roll call

[boldboimler]

[The man that's on screen doesn't look as uncomfortable as he could be. After all, the showers in the Cerritos are communal. But he sure is feeling vulnerable chilling here in only a sheet, in an area where only a short time ago there were monsters.]

[Every so often he arches his back slightly in discomfort at the itching, crawling sensation there. (This is worse than the Borg parts. Worse than even the implants on his face.)]

Okay, we should probably do a role call? Who's still here? What's your name?

Also, what skills do you have that could be useful here? We need to figure out what we need to survive. Delegate tasks. The supplies around here definitely seem to be thin on the ground. They're not going to last forever.

We should also probably share intel about anything useful we find as we look around. Or anything the AI shares with us.

Comments

[boldboimler]

[Does he admit he's a giant fanboy? Better question: can he even escape it?]

I'm kind of a fan? I've read Voyager's official logs.

[Wait. Oh no, that sounds kind of obsessed.]

I mean, just the logs of the senior staff. [He'd never admit to anyone but he's read the logs of Neelix.]

[There's a reason he's still extremely thrilled to have been punched in the face by Tom Paris, especially since he treated him to drinks as an apology and was patient through all his nerdy questions about his time on the ship and the Delta Flyer.]

Voyager reached home when I was still in the Academy. You should have seen it, everyone was going crazy, they had to cancel classes because nobody was paying attention and just kept trying to check the news.

[Janeway wasn't online then - hadn't even been developed as a program yet. The real Janeway had also probably been far too busy dealing with returning home and the defeat of the Borg to wonder about how a bunch of students were reacting to her crew's return.]

[There's a thought he isn't sure if he should try to articulate but also he doesn't want to look like an obsessed weirdo.]

Before I got into the Academy, so many officers died in the Dominion war, there was all this paranoia on Earth about changelings, about...what if they won? What if the Federation was destroyed?

We all knew Starfleet needed to be built back up again. Some people going into the Academy did it worrying about future threats, but not all of us. Plenty of people in my cohort were hoping that Starfleet was still...Starfleet.

[He's encountered people that joined for the love of science or exploration - or studying moss - and gotten lost in the fighting. Forgotten why they joined in the first place. Many of them had been officers for longer than he had, had probably seen lots of action.]

[Like Mariner. Mariner, who was so jaded about Starfleet it was a wonder she hadn't left or finally washed out, who saw it as a chore but was afraid to leave and try to be anything else. Mariner, who'd seen a best friend eaten by a Harvongian, who pretty much had to have fought in the Dominion War if she was stationed on DS9 at the time she had been. Mariner, who had...something inside her that made her lash out, self-sabotage, and act recklessly. Even though maybe she's finally turning a corner.]

[He knows his best friend well enough now to know he can't name it for her, that unnameable thing. He doesn't understand her enough to try. But it's still obvious enough it comes from some kind of hurt, and the war probably hadn't helped.]

And then Voyager came back. And everyone was talking about the scientific phenomenon the crew cataloged, and the worlds she visited, and the first contacts the crew made...

It was like... a reminder that the war hadn't changed everything. That the Starfleet we joined up for would actually be there when we graduated.

[holo_momway]

[When she replies, her voice is thick with emotion.] I never thought much about what it would have been like for Starfleet as a whole after the Dominion War. Voyager missed it entirely. We heard about it, but... it didn't really change our view of home as a safe haven waiting for us at the end. At least that's how Janeway felt.

I wish... the Protostar's return could have inspired such enthusiasm. Maybe there will be when my crew find their way to Earth. Maybe you'll even be there to greet them and share your own journey to finding your place in Starfleet.