Valkyries… Guides to the honored dead, if she understood the ancient Earther legends. Ensign Chigorra couldn’t help but think of near-parallels to Klingon mythology, that belief system drilled into her mind and spirit as soon as she could speak. In the Klingon faith, a vast ship known as the Barge of the Dead ferried those who died with dishonor to a place called Gre’thor, there to be taken into the torturous ‘care’ of the demonic Fek’lhr. Theirs was a wretched and ignominious ending, and a permanent state of torture and shame to be avoided at all costs… But the Valkyrie was a different sort of caretaker than Fek’lhr! The Valkyrie of Earth myth led the honored slain, bringing them to a grand place of revelry and preparation called Valhalla. If Chigorra had still been a believer in the religion of her former people, she might’ve taken comfort in the spiritual meaning of this assignment; that she, a daughter of an exiled and discommended House, had managed to earn her place aboard a ship which would take her to a resting place of honor. Hopefully that final leg of her life’s voyage wouldn’t occur too terribly soon…

The Ensign thought of where she would be staying aboard this ‘Barge’. Ensigns, like non-commissioned officers, roomed in suites; two people to a room, two rooms to a suite. The Sovereign-class USS Valkyrie was large enough that quarters were spread about between multiple decks. At least Decks 4 through 10 had quarters on them, and this was without counting however many held Enlisted quarters as well. Hundreds of lives; around seven hundred and fifty in fact, with the total number wavering based on the needs of the mission. She was a modern class of ship, too, far more so than the training ship on which Ensign Chigorra had served back at the Academy. That training vessel had been dwarfed by the Sovereign-class; smaller in size, less armed, slower. The Valkyrie was powerful, looked powerful to Chigorra’s eyes as she’d approached it in a shuttle, ferried to it along with other incoming new crewmembers. She, meaning the ship, was certainly a ‘step up’ from the Academy’s ships.

Once aboard, Ensign Chigorra’s limited possessions were moved to her suite, and she underwent the initial on-boarding process. She’d studied available information about the Valkyrie well before her shuttle-ride today, or at least as much information as was available before boarding it. Deck layout, ship armaments, the identities of major officers, details about Chigorra’s own chain of command, and all information about the Valkyrie’s mission that could be sent to her securely. There were still mountains of facts that she could only try to absorb now that she was on-ship; Valkyrie-specific security procedures, more detailed mission logs… And the sound and feel of the place and the people who lived within. What kind of ship’s culture had the Valkyrie developed? How did they talk to each other, what did they think of their surroundings and their section Chiefs and their Captain and First Officer? Chigorra was eager to read ship-wide briefings which sometimes bore clues about the temperament and character of the ship’s highest authorities. Just as a society had its own beliefs and practices, so too did a ship, Chigorra believed.

Seeking to explore the ship’s customs and the way its inhabitants interacted, and having an hour until her next appointment, Ensign Chigorra stalked the hallways of the Valkyrie, marching with a purpose that sometimes inadvertently startled her new colleagues. Spotting this after the third or fourth widened pair of eyes, Chigorra calmed herself. The sight of nearly two meters of determined Klingon barreling down a hallway could be a shocking sight, so she slowed her pace, and finally reached the ship’s own ‘Valhalla’ on Deck 15. Valhalla… In keeping with the themes of the mythical ‘afterlife’ where warriors drank honeywine and prepared for an apocalypse, the lounge on Deck 15 of the Valkyrie was a place of rest and recuperation. Chigorra remembered what such places looked like on the red-lit vessels of the Hunters of D’Ghor… As a child aboard such ships, it was left to her to clean and restock the Main Halls where warriors reveled and drank and told tales of their conquests. Plates of bone-shards with the meat gnawed off, discarded bloodwine chalices, and noise… Always noise in the Main Halls. Shouting, fighting, boasting, singing, roaring. Valhalla was a far quieter and far cleaner place by Chigorra’s estimation. And far less red.

The Ensign took a moment, finding a solitary seat and planting herself in it, hunching a little over the table. She shut her eyes, attempting a mediative state that an Academy colleague had taught her; she wanted to focus on the sounds. There was noise, to be sure, but they weren’t shouts. They were conversations. Discussions. Gone was the crashing of pottery, the crunching of Krada bones, the brutality of a fistfight, the death-gasp that ended a bloody duel with d’k tahg’s. People walked at an even pace, spoke in calm tones, chuckled at modest jokes, sipped at coffee or synthale or… ‘pop’. Those were the sounds. Chigorra breathed, and listened.

‘So… this is Valhalla…’ she thought.