Singular Configurations

Posted on 26 Aug 2024 @ 11:42am by Lieutenant JG Selon Illialhlae & Ensign Mimi
Edited on on 02 Sep 2024 @ 7:03pm

2,124 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 20 - Reconstruction
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 4, Planetary Development Lab
Timeline: MD 02, 1800 Hours

ON:

"Ensign Mimi, this is Lieutenant Illialhlae could I see you in the Planetary Development Lab?" Selon tapped his commbadge and was pleased to see the Operations officer on duty was the Nekomi Ensign. Anyone could have helped him with the configuration of the LCARS system to the specifications he was used to on the Oakland but this way he might get to know Mimi a little better. In truth he was just as interested in her as he was in her people, their little-known culture but he decided to let his desire to get to know a new crewmate win out over his more academic desire to pester Mimi with questions about her heritage. Selon had gotten used to such questions about his own heritage and in truth loved explaining his unique background but he knew not everyone welcomed such inquiries into their past.

Still, he had the chance to kill several birds with one stone. He could get his new office up to familiar specs, get to know Mimi, and in doing so perhaps gleam something about the Nekomi at large. There were certainly less pleasant ways to spend an evening than getting to know a new person while they helped him accomplish a task.

=/\= On my way Lieutenant.=/\= Came Mimi's voice back over the comm channel. A few minutes later the first door into one of several lab complexes onboar the Galileo opened and the moments later the door into one of the dedicated planetary servey labs joined it.

Selon looked up as the woman with feline-esque features entered the lab. "Ensign, thank you for coming so promptly."

"What can I help you with Lieutenant?" She asked.

Selon nodded and smiled. "I was looking to reconfigure the LCARS to the systems to these specifications." Selon brandished a PADD in his hand. "But I find I don't actually know how to do that..." Selon's LCARS proficiency had never been what it should be. He could navigated it well enough but recoding or doing anything remotely technical below the surface was beyond him.

"Easy enough." Mimi said with a slight smile. She stepped up to the computer display and began to tap buttons then offered her hand to take the Padd that had his requested specifications on.

Selon stepped out of the woman's way as she took the PADD and started working away. "A trifling request I know but I also figured this was a chance to get to know you better. I've read so... so much of the ship's logs and reports but I've yet to meet most of the people behind them." Selon watched the woman's slitted eyes dart back and forth as she performed her duties and Selon couldn't help but be the slightest bit jealous at her proficiency.

"The ships logs certainly make for interesting reading." Mimi remarked. "And we did all that with only two thirds of our crew compliment. All of you showing up is the first time we've had anywhere near a full ship."

"It's hard to think of sixty people as a full compliment, the Oakland's crew was more than ten times that." Selon laughed, recalling fond memories of the Nebula-Class ship, its mission and his crewmates he had left behind for this posting. "Have you always served on the Galileo?" He inquired. He vaguely knew the answer but it was more seemly to ask.

"I did nearly a year on the USS Charleston after graduating the academy but other than that the rest of my career has been on the Galileo." Mimi said as she read the Padd and occasionally tapped more buttons on the console.

"I spent two years on an archaeological expedition and then four on the Oakland, though I was a reserve officer for Starfleet Operations on Earth while I was completing my doctorate." Selon mused. It was odd to have the last decade of his life summarized in one sentence.

"Unofficially I was on the Charleston for longer than a year though, I grew to adulthood on that ship with my foster mother, she helped me learn a lot of things there before I joined starfleet." Mimi glanced back to the padd for a few moments before making a few final changes.

"My parents were outpost scientists, agronomists actually, so I learned little from them that would help me aboard a Starship." Selon smirked. "Most of their colleagues were pretty contemptuous of Starfleet actually." Selon thought back to all those conversations he either overheard or walked into as a child that revolved around whose work was more important, beneficial or virtuous.

"Not everyone gets to have a career travelling through space, the science involved in making food for everyone is just as important." Mimi said, she wasn't 100% sure what an Agronomist was but it sounded like agriculture so she went with that.

What Mimi said was essentially correct so Selon did not correct her but he could tell she did not have a full grasp of what his parents profession was. No matter, Selon's own interests lay elsewhere so he could hardly fault Mimi for not knowing herself.

"I think in a land of plenty most people still take it for granted." Selon mused. "Where did you live before the Charleston?"

Mimi knew that question was coming. "It is complicated." She replied, she'd had the conversation with a lot of the people on the ship over the last few years.

Selon dropped his head as he smiled as he realized he had found a kindred spirit. "Same." He stood upright against his desk as he let Mimi continue her work doing the requested configurations. "I was born on Nimbus Three but we didn't stay there long. We lived on Vulcan, near the northern pole, for a few years while my father finished his studies. Then we moved to Earth, London specifically. On all three planets we lived in a V'tosh ka'tur, 'Vulcans without Logic', commune. Then in just under three years I lived on half a dozen different worlds at twice as many outposts my parents worked at. Then the War came and we moved back to Earth, this time outside of London, into our own place and I guess that's 'home' as much as anywhere else. Went to school there as a teenager, went to University there too for my doctorate after the Academy." Far more than a single sentence but Selon was hardly doing his childhood justice.

Mimi listed as Selon explained his backstory, it was certainly crazy moving from place to place all the time. "My species are from a long way away from the federation. We set up a colony quite close to Klingon space. one day a lot of them showed up, the wanted to take control of the dilithium mine we had created there but we would not let them, so they started killing everyone."

It was the danger of probing into the past that you might come across something unpleasant, to pick at old wounds. It was hardly his intention, but Selon knew the dangers the same as any historian, as anyone who enjoyed getting people to open up for him. "I'm sorry." It hardly seemed adequate but it was sincere.

Mimi continued, explaining a little more about what led her to the Charleston. "The Charleston investigated the distress call we barely managed to send out but by the time they got there they didn't find anyone alive, apart from me...they took me with them as there was nowhere else for me to go. I was 14."

Trauma and loss had not been a feature of Selon's life, no matter how painful parts of it were they did not compare with losing one's entire community. Though perhaps comparison was not a helpful or even seemly exercise.

"And you found a new community, a new family?"

"mmhhmm." Mimi replied. "The person who found me was the ships Chief Ops officer, Maria, she cared for me, it was hard at first with the language barrier and things like that. Eventually she adopted me."

A happy ending? A good one, at the very least. Mimi seemed to have found purpose, if not peace, serving in Starfleet. One often followed the other, Selon himself knew that well enough. He had struggled enough in his adolescence and when combined with his mental handicaps finding something that both excited and motivated him was almost torturous in its length. Starfleet had given him that purpose, that chance, and there he stumbled upon the community he had sought for so long. He was proof positive that despite his philosophical and introspective nature, the solutions to ones internal turmoil often resided outside of one's self.

"Do you think you'll ever go back? Even just to visit?" Selon asked, wondering if Mimi did not totally forsake any longing to be among her own people once again. In many ways it was a trite question. Selon was both Vulcan and Romulan but felt at home among neither but had also never truly tried to. In many ways he sometimes felt more Human than anything else, or just a citizen of the Federation at large.

"Go back where? the Charleston?" Mimi asked. "I speak with Maria every so often over subspace or long distance messaging services."

Selon smirked. "No I meant do you ever see yourself going back to... well, where ever the Nekomi are from?"

"That is my goal, when I can find them." Mimi told him. "I have no idea where my homeworld is."

"You really have no idea?" Selon was disappointed, but more for himself or for Mimi he couldn't say. "I'm sorry, to not even have the option..." Selon's voice trailed off.

"I have tried to find out but have very little information to work with." Mimi said as she finally finished the modifications to the console that Selon needed. "No one in the federation had heard of Nekomi before I was found, and the Klingons are not known for sharing information."

"If they themselves even know. The Klingons who attacked you sound like a raiding party, probably not under the direct umbrella of the Klingon Defense Force." Selon mused. "Even if they were the type to ask questions I don't think anything ever made it back to the Klingon High Council." Klingon were actually quite fastidious with records but they were horribly fragmented things and given to hyperbole. "You might be better off contacting the Federation Science Council, many of them have contacts with independent traders, that's how most of our First Contact leads come in, maybe they've heard something or know someone who would. If you care to, that is." Selon added, it was a lot to heap on to Mimi and while his voice spoke with authority he actually had no guarantee it would lead anywhere. Mimi seemed content and perhaps that was enough.

"Oh we did, no one had heard of them. Maria used up quite a lot of favours trying to help me." Mimi turned away from the console. "Your adjustments are finished and they are saved in the computer. You can alter any console to these settings just by asking the computer."

Selon smiled. "Thank you Ensign, for your help." He had been tempted to add 'I'm sure I'll be calling on your services once again' but in his mind that went without saying. If he needed help with something as basic as this, Selon would definitely require more help in the future. "If I can ever repay the favor please do let me know."

"Template not saved, local data storage at capacity." The computer's clear monotone came through just as Selon finished. Peering over Mimi's shoulder he looked at the error screen.

"What does that mean?" Selon wondered how a starship computer, even one as small as the Galileo, could possibly be 'at capacity'.

Mimi made a hhmm sound that came across as part hum part purr as she thought the same as Selon. "I need to look into this, if you will excuse me Lieutenant."

Selon nodded. "Of course and once again Ensign if you ever need anything..." His voice trailed off as Mimi quickly left the planetary development lab, presumably to continue her investigations elsewhere. It was... good to have met her? Selon wasn't entirely sure, he hadn't gotten a read on Mimi so much as he had been told about her, almost like he was being told about her by someone else and not the woman herself. He mused over that as he glanced back down at the error screen on the computer.

What does this mean...?

OFF:

--

Lieutenant JG Selon Illialhlae
Anthropologist
USS Galileo-A

Ensign Mimi
Deputy Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

RSS Feed