Reflection

Posted on Fri Oct 26th, 2018 @ 11:24am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox

Mission: Hera v Hera
Location: Crew Quarters
Timeline: 2395, aftermath, Battle of Hera's World

Chief Flight Control Officer. The title rattled around in Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox's head.

When she first stepped foot on the flight deck of the U.S.S HERA only a few days ago, she expected to be assigned to the same basic duties she had fulfilled in her 6 years in Starfleet, flying shuttles and Runabouts like a glorified taxi driver. But within just those few days, she found herself on the bridge helming a STARSHIP into actual combat. And only a couple of hours ago, her new First Officer informed her that she was being field promoted to Chief Flight Control Officer. Melaine never expected to even be considered for a command position of any kind and still had a hard time wrapping her mind around it.

Standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror in her modest quarters, the words continued to stick in her mind. Chief Flight Control Officer. Her uniform lay on the floor by her feet as she had just taken a much needed Sonic shower after a very long and intense day. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, a short and plump young woman. Her thick, wavy auburn hair hung low across her shoulders. Dox had a soft and round build that was uncommon in Starfleet that brought her more her fair share of ridicule at the academy and still made her extremely self-conscious. She kept fit and always passed her physical trials, but her body did what it wanted and what it wanted was clearly to stay as it was regardless of how much work she put into containing her weight.

To look at her, you might never noticed her heritage as she showed no outward cues of it. But her mother was half-Romulan, making Melanie a quarter Romulan herself. But it was her very human father's DNA that seemed to dictate much of her appearance. She had her mother's face, with angled almond shaped eyes that gave her an almost elvish appearance. But her build and much of the rest of her features came from her father, a fairly short man of thick build with a shock of thick, curly red hair and a galaxy of freckles.

It was the combination of these features and physiology that ended up giving her the nickname of "Barbeque Sauce" at the academy. It was one-half a fat joke and one-half a jab at a remnant of her Romulan heritage: a distinctly unique color to her blood. She thought back to a training exercise where a fellow cadet had given her a bloody nose, something not uncommon in combat training. Her opponent, a smug young woman on the fasttrack to command named Rachel Pendergast let out a chuckle at the sight of Dox's blood which flowed out a dark brown color. That, combined with her weight earned Dox the nickname she despised and emotional withdrawls alienated her even more from her classmates.

Her heritage was a part of her public record and was, by no means a secret, but Romulans were enemies of the Federation and had extremely dubious reputations. Melanie learned the hard way the prejudices were still very real and had a way of following one to pop up when one wanted it to the least.

But Rita Paris, the Hera's energetic and statuesque First Officer, was well aware of Melanie's heritage AND very checkered past and it seemed to have zero affect on her new promotion. Chief Flight Control Officer.

Pulling on a loose fitting night gown and folding her uniform for laundering, Melanie considered what Rita Paris had said on the Runabout only a couple of hours ago. The Captain was impressed with her skills as a pilot. Paris was impressed. Even Ensign Gonadie who designed the Hera's flight control interface gave her praise. For her own part, Melanie was still trying to process it all. Praise was not something she knew how to deal with.

Growing up, Dox had been raised on smuggling ships, learning to fly at a young age piloting the neutral zone between Romulan space and the Klingon empire by the time she was 10. Her parents were smugglers and Dox found herself forced for years into that life rather reluctantly. But she learned to fly fast and think fast. She learned how to hide a ship in a planets gravity and not panic when a Klingon patrol was searching for them in asteroid fields. She learned to speak rudimentary Klingon and Romulan to avoid relying on universal translators when bluffing her way through checkpoints. She also learned Vulcan as her mother herself was only half Romulan and lacked the more common forehead ridges making it easier for her to pretend to be Vulcan when it was convenient.

But her father was an emotional man prone to angry outbursts at the slightest mistakes and her mother a very stern teacher who did not tolerate even the slightest failures. So from a very young age, Melanie was taught that no matter how well she thought she had done at a thing, that it was never quite good enough. This created a very strong defense mechanism that made it extremely difficult for her to accept praise at face value.

However, this was something Dox was quickly learning to push past on the Hera. Part of this came from Rita Paris that seemed to make it something of a personal mission to get Meline out of her shell. It was a trait that terrified her when she first met the striking and anacronistic XO a few days ago but made her smile now. In spite of a shaky and emotional first meeting, she found herself genuinely liking Paris.

She also liked the ships Chief Medical Officer, Asa Dael. Dael was a very young and extremely energetic, friendly El-Aurian who seemed to talk far more then her species was known for. And like Paris, Asa seemed to not be willing to let Melanie retreat emotionally. The Hera was certainly something different for Dox.

Walking over to the small replicator across from her bed, Melaine spoke out to the room. "Computer. 8 ounce bottle of flavored water. Cherry. Mild carbonation, please. Cold." In a moment, a light shimmer and the bottle came into existence. With a slight hiss, she opened the bottle and took a drink before resealing it and setting it on the nightstand by her bed. Moving to the closet, she pulled out a fresh uniform and placed it on the chair across the room from her bed, ready for the next morning and made her way across to her bed.

Sitting on the side, she spoke again to the room. "Computer, alarm for zero five hundred hours please. Lights to 5 percent." With a slight chime, the computer responded and the lights dimmed to near darkness. Melaine laid down pulling the thin fleece blanket she had brought with her on board over her. For a moment, she laid on her side as her mind wandered back to the events of her day and what awaited her in the morning. She could feel the hum of the Hera's engines through the walls of the ship and focused on it's light, slow and steady pulse and drifted off to sleep.