Chapter #5Female by: Unknown The year is 2257. 112 Years ago, human beings made first contact with a friendly alien race, and this was a very fortunate turn of events for humanity. You see, the human home planet of Earth was something of a backwater, technologically backward and located on the edge of what most of the Galaxy's population would consider civilization. Perhaps unfortunately for Earth, the ever expanding boarders of the Galactic Federation and their primary rival, the Vardan Empire, had expanded out to the Galactic edge and Earth was lucky enough to fall into the hands of the comparatively liberal and benevolent Federation rather than the cruel and oppressive Empire. The hastily made alliance with the Galactic Federation provided Earth with access to staggering new technologies and protection from the Vardans but other than a few natural resources (many species in the GF went WILD for coffee) and providing a port of call for Federation ships, humans found themselves hard pressed to give anything back to their new benefactors.
Truth be told, humans are looked down upon by most member species of the Federation. Humans are particularly derided for the commonly held pre-contact belief that they were the only intelligent life in the universe. Given their technological inferiority and the insignificant role they play in galactic affairs, this is thought to be an especially humorous example of humanity's overinflated sense of their own importance. This, combined with humanity's continuing struggles to adapt to being a part of a much larger Galactic society with it's own rules and customs has lead them to be the laughing stock of the Galaxy.
Enter our heroine: Julie Starr, the first human being to ever be inducted into the Galactic Federation's Space . As far as human beings go, Julie is the best of the best. A natural athlete (specializing in gymnastics and track and field) and a mathematical genius (by human standards) Julie trained her entire life to be worthy of the honor of attending the Space Academy on Tylar 3, and despite all of her talents and all of her grit and determination, she only just graduated by the skin of her teeth. Still, this was acknowledged as a significant accomplishment by the Federation government who offered her a nice cushy position as a propaganda piece, traveling the Galaxy to compel citizens to sign up for the Space under the tag line "Join Space ! Even a Human Can Do It!" Unwilling to cash in her years of hard work to take on what she saw as a humiliating and pointless position, Julie fought tooth and nail to get herself assigned to a Federation Star Cruiser, and, despite the misgivings of several Federation higher ups, she was eventually successful in getting herself assigned to the Federation Starship: Black Talon under the command of legendary Federation Captain Z'arr Voosh.
Given all of that, you can imagine Julie's misgivings about finding herself sitting in the Captains Office under less than agreeable circumstance on her very first day of assignment. Julie was sitting on a small, backless stool face to face with her Captain for the very first time. Captain Z'arr Voosh was a Draconian, a large reptilian species that was something between a dinosaur and a dragon. She was enormous, though it was difficult to determine for certain how big she was as she was currently all curled up on the large stone slab that served her in lieu of a chair. Once Julie took her seat, however, the Captain reared up in her place, craning up her enormous neck to tower over the young ensign. Julie wasn't sure if this was done to intimidate her, or if the Captain was just trying to show she was paying attention, but given the disparity in size between them, she couldn't help but feel like a mouse locked in a cage with a snake.
"So, Ensign..." the Captain began, "Your supervisor reports that you've expressed some... dissatisfaction with your uniform."
That was putting it mildly. The Space was an eclectically manned organization, served by members of a thousand different races, all with different physical attributes, cultural beliefs and basic needs so settling on a standardized uniform was kind of a losing proposition to begin with. How could a formless acidic blob from Arogon IV wear the same uniform as winged canine from the moons of Boonari? With that in mind, it was common practice for a ship's Captain the set unique uniform rules and regs based on the needs of his or her crew, with the only required detail being that the Captain work the Space insignia into the outfit somewhere. Back at the academy, Julie's instructors had issued her a form fitting body suit to train in, and she'd expected to wear something similar during her new assignment, so you can imagine her surprise when her new Lieutenant handed her her new uniform…
But what is her uniform?  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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