Nathan Hawkthorne’s Captain’s Log: Our mission progresses successfully. I have given the senior staff time off today after we bonded over a game of baseball. I have allowed Assistant Chief to take over for their chiefs and fill out the duties around the ship. While the crew is young, this is about training the next generation of talent to trek through the stars. I hope the senior crew takes my directive seriously, and relaxes as the lower decks hold everything together.

[USS Anaheim – Holodeck 1]

“Is there any part of Andorian that’s not a frozen wasteland?” complained Doctor Michelle Mueller the Chief Medical Officer. They had not even adjusted the Holodeck’s temperature to what Andor was meant to be and she was already cold looking at all the snow. A winter wonderland was one thing, this was, well unpleasant.

Feeling a bit attacked by the suggestion Lieutenant Commander Kan Th’kaotross frowned pulling down the down hood on his coat, “It’s an ice planet.”

”The entire planet?” Mueller asked, dumbstruck by that.

”We didn’t all get to grow up on Earth like moneys,” he said.

The others looked between themselves, silently debating jumping in. For once even Pr’Nor held her silence. With the Captain on the bridge and Commander McCleod likely reading or avoiding what he’d taken to calling ‘the kids‘ they had decided some Holodeck bonding was in order. Sadly so far it was not, both Vulcan and Andor seemed too harsh for various reasons and Earth seemed too cliche.

Quickly wanting to be the peace maker, the Chief Councilor Yuhiro Kolem pipped up, “Risa, we can go to Risa.”

The two stopped fighting as they each considered it. Finally they both nodded as they accepted the wisdom of the idea. Risa was a vacation planet and while a Holodeck was not as good as the real thing, at least it was not Earth which everyone had ever been to already in real or simulated form.

”Our favorite Martian saved the day,” Lieutenant Commander Tashai the Chief Operations Officer said. She had taken to calling Kolem a Martian because she was from Mars colony and Tashai was old enough to be from a time when humans did not know about the rest of the galaxy. She found it funny that they’d come up with fictional aliens in their own solar system when such a thing was impossible.

The Holodeck changed from the snowy plains of Andor to a lush tropical paradise. The team‘s clothing then changed from down jackets and snow shoes to very thin materials that were perhaps a bit too revealing, and made Kolem grateful that there was not Human Resources Officer present. 

“Okay we’re just having fun, no more fighting, okay,” she said, trying to follow the spirit if not the letter of what the captain wanted. Granted he had not sent them to Risa (simulated or not) but he had told them to relax and have fun. Keeping the ship’s crew happy was her job, in a round about way, and the captain had the right instincts on this, even if other than Doctor Mueller nobody was being pressed to the breaking point. She had taken on a lot, and it was clear to Kolem that she was disappointed by not being made Second Officer, which effectively made her the third in charge of the ship. Not that Th’kaotross did not deserve it as well.

Pr’Nor, who had immediately marched over to a console and adjusted her own clothing to a Vulcan robe, nodded, “We understand Councilor. We will enjoy our enforced frivolity.”

”I hope there’s a pool,” Lieutenant James Young said.

”RIsa is famous for its natural pools,” Mueller said.

”More famous for other things, I think,” Th’kaotross said.

”But also natural pools,” Mueller said.

”Other things,” Th’kaotross snapped back.

The Doctor looked as if she were going to hit the much taller Andorian. To his credit it was Chief Engineer James Young who jumped in taking Th’kaotross off down a forested path looking for drinks and leaving the women senior staff alone.

”I take it the date didn’t go well,” Kolem observed.

“He’s just so, Andorian,” Mueller said.

”And you’re very German,” Kolem said.

”Now that you and your date are finished making it awkward, we should endeavor to find one of those pools,” Pr’Nor said, “And synthahol.”

”That was the worst invention in my life time,” Tashai observed, ranking it mentally above the killer robots on the Moon Colony that destroyed the armada that Admiral Picard had been working to assemble and save Romulus.

In a pool, which they found fairly easily, Kolem asked, “I take it that it’s going well between you two.”

Pr’Nor inclined her head impassively which Kolem took to be confirmation. The Vulcan and the El-Aurian shared a look, as if they had discussed just how public they wanted to be after dramatically kissing during yesterday’s baseball game, and Pr’Nor eventually said, “We are making sufficient progress to satisfy us.”

”Vulcan dating sounds easy, you just ignore it,” Mueller said.

”That is a mischaracterization,” Pr’Nor said.

Mueller seemed unconvinced so she paddled away and swam a lap. Kolem floated on her back and looked up at the sky, enjoying the feeling of heat which at least in this respect she agreed with Mueller, Andor would not have provided. She wished Hume was off-duty and not presumably on the bridge, as she’d like to show him Risa which was the modern adult orientated Disneyland like he’d shown her yesterday.

James Young and Th’kaotross returned holding a bevy of half coconuts, “We found drinks!”

”Real drinks,” asked Tashai.

”No, but they came in coconuts, do they have cocunuts on Risa?” he asked as the pair distributed them.

”The computer thinks they do,” Kolem said when it was discovered that not one of them had been to Risa. They all vowed, except for Pr’Nor, to travel there as soon as they had the chance and find out.

[USS Anaheim – Bridge]

Newly promoted Lieutenant Scchhttt’aaakkk cackled. Given the difficulties of a dolphin leaving his tank, the Chief Navigation Officer normally operated out of the Cetacean Operations center. Truthfully Captain Hawthorne had forgotten to give the Lieutenant the day off, or invite him to the baseball game but given the difficulty getting him in the bridge now it was not looking like Lieutenant Scchhttt’aaakkk would be joining them that often. 

The Captain had decided to run a simulation of an Orion pirate attack and was finding a dolphin distracting. He was however pleased with getting to run a war game, and Ensign Hume seemed competent filling in on Security and handling tactical duties. 

“Shields holding,” Hume reported as a simulated pirate unleashed phaser fire.

”Any injuries Doctor Va’Tok?” Hawthorne asked.

The Vulcan looked down at his readout, “Medical bay is reporting a few cuts and sprained body parts but nothing life threatening sir.”

”FIre all we have Mister Hume,” the Captain gave an order he had never been able to give under real circumstances. 

“Yes sir,” Hume said and a simulated spread of torpedoes and phase fire appeared on the screen destroying the simulated Orion pirate cruiser. Hawkthorne knew it was fake but he felt satisfied non-the-less. 

“Thank you all, reset the ship, Lieutenant Scchhttt’aaakkk thank you for joining us,” he said.

Scchhttt’aaakkk gave a series of clicks which translated to “You’re welcome sir“ and was off. Hawthorne was not sad to see him go. The Captain rose and called Ensign Hume into his Ready Room where he praised the Ensign and told him there were grand things on his horizon if he wanted them. It was the kind of speech he with he’d gotten from a CO, and he figured that mentoring a smart up and coming officer with a good background as with Hume was a good idea. The kid was smart, and his family lived and breathed Starfleet. Heck both his mother a Captain level and his sister were serving and his father had died in the Dominion War.

“Sir can I ask, what would you want your next post to be?” Hume asked.

Hawthorne mused, “Enterprise? No, that’s too ambitious, but I want to explore. We do good and vital work but I’d like to be pushing the frontiers of the Federation out rather than just handling these Doctors and acting as a glorified taxi driver.”

Hume nodded, “Well you’ll get it one day sir. We’re doing great and Command will eventually notice.”

Hawthorne smiled, “Well until then thank you for your contribution yesterday. You did darn well at baseball.”

”No I didn’t I had a ringer and we still lost, but I appreciate the praise,” Hume said.

”I have some correspondence to do Ensign, dismissed,” Hawthorne said eventually, sending Hume back to the bridge. Once the Ensign had departed the ready room he sat down and wrote letters to those members of his family he was in touch with, as well as a few friends. Then he departed the bridge and headed to his own quarters to rest himself and prepare for the not exciting next day.

Soon the medical teams would be done, and they would return to a starbase to restock and prepare for what was next. Then they’d do this all over again, at least until he was either given a new command or retired. Both seemed just as likely at this point, though he had enjoyed musing on brighter futures with Mister Hume, however brief and however unlikely.