-— Counselor’s Office —-

Lieutenant Yuhiro Kolem studied the Commander, ”So we’re friends?”

“Stop saying it like it’s surprising, yes you and I are friends,” Adriana Cruz said.

”I just don’t have many, any, Commander friends,” Kolem said.

”Well you have one now, so stop making it weird, that’s an order. Just kidding, but honestly stop putting me on a pedestal, I put my uniform on the same way you do,” Cruz said.

Kolem sat down on her couch reserved for patients, and Cruz took the chair.

”Hume proposed,” she said, “yesterday on the holodeck.”

”And?” Cruz said.

”I said ’no’,” Kolem said.

”God I don’t know what I’d do if Nathanial proposed. Abandon ship maybe,” Cruz said.

“What’s it with men wanting to get married?” Kolem asked. She noted how comfortable the couch was, she might have to get one for her quarter which were still quite spartan as she had not yet decorated them. 

Adriana Cruz shrugged, “We are both with traditional like men. I think Hume would take Nathanial for a father any day, they both believe in Starfleet, and being father’s and a traditional family that they used to call the ‘nuclear’ family, from the nuclear age on Earth.”

”He just couldn’t get that my life’s goal wasn’t to marry him,” Kolem said.

”That’s because for him your story begins and ends with him. You meet Hume, marry Hume and then have his kids, all according to a script,” Cruz said, “I’m slowly getting Nathanial out of that mindset, but it’s hard work and no offense you’re not as… let’s call it bossy as me.”

”You also kissed Jara, that must have put him on notice,” Kolem said smiling. Lieutenant Jara the Strategic Operations Officer was not afraid to complicate things. Or at least she was willing to.

”We were drunk or whatever that radiation did to us, plus I think he liked that news,” Cruz said.

”Men love when ladies kiss,” Kolem nodded.

”That they do,” Cruz said then held up her hand, “I’m not kissing you.”

”I’ve got enough to worry about without cheating on Hume. I’ll need to assuage his ego for a few days,” Kolem said.

Cruz snorted to show what she thought of that. She assumed that Hume’s visiting them on the Holodeck the other day had been him talking to the Captain about his plans for marriage. It was pretty clear that whether the Captain had given good advice or not, William Hume had rushed into things blindly anyway and now was shocked that he was hurt.

”Do you want me to talk to him?” Cruz said.

”Nah, he’s not a danger to the ship or anything. Just acting out. He’d feel like I went to tattle to you instead of just having girl talk,” Kolem said.

“We should have a hobby, get Tashai and others involved,” the Commander said, “Maybe poker?”

“Poker is more of a gender neutral thing, plus everyone thinks I cheat,” Kolem said. Even though her abilities only allowed her to sense the emotional state of someone, the fact that technically that might help her realize if and when someone was bluffing had made her few attempts to play poker fraught.

“Some kind of exercise, leisure activity,” Commander Cruz mused as the pair continued their talk, trying to find something social for the senior officers to do that was not poker.

—- Engineering —-

The warp engines were running quite well despite having been pushed beyond the breaking point. Newly promoted Lieutenant Commander James Young watched them nervously knowing that he had already broken them once and plunged the entire ship into darkness with only backup emergency power to maintain them. With the Borg on the way, it had been harrowing trying to get things back working.

Now though everything was fine.

”You worry too much,” T’Rala said, the Assistant Chief Medical Officer spent almost as much time with him in engineering as she did in the medical bay. Even though they were now apparently, because he could not quite believe it, dating Young found it odd.

”Everything runs through this department,” Young said, “The air we breathe, the gravity holding us down. So I worry an appropriate amount.”

The Romulan doctor inclined her head, she seemed unconvinced by this argument but was not going to advance a theory that oxygen was overrated. She liked oxygen, but she also assumed that like a patient on her medical bed simply staring at the warp core was not making it work better. She knew that he hoped to spot something, find a small flaw that he could fix but between his work, Ensign Constable his Assistant Chief Engineering Officer and the rest of his team there was no hidden flaw.

“Five minutes then shift change, you need a break,” she said, “Doctor’s orders. I’ve watched you watch that drive for far too long.”

”Fine, but all my career I’ve been on California class ships, and now I’m in charge of a beautiful ship and I want to keep it going,” Young said.

”And you do, you got promoted because of what you’ve done, not out of pity,” T’Rala said, “so enjoy and take me out to show off your newest pip. Next stop is Commander.”

—- Strategic Operations Office —-

Lieutenant Eleanor Dorian looked up from her monitor, “Why are we keeping it so bloody dark in here.”

”I thought you liked it that was,” said her partner in Starfleet and the only other Strategic Operations Officer aboard the ship Lieutenant Claudia Jara.

“Computer raise lights twenty percent,” Dorian said.

“Two Class M planets, both pre-warp civilizations,” Jara said, pulling up what scans had detected so far. Most of exploration was looking at what the computer had collected, and little of it was going down to a pre-warp planet and blundering around the way that Starfleet used to do. The days of Ambassador Spock simply hiding his ears under a hat were long over.

Dorian nodded, “Third world. How about this one?”

”Last five rulers have been women, progressive,” Jara noted.

”Intercepted comms traffic and media broadcasts show that there’s only women,” Claudia said.

”My kind of place,” Jara joked, “Warp capable?”

”Invented warp before humans did, but don’t seem to make use of it,” Claudia said, “No traffic in the area, scans show older warp capable ships, but nothing on the level of the Seattle. Mostly comparable to runabouts.“

Jara nodded, “Want to swing by?”

”Might as well, let’s see what the Captain says,” Lieutenant Dorian said.

—- Ready Room —-

“Would you throw me over like that?” Hawthorne asked.

”I would hardly call Kolem saying ‘no’ throwing Hume over. But yes, I don’t want to marry you, or have kids,” Commander Cruz said.

“Ouch,” Hawthorne said.

Cruz shrugged, “Men, you can’t imagine that we want something other than a ring and a fancy dinner party. Look, I want a ship, and you want a ship. What kind of life is it if we’re both Captains?”

Hawthorne shrugged, “Lots of Captain’s do it. It’s how you get to build a life beyond Starfleet and still be in Starfleet. When you get your California class, you could do worse than me.”

”Not much,” joked Cruz. She came around the desk and sat on the Captain’s lap, as if he were Santa Claus, which she knew some human (mainly) children still believed in. As much stick as she gave him she liked him, he was smart and actually slowly learning how to be a better person who saw how privileged he was as yet another legacy officer in Starfleet.

”And I’m getting a Manticore Class,” Cruz said, “something with teeth.”

The door chimed letting them know that someone wanted in. Cruz stood up and went to sit on the normal ‘guest’ spot on the other side of the desk as Captain Nathanial Hawthorne signaled that whomever it was could come in. The two Strategic Operations officers along with the Stellar Cartographer came in.

“What do you have?” Hawthorne asked.

”Well if you’ll let us, our first stop,” Lieutenant Dorian said.

”It’s the third planet in the solar system, one of two class M worlds. We’re running scans of the second world now and should know more about it when we arrive,” Lieutenant Sone said.

“It is, and we’ll still studying it, either a matriarchy or entirely populated with women,” Lieutenant Jara said.

Cruz tilted her head, “Interesting, aside from the Orion syndicates, what other world’s do we know of that are matriarchal?”

“There are a few, but this is certainly unusual for how overwhelming female this planet it,” Dorian said, “we will know more by the time we arrive at the solar system.”

”Dangers?” Hawthorne asked.

”Unknown, but seems limited, they have a defense network on their planet that would be like spitting at the Seattle and hoping it exploded,” Lieutenant Jara said.

”Okay, Cruz have Pr‘Nor alter course for the world, let’s try to arrive by the day after tomorrow,” Hawthorne said, “Good job, let’s go see this matriarchy.”

The three Lieutenants nodded and left the room.

”You did good not to make any jokes there,” Cruz said getting up herself.Hawthorne smiled, “I just realize I live in a matriarchy. I’m outnumbered I can’t make jokes.”

“Don’t you forget it,“ Cruz said then left the Ready Room to give the Captain’s Orders to their Chief Flight Control Officer.

—- Counselors Quarters —-

“You do realize we didn’t beak up,” Kolem was mad, and Hume looked and felt ashamed. She could feel the guilt radiating off of him.

”I didn’t realize that,” Hume said.

”I was pretty clear I just didn’t want to get married, and then you sleep with Cortez?” Kolem said. It was pretty clear that William Hume had known that they had not broken up and had just used that to his advantage. Maybe he had not thought things through, but stung by her rejection of his marriage proposal he’d found comfort in the bed of a woman who would not reject him.

“I’m sorry,” Hume said, meaning it.

”That’s okay, I don’t care who you sleep with from now on,” Kolem said.

”You don’t?” Hume seemed to brighten.

”No because I’m actually breaking up with you, get out of my room,” Kolem said. As the ship’s Chief Counselor she felt the need to be the most centred and healthy one on the ship. But at the moment she felt devastated, as she had truly loved Hume and she knew that he had felt the same way about her, but had just screwed all that up.

“Look Yuhiro,” Hume started.

”Out, and it’s Lieutenant Kolem to you,” she said pulling rank on him.

Hume seemed to accept that he was done and nodded, exiting with a hiss of the door into the hallway. Kolem watched the door shut and then called her friend Commander Cruz. They needed to drink, or something.