Randal Shayne

There's a lot of ways that an action-heavy scene can drown the reader in minutiae, and stifle their engagement, but Shawn paints a raw, rich and heroic picture that holds you for the duration. Awesome job from the Khitomer's resident Kressari!

Roxanna writes a humorous, fun and witty character, but on those serious occasions, it's great to get another side of Ohnari- the Professional SideTM. I love seeing the analytical thought processes here; reminds me a bit of Dr. Mordin Solus from Mass Effect 2. Great little sim, Roxanna!

@Zenno manages to put more character and depth into a Vulcan than I do with my human. Moments like this just shine. EDIT: this is a JP between Zenno and @Connor Dewitt- great job to you both. Sorry for the error, folks!

As this is a 10(!) part JP, it's a little cumbersome to put each sim into either one thread or their own; but all of them deserve to be placed here, so I've attached links below. I highly encourage you to read all of it; this is some of the most excellent, out of the box, intriguing and satisfying reading I've done in a very long time. John, Tim- outstanding job. 🙂 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Such a gorgeous interpretation.

😆

I have a feeling the whole damn ten-part JP is gonna end up in Appreciations soon after all of it is posted, but I just had to take a moment and put this here, because, in or out of context, what a line!

Immaculate.

It's all a conspiracy; the lemon squares were just the beginning.

"I demand shenanigans" is now the unofficial motto of the Khitomer PNPC Bureau.

I want this on a t-shirt.

Magnificent.

Every dad on the ship is nodding approvingly right now.

She tells me to write after my nightmares. The paper on my bedside crinkles with “it’ll wake you up!”s and “don’t want to disturb you”s of conversations long ago. I’m delicate, so careful, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I’m clumsy around parchment. It doesn’t feel right. But she sleeps right on, covered and husking a steady, reedy breath. I dip the quill in the ink, and hold it there out of learned habit. It’s clenched in my hand like a knife in a fight, or a flux coupler under a relay- The horizon looms, shaking and sundering the shuttle. A woman is shouting- no! Not shouting. Loudly speaking. Like she’s been trained for just this moment, and it is barreling at her anyway. “Adjust thrust vector 2-1 degrees!” She doesn’t look around, only ahead, and a hand- it doesn’t matter whose- dances on the illuminated bank of smooth, blinking machinery. It’s broken, liquid fire burbling from severed, slashed innards. She isn’t screaming, this woman with a red collar, but something is- the shuttle? Rising in pitch, urgency, volume, and the earth rises to meet them, and they have to slow down but who will be there to-? I’m out of bed in a flash, the covers behind me. The floor creaks as I march to the window. They don’t wear clothes to bed here. The moonlight flaunts me as its own. The suns are still hours away. Twin suns are not uncommon, and yet they never feel like home. The city is asleep. A mayit grunts, a deep voice sings low and slow, serenading the sleeping buildings haphazardly splayed out across a battered, loping landscape. At the center is a stone fortress, where the king brays. Beyond the farthest house is a wooden wall, manned by sleepy, wilting guards. So long as I’ve been a part of it, Ayelya has never been attacked, and yet the tautness in the air ripens the trees and the animals and the people. Everything has the stink of new tidings, of one final straw being brought in on a purple pillow to break the back that has endured so much for so long. Or is that just me? I wish it was just me. If it was, perhaps I wouldn’t be here- Space starkly stares into the bright room, and the people gathered about the wooden table are looking attentively forward. “This is a pre-warp civilization”, someone says. “Currently feudal, class F3 on the Richter Scale of Cultures. Evidence of growing destabilization compels a careful survey by a small away team, possibly…” He’s speaking, but it’s harder to hear, harder to make out words and then meanings and then even the memory itself god please just let me remember- “You were dreaming again”. Her voice is pleasant and sweet, and it pains me to shut my eyes. My mate… not wife, mate… is beautiful, by any measure, but how much pain would I cause in showing her yet more tears? She caresses my scars and permanent welts, tenderness taking the place of the care she’d rendered to me when she’d first found me, alien and battered and broken on the side of a distant hill. WIthout her, I could not have survived. Without her, I wouldn’t have had to. “It’s nothing”, I stave. “Needed to pee”. “Fifteen years, and I still do not understand the etymology of that phrase”, she says, and I can hear her smile. What a wonderful caretaker she is. What a terrible partner I am. “I have to see it again”. My words slice the mood, and the night is suddenly an audience to another impromptu discussion. “Teyebek, you’re doing so well! How long has it been since your last visit? How long might it yet be?” I turn to her, the tears no longer hidden. They shine, make it impossible to ignore the starlight bouncing from them. “Long. A long time. And it may be a long time afterwards. But I need to see it”. She swivels away, and she’s wrestling a demon as only the graceful can; quietly, without a hint to the unaware of the battle inside. “I see the contest may never end”. I move to her, determined. I must do no harm. “You mean the world to me”. “I mean this world to you”, she says, spinning my way, certainty and clarity infinitely more terrifying than her brash, loud screeds. “But there is another world, according to you. A world you belong to more than mine, than ours, and you would return to that world with a snap of your digits if it were possible. I love you, Teyebek, and I would share any world with you, but this is the one we are on”. She doesn’t understand. I can’t blame her. I can leave in a huff, visit the hill on my own, strangle her to death with enough time. But I can’t blame her. I don’t want to. I walk in her shoes, and leave with blisters every time. “Come with me”. Some had affairs. Others indulged in Woodwine, or Xcursion, or any number of substances. Our little household? I made my pilgrimages to the hill outside town, and she stayed behind and tried to ignore my absence. The routine was long established. I see her fight, look down, take stock. “Alright. But we do so as soon as first light is up. You know how things will be tomorrow.” I smile at her, and hold her hand, and guide her back to bed. She’s stiff, but pliable to my affections. I kiss her, and cover us both. The city is already thrumming by the time we make it out of the apartment. Merchants hock their wares, children rattle about in the cobbled streets, but the signs plastered to every scarecrow and electric pole scream a different kind of message. TAKE BACK OUR LANDS! PROTEST, THIRD DAY OF EGLEDOR! I wonder why they haven’t been packed away by guards or agents of the king; the small size of our enclave has not stopped him from taking such steps before. The venders greet my wife, and poignantly eye me. “Morning, Thela”. “Beautiful day, Marson”. Marson cleans a glass at his stand, and pokes me with an accusing gaze. “We shall see”. I quicken my pace. The border post to the outside is not hard to convince, and opens the gate for us. He knows as well as anyone what’s about to occur, and the fewer people inside the gates at the appointed hour, the better. The safer. The winding path is dusty and stony, and the trek is hot and humid. Two suns broil our backs as we proceed, the small container with provisions over my shoulder our only comforts. I’ve made this trip often, but less in recent years. It’s a friend, where it had started as an enemy to my survival. Or so I remember. “How much further?” Thela asks, her voice ragged, and my heart breaks for her energetic spirit. But I can’t help but smile as I point across a small ravine. “There”. She stares, baffled- nothing but an endless stretch of lumped hills attracts her gaze- but I know my way forward. I sprint down the ravine, desperately afraid of twisting an ankle but even that won’t stop me. Eventually I push my way up the other side, slipping on moist grass. The crest is in sight. I summon a final push of speed, and reach the summit of Ozymandius. The plush vegetation has made it that much more difficult to extract, but the sharp, scuffed red that flashes out of the corner of my eye won’t be denied. I grin manically, shouting a yip and begin to dig. Mud slides under my nails and sweat bolts down my face, but I don’t stop. It’s real. It’s real. It’s always real. Finally, it is revealed, and I kneel back and let my heart explode. Before me sits a twisted piece of metal, about a meter wide. Its side has been fused and mangled by a rock, turning it into a single superstructure, ancient and advanced. On the metal, a stripe of burgundy I’ve yet to find a means of replicating anywhere on this world underlines a grouping of symbols. .S Theseus CC- 55939 Thela has almost arrived. I wish I hadn’t asked her to come. She stands beside me. “What are we lo-?” She stops, gasps quietly, kneels. Every instant of silence is vindication. There are many, many instants. At last, she says, “What could have made that on Syrydon?” I look at her, wonder filling my vision. “What indeed?” And then I begin to weep. She takes me onto her shoulder, and holds me, and caresses a beard I don’t belong with, and wipes tears I needn’t have ever shed, and cradles a body wracked with pain I can’t ignore or find cause for. She whispers in ears that have heard power unimaginable thrum me to sleep, and squeezes a breast that swelled with each moment I wore the uniform- In front of a mirror, the uniform looks imposing. It itches, the gray wool twill a constant companion, and the shimmering golden circle on his collar a far heavier, far realer demand, but the harder it pressed from above the better it felt to stand up to it, to meet it, to see a universe worth saving, worth loving- “Have to get back!” I shout and stumble back, and put my raw, red hands to work on digging all the harder. Mud becomes stone, stone becomes clay, but still I dig, and still I dig. “Teyebek, please! There’s nothing-” “My name is not Teyebek!” I shout, pleading. “Call me anything but that, please!” I’m a foot into the ground now, I can’t stop. “There’s nothing there! You’ve looked, sweetheart, don’t you remember?” “Planets are consistently subject to tectonic stresses and landmass sublimation- it’s entirely possible that something buried before has made its way to the surface!” I pause, squinting. What was that about? And yet it seemed reasonable, and I couldn’t stop, and there had to be- “They left you here!” I stop, exhaustion gnawing at my rippled sides. “They left you here and let you suffer alone! Away from this home of yours. Left you with savages, these… these gods of yours! Left you to stick it out with us mere mortals! And if they hadn’t”, Thela’s eyes clench shut. “If they haven’t I never would have met you!” I stand, and grip her shoulders. In the distance, the first fires in the city have started to burn. “Yes! They did. And they had good reason. I don’t know what it was, but it was for a good reason. And I must honor them”. “What must I do to get my mate back?” said Thela almost silently. I round on her, the truth blooming from my soul like a forbidden rose in a mortuary. “The first of our laws, Thela! The first laws of these… people. I don’t know their names or faces or why I was among them, but I know their directive, their guiding light. I mustn't interfere with a planet that is not my own. I mustn’t use my knowledge to bring about change.” I stand. More fires have been ignited, all in the center of town. “Look what I could have done for you! Helped you find water, or treat the sick, or anything. I do what I can, what I must! But I mustn't interfere, and to be the husba- dammit, the mate you want, I have to interfere!” “Then do it!” Thela’s scream was visceral. “Do it and help us as only you can!” “But you are not my people”, I respond, whispering with grief. And to this, Thela does something I hope I’ll never forget. She takes my hand, red not just with effort, but with blood, and places it on the chest of her low slung climbing shirt. Beneath my palm I feel stinging pain and blood slick from one surface to another. One skin to another. And then she drags my palm down, down, further, all along her body. It might have been arousing if not for the sincerity. Down, down, past her sternum, and settling, finally, upon a toned, slightly iridescent stomach. “You are now”, she never has to say. I was hers. Theirs. Whatever they were, whatever they did, or deserved, or became, I was theirs. How best to love two people? A bearded face looked down, the question opening another memory. The man’s eyes were kind and black and vacant save for the gentle curiosity they showed. “By doing them both justice”, said the man, and I look over, and he’s standing there, on another hill, waving gently, proudly, four metal circles blazing in the afternoon suns. I’m theirs. I look at the city. The fires have spread. The protest chants ring loudly, even from afar. By darkness, chaos will erupt. I can see it. Smell it. It will be a nightmare. But it is a nightmare, I decide, that I must do something about. Thela grabs my hand, and I hers. We both start to run back towards the city. The smoke of revolution spirals into the dusk. If I am worth anything, if I am a man I would wish to be, my child will read my writings, and will live in a world where they are consigned only to parchment, written late at night at the side of the bed, in a world safer than the way I found it. My lungs itch and burn, but I understand now. Truth or delusion no longer matters. What matters is what I make of it. I look up at the stars, and see one arc across the sky, begging for a wish. I don’t offer it one. My fate cannot be left in the stars, or to the stars. It is time to honor both. It is time to awaken.

And the victor of the inaugural Alpha Isles Bingo Game is...

((Another depthful bit of great storytelling from Mr. @Zenno!)) ((A Maze of Twisty Little All-Alike Passages, Underground on Emisa III)) Senna and Sullustis had rallied the people and got everyone to move. It was no small feat. Some of those caves had been lived in for many hundreds of revolutions. But Senna had claimed the mantle of Clan Leader and there were none who were willing to challenge her for it. The worst had come when they were fitting the children for knives. All of them had been taught how to run their tails across the sensitive bits of an opponent with a wooden training spar while grappling. But this was the first time they had to don all the real kit with the knowledge that the Rodonthi Zealots or Arosathi Isolationists could be around every corner. If attacked, they would be shown no mercy, down to the last of them. And they would offer none in return. Such was life. A small group of the elders had not prepared themselves and were quite agitated when seeing the young fitted out for combat, only holding 12 or 15 revolutions each. Senna would have none of it. This was the end of their Clan and likely this world. Who could be spared at such a time? While the Rodonthi were always roaming and bred aggression into each new convert or natural-born youth, the Arosathi were even worse. They guarded their territory with a vicious fervor. They did not venture beyond their borders, but they would never denote where those borders were, leaving it as deadly guessing game. Sullustis had done his best and arrayed the Clan in a mobile caravan with warriors spaced at appropriate points. Everything was cleared from their homes, including the old radio set. They were making good time. But only Senna and Sullustis were able to judge that, since only they knew the destination. Each curve in the tunnel, each new cave brought uncertainty. They were far beyond their local maps now. One of the girls, a golden-sheen to her skin, was walking by Senna as they trudged up an incline. The little one didn’t speak and Senna’s tail coiled about the girl’s shoulder, a sign of affection. Senna: What’s your name, little one? Sahnda: Sahnda. She didn’t even look up or smile and it made a pit in Senna’s second stomach. Senna: Who looks after you, Sahnda of the Kurmishoi? Senna knew better than to ask where her parents were. So many had died or been taken. But there were always Clan members who would take in the orphans. But this little one had her tail down and to the left and she showed no interest in talking. Sahnda: No one. She was matter of fact, as if discussing the weather. No sadness, no longing… and the weight of all of it sat on Senna’s shoulders. Senna: Then you may walk by me, Sahnda. Sahnda: ::Still looking ahead, trudging along:: Yes, Clan Leader. Senna managed what smile she could and they continued on their way into the unknown, together. NT/TBC MSNPC Senna Kor Clan Leader of the Kurmishoi As simmed by LT Zenno Acting Security Chief USS Arrow A240006Z13

Don't eat the orange beams! Don't you know they're bad for you?!

Indeed not- if she does she might become a bit... ... ...ohrnary.

Captain Randal Shayne checking in! Here we see Captain Shayne, having finally realized why the Klingons consider him an equal.

((When the dialogue is so good that description can take a back seat. Outrageously great, you two.)) ((Promenade, Raft One)) Hobart: Nope, my first time here, too. Mostly. ::grim smile:: But I grew up in digs like this. The arse-end of the Quadrant, nearly forgotten by the Federation. ::pause, pointing up:: Hear that? We had the same squeaky ventilation system. Recycler’s got a couple months left in it, tops. Zenno: We should go, if you are done mechanically agitating the map console. I detect alleged food smells from down that way. ::points:: The engineer shrugged, and chuckled as they walked. His black eyes searched for crowds. The downside of his strategy to eating safe was a reliance on the lunchtime rush, which invariably meant navigating a lunchtime rush. When things were quiet, there was less to go on. Was a diner empty because the food was lousy, or because it was the middle of a shift? Hobart: So where are you from, Ensign? Zenno/Any: Starbase 307. Born and raised in space. How about you? Hobart: Relva VIII. Zenno: I have never been. What is it like? Hobart: Same as here, just different. Fewer food options, but same squeaky ventilation, somewhere behind one of these panels, I bet there’s a waste reprocessor covered in so much gunk you can use it as a weight-loss aid. One look, and you won’t eat for a month! As they rounded a corner on that pleasant note, Nolen sharply inhaled at the sight of what certainly appeared to be the station’s main food court. A few formal restaurants, a handful of pushcarts, and one or two fast food joints to boot. Fewer food options, indeed. Zenno: An Andorian Fast Food Shack! I’d heard about these! ::Very excitedly:: The Blue Freeze shake is supposed to be ethereal! They have one on Deep Space 9 that I heard about. Do you want to try it? It looks like there is a line though. Or do you want to go further down? I think there is a Tholian-Vulcan fusion cuisine place too, “Molten Hot Veggies” or something. I’d try almost anything. Nolen felt the Bolian’s mind touch on something unpleasant, briefly, there at the end, and he suspected that was a big “almost.” Hobart: No, no, Line is safe. Line is good. Trust the Line. The Line will lead the way. Zenno: ::Very excited:: Blue Freeze Shake and Iced Antennae Poppers! I'm getting that. Or maybe the Extremely Frozen Fajitas. ::thinking:: Zenno didn't think any of the food would have been an issue for him. Andorian food had always been quite palatable. But that was the authentic stuff. This was probably as legitimate as the "Gagh Hut" he had tried on Luna during a training cruise. But the Lieutenant seemed preoccupied with something other that the allegedly tasty treats they were about to have. oO Did I cause offense somehow? Oo Hobart: ::rocking on his knees slightly:: Yep. Zenno: Is everything OK? Do you want to go elsewhere? The engineer's eyes narrowed on Zenno, as if he was evaluating him for something. oO I don't think he wants any Iced Antennae Poppers. Oo Hobart: ::lowered voice, conspiratorial tone:: You know, somewhere in the bowels of this station, there’s a room. Maybe disused quarters, maybe an auxiliary cargo bay. And the people here call it the “dump,” maybe. The “heap,” the “lot,” the “pile,” the “depot,” maybe. Whatever they call it, it’s full—floor to ceiling—of things too broken to use, too valuable to shove back into a replicator, and too expensive to fix. Zenno: That sounds like every station that's at the hind end of nowhere. Hobart: That’s why I’m here, Mister Zenno. See, I don’t do shore leave. ::weighing his head back and forth in nuanced reflection:: Usually. But a place like this? With its dusty corners and forgotten treasures? ::shakes his head:: Too good to pass up. Do you want to give your friend some flimsy station gift shop tchotchke, or a real piece of the Alpha Isles? Zenno: A real piece of the Alpha Isles might leave a waxy residue. Hobart: Response? Zenno: If you want to look through the trash, there's nothing wrong with it, of course. But if we violate any local ordinances it might cause a problem for the ship, but no one should care if you want to go through a discard pile. Bringing anything back to the ship will require a security scan however. oO Does he think I am a rule-breaker? Oo Hobart: Response? Andorian Andi: Next! Welcome to the Andorian Fast Food Shack! It’s Blue and it’s For You! What'll you have? Zenno: Iced Antennae Poppers meal deal with a Blue Freeze Shake! oO I hope he gets the Extremely Frozen Fajitas or the Imperial Guard Ice Cream. Those look good too. Oo Hobart: Response? Tags/TBC Ensign Zenno Security Officer USS Arrow A240006Z13

Context is for Chumps.

God, I love this crew.

All spicy pasta dishes are forever more to be known as hell noodles, courtesy of Tro'k.