Call Your Mother

Posted on Sat Jun 7th, 2025 @ 6:31pm by Ensign Noah Balsam

Mission: Mean Green Queen
Location: Junior Officers' Quarters, 4-13 (Deck 4)
Timeline: Mission Day 7 at 0845

[Day 7, 0845 hours]
[Cabin 4-13, Deck 4]
[Sojourner]

"Computer." His voice was graveled and lazy. Noah rolled off his stomach and on to his back. He sighed and wiped the crust from his eyes. "Is the Holodeck available at 0900?"

"Negative. At 0900 hours, Security Department has phaser certification training."

Noah's nose wrinkled. His face scrunched in a squint of question, "0915?"

"Negative. At 0915 hours, Security Department has an undisclosed training program." The computer dispassion reported. When Noah looked over, he felt the ripple and heard the materialization: it began with a face and then realized itself in an organic flow from ears to the tip of its tail- a sleek and slim Russian Blue. "She" trotted along Noah's short shirtless torso, coming to stand at the lower edge of his chest depression. Her tail flicked like an alert- if bored- sentry.

"Alright then, keep your secrets," Noah chuckled dryly. Undisclosed training program. But his attention soon turned to the creature standing on his chest. "Hi baby." Noah chirped, smiled warmly at his holographic proxy of his pet- Cat. He reached up to scritch the holographic beast's cheek and chin, and the cat convincingly leaned into it with its feline behavior subroutines. "Are you hungry?" Another sharp tail twitch that turned languid and uncoiling. "Hungry girl?" A more languid twitch, then cat sat on Noah's chest and began a brisk and apparently pleasing scratch behind her ear with her back foot.

Like 100% of cat replies, this one was at best nebulous to Noah's inquiries. But then, uplifting animal instincts to sapience was very, VERY against the laws of the Federation of Planets. No such limitations on a hologram though. Noah considered- briefly- giving Cat a voice. But that seemed cartoonish and he quickly discarded the idea only to bring it back as a gentle prank for Sheldon. "Can you say, I am Asmodeus and I've come for your soul at last, Sheldon Parsons?" Noah's light and amused voice asked the holographic feline. She simply blinked and with a tail flourish, did a spin, another spin and then laid on Noah's chest.

Noah discarded the idea again. He wasn't really the prank guy- as much as Diogenes Fischer had tried to make one out of him at the Academy.

For a stretch of moments that Noah didn't track, he laid there. He felt Cat's simulated purr against his skin, her smooth fluff, the hint of her retracted claws edged against his rib bones. A rare wash of contentment found him. He felt himself drifting into the kind of indulgent lightness of a mid-morning nap on a day off. He had asynchronous duty at his leisure- he needed to study a new geometric theory for aligning bioneural nodes that Starfleet was asking engineering circles to try. But for now, Noah pushed that off.

Lightness... the low pulse of the ship at warp. It felt like they'd been at warp for so long. And longer still to come. Noah stretched his arm above his head to cradle his skull. His other hand, he rested on Cat's velvety thick fur. He could feel her simulated breathing- very regular, the exact same expanse of rib cage each time. Not quite life-like.

"Incoming subspace message from Mentapa City, Hill Province, Bajor. Timestamp-" Noah cut it off. It would have been quite awhile ago. Bajor wasn't that close to Barzan, then through the wormhole, then reconstituted by Pathfinder Station... then finally out here. Weeks, Noah hypothesized.

"Display message on PADD Noah-1."

The hand behind his head reached and fumbled further behind him. Cat, agitated, began to rise but she settled when Noah stopped squirming. A voice already began to speak- feminine, familiar, motherly. As Noah pulled his PADD to his chest and cocked it awkwardly near Cat, a woman was on screen. Their resemblance was clear but imperfect. Noah was from her and she was a part of him. They shared a similar nose, a shape of the face. But her hair was straight.

Noah smiled.

His eyes smiled too as they set on the familiar visage of Doctor Nora Tempe. And he smirked fondly as he saw what dangled from her ear- a Bajoran earring. Noah rubbed his jaw and chin with a chuckle and then put his hand back around his head. The gentle smell of his underarm wafted at his nose while he focused on the word. "Replay from start." Noah said when he decided he'd missed too much.

Her face reappeared. Noah felt the swell of homesickness and love for his mother. "Hey Mom."

"Hello my darling boy. Peldor joi from Bajor." She smiled warmly and blew him a kiss. The d'jarra earring on her ear caught the light. Noah mused that she was really getting in to this whole Bajor thing. Her eyebrows rose and she sighed a patient parent's sigh. She looked down at a PADD. "I think you've broken your last record, darling. Thirty five questions? With bullet points and annotations?" She was teasing him and Noah smiled widely. "I don't think I can cover them all in one quick subspace message."

"Let's see." Norah put on a pair of glasses- an unnecessary choice to Noah. She wasn't allergic to retinax, she just liked the aesthetic. She'd described it once as "a scholarly necessity, especially as a lecturer." Norah peered at the PADD. "One, I'm fine. Telmor says hello. I'm still in Hill Province. But I just returned from Bajor's second moon. We're working on a hydrogen recapture system. Two."

Noah watched her face.

"I haven't heard from Simon." She made a point of looking down her nose and glasses toward him. "But, I'm sure he's fine. Three. Your father is fine. I saw him last month on Earth. He was giving a presentation to the Federation Society of Temporal Physicists regarding some unusual quantum and temporal activity in the Moshe system. He's..." her nose crunched in a very Noahesque way, "Chunkier... than when I last saw him at your graduation. But it looks OK on him. He might be stress eating again. Four, I don't think he's dating, no." She looked at the camera again from down her nose, "Five, grandpa is better. With the Synth ban lifted, he's started talking to some of his colleagues."

Noah felt connected to his home for a few moments at least while his mother made her way dutifully through his list- a few garnered a number and then a, "I don't know..." or a, "You'd have to ask them." In that time, Cat stood, stretched, flourished her tail, spun and then laid back down in a curl to co-watch the noisy thing on the flat screen Noah was propping against his chest. She soon last interest. "Uhh.. fifteen... I don't know. The Vedek is in Rekantha Province. But how nice. Sixteen. No. No I've never been to Deep Space Nine, darling. It's actually far out there you know. Some people seem to think the wormhole is in orbit of Bajor." She glanced at the list, "It's several hours away by impulse."

Norah lowered her glasses to a shoulder slump and sigh by Noah. He adjusted his arm behind his head. That was the end of her willingness to answer questions. "No tell me about these enchanting sounding people you share a room with? An Antican you say? I can't say I've met an Antican. And a Risian... Irynya you say? A pilot. And an Orion? Tim? Timus? or is he the pilot? And a fellow engineer. Parstons, that's an unusual name. What is his field of special expertise?"

Norah set aside the PADD she held. "I want to talk about how you are doing. I saw you in that message. You look tired. Are you just eating those junk foods that Dingo Spitale used to feed you?" She shook her head after a beat pause, "Noah Hyman Balsam the Third, I taught you better than that." With a slow flourish, Norah took off her glasses and pushed them into a case with Bajoran bead work. "I do have something for you and your musical tastes. It is a Bajoran hymn." She turned profile and tapped several keys. Noah's eyes gazed down at the flashing icon that indicated there was an attached file. "I heard it during the last Gratitude Festival. It's based on the writings of Prylar Trem."

"I don't know who that is," Noah, eyebrow risen, chuckled to himself even as his mother spoke with practiced authority. "I'm gonna guess it-it isn't like twenty-second century Rock Revival..."

"... was a martyr several centuries ago when she led refugees through the mountains near the Fire Caves. Supposedly they were ambushed by cultists of the Kosst Amojan." Noah's nose wrinkled and he paused the message.

"Computer, identify Kosst Amojan."

With a chirp and a grind, the disembodied voice of the computer replied. "In Bajoran mythology, Kosst Amojan, also known as the Pagh Wraiths, refer to spiritual beings as an opposing force to the Prophets who were banished from the Celestial Temple; see demons, devils, malign spirits. In theoretical xenobiology, Kosst Amojan are non-corporeal neural energy entities comprised of non-uniform repeating magnetic plasma monopole chains, which may partially exist in quantum-tachyon subspace layers. Their psychology indicates that carbon-based life is seen as a "useful tool" as indicated by evidence that Kosst Amojan can infuse their energy networks into the neurological pathways of-"

"-Thanks," Noah cut off the computer before it dipped in to too much more detail. "So... the buh-bad guys. I'm guessing." He restarted his mother's message.

"And when they were being burned alive as heretics by these cultists, she sang these verses in order to calm her people and remind them of their faith. I understand that some Bajoran psychiatrists like to prescribe it to their patients as a centering mantra in the face of anxiety."

"Ah," Noah noisily said. That was why she sent it. His brows popped and Noah frowned some. he tapped the file. It downloaded quickly and with a pinch and then a flicking gesture, he transferred it to his file server.

"I love you, sweetheart. We are all very proud of you. Stay safe out there. I don't like you being so far away, but I respect that this is the life you've chosen. And you are going to do so well. Call again." She blew him another kiss. "Love you, love you... much, MUCH shorter list next time, darling boy." She waved and then, with a last tinkling wave of fingers, Norah Tempe disappeared behind a black screen and the symbol of the Planetary Republic of Bajor.

Noah sighed. "Computer. Play the file I just downloaded." Noah turned off his PADD and with an agile reach back, he put it back behind his head. It was soft. Mostly vocal. It had a Bajoran beat he'd heard before, but in a minimalist way. A lot of Bajoran music incorporated their faith teachings and scripture.

Not super far off his preferred style but... interesting? He wasn't sure he could recreate it on his guitar. But Noah laid back. He closed his eyes and in lieu of no holodeck, he let his mind wander back some 50,000 light years to home. He could almost smell the salty tang of the pizza...

A Post By

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist