William was seated on one of the circular tables in the Deck 5 mess hall. He’d been there for a few hours nursing a glass of chilled white wine and staring at the opening move of a regular chess game. The stemless glass no longer had a cube of ice in it, having melted as he played game after game. Right now he was replaying a nearly three-hundred-year-old chess game. He found chess to be an amusing diversion, 3D chess was too recent, it didn’t have the rich history of the ancient human game, and although he could play the games faster in his minds-eye there was something about using the physical set that calmed his troubled mind.

The set he was using was from his own collection, carved from Andorian Ice Resin, Light blue for white and Dark Green for black. It had been a gift from the Professor at the Academy he’d served as a Teaching Assistant after graduating but before being assigned as the Chernovs Science Officer. Before he’d gotten what he still considered a much too early promotion to Lieutenant Commander and his assignment as Second Officer. Although he had just past thirty a few weeks ago he still felt no older nor wiser. He silently cursed his train of thought, the game was supposed to distract those thoughts, it was black second move, and he accepted the King’s Gambit then grabbed the wine glass considering the possibilities Spassky and Averbakh would have considered all those centuries ago and took a slow sip.

William Grey