Personal Log: CSO LtJG X'ok PaRel

Star date 2381.07.11

This will be one of the last times I will be making a log entry aboard the Tycho Brahe. Father is once again resigning his commission in Starfleet and we are returning to Vulcan. He will go back to the Vulcan Science Academy, where he will join the Astrophysics department.

I have been looking back at my old log entries. I would not have believed it four or five years ago, but I'm actually going to miss this ship, and the friends I've made here. It's hard to believe that Rodney and I used to be enemies.

The person I will miss the most is Vilon Frass. The one good thing about all this is that I will finally get to introduce him to Taarel. We will depart the ship when it returns to Vulcan in two weeks. Taarel had consented to perform a concert for the crew, and we are working separately on a piece that we can do a duet on. It is an ancient Terran folk song called "Sweet Home Alabama." We'll practice it together when the ship arrives at Vulcan. It should be fun.

Father is keeping pretty quiet about his reasons for resigning his commission. I think he has found life in Starfleet to be quite different for a man with a family than he did when he was on his own. Even though he was married before, his wife didn't travel with him, and he had no children. I have felt for some time that his responsibilities to us and to Starfleet are too much of a distraction. He longs for the academic life again, and has had his fill of exploration. Even so, I wouldn't be surprised if he and Mother returned to the fleet again after Saareyl and I have grown up and gone out on our own. After all, he's still a young man, barely in his fifties. I think before he turns 100 he will get the urge again. For now, even Mother is anxious to get home to Vulcan.

My schooling will be arranged more like it is here on the Brahe. I will spend two or three days a week with Father at the Academy, as I do now with the Scientists aboard ship. I am really enjoying the advanced studies I've been doing, and the rest of the department assures me that I am contributing to the ship's mission. Father and Grandfather think serving an internship at the Academy will be mutually beneficial. For my other subjects, I will still be going to the local school. This way, I will be less of a disruption to the other children, plus I can indulge in my chosen field.

We will settle into our old house when we return, but before Father and I begin our duties at the Academy we will visit Qo'nos. It is almost time for my Rite of Ascension, and Grandfather K'plarr makes regular reference to it, so we'd better prepare for it. Mother is helping me. I'm excited, and a little scared at the same time. I think the best thing will be seeing B'lar again. I haven't seen her in almost two years. I wish I could get her and her father to come to Vulcan. Imagine me, Taarel, Vilon Frass, and B'lar all together! Some day, maybe.

End log entry.

Stardate 2379.08.15, USS Tycho Brahe. Acting Crewman X'ok PaRel's personal log.

I'll be downloading my personal logs from the away mission, plus I have some log entries for the Science department, but I wish to put a brief overview of the mission just ending into my personal log.

My father led the planetary survey team on a three-week long study of an M-class world in the Turvasc system. I was allowed to join the team as well. I assisted with the botany studies mostly, although I also served as Commander Seraat's personal assistant. I got to use a tricorder!

Turvasc IV is a very beautiful planet located about five light years from the Andorian system. It is about 25% larger than Earth, with approximately 85% of its surface covered with water. The three major continents are all lushly forested, but no animal life was detected. The similarities in the plant life on the different continents suggests that they were connected fairly recently, possibly less than a thousand years ago, although some variation of species and sub-genii is beginning to evolve. The gravity was mildly excessive for the human team members, but over the course of the mission they adapted.

The team was very careful not to upset the ecosystem. There turned out to be an abundance of fruit and vegetable life that was edible by most of the team, and quite delicious as well. We barely touched our field rations, and never did use the food replicators. We brought back a number of samples to add to the arboretum and hydroponic gardens.

On a personal note, I made a new friend. Not really new, because I've known him since we came aboard the Brahe, but we had not yet been friends. He is Master Chief Vilon Frass, from Bajor, so I should always refer to him as Chief Vilon. Privately, he calls me X'ok and I now call him Frass.

Chief Vilon turns out to be an excellent chef. He took an indigenous plant, and some spices he'd brought along, and made a dish he calls Turvasc Hasperat. Father didn't care for it, but I love it. Chief Vilon even has some ideas on how to make plomeek soup more palatable.

The Chief is with security, and knows a lot about weapons, but has very little experience with Klingon weapons, so we had a lot to talk about. I had brought my dak'tagh, and we fashioned a couple of staves, and I began training him in Klingon hand-to-hand combat techniques.

Two days ago, to celebrate my eleventh birthday, he made hasperat and we gave the team a self-defense demonstration. I actually knocked him down, and he didn't get mad or anything. We're going to exercise together twice a week with blunted bat'leths. He says that I can help him sometimes when he's on duty, and he's been telling me stories from the Dominion war and the Cardassian occupation. He says he still has a problem trusting Cardassians, but he's learning to forgive, and I said that Surak would be proud of him.

Now that we're back, I'm anxious to get back to playing the g'tarr. I've missed Mother and Saareyl, but I've also missed my lessons. Just before the mission, the program introduced me to a new instructor named Rory Gallagher. He's a very good player, and will help me get to the next level of my technique.

Father promised he'd let me help him go over the astrometric survey data that the ship did of the rest of the system while we were on the planet, so I'd better finish up and get to the lab. He's probably already started. Acting Crewman X'ok PaRel, over and out.

Stardate 2379.02.03

I'm feeling alone today. I'm living on a crowded starship, with my family right outside my door, but I feel alone. And yet, I don't really feel bad about it. It's just strange, that's all.

I've always managed to have one good friend, wherever I went. At home on Vulcan, there's Taarel, who I saw almost every day. On Q'onos, it's B'lar. We're just drawn to each other, in both cases. Here, I have friends, but nobody like Taarel or B'lar. There's people I like, and don't like. People I do things with, but nobody that I do everything with. I am separate from everybody else on the ship.

I've decided that this is all right. It is giving me an opportunity to find out just who I really am.

Stardate 2378.06.15. Have to get used to doing that again, as we leave Vulcan orbit tomorrow. For a whole month I have gotten to sleep in my old bed. While the Tycho Brahe was getting refitted and its labs upgraded we've been staying at our old house. Father beams up to work each day and he made arrangements for me to attend my old school. The teachers on the Brahe weren't too thrilled, but it's been good to see all my old friends again. Life on a starship with humans is definitely different.

Two Vulcan scientists from the Academy are joining the Brahe crew. They will be given honorary ranks and placed in their appropriate departments. They won't be real Starfleet officers, just civilian consultants, but they'll be as much a part of the crew as Father. The best part is, they both have families, and that means there will be three Vulcan kids on board, besides me. Finally, I'll have somebody to meditate with besides Father and a few other grown-ups. Now, if we could get a couple Klingon families!

The electric g'tarr that Taarel gave me has turned out to be the best thing that ever happened! I love it! Taarel said that his lute master helped him write the instructional holodeck program, but Taarel researched the instrument and all the music himself, and it's great. There are two Terran g'tarr masters in it who take turns teaching me. They are based on real persons who died thousands of years ago named Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman. They are strange, but I like them, and I'm learning a lot. Taarel says that, as I improve, there are other more advanced teachers that will come on line.

Father is pleased about the g'tarr as well. In the last week, I have been able to spend FIVE evenings practicing, because I behaved myself all day! Father says, if the Jem Hadar had g'tarrs, they would not need ketracel white. And, Mother likes the music. So does Saareyl.

I will miss Taarel terribly. We've been going hiking almost every day, and I was allowed to take him up to the Brahe. He'd never been on a transporter before. I was allowed to give him a tour of the ship all by myself! He promised to continue writing me once a week, and sending me the recordings from his recitals, and I will write him every week also, just like I do B'lar on Q'onos. She doesn't write as often, but when she does it's very, very long. I think she just keeps writing, and then at some point stops and sends it.

Well, we leave tomorrow at noon, shipboard time, so I'd better get some sleep, and all that blah-blah-woof-woof. Master Hendrix says that. My next log entry will again be from the Brahe.

We're back on Vulcan for a visit. I spent all day with Taarel. We went hiking, and we talked and talked. I told him how frustrated I am with trying to play music. He was very complimentary of how I'm coming along on the lute, but I don't feel like I know what I'm doing at all. I keep coming back to it, even though I've also tried the terran Violin, some Klingon drums, and a Bajoran flute.

He told me that he has been thinking long and hard of what instrument I should try next. He played some recordings he'd tracked down, and it's the most amazing music I've ever heard. The primary instrument in them all is a Terran stringed instrument called the Electric G'tarr. Taarel says he thought it was Klingon music when he first heard it, but it turns out to be from Earth.

I'm listening to the recordings he gave me right now. Somebody called Rush. There's also Jeff Healey, Alvin Lee, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and some other people I've never heard of. I had no idea music like this existed. I thought Terrans all listened to Mozart and Beethoven. That's the kind of stuff that the chamber orchestra that the scientists started aboard the Tycho Brahe play.

Anyway, Taarel replicated me a thing called a Telecaster, which plugs into an amplifier. It makes the most incredible noise. I can't do anything else with it right now, but he also created a holodeck program that I can use to learn how to play. Father made me shut it off, but I can't wait to take it back to the Brahe and begin learning. Father says any day I can behave myself all day, I can practice at night. I'm going to meditate for an hour before bed tonight, just to show him I'm serious.

I'm going to spend tomorrow with my Foreparents. They want me to stay on Vulcan, with them, but I want to stay with Father and Mother on the Brahe. Grandfather Seceyl gets angry with me, but I love them just the same. I miss them when we're away, but I would miss Father and Mother, and Saareyl, even more. Of course, I could see Taarel every day, but I still think I'll stay on the ship. It's three more years until my Rite of Ascension, and Mother is helping me prepare. Later in the year, they promised we could visit Q'onos, and Forefather Seceyl would never let me go.

I'm so excited! I must stop this log now and meditate.

Well, I'm having one heck of a ninth birthday. During art class, those two Terran kids who think they're so funny, Rodney and Chuck, started harassing me. Chuck took modelling clay and made himself a pair of pointed ears. Then Rodney made ridges for his forehead. Then they start blowing kisses at each other. Real funny. AAARRRGH!!

Computer, play the audio from Taarel's latest recital.

(a Vulcan lute sonata begins)

I tried to keep it cool, too. I ignored them for a long time, and no matter what they did, the teacher never seems to see them. I think she hates me. They think because they're both 13, they're soo-o-o-o cool, and I seem to be the only one who thinks otherwise.

HA! Taarel missed a note, right there. Right in the middle of his first piece! I'll have to write and tell him I found it, on the first playback.

Anyway, I ignored them until Rodney came up and asked me how a Vulcan and a Klingon . . . I can't even say it. He's a veQ romuluSngan, so I treated him as such. Then Chuck tried to save him, and then Miss Sorenson called security, and they're both in the infirmary, and they actually put me IN THE BRIG! Father had to come down and sign a PADD to get me out, and I'm expelled from school for a week.

So then, I had to go see a counselor. I got that Betazoid Ensign again, but this time he didn't soil himself when he read my thoughts. I tried to explain that I'm sick of always being the one who's wrong. How come Rodney and Chuck are never wrong? Or Melissa? Or Svellex? Do they go to counselors, and get sent to the brig?

(The hiss of an opening door is heard)

"Am I disturbing you, son?"

"No, Father. Come in."

(There is a long pause, during which the music continues)

"Is this Taarel?"

"Yes. He made a mistake in the first piece, but other than that I think he played really well. It's his latest recital, about a month ago. I just got it yesterday."

(Another long pause)

"I miss Taarel."

(Soft sobbing is heard)

"I will speak with Chuck and Rodney's parents this evening."

(sniffing)

"So you believe me?"

"Of course I believe you. I know you too well, and I have no reason to think you are lying. It would be illogical."

"Nobody else believes me."

"Actually, they do. It's just that your responses are worse than what they did to you. You are not in trouble for taking offense to their misbehavior. You are in trouble for overreacting to it."

"You didn't hear what Rodney said about you and Mother."

"They didn't put you in the infirmary. If they had, I might have let your mother speak with their parents. Plus, you injured Miss Sorenson."

"I did?"

"You broke her nose."

(pause)

"I didn't know."

(pause)

"I'm sorry. I'll tell her, too."

(pause)

"Do you remember me telling you about Ambassador Spock, who your Forefather knew?"

"Spock was half human. I am A KLINGON! I will ALWAYS be this way. I can't STOP MYSELF!!"

(Seraat sighs)

"You don't have to stop yourself. If you fight with yourself, you will start to hate yourself. Vulcan emotions come from deep, and form slowly, and we are able through discipline to keep them in check. Klingon emotions are just as strong, but they are like fire instead of water. They form quickly, and remain always at the surface of consciousness. I believe the trick for you will be to learn to hold on to them until you can express them in a . . . more appropriate manner."

"I know, Father. I do my personal logs, and I do my exercises, and go to the holodeck, and chant with Mother."

"Taarel uses his music this way."

"Really? I didn't think Taarel had emotions."

"Just listen to him play. He will probably leave Vulcan when he's old enough, because his music is too moving for most home world audiences. He's already branching off into Terran composers. Why do you think he likes to spend time with you?"

(pause)

"Do you think you would like to learn an instrument?"

"I could never be as good --"

"You don't have to be. You only have to be good enough to express yourself. One note can be played an infinite number of ways. Do you know who told me that?"

"Who?"

"Taarel."

(pause)

"Yes, I think I would like to learn an instrument."

"It will not be easy. You will have to practice. Some of the scientists on board are talking about starting a chamber orchestra. I will see if one of them would be willing to teach you. Would that be all right?"

"Yes, Father."

"Good. You go clean up for dinner."

"Yes, Father."

"What were you doing before I came in?"

"Oh. I was making an entry in my personal log. Computer, end log."

My teacher here on the Tycho Brahe wants all her new students to write their family's history and read it to the class. I will now read what I wrote into my personal log.

My Father's father is Seceyl, who teaches at the Vulcan Science Academy. He is a physicist. His wife is T'penn, who teaches Biology at the Academy. My father, Seraat, is 47 and head of Astrophysics on board this ship. He's a Lieutenant Commander.

My Mother's father is K'plarr, who teaches hand-to-hand combat at the Klingon Military Academy. His wife is Ley'sarr, and she is a physician. My mother is 30, and helps in the arboretum.

My father was serving aboard the Xiang Zhao when an ion storm destroyed the ship. He was injured, but made it to an escape pod. He found out later that most of the escape pods that got away were also destroyed by the storm. Two other crew members survived, and were later rescued. Father's pod was carried by the storm into Klingon space, where he was able to land it on an M-class world. The COMM system was damaged, and he could not repair it, so he was stuck there.

The planet was inhabited by a Klingon religious sect, that in Federation Standard would be called The Seekers Of The Essence, of which my mother was a member. Their goal was to try and find the deeper meaning of the teaching of Kahless. They felt the best way to do this was to separate themselves from all other people and all technology and, in surviving day to day as a group, they could find the true goal of a life of honor.

They decided not to kill Father, for which he was grateful. Later, he and Mother decided to marry, and I was born. When I was a year old, a transport arrived bringing new members of the sect, and we left.

We returned to Vulcan. Father's first wife had been told that he'd died, so she re-married and had a child. As she and Father had no children, it was decided that it would be left like that. It's just as well. I don't think she likes me very much.

Father started working at the Academy with my Forefather, doing research. Mother worked some with the Klingon Consulate, and also tended a garden with my Foremother.

The first time we travelled to Q'onos to visit my mother's family, Father broke K'plarr's arm, but they like each other now, and I like visiting there. Mother, Saareyl, my little sister, and I went there before coming to the Tycho Brahe, and my friend B'lar and I killed a Targ. B'lar's 11, and her father teaches at the Klingon Military Academy with my Forefather.

Anyway, I'm 8, and we're new on the ship, but so is everybody else right now, so that's all right. And that's my family's history.

Lessee, Stardate 2377.06.11. I'm going to have to get used to doing my personal log in this manner, since Father is rejoining Starfleet! He resigned his commission when Mother and I came back to Vulcan with him, since he was supposed to be dead anyway. I should say that he's been working here as a research scientist at the Academy.

Anyway, a Starfleet Captain, a human named Miller, actually came here to see Father and ask him to rejoin. I guess they used to serve together, before Father was aboard the Xiang Zhao. They're commissioning a new Science vessel, the Tycho Brahe, and Captain Miller wants Father to head up the astrophyics section. Plus, Father has plenty of study in biology and botany, and a little chemistry, so he can assist in those departments as well.

Mother is excited to be going back into space full-time, although she says she's going to miss her garden. I think she will also miss spending time at the Klingon Consulate. She helps them out a lot, because they don't understand Vulcans very much. She and I and my baby sister are going to Q'onos for a visit while Father goes to Starfleet Academy for some refresher training. I think if she missed her garden that much, she'd want to stay home. Who ever heard of a Klingon raising flowers and vegetables anyway? I still think she just does that to impress the Vulcans. It makes Father smile.

Tycho Brahe was a great Earth scientist. I'm going to read about him before we go on board. I'm going to miss my friend, Taarel. He plays the lute really well, and is taking up the Terran piano. He promises to send me recordings of his recitals, and I'll send him holoimages from the places we go.

Gotta go. We're packing for Q'onos.

Hi. This is my first personal log entry. I'm X'ok PaRel, and I'm 7. My father says it would be a good idea to start a personal log, so that I can find a way to deal with my feelings. What I'm feeling right now is that I HATE plomeek soup, and I don't CARE how long it took my mother to make it! That's all.