Among The Stars

Part 1

    From the time she was little, Maggie knew she wanted to explore, to be among the stars. She had a restless soul that could not stay rooted to one spot. At night she would sit in her tree house in St Andrews, in northern Scotland, and look at the stars, label each constellation and the myths that went with them. She read the old earth stories like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and The Martian by Andy Weir , she devoured books about the explorers and the women who sponsored them. She loved the stories of Sacagawea, Neil Armstrong, Zefran Cochrane and first contact with the vulcans. She knew that with the bright, wonderful side of exploration came its dark side - of entire civilizations demolished by plague and greed, the eugenics war of the 1990s that created men like Khan Noohien Singh who thankfully had been stopped. Yes, there was a dark side to exploration but Maggie was the eternal optimist and believed good could and should come from exploration. She was determined to join Starfleet so she could explore new civilizations and make that first contact.
Maggie was in her treehouse, reading her stories of far off places when she first noticed her soulmate's mark starting to appear on her arm - the mark usually came when one or the other (or both) soulmate turned 18. She was 11 when it first appeared - a little Scotty dog on the inside of her left wrist, how interesting, a soulmate's mark somehow related to the person itself. A scotty dog....whatever could that mean? When a person came into contact with their soulmate, their mark would begin to move indicating the person was within reach, physically and emotionally. Maggie's second thought was that her soulmate was seven years older - meaning no one at her school could possibly be her soulmate and therefore unknown. Maggie was determined not to be a silly, mooning girl who waited to be swept off her feet - no, she would continue her dream of joining Starfleet and hope that her soulmate (man or woman!) would support her in that.
The day had finally come for Maggie to enter Starfleet, she was a bundle of nerves as she stepped on the transporter pad that would take her in a matter of seconds to San Francisco and the academy. Maggie had loved discovering the WHY behind peoples need to explore and create, that desire to know how people worked, how to help them heal and understand themselves better had led her to study psychology and become a counselor. With that desire for understanding came an interest in engineering as well for which she took several classes in. Lots of coffee had helped her get her undergraduate degrees at St. Andrews in psychology and engineering.
Now, she was on her way to get her masters and training at Starfleet academy so she could explore the stars and help her shipmates. She felt that familiar tingle as she was transported to San Francisco where she was greeted by a friendly starfleet cadet in a red shirt.