It Gets Lonely at the Top

Posted on Sun Aug 2nd, 2026 @ 9:24pm by Captain Calypso Skyie & Commander Alexander Espersen

2,182 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Die Hard: Chimera Edition (main)
Location: Ready Room
Timeline: Immediately before Orgrann arrival

Casual Fridays were a thing, weren't they? In the eyes of Calypso Skyie, Captain of the Starship Chimera, she believed that ANY day could be casual Friday, especially as they were quickly approaching a well-deserved long leave time while the ship was getting a refit at Deep Space 16's repair yards. Half of their current set of shuttles were going to be taken away and for the first time, the ship would be outfitted with a full complement of brand new small craft. The phasers were getting the most recent upgrade and the crews were already planning on replacing a good third of the hull plating. The whole list sat on a PADD on her desk, reviewed again and again and sent off to her department heads for additional input.

But that wasn't the reason that Calypso was sitting deep in her chair with her feet up on the desk, sans her shoes and socks and wearing a white skirt with matching t-shirt. With nothing else going on but sitting around until the time came to turn her ship over to the shipyard? She was going to relax and relax hard. Still, she had SOME appearances to keep and so she'd summoned her Executive Officer to her office, best to get the official business out of the way early.

Alexander Espersen knew about his Captain’s occasional invocation of Casual Friday, so he was not surprised to open the door to her Ready Room and find her looking comfortable and relaxed. He smirked as he stood in front of her desk, his hands behind his back. “So it’s one of those days, is it, Captain?” he asked.

"It's one of those days until the day we're due at the Starbase." Cally raised a hand in greeting, "Of for the Love of the Four, Alex, relax! Take the stick out of your butt and sit down, take off the jacket or something! You're making me feel like I'm just lazing about and doing nothing!" She paused for a moment, considering, "Not that it's not rather quite accurate, but still! Take a look at the refit request and tell me if I missed anything?"

He laughed as he took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his red shirt. He sat down and took the PADD from her. “Everything we’ve previous discussed with the team is here,” he answered. “Though since our staff meeting I had a couple more ideas. The tactical centre, for example.” He brought up a new file in a different tab and handed the PADD back. “You may remember that I helped design it when I first came aboard. But we haven’t used it much yet, so I wondered if it wasn’t fit for purpose. Some ideas to refit it for our next mission.”

"Which no one has even told me what the plans are for us." Cally harrumphed as she reviewed the tab that he'd opened to show her, "I'm sure if Towers has his druthers, we're just going to go right back up North, which wouldn't be a bad thing in general. It's actually rather nice out there, absent the lack of knowing what we're going to find, but I know it's been hard on the crew being away from their families for this long. We deserve something a bit easier on them for a little while."

“Requests to visit families have been coming in,” Alex noted. “We’ll need to maintain coverage over all departments but as long as people don’t all go at once, they’ve accrued the leave.” He leaned forward. “You could take a holiday if you wanted, Captain. I could keep the ship warm for you for a little while.”

"I don't even see the need for anyone to stay aboard unless they actively want to." Cally slid her feet off the desk and came to a sitting position, putting the PADD back on the desk, "I've been ordered to turn over command to Commander Devlin Reed of the repair base for the duration of the refit, only provisionally though. Approve everyone who makes the request for leave and that means you too, Mister Espersen."

“I didn’t realize it was a full command transfer,” he said. “Alright then. Blanket approvals. But where to go?” he wondered. He didn’t exactly have anyone to go to.

"It's just so that he can move the ship or if the command codes are needed for something or another." She waved it away, "I've been assured by Command that I'm not being relieved and that I will be returning to full command of Chimera after the refit. But, Kally and I are planning on taking a trip to Gault with Katie and Jadizon, apparently I'm going to meet her parents, which is going to be a bit awkward, but I'll survive."

Alex smiled at that. “Meeting the parents,” he said. “You know, I’d tease you about that, but it’s actually very sweet. Brings back fond, if awkward memories.” He took a deep breath. “If you have time to get to Gault, I’m sure I can get to Sol for a day.”

"There really isn't anything sweet about it, I don't think..." Cally mused, "They deserve to meet the people that their daughters are dating, to make sure that they're not some sort of psychopath. Of course, I was a teenager when Kally was born, so that's going to be the really awkward part of my own meeting with them." She smirked, "'Why yes, Mister Kellerman, while your wife was giving birth to my girlfriend, I was getting laid by one of my first boyfriends!' That should go over rather well, don't you think? But... Why are you heading to Earth? Not that it's any of my damned business, that is."

“I don’t think I ever told you about my sister,” he answered. “I had two, Britta and Sigrid, and we were close. Thick as thieves, we were.” He took a breath. “Both were on Mars when it happened. Britta died, quite quickly and painlessly I’m told. Sigrid’s still alive but she’s been non-responsive since that day, eleven years ago. I’ve…I’ve not been back nearly enough. I send audio letters, and her husband plays them for her, but it’s not the same. So I’ll go see her. And have dinner with her husband and their kids.”

He let out a quiet chuckle. “I expect it’ll fuck me up good, actually. But it needs doing. It’s been too long. And I’ll get to tell her about everything I’ve learned as a First Officer. She was always a good listener.”

Calypso smiled as she opened a drawer and plucked something out of it, "Well, then I suppose that you should be able to tell her about another accomplishment. I'm sure she wouldn't mind hearing about how her brother was instrumental in expanding the Federation's knowledge beyond it's borders and finally getting that full third pip after so long as being stuck as a Lieutenant Commander." She launched the small box into the air on a ballistic course for his lap.

The box landed neatly in his hand. He opened it right away, and inside was exactly what she’d said. A full rank pip to make the other two, replacing the hollow one. Commander Espersen. He smiled, unable to look away from it. “I don’t know what to say,” he said. “Except thank you.”

"And there's no reason for that. You need some more oomph when dealing with other people and since you're the one that has the misfortune to take over whenever I'm not here?" She shrugged, but grinned, "If you're not careful, Commander Espersen, you may find yourself in that center chair before you decide to retire. As Captain Larson once told me, 'It's not the easiest seat you'll ever have, but it's the one where you make the most difference.'"

He couldn’t take his eyes off the pip. “That’s what I want,” he admitted. “The…what’s it been since I came aboard? A year and a half? Back then, I thought this was the worst assignment possible. The result of one too many complaints from cadets, send me out to the fringes on a ship no one wants to be on. Swept under the rug. I put on a brave face, told myself I’d make the most of it.”

He took a deep breath and finally looked up at his Captain. “I met you. In a holodeck hot tub, as I recall,” he said with a smirk. “We had dinner at the Starbase. I gave you that.” He pointed to the drawing of the ship framed on her wall. “You taught me command, Captain. Overloaded me with work sometimes—your niece says I should stand up to you for that, by the way—but I learned from it. From you, and from this group of crazies we call the crew. If I’d stayed back on Earth, still bitter and angry, surely by now I’d have been discharged. Here, serving on this ship as your First Officer, I’m happier than I’ve been in more than ten years. Making a difference.”

He chuckled and wiped a tear from his eye. He took the old hollow pip off his collar and started putting the new one on. “This is the rug under which they swept us, isn’t it? Do you think they expected we’d do so well together? All of us, I mean. Shit, I—can you help me please?” His collar was a bit tight that day and his big hands couldn’t get the pip on right.

Calypso groaned exaggeratedly with a soft smile as she pushed herself out of her chair and stepped around her desk and took the pip from him and began to carefully affix it to his collar, "This is the rug they swept us under." She confirmed, "Sent us out with the expectation that we would fail in our mission and get ourselves killed." She removed the hollow pip from the opposite side and began to replace it as well, "But between the two of us, we've turned this crew of misfits and rejects that nobody else wanted into an honest to the Four crew."

She gave him a kiss on the cheek before leaning back on her desk, "I could not have done this without you, Alex, not a tenth of what we've accomplished. Okay, a quarter, maybe, if I got lucky. I may not show my appreciation all the time, I may seem lazy.." She paused a moment, "Well, I may be a bit partial to relaxing rather than 'Captaining', but I'd hope you would tell me if you thought I was being actually derelict in my duty. I absolutely don't want to be remembered for sucking."

"You'd be the first to know if I thought your desire to relax started to approach negligence," Alex assured her. "So, what extra privileges do I get with the third solid pip? An extra serving at dinner? Holodeck schedule overrides? Spacing one extra Badmiral per year?"

"First call on holodecks, after me of course, but Holodeck One is essentially reserved for me, which will be open for you if I'm not in there. We'll reduce your paperwork because I need to start inundating Mark with some of that, you didn't actually think I was going to do it, right?" Calypso grinned, "Also it means that I can feel better about leaving you in charge up on the ship when I want to take a holiday on some random planet we find with some of our people. Plus, good news, if I get my rear end killed, you'll probably even get to keep command of the ship! But, if I go missing, you come and find me first, I really mean that, I LIKE my ship!"

He couldn’t help but laugh. “I promise I’ll not cut and run the instant you’re missing. Besides, a number of people would demand my head if I did, especially our good doctor. I have no desire to be on her bad side.” Tough enough being on her good side, he thought to himself. “Holodeck priority… I might take advantage of that.”

"Good! You should!" She grinned at him widely, "Use it for a celebration tonight, find someone to take there and have a good time with." She pondered for a moment, "Maybe Kally would like to go? Or my niece? Or even one of the other girls, you know they all enjoy a good time."

“Maybe not tonight,” he replied. “We’re arriving at Orgrann in just a few minutes, and I’ll be spending some downtime on the surface. But upon my return, absolutely.”

Calypso patted him on the shoulder roughly, "Then let's get this done, Commander Espersen."

 

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