Posted by Ensign MJ Shau (Security Officer) in Side Sim: Crew Lounge After Shift Change

Posted by Ensign Skye Shepherd (Scientist) in Side Sim: Crew Lounge After Shift Change

Posted by Ensign MJ Shau (Security Officer) in Side Sim: Crew Lounge After Shift Change
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻
SNIP

Ensign Shau’s shoulders tensed for a moment when it sounded like Skye didn’t like the idea. Hearing that she was open to carrying forward some old traditions, or creating new ones, was a huge relief.

A warmth filled his chest as her insights resonated within him. “I feel like I’ve been in a state of limbo… even after all these months. Like I hadn’t fully committed. I think it has to do with your father’s saying. We might be onboard the vessel itself, but the crew doesn’t feel like family yet, so the ship doesn’t feel like home.” He looked her in the eyes and gave a faint smile. “We need to take the first step. Do something to actually feel like part of the Chimera

The Risian eyed her for a moment. He was well aware that she’d been doing most of the talking. Ensign Shepherd had shared more of her past while MJ had offered only general ideas and withheld most of the details. And yet, he was the one pushing to ressurect an old tradition from his previous ship.

“Is there something in particular from your time on the New Jersey you’d like to honor by bringing forward in some way?”

Ensign MJ Shau - Security Officer - USS Chimera

---

Skye sat in silence while allowing him to do the talking, her posture seemed relaxed as she leaned back slightly on her chair. The ensign’s face had remained neutral at first, but eventually there became a mischievous smile. “There is no party without a dog.” That was the moment in which she picked up her PADD a second time, scrolling through the picture gallery until an image of a Bernese was brought up. Zephram, her service dog.

But when MJ brought up her father, all the hybrid could do was look away through the viewport. Hoping it wasn’t too obvious how homesick she happened to be. As an only child who had grown surrounded by adults, where her only friend was an Aenar, the one survivor who had made it off the shuttle alive. Along with her. No other children lived onboard the old vessel, which many had claimed as a Time Capsule still in service. Turning back, she opened her mouth to explain, but the Risian happened to be already talking once more.

When her gaze met his, both hands had clasped together over the table. Of course traditions would be considered strange on a vessel voided from modern Starfleet technology. “There were sometimes we would do movie nights in the crew lounge for everyone to join. New Jersey’s crew wasn’t that large. But we enjoyed each other’s company.” she admitted. “It’s a ship filled with life where technology didn’t reach us with all the knickknacks Chimera holds. Replicators were only beginning.”

She couldn’t help but laugh when remembering how many times modern technology had brought confusion to her as a Neanderthal in a modern setting. A story which the Science Officer had shared a few times before. That was the moment in which the Trian stood up, approaching a replicator mounted against the wall to order on a pair of drinks. Tragedy struck the minute the second glass hit the tray as the machine overflowed to soak her uniform. There was a look of disbelief before Skye actually started laughing at herself.

Ensign Skye Shepherd
Science Officer
U.S.S. Chimera - 98730 (Mjolnir Class)

MJ chuckled. “If you think you can convince the Captain… I can get behind a pet.”

The mention or old movies made him think of the Ferengi trideo dramas one of his old friends made them watch on the ,Picket. They were terrible… but he’d come to miss them.

“But movies… I think that’s a good idea. Good stories transcend format… and a lot of people will appreciate them more for the throwback aesthetic.”

The Risian thought about their options. “We can see what it would take to set something up in the lounge… but it might be easier to have the holodeck recreate a theater or something. At least until we generate enough interest.,”

Ensign MJ Shau - Security Officer - USS Chimera

---

With lemonade now soaking her uniform top, there was nothing else left to do by the hybrid but actually laugh at how ridiculous the moment had been. Skye raised a finger, attempting to speak between laughs. “Service dog.” She explained, “He’s a medical device… technically.”

Earthen movies had been something that shaped her childhood. Explaining how far space exploration had come since the 21st century, when Vulcans first provided aid for humanity to reach warp speeds. A whole new perspective had been created since. Founding the United Federation of Planets. Four founding stars. Earth, Vulcan, Andoria and Tellar Prime had been the first. Several others eventually followed their example. Having grown in a ship devoid of technology, it was one of the good things which the old vessel had to offer. Just like Captain Archer’s crew before them.

As the two survivors to a shuttlecraft accident, both she and that Aenar cadet had learnt to rely on one another. Complimenting their strongest abilities where one happened to be lacking. Though there was something Ensign Shepherd had yet to share… learning to see through someone else’s eyes. After all, he had been the one to teach her music. How to slowly thread her fingers through a piano’s keys.

Skye accepted the fresh glass the replicator produced on its second attempt, though she gave the machine an exaggeratedly suspicious look first.

“Behave.”

This time it complied.

She returned to the table, easing herself back into the chair with an embarrassed smile that had yet to completely fade. “See? This is why I still don’t trust these things.”

Taking a careful sip, she let the quiet settle between them for a moment.

“The holodeck could work,” she admitted. “Though… there was something about squeezing half the crew into one lounge that made it different.” Her eyes drifted around the room they already occupied. “People couldn’t disappear into separate programs. You watched the same terrible movie together, complained about the ending together, and argued over who got to pick the next one.”

A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Somehow the arguments became part of the tradition.”

Her expression softened again.

“I think… that’s what my father meant.”

She tapped one finger lightly against her glass.

“A ship isn’t home because of the hull or the engines. It’s home because people keep choosing each other when they don’t have to.”

The words surprised even her. They sounded remarkably like something Commander Castel would have said.

Shepherd glanced out the viewport once more before looking back to MJ.

“When I was growing up aboard New Jersey, there weren’t any other children.”

She didn’t say it with sadness anymore—just simple fact.

“So most of my friends were officers who’d already lived half their lives.” A small laugh escaped her. “I probably knew more about stellar cartography than playground games.”

She paused.

“And…”

The hesitation lingered.

“There was one other cadet.”

Her smile became quieter.

“An Aenar.”

For just a heartbeat she seemed somewhere else entirely.

“He couldn’t see. Not the way most people do.”

Her fingertips unconsciously traced invisible piano keys across the tabletop.

“I used to think I was helping him navigate corridors. Then I realized he was doing just as much for me.”

She looked down at her hands.

“He taught me that seeing isn’t always done with your eyes.”

A slow breath.

“He listened to rooms… to people. He could hear things I’d never notice. Tiny changes in someone’s breathing. The rhythm of footsteps. Whether someone was nervous before they admitted it.”

Her fingers stopped moving.

“And he taught me music.”

A warm smile returned.

“My first piano lesson lasted nearly an hour before he let me actually play anything.”

She laughed quietly.

“I kept staring at the keyboard waiting for him to tell me which key to press.”

Her blue-gray eyes met MJ’s again.

“He just smiled and said, ‘Don’t look at it. Feel where your hands belong.’”

Another small pause.

“I thought he was joking.”

“He wasn’t.”

Skye flexed her fingers instinctively.

“So I learned to stop watching my hands. I learned what the distances felt like instead.”

She shrugged modestly.

“I never became an amazing pianist…”

“…but I learned how someone could share a part of their world with another person.”

The ensign looked around the lounge again, at the empty tables that would eventually fill with officers finishing their shifts.

“Maybe that’s all traditions really are.”

She smiled.

“Little pieces of ourselves that we hand to the next crew.”

Raising her glass in a small toast, she looked toward MJ.

“So…”

“If we’re going to make Chimera feel like home…”

“…I suppose we’d better start handing some of those pieces around.”

Ensign Skye Shepherd
Science Officer
U.S.S. Chimera - 98730 (Mjolnir Class)

The conversation had dredged up some painful memories for Skye, so the Risian was glad to see her smile at the lemonade incident and the dog comment. Like him, her melancholy thoughts never seemed to be far from the surface. MJ found himself listening quietly again as she shared the story of the other survivor from the shuttle accident. The Aenar that seemed to have meant a lot to her… and taught her about connecting with other people.

After she was done talking, MJ returned her toast. He agreed with her sentiment but he was conflicted about how to go about it.

Her memories of her Aenar friend were powerful. Intimate connections like that were some of the most impactful. It was thoughts of his lost friends that kept him from opening up to others. But… he didn’t think they could jump straight to that level of connection. Those types of relationships grow overtime and were strengthened via shared experiences.

“You’re right… we need to share first. Invite others in… but we need to take it slow. Not out of fear… but…” MJ paused as he sought the word. “… out of patience. A desire to do things right.” The Risian tried another analogy. “You can’t simply crank up the temperature and hope the food cooks faster. It’ll just burn.”

“I agree that a holo-deck might be too cramped… but until we generate enough interest it might be difficult to commandeer a lounge. Not for two people.” A new idea came to him. “There are actually three general rooms on decks 20, 21, and 22. They’re mostly open areas and are designed to be modular so they can be reconfigured for anything from storage to VIP offices. Let’s see if we can get permission to set one of those up as a theater of sorts. That way, anybody that’s interested can drop in and check the movies out. Maybe advertise it in the ship’s internal calendar. We may be starting small… but we have to start somewhere.”

Ensign MJ Shau - Security Officer - USS Chimera

---

Somehow, Skye had attempted to steer the conversation away from a stormy sky into something more positive. Having a good laugh after a lost battle with the replicator. Her uniform was now soaked in citric smelling water, making blue fabric appear much darker than it actually happened to be. Laughter had been one of the shields to hide everything which the hybrid had previously walked through. Naming Starfleet as one of the greatest challenges faced at only 23 years old.

Going silent, the hybrid just raised her glass to take a sip before lowering it to the table. Sharing the shuttle accident wasn’t a storyline to be taken lightly. It wasn’t a topic mentioned within her personal file. Nor one she had bothered mentioning to the CNS department. Two cadets had lost their lives under her t possibility. Only with a scar for show.

Naeven happened to be only two years older than she was at the time of the crash, once having found herself on the command path leading to become a fully credited pilot. Those dreams were shattered with two lives being lost under her watch. Somehow, the (22 year old at the time) cadet had helper her walk out from that dark path and back into their studies at the academy in San Francisco.

Skye let the silence linger, her gaze fixed on the pale swirl of lemonade in her glass. For a moment, it seemed she hadn’t heard MJ at all. In truth, she was somewhere else entirely.

A Constitution-class corridor.

The quiet hum of older systems.

A piano echoing through an empty recreation room.

Naeven.

She smiled almost imperceptibly before returning to the present.

“I think…” she said softly, “…that’s exactly how it starts.”

Her fingers curled around the glass, drawing comfort from the cool surface.

“It was never the traditions themselves that mattered aboard New Jersey. It was that someone cared enough to keep them going.”

She looked toward MJ again.

“Eventually people stopped asking whose idea movie night had been. They just knew Friday evenings meant someone would complain about the projector, someone else would burn the popcorn, and the captain would pretend not to have a favorite seat.”

A quiet laugh escaped her.

“It became ours.”

Her eyes drifted back toward the viewport.

“I had someone who reminded me of that whenever I forgot.”

The words came more easily now, though there was still a weight behind them.

“Naeven.”

Just saying his name brought a warmth that homesickness alone couldn’t explain.

“He grew up aboard New Jersey too. Two years older than me.”

A faint grin tugged at one corner of her mouth.

“He used to insist he was older and wiser.”

She shrugged.

“He was only right about one of those.”

The joke carried itself before dissolving into something gentler.

“He always knew he wanted Operations. Communications, specifically. He said every transmission was a bridge between people who might never meet face to face.”

Skye tilted her head.

“I never really understood that when we were children.”

Another sip of lemonade.

“I wanted to fly.”

There it was.

Simple.

Matter-of-fact.

“I was on the command track.”

Her thumb slowly traced the rim of the glass.

“I loved shuttlecraft.”

She could still remember every checklist, every simulation, every instructor telling her she had steady hands.

“I thought I’d spend my career in a cockpit.”

The words hung between them.

“Then the accident happened.”

Silence reclaimed the room.

She didn’t elaborate.

She never did.

Instead, she drew a slow breath.

“I couldn’t bring myself to sit at a helm again.”

Her voice wasn’t shaking.

It was simply… tired.

“So I transferred.”

She offered a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I buried myself in xenobiology.”

Looking back now, she could admit what she’d never written in any personnel report.

“It wasn’t because I stopped loving to fly.”

A pause.

“It was because I was afraid I’d love it enough to try again.”

Her gaze settled somewhere beyond the viewport, among stars she couldn’t actually see.

“And I didn’t think I deserved another chance.”

The admission barely rose above a whisper.

“Naeven never agreed.”

That earned a genuine smile.

“He never pushed.”

“He never told me I was wrong.”

“He just… kept showing up.”

She laughed quietly through her nose.

“If I skipped meals, he’d somehow appear with food.”

“If I spent too many nights in the biology labs, he’d find an excuse to route communications through that building.”

“I still have no idea whether those messages were real.”

The smile broadened.

“I suspect at least half of them weren’t.”

She shook her head fondly.

“He understood something I didn’t.”

Her fingers unconsciously tapped a slow rhythm against the tabletop.

“You don’t help someone climb out of a hole by shouting down instructions.”

“You climb in first.”

Her eyes met MJ’s again.

“He never tried to fix me.”

“He just refused to leave.”

For a few seconds she said nothing more.

Then she looked around the lounge once again.

“That’s why I think you’re onto something.”

She gestured toward the empty room.

“A movie night isn’t going to make strangers into family overnight.”

“It won’t erase whatever baggage everyone carried aboard when they transferred here.”

“But…”

A small smile returned.

“It gives people permission to sit together.”

“To laugh at the same terrible scenes.”

“To argue over which century made better films.”

“To recognize faces they might otherwise only pass in a corridor.”

She lifted her glass again.

“That’s how New Jersey became home.”

“It wasn’t because we all started as family.”

Her smile softened.

“It was because we kept giving each other reasons to come back to the same room.”

She inclined her head toward MJ.

“So…”

“I think we should reserve one of those modular rooms.”

A mischievous spark finally returned to her eyes.

“And if nobody comes…”

She glanced suspiciously at the replicator that had betrayed her only moments before.

“…at least we’ll know the replicators make enough lemonade for the entire audience.”

Ensign Skye Shepherd
Science Officer
U.S.S. Chimera - 98730 (Mjolnir Class)

The Risian couldn’t help but smile at Skye’s latest lemonade comment. “I don’t know… it might be best for you to make lemonade the old fashioned way. You’re probably the only person onboard that would somehow make less of a mess that way.”

He was tempted to ask her about her past. About Naeven. Whether or not he was still around, and whether or not they talked. She… seemed to have turned a corner though. Like she pulled herself out of her melancholy a bit. He didn’t want to do anything that would tip the scales back in that direction.

“Given that I’ve only ever watched Ferengi holo-dramas, bad Ferengi holo-dramas, it’s probably best if you pick the first movies. Once we get more people interested, I’m sure they’ll want to contribute to the watch list.” He smiled faintly as he recalled a memory of his old friends arguing about what to watch. But I never saw the point of arguing between medical or law enforcement shows, not when everything was so terribly over acted. “I’m pretty sure I can modify a holo projector to show two dimensional media… and if not I can get Derek to help. It will probably take both of us to get the general purpose room set up. Along with anybody else we can rope into help.”

Ensign MJ Shau - Security Officer - USS Chimera

The hybrid couldn’t help but choke on her laughter when looking back at the lemonade accident. She was one of the few people that still struggled with the use of a replicator onboard. Having grown on a ship much older than any of her crew. It was as though Skye had been raised by Captain Kirk himself. “If you know where to find fresh citrus on the ship, I’m game.” Pushing her past aside had been no easy task, but if there was something they could laugh about there and then, she would certainly participate.

It was as though a camera lens had focused on the pair of junior officers as a few minutes of silence lingered. The ensign had already opened up about her past, just not enough to reveal the important parts. Somehow, the science officer remained tense after that brief chatter, something she could be considering strange. Speaking about the Aenar would open doors that had been shut down for years working through trauma with academic counselors, avoiding familiar faces if needed be. That ship had already sailed towards much clearer skies.

“Most movies I grew up with were from the 20th to the 21st centuries, on Earth.” the Science Officer shook her head with amusement. “Where my mother is from, Seattle to be specific.” If the situation hadn’t been awkward yet, how it had certainly become a roasting worthy zone. “Crimes, comedy, mystery… you name it. There’s so many silver screen films that are worth watching!” but him mentioning Ferengi holonovels almost made Skye spit out her drink. That was something certainly unexpected by the 23 year old as she listened.

“If only five people show up… then it’s five people who might recognize each other in the corridor tomorrow.”

Her smile softened into something sincere.

“And maybe next week they bring someone else.”

She lifted her glass once more in a smaller, almost absent-minded toast.

“That’s how these things grow.”

Ensign Skye Shepherd
Science Officer
U.S.S. Chimera - 98730 (Mjolnir Class)