— USS Selene, Unexplored Space —

Lieutenant Junior Grade William Hume opened his eyes. The room’s brightness had increased to wake him up, as his shift was approaching. Rather than an alarm it was said that slowly adjusting up the light level woke you much more naturally. He was not sure how effective that was, considering during his Academy Days he’d learned to sleep in almost any situation, which was why he had set a secondary alarm that would play an audible noise to wake him up.

His room on the Selene was not large, but rather sort of spartan and functional. He slept in it, and sometimes he invited his girlfriend over to also sleep in it, but it was not the kind of place to spend a lot of time unless you were interested in reading or another solo pursuit.

It was, he supposed, a downgrade from the USS Luna where he had last served (with mostly the same crew) and had a much more plush room. Still it was better than where he started which was in a bunk in the hallway of a California-class ship. There had been no privacy, or even real quiet, which had made it useful that he could sleep in almost any situation. 

He dressed and checked his messages, with one from his mother and another from his sister. He adjusted his uniform, ensuring that there was nothing out of place on the mostly black design that had a yellow trim. He then attached his comm badge to his uniform and ran a comb through his hair.

The walk to work was a short one, a turbo lift journey and he was entering the security office. The office was one of the smaller section offices on the ship, as the Selene was a science vessel and was mostly staffed with scientists and engineers. The Operations department, as always, had the best office because they were the ones who controlled who had what offices. As important as their job was in security, as long as everything went well they were just passengers. It was when things did not go well that they had to step up, and handle things.

Lieutenant Claudia Jara the Chief Security Officer was at a screen showing the current situation in the region to the next shift. Hume stood near the back of the gaggle of security officers and watched the commanding officer basically tell them all that there was nothing that they knew, so to be ready for anything. That was the thing with these jaunts into unknown space, though they could identify a warp-capable civilization days out, if there wasn’t one or any other ships there was not a lot to say or plan for. 

“The cadets will be shadowing us this week,” Jara said, “So if you’ve been slipping at all in your tasks this is a good time to knock that off. We don’t want to set a bad example for the next generation. I also don’t want to hear it from the captain, okay?”

The next shift broke up, heading to do patrols of the decks or do tactical duty on the bridge. Hume was not due for a tactical shift this week, so he wouldn’t be seeing the bridge unless there was a reason to. He went over to the replicator to get himself a coffee and a Nanaimo bar a favourite treat of his from growing up in Vancouver.

Fellow officer Lieutenant Junior Grade Rosa Flores was also getting a snack, likely because she to slept in and had to rush to the meeting without a proper breakfast. They were dating and had been up all night fighting. Hence Hume was running on only five hours of sleep.

“Today’s going to be long,” he said conversationally as if they’d not been yelling at each other in her quarters the night before. He was trying to move past it. She however was not, she stiffened as he touched the small of her back he moved around her. He felt the muscles tense up beneath her uniform, and withdrew his hand, “You know because I’m tired.”

Flores shook her head, “I have work to do, excuse me Sir.”
The way she said ‘sir’, particularly when they were the same rank though he was technically her boss, told William Hume that she was not over it. The trouble was not that he had called her by his ex-girlfriend’s name, though obviously that had not worked in his favour, but that he’d forgotten about a date night and gone out with friends instead. She had not even been that mad, until after it was clear he was not showing up for the date she went to the lounge and found him drinking with his buddies (who were also her friends). Then when apologizing he’d called her Yuriho the first name of Lieutenant Yuriho Kolem his ex-girlfriend and the ship’s Chief Counsellor. Even then he probably would have been okay had he not pointed out that she’d missed a date with him back on the Luna, before she’d pointed out she’d broken her arm that day and had been in sickbay.

“You really screwed up huh?” Lieutenant Yi Zhang said as he replaced the front panel on the replicator in the Enlisted Lounge. The Assistant Chief Operations officer was a mutual friend of Flores and Hume and had been one of the people Hume was out with the night before.

“Did she talk to you?” Hume asked. He was on a patrol of the decks when he spotted the operations officer working and came over to talk.

“No, but I heard you call her Yuriho,” Zhang said shaking his head, “Come on, that was bad. She knows you cheated on Yuhiro, giving her any reason to think you’d do it again is foolish.”

“You should be a counsellor,” Hume said, annoyed, not that Zhang was wrong but that he was right and had the audacity to point out the truth.

“Then I’d have to pretend to care about your problems,” Zhang joked standing and picking up his bag of tools, “Look your problems are of your own making. Always. If you’re not happy with her break up with her, if you are, then get your stuff together.”

After his tour of all non-bridge decks, he did filing in his small office, and then updated his duty log for the day before the Delta shift took over and he went to one of the holodecks to workout. He had thought about swinging past Flores’ room but had decided it was probably healthier to give her some space. After finishing up swimming laps in the virtually created pool, he was howling off when Flores came in.
“You’re a jerk,” she said as an opening. Hume nodded looking sheepish, he was not going to argue with that on the evidence of the past few days. The fact was he was pretty sure he’d mixed names up because he’d felt guilty about missing their date, and the last time he’d felt that guilty was when he’d cheated on Kolem. He still felt guilt over that, and apparently it was not yet resolved.

“Do you want her back?” Flores asked, pointedly.

“What?” Hume shook his head.

“She’s single, you could ask her if she’d take you back,” Flores said.

“What? No, look Rosa, I made a mistake. I goofed by not being there for our date and by using the wrong name, but I’m not going back to Kolem,” he said.

She considered whether to believe him and finally nodded, “Okay.”

“You want supper?” Hume asked.

Rosa nodded, “Okay.”