Bryson Kale had never been one to romanticize shuttle rides. Even with the faint vibration underfoot and the view unfolding ahead, he’d learned long ago that arrivals were measured less by spectacle and more by the quiet moment when the door opened, and the first breath of new air reached him.

Still, as Oed V filled the viewport, he let himself watch. The ochre tones of the land stretched for miles save for a small patch of tentative greens, carefully cultivated around Oed City. Over the main settlement, the shimmer of the planetary shield was almost imperceptible, a faint distortion in the light where the generators bent the atmosphere into place.

He thought of the motto he’d read in the posting brief: I shall rise again and repeat from the beginning.
For a colony, it was resilience. For him… it was more personal than he cared to admit out loud.

The seat beside him was empty, his single duffel at his feet. It held just enough to get him through the first week — the rest would follow by freight. He kept a small padd balanced on his knee, reviewing the layout of Sacred Heart Hospital’s psychiatric wing: twenty inpatient rooms in the adult unit, another set for pediatric care, therapy rooms insulated from the city’s noise, offices overlooking the gardens that had been coaxed back into the soil.

The announcement from the cockpit was brisk but not unkind:
“Final approach to Oed V. Landing clearance received. Please remain seated.”

Through the viewport, the city came into sharper focus — the bright geometry of Sloane Square, the clean lines of the Government Tower, and, just across the open green of the square, Sacred Heart’s distinctive three-wing structure. Sunlight gleamed on rooftops and glass façades, but the wind over the settlement was visible in the swaying of street trees and the ripple of banners strung between buildings.

The shuttle touched down with a practiced thrum. The airlock hissed open, and the scent of Oed V met him — warm, mineral-rich, metallic scented threaded with floral undertones.

Bryson stepped down to the pad, the weight of his duffel strap settling into the familiar groove on his shoulder. Around him, the city moved with the layered rhythm of a place that had learned to function under both civilian and Starfleet order — merchants crossing the concourse, uniformed officers in quiet conversation, a courier darting between them with a stack of padds clutched like treasure.

Somewhere in that weave of lives were Starfleet officers who’d need the kind of evaluation only a counselor could provide, miners and merchants carrying the strain of frontier living, families juggling opportunity and loss. All of them, in their own way, would end up across from him eventually — in the office, in a ward, perhaps even by chance in the café.

He felt the weight of his Reserve pips in his pocket, small and cool against his hand. He’d still need them — for access, for trust, for the reminder that even in a civilian role, he was part of something larger.

Adjusting his pace toward the terminal, he let himself hold onto the optimism. Not the bright, untarnished kind he’d carried out of the Academy, but the steadier, tempered sort that had survived injury, recovery, and the slow process of making himself useful again.

Today, Oed V was the beginning.

Bryson Kale, PhD
Psychiatrist