And The Morale Of The Story Is…
An excerpt from Memoirs of the Delta Quadrant by Neelix
Edited by Lt. Taya 17 Janeway (TaTTooGaL™)
Jump to the jam boogy woogy jam slam
Bust the dialect; I'm the man in command
Come flow to the beat of the mighty mic master
Rhyming on the mic I'll bring the suckers to disaster…
Sam Wildman was tired as she returned to her quarters. It had been a long, hard day at work, rewiring damaged circuit junctions and doing major repair work on the ship's infrastructure. Tension had been high at work- they badly needed new parts for the ship, but they had just left very unfriendly space and might not be able to find a trading partner for quite a while more. And in the midst of all the bad news had come dubious rumors about the captain breaking into a wild dancing spree in the Mess Hall. Sam sighed as she glanced over at Naomi, sound asleep in the adjoining section of her quarters. What kind of insane environment am I raising my daughter in? She wondered. Borg as playmates, alien attacks every other week, and goodness knows what other weird things. She constantly worried about Naomi not being able to integrate with other people her age when they got back to Earth. She leads such a strange and lonely life here.
Sam went over to her desk and keyed in a few commands, hoping she didn't have too much work to do that night. With her crazy schedule she had barely been able to squeeze in a few minutes with her daughter each day, and it was driving her nuts. In a weird way she missed the security and peace of Earth, which was why she was working her butt off to help get this ship back to the Alpha Quadrant. Back to where her husband and her family were.
A message flashed on the screen. Someone had posted a file on her desktop- I'd just sent it to most of the crew. Mystified, she opened it. It was a letter. She read the first few lines and groaned. So the unbelievable rumors about the captain had been true after all. But she read on anyway, curious as to what I was up to.
Dear Members of the Crew, I began,
You have probably heard about the Mess Hall incident today by now. For those of you who don't believe it, yes, it's true. And whatever you may think of it, I must first and foremost tell you that I take full responsibility for what happened. It was none of the captain's fault, and she wasn't acting of her own accord. So please, I beseech all of you, forget about it.
You are probably wondering why I am writing this letter to all of you. Well, I need your help. Of late I have noticed that things aren't going too well on this ship. People become depressed easily, and spirits are generally low. The captain especially seems to have slipped into a mood of a general despondency. And as morale officer on this ship I feel that it is my duty to change this.
The Voyager is a small ship, and as we all know, things are hard to conceal from each other. Secrets are hard to keep, and any form of conflict quickly boils over into something drastic. Not very nice. To make this ship a better place for all of us, something must be done. And it begins with all of us.
Everyday we can make a difference to the lives of those all around us. Just a smile, a simple "Good morning," or "How's your day going?" can do wonders to lift a person's spirit. Now, I'm not saying that we're a bunch of indifferent, dispassionate people. We just need to show that we care more often.
Our captain especially. I know that she has put so much extra effort into reaching out to each and everyone of us, to make sure that none of us are feeling lost and alone, to make sure that everything is going right on this ship. But how many of us have actually reciprocated this? How many of us go out of our way to make sure that she is alright, ask her about how her day is going, or take some time to encourage her when it seems like all hope is lost? There is so much stress involved in captaining a ship, any ship, and especially one that is by itself in this unfeeling wilderness. She tries to hard to be a role model for all of us it sometimes breaks my heart to see her struggling to battle her inner demons to keep a brave face. And it is inevitable that that wall of steel is going to have to come down sometime if we don't do anything about it.
I know that this request may seem slightly outrageous to you, but what I am asking is that we all be nicer to our captain. And I don't just mean smiling at her when we see her in the corridor, or asking her the occasional question about how her life is going. I speak of something bigger, more significant. I hope that we can all accept her as she is. Learn to accept her shortcomings and forgive her for her mistakes. To stop seeing her in terms of what Starfleet wants of her, or what we want of her, or even what she wants of herself. To stop continually judging her. To treat her as a friend, just a fellow traveler with a common destination. We are all part of the same ship, in the same boat. She shares our hopes, joys, aspirations and setbacks. She is only human. And she is one of us.
I hope that this message will not go unnoticed by you all. We need to make this ship a better place to live in. And the best thing is, you can start today…
At this point Sam realized that her eyes were growing moist, touched by the earnest passion conveyed in the simple words I had written. Okay, so it did sound slightly cheesy, but it struck a chord within her. "Neelix, you're a genius," she muttered. This was just what she needed- a ray of light to help her get rid of the perpetual tired depression she seemed to be in right now. Sometimes the stresses of living on this ship eclipsed the fact that your neighbor too suffered the same, from the lowest crewman belowdecks all the way to the captain. It made her feel better just thinking that if she was miserable, then there were lots of others on this ship who were miserable as well. Communal dejection. The sudden wash of empathy over her almost made her smile. Imagine! Such a kinship she shared with those around her. "Neelix, when we get back to the Alpha Quadrant we should make you some sort of ambassador. You have it in you to stop wars," she said to herself.
She read on, then her jaw dropped slightly. "Then again, I take that back," she said as she reached the ending "Signed, Neelix". "You may be caring and compassionate, but you're also a complete nutcase."
Naomi had woken in the meantime, and she padded over to her mother. "What's this all about?"
Sam chuckled. "Just some hare-brained idea which Neelix came up with," she replied. Great. My daughter has a lunatic for a godfather. Gathering Naomi into her arms, she picked up a stylus, settled down with her daughter, and began to write.
Many tripped the tour upon the rhyme they saw
To an infinite height to the realm of the hard-core
Here we go, off I take ya; dip trip! Flip fantasia…
Janeway felt like she had reached the end of her endurance. She was tired, her head was throbbing, and her ship was still in disarray. To top it all she had mortally embarrassed herself in front of her crew. The Doctor had assured her that one side effect of the drug overdose would be an overwhelming sense of depression after, but she wasn't entirely sure that what she was feeling now was all drug-induced.
She leaned on her couch and sighed, closing her eyes. Her head still hurt mildly, despite the Doctor's efforts. Or was it all her imagination? It felt awful.
Her desktop computer terminal beeped, and she felt a small twinge of irritation. What could that be? She wondered. Groaning, she dragged herself off the couch and headed to her computer terminal. A surprise: it was a letter, addressed to her. She opened it: it was from Samantha Wildman.
Dear Captain, it began,
I know it must seem strange to you for me to write this letter, but I felt that it was only the right thing to do. Wouldn't it be stranger if I'd lived on the same small ship with somebody else for more than six years and never got to know her better than I should? Yet I've never talked with you for more than five minutes at a time, never shared anything private with you, or expressed my innermost feelings. I've never even written a letter to you. So maybe this would be a good time to start.
I could say so many things in this letter. I could tell you how thankful I am to have you as my captain, or what a wonderful job you are doing in running this ship, or even how grateful I am to you that I have my wonderful daughter with me today. But I won't. I don't want this to be just another appreciation letter to a superior. (You must get tons of these everyday!) I want to address you as a friend would. We- all of us on this ship, that is- have gone through so much together, it would be unnatural if we can't address each other with less than formality. I hope you don't mind.
To tell the truth, I've wanted to do something like this for a very long time, but I've never gotten enough motivation to do so. (Call me lazy…) I guess it was the message that Neelix sent out to us that catalyzed the start of this letter. He probably sent it because he was feeling guilty about the Mess Hall incident (as we've all begun to euphemistically refer to it by) but it did strike a raw nerve. I started to realize how much I'd alienated myself from other members of the crew, except for a few close friends. And I know many other crewmen are guilty of it too. Especially on the lower decks- here we all know each other very intimately, but we hardly ever get to interact with the senior crew on a non-formal basis. Not as much as we'd like, anyway.
But I want to change that. I want to be able to look back on my days on Voyager when I'm eighty years old (and I'm dead sure we'll get back to Earth before that) and remember them as warm and friendly. Sure, we'll have a rough spot here and there, inevitable in space, but at least there'll always be friends on this ship.
So I'd like to begin by inviting you to dinner at my quarters with my daughter, any time you're free. I have so many things I'd like to talk about with you. (Am I allowed to use emoticons in this letter? Just kidding.
Well, I guess I've said most of what I've wanted to say for this letter. I hope you're coming to Neelix's crazy pink party tomorrow night, if you're feeling well enough. It sounds totally insane, but promises to be fun.
And, oh… one more question… when we're off duty, may I call you Kathryn?
Take care, okay?
Sincerely,
Samantha Wildman
She took a deep breath, trembling with emotion. It'd been a long, long time since anyone had sent her a letter like this. It brought back so many memories, of Mark, even her old academy friend Will Riker. As far as she could remember, no-one on this ship had ever written something like this, as if speaking to a friend instead of a superior officer. And oddly she didn't feel offended as some might have been in her place. Instead she found the letter comforting, uplifting even. She wanted to write back to Sam immediately, thank her for her concern, for making her day, anything! And did she want to have dinner with her? When was the last time she had dinner with someone other than one of her senior crew? Of course she did! She picked up her stylus, headache and depression forgotten, ready to pen a return letter, when her terminal beeped again.
Another letter! This time from Ayala in Security… and another, and another, and another! Some of them were just thank-you notes, others were long essays full of flashbacks; some were written by a shift a deck, a section: even a long, emotionally-charged message from the Equinox crew- well, she'd almost stop thinking of them as that, they were her crew now- ; there were letters from all echelons of the ship, from the common crewman all the way to Commander Chakotay, who wrote the longest letter of all, second only to B'Elanna (who'd apparently written it while on duty- but not that Starfleet condones slacking on the job, mind you!).
Janeway shook her head and muttered to herself, laughing. "Neelix, you contriving little devil. Did you plan all this? Or was this overwhelming response totally unpredicted?" But whatever it was, she was fairly sure that her crew's words were sincere. And the honest words, written with spontaneity and feeling, touched her deeply. This was what she'd been working for for six long years, to keep her crew together, keep their spirits up. And now they were repaying the favor. She vowed to keep those words close to her heart, to act as a beacon of hope when things were down.
She sifted through the messages again, and noticed that one thing kept popping up: the pink party to be held the next day. In writing my letter to the crew, I'd neglected to tell her about this outrageous idea of mine. Well, she didn't mind, of course. She even agreed to hold something similar to it every month after the event.
Yes yes yes on and on as I flex, [something] words manifest
Feel the vibe from here to Asia; dip trip! Flip fantasia!
The party itself was a complete blast (that's a common Terran expression, right?). Everybody turned up, even those on duty who took turns to crash the party -in shifts, of course. It wasn't exactly the wisest idea to let our guard down like that, but the crew just needed to find some way to rest and relax after the tensions of the past few days.
So Tom and I worked hard over this new holoprogram to hold the party in. It was a large room, basically, with a sufficiently stocked bar, and plenty of floor space for all the crew members. We did it up in a snazzy style of décor, complete with jewel lights and sequinned drapes. And for that night only we arranged long rows of tables across the room, just for the occasion.
The first few people to trickle in looked slightly nervous and unsure of themselves. Many of them had chosen to wear their uniforms, but a few adventurous ones had worn civvies over, which was good. As more people started to come, the crew began to relax a bit.
The first senior crew members to arrive were Tom and Harry, both of whom had whimsically decided to dress in their Captain Proton suits for the evening. B'Elanna arrived directly after her shift with Tuvok, then followed by Seven and the Doctor, and finally Chakotay and the captain. None of them were in uniform- even Seven had dressed up, probably with the Doctor's help. The captain herself was wearing a stunning flared blue gown, tastefully low-cut.
I served light snacks to the crew as they mingled and celebrated their friendships. But everyone was waiting for the highlight of the day.
The first cue came when strains of hot jazz began playing over Tom's carefully calibrated speaker system. The crew tittered in anticipation as Chakotay took the first step onto the nearest table. He held out his hand to the captain. "May I have this dance?"
She laughed, took his hand and ascended on the table. "I'd be delighted."
One by one, some shyly, some laughing at the sheer insanity of it, the crew of the Voyager mounted the rows of tables we'd set up. And when the signal was given, we started to dance. All-out, the whole night, all the crew on the tables, having the time of their lives. Swapping partners, grooving, and totally enjoying themselves.
And after that series of events the crew grew much closer to the captain as well as each other, of course. You don't do things like that everyday and not get affected by them. Even so many years after we've returned to the Alpha Quadrant, we still talk about it: in our correspondences, at our annual reunion. "Remember the time we all got up on tables and danced?…"
And would you believe it all started with eight hundred milligrams of paracetamol? Life does strange wonders sometimes.
__________The End_________
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