Captain's Liberation, Chapter 3

Space and time, the endless unknown. After centuries of strife and difficulty, humanity overcame its petty differences and started looking towards the stars. The invention of the Hypertransit reactor in 2101 meant we were no longer bound to a single world or limited by finite resources.

For the last 300 years mankind has spread among the stars and brought peace and prosperity.

These are the records of the UESF Liberation, its mission to explore the unknown and seek out the diversity of life in the galaxy.

Captain's Liberation, Chapter 3
By Chaos Doll

Commanding Officer’s log, supplemental.

After losing contact with the science team on the planet below I tasked Communications Officer Blake with finding some way to re-establish contact with our people down on Darling VII, the lieutenant seemed eager to oblige though I noticed him looking to my first officer for approval before following my order.  Well, it seemed like that’s what he was doing anyways. I asked Jacob about it in the captain's dining room, since we’d decided to take lunch at the same time. He brushed it off, suggesting I may be feeling uneasy with my recent command decisions. I was taken aback by his assertion at first, I’ve always been a fairly confident officer, but the more I've mulled it over throughout the day I have to admit that recent events involving teams sent to the surface have me second guessing some of my own decisions. Perhaps I should have made a different choice? Asked for second opinions?

No, I am a Captain in the United Earth Space Force, I can’t let doubts cloud my judgment. Thankfully we received good news several hours after returning to the bridge, Lieutenant Blake managed to re-establish contact with our team on the surface by readjusting the ship’s communications array once again. He claims that our technology was ”‘just too advanced” and after spending most of the day downgrading our communications system to the ‘Standard Radio’ used by the planet below, he managed to locate and contact our team using the primitive technology.

Once contact was established, an extraction plan was quickly formulated to bring our people home and the landing party is currently enroute back to the ship via shuttlecraft.

The unfortunate side effect of our communications 'downgrade' is that we have now effectively turned all of our personal communicators into old earth devices known as “Walkie-Talkies” and the entire crew are now receiving even more stray broadcast signals from the planet. First officer Jacob Clark and Communications Officer Blake are discussing the ramifications of our communication system’s new status and if one thing is certain, we won’t be able to send any long distance messages back to United Earth space until we return to a major stardock for repairs.

***

Commanding Officer’s log, Stellar Date 2406.34

I have spent the last few days debriefing the landing party along with my First Officer, we now have a clearer picture of what happened on the surface. Upon attending church services at Our Lady of Sacred Birth, the officers were quickly welcomed into the local community by the overly friendly congregation. Fearing close scrutiny by the locals, the team were forced to once again stay undercover. The security members of the team, Lieutenant Commander Emily Austen and Ensign Mark Jones felt the best way to do this was by... getting married.

The couple declared their intentions to the priest at Our Lady of Sacred Birth shortly after the standard sabbath ceremony and the religious organization wasted no time in helping the couple ‘tie the knot’ to use an outdated earth colloquialism. Emily was practically beaming with pride as she showed me the ring that Ensign Jones picked out for her. I have to admit, the precious stone did have quite a bit of visual allure. I can see why my primitive cultures may have valued such shiny rocks.

Science Officer Anastasia Volkova’s experience on the planet was also eventful, though I should probably be thankful she at least came back unwed. Under her guise as a ‘farmer’s daughter’ she happened to run into the salesman from the agricultural shop once again at the church service. So while the security officers were off getting married she accompanied the local man to an after service meeting known as ‘bible study’, she managed to glean quite a bit of information about the religious practices of Darling VII during the meeting and she has confirmed that Our Lady of Sacred Birth does indeed follow on from the archaic Earth religion of Christianity, with several additions thanks to the colony’s founder John Darling.

Anastasia made a point to clarify that John Darling in no way claimed to be a prophet or holy man, but merely wrote ‘scriptural addendums’ to “clarify the word” to use her own words. The way the science officer spoke about John Darling, there was almost a tone of approval in her voice that definitely seemed out of character from what I've gotten to know about the cool and rational science officer. She let me know that she brought a few copies of the church’s holy book back from the surface with her and she remarked that she will be spending some time studying it further, though why she needs more than one copy is beyond me.

The only member of the landing team to return with a relatively uneventful report was the ship’s biologist, he spent most of his time on the surface merely learning about their medical system and even inquiring into the process for establishing a local practice. To confirm what was previously reported, it seems that all medical licensing is handled through the colony’s religious organization and one simply cannot practice medicine without approval from Our Lady of Sacred Birth. The biologist did report that the colony does seem to place great emphasis on encouraging women to have children and that multiple social and financial incentives were offered for women who had three or more offspring.

I’ve asked First Officer Jacob Clark to look deeper into the social and cultural significance of family planning on the colony while the science team focuses on the hard science. The debriefings out of the way, it’s time for me to join Doctor Fukuhara for tea. Yumi suggested she had something interesting to report as well.

Captain Margaret Jane Stanton, signing off.

***

Personal log, Stellar Date 2406.35

It's sometime after midnight. I just returned from Doctor Fukuhara’s quarters, she’s been my neighbor this entire time and I hadn’t even realized she lives just down the hall. I’m such a bad captain, haha! I must admit I’m a little tipsy. After work tea ended up turning into after work drinks as Yumi and I got chatting about our days. I’ve never seen such a tiny woman put away so much Saki.How did she even convince Space Force Command to let her bring so much alcohol on board?

After we spent a while commiserating about work we ended up tuning in to some of the entertainment broadcasts from Darling VII, as fate would have it a new episode of ‘I Love Betty” was airing and what started as mere curiosity on our part turned into genuine amusement as we watched the antics of the title character over drinks.

We ended the evening with Yumi showing off her surprisingly large collection of beautiful Yukata and Kimono from Japan. Most of them are in pristine condition, as if never worn, but the good doctor informed me that she is considering embracing her culture’s traditions more outwardly. I encouraged it, of course.. The people of United Earth are strengthened by our diversity, after all!

Speaking of trying new things.. well.. new old things..  I might have the matter synthesizer print out a new uniform for me, at least half the women on the ship are sporting the retro mini-skirted uniform after Emily started the trend. I’m starting to feel a little left out. I might be the captain, but I’m still a woman, I’m allowed to be pretty too!

I never did find out what Yumi wanted to report, I have to try to remember to ask her tomorrow because it had sounded importa..

Whoa.. okay.. Head rush.. Now my communicator is going off again, that pulsing noise from the surface again.

I think it’s time to turn off my communicator and sleep off two bottles of Saki.

***

Commanding Officer’s log, Stellar Date 2406.35

I overslept this morning. Embarrassingly, my first officer had to come looking for me nearly an hour into the morning shift. I’m not sure what shocked him more, the fact that I was late to work or that I answered my door wearing my newly printed uniform. His eyes lingered on my thighs for quite some time as we walked to the command deck. I have to admit the skirt is surprisingly freeing, my movements feel less restricted than they do in trousers. Weird that I never noticed how restrictive trousers can be until now. Though on the other hand I wasn’t prepared for just how short a miniskirt actually is. I’ve had to put in quite a bit of conscious effort to keep my thighs glued together as I sit in the captain’s chair performing my duties, lest I reveal my undergarments to the entire bridge crew. It’s kept me a bit distracted, but I’ve received several approving compliments on the uniform choice, which has made me feel a bit more confident after the last few days.

Chief Engineer Karen Belfast came to the bridge this morning, in a panic once again, apparently she has been struggling to access parts of the computer core related to her work in engineering. I really need to have a talk with Karen about not overreacting to every little inconvenience. First Officer Jacob Clark suggested that Commander Belfast might be encountering an ID-10-T error when trying to access the computer core. I have to admit that despite my own background in engineering I was unfamiliar with that error code. I asked Jacob to join Karen in Engineering to see if he can’t assist her in some way, he was back on the bridge before lunch so the issue must be resolved.

Ensign Mark Jones is filling in for Emily on tactical and security duty today. He said his new bride was feeling a bit under the weather this morning. I’ve sent a message down to sickbay asking Dr. Fukuhara to stop by and check on my long time friend when she has a chance.

Aside from the above incidents,the day has progressed relatively peacefully. During the lunch hour, Lieutenant Blake put a news broadcast from the surface onto the main viewscreen, most of the crew seemed interested so I had a couple yeoman serve lunch on the bridge. Only Helmswoman Olivia Thame decided to take lunch down in the mess hall.

According to the news broadcast Darling VII is about to enter it’s next election cycle and despite the nation state of ‘Greater America’ having a single ruling party, there is apparently quite a competition brewing for the leadership position. The bridge crew sat enthralled for nearly an hour as we watched the informational broadcast.

Jacob suggested that perhaps it would benefit the entire crew to watch such broadcasts more frequently, so that we can get a better understanding of the planet below. I can’t really find fault with his suggestion, our mission is one of exploration and understanding after all. Jacob reminded me that it feels good to agree, so I agreed to play the midday news broadcast throughout the ship’s displays every day. Jacob really is shaping up to be a dependable partner on this maiden voyage. I’m so grateful to have a man that knows more than…

What was I saying? I’ll finish that thought later.. The ship just went to orange alert, there has been an explosion in engineering.

Captain Margaret Jane Stanton, signing off.

To Be Continued…