Personal Logs: Kermit, Elizabeth L

Holodeck Short Stories
1

A Compartment Built For Two


"You sure about this?" Davin was a pace or two behind Lir with a canvas sack tossed over his shoulder, black fabric bulging with Lir's belongings. "No way I can keep you on D'Ishae? I'll get you an epohh. Ten epohh." He smiled, but it was perfectly obvious to Lir that he was only half joking.
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"I'm sure," Lir said. She wished she could say the same for the door code, though. Tap tap tap tap. Denied. Tap tap tap tap. Nothing. Tap tap tap... tap. The indicator suddenly flashed green, and the door slid open, much to Lir's delight. "Just throw that on the bed, I'm not even going to pretend to unpack yet."

Davin followed a few paces behind as Lir ventured into the half lit cabin, the computer raising the brightness for its occupants. "I kind of figured this would happen sooner or later," He said as the heavy bag dropped onto the bed at the far end of the space. His smirk did a commendable job of shielding his real feelings, but Lir saw the pain there. "You'd meet some cute alien boy, hit it off, and that's the last I see of you."

"Please," Lir said, though she could feel the first hints of a knot in her throat. "You spend more time on Thirteen than in your quarters." Whatever the truth may have been, though, Lir was on top of Davin before he could reply, arms around him.

"Just be safe, okay?" Now there was no hiding it, that tremble in his tones. "Promise me you'll be safe."

Too polite to look, Lir knew well enough what would greet her if she did. "I will."

They held each other close and waited until either could speak again.
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2
Square One

She knew the look. She used to expect it at times; on the Floatilla, on New Romulus. But this was home. This was DS13, or one of its outer docking rings at least. But these were the Floatilla repair teams. Romulans that didn't know her, Romulans that hadn't accepted her as D'Ishae's crew had. They all looked at her the same way, and she knew perfectly well what they were all too 'polite' to say. Human.
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"What do you mean, 'no'?" Lir stood her ground, a practiced stance honed by years of dealing with Romulans. All the posturing Kaeth had to was glance at her forehead.

"We have the situation well in hand, Callahan." His words dripped with a poison almost tasteless, a contempt so casual it was almost hard to notice. But Lir noticed. "Anarhai's battery reserves will not give out before we have the new core online."

"But if we tie into the stations power supply-"

A raised hand cut her off, and Lir seethed quietly under Kaeth's gentle glare. "It would be a waste of time. Besides, we would need a converter array to get any useful energy out of electroplasma."

"No, we just need to run it through-"

Again Kaeth cut her off. "I'm sure you are quite well versed with Federation systems, Callahan, but we are repairing a Romulan vessel. I think a Romulan engineering team would know best in this matter."

And there it was, laid bare for the half-dozen other Floatilla engineers crowded into the T'Varo's tight workspace. It was a powergrab by Centurion Kaeth, a jab at Lir's competence, a way to berate her in front of his team. Word would spread through the rest of the teams, Lir was sure of it, and by tomorrow none of the engineers would listen to a word she said.

Lir knew what she had to do. It wasn't going to be pretty, or gentle, but at this point she no longer cared.

"Centurion Callahan," she said flatly.

"I beg your pardon," Kaeth said, absolutely not begging. "It is highly unusual for equals to-"

And now it was Kaeth's turn to be cut off. "Chief, then. Or did you forget I'm acting chief engineer?"

"The key word being acting," Kaeth retorted with effortless condescension.

Lir fumed. Generally, her human heritage let her control her wilder emotions. Generally, in times of stress, she was more level-headed than the pure Romulans around her. This was not one of those times. Kaeth was out of line. He was petty, and vain, and very much pushing Lir's buttons on purpose.

He was not prepared for a slap in the face, and it sent him reeling. "You simpering little susse'thrai!" Lir stalked forward, poised for another strike. The sudden and complete reversal of his fortunes left Kaeth cowed into a disbelieving retreat. "You will obey my orders, or so help me I will feed you your own hands!"

The room was suddenly very quiet. Kaeth stared dumbly at the frothing, red-headed avatar of fury that had replaced the human he had been until recently so handily toying with. Her hair lay in tangles over her face, scrunchy dislodged at some point in her outburst, blue eyes wide and wild and fixated only on him.

"I, ah, y-yes, yes Chief!" Kaeth was suddenly at perfect attention, his cheek starting to turn green-grey with a growing bruise. "I will see that we interface with the Federation stations power grid. Immediately!"

And like some sort of magic Lir was all smiles. She set about fixing her ponytail with an easy practice, giggling softly into the uneasy air.

"Thank you. Run the electroplasma through the warp nacelles overflow buffer. You'll need to invert the plasma regulators though. Manually, if these engines are as old as they look."

"Yes, Chief!"

"Good boy. Then you can start power-cycling the ships systems while you're initializing the core. It's gonna save us, like, five hours of work." The grin she have Kaeth was terrifying only in contrast to the fury she had so recently visited upon him. And once she was gone, having bound out of the room with a spring in her step, the engineers were left to wonder what it was they had just witnessed.

And word would spread.
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3
Girls Night

"Ohmygosh, you have no idea how long I've wanted to do this!" The Lir in the mirror, looming over the uncertain looking Romulan woman, was all smiles.
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"To me?" Divan tried to bring a hand up to her hair but Lir smacked it back down beneath the barbers smock around her neck.

"Aurelia, actually," Lir said as she rummaged through her bag, "but you're close enough."

"Please don't say that."

The clatter of plastic and the chatter of glass stopped for a moment. "Oh, pfft, calm down. You've both just got that 'Romulan contrast' thing going, dark hair and light skin. I've been dying to play with it!"

A nervous chuckle rose from Divan, though she kept her eyes focused on her reflection, and Lir's in the mirror. What was she doing back there? What was in that bag? The answer came quickly. Lir emerged from the bag and swept her hands across the counter in front of Divan, laying our two neat rows of vials, ampoules, and other, more nebulous vessels. Each contained a brightly colored paste or powder, seemingly accounting for every possible wavelength of visible light.

Divan was about to mouth some protest when the back of her chair fell away. She tried to stay upright, and to stifle the startled yelp she let loose, but Lir's hand pushed her back until she lay flat. Some warm wetness lay under her head, adding weight to her loose tangle of hair.

"Uhm, Lir? What, ahh, did you say this was again?"

Lir stepped back into the frame of Divan's vision, a looming, smiling figure clutching some bizarre, unknown instrument in one hand and a tall bottle in the other. "The first step in your makeover!"Lir leaned in, her smile only growing. "Conditioning. Now hold still..."

Divan took a nervous gulp and closed her eyes.
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4
Refresher

"Ugh! Stupid competencies..."

A finger twirled the end of her ponytail, round and round, over and over, like a little flicker of flame between her fingers. Her other hand worked the display in front of her. Scroll, pause, tap-tap-tap, on to the next.
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"Rrrrr... This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't the same basic equivalency exam I took eight years ago. Warp equation, sensor calibrations, LCARS comprehension... How can you not comprehend LCARS?"

DOO-DEET! "The LCARS interface is-"

"Shut up, computer! The question was rhetorical!" A huff and a little hair twirling soothed her grated nerves, and she's back to the tedium of data entry. Working through the equations and questions screen after screen, settling into the rythm of the test, the motions becoming almost automatic.

"I am Lir, of Borg," she says with a snort at the height of her boredom. "All your test are belong to us." Tap-tap-tap. Scroll. "Your choice to arrange the sum of your knowledge in delineated multiple choice and short answer form will make your assimilation far more efficient."

Tap-tap-tap. Scroll. Subspace harmonics. Simple. Radiation identification? Cake. Starfleet ethics? Elementary. And then the test was over, with a little multilingual thank you note from Admiral Quinn to all those that had to renew their credentials. Lir gave it a quick smile, scrolled to the end, and pressed 'finalize'.

"Aaand that takes care of that."
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5
A Family Affair

The screen opened on an empty Starbase dormitory, a double judging from the breadth of it. Not that it stayed empty for long, though. After a moment of recording a red-headed Romulan threw herself into the desk chair sitting center-frame, sending it gliding lazily stage right.
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"Okay! So, Elizabeth Liraena Callahan, personal log, entry numbeeeer... ugh, I'm so bad at this, five? Four? Five? Five. Entry five. Anyway!" She threw her hands up, and spun her chair in a circle in front of her desk, stopping herself when she came to face the camera.

"Orders just came in. Apparently yours truly has been tapped as part of a special team to coordinate mutual defense plans between New Romulus and Starbase two-thirty-four. Huh. I wonder who could have nominated me for that." A hand went to her chin in mock-ponderance. "Surely not good Captain Kyle Callahan of the U.S.S Lawrence. He would never use a crisis as an excuse for a family reunion."

"So I'm going to be spending a week or two on New Romulus with Dad and the angry foreheads of the Romulan brass. I guess the Iconian situation has everybody pretty on edge. But it will be nice to see Mom again, at least. Last I heard, she was working subspace theory on that gateway they found in those old Dewan ruins. I'm guessing we'll find time for a Callahan family excursion or two while we're all planetside."

"And this time, I'm not leaving without an eppoh. Callahan out."
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6
H.P. Lovecrafts The Call Of Callahan

At first the video was dark. Then darkness gave way to light momentarily blinding in the instant before finding a dim middle ground. The enclosure consisted of three smooth metal walls, a similar ceiling, and housed one nervous looking red-head.
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"Okay, so... Personal log, E. Lir Callahan, sixth and possibly final entry." There is a pause as the camera shifts, it's already too close perspective only getting closer to her face. "I am recording this under my desk, and I am doing that because there are things coming out of the replicators and Kermit doesn't want me to have any weapons in our quarters. I, uhh, can't honestly blame him for that."

A noise, barely audible on the recording, seems to catch the woman's ear and she turns her face to the open side of the desk. Her focus lingers outside the confines of the cubicle for a few long moments before she turns back to the camera. "So, uhm, yeah. The replicators have been pumping out this weird biomass, seemingly at random. It is alive as far as I can tell, and it's just a little corrosive. Now that's fine when there isn't much of it, but when you're dealing with half a cubic meter of acid goop you are really going to want a tetryon pulse emitter in the house!"

Again her attention drifts out of the underdesk. There is a voice, male but largely inaudible, calling from somewhere somewhat close. "No, I am not being passive aggressive, I am being active, uhm... Actively aggressive? Or maybe that's just the regular kind of aggress- anyway." Straightening her bangs is difficult in the tight squeeze under the desk, but the task is not impossible. "So, yeah, speaking of that. In the increasingly likely scenario that I die in this cozy little double dormitory, someone should probably know that these things generate a tetryon field. It's like their own little structural integrity field to hold in their goo, and it makes them vulnerable to bursts of concentrated tetryons. Disrupt that, and they go all puddle."

The male voice in the distance called out again. The tone seemed weary, and the words were again lost to the recording, but Lir seemed to hear them just fine.

"Yeah, I'm coming... But if we get killed in our sleep I'm blaming you." There is a great shuffling, noise and blurred colors making the video nearly incomprehensible until the camera comes to rest on top of the desk. "Alright. Computer, end recording."
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7
A Deeper, Darker Ocean

Most nights they would be lounging on the couch, watching something mindless. The drama of the day, or a sitcom, or the news. They watched the news less and less lately with the war on. It tended to be bleak, and felt too much like bringing work back to their cozy double dormitory.

Tonight was not like most nights. James was gone.
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That left Lir alone on a couch that seemed too big and too empty, a blanket wrapped too tightly around herself and Ensign Flopsy, the giant stuffed epohh. Lir had called up an old horror film from DS13's database. It let her worry about someone else for a while, one of the ever-dwindling cast of teenagers struggling to escape the badly dressed killer that haunted their dreams.

There was comfort in the film, too. Most of it came from nostalgia, remembering nights spent up late with Dad. They would munch on popcorn as the 1970's did their best to give them nightmares. When the creep show ended they would slink upstairs well past their bedtimes, though they were never quiet enough to slip past Mom undetected. And when the darkness kept Lir awake Dad would leave a light on just for her, even when Mom said she ought to face her fears.

"She will," he would always say. "And she'll make 'em sorry they ever crossed her."

The credits rolled. Lir slowly eased up her death grip on the long-suffering Ensign Flopsy. The climax of the film repeated itself in her mind, the final scenes of the heroine doing battle with the killer. It was no sprint through the woods; she had made him fight on her terms, fought him at every step, and in the end she had triumphed against impossible odds.

...Mostly. The epilogue did leave room for the dozen sequels she tended to ignore.

"Ensign," Lir said, turning the stuffed epohh in her lap, "I think we need a more decisive climax, don't you?" The alien rabbit nodded, with only a little bit of assistance from Lir's hand. "Then it's settled."

"Computer, play 'Alien' by Ridley Scott. Directors cut."
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8
Caroling

"Jingle bells, jingle bells-"

"Next!" Lir shrugged. Her near-offensively pink jacket lay tossed over her desk while she tended to the tree that dominated the far corner of the room. Her efforts to recode the placement and orientation of the holographic ornaments on the simulated pine never seemed quite right, so she had opted for a more manual approach. The early results were promising, but without the right music it was hard to really judge her efforts.
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"Siiiilent ni-"

"No." The music went silent, leaving Lir to reposition a handful of tiny glass balls topped with metal hooks in silence. "Let's try... fourty percent less solemn."

The computer chimed. Lirs attention shifted to a little wooden sled on a red string. The piece looked well worn, paint flaking in places. It was just like the original piece from her childhood holidays in New York, tucked away in a valley among the rolling blue mountains.

"Christmas time is here,
Happiness and cheer-"

"No no no! That was at least as gloomy. Seriously computer, step up your game."

"Launching game: Step Up-"

Lir rounded on the rooms main computer panel, a small black rectangle by her desk freckled with blinking lights. "Don't you even!" The computer chimed, two tones followed by a grinding dissonant screech. "That's better. Okay. Let's try something more... Jazzy?" The Computer took a moment to process that. Lir, now almost thankful for the quiet, reached into the prickly pines of the evergreen.

She came away with a little red ragdoll, its face a hard plastic molded with pointed ears and an impish grin on its child like face. "What is this even... Ah well." She tossed the odd ornament over her shoulder, far enough from the holoemitter for it to de-rezz.

"I really can't staaay-"
"But baby its cold outs-"

"Ugh, no!" The music ended as abruptly as it had started. "She said no, whats not to get?"

"Clarification: Please restate query."

Lir rolled her eyes. "Nothing, computer. I just don't understand what a song about pressuring a woman into sex has to do with a holiday."

"Records indicate numerous traditions-"

"Not a question, computer!" Lir breathed a sigh and turned to sit with her back to the tree, facing the computer panel. "Sometimes I wonder if you would really pass a Turing test... Okay. Just put on some My Chemical Romance and call it a night."

"Compiling..."

"Hear the sound,
The angels come screaming..."
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9
Cabin Fever

They say no good can come from a Romulans feverish work over a workbench.

Or at least they might if they could see Lir Callahan.
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“Ooh, I'd hate to beat you again,” she muttered in mocking tones as she brought her quantum calibrator down onto the isolinear chip beneath her desks magnifier. “Pssh. See how that smug self satisfaction holds up when your cortical processor’s getting its firmware flashed, won't we?” The quantum calibrator was set aside in favor of a tricorder, it's screen scrolling code. Nimble fingers tapped narrow keys, and the chips diodes pulsed.

The endless possibilities played out in her head. She could reset that borg captains optical processors to interpret everyone she sees as giant eppohs. A little tweak to her auditory inputs and all she would ever hear again would be that old Earth song that seemed to haunt James. Or maybe she could just turn a few things off? Not forever, but long enough to scare. Long enough to prove a point.

The chip slid into her tricorder with a satisfying click. A liberated borg master key, as yet untested. Now all she had to do was find that captains transponder signal, bypass her lingering security systems, and… and…

“...Am I really doing this?” Her eyes drift from the workbench before her to the window of her cabana, and the pristine Risian beaches beyond. A fresh set of possibilities played out in her mind. Lir taking a swim. Lir having a drink with James. Lir tearing that isolinear chip from her tricorder and hurling it into the water with all her strength. A glance at the chronometer on her desk told her she had already devoted over three hours to the task of spiting someone who had slighted her in a friendly competition. It was nothing more than an off-handed comment, and yet here she was, bringing her literal machinations to fruition.

She shook her head in silence, let slip a nervous chuckle. This was crazy. There was no way she would let some petty comment ruin her vacation, much less drive her to assault the mind of a Starfleet Captain. No, the best course of action was a stiff drink and maybe a burger at one of the 'Genuine Earth Cuisine!’ restaurants around the resort.

Lirs eyes lingered on the window, even as she shoved herself away from her desk. She took a steadying breath, ran her fingers through her hair, and walked out the door of her cabana.

...But not before sliding her modified tricorder into the pocket of her shorts.
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10
Vintage

"Eeeeeee!" To say that Liz was ecstatic might be a bit of an understatement. "NCC Nineteen-Oh-Two! The Proteus! When I was a kid I always thought I might find the wreck some day, but it's here! Now! Intact!" The Lieutenant nearly bounced out of her seat in her excitement. Even sitting to record her log seemed a strenuous effort.
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"And not just intact! Operational! Fully crewed! Temporally displaced or something, I don't know, I was only kind of half listening because literally a Ranger class cruiser!" A kick of her leg sent her chair spinning, once around, twice, until a foot dragging across her floor stopped her in place. "It's like those old holo's of the Enterprise, but real! I mean, yeah, it's kind of a nightmare trying to fix components that are outmoded past their sesquicentennial with modern tech, but the ship is... It's..."

Grasping for a suitable comparison finally proved taxing enough that Liz gained some degree of actual stillness, her bouncing in place coming to a slow halt. "It's like... If the NX at the Archer museum is like those old twentieth century taxedermied animals, the Proteus is like being at the zoo!" She grinned at that, at least until she registered what she had just said. "...Oh god, I just called the whole crew of that ship zoo animals. Okay, that metaphor needs work... But in my defense, so does the Proteus crew! I mean it's like they'd never seen a woman in pants before. Although I guess with those old school uniforms that might actually be a possibility, huh?"

Liz leaned back in her seat, blowing a few rebellious strands of hair out of her face. "I guess it's just a matter of romanticising the past, isn't it? Looking back to when space was just starting to be explored, wondering how we did what we did with the technology we had, the limitations of our knowledge... We see so much glamour in the journey we forget how far we've actually come...

"...Was still kind of funny to watch them all freak out when I said I was half Romulan, though. Heh. Computer, end recording."
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11
Rough Draft
Enhanced Operational Procedures For Solanae Translocation Through The Controlled Compression Of Subspace
Elizabeth Liraena Callahan

Among the advances discovered in researching the Solanae Dyson Sphere, none seemed to hold more promise than the spheres subspace compression drive. Though the mechanism through which this device functions is still under review, the technology is within our means to duplicate and can be affixed to extant starships with relatively little drive system overhaul. Current applications of this technology allow ships to traverse lightyears of space near-instantaneously, but limitations have become apparent through prolonged use. The distance a vessel is able to travel relates directly to an increase of power consumed by orders of magnitude.

Most configurations of subspace compression drive in service today have a maximum approved range of almost five lightyears using only designated propulsion power, and only allow for travel along 'line of sight' sensor range. Isolated cases, such as the U.S.S. Toronto and U.S.S. Chūsei, have operated beyond approved safety measures, with drastically varying results. The most significant problem facing subspace compression travel, generally referred to as 'sobspace folds', is the power required to distort subspace enough for a vessel to pass through. A Federation warp core at maximum output could theoretically travel a distance of 6.438 lightyears in a single jump, though as in the case of the Chūsei such jumps are highly inadviseable.

However, it may be possible to exceed that range while avoiding exorbitant power consumption or spatial distortions within an insufficiently shielded warp bubble. Current drive configurations require a vessel to create a subspace distortion significance enough to pass their entire vessel through. However, my research has shown that it may be possible to open a much smaller distortion, while also improving jump distance and accuracy. By opening an initial distortion of a radius of a few centimeters, a coherent nadion stream can be passed through to 1: maintain the breach, 2: cause a buildup of charger nadions at the edges of the fold, and 3: indicate to external sensors where the exit point will be. By utilizing a static warp shell and matching it's modulation to the frequency of the nadions, the ship can expand the subspace fold around itself with a vastly reduced power draw. While distance still scales in a non-linear trajectory to power expenditure, opening a smaller breach would theoretically allow a vessel to travel distances exceeding ten lightyears in a single fold.

Now we just need to find someone stupid enough to try it for real. This proposal is up for consideration with the Cochrane Institute of Warp Theory at Starfleet Academy, pending Starfleet approval for shipboard trials.

[SEND?]
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12
Something Old, Something New

"Hey Dad!" The words came before the camera focused, in the same instant the recording began. Soon enough though the blur of dark colors receeded, and the camera focused on Liz as she settled into her desk chair. "I know I'm a little late getting back to you this time, but kind of a lot has happened, so... Well, here goes!"
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A hand plucked the collar of her duty jacket, showing the camera a pair of square silver pips, with a silver edged black pip at the trailing edge. "You're looking at the new Assistant Chief Engineer for Deep Space Thirteen, Lieutenant Commander Liz Callahan! It just happened a few days ago, and orientation has been kind of intense, but I'm excited to work with Commander Sivath. He runs a tight crew, but he doesn't really strike me as demanding too much. It's kind of weird being in charge though, even as second in command. Maybe you can give me some pointers on command over the holidays."

The redhead leaned back in her chair, tussling her bangs. "Speaking of which... I invited James to come home with me for Christmas. I know you always say it's a family affair, but we've been dating for a couple of years now, and, well..." A moment passed in silence, and in that moment an emerald flush came over the woman's cheeks. Her eyes dipped to the floor for a fraction of a second and then locked onto the camera. From out of frame a hand rose, one finger adorned with a gold band sporting a diamond framed in diamonds. "...We're engaged." All at once Liz was all smiles, a flood of emotion welling behind her eyes. "He asked me last night in the holodeck, and I said yes! I mean, I invited him before he proposed and he said yes and everything, but after all of that I knew I had to let you know, and I feel like I'm rambling, am I rambling? I'm rambling."

A flustered laugh escaped her lips as she brushed her bangs out of her face. "Okay, I'm just gonna end it here for now before I spiral into total incomprehensibility, but, uhm, yeah. We'll see you when we get to Earth. You're really gonna like James, Dad. Just... don't get him killed riding one of your ridiculous snow machines, okay?"

"Love you Dad. See you all soon."
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13
Stress Testing

Liz sat on a cargo crate amid a jumble of identical crates, stacked to the ceilings in some places. Her uniform jacket lay tossed over a crate beside her, leaving her in her cargo pants, undershirt, and a pair of odd, bulky gloves. She stretched out her hands, splayed her fingers, and flexed the gloves as far as her joints would allow.

And then she began.
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The first step was to tug a small tab at the wrist of each glove, causing the pair to shudder to life. There was a warmth to them as well as power began to flow through the electronics. Slowly she extended a hand, gesturing a short sequence of hand signs she had spent the morning practicing. From within the gloves there came a series of simple test tones, single synthetic monotones. She repeated the gestures with her other hand, feeling the gloves bend with her movements.

“Concept proved,” Liz said to no one in particular as she hopped down from the crate, standing in what space was to be found. She planted her feet apart in a wide stance, her hands rising up into the air in front of her. Her right hand hovered just in front of her stomach, her left held curled, her upturned palm slightly below her shoulder. A finger dipped, and another tone echoed throughout storage room. It was a synthesized tone like the ones before, but rather than an electronic chime this one hummed, the sound starting strong before steadily fading to nothing.

Her finger plucked again, and another invisible string rang out, a higher the this time. Adjusting the fingers of her left hand she swung down with her right, and now the invisible strings hummed out in unison, echoing the range from the baritone to alto along their tonal scale. Her fingers shifted again and another chorus of ethereal strings sang into the quiet.

“Okay, so far so good,” Liz said softly. She flexed her hands silently, adjusted her stance, and took a deep breath. “Beginning Irreo glove beta stress test, iteration four.”

And then her hands began to dance on those invisible strings in earnest, strumming, plucking, flexing the gloves and the mechanics of their fingers, all to the rising Melody filling the cramped office turned utility closet.
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14
The Legions Of Chaotica!

“Ah, Captain Proton! Timely as ever I see, but not so timely as to stop me from claiming my destiny - Chaotica, Emperor Of The Universe! Oh, but first I think I would like a bit of entertainment. With a push of this button I'll unleash my legion of deadly Chaoticons, and-”

Captain Proton drew his laser pistol with a single fluid motion and cut a monochrome flash across the room. Buster Kincaid, Protons ever present brother in arms, watched in horror as Doctor Chaotica fell with a theatrical flourish of his cape.
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“Computer freeze program!” Buster cried, as Proton turned. “Come on, Davin!”

'Captain Proton’ quirked an eyebrow. “How was that not the right thing to do? He was about to unleash a legion of… something ridiculous, probably.”

'Buster’ just shrugged, pacing the desaturated steel under her boots. “Captain Proton is all about legions of something ridiculous! We’re supposed to face down evil and save the galaxy!”

“I thought you said we were supposed to stop Doctor Chaotica.”

“Well yeah, but part of that is stopping his legions, and evil robots, and crazy spider queens!”

Proton blinked. “...Spider queens?”

Buster just chuckled. “Not for two or three more chapters, but yeah.” Almost absent mindedly Buster set about tidying up her ponytail, the holodeck rendering her fiery locks in a muted grey. “Okay, so I'm going to back the program up to the start of his speech. We let him talk, fight his whatevers, corner him in the throne room, and then you can shoot him. Sound good?”

Proton turned his laser over in his hands. “It sounds like you're making this more complicated than it needs to be.”

“It'll be fun, I promise. Computer, arch!” With a photonic shimmer the holodeck arch came into being just behind the pair of noir pulp heroes, and Buster set about rewinding the scene. “Oh! And think of something cool to say before you shoot him.”

“Like what?”

“Like, uhm… 'Your reign is at an end, Chaotica!’ Or maybe ‘You’ve been dethroned!’”

Proton smirked. “Fine, I'll think of something.”

With a clap on Protons leather jacketed shoulder Buster took up her position beside him. “That's the spirit. Okay computer, resume program.”
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15
The Loneliest Number

"Computer."

dw-EET!

"Begin recording."
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"It's almost like a museum," Liz says as she walks the perimeter of her borrowed bunk. "Or maybe more like... Did you ever go to Colonial Williamsburg? All of the old buildings and the reenactors, living like they used to hundreds of years ago." Her steps slow, then stop. "You would think they'd use holograms... Why don't they? I mean I guess for the reenactors it's just like one big holoprogram, just with extra immersion... Hm."

Her walk continues, sock footed around the edge of the room, her fingers trailing across the time worn wall plating. "I think you'd like it here... Or, well, like to visit under other circumstances. It sounds like Ops has their hands full. And it's not like Engineering is much better off, but... I think maybe they're taking it easy on me. Maybe. Maybe I'm just expecting it to be more chaotic. But the dust is starting to settle, and we're picking up the pieces. Things are starting to get back to... not normal, because this isn't normal, but..."

Liz breathes out a sigh, and settles onto the aged sofa set underneath the rooms tall, narrow windows. Outside stars flicker against a veil of darkness, arranged in unfamiliar patterns as they shine into her unfamiliar room. "Things can't go back to normal now, I know that. There is no going back. We'll find a new normal, and we'll get used to it, and we'll make our peace with it, but it won't be the normal that we had before."

Reaching across the sofa Liz prods a large plush eppoh, fresh from the replicator. A collar around its neck bears a lieutenants paired pips. " 'Lost, Presumed Dead'... It's the not knowing that really hurts, you know? At least with Pariah I knew you would come back eventually... And I can't stop hoping that you're still out there, somewhere, trying to get back, but...

"Just, please... Please be out there.

"Computer, end recording."
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