Captain’s Log, Supplemental.

Calumn was the first to know.

I sat him down and explained why I needed to represent the Federation in the shelkvan singing competition. It needed to be me. I broke my rationale along political, leadership and personal development categories. He asked surprisingly few questions. In fact, I feared I had bored him for a minute because of the way he stared at me blankly.

Calumn didn’t disagree with any of my arguments. He simply told me he knew. He always knew it would be me.

As soon as I stepped on the festival hall stage on the K’ritz home world, I started to question all of my arguments. Calumn had been preparing for weeks! I’d had not even a dozen days to prepare as we ferried home the crew of the lost starship Phravik. The air felt thick with pressure, like on a foggy morning. I hoped to feel exhilarated or terrified or adored, and my chest only filled with the weight of anxiety. I thought I would suffocate from that weight when the spotlight hit me.

It all came down to this one moment. After weeks of research, rehearsal, and curation, my song performance would decide if Starfleet would become friends with the K’ritz or remain distant acquaintances. I don’t know how athletes and olympians take the pressure! At least I have my crew by my side on the bridge of a starship.

This one song would decide our future.  This one song would tell me whether I was an embodied being or an empty shell.

As I began to sing, I tried to ignore my empathic abilities. I didn’t want to be distracted by the audience’s emotional state, whether it be complimentary or disgusted. I couldn’t let it touch me whether they were cheering or cringing. In this moment, it wasn’t about them.

I wanted to lean into my grace and power. I tried to listen to my body, even if it was trembling with nerves. In those first moments, I was shaken by the delay. I could feel the vibration of my voice filling that vast, silent space before it reached the audience.

And then I don’t really remember the rest. Not moment to moment. I intentionally chose a song I knew instinctively, a song from my childhood, by the Orion punk band Kolar Blight. It was a song about new love, but it was one of their rare political songs. It was a metaphor for revelry in paradox and hypocrisy. On that stage, I become twelve years old again.

Lieutenant Commander Ache’s Personal Log,

I had arranged to watch the captain’s performance from the festival hall’s security office. When Taes took her first tentative step onto the stage, I noticed that her posture looked strong. Watching her through the security monitors, I observed her shoulders looking tight too. Although I kept my eyes on her, I checked in with my security officers on the floor. They each reported back while Taes began to sing.

By the time I received the all clear back from the last of them, I could take in Taes’s singing. Her voice soared effortlessly through a series of high notes. For just a moment, I envied her freedom to reach for them without being weighed down by doubt or insecurity. If I so much as try to say a sentence without thinking it through three times, my mind goes blank for fear of saying the wrong thing.

The more she went on, I questioned if Taes’s careful control over her tones was a form of fragility, and I hoped the K’ritz wouldn’t perceive that as a weakness.

Lieutenant Commander Yuulik’s Personal Log,

Taes has always had a musicality to her. She deftly balances consonance and dissonance when she disagrees with my theories. When she screams at me for being unkind to my department, it washes over me like an overture. As she sang in the shelkvan, I could feel every vibration in her voice, down to the slightest inflection. Her execution was flawless. Stunning.

She performed the first verse with a technicality that was polished and sophisticated. I’ll say it: her approach was safe. It was an interpretation of Orion music, and it lacked the unpredictability that’s such a signature of Kolar Blight. But that was only the first verse.

Lieutenant DeVoglaer’s Personal Log,

It’s not fair, but a part of me hated her for her poise. It was a fleeting thought, really. She’s an accomplished scientist, a starship captain, and Taes can dance? And she can dance?!? And? And what else?

She moved across the stage in her costume so effortlessly, with such poise. The festival hall is such a massive stage, with the audience wrapped all around it, and Taes’s presence filled every inch. Her cultivated strength shone through. I hated her, but she also made me proud. Made me proud to be Starfleet.

As she transitioned into the bridge, Taes surprised me with a warble in her voice. That wasn’t how she rehearsed it. It was something new.

Chief Medical Officer Pimpinellifolia’s Log, restricted access.

The shelkvan sprouted an opportunity for the crew to grow together in community. Most every member of Constellation Squadron watched Taes perform from the hall or through the K’ritz transmission. Commander Calumn, for all his talents, would not have been as unifying. Rather than observing for entertainment, I assessed the captain on her recovery from the emotional distresses of the Dominion incursion and Frontier Day. It was a performance, I reflect, and she still showed growth.

There was a new fluidity to her movement. Her feet hardly whispered as they touched the stage. Taes achieved increased range in her facial expressions, especially as the song continued. The variety in tone, in her singing inflection, reached greater heights than I’ve heard in weeks. Even her choice to volunteer for the performance, that choice, was telling in itself.

Lieutenant Commander Nune’s Personal Log,

It was a slow start for Taes. She stepped onto stage as an artiste. I wouldn’t have guessed she had that much technique in her. Ultimately, it was likely to her benefit that she started so controlled, so precise. As she became comfortable and lost herself to her song and what it meant to her, her presence became magnetic. Every eye on the festival hall drank her up, as she won over the audience. Her sheer confidence in the finale was electric. By that final verse, I saw the wild Taes —- the one I haven’t seen since the body swap, when she could live without expectations. Simply live.

Commander Calumn’s Personal Log,

Taes didn’t hit the same high notes I would have done, but she didn’t do badly. She came in second place.

The acoustics in the festival hall were more favourable than anywhere we rehearsed on board Constellation or Almagest. DeVoglaer and Nune proved very accomplished in their set and lighting design. The back-up dancers made up for any of Taes’s shortcomings, but I’m impressed she remembered all the choreography. She sang with an appealing clarity, even through every pitch shift.

I’ve begun making arrangements aboard Almagest to receive a K’ritz delegation in twenty-four hours. Then the real work beings: we start negotiating our first treaty with the K’ritz. We’ve decided on a menu for dinner, but Taes and I are still arguing over what entertainment we’ll provide.

I insisted on no singing.