Handing over the Helm

Posted on Thu Jul 30th, 2026 @ 12:19am by Sublieutenant Miles Lynn & Sublieutenant Seira t'Reiza

2,028 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Intermission: Safe Haven
Location: Cera
Timeline: Late September, 2387

Miles couldn't help but smile as he looked out at Ourainavassa in the drydock bay. The damage from the evacuation of Romulus, the brief fight against the Terrans beforehand, and the little scraps they had gotten into on the way to Haven had disappeared, and the warbird looked as if it had come fresh out of the shipyard. Its black hull showed a slight purple sheen in the light of Cera's sun, and the nacelles at her wingtip glowed in the same colour, now that the singularity drive was back online. Of course, this purple colouring made the prototype stand out from the usual green hues of Romulan ships, but it also showed that Ourainavassa was indeed a special ship.

"She's beautiful, isn't she," he remarked quietly towards the young Romulan woman standing next to him. "Thank you for coming, Seira. I need to talk to you about something." He sighed. "You know that this is where Mila and I grew up, right? And where our father still lives. Well, he's been going through some bad times recently. He's been very ill, and though the treatment is working well, he's still not fully recovered. Because of that, he can't go to work, he can't really go out at all, and that's taken a toll on his mind. Mila and I talked it over, and, well. With her scientific mind, the crew and the colony need her. But me? Sure, I'm a great pilot, but I'm not the only one who can fly."

He smiled at Seira. "So, I'm staying. At least for a few months, maybe longer. Depends on how things go."

This was not far off from the sort of explanation Seira could have expected to hear from another of her own kind; the need to assist one's kin. Though, one point made one one her eyebrows tilt up quizzically. "What about Sari? Does she know about this yet?"

Miles looked back out of the window in silence for a moment, before replying without looking back at Seira. "We broke up just before we left for Cera. Another reason I'm staying, really. I need some time to myself."

"Oh." There wasn't really anything more Seira could think of to say on that subject; given she wasn't still entirely sure how human relationships worked to begin with; let alone ones with multiple species involved; which raised the odds of anything she might say being the wrong thing to say. "Thank you for helping me save my family."

"Oh, please," Miles replied with a smirk. "I didn't do much. Other than my job, I suppose. It's everyone else you should be thanking. The Subcommander for organising it all, the Captain and Mila for figuring out the timing, Doctor Gable's friends, the Captain's family, all those people who came to help. Major Rogers, without her my sister and I wouldn't have been there to begin with. And how she captured that hospital ship with Hatham and Perez. And then there's Raven, of course. Getting us all together, getting Ourainavassa, and what she did at Romulus." He shrugged. "And you helped, too. Everyone did their part. Wouldn't have worked otherwise."

Seira dipped her head ever-so-slightly in acknowledgment of the statements. "Thank your father for us, as well. I was sent with a list of purchases to make during this trip; the supplies provided cover most of them."

Becoming - to make the remaining purchases she had - an authorized user of the colony's Bank of Ferenginar account had unfortunately required sending over what Seira considered far too much of her identifying information to Vareth's Ferengi investments broker; a process which had left her hoping back when it had happened that the Ferengi wouldn't somehow use it to launch some type of identity-theft scheme...though, if they did, they'd probably get whatever they deserved; considering as far as she knew she was still officially considered dead in whatever remained of the Empire; and if she wasn't anymore, she was instead considered guilty of treason; neither of which were solid identities to try and steal.

"Of course," Miles replied with a genuine smile. He had watched Seira turn from a shaken, severely injured escapee into a confident, capable pilot, and he was certain that Ourainavassa would be in good hands with her - otherwise he would not have chosen to stay behind. "I'm looking forward to Mila's tales of your heroic flying in my absence," he added with a chuckle.

"I think it's more likely to be 'heroic ditch digging' for awhile." Seira snickered. "That planet needs...work." The fact that said planet still existed, however, put it at the moment a definite step above the homeworld she would never see again.

"Nah, I doubt it," Miles replied, his smile turning into a smirk. "The colony needs cash more than anything else, there are plenty of people there to do the digging. But only one ship that could go out and earn some Latinum. Besides, I doubt anyone on the crew will want to stay grounded for long once they have this beauty back, especially not with the new upgrades. I did a shakedown yesterday, she flies even more smoothly than before, somehow." He laughed. "Honestly, I doubt anything other than the structural frame is standard on that thing at this point. Maybe the beds."

"Not much was standard on it to begin with, given it's original owners. Used to actually worry given the weirdness with the core that it would start showing me controls in languages I don't know." Which in Seira's case - without the professional need to know such as existed for a communications or intelligence officer or a commander, was exactly all languages except her native tongue. Though, after long enough around aliens now, she had admittedly started picking up various curse words from them.

"The replicator in our quarters did that once, actually." Miles shook his head at the memory. "After some trial and error, we figured out that the only language it would respond to was, for some weird reason, Andorian. And we only found that out after it started dispensing excrement after I cursed at it. Yeah, that was not fun in the moment. Took days to get the stink out. Why the replicator even knew how to do that, nobody knows. I'm still not entirely convinced it wasn't Sari pulling a prank, to be honest. You wouldn't think it, but that girl is an incurable prankster, among other things."

"I'm not the best at judging the behavior of other species, really." Seira shrugged her eyebrows. "Hadn't even met any until the last year or so. Because by Romulan standards any tendency of hers to prank people is definitely not the most shocking part about Orion behavior." She blushed dusky olive across her cheekbones for a moment.

"Well, the behaviour you are referring to. Yeah. I mean." Miles stuttered a little, nervously blushing himself. "Yeah, that was a little tricky at first, what with my fragile bones and all. I mean, if you hugged me a bit too tight with that metal arm of yours, you could probably snap my spine."

Seira rolled her eyes, a habit she had picked up only in the last year after seeing a variety of humans, half-humans, and closely associated species do so. "The natural one could do that, too. It was actually really, really weird when I first started using the gym on board and had to actually go further from the low end of the weights and settings than I've ever had to before in my life. I've never exactly been anything too impressive raw strength wise, measured against my own." The viridian flush was back on Sera's face for a moment at admitting this point, but at a distinctly lower level than before; then another shrug of the eyebrows. "You could say we both kinda traded away some durability for our extra helpings of speed and accuracy, honestly."

"You less than me," Miles replied with a shrug. "And please, don't. While much of my skeleton is reinforced with titanium mesh, the bones can and will still break, and it will still be absolute agony. The main purpose of the reinforcement is that I don't have to worry about breaking a bone every time I accidentally knock over a glass or something."

He glanced at Seira's arm and smiled. "It's remarkable, if you think about it. You're missing an arm, I've got my fragile bones, my sister was born deaf, the Captain is missing a leg. But none of us have let that slow us down in any way."

"Doctor Gable said she knows people who've eventually become faster with one of these than they were with their original." Seira wiggled the fingers on her prosthetic by way of demonstration; it was still covered in the pearly off-white synthetic skin she hadn't bothered replacing with a more natural color; but now also with a variety of designs tattooed across it. "That'll probably take a few more years, though."

"I mean, anything takes practice. Took Mila ages to get the hang of all the fancy tricks she can do with her implants, too." Miles looked down at his own body. "None of that for me, sadly." Suddenly, he had a thought. "Hey, since we actually notified the CDF that we were coming this time, they gave permission for everyone on the crew to go planetside if they so wished. Have you been down there?"

"I went down to make the purchases I still had left on the list, yes, and arrange for their delivery. If you mean beyond that, however, no. I was not certain which areas would and would not be appropriate." Which was to say - without really saying it - that Seira assumed Cera had its rough neighborhoods and dangerous locales like anywhere else; and with little knowledge of what those might be, had strayed little from the main commercial sectors.

Miles nodded. "Makes sense. There are definitely some places to avoid, especially as an alien. I mean, in the end, Kozan is much like any other major city in that way. But if you want, I can show you around a bit, after all, I grew up there. And I know a few places you'd love to see."

"Sure! I just have to be back by 1330 tomorrow to meet the supply deliveries." Seira supposed she might have been able to try handing over the signed contract paperwork to someone else and having them do it; but was also limited in her understanding of how local business rules worked; so the simplest thing least likely to go wrong had seemed to be planning to handle the entire process start to finish herself.

"Hang on," the pilot replied, taking out his chronometer set to Ceran decimal time. "Well, it's barely 1600 now. Just shy of 6.70 planet time. How long you reckon you'll need to get ready to go?"

"Time to secure the supply contracts in the safe and make sure someone is around to keep watch on the ship; that's about it." Seira shrugged her eyebrows; she didn't expect that to take more than a half a human hour at most.

"Right then," Miles nodded with a smile. "I will meet you in hangar three in half an hour then. Gives me time to go book a table for dinner." He quickly calculated and converted the time in his head, nodding to himself. "You'll like the place. And I've got something even better planned for afterwards."

The eyebrow edged up again halfway, and taking a moment to consider the sort of things the twins had occasionally invited her to in the past during the time that had been spent around Drozana, one question above all others came to the top of her mind. "Will I need earplugs?"

Miles couldn't help but laugh at the reminder of the night at a nightclub on that seedy station. "Don't worry, not this time. I'll see you in a bit!"

RSS Feed