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It was on an early morning walk around the ship that Lt. Cdr. Terzen T'Karr finds himself in front of Holodeck 2. He finds himself wandering the halls often, as a coping mechanism for the amount of emotions running rampant on the ship. He did this whilst at Starfleet Academy, also. The chartharsis of wandering helped distract him.

And, now, he was distracted by the panel on the wall.

He remains silent for a long moment, watching the panel flicker, before he finally speaks.

"Computer?" Acknowledging beep. "Create new Holodeck file; T'Karr-1." "Processing... File Created."

Another pause. "Do you have scematics for the USS Pathfinder, Miranda-class?"

"Affirmative.

"Create a holo-simulation of the bridge of the USS Pathfinder.

"Program complete... You may enter when ready."

He moves over to the doors, staring at them, before taking a deep breath... and entering the holodeck.

He finds himself on the empty bridge of the USS Pathfinder. Walking over to the tactical console, he runs a hand over the panels, sighing slightly.

This was home.

((OOC: Completely open. Feel free to wander in on him.))

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Dylan's been making it something of a habit to explore the holodecks since Julian first introduced him to them. Partly, it's out of curiosity about the historical programs Julian had told him about, but partly, it's simple admiration at the technology, and curiosity at what Harper will come up with after he'd asked the engineer's help with some more specialized programming.

It's not as if there's all that much else for Dylan to do besides immersing himself in the histories of the Federation Julian gave him and the subsequent reading he's tracked down in the computer's database. That and try to work on getting to know people here.

(Which ... has gotten more interesting than he'd expected thanks to Marion.)

Someone's already in the holodeck when he steps into it, and if he hadn't known what to expect, he certainly wouldn't have guessed he'd find himself walking onto what is clearly the command centre of a starship.

It's entirely unlike the bridge of the Andromeda Ascendant in size, in style, in the decor, in the lack of any emblems of the Commonwealth or High Guard, but some things remain the same. There are consoles laid out across the space, though they're as empty as those on the Andromeda so often are. There are screens around the walls telling an observer at a glance the things that the command crew need to know to run their ship. There's a viewscreen, though of course in a time and world where starships do not function on an artificial intelligence, there is no visualization of the AI there to speak with the crew.

There's one other person there, Lieutenant Commander T'Karr, the Starfleet officer here from another time.

"Am I to take it this is the Pathfinder? Your ship?"

Dylan still walks like a captain, even in a simulation of someone else's ship.

Terzen wasn't expecting anyone else, so he straightens his posture when he hears the doors opening, the arch forming the rear Turbolift doors for a moment, before it fades.

He leaves a hand on the console, turning to face Dylan.

"Yes, this is her." He confirms, simply, looking around the bridge. "She's not as big as the Enterprise, but... She's home."

He sighs, looking back down to Dylan. "We should be at the Neutral Zone border with Romulan space about now, delivering supplies to Federation outposts."

Partly out of curiosity about the Federation, and partly out of courtesy to Terzen, whom he quite likes, Dylan looks around him. There's a permanent chair in the middle of the bridge, around the equivalent position to where the Slipstream pilot's chair would be on a High Guard vessel, with the consoles placed around it where the crew manning them would be able to see either each other or the readouts around them or the viewscreen should they need to.

Dylan nods, unaware that his head is held a little higher than it has been at many times since he wound up on the Enterprise. It's the bridge of a starship, even if it is neither his own nor any part of the world he knows, and that speaks to a man who's spent his life on Commonwealth ships, and all his recent years in command of them.

"I know what you mean," he says, with a faint smile as he steps across to one of the consoles and glances down at it. There are, of course, no Vedran glyphs, none of the symbols he knows, but that doesn't mean he can't get a fairly good idea what he's looking at.

"My first command was a ship called the Crimson Eclipse. It was nowhere near the size of the Enterprise, let alone the Andromeda Ascendant, but it was my ship."

Of course, there was far more to the Eclipse than anyone would know from the basic specifications. The Asceticism of Action class was like that.

"Important work," he says, his voice quiet. He knows the feelings hidden under Terzen's words well. There'd been a time when that was the wort of work the Andromeda did for planets on the edge of Commonwealth space.

It goes unsaid that he understands how much Terzen wishes he could be with his ship, doing what they're meant to be doing.

It doesn't need saying.

Terzen smiles slightly, as Dylan moves onto talking about his past. "My first posting was the USS Potemkin, an old Excelsior-class ship. I was the junior communications officer before the roles got merged into tactical."

He pauses, starting to bring his console online with deft strokes across the LCARS interface. "She still had Duotronic Circuitry in places, the captain didn't have the time to take her back for refit." He chuckles, shaking his head. "The isolinear replacements didn't like their older counterparts. I can't recall the amount of times I had to replace blown out relays because of the incompatibility."

He frowns slightly.

"This console never came up so easily." He remarks, before looking back to Dylan. "You miss the Andromeda. I can sense it, it's pretty strong."

He taps a few well-known commands into the interface.

"You must have been through a lot."

"That sounds familiar," Dylan says, a spark of amusement in his eyes. Not the precise situation with the chips, but things needing to be held together because a refit's not practical even though things blow out?

He knows that one. He even knows the frank discussions between the captain and the crew members involved it can cause.

Dylan, like all High Guard officers, had started out in the Home Guard on his homeworld. That meant Tarn-Vedra, where the Home Guard were charged with the protection of the heart of the Commonwealth itself. Then he'd had a year on a High Guard ship as a spacer before he'd made it to the Academy and graduated into the officer corps.

Dylan watches Terzen at work, recognizes the easy way his hands work the console, just like Dylan's would on the controls on the Andromeda. He's familiar with the functioning of all the consoles in her Command Centre, and in these times of running a ship with a complement of over four thousand with a crew of six, he regularly has to operate any or all of them himself.

"She's my home," he says, his gaze dropping back to the console under his hand, though his fingers don't activate any of the controls there. He glances back up, at one of the screens rather than at Terzen. "The only one I have now. And ... she's my ship."

That means more to him than Terzen or anyone could understand, because she's all he has left of his world.

Dylan glances back across at Terzen, a little curious about just what he means about sensing missing the Andromeda. It's hardly difficult for anyone who knows him -- or who knows many starship captains -- to work out, but sensing it implies something different.

"You pick up a lot," he says. It's not a direct answer to either of Terzen's suggestions, but it's close enough.

He has been through a lot. And he misses his ship in a way he could never explain.

"I'm half-Betazoid." He says, matter-of-factly. "It means I'm Empathic." In explanation.

He could feel the sorrow, the pain, that Dylan felt whenever he mentioned Andromeda. Strong emotions like that are hard to miss, after all.

"I apologise if I've intruded in something personal."

Dylan gives a brief shake of his head and lets his head drop again, as though he were studying the console under his hands. It feels just as real as the replicated food had the time he and Julian had been in the holodeck, or Marion's sword the time he'd sparred with her.

It's fascinating technology for its time period, but just as interesting for Dylan is the reproduction of another of Starfleet's ships, and of an area in which he himself is not allowed on the Enterprise, the bridge.

That, though, is not the topic of the discussion, and after a moment, Dylan's intently blue gaze flicks up again in Terzen's direction.

"It's no secret that I miss Andromeda. Or that she and I have been through a hell of a lot in the last couple of years. In my world, just about everyone I meet knows that much."

That's the inevitable consequence of spreading his story the way Dylan's determined to do.

"That's understandable."

Of course, there's something... different to how Dylan feels. Something more than merely a captain missing his ship. Of course, that he's keeping to himself.

"Betazoids don't lie." He says, continuing. "We don't hide things from each other. What's the point, when the people you spend the most time with can read you like an open book." He looks back up at Dylan. "Same with the Trill. If it seems like we're hiding something from you, it's simply because it never occured to us that you should know."

A key example is the symbiotes. Not many Federation citizens know of that aspect of Trill culture... Not due to them wanting it hidden, but because no-one asked.

"Humans... are different, of course. You like to have things kept private, a sense of ownership over certain things. Which is, of course, completely understandable." He smiles. "I've lived among humans for a while, captain, and I'd like you to know that your feelings are safe with me."

Andros popped into the Simudeck, not that they called it that here. Here, it was a holodeck. Equally good name, insinuated the same purpose.

"It looks surprisingly similar to the bridge on my ship." The differnce, well the only difference that Andros felt really counted, was the lack of a Captain's chair on the Astro Megaship. Andros had his own seat, controls and responsibilities, just the same as the other rangers. He didn't have to sit in the center for them to listen to him. Of course things would run a little differently on a ship meant to be crewed by 6 but being able to be run by 1.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to barge in."

Terzen looks up from his position, smiling slightly.

"It seems human design is pretty consistent across the universes, then." He remarks. "Please, think nothing of it. If it was private, I would have locked the door."

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