Cap And Gown Before Bad Ideas

Posted on Sat Sep 27th, 2025 @ 7:38pm by Ensign Nyx Calder

1,929 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: On the Trail
Location: San Francisco, Starfleet Academy, Earth

San Francisco did its best impression of a postcard—flags up, brass band loud, cadets everywhere. Ensign Nyx Calder stood on the edge of the lawn with shoulder-length hair down and very much not regulation, neon tips catching the sun. When caps went flying, she didn’t throw hers; she pressed it into a nervous first-year’s hands.

“Borrow it,” she said. “Bring it back with a better story.”

Photos, hugs, noise. Freckles across her nose, the notch in her left eyebrow flashing when she grinned. The backs of her hands showed bright tattoos as she waved off another snapshot.

“Calder.” Lt Cmdr. Penhale appeared beside her like a calm lighthouse.

Nyx flashed a grin. “Look, I graduated without setting anything on fire. Today.”

Penhale’s mouth twitched. “Let’s keep that a trend. You remember what we agreed?”

Nyx counted on tattooed knuckles. “Weekly sessions. Ask before I try anything ‘pretty’ at the helm. Buddy system on the spooky stuff. Sleep like a person, not a hummingbird.”

“Good,” Penhale said. “And fewer pranks.”

“Define fewer.” Nyx paused, then added, more honest, “I’ll try.”

They walked the edge of the green while the crowd thinned. Penhale didn’t push; that was her trick. Nyx filled the silence anyway.

“I’m happy,” Nyx said. “Properly. It’s weird.”

“Weird good or weird bad?”

“Good. Just… new. I keep waiting for someone to tap my shoulder and tell me they’ve mixed up the paperwork.”

Penhale nodded. “Imposter feelings are common today. They fade when you start doing the work.”

“Doing the work I can do,” Nyx said. “That bit I’m not worried about.”

“What are you worried about?”

Nyx scratched at a neon tip and shrugged. “Breaking the rules because it’s funny. Or because I’m bored. Or because it feels easy. I don’t want to be that cadet on a starship.”

“You weren’t ‘that cadet’,” Penhale said. “You tested fences. When they held, you respected them.”

“Once,” Nyx said, wry. “I test them once.”

“Once is fine,” Penhale replied. “Announce it. Accept ‘no’ the first time. That’s the deal.”

Nyx huffed a laugh. “Put that on a mug.”

A group of classmates hollered her name and ran past towards one last party. Nyx waved them on.

Penhale watched her. “What else?”

Nyx rolled her shoulders. “I don’t like mornings. I talk too much when I’m nervous. I flirt with consoles. I still get jumpy if someone raises their voice the wrong way. And I don’t… let people in easily. That last one’s the big one.”

“Then start small,” Penhale said. “One person. Pick someone steady. Tell them something true that isn’t dramatic.”

“That sounds dreadful,” Nyx said, then softened. “Yeah. Okay.”

A chime buzzed her padd. Orders—unopened on the screen. Nyx clicked it dark with her thumb and slid it into her jacket.

“Later,” she said.

Penhale didn’t argue. “Later is fine.”

They stood a while, letting the wind off the bay do the talking. Nyx looked out at the bridge of the Academy, the shuttles lifting, the glitter of the water.

“I want to be good at this,” she said, simple and clear. “Not just flashy. Good.”

“You are,” Penhale said. “And you’ll keep getting better. Structure helps you. So does being seen.”

Nyx nodded. “I’ll stick to the plan. Sessions, buddy, ask before I show off. And I’ll try—really try—on the sleep.”

“Textbook answer,” Penhale said, almost smiling.

“Don’t get used to it.” Nyx bumped her shoulder lightly against the counsellor’s. “Thanks for… you know.”

“I do,” Penhale said.

The band kicked up one last song. The green emptied. Nyx tugged a hair tie from her pocket and didn’t use it, letting the neon tips swing free.

“Right,” she said, bright again. “I’m going to say goodbye to the simulator bay. Then I’ll… not open my orders.”

“Message me if you change your mind,” Penhale said.

Nyx saluted with two tattooed fingers, casual as a wink. “See you on comms, Doc.”

She headed off at an easy bounce, all nerves and fizz and brand-new brass, leaving the padd unopened and the day exactly where it needed to end.

---

Graduation parties were everywhere — holo-balloons, synthale fountains, cadets arm-in-arm singing the anthem off-key. Nyx slipped past all of it, hands shoved into her pockets, hair swinging neon when she ducked down the service steps that led off Academy grounds.

Safe celebrations weren’t her style. Not tonight.

Down at Pier Nine, where the city met the water in shadows and ozone, the wrong crowd had gathered. Dockhands, dropouts, and a smuggler or two too lazy to hide their jackets. They were laughing loud, bottle passing hand-to-hand, a game of cards spread over a crate that didn’t belong to any of them.

“Nyxie!” one of them hollered when she appeared, freckles catching the glow of a cargo lamp. “Thought you went all straight-and-shiny on us!”

Nyx flashed a grin sharp enough to cut. “What, you think a uniform cancels out personality? Please. I just graduated in style. Figured I’d celebrate where the real fun is.”

She dropped cross-legged at the crate, tattoos bright on the backs of her hands as she scooped up the deck. Shuffling was muscle memory. Snap, snap, snap. The cards sang.

“You hear she’s Starfleet now?” someone muttered.

“Starfleet’s problem,” another replied.

“Starfleet’s blessing,” Nyx said sweetly, tossing down the first hand. “Means I’ve got credits for the first round and plausible deniability for the second.”

The table cracked up.

It wasn’t safe. She knew that. Dockside laughter could turn sharp; old contacts could drag her back under. Rowan’s name still had teeth here. But Nyx thrived on the wire — too bright to be ignored, too reckless to be cornered.

When one of the smugglers leaned too close, breath sour with drink, Nyx leaned closer still, whispering, “Careful. These hands fly starships now. You touch, I twitch, and suddenly you’ve got a shuttle-shaped haircut.” She laughed like it was a joke; they laughed with her, because it was easier than testing if she meant it.

By the time the bottle came round again, Nyx had palmed three chips and a lighter shaped like a bird-of-prey. No one noticed. Or maybe they did, and let her have it because chaos was part of her charm.

She tilted her head back, watching shuttle lights cross the bay above the Academy spires. For one hot second, she was twelve again — a kid on the docks, copying all the wrong heroes just to survive. Then she laughed, shook it off, and dealt the next hand with a flourish.

“Tonight,” she said, neon tips glowing in the lamp light, “I’m just a girl with bad ideas and a brand-new pip. Tomorrow? Maybe I’ll save the galaxy. Or at least not crash the ship. Place your bets, boys and girls — let’s see who’s lucky.”

The cards slapped down, the game rolled on, and Nyx grinned wide enough to dare the whole pier to tell her she didn’t belong.

The game went long, the bottle went faster. Nyx was three hands up, four shots down, and one laugh away from falling off the crate. Her hair stuck to her cheeks in the humid pier air, freckles bright, tattoos glowing when she waved her hands too much telling a story no one could follow but everyone laughed at anyway.

“You can’t prove the shuttle was pink when I got there,” she declared, swaying side to side like the words were balancing beams. “And besides, it looked cute. Tactical pink. Very intimidating.”

Dockhands pounded the crate with laughter. One smuggler nearly choked on his drink. Someone tried to refill her glass; Nyx stole the bottle instead, tipped it back, and toasted the bay lights.

“You’re all terrible influences,” she said, grin wicked and loose. “Exactly my kind of people.”

The night stretched, blurred, spun. Cards slapped down, pockets got lighter, jokes got meaner. Nyx’s edges stayed bright, but inside she was keeping score — who leaned too close, who got too greedy, who might remember her name when it was better they didn’t.

When the bottle ran dry and the dockhands began arguing about whose cousin owed who, Nyx slipped up to her feet, swaying just enough to look careless.

“Well, darlings,” she said, bowing with a flourish that nearly toppled her, “Starfleet frowns on hangovers the size of shuttles, so I’m gonna love you and leave you. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Not much left, then,” someone shouted.

She blew them a kiss and staggered down the pier, boots loud on metal. The night air hit her sharp, the bay lights blurring as she wove towards the shuttle line back to campus. She hummed to herself, an off-key tune that might’ve been the Academy anthem or might’ve been nonsense.

By the time she found her bunk, she was barefoot, jacket half-unzipped, and still laughing at nothing in particular. The padd with her orders buzzed once where she’d dropped it on the desk. Nyx ignored it, face-planted into the pillow, and muttered, “Tomorrow. Sober Nyx can deal with destiny. Drunk Nyx just wants the room to stop spinning.”

She was asleep before the neon tips of her hair stopped glowing in the light.

---

The sun stabbed through the blinds like it had a personal grudge. Nyx groaned, rolled over, and pulled the pillow on top of her head. Her skull thudded like someone had swapped her brain for a warp core running at half power.

“Congratulations, Calder,” she muttered into the sheets. “Survived Academy, killed by synthale.”

The padd on her desk wouldn’t stop chirping. One eye cracked open; the neon tips of her hair were sticking up like a malfunctioning EPS relay. She staggered upright, muttered curses at gravity, and jabbed the screen.

ORDERS: Ensign Nyx Calder.
REPORT: Empok Nor, Trivas System.
CONTACT: Starfleet Intelligence. You will be found. Further orders will follow.

Nyx blinked. “That’s it?” She scrolled. No department. No billet. Not even a name. Just the echo of a place half the quadrant avoided unless they had death wishes or debt collectors.

“Empok Nor,” she repeated, voice dry. “Well, that’s cosy. Why not Rura Penthe while we’re at it?”

She tossed the padd onto the bed, flopped back down, and stared at the ceiling. Starfleet Intelligence. Of course. Everyone else got shiny new ships and welcome dinners, she got come to the abandoned Cardassian horror-show station, don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Her laugh cracked out sharp and sudden, filling the empty room. “Oh, they’re either desperate or they’re outta their minds. Perfect. My kinda people.”

Nyx sat up again and ran both hands back through her hair. Her grin was crooked, still half hungover, but it reached her eyes.

“Fine,” she said to the orders, to the padd, to the universe. “You wanna play cloak-and-dagger? Let’s dance. But you better bring the rhythm, ‘cause I don’t trip easy.”

She dragged on her jacket, shoved the padd into the pocket, and staggered towards the shower with the swagger of someone already planning a dozen colourful ways this could go wrong.

---

A Post By

Ensign Nyx Calder
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Who Knows ;)

 

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