Cadet Complis Libran

Bison

[Leisure Plaza, Starbase Bravo]
[21:30 hours]

The station was thrumming with beings. After leaving the Academy, Complis Libran was still used to being in places where everyone carried a universal translator on their person. Not so here. People huddled, hatching plans and cracking jokes in untranslated grunts, pops, clicks, hisses, a burbling noises that humans, or Bajorans for that matter, had no words for. They hadn’t had places like this on Bajor when she was growing up, and there was still a certain thrill in hearing the croaking voices of Saurians and the strange music of Caitian in person, the sounds bouncing around the bulkheads, getting mixed and remixed. 

She glanced over, trying not to look too curious or conspicuous, at a barebones establishment called Downtime. A human man with disheveled red hair sat hunched over a PADD and a glass of foamy amber liquid, head in hands. A tired Andorian sat with a cyborg companion, neither looking particularly friendly. A pastiche of Starfleet paraphernalia was thrown haphazardly on the bulkhead gray walls. Off hours officer’s bar, she observed. No thanks. No war stories today, Libran thought, no diatribes about superior officers. No Starfleet shop talk of any kind.

The crowd flowing through the plaza was growing thick and loud, lathered with the starbase equivalent of a late night. Gamma Shift hours, she thought. A little breeze of music slipped past her old Bajoran Bronze earring, and she followed it upstairs, to the entrance of a place called The Gate Inn. It had the quality of some Ancient Earth culture, but she couldn’t quite place it. People were chatting in booths, quiet but animated, and someone in a backroom was clearly playing a sort of violin music. It sounded fast and jangly to Libran. Good enough.

She was happy to be out of uniform, wearing what an Academy roommate had dubbed her “hasperat-vendor” pants, flowy below and high and tight around the wait, and a pair of boots she had obtained a few days earlier on her arrival at Starbase Bravo — real Earth leather. She admired it against the wood-panelled floor. Very charming. They even had Aldebaran whiskey, so things were looking up as she settled into a dark corner to luxuriate in the alcohol vapors and let her mind wander. She closed her eyes.

“Good evening, miss,” someone nearby said. Libran’s eyes opened to see the Andorian from Downtime in front of her.

“Miss?” she repeated.

The Andorian, up close, looked old. He stuttered, grasping for words until landing on her rank. “Uh, cadet. Cadet Complis?”

Libran stood and took a sip. She eyed the old man for a moment. “Can I help you?”

He clasped his arms in front of him and lowered his head slightly. An oddly deferential gesture for an Andorian. Rarely do they look so cowed, Libran thought. 

“No,” he said, “not exactly, you see—” he raised an open palm, “May I sit?”

Libran nodded and sat. She eyed the door, but couldn’t see the cyborg anywhere. No glint of metal against all this wood paneling. Another sip, and the Andorian finally began talking.

“I’m retired,” he said. “Crewman Tivv. USS Kyoto ‘til four years ago, then a stint here before I left. Discharged honorably Stardate—”

“Okay,” Libran interrupted. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what’s this about?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s about your father.”

---

[Cadet Union, Starbase Bravo]
[11:27 hours]

It was clear now what caused the problem. It made perfect sense, Libran thought. After all this time, there was a sense of resolution. 

The period of missing time in the Bolian state archives known popularly as the Missing Years, was almost certainly a matter of user error, rather than the data corruption error previously speculated. This would likely land her in a few journals, Libran considered. 

But as she stood from the little study carrel, fresh academic breakthrough in mind, her certainty crumbled. There were so many conflicting points of view. There was what was right and ethical, there was what was considered important to the Bolians. There were infinite ways to hypothesize and analyze the hard data and primary sources. And so the paralysis of doubt began to creep in. It felt hot and itchy, the same sensation it had taken weeks to shake when she first arrived in San Francisco. But she was here, now. She had made it this far.

And what had he meant, anyway? “Correct the record.” What did that mean? Did he come to her as Maury’s daughter, or as an archivist? Or a fellow member of Starfleet? She had decided those answers weren’t worth her time and shooed the Andorian away the night before. But now she wondered.That warm, sticking feeling kept materializing beneath her skin.

A familiar command cadet stopped her as she was leaving the Union. He was an acquaintance from a data security seminar. He was tall, handsome, human. A cartoon of a Starfleet man.

“Are you still working on the Bolian thing?” he asked, happy and earnest. 

“Yes,” Libran managed. “Still at it.”

“Well,” he said, realizing Libran was still walking forward, “Good luck!”

Libran simply kept walking, and disappeared into the buzzing crowd. 

Bison

“It never hurts to suck up to the boss.”
— Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, Number 33

The sun was causing little ripples to swell from the parched ground, like the planet itself venting its hot, toxic gases, trying desperately to keep from exploding. Sibling suns hung high above, and these two characteristics taken together made the horizon seem to dance, undulating up in a long, wavering spiral, to the center of the solar system. Everything seemed to bubble up and emanate from somewhere dark within the world, and it was all spreading, searing and twisting, across the galaxy. It seemed unbearable, but it wasn’t.

[USS Tasaki]
[2398*]

* Roughly nine months before the present in BF canon

“Computer,” Libran said in a soft voice, “why isn’t it hot?”

“Command not recognized.”

A sigh. Libran’s mind was wobbly. She was having trouble getting it to grasp the right words.

“Shouldn’t it be hot here?”

The computer chimed, but didn’t respond. Libran had been laying on her back, and now stood, rolling the sleeves of her uniform back down and closing the front.

“Computer, what’s the average daytime temperature on Savanhar VII?”

“The average daytime temperature of Savanhar VII is 53.3 degrees Celsius.”

“So why isn’t it hot?”

“Command not recognized.”

She grunted and stared at the floor a moment. “Computer, what are you currently simulating?”

A small pause. One that wouldn’t be apparent to most sentients, but was a clear hiccup for a computer. 

“This is a simulation of Savanhar VII, the seventh planet of the Savan System, also known as the Savanhar System, at coordinates—”

“Stop.” The computer terminated abruptly. “Why isn’t the simulation also simulating the air temperature of Savanhar VII?” Another uncharacteristic pause.

“This holosuite unit does not possess environmental systems.”

“Then why did we just close this damn thing for a week so the engineers could rig up the environmental systems?” she asked herself.

“Command not recognized.”

Libran was about to tap her commbadge when the doors slid open. Her eyes struggled to focus on the cool world of the hallway beyond the rippling mirage of the holosuite simulation. A few fuzzy silhouettes darkened the entry. Lt. Nar Shandomald, a handsome Napean, wandered into view. He cantered around lackadaisically, as if sneaking away from a museum tour group to see a closed gallery. He whistled. 

“Looks amazing, Cadet. Is this Vulcan?”

“Samanhar—”

“Seven. Yes, Samanhar. Went there once on a civilian trip. Don’t remember it being this nice, though.”

Libran decided she didn’t have time for such a conversation, not the way she was feeling. Certainly not since one of the silhouettes in the doorway was now clearly Commander Whistler.

“No, as a matter of fact, we’re having some trouble with just that thing,” she said in an attempt to remain friendly. Annoying or no, Shandomald was an Academy instructor, a position even starship captains sometimes envy. The truth was, if Libran could have skipped space assignments and jumped into an Academy administration position, she would have done it in a heartbeat.

“Yes, things like that all over the Tasaki, I’m afraid. Don’t tell Captain Liles I said that, by the way,” he said with a well-meaning smirk.

“Of course, sir,” she replied.

Whistler broke off from her conversation with some Tasaki officer and, still tapping at her PADD, walked to Libran.

“Cadet Complis,” she said without looking up or waiting for a response. “How goes the first training cruise?”

“Good, sir,” Libran said, lying. “Learning a lot about life shipboard.”

Shandomald walked closer, as if he had been part of the conversation. “I love a training cruise.” His voice was as earnest as it was grating which was, to Libran, very. “There’s no better way to get a feel for what Starfleet really is.” Whistler ignored him, but now raised her eyes from her screen up to meet Libran.

“Why don’t I believe you, cadet?”

Libran was in a bind. She deferred to want she thought might work: deference itself.  “Well, sir,” she said with a laugh tacked on, “you know how much I love regimentation.”

“Indeed,” the wisp of a smile was now emerging. “An information expert who hates too much structure.”

“Too much structure can keep good ideas hidden,” Libran countered.

“Indeed,” the commander said as she began looking around the simulated environment. She took a few slow steps along the photonic dune ridge that snaked off to the far, golden horizon. “I always marveled at these kinds of tiny M-types. All desert, or all snow. Like something from a story.”

“Yes, sir,” Shandomald squeaked. 

Whistler crossed her arms behind her back and looked off for a short time. She started speaking without turning around. “A good simulation. With good ideas.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

“Lieutenant Shandomald,” Whistler said, still facing away, “will you check on that issue with Lucas in astrometrics for me?” The pale man acknowledged the command and quickly shuffled out of the holosuite arch. Whistler finally turned back to face the half-Bajoran cadet.

“I know your arrival at the Academy was probably a culture shock,” she began, walking closer. “What’s more, I know who you are, and if you’ll forgive the presumption, I think I know why you joined. Libran, I think your talents, and the skills I’ve seen you develop in the past years— I think these can serve the Federation well. And I think you’re going to make Starfleet proud. I’m confident of that, actually. And after all this time, I hope you see that, too.”

Libran’s stomach dropped. She’d never been fired. No one she’d ever known had ever been fired, in fact. But that’s what this felt like. She managed to meekly thank Whistler.

“We’ve made the decision to fast track your final projects and have you finish out your competency training and exams at Starbase Bravo. I think you’ll be able to get the attention someone of your existing professional stature and civilian background might benefit from.”

So, she was being fired. “I see, sir.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve relished hourly holosuite troubleshooting duties here.” An attempt to pad the blow.

“No, sir, I haven’t exactly relished it.”

“I know that. I’m glad you’re sticking with it.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, a little hollowly. “Starbase Bravo. That’s the Fourth Fleet?”

“It is. And it’s quite frankly a better assignment than tossing your cap into the air on the parade ground in California, then spending two years in orbit around Tellar, if you ask me. You’ll head back to the Acadey as scheduled, and once the transfer paperwork is done, we’ll get you shipped over to Mellstoxx III”

Another quiet “yes, sir.”

The commander seemed to hold back something. There was something waving beneath her placid surface, a vague threat. Heat billowing off a burning planet. She softened.

“I’m sorry, Libran. We’ve been tossing you around. I know you’re not a 20 year-old.”

“I understand, sir.”

Hear all, trust nothing.
— Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, Number 190

[Shuttlecraft Jim Thorpe]

[en route from USS Tasaki to Federation transport Harvey’s Gambit]

Libran tried to block to ambient hum of the shuttle’s impulse engines form her mind. Lt. Shandomald was tapping away at the controls as they cleared the perimeter of the Tasaki. The panels began to light up, and gentle chirping beep filled the craft.

“That’s an environmental alarm on the Tasaki,” Shandomald announced. He punched the comms panel. “Jim Thorpe to Tasaki, this is Shandomald, do you copy? We’re reading an environmental breach on your end. Please confirm.”

“This is Tasaki,” said the communications crewman who popped onto the screen. “Confirmed. Environmental engineering is reporting a bulkhead breach in holosuite four, sir.”

“Do you require assistance?” 

The crewman eyeballed his own console. “I don’t think so, sir. We’ve scrambled environmental crews and emergency force fields are holding.”

“Understood, Tasaki. Will continue on current course and speed.”

“Tasaki out.”

Libran stared at the console intently. Shandomald began breezily chatting about the event, which to him seemed mildly interesting. He wondered aloud how stressful an assignment environmental engineering might be. As they approached the transport that would ferry them back to Sector 001, he commented on just how recently they’d been on the Tasaki’s holodeck.

Libran didn’t add that they’d been in holosuite four exactly just a day earlier, and that she’d spent the bulk of her training cruise there. When they arrived on the dingy freighter, Libran went straight to her bunk. She didn’t speak to Shandomald until they were back in San Francisco.