The Weight of Wings
Posted on Sat Mar 21st, 2026 @ 3:04am by Lieutenant Fubuki Kuchikukan 'Snowflake' & Lieutenant JG Shizuru Chikura & Lieutenant JG Nozomi Kusuda 'Gemini'
1,964 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Flight Of The Valkyries
Location: USS Tokyo, Various
Timeline: March 9, 2397
A long brown haired pilot stepped off of the transporter pad of the Tokyo. She looked around with her green eyes as she took in the new surroundings.
"Welcome aboard Lieutenant." Fubuki said as she approached her, a hand extended.
The woman stepped down and took the other pilots hand. "Thanks." She said with a smile. "I'm Lieutenant Shizuru Chikura. I'm to join your pilots, the Armitage was lucky to allow me to tag along with them." She explained.
Fubuki smiled. "I'm the Commander Air Group Here. Fubuki Kuchikukan. Call sign is Snowflake." Fubuki explained. "Do you have a call sign?"
Shizuru shook her head. "Not yet I'm afraid."
"We can soon sort that out." Fubuki smiled. "I'm going to have one of our squadron leaders show you around a little. I have a lot of work to do. We have an important mission to do soon, so I need to get you upto speed quickly." she explained as she led the pilot out of the door and into the corridor.
"Yeah, rumour is it we're attacking some sort of Iconian Starbase?" Shizuru asked.
Fubuki nodded. "Yeah, but its a bit more complicated than that. For now however get settled in. Speaking of which, let me get hold of someone to show you the ropes."
[Lieutenant Kusuda's quarters]
Nozomi Kusuda did not consider herself to be someone who got hung up on her past shortcomings.
In her experiences, she'd come to accept that what was done was done, and it wasn't going to do her any good to worry about every little thing she could've done differently for a better outcome; life simply wasn't a visual novel, where you could boot up from your last save point and correct your mistakes, but she could at the very least endeavor to learn from them.
It had been a very different story, however, with one of her own charges dying on her.
She'd replayed Silica's last moments out in her head several times now, always coming to the conclusion that there was nothing she could've done differently; but rather than acceptance, all she felt was this feeling of emptiness, as if through no fault of her own, she had let both Silica and her family down. Which was certainly not the case, by any means- most would say that Nozomi was being far too hard on herself, including Nozomi. But then again, she had never been this hard on herself- not even when her own mother passed away, and that was saying something.
Perhaps out of some latent fear that another pilot would be killed on her watch, she had found herself breaking out the tarot cards whenever she was off the clock, paying close attention for any hints of danger, so that was better informed on how best to manage her squadron come their next deployment. Evidently, she had her detractors on this method- relying on a deck of cards to influence her decision-making and not tangible statistics that she could see for herself, but in grave times such as these, when more people had perished in just two short months than they had in the entirety of the Dominion War, she felt that everyone needed some form of personal solace, for if there was one thing that neither the Dominion nor the Iconians had yet figured out how to kill, it was hope.
Hope. Funny that.
She could count the times that she had drawn an inverted "three of swords" card on one hand- once about a month after Honoka announced her enrollment at Starfleet Academy, and again about two months before her deployment aboard the Tokyo. Not that she was unlucky in that regard- there had been many instances where she had drawn cards that were likewise indicative of hope and the overall healing process, such as the star. She'd even drawn the "three of swords" card in its correct orientation a few times, and it stung her just about every time that she did.
So when, on this particular occasion, she found herself drawing an inverted "three of swords," she was evidently taken by surprise. She actually spent a good minute (or at least to her, it felt like a minute) just staring at the card in bewilderment. To have such a rare draw (at least for her) bore an extra level of significance, as if the fates were trying to tell her something; with Honoka's departure, it had signified that Astral's existence would persevere following the loss of its biggest star; with her deployment, it signified that she was finally putting the fallout of the Las Vegas Incident behind her and starting afresh. So this, she reckoned, must in some way have corresponded with Silica's passing- perhaps it was portent of some yet-unforeseen development that would give her the strength to move on?
Oh, how badly she wanted to move on...
"Snowflake to Gemini. Can you meet us in the pilots lounge." Fubuki's voice called from her comm badge.
Nozomi looked up, her brow furrowed in confusion; while at first she had considered the possibility that she was being summoned for a mission briefing, the fact that Fubuki had asked for her specifically all but disproved the notion. Was she in trouble for something? She couldn't think of anything that she'd done in the past week that would warrant a reprimand from Fubuki, and even if she had, Nozomi was fairly certain she would've owed up to it right away.
Only one way to find out, it seemed...
Nozomi reached up and tapped her comm badge. "Copy that, Snowflake; I'll be up there in 5 minutes; Gemini out."
And with that, she stood up and quickly packed away her tarot cards, taking one last glance at the inverted "Three of Swords" and wondering to herself if what lay ahead marked the beginning of the healing process, before shuffling it back into the deck.
[Pilot's lounge]
"You wanted to speak with me, Commander?" Nozomi called out as she entered the lounge and spotted Fubuki seated on the far side of the room, in the company of a pilot she didn't recognize.
"Meet our newest pilot. Lieutenant Shizuru Chikura. You often say you want to be a mentor right? Well, show miss Chikura around. Show her the ropes so to say." Fubuki said. "I've got stuff to do, so you two have fun."
With that said the CAG turned on a heel and started making her way across the lounge towards the doors.
Nozomi watched her leave before shifting her attention over to the newcomer.
"Let's see... Chikura, I believe it was?" She began, figuring the best place to start was with some small talk.
"Uh huh," Shizuru replied simply.
"Right, then; so..." Nozomi paused to try and recall how it had gone with her own onboarding. "...I take it you've already gotten all the important stuff out of the way? Settled into your quarters, reported in to the Captain, got your physical and all that?"
Shizuru shook her head. "Nope. I literally just got here. The CAG met me off the transporter pad and brought me to you." She explained.
"Okay, so we should probably work towards getting that all sorted out," Nozomi surmised. "For starters, do you even know where your quarters are?"
Shizuru shook her head again. "Like I said. I just got here. I've never been on an Armitage class before. I last served on an Akira, but I hear that they are similar in design. But the Armitage is far more advanced?"
"Well... sort of?" Nozomi replied. "Between you and me, I've only ever served on the Tokyo, so I can't say have much experience serving on Akiras to offer you a comparison. But if memory serves me right, back when they first assigned me to the Tokyo, one of their big sticking points was a dedicated lower hull for fighters and secondary craft..."
She looked over at Shizuru. "Now that I mention it, did your last posting not have a dedicated space for fighter operations?"
Shizuru nodded. "Yeah, it did. However it wasn't as dedicated. The Akira Class is a carrier yes, but also a combat cruiser. So it didn't have as many dedicated facilities to Starfighter Operations." She explained giving the other lieutenant a smile.
"Oh, you're in for a treat, then," Nozomi smiled. "Aside from this lounge here, we've also got our own dedicated mess hall, gymnasium, holodeck, sickbay, ready room, briefing area, repair bays, shuttle/fighter workshops... oh, not to mention four whole decks of storage bays, just for our fighters!"
"Sounds like we have our own little ship within a ship." Shizuru chuckled. "I think I'm going to enjoy it here."
"Oh, if only it actually had a multi-vector assault mode..." Nozomi laughed. "Anyways, since you don't seem to have an idea of where your quarters are located, what's say we check you in with our quartermaster, get you sorted?"
Shizuru nodded. "Sounds good to me."
As the two of them stepped out into the hallway, Nozomi, feeling somewhat confident that she was on an even keel with the newcomer, decided that she'd casually shift the conversation towards more... personal topics.
"So, Chikura... actually, you got any nickname I can refer to you as?"
"Actually I don't. I've yet to earn my callsign. But I believe I'll get it soon enough, especially here."
"Well, I mean, like... personal nicknames?" Nozomi clarified. "Maybe something your friends or family members refer to you as?"
"My friends used to call me Shi-Chan when I was younger. But that was just my given name shortened." Shizuru smiled fondly. "I suppose you could call that my nickname if I had to have one."
"Do you mind if I called you Shi-Chan, then?" Nozomi asked. "If you're not comfortable with it, just say, but I figure we're equals here, so I'm perfectly fine with dropping the formalities when we're off-duty."
"I guess that works," Shizuru smiled. "So, I call you... Gemini right?" she asked simply.
"Gemini works," Nozomi smiled. "It's the same number of syllables, but it rolls off the tongue. So, then... Shi-Chan, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself? As much or as little as you wanna share, no harm, no foul."
"There's not much to really tell," Shizuru said. "I come from a small town, in the middle of literally no where. Grew up amongst miles upon miles of rice paddies." She explained. "I used to watch the transports in the sky fly high above, always wanted to be up there with them. Amongst the clouds, free from everything." She added with a fond smile. "Never really knew my father. So, when I was old enough I decided to try for Starfleet to get away from the Rice Paddies and to see the universe. It turns out I'm a pretty good pilot, so I was advised to go into the Starfighter Corps."
"Oh, I get that," Nozomi nodded. "We used to move around a lot due to my Father's job, so I've seen my fair share of the rural life; actually used to know a few kids in middle school who were itching to get out to the city, even though I'd lived out there just as long and couldn't seem to grasp why they'd want a more hectic life in a crowded metropolitan area like Tokyo..."
Shizuru smiled. "Well, should we get my quarters sorted?" she asked as they reached the quartermaster's office together.
"But of course," Nozomi nodded as she reached over and rang the door chime.
Posting by:
Lieutenant JG Shizuru Chikura
Starfighter Pilot
Lieutenant JG Nozomi Kusuda
Starfighter Pilot
Lieutenant Fubuki Kuchikukan
Starfighter Pilot
RSS Feed