Of The Stars

Posted on Mon Feb 9th, 2026 @ 6:22pm by Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart & Lieutenant Dashku Zhevou

1,443 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Year One: The Point of No Return
Location: USS Moore - Astrometrics Lab
Timeline: MD: 006 - 20:30hrs

Evelyn stared endlessly into a star field until the boundary between herself and the endless void began to blur. She was surrounded in utter silence - no hum of the engines, no beeping of completed diagnostics - only the faint feeling of the deck that vibrating softly under her feet and the thin curls of incense smoke from her Vulcan meditation lamp beside her.

She struggled with her thoughts recently. Her encounters with Anjar and Kei, the lingering strain from the severed bond, it all left her distracted. Bothersome thoughts intruded her stream of consciousness regularly now. She felt more than just restlessness or pain but could not find the word to the emotion. She just knew she was out of control of her emotions, feeling them churning just below the calm surface and found herself turning to meditation for focus and clarity. Every attempt in her quarters left her feeling the void of his presence so she sought out a neutral territory in a desperate attempt at peace.

Kneeling, she folded her hands into her lap and fixed her gaze on the dark space between two stars. She recalled Tomran’s voice, teaching her to find stillness without his or Senril’s guidance. Slowly, she released each thought as it formed, until even her breathing dissolved into silence.

Dashku had an engineering kit slung over her shoulder and was muttering under her breath in Orion as she walked into the Astrometrics lab. She was muttering under her breath as she walked up to it. Her fingers moved over the console and started running a diagnostic before she knelt down and started pulling off panels. She wasn't part of maintenance, she was operations, that meant operating, not keeping things operating. Just because she had the qualifications to do engineering doesn't mean she wanted to do the work.

As she started to look over the inner workings, something in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she looked over to see Stweart trying to meditate. "Gisjacheh," She swore in Orion as she was surprised. She usually didn't miss much. "Are you all right Stewart?"

Stewart let out a soft sigh that spoke more of annoyance at being interrupted than at Dashku. "Yeah, I'm fine." She said casually, trying to bite down on her annoyance. "Computer, standard illumination." She ordered for the lights to resume their normal brightness in the lab as she reached for the meditation lamp and blew it out.

"Sorry, Dash. I didn't mean to startle you." She offered getting back to her feet slowly. "Just looking for someplace quiet to center."

"No, no you're fine, I should be better about minding my surroundings," Dashku waved one of her hands as she turned to look at Stewart. Something was obviously bothering her, but she wasn't sure it was her place to dive in. "I can come back later, just some of the blue shirts getting grumpy about not having all the resolution that they wanted. I'll keep them at bay."

Stewart gave a dismissive shake of her head as she moved to the console. "Nah, it wasn't working anyway." She confessed with a mild sigh before glancing at the Orion woman. "Why are you down here anyway? Talvon has more than enough engineers who could come down here and fix the resolution. Hardly seems worth your time."

"Would you believe me if I told you I miss this kind of work? Quiet, out of the way and I don't have to deal with all of the noise that I deal with during a regular duty shift," Dashku shrugged one of her shoulders, before giving Stewart a once over just to get and idea of her mental state. "I could ask the same of you, I'd think there'd be better places to try and meditate."

Stewart gave a small, practical nod with a simple shrug.
“Yeah. There probably are.”

She didn’t look away from the display as she continued.

“When I was first learning how to meditate on my own—without being actively guided—my foster father had me focus on a fixed point. Not a star—the space between two of them.”

The Vulcan night sky remained projected, precise and unmoving. For a moment, she let her attention settle there out of habit, the memory arriving without weight or commentary.

“You hold your attention on it until there’s nothing left but that and your breathing,” she said evenly. “Thoughts don’t stop. They just fail to stick.”

Her eyes flicked briefly toward Dashku—unfocused, automatic—before she caught herself and returned her attention to the display, the momentary lapse gone as quickly as it had come.

“It doesn’t work particularly well when you’re traveling at warp,” she added, matter-of-fact. “Nothing stays fixed. The stars streak. Your mind keeps adjusting whether you want it to or not. Static charts are… close enough.”

She finally glanced back at Dashku, one corner of her mouth lifting almost imperceptibly.

“One of the few advantages of living on a planet,” she said. “The sky stays put.”
A brief pause, curious rather than probing. “You know what I mean?”

"Despite my mother's influence, I understand more than you might realize. I spent time on her ship now and again, but usually when she went out, I was sent to live with my father. He was a simple fisherman and I spent many nights on the deck of his ship gazing up at the stars. They are some of my best memories." She paused for a moment, but felt the need to continue explaining. "Orion culture is far more complicated than most holonovels portray. Getting pregnant without medical intervention is difficult, women who can are normally a dominate force. Propagation of the species. It's also why many of the activities the Federation seems to be prudish about are so normal... and fun."

Stewart leaned against the console as she listened intently. She admittedly knew very little about Orion culture outside of rumors and exaggeration that she knew better than to take as truth. Her expression softened at the implication and the fact Dashku clearly had a complicated childhood like her own. "If you preferred being with your father, why didn't you stay?" she asked softly.

"I did not have a choice," Dashku said almost wistfully. She quickly recovered and shrugged one of her shoulders. "My mother could have children, if she had willed it my father would have lived with her and done her bidding. She let him continue as a simple fisherman. She had her daughters, and as such had elevated status. She was content to bring us up as heirs to the family name."

Stewart straightened off the console, slow and controlled, like she’d decided this part mattered. Her eyes stayed on Dashku’s face, not the panels, not the stars, not the lab.

There was no judgment, no pity, just recognition.

Stewart’s mouth tightened once, then eased. She didn’t look away. Didn’t offer a platitude she didn’t mean. She let Dashku’s words sit between them in the quiet.

Then she gave a small nod, almost to herself. “As agents,” she said, voice low.

"It's a little more complex, but yes..." Dashku nodded, confirming her assessment. She worked her jaw for a moment, considering how much more to say. "I left that life behind for a reason, too much of my father in me I think. It's why I want to be in Ops, and decline every time Intelligence asks me to work for them."

Stewart gave a small nod of acknowledgement. "Brave," she commented. "When you consider everything."

She exhaled softly. "Leaving your life behind is one thing. Choosing your own path in Starfleet - rather than the easiest option - that's another."

After another moment, Evelyn shifted closer to the open panels. "What's throwing of the resolution?," she asked as she crouched down, glancing at the innards of the conduit. All business. No looking for some deep confession from the Orion and her secrets. Simply accepting what was being offered.

"Brave or foolish. We'll see," Dashku made as a final comment about her past. There was more, so much more that she hadn't thought about in a very long time and she wished to leave the past buried in the past. She turned back to Stewart and shrugged one of her shoulders. "As for what's wrong, I think the neutrino imaging sensors were a little gummed up. They'll need to be scrubbed but I'll leave that problem for Talvon, although I haven't interacted with him much. Wish me luck."

 

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