A Fresh Start

Utopia Planitia: Latitude 47.96N, Longitude 225.77W. A plane characterised by heavily pitted polygonal rocks that where formed from the ejecta of the Mie crater. The words were scientifically correct and she remembered them perfectly from an old high school project but the reality was far more beautifully desolate than any paper could express. When the ancient lander Viking 2 touched down on the Martian soil it was a lone representative sent from Earth to its sister planet.

Now there was a museum on the sight and millions of Terran's, amongst other aliens, visited it regularly and still despite all of that, the area surrounding the museum evoked a feeling of remoteness and solitude. Amy looked out of the shuttle window and couldn't help but sigh a little at the thought of what had once been an alien and exotic place becoming a tourist trap.

*Would that happen to her destination too ? Would the day come when the Gamma Quadrant was considered tamed enough to allow school parties to go there like she had gone to Utopia Planitia during her 12th year ?*

Then, just as quickly as she had dipped into melancholia, she shook herself out of it.

*Get over yourself.* She thought as the shipyards high above the surface of the planet came into view. *New ship, new post, new life.*

Amy had enjoyed her time teaching at the Academy and had gained a lot in terms of new experiences but at heart she was an astronomer not a teacher and besides what better way was there to see new solar systems than up close and personal ? Tiny white specks began to resolve into the familiar shapes of starships and Amy began to feel a tingle of excitement. A fresh start on a new ship. She hadn't had much time to get used to the idea of serving on a ship again and that was probably a good thing.

She had found that a prolonged wait would only make her second-guess what she was going to find aboard the Leviathan and that was never a good thing. It was far better to explore a new ship and crew, yourself rather than trawl through endless factoids and reports. Not that she hadn't done her homework on the ships systems. Assiduously she had read through all the latest papers, training manuals and schematics. The holodeck in the astronomy department had fairly steamed as she had run a simulation of the Leviathan's stellar mapping software until she knew it inside out and back to front.

Lost in these thoughts she hardly noticed the ship growing in size until it almost filled her field of vision.

"Two minutes to docking Lieutenant." The shuttle pilot called out to her as he swung the vessel round towards the Leviathan's shuttlebay doors.

"Right. Thank you." Amy replied as she rose from her seat and removed her kit bag from the storage compartment behind her. By the time she had readied herself and walked down to the doors the pilot had landed. Amy thanked him again and as the doors opened she took in a deep breath and filled her lungs, every ship smelled a little different to any other and she knew that it might take a few days to get used to it.

Stepping down from the shuttle Amy closed her eyes and used the memory of a schematic of the ship to guide her to the correct exit. A photographic memory was a useful thing but only when coupled with understanding. It was of no use to remember something exactly if you couldn't understand what it was you were remembering.

The journey from the shuttlebay to the Captain's ready room was a mercifully short and easy one and so within ten minutes of landing Amy was pressing the door chimes outside the door of the Captain's ready room. Amy heard a muffled "Enter" so she literally pulled herself together, brushed a stray hair from her face and took her first step into her new career.