Meet the new boss NOT like the old one.

Posted on Tue Nov 14th, 2023 @ 6:53pm by Ensign Kate Kono
Edited on on Tue Nov 14th, 2023 @ 6:59pm

Mission: Hard Earned Peace
Location: Holodeck One
Timeline: Prior to meeting Shran in the lounge

Holodeck One -

Nellis Air Force Base was clear of all personnel and aircraft. Kevin stepped into the arch of the Holodeck and it vanished as he walked through onto the hot concrete of the desert airbase. He looked left and right to see that nobody was around and all he could hear was the wisping of warm, dry desert air. The shade of the awnings around him that normally housed aircraft of some sort were the only things left on the airfield aside from small generators, air-transfer units, and the chin-link gates on the side of the tarmac rattled in the wind like chimes.

It was what one would call a liminal space when devoid of all the people, machines, and cars that one would expect from an old airbase in the desert. He didn’t know what kinds of things would have been out here but he knew well enough to know that the place gave him the creeps with nobody around.

“Ensign Kono?!” Kevin yelled. He was he could find her here but ‘where the heck was ‘’here’? He walked out further between the housings that were just four poles that held up a tin roof for shade and shelter. There were rows of them four deep, and nine wide. He looked around for, what his description told him, was an Asian girl that was exceptionally short and skinny. He was in a desert though; needle in a haystack.

Kevin straightened his Starfleet uniform and tapped his combadge.

“Ensign Mitchell to Ensign Kono.”


Kate’s tiny hand gripped the flight stick of the F-16 Viper as the sky tower of Las Vegas zipped past the left side of her canopy and she made her turn toward Nellis. The aircraft was rattling but all she could hear was the sound of the ice-cold AC blasting through the cockpit as she pushed the throttle stick forward past the afterburner gap on the viper. Her seat rumbled and she watched the Mach Meter on the bottom left of her Heads Up Display read MACH 1.21. She rested the flightpath marker on the beginnings of the row of nine awnings and settled the marker directly under the tin shelter roofs, equal distance between the four posts that held them up, and equal distance from the ground. Kate ejected her center tank for stability and allowed the fly-by-wire system to make the automatic trim adjustments to keep her steady.


Kevin stepped past the first awning and looked to the right. Most of the time, he found that he could learn a lot about a person by what they choose to do with their Holodeck time; if they didn’t lock the holodeck, it was free reign to learn. There was no sound, but he saw two objects coming straight at him; one larger than the other. His bright blue eyes widened as he realized where Kate was, and what she was doing, which left him with the innate impression that he should have knocked before walking in on this girls fantasies…

A wall of what little moisture the Nevada desert had to offer created a ring around the Viper as it entered into the maintenance hangars, and as the jet passed by the hangars, tin sheets exploded into the air and support poles turned to projectiles. A silent fuel tank skipped across the pavement. If it had gotten any closer to him, the tank would have vanished as per the holodeck safeties, but his mind was in fight-or-flight and he instinctively jumped out of the way, which allowed the tank to fly underneath him in complete silence. An invisible wind picked him up before he could hit the pavement and he flew upwards into the air as shrapnel that used to be the maintenance awnings danced in the skies with him before hitting the ground.

Just as the carnage of the F-16 passed and he found himself on the ground, came a loud bang that came late for the party. Kate was already a half mile away from the airbase when the sonic boom picked everything back up again, shattered the glass of the officers club, and sent alarms in a parking lot of an automobile parking lot blaring as the boom died down. Kevin stumbled to his feet and staggered clear of the debris as the Viper turned back around and came back toward the airfield.

With no landing gear, the viper met the tarmac next to the runway as sparks blazed across the pavement. Kevin was on the run again, as the F-16 blazed by just as the Kerosene fuel ignited. There was a small explosion just as the aircraft passed him and a glass canopy shattered next to him. He fell back over in time to see an Ejection Seat rocket over his head. He rolled violently to the right to miss the seat hitting him that, once again, if it had, the holodeck would have stopped it from happening.

Floating down toward him was that small young woman he was told to look for as she floated toward the ground. A wave of heat overtook him that made him have to hold his hand up toward his face. The explosion came a second later as the wreckage of the F-16 slammed into the old LORAN beacon which caused both plane and circular building to vaporize in a fiery inferno. Kate touched the ground and unclipped the parachute snaps as she ran over to the Ensign. She pulled her helmet off and kept hopping up and down cheerfully.

“I did it! I did it! I did it!!! Did you see that?! I hope you saw that!!!” She giggled and ran a few circles around the man. Kevin swallowed hard and wiped himself down.

“I uh — I don’t know what I just saw. Um… Ensign Kono?!”

Kate stopped jumping and running.
“Come on! Let’s get you suited up! We got more Tax Payer checks to burn that our bodies can’t cash!”

Kevin felt himself tugged by his department head.
“W.. What? WHAT?”

“I’m Kate!” She said happily.