<snip just the headers>

Claude sat down carefully placing his tray on the table as to not spill his tea. “Yes, Yes I did.” he replied, “I needed to get out of the lab. I realized after looking at the chronometer that I had not eaten in some time.”

As he spoke he realized that he had just started talking, and not even introduced himself. His social skills were truly eroding once he transferred to the Ark Angel. After wiping his hand on a napkin, he stood for a moment and extended his hand. “I am Claude Genard, I’m one of the General Scientists. Please excuse me for not introducing myself previously. Also, Thank you for allowing me to join you.”

• Lt. Genard

Telana smiled at the gallantry of standing to introduce himself. She was fond of manners—it was one thing she really liked about Andone—the woman was calm and polite. She took his hand and gave it a shake. “Nice to meet you, Ensign Genard, general scientist. I am Telana Bray, first officer.” The mention of her position wasn’t done to make him feel awkward. Bray was simply giving him the same information about herself that he’d chosen to introduce himself with.

She gave a nod towards his chair, silently asking him to sit once again. “I find looking out at space to be relaxing, so I often come here when I need to think.”

—Bray, XO

Charra entered the 17 forward and stopped for a moment. Seeing so many stars that the view had, as well as so many officers at once, and she stumbled a bit. Ordering a mocha and some food, she continued to scan the room, looking for a place to sit. After her tray is handed to her, she stood and stared in quiet.

Ensign Charra Lana, medical officer

Flint saw his colleague enter in the distance and looking a little lost after receiving her tray.

He waved his hand in the air as to catch her attention and motion her to his area, a stool next to him was vacant.

“Like me, she might need a pickup…” he thought to himself.

• Ensign Locke, Medical Officer

As the doors swished open to the crowded lounge, Riley realized that he likely wasn’t the only one seeking comfort, relaxation, or familiarity after today’s events. He paused, taking in the variety of crew assembled. He spotted Claude among the sea of unfamiliar faces, but he was seated with… was that the XO? He refocused his attention on the port side bar and made his way there.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked, and Riley almost laughed at how nearly every bartender he’d ever met used that exact phrase.

“Centaurian brandy, neat, please,” he responded, strumming his fingers on the bar top.

The bartender turned and squatted at a cabinet behind the bar, opening it and shuffling some bottles. Riley expected him to use a replicator, so this surprised him. “I have an ‘84 and an ‘86,” the man replied, standing with the two bottles, setting them on the bar and retrieving a highball glass.

Matthew looked at the two bottles for a moment. “‘84, please.”

The barman opened the specified bottle and poured a practiced measure into the glass, sliding it across to the ensign. He started capping the bottle, and Riley slammed the drink back, gulping it down. He got none of the flavors he enjoyed from the drink so much, but the gentle burn as it made its way down his throat soothed him. The bartender raised an eyebrow.

“The ’84s are strong, but it wasn’t a great flavor year,” Riley said, setting the glass down. “Now, ‘86 on the other hand, was a great year for flavor.” He pushed the glass forward, and the bartender switched bottles, pouring the new drink. Riley lifted this one and took a small sip, letting the liquid remain in his mouth for a moment, spilling across his tongue before swallowing. He sighed. “Yeah. That’s… beautiful. Thank you.”

The bartender began putting away the bottles and Riley looked out across the room, then wound his way to the nearby stairs to the upper deck, taking a spot leaning his forearms on the railing overlooking the lounge below and the huge windows out into space. He tried not to look at the unknown stars, but he couldn’t, and the expanse out there seemed to stretch before him. He closed his eyes and sipped the drink, then watched the people below as he cradled the glass in both hands.

Ensign Riley, Science

Today had been a long day, and Sharah wanted nothing more than to go home. First Q, then everything that came with it afterwards, the staff meeting, the shuttle bay, and then meeting with Drudoc. But today was not a day to be selfish. One of her jobs as a department head was to make sure her staff was not only fit for duty but was fit outside of duty as well. She smiled slightly thinking of Lt Mika. She was always available off hours to the cadets she was responsible for and even those she wasn’t. Dr. Zarath, on the Europa, was as well. Sharah wanted to be like them as a department head. So with that in mind, she headed to 17 Forward. She sent Joseph a note so he’d know where she would be and he could join her, if and when his duties allowed him. Otherwise she’d see him later.

She entered the upper part of the lounge and looked around. She made her way around towards the replicators, not in any hurry. She stopped to talk to anyone from her department and anyone else she knew, even if only briefly. She even knew some of the security officers. A couple asking her where Lt Rainns was, but unlike the security cadets on Challenger, their question was genuine. Stopping at a replicator she ordered an uttaberry juice. Like many in the lounge that night, she was thinking of family she may never see again. It was an almost overwhelming sense of melancholy among the hundreds, thousands, of unguarded thoughts and emotions making up the mental sea of the ship. Sharah breathed and rose above it looking at the crew with clear eyes. Sad yes, scared yes, but their situation was not hopeless. She continued to move around the room. She saw Genard with the XO on the level below and smiled. It didn’t surprise her that he was willing to approach the XO, she was just another person to him. She liked him, he was an amazing science officer and she had no regrets about putting him in charge of the general labs. Which brought her to Riley. She looked around and spotted him on the other side of the upper deck and made her way over. He was fresh from the academy and she didn’t regret putting him in charge of astrometrics either. She walked over towards him. “Not the assignment you expect when graduating the academy is it?” And where was his ever faithful stylus?
Lt. jg Fayth, CSO

In another circumstance, Riley would have stood to attention, but the alcohol had relaxed him, without making him drunk just yet. He raised his glass slightly to Fayth. “Hey Boss.” He took a small sip of the amber liquid. “Not precisely, no.” He gave a small chuckle. “Not sure anything at the Academy could have prepared me for…” He gestured across the room with the glass, mostly toward the windows. “…this.”

He rolled the glass between the palms of his hands, staring at it, still leaning on the rail, before he finally looked at the stars. “Part of me is excited. We’re going to see things here that won’t even be visible to our galaxy for thirty-two billion years. This is the literal final frontier, the very edge of the known universe - we may even be able to see what’s beyond this, if there even is anything else out there. We have the opportunity to quite literally expand scientific knowledge.”

He turned his back to the wall of windows and leaned his lower back against the rail overlooking the floor below. “Doesn’t do much good when no one else will ever know.” He sipped the drink again, eyes looking at the back wall, but focused on nothing.

“It’s not even that I’m missing anyone in particular,” he spoke again after a moment. “It’s more of a… an existential dread.” He furrowed his brow. “I’ve never had that before, but that’s the best way I can describe this. I -“ He suddenly stopped and looked at Sharah. “Sorry, Boss. I tend to ramble when I drink. Well, I tend to ramble when I don’t drink, too. Huh. Maybe I just tend to ramble all the time.”

He sipped his drink again, staring at the wall. I wanted to be alone, he thought, but not really. So thanks, Boss.

• Ensign Riley, Science

Oh it was so hard to know when non-telepaths actually meant for their thoughts to be heard or not. And it was directed right at her. But Sharah had many years to learn to school her expression. It often surprised non-telepaths how clearly they sent their thoughts out. She supposed many people felt the same way tonight. The need to be alone, but not really. So they come to the lounge, where everyone else is, but don’t have to talk, but most end up doing so. “First, we’re off duty. It’s Sharah or Fayth if you prefer.” It always took her by surprise every time Riley called her ‘Boss.’ She just wasn’t used to it yet. “And you never know. Messages travel faster than we can, so it may take awhile, but everyone back home will know what we’ve done. And as you pointed out earlier it is quite possible that there are more advanced civilizations out here that will be willing to help us. Or we have a ship full of brilliant minds, we might just do it on our own. Look at how you managed to figure out where we were without any actual star maps and passive scans. Or Genard and Weir working on that asteroid and reconfiguring how our power supplies work.” She was rambling and starting to speed talk. “Not to mention the civilian staff. Brilliant ideas, the lot of them. Working on a star ship, but never joining Star Fleet. I don’t get that. Work for and with an organization but not join it. Of course they aren’t limited to all our rules and regulations I guess. Down in the hydroponics bay they were making jokes about something from an old Earth movie. Whole meals the size of a pill, add water, and an instant meal. They are trying to figure out how to make it work, so we can store more rations. The chemists are even talking about making pills for medications because they store longer than the liquid bases we make for hyposprays. And I haven’t even talked to anyone in engineering yet, so there is no telling what they have come up with.” Sharah stopped abruptly, she’d been rambling and speed talking–again. At least she’d managed to say everything out loud this time. She took a sip of her drink, “Don’t worry Riley, you aren’t the only one who rambles. As for the dread, take a deep breath. It won’t go away, but it can drive us.”
Lt jg Fayth, CSO

Matthew took a deep breath, like she told him to. “Sharah it is,” he acknowledged, raising his glass. He sipped, rolling the fluid across his tongue before swallowing.

He was silent for a few seconds before he continued. “Subspace radio travels about 25 light years or so before it drops to light speed, without a subspace relay. Daystrom has been trying to improve that, using Borg transwarp tech, but the power requirements are enormous. We did some experiments when I was at ACU that went nowhere.”

“I heard one time that Benjamin Franklin tested over 3,000 different ways to make a light bulb. But instead of failure each was simply one more wrong solution crossed off till he found the right way. The number may be exaggerated by history, but his mind set is still correct no matter how many times it actually took him to find the right combination.” She tapped a finger against her glass thinking, “Oh what’s that other one....?” She glances out the window, none of the star clusters looking familiar. As Riley said the lights they were seeing would take billions of years to reach the Alpha quadrant, and that long for the lights from home to reach them. “Ah, necessity is the mother of invention. Another Earth quote a friend of mine was fond of quoting. One of those Ancient Greeks from Earth, Plato I think. We have plenty of necessity out here.”

He suddenly smiled. “But optimistic thoughts, like you said.” He frowned. “Or at least implied. We do have a great civilian crew,” he punctuated with a gesture with his pointer finger holding the glass. “The civvies in astrometric are fantastic. That’s almost the route I took,” he said. “Civilian scientist. Did you know I have two doctorates? I just couldn’t see myself doing research. I wanted the excitement of actually being out in the stars.”

He finished his drink. “Maybe too exciting,” he laughed. “So tell me, how do they make a meal in a pill? That just sounds… different? That’s the best word I can come up with right now.”

He turned to face her, elbow on the rail, still clutching the empty glass.

• Ensign Riley, Science

“I had seen that in your file. We’re lucky to have you here. Now, with all that expertise, instead of research you’ll get to have hands on trial and error of your theories and hypotheses. Applied skills. I understand. It’s why I became a practicing doctor instead of working in a lab.” She laughs, but there is no joy in it. “Ironic though, it was my research skills that landed me here and in science instead of medical. I won’t lie, I dreaded coming to Ark Angel. Giving up being a practicing doctor, but you know what, despite this detour, it’s the best thing that happened for me. And we may find, that this trip is the best thing that ever happened to us.” She looks out the window again. “Sorry, I’m not usually the philosophical type. But throughout my life I found it’s better to focus on the good that comes, than the negative.”

“As for food in a pill. It was something about a show called ‘The Jetsons.’ I’m not really clear on how it works. I’m not sure it would work. They may have just been blowing off steam, but I suppose crazier ideas have worked. Maybe protein powder in a capsule? I’m really not sure. Seems like a lot of work for something that would probably not be feasible, but they may surprise us.”
Lt. jg Fayth, CSO

Riley mulled over her words, rolling his head from side to side. He stopped suddenly, his brow furrowing.

“Wait. You’re a doctor?” He opened and closed his mouth, then again. “Huh.” He shook his head and waved his hand. “No. Not important. Yes it is.” He tilted his head and looked at her. “No, never mind.” He slumped against the railing. “Normally, I’m pretty optimistic. But there’s just… so much to overcome here. It’s like… trying to put out a fire with a kiss.”

Sharah did laugh, “I though everyone knew that. Medical and botanical sciences are my specialty. Go ahead, you’ve got a question, ask it. It’s okay.” Put out a fire with a kiss? Yeah that would be pretty useless. “You don’t put a fire out at the top, but at the base where the fuel is. We focus there and then slowly the fire comes under control.”

He put the empty glass on the tray of a passing server. “I’ll be fine,” he said. He half laughed. “I’ll be fine,” he repeated, coaching himself. He looked at her again. “Never take the easy path. Always strive for better. I’ll keep repeating that. It’s what I told myself at the Academy.”

“You didn’t by chance know a Cmdr Ballaris at the Academy did you?” Ballaris had always said something similar to her during their counseling sessions, oh that was personal....”Wait never mind, don’t answer that question. I’m not allowed to ask that as your DH. But it’s a very good mantra to remember.”

He straightened, now only a hand on the railing. “You seem to know more than I do about old Earth. Who are the Jetsons?”

• Ensign Riley, Science

Sharah shook her head, “Actually I don’t know much at all about old Earth. Just a few things I picked up here and there while I was doing research there. As for the Jetsons, I have absolutely no idea.” She finished her drink, and looked around. “I think half the crew is in here tonight.”
Lt. jg Fayth, CSO

“Ballaris?” Riley screwed up his face, eyes swishing from side to side, then shrugged. “Can’t say as I have. But yeah. It was a good mantra. Simple, to the point, makes you think of broader ideals.”

He glanced around the room. “I spotted Claude with the XO. He would be the kind to hob-knob,” he laughed. “I think everyone needs… a break. A getaway, just for a moment.” He stared out the window. “Stop thinking about what’s there for just a bit.” He shrugged and looked back at her. “Should we go crash their table?”

• Ensign Riley, Science