Abandoned Alien Outpost

"You mean you were serious?!" you ask Lieutenant zh'Thracia incredulously. She responds with a vindictive grin.

"Don't act so surprised, Doe. You fuck with me, I fuck with your landing party rotation schedule. The Captain is beaming down to the abandoned alien outpost we just discovered, and you're going with him."

"But why is the Captain beaming down? Shouldn't we be sending a science team or security team first?"

"You know the Captain likes to be, what's the human expression? 'Hands-on' when it comes to new discoveries like this." She retorts, mulling over the unfamiliar human phrase to herself a few times. You can't help but think about the rumors that the Captain has been "hands-on" with the Lieutenant a few times before. At least that's something you and the Captain have in common, although he probably wasn't thrown out on his ass in the middle of it. As your mind wanders, your eyes begin to drift down zh'Thracia's blue-hued neckline and over the curves covered by her red uniform tunic.

"Are you even listening to me, Doe?" Your focus snaps back to her scowling face and away from her shapely breasts and the twin peaks in her red uniform fabric. "As I was saying, Ensign Calhoun is taking point on this mission. She's already waiting for you in the transporter room."

"Calhoun? What happened to Lieutenant Galloway?"

"He still hasn't been cleared for landing party duty yet. He started praising Landru again in the mess hall yesterday, and now he has to do another psych eval."

"You see, Tracie? This is exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about! If the Captain would just keep out of..."

"Save it for someone who cares, Doe," zh'Thracia interrupts, her voice tinged with exasperation. "Now, grab your phaser and get to the transporter room on the double. The Captain has been waiting on you for twenty minutes now."

"But you only called me ten minutes ago!" you exclaim.

"Well then you better get moving. You know how the Captain hates it when his crewmen are late.

Cursing under your breath, you grab your landing party gear from the storage locker and leave the armory, nearly bowling over a maintenance team as you run into the transporter room.

"Crewman Doe, so nice of you to finally join us," the Captain says to you irritatedly from the transporter pad. On either side of him stand the ship's Vulcan science officer and Ensign Calhoun, a tall woman with severely short bleached hair that contrasts starkly with her chocolate brown skin. She doesn't look very happy to see you either, but that probably has more to do with the fact that you "accidentally" hooked up with her girlfriend after that crazy party shortly after you came on board. You're still not quite sure how that happened, and now that you think about it the entire crew was probably drunk that whole day. To Calhoun though, that was no excuse. She's been known to hold a mean grudge.

"Well, Crewman, are you going to take your position, or do I need to send you a formal invitation?" asks the Captain with a bite of sarcasm.

"Sorry, sir," you respond sheepishly as you take your place on the transporter pad next to the Vulcan, standing as far away from Calhoun as possible.

"All right. Mr. Kyle," the Captain commands, "Energize."