Starfleet academy cadet Christopher Alan Brisbon: a story

Starfleet Academy Cadet Christopher Allen Brisbone: A Story

Christopher Allen Brisbone, born and raised under the dry, golden sun of Reading, California, never looked at the sky and saw a ceiling. He saw a kitchen. A vast, infinite kitchen waiting to be explored, with stars for stovetops and nebulas for ingredients. So, it was no surprise to anyone who knew him that when he arrived at Starfleet Academy, his application wasn’t for Command or Engineering. It was for the Culinary Corps. His goal was simple, profound, and entirely his own: he wanted to be a cook on a starship. Not an officer, but the heart. He wanted to show love, to build family, one plate of hasperat soufflé or plomeek soup at a time.

On a day filled with the nervous energy of new cadets, Christopher wandered away from the gleaming spires of the academy. He found himself in a quiet, dusty bookshop tucked into a San Francisco side street, a place that smelled of old paper and possibility. As he browsed a section on xeno-gastronomy, an old man emerged from between the stacks. He was wiry, with a face like a roadmap of the galaxy and eyes that held the light of a thousand suns. This was the legendary groundskeeper of Starfleet Academy, a man who had been there so long, rumor said he’d helped lay the foundation stones.

“You’re not like the others,” the old man said, his voice a soft rasp like solar wind on a hull. “They look at the stars and see battlefields or laboratories. You… you look hungry.”

Christopher smiled. “I suppose I am, sir. But not for glory. For… connection.”

The old man nodded, a knowing glint in his eye. He reached under the counter and pulled out a book bound in worn, faux-leather, with strange, elegant script on the cover. “This,” he said, pressing it into Christopher’s hands, “found its way here a long time ago. It’s been waiting for the right soul. It’s the culinary journal of Neelix, from the USS Voyager. Not an official publication. A personal one. Full of recipes he created seventy thousand light-years from home, with whatever he could find. It’s not just about food. It’s about morale. It’s about making a home in the void.”

Christopher felt a shiver of destiny. He accepted the book as if it were a holy text.

Years later, his training complete, Crewman Christopher Brisbone received his assignment. He was to be the assistant cook on the USS Susan,NCC-74656,an Intrepid-class ship named for a mother lost too soon. His heart swelled with pride. The Susan was assigned to a long-term mapping mission along the very fringes of the Gamma Quadrant, near the Idran system. It was a region that was charted, but far from familiar—a place of quiet mystery, not of known danger.

The first year was everything Christopher dreamed of. He rose every day at 0400 to bake. He learned the preferences of every crew member. He made a spicy Cajun jambalaya that became legendary after he traded recipes with a visiting delegation from New Orleans. He used Neelix’s journal not as a strict recipe book, but as a philosophy: love is the most important ingredient. The crew of the Susan wasn't just a crew; they were his family. He knew when Ensign T’Pel needed a calming plomeek tea, and when the boisterous engineering team needed a hearty Klingon gagh stew to celebrate a hard-won victory.

Then, it happened. A routine survey of a gravimetric anomaly went catastrophically wrong. A subspace tear, uncharted and unstable, erupted near the ship. The Susan was caught in a violent graviton shear. Emergency alarms blared. Christopher, in the galley, wasn’t securing sensitive instruments or battle stations. He was securing his pots and pans, ensuring that a pot of boiling soup wouldn’t injure anyone. He was thinking of his crew, his family.

The ship was flung, torn from its moorings in known space. When the lights stopped flickering and the violent shuddering ceased, the view on the main viewer was alien and terrifying. They were stranded, deep in the Gamma Quadrant, on the wrong side of the anomaly. The ship was damaged. Life support was failing.

In the days that followed, Crewman Brisbone became the ship’s soul. As the senior staff worked on impossible repairs, he worked on impossible morale. With limited power, he prioritized the replicators for medical supplies, choosing instead to create meals from the emergency non-perishables. He made a game of it, calling his creations “Brisbone’s Gamma Quadrant Surprise.” He never let his smile falter. He moved through the dimly lit corridors, delivering food and, more importantly, a steadying word, a hand on a shoulder, a reminder that they were still a family.

But the damage was too great. The environmental systems were failing. In his final act, Christopher was in the mess hall, which had become a makeshift shelter, telling a story about a goofy Klingon chef he’d once read about, trying to make a young ensign laugh. He wasn’t an officer. He held no rank. But he was the very best of what Starfleet represents: compassion, courage, and an unwavering commitment to the people beside you.

The anomaly that had stranded them fluctuated one last time. There was no pain, no fear. In a flash of silent, brilliant light, the USS Susan and her brave crew were translated, not into death, but into something else. Into a pattern of energy, into a story woven into the fabric of space itself.

Back on Earth, the official report would list them as “missing, presumed lost.” But we know a truer story. We know that Crewman Christopher Allen Brisbone didn’t die. He completed his mission. He kept his family together until the very end. And now, his ship, the USS Susan, isn’t wreckage. It’s a new constellation, sailing forever in a mapped but mysterious part of the heavens, a permanent, shining reminder that love is the one force that can traverse any quadrant, any anomaly, any frontier.

He is not gone. He is simply on a new mission, exploring the ultimate frontier, cooking with starlight, and waiting for the day when his entire family can join him again.