Episode Two | Teaser - Good Night

Chapter 2
Chakotay
Only One Chair

Chakotay's relationship with Tuvok would never be good. He had seventy years to be proven wrong, though. Chakotay stepped onto the bridge just as the crew was handing things over to the night shift. He stood at the back by the door and watched.

Lon Suder was taking some last-minute instruction from Riker, even though he was technically assigned to engineering. He did tend to like night shifts, though. Quiet. Maybe it was less distracting, as a Betazoid. Fewer people awake and thinking loudly?

Chakotay had no idea how telepaths worked. He never thought of them much beyond a vague discomfort, and now he was sure Suder was listening in on his internal panic about spying eyes on his thoughts—however mundane they were at the moment.

He hoped Suder wouldn't draw attention to that, and tried to think of something else. Anything else.

Tom Paris was leaning on the console that Ensign Adam Wyatt was now sitting at. Even though Paris was Maquis and Wyatt was Starfleet, the chat seemed friendly. Chakotay knew they weren't roommates, and he didn't expect that gambit of Tuvok's to pay off any time soon… in fact, he expected a few busted lips and black eyes before everyone could really stomach the idea of being on the same ship together. For seventy years.

But Paris was charming and Adam was… not rude? Chakotay didn't know what to make of that. They seemed to be bonding over the "surprisingly smooth" handling of a Constellation-class starship.

Even though the science station wasn't technically part of the night shift, Jadzia Dax sat there investigating what looked like overall power consumption; the Maquis Bajoran Yosa sat at tactical. It was a tiny crew, but everyone seemed to be doing their best to do their part. Doing their best to not break down only three steps into a journey of, oh… twenty-five thousand steps at least.

Yeah, he would certainly not be keeping track of their progress by days. That was just depressing.

"Thank you, sir; yes, sir," Lon was saying almost in the middle of Thomas still talking.

Thomas took the hint, tapped the console to give him control, and joined Chakotay at the back of the bridge. "How did your meeting go?" Thomas asked quietly.

Chakotay shrugged. "Fine. There's a ton of logistics to go through."

Thomas chuckled. "Like uniforms?"

Looking around now, everyone was sticking to what they knew best. Wyatt was wearing his command red, and Yosa her red field vest. Lon wore a loose white shirt and vest, and Tom seemed to have dressed for some occasion—or else the beige suit was the only thing he had. Thomas was wearing his maroon shirt and black trousers.

Chakotay was wearing his uniform. He had it, and the Starfleet crew was understandably jumpy and at a disadvantage. If he should be showing solidarity with anybody, he figured they needed it most at the moment.

Finally, Chakotay just spread his hands ever so slightly in helpless surrender. "What the hell else was I supposed to do? Force all the Maquis to wear a uniform that wouldn't accept them when we got back?"

"You don't know that."

Chakotay and Thomas both turned at the sound of Jadzia's voice behind them. She smiled apologetically, and Chakotay couldn't even be mad at those bright blue eyes. "So, what? You'd force a field commission on everyone?"

"You have to admit, the idea of climbing the ranks can be pretty attractive to some people. I know sometimes I can't resist the tangible expression of self-improvement." Her fingers lifted, and she rubbed one of her rank pips.

Thomas shook his head. "I know my crew. Most of them don't give a damn."

Chakotay had to agree from the little he'd seen. Admittedly, some of that was just stereotype talking, but forcing a bunch of already-angry rebels and agitators to wear a specific set of shirt and pants seemed to just be asking for trouble. "We are offering commissions. Just not forcing them. I can't see how that sounds like a good idea."

"I can't see how it doesn't." Jadzia looked back at her console as if her opinion was convincing enough.

Thomas shot Chakotay an amused grin before turning his attention back to Jadzia. "I'll bite: how?"

Jadzia took a deep breath and raised her eyes back up to them. Suddenly, Chakotay could almost see those rumored centuries of experience hiding in this young woman. "This ship requires precision handling. This crossing is going to be really difficult, and you're lucky you've got two pilots and a competent engineer to make it a bit easier. People like Paris and Paswan are performing miracles on a daily basis not because they've got natural talent or followed a set of instructions. They're where they are because they learned the most important thing the Academy ever taught anyone: discipline."

Thomas laughed, and it took all of Chakotay's restraint not to. "Paris? Disciplined?"

"Yeah." She looked at the conn—only Wyatt was there now. Paris had left. "He has it where it counts. A captain would recognize that." With that, she gave Chakotay a pointed look.

Chakotay had to admit he didn't know Paris well enough to decide whether what she said was true. But, then, she'd had hundreds of years' practice reading people. "You might be right. But what's that got to do with uniform?"

"We don't have the Academy here." Jadzia tapped at her console a few times, then turned the console dim with a final tap in the upper right corner. "So we're gonna have to fake it."

"Can you fake discipline?" Thomas didn't seem convinced.

Chakotay wasn't, either.

Jadzia just shrugged, but her smile said that, of course, one could somehow fake discipline. "Even if you can't, fake discipline is better than none at all." With that, she clasped her hands behind her back and nodded at each of them in turn. "Lieutenant. Captain." She left the bridge.

Thomas took a deep breath and looked at Chakotay. "Well. I guess I can't really argue with that."

"I'm not changing the policy."

Thomas chuckled. "Yeah, can you imagine? Flip-flopping that early in your career? The crew would never let you forget it."

And there was that. Chakotay gave Thomas a shove toward the door. "Unless you have something else to do, I suggest you get out of here. The bridge is mine."

"Oh, aye, Captain." Thomas gave him a nod of mock-respect and backed out of the bridge.

Chakotay looked at his overnight bridge crew. The lack of ensigns in command division was going to make this a long trip. Not that every single damn thing about the crew wasn't.

Chakotay cast a glance at Lon Suder, Maquis Betazoid, who instantly looked over his shoulder to return his glance. He blinked his black eyes once, almost threateningly, and went back to sorting his ops screens. Chakotay didn't know him well at all—he'd only spoken to him maybe once a few months ago.

He didn't know what else he was supposed to do. Just… nothing was going well. Everything had fallen apart. It was hard not to blame himself for this. Most people handled a death in the family by drinking themselves into a black hole, or, hell, maybe just going for counselling. But not him; no, sir. He had to commit treason, attempt theft and mutiny. Get forty-some people stranded on the other side of the goddamn galaxy.

Chakotay really swung for the fences.

He glanced at Suder to see that he wasn't listening. If he was, he gave no indication. Chakotay had never considered how much he hated invasive telepaths… He turned to conn. "Adam, right?"

The conn officer in front of him startled, spinning a bit. He was only twenty-one years old, but he'd been out of the Academy for a year. Either exceptionally gifted or ambitious. Or maybe he'd just started early. "Sir?" he asked, his tone chattery. "I mean, yes, sir, Wyatt. Adam Wyatt. Ensign." He looked like he was about to recite his service number.

Chakotay tried to smile in a non-threatening manner. Judging by Wyatt's reaction, he hadn't succeeded. "Relax, Ensign, or it's gonna be a really long night."

Ensign Wyatt nodded and relaxed just as if someone was holding a phaser to his head. "Yes, sir."

Chakotay leaned back in the captain's chair more comfortably. "I guess it's going to be a long night, either way." He looked to his left where Yosa sat. "And you, Yosa?"

She turned toward him, nodding brusquely. "Yes, sir. I actually enlisted in Starfleet for a while before getting out. Petty Officer Second Class."

That lined up with the approximately seven years' experience she had. Chakotay guessed her to be almost thirty. He looked at Lon, then, and wondered if he should ask.

He didn't need to. "Lon Suder," he said with a blank tone. "No rank." He glanced at the others in the room as if testing the response to a joke.

If that was what he'd been intending, it seemed to work. Chakotay was happy to see Adam crack the smallest of smiles before he turned back to the conn. Lon didn't seem at all amused, but maybe he was just bothered by the overall level of tension on the ship.

"And what do you like to do in your spare time, Yosa?" Chakotay turned more completely to her. Bajoran, with her earring swinging as she turned to encompass both him and Adam in her view.

She took a breath of what sounded almost like annoyance before turning back to her station. "I enjoy painting. Drawing. I'm not very good at it."

Chakotay wasn't surprised. He'd known a truly unbelievable number of Bajoran artists. "Favorite subject?"

"To draw?" Yosa seemed to give that some careful thought. "Landscapes. Mountains, I guess."

Chakotay wondered if one of these days they might have an art exhibition. He didn't generally hold much by ship-wide cultural activities, but he could tell he was going to go insane in short order if this was what every night was going to look like. "Ensign Wyatt?"

He seemed to think about it, hesitate in such a way he knew exactly what he wanted to say but was afraid to admit it. Finally, after a pointed glance from his Maquis companion, he said, "Board games. I like to play board games."

"What's your favorite?"

He shrugged. "Diplomath, I guess."

Chakotay chuckled. Somehow he wasn't surprised by that, either.

Even though Chakotay hadn't even so much as looked at Suder, he spoke next. "Acts of violence and resistance," he said.

Chakotay blinked at him, and Adam seemed absolutely shocked. But, maybe, in another room, that statement would have been met with laughter or possibly agreement.

"Okay, uh… what kind?" Chakotay went on.

Lon looked at Chakotay, and smiled. "Murder."

Finally, Adam chuckled. "Everybody needs a hobby."

Yosa also smiled and looked back at her console. To what seemed like relief, Chakotay saw Lon do the same. At least Lon also seemed mildly amused at the whole thing. If that was how different the senses of humor were about the crew, he could easily anticipate some real knock-down, drag-out fights in the very near future.

But hopefully not murder.

"What about you, sir?" Adam asked with a glance back over his shoulder at him.

All things considered, he should have anticipated that. "Right. I guess I'm, uh…" He had the impulse to admit to enjoying history and anthropology, but that was what he was actually trained in, at one point pursued as a career. Not a hobby. "Maybe woodworking," he said.

After all, that was a dream. A hobby. At one time he wanted to go home and live off the land. Build a home instead of putting together the pieces of some pre-fabricated puzzle. Grow and kill his own food instead of replicating his meals from the scrambled remains of something else. Turn off the solar generator and burn wood.

Something that felt simple.

"What do you make?" Yosa asked.

"Chairs."

Adam smiled. "You know all the rooms have two beds but only one chair?"

Chakotay chuckled. "And here I was worried I wouldn't be useful around here."

Chakotay watched with no small amount of pride and relief as Adam grinned at Yosa, who returned his mirth, however slight. It was still going to be a long night and a longer trip, but it could have been much worse. Much, much worse.