Author's Note: Expect Chapter Two tomorrow, but that might be the last part for a while, given my review of already prepared material.

Chapter One

Captain Shawneela Osanna watched as Star Base 23 grew larger on screen. Arrival at this Star Base, meant that after a week's layover the Oklahoma after two months of patrol along the Romulan Neutral Zone in the Quebec and Romeo Sectors, as orders referred to them, would be over. Osanna had been looking forward to it. It had been a fairly successful patrol, marked by the unusual incident of the Romulans assisting in the capture of a rather annoying smuggler. Commander Decius of the Warbird Stormhawk had agreed that an inventory of the smuggler's ship would determine who got him first. The smuggler had more Federation Contra-band than Romulan, so his ship, the rather ill-named Conan Foddare was currently being towed behind the Oklahoma.

This made maneuvering a little more challenging for the Oklahoma's helmsman, or in this case, helmsgirl. Chantilly had apparently drawn the short straw when the pilots had chosen from among themselves who got the honor of bring the Oklahoma in. The draw was traditional when a ship came into a Starbase. She knew that Chantilly hadn't expected to be included in the draw, but Lieutenant Hauan had insisted.

It had been a good few months, even with the occasional trauma. Osanna had to have her room's sound proofing upgraded due to the crying babies at night. The babies, her grand-babies now, had been a mixed blessing. Both of her girls took care of their babies rather well, though Habiba tended to handle them just a little more often. Still there were times when she had to help, like the night that Kismet refused to stop crying. Osanna never found out why, but Kismet stopped crying after she held him for a while.

"Captain, the Star Base has transmitted the calender of events for the week," Lieutenant Gostillna said. Osanna turned to see the Chief of Security, who stood with his phaser rifle slung behind his back at tactical. "I think you'll want to take a look at the Scientific events."

Osanna was sure that meant trouble. A glance at the calender revealed a botany conference. Her thumb immediately moved to bring up the list of attendees. She knew what she'd find, what she didn't want to find. Lieutenant Gostillna wouldn't have brought it up otherwise. Halfway down the list was the name she expected, Doctor Krishnala Osanna, PhD, Botany, University of Rixx.

Osanna had not visited Betazed since she'd adopted Chantilly and Habiba. In fact, she planned to stay as far as possible away from her home planet, just like she had for the last twenty years. Her mother had not approved of her career choice, nor her rejection of her arranged marriage. The marriage was a particularly sticky point, though Osanna's intended had been equally glad to dump the arrangement. The final straw came after she had come home following her promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade. Her intended had also been home from his job as a staff biologist at a zoological park on Risa. Her mother had invited him over. Since then, she had decided to never let her mother know where she was. Somehow, her mother always knew, and now that she was captain, that would be even easier to find out.

"We're lined up to enter the Star Base, Captain," Chantilly announced. The girl had slid into her role on the bridge rather well. Her position as an acting Ensign was in general accepted as something they couldn't change by the Oklahoma's crew, in Osanna's opinion. There were exceptions, of course. Aside from Ensign Hastur who was fast working on an involuntary transfer, Chantilly had been hazed by a few more crew members, but she held firm.

"I've cut tractor beams and handed off the Conan Foddare to Star Base Control. They are opening the bay, and asks us to sit back for the ride, now," Gostillna said. The big Security Chief had taken Chantilly under his wings. Osanna remembered last night when Gostillna had explained some tricky bit of security protocol to Chantilly. It was something that Sir Greig, as everyone was now calling him, didn't do often, much less while holding a baby girl and gently tickling Chantilly's baby into laughter.

"Slave controls to Star Base, Chantilly," Osanna ordered. Most of the time Osanna's girls were quite happy, but every once in a while something would cause them to break down. A couple nights ago it was a bit of blood on Chantilly's pillow. It was a small drop, barely even visible, but it had sent Chantilly into hysterics, and that had woken up both babies.

On the main screen, Osanna could see that the Oklahoma was passing through the Star Base Docking bay doors. The Oklahoma was getting a full check up by Star Base Engineers while her crew had a week of debriefing. It probably wouldn't take that long, so Osanna had been hoping for a little bit of time off. Of course, that was before she had found out about her mother.

The Oklahoma slid between two other Ambassador Class Starships and came to a full stop. A docking corridor was already sliding out towards them. "We're at full stop, and Star Base Docking Control requests permission to moor us," Chantilly announced.

"Grant permission, secure to docking stations," Osanna said. "Command Crew, report to the primary starboard docking port. Lieutenant Hauan, you have the Bridge. Chantilly, I'll see you at dinner." Captain Osanna stood up and walked to the turbolift. She was no longer looking forward to setting foot on the Starbase.


T'Hana arrived on the Starbase shortly after the Oklahoma docked. Tivan had duties he had to do before he could leave, and the Oklahoma had been delayed long enough that she'd missed the arrival of the passenger liner from Vulcan. It took her only a couple minutes to determine that her son Talen wasn't in any of the waiting rooms. A quick look at the base diagrams, and T'Hana was on her way to her son's most likely position.

As she turned down the corridor, she could hear the sounds of water being splashed and the laughter of children playing. Her pointed ears easily picked out the cry of "cannon ball." She hoped her son wasn't engaging in such behavior. She passed through the open archway into Community Pool Number Three. It was a large chamber, a good ten meters tall, with an L shaped pool consisting of a diving area and a double set of Olympic Standard lanes. T'Hana had entered on the level with the three-meter diving platform.

As she looked over towards the pool, she quickly caught sight of her son. His favored bright yellow swimming suit was easy to spot among the black and dark reds that seemed to be in at the moment. He was standing at the edge of the five-meter diving platform, his back to the pool, preparing to dive. Talen bounced twice on the balls of his feet at then jumped. He flipped end over end twice and rotated once as he descended down toward the water. His hands thrust before him into the water as he entered head first. It was not a clean entry, as he had rotated just a bit too far forward, and flung a trail of spray towards the lifeguard stand.

T'Hana quickly descended to meet her son at the edge of the pool, picking up a towel from the supply provided at the bottom of the stairs. She was right at the edge when Talen reached the latter and climbed out of the pool.

"I see that you couldn't wait to get into the water, Talen," T'Hana said, with a tone of disapproval, as she handed her son the towel. "I expected to see you in one of the waiting rooms."

"It was illogical to wait there, Mother," Talen said, taking the towel from his mother. He began to dry his hair. His Aunt T'Nara had obviously managed to get him to cut his hair in a proper short Vulcan style, though not the traditional one, and he'd apparently gotten plenty of sun, as it was a golden brown color, only a few shades darker than his skin. "The Oklahoma's ETA kept getting delayed. Idleness is not logical, so I took opportunity to swim and use a regulation five-meter platform."

"Did you at least swim a few laps before you started diving?" T'Hana asked. It looked like Talen was finally starting to put on a little bit of muscle and had grown at least another three or four centimeters. Perhaps her son had finally found some way to get some exercise.

"Twenty laps, in a breast stroke, just like in Aunt T'Nara's pool," Talen said, as he dried off his chest. T'Hana raised an eyebrow at this. She had not been aware that her sister had made the extravagant decision to build a pool at the family estate. "Aunt T'Nara required that I do twenty laps every mourning before school and every afternoon after school."

"I see that your Aunt saw to your getting proper exercise," T'Hana said. She would have to find a way to let T'Nara know that she approved of Talen's swimming. She had worried about her son's exercise levels. Perhaps the pool wasn't an extravagance after all. "How are your studies progressing?" Talen draped the towel around his shoulders, as she began to walk towards the door. He followed in her wake.

"I'm having a little trouble with four dimensional vector projection, and Aunt T'Nara was having me memorize a human play, Romeo and Juliet," Talen said. His voice seemed to be just a bit deeper than before he left, perhaps a single note lower. "It's accredited to a playwright named William Shakespeare, though that seems to be in some doubt."

"Act two, scene two, line forty-three," T'Hana quized.

"He jest at scars that never felt a wound," Talen replied.

"Correct," T'Hana said, as they exited the pool chamber. "I assume your Aunt is already at the Botany Conference?"

"Yes, mother," Talen said. "She wanted to hear Doctor Osanna's lecture on hybridization of cross-planetary near-roses, which started approximately twelve point six three minutes ago."


Chief Engineer Sasscrath was a Selay, and preferred his food live. Serving on a starship, he didn't often get a chance to have that preference, but every once in a while he got a hold of a nice mouse or a rabbit, like today's lovely white one. Preferring live prey meant that Sasscrath didn't keep a pet for companionship, like some officers did. Food does not make a pet, after all. Instead he filled many of the surfaces of his quarters with plants. There was the Antesain Spider plant, which he'd trained to follow a path along the edge of his ceiling, the parsley, which he'd discovered really brought out the flavor of some of the dead meat he normally had to eat, and of course his miniature near-roses.

At the moment he was working on his near-roses, since he'd been off shift for twelve point six minutes. The Seley had a well developed sense of time, and could tell you exactly how long a given interval had been, down to a tenth of a second. His blue P'jem near-roses were a semi-aquatic grown species, and he was having some trouble with them. They just weren't blooming right. They were supposed to bloom every seven months with a brilliant blue flower with golden outer petals. His hadn't bloomed for almost a year, and when they had, the blue had been rather dull. All the conditions were right, but they just wouldn't bloom. Perhaps it was time to ask an expert.

Perhaps the Botany Conference on the Star Base has brought one there. He'd be have to check. In the meantime, he'd better prune the traditional red rose bush over in the corner. It was getting a little too big for where it was.


Chantilly leaned back in her rocking chair. Her uniform tunic was laying on her bed, the lower bunk, as she nursed her daughter. Her best friend and sister was seated at the room's desk, having put her son down for a nap a few minutes before. Habiba was finishing up the week's dining schedule. It was one of her few non-child-raising chores. There was a slight dark spot on Habiba's blouse's left shoulder that Chantilly was trying to ignore.

"Chan, do you think we've asked Lieutenant Hauan to dinner too often?" Habiba asked. She had the tip of the quill tucked under her chin as she turned to look at Chantilly. It was obvious that the two were not blood sisters. Chantilly's skin did have a bit of an olive hue to it, but Habiba's was much darker, though not yet in the shades known as black. Chantilly's hair was brown and straight, where Habiba's was black and had a bit of curl to it.

"I don't think so," Chantilly said, as she switched the breast that Chloe was sucking. The four month old baby girl was no longer the undersized runt she'd been born as. "He is my training officer, and as such Mom is expected to ask him to dinner more often than others. Are we short on jay-gees again?"

"Yes, the list is very short today," Habiba said, twirling the quill in her hand as she paused in writing the formal invitations. "I think most of them are going ashore today. There are lots of family reunions going on."

"Yeah," Chantilly said. A large portion of the children on the Oklahoma had been sent on vacation when the ship had gotten its last assignment. Chantilly had missed the few girls her age other than Habiba that she knew. Until this assignment the Oklahoma has spent the last few years on interior patrol, during which a lot of the crew had settled their children on board. "Who are we dining with, tonight?"

Habiba picked up another piece of parchment which she'd used to practice writing the names she'd chosen, placing the quill back into it's stand. "Lieutenant Sasscrath is the command staff person. Lieutenant Hauan will fill the jay-gee slot, it was either him or Gnarsh, and you know that Gnarsh doesn't get along with Sasscrath."

"I didn't know, actually," Chantilly said. She was glad Habiba had the job of making the guest list and formal invitations. Chantilly's handwriting might be better, but she didn't have the knowledge of the crew's likes and dislikes that Habiba had acquired. "Where did you find out?"

Habiba merely shrugged. "I think Ensign Shirn in Security and Ensign Yantis in Stellar Cartography will fill out the list."

"I hope that Shirn doesn't like that Andorian dish that Lieutenant Thak does," Chantilly said, remembering a particularly strong smelling dish from a dinner a month back. "Ow, Chloe, watch the teeth." Chloe had just started teething and her resumption of her meal at her mother's breast began with her gums and the tooth that had just come in, nipping Chantilly's nipple.

"She finally got you, I see," Habiba giggled. "I told you she'd be just like Kismet."

"Okay, you were right," Chantilly replied, her free hand caressing her baby's short hair. "At least she can't pee in my face like Kismet when you change him. And my little girl is always better than your little boy."

"No she isn't, but you know we're both biased," Habiba said, finishing an invitation, and cleaning the quill.

"Okay, I'll admit to that last point," Chantilly said, as Chloe pulled away, indicating that she'd had enough of her mother's milk. Chantilly immediately shifted her daughter to her shoulder and began to burp her. "We're both biased to our babies. Are you ready to deliver those?"

"Almost," Habiba said, standing up. "I've got to change first. I just know that Kismet left something behind, and your smirk just confirms it."

"Burp the baby without the blouse next time, Hab," Chantilly replied, no longer attempting to conceal her smirk at the dark spot on Habiba's blouse. "Or at least get a burping cloth over your shoulder." Chloe burped. "That's a good girl, Chloe."