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Commander Una Chin-Riley stood in front of the mirror in her quarters, undecided about what to do. Her daily Starfleet uniforms hung neatly on one side of the closet, prepared for the next rotation. Oddly enough, today she decided against wearing her uniform.
Being an Illyrian among humans was hard. Being an Illyrian in Starfleet—while hiding the fact that she wasn’t, in fact, human—was even harder. From the moment she entered the Academy, she had convinced herself that no one could ever hold anything against her if, one day, her heritage came into question. Which, in fact, happened—though much later than she had feared.
But being exemplary came with its own drawbacks. Una—whether she admitted it to herself or not—had never been against having fun. In fact, she sometimes caught herself envying Ortegas, who didn’t have to fear simply being herself. So instead of seeking stability, she chose casual. Instead of going out, she stayed in.
That didn’t mean she never had her fun moments at the Academy. Some of the tattoos on her back—and in a few less visible places—as well as the piercings on her nipples, were a testament to that. But after graduation, her commitment to being absolutely immaculate only grew stronger.
Her uniform became part of her identity. She was fairly certain that no one on the Enterprise had ever seen her in civilian clothes—with the obvious exception of Chris and La’an. As for the tattoos and piercings, she suspected that M’Benga had probably figured it out, given her unfortunate tendency to end up in Sickbay—despite it being one of the places she hated most. Luckily, Nurse Chapel hadn’t seen them. If some nosy ensign—or worse, a tipsy Ortegas—had caught wind of it, questions would have followed. And those were not questions she felt comfortable answering.
"Where fun goes to die" wasn’t a nickname that truly bothered her. At the end of the day, it was the role she had chosen to play. And honestly, it wasn’t so different from at least five other nicknames her previous subordinates had come up with over the years. But the realization that everyone thought of her as some work-obsessed buzzkill never sat easily.
After her trial, nothing really changed. Even though the necessity of pretending to be someone she wasn’t had technically vanished, the role she’d spent her whole life perfecting hadn’t. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to show glimpses of her real self—it was that, even for someone as intelligent as she was, she honestly had no idea how to do it.
Which was why she’d been standing in front of her mirror, in nothing but her underwear, for over twenty minutes now, trying to decide what to do.
Ortegas—and several other members of the bridge crew—had decided to meet for drinks at the Commons (that multipurpose space on the Enterprise that somehow functioned as a mess hall, bar, and lounge all in one). They’d invited her—probably assuming she wouldn’t come.
But tonight, Number One decided to prove them wrong. She was going to let her hair down. A little.
That decision hadn’t come easily, and even now, she figured the simplest place to start was with her clothing. That, however, was proving harder than expected. She wanted her outfit to express the side of herself that most of them had never seen. And after far too much deliberation, she finally made her choice.
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Okay... the look on the crew’s faces might have made her consider turning around and heading straight back to her quarters, never to be seen again. Nevertheless, she kept walking—head high—offering polite nods to those who managed to choke out a weak, “Good evening, Commander.”
When Una stepped into the Commons, no one seemed to recognize her at first. Which… she wasn’t sure whether to take as a good sign or a bad one. She caught sight of Nurse Chapel’s silhouette and headed for the table.
“Good evening, crew,” she said coolly.
The silence that followed was… impressive. Even for this crew. Every single person stared at her, mouths slightly open. A few pairs of eyes—Erica’s and Chapel’s included—immediately dropped to her chest.
“Wow… Commander… is that really you?” Cadet Uhura was the first to break the ice.
“Well, my dear Nyota… unless some alien body-snatched me in my sleep, I’d say yes. It’s me.”
Doctor M’Benga simply shook his head from side to side, a small smile tugging at his lips as he watched the spectacle.
“Well, Commander, it’s a miracle a Starfleet uniform can hide all of that.” Of course, it was Erica who said it.
Una just shook her head, shrugged off her jacket, and sat down. With that simple action, the crew’s already-wide eyes somehow widened even further. Her top revealed a generous stretch of her back—along with a few of her tattoos. And Una was one hundred percent sure, even without looking, that no one had ever expected that the Enterprise’s resident “no-nonsense” officer had anything even remotely scandalous going on beneath that uniform.
“Commander… with all due respect… are those… tattoos?” Nurse Chapel asked, blinking.
“Yes, Miss Chapel. Every single one. Acquired over… different stages of my life.”
Ortegas—still visibly processing the fact that their “Where Fun Goes to Die” commander apparently looked like an actual pin-up model out of uniform—couldn’t help but blurt out:
“Well, Commander… I think you’ve just made yourself the subject of a very large number of ensigns’ wet dreams.”
Una, perfectly composed, smirked and took a sip of the drink the server had just brought her.
“Any other surprises we should be aware of, Chief?” asked Ortegas, clearly speaking for herself and Chapel.
“Maybe,” Una answered with a sly grin, before raising an eyebrow in the most infuriatingly cryptic way possible.
Let’s just say the Enterprise gossip channels had a very good day after that.