1.
2401 – La Sirena
Although Worf’s kur’leth seemed like a cumbersome hunk of metal, it was surprisingly easy for Raffi to swing it at his head.
When he easily dodged her attack, she doubled down on her offense with a clumsy backswing, hoping the sharp hilt would at least shave a few hairs off of his chin.
With a smug smile, he blocked the swing with his dh’tang. Clearly her offense was not working, it was time to change tactics on such a large opponent. If he could block all of her bodyweight behind a larger sword singlehandedly, no amount of ferocity was going to overpower him. She tossed the kur’leth aside and opted for a bit of Judo instead. Trying to her best to goad him into giving her some of that big guy momentum she could use to his detriment, Raffi beckoned him with her pointer finger and a smile, widening her stance.
Obliging her, Worf lunged forward with his dh’tang, keeping the majority of his weight below her center of gravity. Despite that, Raffi still pressed forward with an uchi-mata, moved into his center or gravity, twisted, and kicked her leg up to throw him forward.
Instead, she was caught in his clutches, his weight firmly planted to the ground. Grimacing, Raffi tried to transition her footwork into an ouchi-gari, but Worf used the transition to throw her onto the ground with a loud thud.
“Oof,” Raffi coughed as she lay splayed out on the floor like a starfish, “jeez big guy, any strategy I use ends up with me on the floor.”
Worf gave Raffi what a human might discern as a smirk, “If you think I’m not familiar with the ancient art of Judo, you are sorely mistaken.”
“Let me guess, Klingons perfected hand to hand combat before humans emerged from the primordial ooze,” Raffi said with a mockingly deep voice.
Worf grunted at Raffi’s joke, “Why would you insist on using an uchi-mata? That throw is far too superfluous to be effective on me. Did your sensei not teach you, ‘big opponent-little throw, small opponent – big throw?’”
Raffi rolled her body weight onto her shoulders and kicked herself upright.
“What can I say, I like the look of uchi-mata. A beautiful half-moon of your legs sweeping across the sky as you slam on the ground. Now that’s art if you ask me.”
“What does aesthetic have to do with combat?”
Raffi shrugged her shoulders, “Everything my friend. Besides,” she swept the dust off of her pants, “What’s life without a little whimsy?”
Again, Worf suppressed a smile.
“So, your handler, do you know this person?” Raffi said as she walked towards a crate with a towel and glass of water stacked on top of it.
“I am familiar with my handler, as are you.”
Raffi raised an eyebrow as she toweled the sweat off of her face and took a sip of water.
“My handler hand picked both you and I for this mission. I believe they referred to you as Meeks.”
Raffi’s eyes widened in shock and she almost choked on her water. She had not heard that name in a long time.
2362
With her pointer and middle finger, Raffi flicked the page upward on, what her classmates so colorfully described as a ‘primitive PADD’, scanning the network protocols of her elementary school. Ancient as her PADD might have been, Raffi was still able to hack into replicators, the teacher’s personal PADD, and any of the multitude of things that relied on a computer and possessed a microphone.
It was this ability that enabled her to hear the 4th grade pack of means girls calling her ‘Standard Issue Raffi’, as they made fun of the fact that she lived in universal basic housing with her grandma and possessed an outdated replicator that did not produce the latest fashions.
Which is precisely why, when she confronted the pack of mean girls in the cafeteria, she was able to quote their passive aggressive jibs verbatim. Unfortunately for them, Raffi was not passive about her aggression and she used her long lanky arms to reach across the lunch table and slap the smirk off of the alpha mean girl.
Alone and crouched over her PADD on the playground after school, Raffi’s face lit up as she found the replicator in her classroom. A quick slip into the input/output and boom, she had audio.
“Mrs. Musiker, this is the second fight she’s been in in a month,” Ms. Tomura said sternly.
Raffi heard the rustle of her grandma’s fidgeting, “I’m so sorry, please give her another chance. She is having such a hard time adjusting since her father died.”
Ms. Tomura let out an exasperated sigh. Being rather new, she still possessed a decent amount of empathy towards her students, but dealing with the privileged children of Wexlam Academy was starting to wear on her.
“Raffi is an incredibly gifted child, and academically she is flourishing. But I’m running out of excuses to give the other parents about Raffi’s brash behavior.”
“Please, just give her one more chance. Her mother left 6 months ago and has ceased communicating with us. Raffi is coming to terms with the fact that she is not coming back, and, and,”
Raffi winced at her grandma revealing so much personal information with the teacher.
“I live on a fixed income and this academy provides her with opportunities that I just can’t. Her dream is to get into Starfleet and this school can help her,” Mrs. Musiker pleaded.
Raffi gulped as she listened to her grandma struggle to find excuses for her bad behavior.
Ms. Tomura remained silent for a few seconds. She was a contemplative woman, and as much as she empathized with Raffi’s plight, teachers as Wexlam were often victims of the caprices of influential parents.
“I can give her one more chance, but after this it’s really out of my hands. She needs to learn to control her ang-“
Raffi became enraged and threw her PADD across the playground. Despite the lack of an audience, she still crossed her arms and pouted at her circumstance. She was mad at her mother for leaving. She was mad at her living situation. Her grandma did her best, but a retiree in her 70’s did not have the resources and energy to keep up with a precocious child like herself. But mostly, she was mad at fate for taking away her father.
After several seconds Raffi looked around and her solitude dawned her. Nobody was going to fix anything for her. Nobody was coming to help. Nobody was there to care, especially not her mother. Raffi was at a crossroads, she could give into despair, embrace the multitude of excuses and rationalizations as to why she stopped trying.
Instead, Raffi decided to get up. She picked up the PADD, brushed the dust off with her sleeve and looked at the line across the screen.
Raffi rolled her eyes, she knew it was her own fault. She opened the PADD and saw the broken conduit right away. It was a quick fix, something her father taught her how to do a thousand times before.
Raffi smiled at the thought of her father. Whether it was due to her stubbornness or resourcefulness, she was going to make it through Wexlam, and from Wexlam through Starfleet Academy.
-
2372 - Starfleet Academy
“Hey Musiker, can you fix my phaser? I can’t go through a round of quals without replacing the battery pack,” Cadet O’hara asked.
Raffi took the type 2 phaser from his hands and turned it over a few times to analyze it. Judging by the length of the scorch marks on the muzzle, O’hara had been overcompensating the beam width in order to make up for his poor shooting.
“You know O’hara, you could just put in a few extra hours in the holodeck every week and actually get better at shooting instead of flaring your shots to meet the mark,” Raffi unshouldered her backpack and put the phaser in it.
“I know, I know, I’m just so busy I don’t have the time for more practice,” O’hara shrugged sheepishly.
Raffi looked at him with glaring disapproval. She knew that O’hara was busy doing anyone instead of doing anything remotely productive, “Fine I can fix it by tomorrow. My usual.”
O’hara gave Raffi and overconfident grin, “Thanks Musiker, you’re a lifesaver.”
Rolling her eyes Raffi walked down the hallway and towards her berth. O’hara’s mother was a high-ranking diplomat, and his admittance to the academy was a classic case of nepotism. Despite his lack of integrity and effort, O’hara’s narcissism and connections would probably land him in a captain’s chair at some point.
Rounding the corner and into her room, Raffi briefly tried to mentally prepare herself for her roomate’s questioning.
“Surprised to see you here on a Thursday night?” Javi questioned as he turned around to look at her from his desk. His tone loaded with judgment.
Groaning, Raffi threw her backpack on her desk, jumped into her bunk, and buried her face in her pillow.
“So I noticed that you weren’t with Becks on Tuesday, and now you’re here again on a Thursday?”
Throughout the duration of their first year together, Javi had never been a fan of anyone Raffi dated. Objectively, he was handsome. Tall, tan, with perfectly combed hair and a killer smile, normally Raffi’s type, but despite that the chemistry was more platonic than romantic for her.
“To be fair, she wasn’t in class either, so…”
“Well, I heard that she was thrown in the brig for driving some professor’s collectible into the bay,”
Turning to face Javi and propping her head on her hand Raffi replied, “I heard that too. I also saw dad-miral walking towards the chancellor’s office this morning so I’m betting she’ll be out sooner or later.”
Javi shook his head, “I still can’t believe you, of all people, are dating her. Don’t you hate elitists? Isn’t that your main gripe with...half of Starfleet?”
“First off, we’re just sleeping together. There’s a Monday/Wednesday guy, I’m Tuesday/Thursday, and Amina’s special so she gets Friday through Sunday. I’d hardly consider us ‘dating’,” Raffi motioned air quotes with a single hand.
Javi looked perplexed, “and you’re cool with this complicated situation?”
Humming, Raffi thought about it for a few seconds. At first, she thought she could go the distance with Becks. She tried to rationalize it. Be cool. Don’t be earnest and reek of desperation.
“Actually, yeah. I don’t really have the bandwidth for anything serious right now, and nepotism aside, Becks is actually really down to earth and wants to do good things out in the universe. She really would have gotten into the academy on merit alone.”
While most people bought into Raffi’s excuses, including herself, Javi was not convinced and gave her a skeptical side eye.
Raffi tapped her forehead with her palm, “Fine, I don’t know. It’s hard not to be attracted to her. Everyone oogles her, she’s Starfleet’s finest.”
“Half our class swoons over you too you know,” Javi reassured. Raffi was the top of her class, the universally proclaimed leader of her company amongst her cohort.
“You’re too kind to me bunkie,” Raffi smiled, “ugh, I hate the Starfleet incestuous dating. I get it, the hours are insane, we’re only ever around each other. Nobody else understands what we do all day and our humor is unique. But it’s damned near impossible to make it work.”
While Raffi was a terminal pessimist, Javi balanced her quite well with his optimism, “I don’t know, I think that if you find the right person, and you both want to build something together it could work. A lot of Starfleet relationships work out, there are tons of married couples across the fleet.”
“Not without one person sacrificing their career for the sake of the other. One is always two rungs up the ladder higher than the other because they had to take posts to accommodate the other.”
Javi shrugged. Raffi wasn’t wrong about that one. “Maybe there’s more to Starfleet than just climbing up the ladder?”
The conversation was starting to veer a little too deep. Luckily, Raffi’s PADD chirped with a notification. Raffi swiped up and looked at the notification, “Oh shit, I need to put my dress uniform on to meet with Chief Lanz. I think the I’m getting assigned somewhere this summer.”
Brimming with excitement, Raffi leapt out of her bunk, opened her closet, and began to organize her uniform on her bed. Freshly polished shoes, belt, black socks, pants with sharp lines pressed into the center, undershirt, and jacket with her pre-measured Delta shield already secured.
“Wow, you’re not even going to wear your pit-stained undershirt? Dressing to impress the brass huh? Where do you want to go?”
“Hey now, that’s my lucky test taking shirt okay!” Raffi laughed, “I’m hoping a ship that will get into some shenanigans with Romulans, Klingons, anything boisterous and bold,” Raffi pulled her pants and put on her undershirt, tucking the shirt into her underwear.
Although she was a thorough, hard-working cadet, she did engage in a few shortcuts for things she found absolutely unnecessary, like shirt stays. Raffi sat down in her desk chair and cautiously slipped on her shoes. She didn’t want to scuff the toes she had spent hours buffing while listening to videos on Romulan enunciation.
While Raffi was a prodigious student, she knew couldn’t count on anyone bailing her out or giving her a leg up, and she gave every last bit of effort she had into excelling in the security program at the academy. It was important for her to succeed, she had a lot to prove, especially to herself.
-
Aimlessly, Raffi walked around campus for an hour before returning to her room. She needed to kill time before Javi went to his block of classes and study group because, quite frankly, she was not in any mood to talk to him after her meeting.
Raffi arrived at her room several minutes after Javi left for his largest block of classes. Luckily, she would have a few hours of alone time before he returned back to the room. Raffi yanked at the buttons of her dress uniform jacket and haphazardly threw it on the chair. She laid face down on her bunk before hearing a quiet knock on the door.
“Permish-hun to enter?” she heard a familiar voice ask.
Raffi rolled onto her back. She was not in the mood for this right now, but maybe Becks would bring a little levity after the conversation she just had.
“Permission granted,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
“Ooo la la, cadet Musiker, I saw you across the quad and just had to come say hi,” Becks said as she raised her eyebrows a few times and whistled at Raffi.
Unamused, Raffi turned onto her side away from Becks.
“Aw come on Raffs, that was a compliment.”
Raffi let out an exasperated sigh, “It’s really not you, I’ve just had a hard day.”
Becks tilted her head, confused at Raffi’s behavior. She was used to her flirtatious charm instantaneously making her smile.
“Is it something that a little of that Boothby kush could fix?’ Becks asked, ‘I don’t know how the admiralty hasn’t figured out that he’s the biggest supplier on campus. The overalls, hemp hat, and the fact that he’s surprisingly calm about everything. They all think he’s sagacious when he’s really just high off his ass,” Becks said with a laugh.
Raffi couldn’t resist laughing at that joke. Was there anybody who could resist her charm? She turned over to face becks and gestured for her to jump into the bunk.
With a nod of approval, Becks jumped into the bunk and into raffi’s arms.
“I missed you on Tuesday, heard about what happened over the weekend.”
“Oh man, you should have seen professor Rubichik’s face,’ Becks said.
Raffi winced at Becks teasing professor Rubichik, he was actually a nice guy. She didn’t like the direction the conversation was heading towards and tried to shut her up with a kiss.
Becks kissed her back, but turned her head to the side to continue talking, “Like seriously, ‘oh no, not my car’,” Becks mocked the professor.
Raffi kissed her neck, trying to distract Becks from her toxic diatribe.
“Didn’t those things practically destroy the environment, like, some Picard had to go back in time and help another Picard to find something on Jupiter to fix it? Jeez can’t the Picards save some universe rescuing for the rest of us.”
Raffi nipped at beck’s ear, desperately trying to persuade her to focus on other things.
“Raffs, you should have seen it. Amina and I barely had time to bail out of the car before it rolled off the cliff, we looked like movie stars jumping out just in time.”
With that, Raffi’s annoyance boiled over. She knew that nothing about their relationship was exclusive, but she could not stop herself from being jealous of Amina. Perhaps, on some level, she had always hoped that if she played it cool long enough, she might be the last one standing and it could grow into something serious.
“You are such a thoughtless, entitled, asshole sometimes. I don’t know why I ever slept with you,” Raffi scooted away from becks.
Sensing Raffi’s apprehension, becks tried perform some damage control and shifted her attitude.
“Because,” she traced the waistband of Raffi’s pants with her pointer finger, “you love this asshat’s self-deprecating sense of humor.”
Normally, Raffi would have crumbled under her ministrations, but she was sick of deceiving herself.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Raffi pushed her hand off of her hip.
Becks looked at Raffi with confusion and jumped out of the bunk, “Wait, how did we go from what I assumed was sex to the kind of conversation that probably isn’t going to end well.”
Raffi couldn’t control the thoughts and seething resentments she had towards becks and everything she represented.
“You just don’t see a problem with the shit you pull, and, and,” Raffi faltered for a second as her emotions poured out, “the worst part is that you think it’s okay because your parents will get you out of it.’
Becks’s eyebrows furrowed with indignation, “you know how hard I work to get out of their shadow.”
“Do you?” Raffi crossed her arms, “if you really cared about getting out of their shadow, you wouldn’t use the last name Freeman!”
“Oh you think that helps?” Becks snapped back, “it’s a burden. A giant expectation of Starfleet excellence that hung over my head since I was in a crib! My great grandfather has a statue in Morro Bay, my whole family has. I have two options exceed their expectations or become a giant fuck up like my cousins. For once, I would love to just be mediocre, just be loved for who I am regardless of my fucking rank!”
In the early stages of infatuation, Raffi had empathized with Becks’s personal struggle.
At this point, Raffi had become too familiar with Becks’s entitled mischief and continued argue, “Oh poor, poor, Beckett Freeman, she doesn’t have to try, but she does a little and that’s why she’s a brigade commander, and that’s why she’ll be in a captain’s chair sooner than the rest of us.”
“See! You too, every single person in my life expects nothing less than perfection from me. What happens to me if I don’t make it?” Becks snapped and threw her hands in the air.
“Don’t give me that woe is me entitled crap. When are you ever going to understand the difference between equality and equity? You will make it, the whole system was designed to make failure impossible for you.”
“Come on raffs, that’s not fair, you know how hard I work, I’ve spent just as much time studying as you.”
“I’m not saying you’re incompetent, or not even that you don’t work hard. You just get a little extra help in ways that I never would. Like…” Raffi’s voice brimmed with emotion, “like, where did you go for your middie cruise? On some new, fancy ship that explored the wonders of the universe right?”
Becks tried to open her mouth to refute her claim, but Raffi’s question was rhetorical.
“You know where I’m being assigned for my middie cruise? The New Zealand Penal Colony. The warden’s adjutant resigned and they need some idiot ASAP that can’t refuse the position. We have literally worked the same amount. You got to explore the galaxy, solve space mysteries, be a Starfleet officer…and I’m…I’m,” Raffi’s voice choked, “literally, being sent to prison despite trying my best,” Raffi looked away from Becks, trying to hide her tears.
Becks’s eyes softened as she looked at Raffi crying, and she stopped herself from trying to comfort her. She wasn’t sure why Raffi received a shitty posting, there must have been a reason, there had to be a reason because she was not ready to give up her hope in Starfleet just yet.
“I’m sorry Raffs, you deserve a lot better,” Becks remarked as she walked out of the door.
Raffi wasn’t sure if Becks was talking about deserving better from their relationship or a better posting.
One thing Raffi was sure of, no more Starfleet officers, ever again.
-New Zealand Penal Colony
Standing at attention outside of the warden’s office, Raffi looked at the depressing, drab halls of the prison’s facility administration building. Everything about the penal colony was dilapidated and gross, from the draconian fencing, buildings covered in mold, and guards spitting dip on the edge of the sidewalk.
‘Cadet Musiker, enter,’ a gravely male voice said over the intercom.
Raffi entered and saw a middle-aged man around her height standing behind the warden’s desk. Her eyes swept the room and noticed the warden was nowhere to be found in his office. She knew he was not the warden, because, despite her disappointment, she was a thorough cadet and familiarized herself with the prison’s basic information.
‘Have a seat,’ the man dressed entirely in black instructed her.
‘Aye sir,’ she replied nervously.
‘I don’t have much time to waste so I will get to the point. You’re not here to be the warden’s adjutant.’
Raffi raised an eyebrow, ‘Sir?’
‘Are you familiar with the Maquis?’
‘Of course sir.’
‘There are several, ex-Starfleet and ex-Maquis that are of interest to us in this penal colony. However, we need to gauge where their loyalties lie before bringing them back into the fold.’
“With all due respect sir, isn’t it a little soon to look at their rehabilitative potential, I mean, a lot of them just turned themselves in.” Raffi wasn’t one for punitive justice, but she did believe in the principle behind consequences and serving at a least a little of time.
“There are bigger things at play, a bigger enemy on the horizon. We need to look at all potential operatives that could give us the upper hand,” he stated curtly.
He handed her a PADD with dossiers loaded on it. Raffi quickly performed a cursory read, looking for names she recognized from what little intelligence she was provided with in her classes. Her eyes widened at a few of the names, they were infamous both in and out of Starfleet.
“Sir, this seems like something a little beyond my current skillset. I mean,” she paused, “I haven’t even graduated yet, and some of these people were highly experienced and skilled officers.”
“Which is precisely why we chose you. Your professors said you are exemplary, adaptive, and a quick thinker. The perfect operative was used a few times to describe you. Also, we needed a cadet. A lot of these marks are connected and familiar with a lot of our current intelligence officers. we need someone fresh and capable.”
Raffi’s eyes lit up. She had spent the remaining few weeks of the term sulking and resenting everyone at the academy, partially due to breaking things off with becks, and partially due to her assignment. It was encouraging to know that her efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Anyone of particular interest to you specifically?” Raffi asked.
The man in black was amused by Raffi’s intuition, “Yes. Are you familiar with Ro Laren?”