When I Look at the Stars

Posted on Tue Jan 3rd, 2023 @ 2:02am by Lieutenant JG Dunamis

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: N'illa's Bistro, Rytan district, Southern Kaminar
1089 words - 2.2 OF Standard Post Measure

The room itself was small, not much bigger than the average human teenager's. It had, however, been made up to look and feel as homely as possible with bookshelves lined with books of all kinds. The authors and titles were as diverse as could be as well: Glasch kul Vlich's Forthrightness and Its Inadequacies, Tallas'vi sh'Taal's By the Evening Star, all three volumes of S'lin K'Chg S'Lok's Logic in the Tumultuous Mind, more, more, more besides.

Soft orange lighting bathed the entire room in warm orange light, like a comforting blanket that would surely warm the heart of its occupant as long as they stayed within its walls. At the far end of the room, under the window that looked out onto the bustling Rytan street below, sat a study table and computer terminal, also laden with books, these more academic than their brethren on the shelves. Philosophy, literature, mathematics, chess strategy. Yes, the occupant of this room was quite obviously a bookworm, and a big one at that.

All things taken together, the room felt like a library or personal study, filled with knowledge and the comfortable silence appropriate to consume it in peace.

The mood was soon shattered, however, as the door to it flew open, and in stormed its occupant: a young Kelpien man dressed in a chef's uniform, complete with the accompanying flattish hat. The young man wasted no time in stripping the jacket and hat off, tossing both garments onto his bed in a pile of navy blue cloth, and sinking into the chair at his study table with a groan.

The expression he wore then was that of someone who'd simply had enough.. His head sank into his upturned hands with an exasperated sigh, golden amber eyes fluttering closed. He'd just had simply the most awful day at work, to say the least - the sixth this month.

First it was slipping on cooking oil someone had forgotten to clean up and banging his head against the fryer. Then he'd had to take his sore arm to the local general practitioner for spilling melted cheese on his forearm of all places. Then came the absolutely unreasonable Bajoran woman who hadn't liked the hasperat she'd been served ("it's not spicy enough! I'd better not feel my tongue after I've eaten one of these!") and had shouted him down for it despite him not being the one who'd made it, and ignored the sincere but meek apologies he'd tried to offer in place of the actual cook, who'd gone home on an emergency. Then it'd been arguing with the local supplier who'd managed to get their scheduling so whiffed that the lokoola shroom fillets they supplied weren't ready and wouldn't be for a month, and then apologizing to, and re-taking lrders for everyone who'd ordered them that evening.

He was no stranger to how simply awful people could be, of course. He'd experienced it since childhood - but then children didn't know hlw to be insufferably opinionated or insistent or unreasonable or worst of all all four at once. It was to be expected working where he was; it'd been tolerable for the first year, but two years down the road and more of the same and similar and eventually all that pressure had to boil over somehow, as much as his aunt N'illa had tried to keep it down. He hadn't even given her notice when he tried to quit at the end of the day. Thank the sweet woman she was for being understanding and giving him his space.

His golden eyes drifted towards the window. The stars were out in force tonight, twinkling like a sea of diamonds in the inky black Kaminar sky. When he'd still lived on the Riposte his parents would tell him often that each star was a sun, and each star had countless worlds that depended on it to survive. Therefore there were billions upon billions of worlds out there, billions of light years away and apart. And not all of it had been explored yet. He couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of that thought, and of course the visual beauty of the starry sky itself.

Speaking of his parents. He hadn't heard from them in some time now, not for a month. The letters had come regularly at first, sending him pictures of what they saw on their mission in the Gamma Quadrant and reassuring him that all was well, and they would be able to meet again soon. Then the pictures stopped comimg, and eventually the messages did too, leaving him waiting by his computer late at night praying that it'd light up with an update. He'd write back then, asking where they were and why they'd gone silent for so long.

Alas, the message never came.

Dunamis felt somewhat trapped, stuck at his aunt's little restaurant, suffering abuse from not only the senior cooks but also the customers, as much as she tried to put a stop to it. Cooking was a valuable, eternally relevant skill, yes, but he'd never had any wish to pursue it for life and today had only pushed that idea even further out of his mind.

He was wasted here, a young man with his work ethic and his academic performance prior to leaving the Riposte, even N'illa herself had said so. "You'd make an excellent officer. Just like your parents." She'd told him on more than one occasion.

The recollection made him raise his head and look to the stars once more. Indeed, why wasn't he up there among the stars, where he would be free to go wherever Starfleet took him, ever changing, never staying somewhere for too long. The people would be a far more diverse group, too, a cornucopia of individuals of all species and walks of life. He'd have duties to attend, of course, but at least he wouldn't be tearing his nonexistent hair out over rude customers or disrupted supply chain issuee.

Yeah. Why wasn't he up there in the stars above when he possessed within himself the ability and ethics to get himself there? Call it impulsiveness, call it a manifestation of his frustration over his abysmal day, but the Kelpien rose to his hooves and beelined for his aunt's office on the floor below, closing the door behind him. He had an idea - and he wasn't about to see it become real if he didn't first do something about it.

END

 

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