Mistaken In Time (Backpost)

Posted on Sat Sep 13th, 2025 @ 4:18am by Captain Calypso Skyie & Lieutenant JG Rala

Mission: Lower Decks
Location: Holodeck 1
Timeline: Directly following "A Bit of Home, For the Road"

Another day's work done, another time to the holodeck. That was the way that Captain Calypso Skyie figured it was time for, especially since she'd made sure to reserve the holodeck as was her prerogative as the Captain. "It's good to be the Queen." She whispered to herself as she traipsed towards the holodeck and nearly ran into the door when it wouldn't open for her automatically. "That's odd.." She said to the door as she stood there, already having had changed into her tennis outfit of a white polo shirt with cutoff arms and a nearly knee-length white skirt as well.

She tapped the screen at the side of the holodeck to life, checking it to see what was going on, then noted that someone was already occupying the room of extreme potential fun with the name of a program that she didn't recognize. "Huh, what happened? I could have sworn..." She keyed in a query and her face went red as she saw the truth: It wasn't HER time on the holodeck, not yet at least, "But I don't wanna wait!", She reached out without thinking and pressed the chine, the equivalent of knocking on the door.

Rala had nearly dozed off, laying with her lower body in the pool of water at the heart of the giant tree, until the sound of the door chime roused her. She shook herself and almost called ‘enter’ before two thoughts collided and she adjusted to “Uh, who is it?”

"It's Captain Skyie." Cally stated without thinking, then changed her tone slightly, "I mean, Calypso Skyie, I just happen to be the Captain, but right now I'm not the Captain since I'm off duty? Does that make sense?"

Rala giggled. “Yes, Captain,” she said, hedging her bets on the side of formality. “It makes perfect sense.” Lowering her voice slightly, she shifted her focus, saying, “Computer, arch, entry position 2.” Once she saw the arch appear nearby, she shifted back to addressing the Captain and continued, “You’re welcome to join me, but, uh...fair warning, I’m currently in my underwear.”

Calypso walked into the program and eyes instantly went wide as she stepped into what looked to be the inside of a massive tree, easily thirty meters across if she didn't miss her guess, but from her entry point about twenty feet from the edge of the pool in roughly the center of the 'room', she couldn't be one hundred percent sure, "Whoa..." She marveled as she dropped the bag containing her racquet where she stood, the ambient heat of the program about ten degrees hotter than that which she'd just left, "This is pretty!"

Rala sat up from her position at the edge of the pool and waved at the Captain. “Thank you, Captain,” she said, smiling. “It’s modeled on part of my homeworld, with just a bit of artistic license.”

"Pshhh," Cally waved away the rank, "I'm not the Captain right now, I'm just another person here to enjoy the technology that we all know and love. Calypso, or Cally, or Hey You, or whatever you feel like calling me. I can't say there's any of this on my own homeworld, not that we don't have large trees, which is what I'm guessing this to be? I mean we do, but nothing as large as this and I'm rambling on so maybe I should shut up for a moment?"

Rala blinked, somewhat taken aback. “Uh...sure thing...Cally...you’re the boss.” She quickly added, “Generally speaking, if not at present.” She gestured around. “Yes, this is a tree. A replica of the few Tikkana trees that exist on our world. Only twelve are known to be alive; two of those are severely damaged but still live, and there’s the ruined trunk of a thirteenth.” She gestured to the far side of the pool. “If you look between the vertical trunks over there, one of the outer lateral ones has broken off, giving a nice view of the surrounding forest and coastline, which is a reasonable approximation of the region where I hatched—albeit, without the signs of civilization that the real thing has...because I got lazy.”

Calypso took the invitation offered and half-sauntered over to the indicated location and looked out, giving a high to low whistle at the sight she looked out over, "Civilization can be so... Distracting, to say the least, especially when what you're trying to do is relax." She used a hand to fan herself as the heat did seem to get to her, "It is a bit warm isn't it?"

Rala stood and followed the Cap—Cally over to the vista. “True, it can.” At the mention of the temperature, which was around twenty-seven degrees celsius, she inhaled deeply and stretched, saying, “I like this. Standard shipboard temperature is a bit on the cool side, which is fine most of the time, but I prefer to be warmer when I’m relaxing. But, if you’d like to cool off, we can adjust the temperature, or...” she gestured to the water pooled in the center of the tree’s bowl, “The water is several degrees cooler.” With that, she grinned and took off at a sprint back toward the pool. Two steps from the water, she inhaled sharply and leaped into a reasonably well-formed distance dive. She entered the water three meters from the edge and coasted nearly to the center, where she turned and floated a meter below the surface, holding her breath and waiting to see what Cally would do.

With a raised eyebrow, Cally started to walk over towards the pool, "Well, this isn't all that conducive to swimming, but if you don't mind?" She gave a look towards the water, intending to ask if it was all right, then stripped off the polo shirt and shimmied out of the skirt leaving her in just white underwear and sports bra, quickly gauging the depth of the pool and altering her own dive from the edge to something significantly more shallow as she realized she couldn't tell how deep it was. She entered with a fair splash and with some expert kicks underwater made it out to about where Rala was before coming to the surface and turning over onto her back, blowing out her breath to clear any potential water, idly kicking to keep her head above water as she began to circle slowly.

Rala grinned again, letting a few bubbles rise to the surface, then turned over and swam deeper. She reached the bottom, flipped over, pushed off toward the surface, powering upward with her tail like a crocodile, aiming right for Cally. Three meters from the surface she turned, breaching the surface just over a meter to Cally’s left, moving fast enough to escape the water to her knees before crashing back down.

Having lost sight of Rala, Cally had been looking right, left, then right again, which meant she was looking the wrong way when Rala came out of the water and had just looked back in time for the splashdown. She spluttered and went under the water, not able to get a breath in before going under. She was only under for a few seconds before clawing her way back to the surface, taking a deep breath as soon as she broke the surface, "Whoa! That was.. Pretty awesome, Rala! Not something I could do, that's for sure!"

“Our tails make us better swimmers than most species, but to be fair, I kicked off the bottom.” Rala reclined to float on her back—which, due to her higher muscle density, required a bit of active work from her arms and tail, and still left effectively only her face and chest above the surface—and started slowly circling Cally. “I get the impression you’re an experienced swimmer, at least?”

There was a chuckle from the swimming humanoid, who'd once again returned to her lazy circling on her back, "You could say that, I was much like a fish when I was much, much younger and had a good turn of speed in competitions." Cally gave a glance over at the Draakri, a momentary slight frown as she noted the extreme difference between the sizes of their chests, but completely unfazed by how sheer the bra she wore had become from the water, "I was good enough to make my varsity squad in high school, but not for the high end stuff. I'm guessing that not only are you good in the water, but also rather arboreal in nature? No wings hiding anywhere to give you the trifecta?"

Rala had closed her eyes, and thus missed Cally’s brief frown, and what had prompted it. “No, no wings. Although the fossil record strongly suggests that the species that eventually became us did diverge from one with at least limited flight or gliding ability, a few million years ago—and, yes, became primarily arboreal for most of the intermediate time.”

"More's the pity, because with wings and fire breath, you could have fulfilled an old Earth myth of fire breathing dragons." Calypso laughed to herself, "But they didn't really like water if I gathered rightly, still, this is a lovely pool, how deep does it go?"

Rala laughed. “Oh yes, I was familiarized with those myths rather quickly at the Academy. Like, first month.” She rolled over in the water, so just her head was above the surface. “At its deepest point, it’s about ten meters to the bottom.”

"Oh? Is that all? That's deeper than I'm used to but..." Calypso took a deep breath and turned over to dive, disappearing under the rippling surface and (for a Betazoid) kicking to go touch the bottom at a rapid pace. She felt the current behind her as she realized Rala was following her. Once at the bottom, she turned back upright and even as she felt the pressure on her body, began to slowly exhale about half of the breath she'd taken, looking around and waving to the Draakri in excitement, giving her a thumbs up.

Rala had indeed followed her underwater, not following her all the way down, but watching. Completing a thirty-foot free dive with no preparation wasn’t something just any humanoid could do easily, but Cally made it all the way down with no apparent trouble. Rala returned her thumbs-up with four of her own before starting to swim in a lazy circle about halfway down.

For part of the reason she was down here, Cally wanted to stay down as long as she could, but she didn't have the endurance that many other swimmers had and after about ninety seconds of being under the water, she had to push off from the bottom for the surface, throwing her head back to clear her hair from her face as she inhaled deeply and moved for the edge to get a little respite that she really didn't need, stopping at the point where she could stand and still only have the tops of her shoulders out of the water. "I really do love the water." She told Rala as she surfaced.

Rala only caught part of what Cally said, as she was still shaking water out of her ears, but she was able to put it together from context. “I can tell,” she said. “You certainly took to it better today than most humanoids I’ve gone swimming with—which, admittedly, isn’t a lot.” She swam over to the edge of the pool, near Cally, and crawled halfway out before rolling over onto her back, lower body still in the water, her tail making lazy ripples just under the surface. “If you like the program, you’re welcome to use it any time; I was planning to make it available to everyone eventually, and I think it’s complete enough at this point. There are still a few tweaks I want to make, like adding a watercraft down by the shoreline, but this tree was the ‘main attraction’.”

"I might, and if you add a boat, those are fun to be on as well!" Cally said, "I remember going fishing on them a few times when I was a teenager. Were there a lot of fish on your world? I mean, especially if everyone was as good in the water as you are, chasing them would be fun!"

“A ship, not a boat,” Rala corrected, before backpedaling slightly, “Well, probably a boat too, but that’s not what I meant. Our world is larger than Earth, but has less land mass, and what land there is is more scattered,” she explained. “We have a strong oceangoing history, with an equivalent to Earth’s ‘Age of Sail’ that lasted almost twice as long. I was going to add a replica of an old sailing ship.” She looked up at Cally. “And yes, fishing has always been a major part of Draakri society, and is a significant industry. I was never much for it, though.”

"Mmm... I've gone fishing a few times, rod and line and it was always fun. Of course, most of those times it wasn't the fishing that was fun, but what happened while waiting for the bites, making our own waves." Calypso wiggled her eyebrows, then laughed, "But that's the one problem with open water, no way to generate enough friction."

Rala blinked, and raised an eyebrow at her. Is...is she flirting with me? she thought, taken aback. She’d heard through the natural rumor mill that every ship’s crew spontaneously generated that Calypso could be rather forward in this regard, but she hadn’t expected to be on the receiving end of it so soon, both in terms of timeframe and because, even as diverse as Starfleet was, Rala was a bit more alien than most of the various “humanoids” she’d served with.

She tried to kick the speech center of her brain back into gear, but all that came out was “Uhhh...”

Cally pushed off the bottom again and drifted over to Rala, letting one hand trace across the top of one upper arm and up and across her shoulders, "Well, if you ever need to catch a me-sized fish, all you have to do is cast a line, I may not even put up that much of a fight when you try to reel me in." The Captain giggled at the look on Rala's face, then tapped her on the far shoulder, "Tag, you're it!" And she took off as quickly as she could swim.

Rala’s brain short-circuited even harder for a second, but her remnant predator’s ‘playtime!’ instinct took over. Her eyes locked on Cally’s retreating form. She pushed up with all four arms, thrashed her tail, briefly dug the claws on her feet into the wood floor of the pool for grip, and darted into the water in pursuit, taking a breath and immediately diving under the surface.

Cally was going as quickly as possible and glanced over her shoulder to try to locate the Draakri, but saw nothing and changed course thirty degrees to the right, looking over her other shoulder. No sign of Rala, so where was she? A thought hit her as she realized there truly was no other place for her to be and all but braced herself while still swimming for her life.

Mere seconds after Cally’s course-change, Rala was two meters directly below her, matching her pace. She rolled belly-up, keeping pace with the humanoid, who was at her mercy; unable to out-swim her, nor hold her breath for as long—probably—especially if pulled under by surprise. She didn’t strike immediately, though; this was just playtime, after all.

In the brief pause, Rala’s higher brain functions reasserted themselves. Cally was definitely flirting with her, which was...something to figure out later. Rala rose a bit closer to her, careful to avoid being struck by Cally’s pumping arms and legs, reached out a hand, and let one clawtip just brush Cally’s stomach.

That threw Cally's rhythm off and she spluttered as her head ducked below as she inhaled, but cleared her mouth before she breathed the water in, then she hovered there at the water's surface, not sure which way to go, only knowing that Rala was out there, somewhere.

Rala retreated downward enough to avoid further contact as Cally stopped. She paused there, ideas flitting through her mind. Then she grinned, letting a few bubbles escape her muzzle, and moved around toward Cally’s other side and past her, waiting until she was nearly too far away before letting the end of her tail lightly brush one of Cally’s ankles. The reaction was, as expected, both amusing and enough of a distraction for Rala to poke the end of her snout above the surface for a fresh breath before submerging again.

Cally spun in the water as she treaded in place, trying to locate the Draakri, then started one way before another brush from that angle which drove her back to the middle of the pool. "Oh shit, what have you gotten yourself into, girl?" She muttered to herself before making another move to the same side she'd gone before.

Cally’s path took her at an angle past where Rala was hovering in the water. Rala moved to get beneath her again and waited until she was almost past, then reached up and snagged one of Cally’s ankles just at the bottom of its kick-stroke. She made a slight adjustment to secure her grip, then pulled as hard as she could without risking causing pain, her remaining six limbs all pushing against the water to draw Cally down.

The initial grab was the only warning Cally had to gasp in one final partial breath out of instinct, the grip assuring her that she couldn’t get away from it. She was suddenly submerged completely and dragged down as she fought like a wildcat suddenly in the water, clawing for the surface and getting absolutely nowhere, a kick at the hand holding her doing nothing and trying a change of direction in her efforts and failing miserably. The only reason true panic didn’t set in was the almost certain knowledge that Rala would never intentionally endanger her.

Rala kept that initial grip on Cally’s ankle long enough to set up another pull, drawing Cally past her, then releasing the ankle as she shifted to capturing Cally’s flailing arms with all four hands, ultimately winding up with Cally’s back pressed against Rala’s chest, all four of Rala’s arms holding Cally’s crossed in front of them both and Cally’s legs trapped between Rala’s own and her tail in a—mostly—unintentional embrace. Rala let go with one hand and held up a single finger in front of Cally’s face, signaling her to stop struggling.

The struggle had cost her a fair amount of the oxygen she’d pulled in and Cally felt the burn in her muscles, but now that she could barely move, it was easing up and the finger in front of her caught her attention and the struggle ceased completely, the Captain nodding to let Rala know she’d gotten the message.

Rala eased up, pushing Cally slightly away and turning her around so they were face-to-face. With a hand, she gestured down, toward the bottom, then rapidly up, referencing the solo stunt she’d pulled earlier. Then she looked Cally dead in the eyes with an expression of Do you trust me? and hoped Cally read it correctly.

A brief confused look crossed Cally’s face before her eyes opened slightly wider as she comprehended the question even without opening her empathic sense. She nodded with a close-lipped smile

With that confirmation, Rala turned over and dove for the bottom, drawing Cally with her. She repeated her earlier dive, flip, and rapid surface; it was slightly slower due to the extra drag, but still managed to get decent speed on the way back up. As they neared the surface again, Rala shifted her grip on Cally, pulling her in close. Then, as they broke the surface, Rala hurled Cally upwards, with a slight angle, as hard as she could.

Cally inhaled deeply as she broke the surface and was launched nearly three feet in the air, a broad smile to her face as she automatically brought her arms up in a classic diver's pose before hitting the water in as smooth a dive as possible from the shallow angle, which was what she was used to. She went under briefly before resurfacing and shaking her head to clear some water, turning to face Rala, "Okay, that was FUN!"

Rala resurfaced about the same time Cally did, shaking water from her head with a toothy grin. “Very few humanoids can out-swim a healthy Draakri, it would seem.” Then she surprised herself by blurting out, “So what was that about catching a you-sized fish?”

"Well, apparently you haven't had any issues with that!" Cally half-crowed, "And I'm clearly not fast enough to out-swim you, so that tells me not to ever go up against you in a race, which sucks.. I can't beat Jenna at Tennis, I can't beat you in swimming, what's a girl supposed to do to be the best at something?" She laughed.

Rala’s grin was briefly exchanged for a thoughtful expression before turning into a smirk, just before she disappeared below the surface again. As quickly as she could without giving herself away, she moved around behind Cally before quickly but gently trailing the blunt outer surface of a clawtip up from the middle of the Betazoid’s back to the nape of her neck as she surfaced. “Maybe more caution in choosing opponents for a given activity?” Rala teased. “Although you do seem to be having fun regardless, so perhaps just aim for being ‘the most fun Captain in Starfleet’.”

Cally gasped as her back shivered involuntarily, "I do try to have as much fun as possible." She spun in place to face Rala again, "And I've learned my lesson, at least for now. I can't promise too much for the future!"

“Hmm,” Rala said, narrowing her eyes slightly and dramatically stroking her chin in thought. “Should I take that to mean I can expect to, uhm...” The mask that was her confident pondering-a-mystery acting facade cracked slightly, her voice wavering just slightly as she started drifting slowly away from Cally and continued, “...get flirted with...again, in the future?”

Speaking the words aloud was like a thunderclap in her mind, as the realization truly, finally sank home: She had been being flirted with, and—as much as the other woman may prefer to set rank aside when possible—by the Captain. It was a strange feeling; very unexpected, unfamiliar...but, she realized, not entirely unwelcome or unpleasant.

Calypso advanced on Rala in a swift, unexpected move and hooked an arm around the Draakri's neck, hanging on and giving herself a bit of rest from keeping herself afloat, watching the ops officer from a few inches away, "Only if you want to!" She said with an emphasis, "I'd never force myself on someone who has no interest, and you're a bit more difficult to read than most."

Rala instinctively jerked away as Cally surged toward her, but the move was unexpected enough to be unavoidable at that range. She blinked, pondering briefly, before looking back at the—yes, rather attractive, and not just ‘for a humanoid’—woman hanging from her neck. “I...don’t hate the idea,” she said with a faint smile, and resumed propelling herself slowly backward, Cally in tow.

“Mind you, I’m rather new at this, so...I don’t know...” Rala trailed off, and sighed, then shifted her gaze up to the gap in the great tree’s canopy directly overhead and continued, “I don’t know how far it’ll go, or how fast. Or...really anything about any of this. I’ve never been in a relationship before—not for any value of ‘relationship’ this might count as, anyway.” Her back came to rest against the smooth, shallow-sloped edge of the pool, and she stayed there, just relaxing and thinking. “But...” she said, closing her eyes, “...I think I’m open to finding out.”

"Then there's no time like the present to find out, is there?" Cally snuggled up underneath Rala's arm after she released her own hold around the draconid's neck.

Rala, still with her eyes closed, smirked and said, “You lost a contact lens, by the way.”

"Oh... Shit."