Saffiya Nassar had tried to get out of coming here. First, she had tried to argue that her pregnancy would make it an unreasonably arduous journey. Then, she had tried to get Valdes to go in her stead. But when Saffiya had suggested it to her, Valdes had looked about as terrified at the idea as Saffiya was reluctant.
End of story – or, the beginning of this one – Saffiya Nassar had just arrived on Casperia Prime, and was trying not to greet it face first. Literally.

“Thanks.” She smiled at the fellow traveler who had gracefully offered his hand to help her out of the shuttle.

“Of course!” said Anand, beaming at her as she stepped onto solid ground and let go of his hand. Beneath his smile, he was wracking his brain trying to remember if she’d been on the shuttle the first leg of its journey. He’d been seated next to his ex-wife, who happened to be going in the same direction.

‘What do you mean, you don’t want to go? You looooove meeting new people.’

‘I’ve also been in deep space for fifteen months, and I think it’s made me loopy. Also, I’m not crazy about tiptoeing around a crowd of deeply traumatized people who’ve just suffered through an invasion that happened while I was on the other side of the galaxy.’ There’s no way she’d heard him say that, right? He’d definitely whispered that, right??

“This is rather…” His eyes skimmed over the rocks, dirt, and assorted forest detritus. Normally, the sight of nature delighted him. Normally, he was not in a party with a heavily pregnant woman. “It looks rustic.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Saffiya considered. “But it’s a nice change of scenery, I’ll admit as much.”

Behind them, a few civilian-clothed people came out of the shuttle as a young girl around the age of ten rushed out and got her face glued to the window looking at the beauty of the planet. She had glitter in her eyes. “Woooah!” She looked back, jumping up and down and pointing outside. “Litha look, Look!”

Thalitha walked out with her jacket on, giving a teenage vibe of not caring for her surroundings as she joined her little sister. “That does look nice,” following Alexia further on as she kept jumping forward.

Sazra walked out with some support from Silina. “Urg… I used to like space travel….” With Silina smiling at her and giving her support to her girlfriend. “The kids…”

“Are perfectly fine,” Silina said on a professional note, and saw the two Captains giving them a soft smile. “Good day.” She lowered her voice a bit, keeping the kids in check. “I am Captain Ruslanovna, and this is my partner, Captain Kobahl. We have our identity hidden from our children due traumatic experiences in their life. We would appreciate it if that is kept a secret.” She winked.

“Ha!” Anand laughed and winked back. “Sure thing. Let us know if there are any words we should avoid, too. Don’t want to awaken any sleeper agents.”

Saffiya laughed too. Because surely, this was a joke.

Anand turned his attention back to the rock-strewn path ahead of them. He glanced back at Saffiya. “Are you–” ‘going to be able to make that?’ he was going to say, but that was a stupid question. She hardly had a choice, particularly now that the shuttle was departing. He switched tracks. “Can I carry your bags for you?”

“That would be lovely.” Saffiya nodded, following along as Anand led the way. “I’m Saffiya. Nassar. Uh. Captain.” she said, a little awkwardly. The oddly casual and still potentially professional nature of this meeting still confused her. “Just thought I might as well introduce myself.”

Which was her way of prompting the others to do the same. So far, all she knew was what not to call the two women. If she was expected to play along with their undercover joke.

“Ah, right!” Anand winced. Deep space had made him loopy. “You don’t have the luxury of being able to read it off my luggage tags.” He punctuated his joke by shifting Saffiya’s bags around in his grip. He paused his ascent just long enough to turn and look at the rest of the group as he said, “Sanjiv Anand. Nice to meet you all!”

Taking some pills and feeling the nausea fading slowly away, Sazra felt for the first time in weeks that she could relax and looked at them. “Pleasure to meet you, don’t mind me. I got a warp travel disease and long term travel does a number on me.” She smiled at Silina, who gave her some water as she looked at the kids up front exploring. “It’s a shame that they had to endure such trauma from the frontline colonies under corrupt Starfleet.” She shrugged a bit. “Anyway, I presume you are on invite here as well?”

Anand chuckled. “That was an invite? I thought it was a threat.”

Saffiya laughed. “It was both – Cressida can be a little intense.”

Giving a nod as Silina looked at Saffiya, “I met her before and after the Vaadwaur crisis, when Gemini was sent to investigate the missing of the Horsehead. But that was a time when she was focused on getting the job done.” She looked at Sazra, then back. “I rather avoid the job that she does.”

Saffiya shrugged. “She’s always been like that, though – we went to Academy together. The stories I could tell you…” she thought for a moment. “… would probably get me fired.”

“Well, this is already a party of the strictest confidence,” said Anand, a hint of humor in his words. “I certainly wouldn’t reveal what you let slip. It might be good to know what I’m getting into!”

Saffiya, who needed a pause anyway, stopped in her tracks for dramatic effect and looked at him. “You haven’t met her yet? How come?”

“Ah, well, my ships been in the Delta Quadrant for the past fifteen months. I think it’s been fifteen months?” Anand tried to keep his eyes on the trail as his mind wandered. He’d been repeating the phrase ‘fifteen months’ so many times that it was beginning to lose its meaning. “Performing surveys. A lot of surveys. As well as a fascinating study on chronoton decay in starship paths. If you want someone who only understood about two thirds of the words in that survey to talk your ear off about it, hit me up later!”

“I definitely want that.” Saffiya nodded.

“I have only met her on the communication line, not really in person,” Sazra added on as her eyes kept pinned on the two girls. “She seems nice, but like Silina said, a lot on her plate?”

Anand lost track of the conversation as his eyes fell upon a gap in the trail ahead. As they got closer, he noticed a wooden plank laid across a deep scar in the earth, large enough for one of them to stand in and be eye-level with the rest of the trail. It was less than a meter across, enough to jump over if one didn’t trust the plank. The two children ahead on the trail had almost certainly done just that. Captain Ruslanovna would surely be able to do the same, as would Anand, even with the (admittedly small) bags he was carrying. The spacesick Sazra and the pregnant Saffiya were another issue entirely.

“Uh oh, one-lane bridge ahead,” he said by way of warning.

“Huh.” Saffiya said as she regarded what barely passed as a bridge. Her first instinct was to joke that Command evidently decided to just close the Task Force, and do so by getting rid of as many Captains as possible. But, remembering the earlier corruption comment and not being able to shake that feeling that they were serious after all,  she decided that no one would find the comment particularly funny.

Instead, she looked at Sazra. “You good?”

Looking at the questionable bridge, she eyed Saffiya. “Of course? Meds are kicking in….” She looked at the bridge. “Soon, why?” Sazra looked back at her.

“I mean…” Saffiya mused. “This is supposed to be some team building thing. So maybe we’re supposed to solve this together like one big happy family?”

Alternatively, this was simply bad planning. Which was also likely. More likely.

Silina scratched behind her ear and looked at the two, then back at Anand. “What if we do a two by two. Saz goes first, then I, then Saffiya, and as last Anand? If something happens both I and Anand would function as a safety net of sorts?”

“I could be half a safety net, sure,” said Anand, shrugging off his bags. He tossed one, then the other, gently across the gap, and each landed with a soft thud in the leaves and dirt. Saffiya’s bags he kept, one over each shoulder, but at least now his hands were free.

Eyeing her girlfriend, “Am I looking that bad?” Saz crossed her arms over each other.

“Seeing you were puking a rainbow only twenty minutes ago, your skin is pale and potential fever, I say yes sweetie.” Silina shrugged slightly.

Anand watched the plank as Sazra and Silina crossed it to the other side of the gap. There were no horrible, splintering, cracking noises. No one toppled into the dirt. A promising start!

Silina readied herself on the other side of the gap. Before Saffiya could move towards the plank, Anand felt compelled to add, “If you don’t trust it, I could always look for another way up.”

“Nope, I’m committed.”, Saffiya smirked, and carefully stepped onto to bar. Perhaps she imagined it, but it seemed to creak – okay, she was probably imagining it.

As she eventually arrived on the other side, she turned to Anand. “See. I told you I could do it.”

“Oh, it wasn’t you I doubted,” said Anand, eyes on his feet as he made his own way across. “It was this plank.”

The plank did audibly creak on his last step, as if aware that it was being insulted. He glared at it as he retrieved his bags and followed the others up the trail.

After that challenge was mastered, reaching the resort itself was easy. The view on the resort itself was so majestic that it just couldn’t be real. Mountains above, beach below, the forest that has conveniently made place to accommodate it. A whole lot of wow, but strictly seen nothing a holodeck couldn’t have manage.

The sight that made Anand stop in his tracks, however, was the arc of the planet’s rings stretching across the northern sky. They peeked above the tops of the mountains, pale in the daylight.

Anand grinned. “I always did like the ringed planets best.”

“It does advertise the place correctly alright” Sazra joins up seeing the beach below and the rings in the sky “Our TFCO has taste, I wonder how long it took for her to find it and claim it before other Task Forces jump on it” She could imagine the staff hording over locations like mothers at discount day “Pure savage” she mutters to herself

“Well, let’s get checked in!”, Saffiya said, leading the way as the group entered the resort. A few others had already arrived, and she was looking forward to meeting all of them.
“We can bond over stories of how they survived their arrival here.”