Grace Under Pressure

Posted on Mon May 11th, 2026 @ 8:24pm by Lieutenant Zachary Addams & Ensign Grace MacKenzie 'Sabre'
Edited on on Tue May 12th, 2026 @ 12:16am

2,747 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Flight Of The Valkyries
Location: Mess Hall

Grace exhaled as she turned around from the replicator and looked across the mess hall, her feet already moving away from the hole in the wall to make room for the next, although she wasn't quite sure where they'd sit, much less her. Doctor Miyafuji had told her that while she was definitely doing better, Grace was still underweight by about four to five more pounds before she'd be happy at the the progress. That was why her plate was piled high with not only the chicken fried steak, but more mashed potatoes than she thought she could eat and the broccoli. Her feet took her more towards the middle, but there were only a smattering of seats empty and she preferred to eat alone.

It wasn't due to her not liking people or talking, but she still shied away from much socialization whenever possible because... She just couldn't. It had been what? Three weeks since she was on Foch and everything was different now. She had a call sign, not just a designation, she wasn't being punished for minor little crap like not saluting another officer, or for having a mark on her flight suit. But still, old habits died very hard and she was still getting to know the other pilots on the ship, much less up to meeting random other crewmates. Her eyes made one last glance around the outside of the mess hall and she sighed, preparing to turn for the door and back to her shared quarters.

Zach was sitting with a pair of chopsticks in one hand, and a silver coin rolling through his fingers in the other hand. He had been enjoying a respectable pile of gyoza with sauce when a shadow moved over him and held still. He looked up and saw another crewman looking around as if lost. Zach realized she was probably looking for a table in the crowded mess hall. He cleared his throat gently and put on a comfortable smile. "You're welcome to share the table," he said.

Grace looked down at new voice and gave him a slight smile, "Ah wouldn't wanna impose, ser." She caught a glance at his uniform collar and blessed herself at the foresight, turning slightly towards him to now show a better profile to him, along with the single pip on her flight suit collar. "Ah know that sometime it's hard to get some time alone."

Zach nodded in sympathy. "It can be, but if I really need a moment alone, I can always hide in my quarters." He gestured to the chair across from him. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

Gratefully, Grace set her tray down across from Zach and settled herself in the seat, now realizing that he outsized her by a fair margin, glancing down and taking more of a focus on the food and silverware in front of her, "Thank you, ser, Ah really do appreciate it, Ensign Grace MacKenzie, also known as 'Sabre." She tentatively reached out with her hand.

Zach put his chopsticks down and reached out, taking her hand gently, but securely, and giving it a warm but gentle handshake. "Pleasure is mine, Grace. I'm Zachary. Chief Engineer, which means I'm the best one with glue and adhesive tape on board." He grinned and flipped his coin, caught it and flicked his wrist, making it vanish.

She gave a slight chuckle, but nodded in acknowledgement of the comment, closing her eyes as her lips moved in an automatic move to say grace for her meal, having been taught to do that as a kid before picking up her knife and fork and starting to cut a slice off of the oversized but replicated breaded steak in front of her.

"So," he said amiably, "Given the flight suit and awesome nickname, I take it you're one of the fighter pilots?"

Grace nodded as she chewed and swallowed the bite she'd first started off with. It wasn't great, like at home, but far better than what she'd had on board Foch. "Ah fly a Valkyrie, usually in Recon configuration." She dug into the mashed potatoes next.

"Cool," Zach said. "I thinker and fix things. Not quite as exciting, but it's a good job." He gave her a friendly smile. "I wouldn't say I'm the wildest shuttle pilot on board, but, then again, neither would anyone else." He popped another gyoza in his mouth and chewed, smiling around the mouthful at his own joke.

The joke went mostly over Grace’s head, but she still managed a smile at the obvious attempt at humor. “Well, keep fixin’ things and Ah’ll keep flyin’ them,” she said. “And if you kin make my ship faster?”

Zach shrugged. "I can try. I'd have to inspect the ship first, of course. Might be fun to tinker with in my spare time." He'd conjured his coin again and was rolling it along his fingers as he thought about it.

Her fork clinked against the plate as she took advantage of the amiable silence to continue to shovel food into her mouth. Despite Amu's insistence that she should actually overeat to get some more meat on her bones, she found that she really didn't want to and she began to slow down with a full half of her plate still laden. Grace kept glancing up, her eyes drawn to the coin as it kept moving across his fingers and back.

"Eyes a bit bigger than your stomach?" he said, smiling. "I get that way too when I've missed lunch. I replicate something based on how hungry I am, then realize I can't actually eat it. My mom said when I was a kid I would always ask for seconds, then realize I only wanted 'one-and-a-halfs.'" He shrugged and made the coin vanish again without thinking. "At least you can recycle it without worry, right?"

"Doctor's orders." Were the only words that Grace said as she forced herself to take another bite, even as she shrugged and nodded to agree that yes she could recycle what she didn't eat. She watched the coin vanish and with that gone her eyes rose to his face and she thought for a moment, "Has to do with my last ship."

"Oh, well, if it's Doctor's orders, then I suppose you should continue," he said. "I've been in that situation too. I had to remind myself that doctors generally have our best interests at heart." He gave a shrug. "And you look great, hale and hearty, so I assume whatever the doctor wanted is going well."

Grace stopped chewing for a moment and debated whether she should mention that she'd been severely underweight because she'd been confined to her quarters, or a cell, with no replicator privileges (not that she'd had them in the first place) and fed on bread and water for weeks at a time; That she'd been forced to fly extra patrols, or stand extra watches or anything that could be seen as a waste of time. And that hadn't been all. "Thanks." She mumbled.

Zach blushed slightly, realizing how he may have come across as flirting. He usually wasn't so overt so soon. He quickly tamped down his embarrassment before his 'override' kicked in and he really made a mess of things. "You're welcome," he said, politely, clearing his throat and changing the subject. He decided to fall back on what he always did when he needed to smooth a moment. "Do you know the story of 'The Four Ferengi Heist'?"

She shook her head as she tried to forge ahead with another bite, but realized she at least needed a break from the act of eating, putting her utensils down, “Can’t say Ah have.”

Zach moved his hands together and a deck of cards fanned out between them. He fanned them out on the table between their plates and pulled out the four jacks. He then put the rest of the deck together and set it face down in front of them. He turned the jacks to face Grace and fanned them out tightly in his hands. "Once, there were four Ferengi who wished to rob the Bank of Bolius's Prime Vault. So, they obtained a shuttle and they dropped to the roof of the building." He put the cards in his hands together and quickly put them face down on top of the deck. "The first Ferengi quickly rushed to the basement to disable the vault alarm." He took the top card and moved it down to the bottom of the deck, sliding it face down back into the deck. "The second Ferengi went to the ground floor to access the vault door." He took the next card off the top of the deck and slid it in about a third of the way into the deck. "The third Ferengi scoped out the second floor for extra treasures to loot." He took the next top card and slipped it into the upper half of the deck. "The Fourth Ferengi stayed on the roof to watch for the Peacekeeper force." He flipped the top card over, showing the jack there.

"Suddenly," Zach said, his voice getting hushed for dramatic effect, "the Ferengi on the roof saw the Peacekeeper lights in the distance and knew they had only moments to escape, so he called down to his partners to hurry." He flipped the top card back down. "He called to his fellow Ferengi that they had to return to the roof immediately. The other Ferengi came running, reached the roof and..." he flipped over the top four cards onto the table, showing the four jacks, together again, "they escaped into the night."

Card tricks had never been a part of her repertoire, but clearly she was supposed to be watching him out the cards back I. The deck at various points, but her eyes kept flitting up to him as he spelled out the story. At the final reveal, as each of the jacks was flipped back forward, her eyes opened a bit wider and at the last one, her jaw dropped open a couple inches in dumbfoundedness, “Wait, how didya’ do that?” She reached out to touch one of the cards, but that was all it was, a playing card.

Zach was grinning ear-to-ear. On stage or off, he always loved meeting people who were dazzled by old-fashioned magic. Illusionist work was exciting, but he loved being close up as well. He stacked the cards back together and shuffled them carefully. "Well," he said, slowly, "the key is knowing where all the cards are at any given time. That way, when you need one," he put the deck down and flipped the top card, showing the queen of hearts, "you have it." He slid it in front of her and grinned.

The blush that bloomed across her face at the sight of the card he slid in front of her and her eyes went down in front of her as she staved off stuttering some response. The sudden focus inside herself was what made the words audible from behind her, someone was talking to someone else, probably, the melodic and exotic chatter hitting her ears and the hairs on the back of her arm and neck shot straight without her noticing while her hindbrain automatically translated the words into English, words of affection, “Ah’m still amazed,” She picked up the Queen and looked it over, still just an ordinary playing card, then she placed it on the table to slide back over to him. “Ah don’t have the manual dexterity to do card tricks, never have really.”

"I never thought I would, but as Gladwell says, spend ten thousand hours on something--" he'd reached for the card as she pushed it forward and his hand partially landed on hers. He looked up as she did and their eyes met. As they did, another crewmember tried to slip past behind her and bumped into her chair.

In his stumble, he let a hand land on her shoulder and gave a gruff, "sorry about that." Patting her shoulder heavily.

Her eyes glittered as they met his, her smile softening a little bit before the hand came down on her shoulder. At that moment, the light left those green eyes and turned dull, filled with sadness, as if in resignation and preparation for something not wanted and they fell to the table. What happened next was completely unexpected as those same eyes refilled with light, but not one of happiness, but of fury as Grace exploded into motion, twisting with clenched fists as she tried to drive her hands into the crewmember who had dared to touch her, only giving him a glancing blow but throwing her off balance.

Startled voices surrounded him as she came back up instantly, throwing another fist at him while her left hand scrabbled towards her plate for the knife, or the fork, or just whatever she could grab. One look at her eyes showed that there was no intelligence to her actions, no planning, just an animalistic rage.

Zachary stared in shock as she stood up and punched the man in blue, but he quickly stood up and came around, trying to block her hand from finding the cutlery. "Grace, calm down--" he paused, grabbing her arm, as he saw the look in her eyes. That pause cost him dearly, as her fist came around and found his jaw, knocking him back a bit. He shook it off, his override kicking in and he watched her with clinical detachment.

She was again reaching for a knife as two more crewmen moved in to restrain her, but Zach was closer. He reached into the flap of his uniform and as her hands closed around the handle of her knife, he shouted, "hey!" and held a hand out to touch her arm. She reacted as he predicted and returned her focus to him, bringing the knife around. He quickly blocked her arm and grabbed it, squeezing a pressure point that forced her hand to open and the knife to drop. He caught it and with a wave of his hand, it was gone.

She swung with her other hand, but he let go of her wrist and there was a flash of silver and a clink as metal cuff suddenly appeared on her wrist, a chain makin a zip sound as it unfurled. He side-stepped her swing, using her momentum to spin her around, tying her arms around herself as he grabbed her other wrist and cuffed it, locking the cuffs at that length, making her hug herself. He swung her around and forced her back into her seat, facing him. "Ensign, please look at me," he said, his voice unnaturally calm for the situation. "You are no longer in danger. Please stop struggling."

As soon as the second wrist had the cuff on it, all of the energy seemed to drain out of her body and she became unresisting and was placed in her seat again. The eyes, so recently filled with anger had returned to their dull, listless, resigned nature even though the way the cuffs were arrayed on her was different. They remained staring at the table in front of her, not acknowledging his words.

Zachary heard some mutterings around him, including some rude words. He stood up and looked around with Vulcan calm until the mutterings stopped. He turned to the initial victim. "I am sure Ensign MacKenzie is apologetic for this; evidently she misunderstood your physical contact. Are you injured? Do you require a call to Sickbay?"

The science officer who'd inadvertently instigated the fight looked at her and shook his head. "No, she just grazed me; I'm fine," he said. "But she needs to spend some time cooling in the brig."

Zachary nodded. "I will take her into custody now," he said. He turned and faced Grace. "Please stand, Ensign," he said.

She didn’t argue, she didn’t resist, all Grace MacKenzie did was stand and wait to be led off.

"You will come with me. You will not argue," he said, his voice stern." At her nod and her stepping towards him, he gestured to the door and as the rest of the crew parted, escorted her out the door.



Lt. Zachary Addams
Chief Engineer
USS Tokyo

Grace MacKenzie
Fighter Pilot
USS Tokyo

TBC

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