Posted by Ensign Buddy Cullum (Security Officer) in Side Sim: Rehearsal - Holodeck - Buddy and the Breen

Posted by Ensign Buddy Cullum (Security Officer) in Side Sim: The Guys Arrive: Buddy and the Breen: Live On the Ark Angel
Buddy stood with his hands behind his back, boots planted with a kind of ceremonial stiffness that didn’t quite suit him. His uniform was regulation crisp—mostly. His hair had a little extra product in it, and the excitement vibrating just under the surface kept twitching his fingers toward the neck of his guitar case, which rested at his feet like a loyal pet.

This was actually happening.

The transporter hum rose and resolved with that familiar shimmer of blue-white light—and then there they were. Three figures materialized on the pad, and with them came the past: old chords, half-drunk rehearsals, impossible harmonies, Federation Day tears, and inside jokes no translator could touch.

“Holy hell,” Buddy breathed, breaking into a grin. “Look at you degenerates.”

Jax Perren stepped off the pad first, grinning ear to ear, his broad Bolian frame just as Buddy remembered. He lugged a duffel that clanked ominously. “You better have room for my kit,” he said. “This thing took up half the shuttle’s mass allotment.”

“Please tell me it’s the one made from the Type-9,” Buddy asked.

“The one and only.”

T’Lex followed, serene as ever in stark contrast to the chaos around him. He raised a brow. “Your message implied this would be an informal reunion. I have prepared a new composition for the occasion—something minimalistic. Eleven chords. No rhythm. Three emotions.”

“…So, a Tuesday for you,” Buddy said, smirking.

Ree’za came last, tail flicking, a vintage denim vest stretched over her uniform, and a pair of retro mirrored shades perched on her feline nose. She slung her bass case with the ease of a street brawler and grinned with too many teeth.

“I told you he’d pull this off,” she purred, nudging Jax with an elbow.

Buddy felt his heart swell in a way that surprised him. This wasn’t just nostalgia. It was something better.

“Welcome aboard the Ark Angel,” he said, holding out his arms as if to hug the whole room. “Home of the best security team in the quadrant, the weirdest science department, and—if I have anything to say about it—your venue for one night only.”

He paused, glancing at the transporter chief. “Thanks, Chief. We’ve got it from here.”

Turning back to his friends, he grinned.

“C’mon. I’ve booked us holodeck time. Let’s see if you guys remember how to be a band.”

-Ens. Cullum
Security Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

The last cymbal crash from “Chicken à la Rage” echoed off the simulated bulkheads, still vibrating in Buddy’s bones. It was sloppy in all the right places—Jax missed a fill, Ree’za screamed two bars too early, and T’Lex had randomly changed the bridge progression to something vaguely threatening in D minor.

But it felt right.

“Okay, okay,” Buddy laughed, pulling off his guitar and giving the strings a playful slap. “That was… a train wreck.”

“A triumphant train wreck,” Jax corrected, sweat shining on his blue scalp as he leaned back behind the Frankenstein’d kit of shuttle panel drums. “A glorious, flaming, high-velocity wreck.”

“I was in time,” T’Lex added, totally serious, as he adjusted one of the knobs on his loop processor. “The rest of you were not.”

Ree’za, mid-swig from a water bottle, snorted. “You changed keys in the middle of the chorus!”

“I changed moods,” T’Lex countered with a small shrug. “There is a distinction.”

“Yeah,” Buddy said, grinning as he dropped onto a nearby crate. “The distinction is we noticed.”

They all laughed—four friends orbiting the same strange, perfect rhythm again. For the first time in a long time, it wasn’t just a memory of the band. It was the band.

After a beat, Buddy picked his guitar back up and began idly tuning.

“So listen,” he said, suddenly a bit more focused. “I’ve got a couple of new songs I want us to try out.”

That got their attention. Jax sat up straighter. Ree’za tilted her head. Even T’Lex raised an eyebrow, which in Vulcan terms was equivalent to shouting.

“New songs?” Ree’za asked. “From you? Please tell me one of them is finally about the shuttle fire.”

Buddy smirked and strummed a low chord, letting it hum.

“Well… one of them is about a Princess.”

A beat.

Ree’za’s ears perked, her tail giving a single flick. Jax let out a low whistle. T’Lex blinked once and simply murmured, “Fascinating.”

None of them said what they were thinking—but the silence was loud.

Buddy didn’t elaborate. He just gave a half-shrug and started dialing in the distortion on his pedal board.

“Let’s see if you’re still good enough to keep up.”

-Ens. Cullum
Security Officer

The walls of the holodeck vibrated with reverb and righteous noise. They were in the middle of it now—a full-throttle punk assault, snarling and defiant. Buddy’s voice was ragged but alive, punching through the mix like a deflector at full power. Ree’za’s bass roared beneath him like tectonic plates grinding into rebellion. Jax, sweating and swearing, kept time like a madman conducting a warp core breach.

And T’Lex—T’Lex was—

Gone?

The sound cut like a blown conduit. The ambient howl of T’Lex’s loop processor fell out first, followed by the sharp silence of his guitar line. It was like losing gravity mid-jump.

Buddy kept going for another bar and a half, then let his guitar ring out and slowly fade. He turned, panting. “T’Lex? What—what happened?”

The Vulcan stood still, his fingers resting calmly on the neck of his guitar. “I stopped playing,” he said.

Buddy blinked. “Yeah, no kidding. Why?”

T’Lex’s expression didn’t shift. But there was something in his posture—something stiff and off, like a line not quite resolved. “I find the lyrical content of this piece… problematic.”

That brought a few beats of stunned silence.

Jax leaned forward over the cymbals, eyes narrowing. “Wait, what? The lyrics?”

Ree’za folded her arms. “Since when do you care about lyrics?”

“I care,” T’Lex replied evenly, “when they represent a volatile and emotionally charged critique of Starfleet and the Federation as a whole—especially in the wake of the recent events on Federation Day.”

“It is emotionally charged,” Buddy said, setting his guitar down with more force than he meant to. “That’s kind of the point, T’Lex. People died. Systems failed. We all watched it happen. I’m not gonna write a damn lullaby about it.”

T’Lex’s gaze was level. “You are an officer of Starfleet. To release such a message publicly—”

“It’s not propaganda,” Ree’za interrupted, tail twitching. “It’s truth. Ugly truth, yeah. But don’t act like being in uniform means we’re not allowed to feel things.”

“I am not suggesting suppression of feeling,” T’Lex said. “I am suggesting precision. A message that disrespects the institution may undermine the very structure that protects the Federation’s citizens.”

“‘Structure’ didn’t save anyone on Federation Day,” Jax muttered, suddenly quieter. “You think I wasn’t scared out of my mind, man? You think people on my homeworld weren’t freaking out, wondering who was next? I love Starfleet. But if we can’t criticize the things that broke… what are we even defending?”

That hit Buddy hard. He rubbed his hands through his hair, unsure whether the sweat on his forehead was from playing or from trying to hold it all in.

“I wrote that song,” he said, voice low now. “Because I needed to. Because we all serve, but we also lived through that day. We lost people. We almost lost everything. And I’m not going to pretend that didn’t mess me up just because I wear a uniform.”

Silence again. This time longer.

T’Lex’s eyes flicked between them, considering.

“It is not that I object to emotion,” he said finally. “But emotion, when improperly harnessed, can cause greater harm than silence. If you intend to perform this live, you may find it creates tension among the crew.”

Buddy met his gaze.

“Good,” he said. “Maybe it should.”

Jax gave a low whistle again, but this one was different—less amused, more impressed.

Ree’za chuckled, shook her head. “Stars, I missed this band.”

T’Lex didn’t reply immediately. Then, with a sigh so subtle it was nearly imperceptible, he reached for his guitar.

“I will require another run-through,” he said. “Preferably with tempo consistency this time.”

Buddy blinked. “You’re… in?”

“I will not allow your intonation to go uncorrected in front of a live audience,” T’Lex replied, as if that settled it.

It kind of did.

Buddy smiled—wide, grateful, wired with adrenaline and purpose.

“All right,” he said. “From the top.”

-Ens. Cullum
Security Officer