It was close, but she's expected to recover. Well, here we are- closest thing to a public park we've got on a duranium can among the stars."

With Vlaniczek in the lead, they entered the arboretum of the USS Hera.

"Thank goodness," The relief Hera felt was almost palpable as she turned and entered the USS Hera's arboretum. "Oh my... This is better than I expected." Strolling down the central path towards the pond, she ran one hand across a large red flowering bush and breathed in deeply. "So many plants from so many worlds, it's amazing... And the skylight to space is blue and has clouds!"

"It's a wonder all right," Paris stepped in behind the captive goddess, taking it all in. She herself hadn't seen the ship's arboretum, but it was impressive to her as well. A far cry from the outdoor simulation recreation area they'd had on Deck 8 of the Exeter, this actually managed to look like a park. Of course, Rita had often wondered what they did with all the space of this enormous starship, and now she had some of the answer. "Something other than your four walls to stare at, for a change. We won't be getting near a shore leave planet anytime soon, but I thought this might do you some good."

"It's more than I could have hoped for, thank you, so very much," Hera paused to take a deep breath of a rose-like variation of a bush that seemed to be crossed with some sort of carnation for size. Catching sight of the holographic gardener planting something new near the small pond, she rushed ahead in almost childlike glee. "Good sir, what are those you're planting?"

The holographic gardener looked up and smiled politely. "Oh hello there. These are a new breed of Tulips of Veridia Prime that the Captain's wife was able to obtain. I'm planting them here by the water where they'll get lotsa nice fresh sunlight and water. Would you like to help me, young lady?"

Beaming like a small child, she looked between Rita and the gardener. "May I? It's been literal aeons since I played in the soil."

The holographic gardener looked up and smiled politely. "Oh hello there. These are a new breed of Tulips of Veridia Prime that the Captain's wife was able to obtain. I'm planting them here by the water where they'll get lotsa nice fresh sunlight and water. Would you like to help me, young lady?"

Beaming like a small child, she looked between Rita and the gardener. "May I? It's been literal aeons since I played in the soil."

"By all means. As it's acceptable to our gardener, it's fine by me," Rita replied, as she couldn't imagine that just planting flowers could lead to a security breach.

Watching the former ruthless tyrant on her hands and knees, working with side by side with a crewman she didn't know to plant flowers, Rita was torn. While she knew she should be on guard and suspicious of the woman, every outward sign seemed to indicate that her faith in Hera had been well-placed. Nurturing living things was always a mother’s job, and that was in Hera’s bailiwick as well, although not specifically crops and plant growth, as Rita recalled. Watching the fallen goddess take simple joy in a simulation of the great outdoors and a garden of living things warmed her heart.

Maybe the future wasn’t so dark after all. Maybe there was still room for hope, compassion and mercy. In the redemption of the goddess, it fostered hope in the heart of the idealistic anachronism of a simpler time.

"You know, this reminds me of the summers Persephone, Aphrodite, and I would spend together when we were young. We'd tend to the gardens and talk about love and romance and giggle about our future husbands." Using the small spade, Hera gently placed another of the tulips into the soil and filled in the dirt around it, adding a bit of water from the watering can. "Good sir, what was your name again?"

The old gardener in overalls just smiled back. "Oh I'm just a simple gardener. Don't need no name. But if you need one for me, I guess you can use HG Juan. It's supposed to be short for Holographic Gardener One or something clever like that. Don't know nothin bout that though. Just a simple gardener."

"Well HG Juan, your garden is amazing. Is there anything else I can help out with?" Hera asked, smiling brighter.

The gardener thought about it a moment before replying and pointing off to a roped off rather large plant with hundreds of tiny closed buds. "There's a flowering plant over yonder that I'm not supposed ta get near. It blooms only when photonic and ghostly critters are close like me, ye see... Capn' got it fer her wife and it takes days fer it to close back up and weeks to nurture back ta health. Do ya mind takin some plant food and tending to it fer me? Normally one of them science types comes by, but lately... Capn's been havin ta do it..."

Always wondered what Cap’n gets up to when she isn’t on the bridge or in her ready room, Paris mused internally as she watched Hera tend lovingly to the alien magnoliophyte, which was a word she realized Sonak had provided, as she couldn’t recall it on a bet. Watching her in action brought a smile to the face of the first officer, and idly she wondered if this might have been what it would have been like to know her own mother.

That thought gave her pause as she realized that was part of her reasoning in working so hard to redeem Hera. While she barely remembered her own mother and had grown up without any sort of maternal influence, Hera was the living embodiment of that ideal. Thus it was untenable for Rita for such a personage to be an evil irredeemable tyrant. She had to be better, in Rita’s mind, because Rita refused to accept that the very spirit of motherhood could be so twisted.

At least, here in the starship Hera’s arboretum, she could watch the fallen goddess tend and nurture something, and it filled her heart. She might be playing you, Paris, don’t let your guard down and let her wreak havoc, said the voice in her head that spoke the words and sentiment of her late father. While she would keep her eyes open, Rita clung to her hope. There was good in the universe. People changed, even immortals. And Hera had given her word, which seemed to be pretty binding amongst her kind.

Thus the sailor of the stars watched, and took contentment from the joy of the goddess of nurturing doing what came naturally.

By the time Hera had finished, the gardener had moved on and gone back to wherever he went when he wasn't tending the arboretum so she returned to Rita's side. "Thank you so very much for this. I honestly don't recognize most of the flora here, but everything is so beautiful and amazing. The smells alone are almost as wondrous as Mount Olympus itself."

“I’m glad it brings you some joy- we’ll be doing this on a semi-regular basis. You need some exercise, a change from the same four walls, and some conversation to keep you sane. I’m responsible for you, and neglecting you and giving you some books and vids to occupy yourself won’t help you stay on a good path,” Rita determined. “I honestly didn’t realize how much you needed this, or I’dve done it sooner. We’ve still got some time- would you like to walk here for a bit or just take the long way back to your quarters? My time is yours for now.”

"How about we walk and enjoy these gardens together for a while then?" Hera offered, turning to stroll slowly once more down the central path. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about? I don't mean to brag, but being tens of thousands of years old, I do have a few pearls of wisdom."

That elicited a giggle from the fulsome first officer. “So THAT’s what that feels like!” Realizing that the statement was incomplete, Rita Paris explained. “I have a habit of knowing when something’s on the minds of the crew, and I have a tendency to draw out what’s wrong to talk about it. I guess I’m not as accustomed to being on the receiving end. Sonak always knows, of course, but he’s brilliant and he knows me better than anyone. So, ah, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you do the same thing. You do have a few millennia on me, after all.”

"Perhaps we're cut from the same cloth, as they say," Hera offered with a knowing smile. "Whatever it is, I'll listen."

Taking a moment to compose her thoughts, Rita spoke softly, keeping her voice down even as the security escort pretended not to listen. "I’m.. well, it’s you, really. I worry about your rehabilitation. I worry about the old Hera, terror of the cosmos returning and that in trying to do the right thing I’ve done the worst thing. I worry that you were on my mind enough to accidentally summon you. I worry that I wasn’t doing you any favors handing you over to the Asgardians. I worry that now that Log’yerm///- the Dollmaster, as you called him- has left this universe, you might fade too. I worry that I’m keeping you in this universe against your will. I worry that you are a little too important to me… I guess in that, I just…”

For a few seconds Paris struggled to find the words, but then she found them. “I couldn’t let your legacy be Meroset 347. This starship bears your name, and it’s the Captain’s whole life- she loves this girl maybe more than her wife, and she never lets on but I can see it. You being an intergalactic tyrant, she had to end you, partially for the honor of the ship. Now that you are not that terror, she seems a little irritated that I seem so hell-bent on redeeming you. But I can’t help it… it’s important to me. The Captain already defends the ship and crew on so many fronts, I can’t have her defending the very name of the vessel as well.”

“And as irascible as you are, there’s something…” Again, Paris reached for the words, but didn’t quite find them this time. “I see something in you that I can’t quite grasp, but you’re important to me.”

Hera nodded solemnly. "There is much truth to what you say. I sensed that your Captain would have razed all of Meroset if it had come to it. Thankfully, it did not and we are all here to learn from our mistakes." Pausing, she debated revealing another thing she had intended to keep hidden. "There is something else that you should know. When you called upon that boon, you untied my bond to the Dollmaster. My will is my own once more. However, we now share a bond. A sort of familial bond, if you will. I'm sorry, I did not mean to hide this from you, nor can it be used to harm you in any way. It's just... It was... Unexpected."

“I… uh…” It was rare that the loquacious lovely found herself at a loss for words. “So, ah, what does that mean…? Sorry, metaphysics of divine beings wasn’t exactly a course at the Academy back in my day, and I’ll admit I’m out of my depth on this sort of thing.”

Hera thought about it a bit more before replying. "In a manner of speaking... The energy that flows through every living thing is like the life blood that flows in your veins. You have your DNA and RNA and gene mapping and all that... We have energy road maps that extend across the universe in similar fashions using energies that you have yet to discover and understand that tie the whole of existence together. Even we don't understand most of it, if I'm to be honest. As for our bond, it's a bit like how in ancient times, two brothers would cut their hands and swear a blood oath of brotherhood, letting their blood mingle. We are now sisters, in a very real yet very abstract way. What this means for the two of us... I do not know the full scope. But I do know this. No one else could have summoned me but you."

That gave the old school officer pause. She’d made an offering, she had offered belief, and she’d accepted a boon of the goddess when it was offered. It wasn’t that surprising, on review, that they now shared a bond of sorts, but this was a bit more tangible than she’d imagined. But when Hera had said sisters, the truth had smacked Rita.

Memories of her own mother were dim at best, and perennially tinged with sorrow. In her family, she was discounted, derided and ignored for not being male, and spent much of her life trying to measure up to an impossible standard. As an adult, her relationships with other women were often fraught with sniping, passive or outright aggression because of her looks and ambition. Now, on the USS Hera, her friendships were far better than they had been in the past, and she seemed to be enjoying female companionship for the first time in her life.

But at her core, Rita had never dealt with the loss of her mother. Growing up bereft of a maternal figure, she had done her level best to ignore her feelings, needs and longing for someone to fulfill that role in her life. Yet something about the goddess of motherhood seemed to tug at her, and now she knew why.

Starfleet Psych was gonna have a field day with this one.

Given that nature of the starship, her missions and her captain, it was foolish for Paris to think such things. The woman had devastated a planet, after all. The bride of Zeus was considered a dangerous intergalactic felon by the Federation, and by her peers in other pantheons. Was it Rita’s long suppressed desire for a maternal figure in her life that made her so damnably adamant about Hera’s redemption?

No one else could have summoned me but you.

Maybe.

“Captain Magnus, I know this is going to sound bad, but I need to start a Tribunal.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Enalia knew the Artan family would never be the same again just based on Magnus’ reaction to it.

Even over the comm channel, the normally unflappable man had balked at the word before calming himself and leaning back in his chair. “I assume this has to do with your mother.”

Enalia nodded. “You assume correctly. If she keeps on this path, she’s going to tear the family apart. I want to remove her power so that I can change the rules of the family a bit. I refuse to be a baby factory for her just so she can raise another messed up child. Instead, I’d rather name a successor.”

“That… Actually sounds reasonable. Almost all the other families are doing that these days anyway.” Magnus steepled his hands in front of him in contemplation. “Do you have someone in mind as your successor though?”

Enalia let one corner of her mouth come up in a slight hint of a grin. “Officially, no. But we both know someone that’s been training for a similar role all her life and that I think the entire family should be quite happy with. When she’s ready and willing, the position would be ready for her.”

With that much of a hint, he knew exactly who she was talking about. “Hmmm… Definitely want to keep that secret…” He’d have to push his own retirement back if they succeeded, but for his own daughter to take the head of the Artan family? That would take a lot of strain off of him even still.

Magnus sighed and let his hands drop to his sides. “Ok, send me the details and I’ll start the process. I’ll need a couple of the Baronesses to approve of the proceedings to start with, so that might take some time.”

Enalia let herself grin at this point. “Already ahead of you on that. I’ve named one of my crew a Baroness fifth class and taken them to the black market auctions at Tortuga. They got us out of there amazingly well. She’s the daughter of a Romulan smuggler we used to work with. With her and Schwein, we have our two. As for the data, I’ll send it to you on the usual back channels.”

The gruff man raised an eyebrow. “You know the others will question your motives for making her a Baroness, right? You’d better have an airtight alibi for it.”

“I do. She needed non-Starfleet ID to get into the auction and she’d earned the rank in my eyes, so I gave it to her as head of the Artan family. If anyone questions that, I’ll deal with them in traditional manner.” Enalia grinned wider, that piratical gleam having returned to her eyes.

Magnus chuckled softly.”Then I’ll quash any voices of dissent that may arise and proceed with matters. Live Free, my Queen.”

“Live Free, Captain.” With that, Enalia closed the channel and leaned back in her chair, her eyes closed, hoping this would somehow solve her issues with her mother. She’d probably still have to kill her, but this would at the very least delay the process.

It was fairly late onboard the U.S.S. Hera and Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe "Melanie" Dox was just beginning to get settled. Her uniform tunic was opened and she had a glass of lehe'jhme juice she was nursing as she looked over the flight crew rotations for the next duty shift on her PaDD.

It had been a fairly long if uneventful day on board, but she was happy to be off duty even if she had a problem shutting off and not still working.

The stout Romulan redhead was roused from her thoughts by the familiar chirp of the communication panel on her wall. Muttering to herself in her native Rihan, she walked over to the screen. "What the hell is this?"

If it was one of her crewmates, they would simply have called on her comm badge. Entering her security clearance code into the computer, the screen filled with an image. It was the crest of the Artan Family. The Pirate family of her Captain and one that Dox herself now tangentially belonged to, having recently been declared a Baroness of the Artan's during a mission with the Captain.

Refastening her uniform top, she spoke to the computer, using her given Romulan first name that she had decided to enter on to her personnel file. "Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe Dox. Begin message."

The image of a somewhat burly man dressed in a black and gold outfit similar to Schwein's tasseled formalwear appeared on the screen and while he had scars to spare and looked like he could scare the pants off of a seasoned veteran, he smiled kindly when he saw Dox. "Hello, I'm Captain Magnus, I run the family while Princess Telvan is away. I hear that you've been named a Baroness by the Princess and if you've got some time, I'd like to ask you some questions. It's a bit of a formality and all for confirmation. Is that ok with you?"

The surprised young pilot had only one experience as a 'Baroness' and wasn't completely certain as to what was happening or how she should react. But as a Starfleet officer, she chose to err on the side of caution and answer professionally.

"Good evening, Captain Magnus. My name is Mnhei'sahe Dox and my time is yours."

Magnus grinned wider. "Excellent. Thank you, Baroness. First off, the circumstances of your assignment are clear enough. The report from the Princess indicates that Baroness Schwein was injured in a prior mission and due to her recovery, she needed backup. Due to your past and skillset, it was deemed that you were qualified and brought into the fold aboard the Fluffernuttenfaust. During the mission, the Princess's faith in you was upheld and you performed admirably, quickly removing the party and all winnings from the auction expediently and safely. Do you concur with this report? Do you have anything to add to it?"

Still finding the idea of being called a Baroness slightly strange, it was almost as strange to Dox's pointed ears to hear Captain Telvan called a Princess. "I do, yes. Aside from answering any questions you may have regarding specifics, all I can think to add was that I consider it an honor to have been chosen to assist Captain Telvan and Baroness Von Alcott in any capacity."

Magnus nodded, satisfied with the answer. "We don't entirely expect loyalty to a person or a place or anything like that, but more to an ideal. That ideal is freedom. We fight against the Syndicate most of the time and though we're pirates and privateers, a lot of our income comes from hunting down other pirates that break the rules and mining these days. With your position in Starfleet, What's your position on this?"

The expression on her face had shifted to a more stern one as Magnus mentioned the Syndicate. "As a Starfleet officer, I am Lieutenant, pilot and Chief Flight Control Officer. Before that, I lived and served for the first sixteen years of my life on the smuggling ship, the Forager. We functioned primarily within the Romulan Neutral Zone moving both information, refugees and enemies of the Empire away from Romulus in aid of efforts towards Romulan/Vulcan reunification. We freed people."

Pausing for a second to collect herself, Dox continued. "In those years, we primarily did our best to avoid the Orion Syndicate as our cargo was a potential target to slavers. Which is a long way of saying that I find slavery and those that do so reprehensible."

"Indeed, I remember we worked with your mother more than a few times over the years." Leaving it at that, Magnus moved on to the next question. "Are you aware of the current turmoil within the family between the Princess and her mother, the retired Queen?"

While Mangus changed the subject quickly, Dox was somewhat surprised at just how many people in her new life were familiar with her own Mother. It raised questions, but those would have to wait as she answered his question. "I know they have an extremely... tense relationship and know some details of their past problems. As for current turmoil, however, I don't know much."

Magnus sighed and leaned back in his chair, beginning the story. "Her mother has been adamant about continuing the Artan line for some time now and as you no doubt know, the Princess is married already to someone that can not give the family such an heir. The strain with her mother has reached a peak unfortunately, and she's insisting upon a suitor be selected and a surrogate mother be used to create one from the Princess and a suitor of her choosing so she can raise the Princess's so called daughter as the next blood thirsty heir. As you can imagine, this has not sat well with her."

The concept filled Dox with a rush of anger.on behalf of her Captain and her friend, but she did her level best to not let that show on her face. "I can imagine not."

Continuing, Magnus tapped on his terminal, sending some files over the comm line to Dox detailing the procedures involved in pirate politics. "Hence why she's requested a tribunal stating that her mother is trying to tear the family apart with these actions. As Captain of the Fleet, I'll oversee an investigation done by the Baronesses which may take as much as half a cycle to complete. At the end of it, we'll provide our findings. Odds are good that we'll side with the Princess, but getting a full majority will be hard. It will still likely end in a duel."

Magnus leaned in, all business now. "Here's the part where I need your help. I need two Baronesses to support the Princess in this to even start the process. Since I just confirmed you to be the fourteenth Baroness of the family and that it's not related to this incident, I need you to confirm this tribunal on her behalf. Schwein's already agreed to it and is working on the documents on her end. With you and her, we have our two and we can at least push this off until we have the full support of all the old guard baronesses that are scared of her mother or... Or until the old bird feckin dies..."

Tilting her head as she thought, Dox responded quickly. "Consider my help yours, Captain, with my full support of Captain Telvan in this matter. Just let me know what you need me to do."

"Thank you, Baroness," Magnus flashed a smile again, pulling up a copy of the bylaws himself. "In the data packet I sent you, you'll find all the rules we follow. Yeah, I know... Freedom, yadda yadda... We need something to follow for disputes and the higher up the chain, the more rules there are on those disputes. Anyway, if you look at chapter three, section one, subsection nine, attachment C, that's the document I need you to fill out. It's only three pages and if you need any help, Schwein should be able to help you out."

"I'll confer with her if I need any assistance and will be reviewing all the provided information this evening, thank you." Dox replied, smiling lightly but maintaining her professional demeanor.

"Oh, and before I forget." Shaking his head, Magnus couldn't help but let loose a shit eating grin and a soft chuckle. "Pick out a ship name. As a rookie Baroness, I can't guarantee I can get you much of a ship, but I'll try to get you better than a picket miner at least. As for a crew, I'm afraid you'll be on your own for that. Schwein's in the same pot, so don't feel bad. No crew, but at least she has a ship."

"Well, the Fluffernuttenfaust is an excellent little ship, so I'm not concerned, Captain. And I appreciate the trust you've all placed in me. I will do my best to continue earning it." Her tone loosened ever so slightly. "I can send you a name with my paperwork. I'll think on that."

"Thank you, Baroness. Sorry for the less than celebratory welcome to the family. Normally we'd feast all night in your honor, but considering the circumstances..." The gruff man grinned wryly. "Thank you for being someone the Princess can trust with her life though. I really do appreciate it. Ah... Before we end... Do you have any questions for me? Any concerns? I know being in Starfleet and what's technically a pirate family, some might see as a conflict of interests."

"That's probably for the best, Captain. I rarely do well with celebrations of anything in my honor." The anxious pilot allowed herself a light chuckle before continuing. "But you can rest assured that myself, Baroness Von Alcott and the entire crew of this ship will always stand behind Enalia Telvan no matter what."

Then she paused to think for a second. "As for conflicts, I'm a half Romulan, half human, smuggler, Lieutenant and now a Baroness. I manage contradictions as often as I fly. But I have no additional questions at this time. Thank you."

"Heh. Well if you think of anything just let myself or Schwein know. Magnus out." With that, the transmission ended, leaving the Artan family crest on the screen.

Standing there for a moment, the young Romulan pilot tilted her head and muttered. "Huh."

Stepping back to her small dining table, she picked up her PaDD and glanced over her homework assignment. When she had received the title and ID of an Artan Baroness, she had thought it was little more than a cover identity for a mission. When the Captain confirmed that it was quite a real title that she still held while talking over tea, she began taking the idea seriously.

Now she had been confirmed and endorsed by the man that was essentially running the family. Somehow, in the span of a few months the perpetually anxious Officer went from a mostly human looking, half-Romulan Ensign stuck on a lonely starbase to a Junior Grade Lieutenant, a full Lieutenant, a Starship pilot, a senior staff member and section chief, a green-blooded and pointed eared Romulan and now a Baroness fifth class of the Artan Family.

"Imirrhlhhse." She muttered to herself, a Rihan expletive, as she wondered what tomorrow would hold with a smile.

Another day, another pregnant crew member.

At least that is what it felt like to Chief Medical Officer Asa Dael. Ever since the USS Hera had started playing impromptu host (and jailer) to Her namesake, the vessel had started seeing a surge in pregnancies and requests for fertility treatment; the physician even had biologically Male crew members requesting fertility treatments. It was all highly suspicious....after all, a 15 percent increase in sexual activity following a brush with death was normal, and a few crew members becoming pregnant would be expected, but this was far beyond the norm.

Since the living Hera’s first trip on board there had been 14 puking women in Sickbay, all certain their distress should be attributed to faulty replicators instead of morning sickness. There had also been seven women who correctly guessed they were pregnant, and even one male partner correctly asserting his wife was with child.

That’s not to mention the 27 crew members that had requested genetic counseling or fertility treatment. It was, for lack of a better word, weird. The norm for a ship this size would have been two pregnancies and three fertility requests over a six month period. This was clearly an aberration, and it was time to address it.

Dael had their suspicions as to the cause of all this baby fever. The goddess currently in repose in her stateroom was after all the goddess of fertility, home and hearth. While Asa could understood that Hera likely would consider the increase in reproductive activity a blessing, the doctor knew that any outside influence had to stop- immediately.

After all, this was directly impacting the crew’s free will, not only by adding hitherto unwanted offspring to their life, but also by necessitating a change in their career to a posting that did allow children.

The doctor compiled their notes to send to the Captain and First Officer, somewhat cautiously as they knew Captain Telvan was among the number rumored to be seeking fertility treatment.

That posed another quandary in of itself. A holographic/biological child had not been conceived anywhere in the galaxy that Asa knew of. The technology seemed to be on the cusp of a breakthrough that would allow such a child, but it was not there yet. The ethical ramifications of using new technology, or forging it wholesale, were also a dlimena. Nothing Asa could think of would offer any solution without being, in essence, sentient being trials. How could they produce an offspring to the Telvan household without that child being the first of its kind? That would be a burden the doctor did not wish on a child- they would likely be poked and prodded their entire life and treated as a sort of curiosity.

Not to mention it would be unwise to assume the child would automatically be granted the full rights of sentient beings. Starfleet did not have a spotless record on that, as Data’s trial for the right to choose his own life was taught at the Academy during courses on recognizing new forms of sentience. Of course the doctor would do whatever they could to help, but they feared they were wading into murky waters.

Well, first things first. Time to talk to Hera.

The doctor cleared a visit with security and had procured some real cheese and fruit from the leftovers of the most recent victory brunch. Hopefully the offering of non-replicated food would help the conversation go a bit more smoothly this time. Security waived the physician through, but they rang the chime and waited instead. Even for a prisoner, manners matter, and it’s rude to barge into someone’s bedroom.

"Yes? Come in." Looking up from her favorite perch on her fainting couch, Hera set aside her PaDD with her current reading material and stood to greet her sudden guest. Seeing who it was as the doors opened, she smiled brightly. "Asa, my dear, how have you been? It's so good to see you."

“Um, hello Hera. I’m glad to see you as well. Thank you again for the gifts you gave me….I may even some day learn to use them,” Asa chuckled.

Walking awkwardly towards the goddess, Asa proffered the fruits and cheese to her, and said plainly, “So, I had some questions for you, and I figured might as well talk over lunch?”

"Of course. Please," Motioning to the small table, Hera waited for Asa to sit before she sat down herself. "What troubles you?"

Absently munching on a strawberry, Asa looked Hera in the eyes and smiled warmly.

“Well, it’s not really a bad thing, at least it doesn’t have to be, but if it’s not what people want it could be, plus it’s just plain weird…..” Asa trailed off, then realized they were stalling.

Rubbing their neck with their left hand they blurted out, “It’s all the pregnancy. It seems like every five minutes there is some poor woman coming to me expecting to be told they have a virus, when instead what they have is a fetus! A few pregnancies per year are normal on a ship this size, but we have had 22 in the last month, and 27 more actively seeking to become pregnant. It’s unprecedented. I’m not trying to say it’s your fault or that it’s wrong….it’s just weird. I was thinking since you are the goddess of home and hearth, maybe it’s some kind of cosmic resonance or something? I don’t know, I’m not trying to upset you…I just want to understand….”

Popping one of the grapes into her mouth, Hera hummed, her eyebrows raising in understanding. "Ah right... My domain... Your birthrate being an advanced civilization is... Understandably low. Especially so being a vessel with your responsibilities. You're likely noticing a fair number more couplings and marriages as well, I presume. Family related things."


"Well I don't ask about.....couplings....." Asa replied with a cough, "I, have, uh, been asked to treat some 'injuries' that were more likely caused by copulation than the given reason of exercise and rug burn from wrestling, now that you mention it...."

The doctor could not have been any redder around the ears if they tried. Although sex was natural and part of their education, speaking about it casually definitely had not been, and as the latest mortal enemy had proudly proclaimed, Asa was, in fact, a virgin.

"Well, as ship's doctor, even though you haven't reached your own sexual maturity yet, that is something you'll have to be aware of, unfortunately." Munching on a piece of cheese, Hera sighed heavily. "And I'll do my best to reign in my aura and domain. To help with that, I don't suppose you could enhance the shielding around this room to be polyphasic in your ah... Upper subspace bands, I believe? It shouldn't take much more than an interference field, if I remember correctly."

Muttering to themself at first something unintelligible about sexual maturity being overrated, Asa came alert and said, "Oh, yes, of course, I'll ask engineering to do. I'm sorry to have to ask, I know you meant no harm...it's just, well, we won't have a crew left if they all are on maternity leave, you know? Anyway, how will this impact you? Are you going to be well? I don't mean to cause you discomfort."

"No, I'll be fine. In a way, this gives me more energy, so... Yeah, you should probably report that as well." Hera looked at the fruits and cheese a bit sheepishly. "I'm sorry to cause you these problems. If you contact the Asgardians, they should be willing to send the specs needed for enhancing your shields and you shouldn't have any more issues."

Asa was floored by the changes in Hera. The formerly braggadocio goddess was being so open and honest, at least as far as Asa could tell, and was even warning them about factors that could have given her more power. It was a remarkable change, and it warmed Asa's heart to see that Rita seemed to have gotten through to Hera about changing her behaviour.

"I will do that, thank you for your honesty and assistance, Hera," they paused a moment before continuing, "You seem changed. Thank you for showing me the kindnesses you have. Is there anything I can do for you? Find more fruit perhaps?"

Smiling softly, Hera rolled a strawberry around between two fingers before replying. "To be honest, I haven't been eating much at all since your replicators... I don't much enjoy the food they bring me from them and I don't have access to the one in these quarters, understandably. Then again, I really don't need to eat often, so it's not... But eating real food... It let's you know you're still alive, you know?" Popping the strawberry in her mouth, she savored it as she chewed. "But I know that it's hard to come by out here, so..."

"That's ok, I understand," Asa replied, "I'll see what I can do. I'll try to stop by and say hi too. No one should be in solitary, it's not good for the mind. I hear you are reading some old Earth books. I'm curious, have you checked out Isaac Asimov's books yet? I found it entertaining looking at how humanity viewed their future if no other life forms had been found. Plus, if you like it, there are a lot of the books. That or anything Terry Pratchett. Those are good for a laugh."

"I've been reading a lot of what you consider classical works first. Shakespeare, Poe, Asimov, Tolkien, Einstein... It's all been amazing and varied. I hope to move on to more classically modern works in a few days. Perhaps some Gramercy, Pratchett, and Rowling will be at the top of my list. I also skimmed over a picture book... It said it was about apples... but it seemed to just be about the early days of your reading devices. It was quite confusing but the colors were nice."

"I'm glad you are enjoying some of it. It's in black and white, but the photographs by Ansel Adams are said to be quite famous and calming as well. Personally I prefer nebula photography, but you strike me as a more grounded individual," Asa said with a guilty grin at the terrible pun.

"I... Enjoy seeing things through the eyes of others," Hera remarked with a bit of a grin. "That's mostly what cultural arts is, after all. One of the books in the collection I have I found curious though. It was written by a Vulcan named Surak, I believe. Are you familiar with him?"

"I am," Asa replied, "A remarkable person. His dedication to peace is one we should all aspire to, and of course his logic is incredible."

"I agree that he's one of the best, but I honestly prefer more emotion to my light reading." Hera giggled over that one.


Asa giggled as well, brushing Heras shoulder with their own in companionship.with a sigh, the doctor realized they had duty to return to.

"Would you please pardon me, ma'am? I need to get this report to the captain, but tell you what, if security would allow it, I would like to visit with you again, just to chat. Would that be ok with you ?"

Hera smiled brightly. "I would love that. And if you would permit it, I'd be willing to teach you what I know about your own heritage, though the knowledge is... Admittedly ages old."

Smiling broadly, Asa replied "I would like that very much. My community growing up was....tight lipped....about such things. Heck, I don't even know if we live longer than we used to or the opposite."

"If you know anyone close to five thousand cycles..." replied Hera casually.

"Thank you for everything, Hera, I am glad to see you embracing the force for good I know you can be, " Asa said, going in for a hug goodbye. Somehow along the way the way, the goddess had changed from an enemy to something approaching a friend to Asa, and they secretly hoped she would stay aboard longer than planned.

Hera stood and returned the hug warmly. "I had a very compelling reason to do so and a very convincing woman that gave me that reason. Besides, I like this vessel and the people I've met."


"I like you too," Asa said warmly and turning to exit.

Once back in Sickbay, Doctor Dael prepared their report. They had not thought Hera was causing the increases in fertility and desire for reproduction intentionally, but it was also nice to have a cause for the statistical aberration that could be addressed. They sent along recommendations to the Captain and First Officer to contact the aasgardians for the specifics Hera had mentioned, and also to alert the crew about the influence of the goddess being aboard.

That completed, Doctor Dael replicated additional contraceptives and prenatal medications to have on hand for the ensuing rush.

Now it was time to practice the part they have been dreading. Asa went to the holodeck and recreated Sickbay, asking the computer to send along holographic crew members that matched in symptoms to those they had seen in the past week.

The first holopatient on a bio bed, Asa turned to face the recreation of Captain Enalia Telvan.

"So," they began the rehearsal, "tell me about your sex life."

One way or another, the virgin doctor would get through sex talks...maven if they had to practice every day for the next year.