The room was awash with buoyant emotions and a cacophony of jubilant voices. Loud music was once more filling the lounge, and as Tikva and Rachel threw themselves into the booth on opposite sides, singing accompanied it as well, quieting some of the voices, but raising others in accompaniment as well.

“How?” Rachel demanded as she settled, fetching her previously abandoned drink from the table and inspecting it briefly. “How are you still hitting those notes?”

“Practice, skill, natural talent,” Tikva answered as she bumped shoulders with the largest person in the booth, then resting her head on Adelinde’s shoulder for a brief continuance of the affectionate display. “Mostly practice.”

“Is it still the torture of constant scales and vocal range exercises? Seriously, don’t know how I didn’t strange her myself back at the Academy.” Rachel asked Adelinde over the rim of her vibrant and near-glowing drink.

“Only occasionally,” Adelinde answered with a slight smile. “I do have to suffer a constant level of serenading, but I figure someone would have to, yes?”

“Oh, tell me about it!” Rachel’s mocking tone came with the exaggerated waving of her hand. “Your partner constantly singing to you, how awful for you.”

“Especially when he hass ssuch a wonderful voice,” another voice, at the back of the booth, said. Speaking up for the first time since the return of Tikva and Rachel from their turn on the stage, W’a’le’ki was far more comfortable with her affections with the man she was leaning against than he was with receiving them.

And the slurring of the letter ‘s’, especially the double at the end and start of ‘has such’, was a sign of a combination of good drink and good times letting the young Irossian woman relax such that sibilant hissing crept back into her speech. While she smiled and leaned into Stirling, having captured his right arm, he was sitting as still as he could, looking the most uncomfortable that most present had ever seen him.

Which is to say marginally uncomfortable and potentially overlooked by most.

Rachel scoffed slightly. “You two are disgustingly cute,” she muttered towards W’a’le’ki and Stirling. “And far too good a duet as well. Seriously, Fightmaster, is there anything you can’t do?”

“I try to be prepared for all occasions,” Stirling said as flatly as he could muster, though not entirely unable to keep a slowly growing smile from his lips. “Though no longer having combat training with Atlantis’ Hazard Team has freed up a bit more time for practice with Ms W’a’le’ki.”

Rachel huffed. “Seriously, Bug, if your what is it now, flag lieutenant, gets transporter cloned or some nearby parallel dimension copy gets stuck here or whatever, I want him for Perseus.”

“And lose out on a trio?” Stirling shot back almost instantly.

It was W’a’le’ki’s turn to blush, the blue skin around her ruby facial scales darkening, turning a slight shade of purple.

Adelinde then jumped in, directing the conversation with a soft-spoken question. “I take it you two often went singing?” she asked of Rachel, giving Tikva a slight squeeze around the shoulders.

“Not often, but Bug here would drag the whole Fab Four out on a night at least once a term.”

“You kept dragging us out to pub quizzes,” Tikva countered.

“Because quizzes are fun,” Rachel replied. “You almost cost all of us Astro308.”

“Not my fault you wanted to keep singing till the sun came up.” Then Tikva sat up straight. “Oh shit, talking about time.”

“Canopus needs to skedaddle?”

“We have an hour,” Stirling answered, getting a ‘of course you know’ eye roll from both Tikva and Rachel.

“Captain Garland, Rachel,” Adelinde corrected quickly for the social setting. “Your background is engineering, particularly propulsion systems?”

“Yeah,” Rachel answered. Then stopped, setting her drink down and looking at Adelinde directly. “Why?”

“Then the Lieutenant and I should apologise before we take to the stage,” Adelinde said as she pushed Tikva gently out of the booth, freeing a path for herself and a quickly disentangling Stirling Fightmaster, who took the time to whisper something in W’a’s ear and a quick peck on the cheek before he vacated his seat.

As Adelinde and Stirling headed for the spot that those brave enough to take to the stage gathered, Tikva slid back in on Rachel’s side, bumping into her friend with a not inconsiderable force. “Before you ask, no, I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Neither do I,” W’a’le’ki said, leaning forward and watching after Stirling as he moved through the crowd. “Did you know they were planning something, Commodore?”

“Contrary to popular opinion, a ship’s master doesn’t actually know everything that happens aboard.”

“Speak for yourself, Bug,” Rachel spat out. “I know everything that happens on Perseus. Though, uh, Canopus is a fair bit bigger than Atlantis.”

“I’m starting to get used to it. An apartment for quarters. An actual arboretum that doesn’t feel like an afterthought.”

“A little teashop,” W’a’le’ki added.

“And the speakeasy off the promenade.”

“And the lounge with karaoke nights!”

Before Tikva and W’a’le’ki could keep going, the organiser for tonight’s festivities, one of the hospitality staff aboard Canopus, once more took to the stage.

“Alright folks! Got another duet for you all! Stirling back on the stage and for her first time ever, Commander Adelinde Gantzmann!” Cheers went up as both Adelinde and Stirling walked up, looking as relaxed as they ever did, collecting the mics available to them. “Oh, got a bit of a warning here, folks. If you’re in engineering, or technically minded, now’s your chance to cover your ears or run away screaming. Gathered souls of the good ship Canopus, let’s hear it for our local rendition of Kolar Blight’s Flaming Nacelle!”

“Who?” Tikva asked.

“What?” W’a’le’ki asked as well.

“Oh, fuck me,” Rachel complained, dropping her head into her hands. “No no no.”

“We need to do this more often,” Tikva said as she walked across the shuttlebay with Rachel, leading her to the one shuttle out of place on the deck.

“Yeah, was pretty fun, Bug.” Rachel stopped just out of earshot of her shuttle pilot, the young man waiting patiently beside the craft, ready to whisk Rachel back to Perseus. “Even with your girlfriend and chief minion torturing everyone.”

“Her singing wasn’t that bad.”

“Bug, singing isn’t one of her talents. Picked the right song for it, though. But singing, not her thing.” Rachel sized up her friend, then pulled her in for a hug. “You got some good people around you.”

“Always have,” Tivka replied, squeezing Rachel tightly, both of them releasing with unsaid synchronicity. “Next time we wow your crew?”

“Next time we meet up on DS47 and challenge everyone of commander and up to meet us on the stage.”

“I would bet real latnium that there are officers who would rather go face the Borg in melee combat than get up on a stage and sing with the rabble able to see them.” Tikva laughed at her own concept.

“Yeah, but none of them are as good looking as us,” Rachel quipped. “Right, get your fat-ass starship out of here and let me handle the Cordemi.”

“I would, if you’d get your ugly as shuttle out of my shuttlebay.” The banter and light insults held no weight. “Keep me appraised, won’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah, Commodore,” Rachel said with far too much emphasis on the rank. “Oh, what are you going to be doing in the meantime?”

“Oh, the Cordemi told us about another one of these pyramids we’ve all been running into lately. Fifteen light years away on a barren asteroid. Thought we might go take a look at it and see one of these things for myself in person.”

“Still feels like a DTI thing to me.” Rachel gave Tivka a wink. “Just don’t do anything I would do.”

“Uh, excuse me, that’s my line!” Tikva shouted back as Rachel started to walk way, waving her waiting officer into the shuttle. “My! Line!”

Rachel just stopped at the shuttle’s hatch, held up a hand with thumb and forefinger held near her eye, then squeezed them shut, squishing the little bug in her vision, before giving a hearty wave and stepping aboard, the door closing behind her quickly.

As the Perseus shuttle lifted off and exited the bay, a man stepped up beside Tikva. Stirling would have been a cool, refreshing presence. A stable point of restraint. No, this man had barely contained glee and a smile stretching his face when Tikva turned to face him.

“I hear some of our engineers are planning a mutiny,” Commander Regem Karas said. “Flaming Nacelle?”

“Anyone offended by tonight’s renditions are welcome to lodge their complaints directly with Commander Gantzmann and Lieutenant Fightmaster. And may the various gods of the galaxy have mercy on their souls.”

“I’ll let that be known. And indirectness will incur the Commodore’s displeasure?”

Tikva sighed. “Henceforth, Flaming Nacelle is banned from the karaoke rotation.”

“Good choice,” Regem agreed as he fell in beside Tikva as they departed the shuttlebay. “Course is plotted and we’re ready to go, now that Captain Garland has departed.”

“Good, good. Get us underway then. Oh, and Commander, next time, I want to see you on stage.”

“Not unless you want an actual mutiny, ma’am,” Regem laughed. “I have a singing voice you’d use to torture the Breen with. Now, a talent show, I’d be willing to do.”

“Oh, now there’s an idea!” Tikva stopped at the first intersection of corridors they got to, letting a gaggle of schoolchildren go running past like rogue torpedoes. “Right, go get us underway. I’m going to go find my chief troublemakers and have a word with both of them.”