She awoke in starlight. A blanket of glimmering lights above her stretched on to seeming eternity. That was how she liked to go to sleep, gazing up at the stars; and why she had requested this room.

It was a bit smaller than the standard Captains quarters, due to it's position on deck 2, the roof was mostly a large oval window. She could lie back on the bed (which was also smaller than the standard Captains sleeping accommodations) and stare for hours at a time at the small twinkling lights, most of which she knew by name.

Not that she would have a lot of time to stargaze, being a captain, most of the time she spent in this room would either be sleeping or going over status reports, but it was nice to know that she had the option.

It had been a rigorous application process, hundreds of venerable captains had applied for the post. If you really wanted to explore the galaxy this was the ship to be on.

She walked quietly to the cylindrical desk in the corner, and mumbled something about coffee to the computer. The cup appeared on her desk, a different color this time, a pale gold. She had worked with a lot of computers, too many to count, over the years, but there was something a bit peculiar she thought. It kept modifying the hues of her food dishes, though it seemed to have settled on something near the yellow spectrum in the last few days. She didn't think it was a coincidence that her favorite color was lemon.

A few waves of her hand and the area above the desk shimmered a moment, then shapes, pictures, words and buttons all appeared level with her shoulders. She touched the spot where a blue button floated with the words "Crew Statistics" above it, feeling the cool, standard texture of the hollo-interface. She hadn't had time to personalize her workspace yet, though she knew she may never get to it; a lot of people preferred a fleshy texture, she'd once shared an astrometrics lab with an ensign who had programmed everything to feel like soft baby bunny fur.

She waved her hand, scrolling through the ships roster which was matrixed by duties and ranks. She indexed the bridge and higher ranking officers and began to read their personal profiles again.

"Mary Yang: First Officer. Ethnicity: Human..."

Well she didn't need to know about Mary, she'd served with her several years ago and requested her personally for the position.

Moving on the interface shifted and focused quickly, responding to her eye movements faster than she could notice so that at no given point was any part of it she wanted to see, obscured or out of her field of vision. Had she not been using just such an interface for the better part of her life she might have found the intuitive use of it rather impressive, but as it was she navigated the personnel files as naturally and unconsciously as she breathed.

"Taro Jonzel: Chief of Security. Ethnicity: Vulcan/Betazed/Other. Previous Service, Chief of Security on the Argos III. Studied Criminology at the Wexwell Institute; Multiple degrees in Criminal and Forensic Psychology."

In reality she was behind the times, most people, especially the younger ones, used telepathic interfaces or TI's, but she found them invasive and, well... All those little kids walking around with jacks in their ears, wide eyed and staring off into space like zombies at the Acadamy gave her the creeps.

"Kay Duvenry: Chief Engineer. Ethnicity:..." what else "A.I. hybrid photonic/bio-synaptic. Standard Form: Bajoren-humanoid."

About 10 years after the restrictions on AI admissions to Starfleet were loosened from a case-by-case review board to a standard diagnostic, hundreds of humanoid engineers and programmers were replaced by artificial counterparts... or, rather, Synthetic-based life-forms.

She sipped some of her cooling coffee, muttering "No one knows technology quite like technology."

She had supported the reduced restrictions, and Starfleet as a whole was flourishing because of it, but sometimes she wondered if 'Bio-genetic-based life-forms' hadn't just signed off on their own expandability.

"Hera Xue : Senior Helmsman -3DD... "

3DD was a new acronym, it stood for three dimensional drive. This was the only active star-ship on which the distinction was aplicable, but the new classification had been in place for the last three years in anticipation of their maiden voyage.

"... Ethnicitiy: Human. Previous Service: Shift Commander on the Bolian Diplomatic Star-ship Indigo."

Shift Comander to senior helmsman. On any other ship that would be significant of some blemish on their record, but there were a lot of people trading accross or down to serve on this ship.

"Cacey Brinn: Chief Holo-Engineer. Ethnicity: Cairn. Previous Service: None."

Just out of the academy, or rather, sped through the academy in order to get him on this ship. She didn't like it one bit, but she'd had little say in the matter. He was, undoubtedly, a genius, and they needed the best Holo-Engineer they could get, but she couldn't help feel that his assignment under her command was more about politics then it was about getting the best person for the job.

About 50 years ago Holo-ships were a huge fad. They were cheaper to make and the maintenance was negligible. The only problem was that all it took was one significant power failure and instead of a galaxy class star-ship you had a tiny holomatric box and three hundred floating Starfleet bodies.

It took about ten years to finally get the regulations in place so that now all of a ships indispensable components had to be 'hard-wired' while most of it's 'luxurey' components were photonically based; however, all of it's indispensable components could be replaced at a moments notice holographically, and many of it's weapon systems relied on holo-technology.

To get quick and reliable holographic jury-rigging though, you needed a holo-engineer. A good one who could respond and adapt their programs to changing environmental circumstances quickly and creatively. Holo-engineering was considered to be an art by many, and there was no doubt Cacey was a protege... whether or not he was a good officer was another question.

She waved her hand as though she were waving goodbye to a friend and the interface faded out of existence before her.

She stretched, exercised, showered, changed, and primped, tying her long blond hair behind her in a plait. Finally she ordered another cup of coffee (aureolin this time), picked up her Digital Log and walked toward the door to her quarters.

"Captains Log: Star-date: 481000..."

As the door dematerialized before her (luxuries) Captain Anna Nadihya paused and breathed in deeply, closing her eyes for just a moment and thinking of the stars.

"...Show Time."