Shay straightened her uniform, avoided eye contact with a passing crew person, and turned the corner of the corridor. No way she was lost. No. That would just be ridiculous. Finding Sick Bay was easy. She just had to make one more turn and… damn. Why did everything on this ship have to look the same? She stopped and took a deep breath. This was fine. Everything was fine. Just because she’d been having recurring nightmares that the ship was encountering an anomaly that would shift all the corridors didn’t mean that was what was happening right now. She was heading to sick bay. On a starship. Something many people had done before her and would do after. This was no. big. deal. Hundreds of people reported for duty on ships every day, she told herself. She wouldn’t be vaporized or end up with a transporter clone or get killed in battle or any of the number of other things that her dreams insisted she experience. “Everything is fine,” she told herself again.

As it was, she had walked straight to Sick Bay after all. Time to put on the face of someone who was calm, competent, and Star Fleet. She took another deep breath, straightened her uniform, and stepped up to the door. The gentle sound of a woosh admitted her inside. Shay took a moment to look around before stepping through the doorway. Everything looked normal. Almost toooo normal. Stop it! she told her anxious brain. Everything looked normal because it was. No hostile aliens were taking over the ship and posing as crewmen. She really had to get it together if she was going to make it out here in space. Her active imagination was going to get the better of her eventually.

“Hello?” she asked to no one in particular, taking in the room and looking around for the person she was supposed to report to. “I’m Shay Carter, reporting for duty.” Smile on her face, she tried to give the appearance of someone who had it together. Inside she was panicking yet again.