Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Executive Officer) in Deck 6 - Captain’s Dining Room

Posted by Captain Sara Kiernan (Commanding Officer) in Deck 6 - Captain’s Dining Room

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Executive Officer) in Deck 6 - Captain’s Dining Room
Posted by… suppressed (8) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

She chuckled. “It’s definitely come a long way from anything they had before. We’ve very fortunate. I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that anything from the land is better, but it’s also not always practical or possible. A lot of people don’t starve when they might otherwise have before.” Shara gazed wistfully across the room. “I also appreciate replicators a helluva lot more since my days on Voyager when it was use precious replicator rations, eat ration packs on the dire days, or deal with whatever our… industriously creative cook managed to put out in the mess hall.” Shara couldn’t help but feel a bit of nostalgia for those days even if she wasn’t keen to repeat them anytime soon.

~Shara Calloway, XO

“It’s definitely changed everything for the better. I mean, if everybody and anybody can, not just eat, but eat good food… what a world we live in.” Sara ate some more. “You ever stop and think about the madness of the basic level of what we call a job? Go back not nearly as far as it seems and this would be an absolute fantasy.” She sat, quiet. Watching the stars hurtle past.

-CO

Shara chewed a bite of the steak sandwich with its perfectly tender thin strips of beef. “I don’t have to go back far at all. Before the Maquis and Starfleet, I did whatever I could to survive. When I met my first husband, Edward, I was working as a waitress at a bar on a backwater colony. Busy place, with its share of roughness, but I hadn’t even graduated secondary school, Sara, so I worked at the bar at nights and took classes during the day. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to have options. travelling the galaxy? Starfleet? Living on a starship? That was a fantasy for my twenty-year old self. I couldn’t even come close to imagining any of it. All I cared about was making sure I had enough for rent and food. Everything else was a luxury, including my high school diploma.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

“You’ve come a long way from that bar. I grew up in San Francisco. My dad teaches an introductory engineering course at the Academy. He’s been there… gotta be 35 years now. They’re going to have him retiring soon. It’s a legacy family I guess. One of those families where you walk in the house and there’s portraits of each generation in uniform right inside the door. There was a uniform waiting for me from the moment I was born. I outrank my dad now. First one in our family to make it this far. I worked so hard in school, in the Academy, at every assignment I’ve gotten to get here and now that I’m here I’m… I’m afraid I’ve forgotten to live along the way. When you were 20, nothing was certain. When I was 20, everything was certain. There has to be some middle ground. Where the next sandwich isn’t in question but you get to be a little bit… out of uniform sometimes.”

-CO

Shara chuckled, but she wasn’t laughing at Sara. In reality she was laughing at the irony of her whole damn life. She was laughing at her and Sara, but in the kindest way possible. “Life is bittersweet and short, Sara. I know you know this, especially after that last mission. But you want to know what my alter ego Elaine reminded me of?” she said, sandwich held in one hand.

“Sometimes you have to steal the balance. Or rather steal the moments to give you the balance. There are fun things I got to do as Elaine I would never do in uniform.” She frowned before a mischievous smirk touched her lips briefly. “Or at least I think I wouldn’t.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

Sara nodded.“Yeah. Yeah, on a level that makes sense. You remember, though, how much you had to coach me through how to not be so… starfleet?” She got up and walked over to the window. “There’s never a moment in my life that is not defined by my relationship to my job I couldn’t be prouder of our ship, our crew… but I don’t get to step back. Something in my brain just won’t let go.”

-CO

Shara studied her friend and partner-in-crime as she took a bite of the sandwich, savouring the simplicity of the ingredients and how they made a lovely combo. “Why do you think that is?” I simple question for what she suspected was a more complex answer.

~Shara Calloway, XO

“The last time I tried to let that guard down, I got hurt badly. Being the me that’s a Captain… it’s safe. And I tried, but I couldn’t quite- I started up a relationship. Couldn’t keep it up though. Couldn’t put her first.” Sara could only be grateful she had Shara to talk to. “We pulled in a pilot in a wrecked fighter. I know her. From the Academy. Things are just…” She drifted off.

-CO

Shara twirled her fork in her fingers. “Just because it didn’t work with one person, doesn’t mean it’s not possible. People say the understand the demands of the job, but trust me Sara, I do understand just how much people do not get it. But you also can be just Sara Kiernan and not be focused on the uniform. The trick is picking your moment. Or so people tell me.” She lifted her brows and gave a comical smirk. Shara wasn’t pretending to have a good grasp on it herself. “We can at least muddle through together, yes?”

“Tell me about this Academy friend. Why is it throwing you off so much?”

~Shara Calloway, XO

“Kara’s… we lived together for the first three years.” Sara had brought it up but now she was afraid to explain. “Stayed friends after. Real friends, not just checking in sometimes when one of us is feeling wistful about being cadets. But we both got promoted, got busier. Kept up, but weren’t close anymore. When she went off to do pilot training, I started my first real relationship. And then the woman I had fallen for turned out to have been a spy.” She clenched her eyes shut. “And I wonder sometimes… if my whole life would’ve taken a different direction if I’d been living with Kara that last year.”

-CO

Shara took in Sara intently, assessing her friend in a way that she did with everything, but this time it was out of genuine interest and concern. “Why do you think it would have made a difference?”

~Shara Calloway, XO

Sara opened her eyes. “I might never have met Nessa. I would’ve been with someone who’s… she’s a wildcard off duty, but on duty she’s the steadiest person you’ll meet. She’s actually trustworthy. Proven it time and again. I’d have all those memories instead of… this massive scar.” She held back tears. “Maybe it’s stupid to still be hurt over something that ended way back when.”

-CO