Interlude At Lunch

Posted on 27 Feb 2013 @ 1:02pm by
Edited on on 27 Feb 2013 @ 1:22pm

3,160 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: LTjg Maenad Panne's Office
Timeline: MD3 1240

ON:

An hour later, Liyar finally stood from the assembled probe pieces and connected the triangular node network back into their proper places in the sections. With that, the probe telemetry screen lit up and began flashing through information, indicating that it had been successfully programmed.

It had been tedious work, but simple. Liyar had been teaching machines verbal interface since he was seven. But apparently Starfleet engineering was interested in his work, so he left the clear V'Shar PADD (free of any data but the interfacing program of course) with Vincent and left the lab. It was now forty minutes into the Starfleet lunch break, so he assumed that Maenad would either be in the Mess or in her office. "Computer, locate Lieutenant Panne."

"Lieutenant Panne is in her office." The corridor lit up blue along the sides of the wall.

Liyar didn't need to follow it, since he had seen her office a few times by now, and walked the rest of the way stridently. He hit the panel on her door, his own personal PADD in hand detailing the extent of the programming work he'd done with the probe networking system. When the door opened, he stepped in and bowed his head in greeting. "Lieutenant."

Maenad was sitting on her couch under the windows with her legs crossed. A steaming bowl of vegetables and noodles was in one hand, the other rolling long strings of ramen around her fork. "Hello Mister Liyar," she said, lowering her bowl a bit. "What can I do for you?"

Liyar moved, holding the PADD over in her direction. "I successfully reprogrammed the interlinking mechanism between the probes to compensate for potential separation from the link and for self-communication and behavioral automation," he delivered it report-style.

Instead of forking the rolled noodles into her mouth like she wanted to, she set the fork down in the broth and took the PADD. After leaning to put the bowl on the table, she examined Liyar's data. "Have a seat," she said as she skimmed the report. "I bet Mister Kramer and Miss Cho appreciated the help," she thought aloud before she handed the PADD back to him. When she had told him to work with them the day before, she didn't want a report from him. A slight smirk appeared on her lips as she turned her head to look at him. "I meant I wanted to know how you liked working with them."

"I was," he paused for a moment and tilted his head, "Allowed. To help." He repeated her unspoken word wryly. "Dr. Kramer believes my program will be useful to Starfleet engineering. He requested a copy. Lieutenant Cho was disinterested in my presence. The work was completed efficiently." He looked unsure of what else to say. He himself sounded disinterested as well, although for a Vulcan, that was the same as their regular tone. Instead he said nothing further on the subject, clasping his hands behind his back formally. He stood watching her, as though she were one of the equations on his hologrid.

"I see," Maenad frowned, sitting back a little. "What do you mean Miss Cho was disinterested?" That didn't sound like Kiri; Kiri was usually enthusiastic about work.

"In my presence," Liyar repeated. "The work was, as stated, efficiently done. I do not comprehend your original question." No. It had been, how did he like working with them. "I have no opinion on working with them. They are efficient." He let out a calm breath of air. "My assistance on the probe devices has been completed." He wondered about her, and didn't remove his gaze. "Has your day gone well?" he finally asked in a somewhat awkward, but at the very least, sincere way.

"I just had an interesting meeting with the FNN's Jool Fenta," she sounded like the conversation had disgusted her. "I don't like her; I found her to be abrasive. She was false, pushy, threatening, and mean." She reached for her bowl, but didn't eat from it. She lifted the fork, "I don't find those qualities very encouraging in a journalist."

Liyar pressed his fingertips together and lowered himself, finally, onto the couch beside her. "I have made an effort to avoid Miss Fenta. I am given to understand her reputation aboard this vessel is quickly becoming unpleasant. I regret that your encounter with her was poor. I will be certain to ensure that she does not bother you again." He arched his eyebrows and eyed her meal. Noodles. Of some variety. "She threatened you." Liyar tilted his head warningly.

Maenad stuck her fork back into the bowl as he spoke and pulled the roll of noodles off with her teeth. After swallowing she gave a half shrug. "She said it would be in my best interest to cooperate, or something like that," she looked at him. "She told me that compared to her species I am no more intelligent than water fowl, but then tried to say that if don't give her the story she wants she'll find Mister Pendleton and use him as the face of the ship's science department." She narrowed her eyes in a way that told Liyar she thought it was so ridiculous. "I don't understand; I was nice to her, I thought. She said she wanted glamour and I told her my doubts that the public would find my day-to-day work, or even a survey mission, all that interesting." Maenad shrugged, prodding at the soup again with her fork.

Maenad was disgusted. And Liyar thought that she had every right to be. What she described was downright disrespectful. He did not like that. "Because," Liyar said, in a way that made it obvious to her that he considered this to be of utmost fact, "She is of disappointingly low character. She appears to require at least one insult per sentence in order to function at optimal levels." He said it in perfect blankness. "You have stopped consuming your mid-meal."

She ate from her fork, including some carrot and broccoli with her noodles. Maenad smiled once she'd swallowed. If she didn't know any better, it sounded like Liyar was trying to protect her. "As senior officers, I feel it necessary that we be mindful of the way her behaviour might be affecting the crew," she rolled some more noodles onto the fork. "And I told her that if her colourful way of speaking continues, like what I was shown this of her dressing down Raifi Zaren in the mess hall this morning, there will be trouble." She shook her head. "And it is for that reason that I told my department not to engage the FNN with details of our surveys without consent. The last thing I want is for my people to take the fall for an exaggerated report of some kind." Maenad ate from her fork, but her expression said that she hadn't finished talking. "I will not hesitate, as much as I might come to regret it, to contact Stone. If he's willing to beat up one of my staff for loving someone in an empty public space, then I can only hope he holds the same disdain for someone disrespecting another in a populated public space."

"A wise precaution," Liyar said. "To discourage your department from participation." His eyes crinkled wryly, his own version of a smile. "Let us hope that Lieutenant Stone exhibits his usual disposition, should his presence be required." He tilted his head. He could feel the waves of strangesadness, when she spoke of Stone. Regret, fury. Plucked up from now, cascading downward. It wasn't a normal manifestation of his abilities, but he knew, even then, at that moment, that he had spent much time with Maenad. And being in her proximity had somewhat cued him in to her cords of feeling. This one lead straight to loneliness, sadness, fury and shock. How, he knew this, he did not know. "Has Lieutenant Stone otherwise engaged you." Liyar intended to ask, but stated instead. His expression was drawn, tight.

After chewing on some vegetables Maenad turned to him. "What do you mean?" she frowned to herself. "I haven't seen him since the senior staff briefing; but, I've seen him a few times on bridge duty, I suppose."

"Before that." Liyar's fingers were touching hard. The whites underneath showed. The rest of him was blank. "He upset you. He caused you pain." He separated his hands and breathed outward, releasing the torrent of strange underfeelings, meeting her eyes and holding them.

"Yes, well," she uttered a quiet and nervous laugh, "He doesn't care for me very much." Maenad didn't like that he didn't like her, even though she didn't like him at all. That first impression; what he'd done to Athlen on what must have been his first day clung to her mind like a barnacle. And there was the report of Ensign Nicholas being assaulted in the mess hall and, as far as she could tell, he was still in jail for it. She hadn't taken up arms in the same way because, apparently, what had happened was endorsed by Commander Holliday. And, another baffling technicality, was that Nicholas' behaviour was prohibited in all the manuals. Still, being beaten and locked away? Maybe she would stand up for him.

Maenad raised her eyes from her noodles and then found Liyar's. She put her hand on his knee and gave it a gentle squeeze, to reassure him. "He unsettles me," she almost whispered. The admission to anyone else would probably never have been made, she knew, but Liyar was her closest friend. And Liyar, too, would not have accepted anything less than truth. He had a way of reading her that should have annoyed the hell out of her. It was because of his honesty and best intentions that she didn't mind said her unconscious mind.

"He does not care for you. And he unsettles you." Liyar repeated the things she said softly. Nothing in his face shifted. Nothing, at all, to give away the burning rage that happily stoked inside, and boiled seethed under metal lid, shrieking away as though tea were done. "Why is this?" he asked, steadily.

"I don't know," she admitted, her eyes glittering with honesty. "What concerns me about him most was that he once left a basket outside my door, the night after he came by to compliment my piano playing. He made me crepes and left a bottle of wine with them. That same day, however..." she trailed off into a pensive frown, "Well, he payed me a special visit in my office where he proceeded to actually yell and scream at me. He blamed me for the security breach - the incident with the intruders - and then, just because he could, he called me a bunch of terrible names and profanities." She sighed. "An unstable man with access to such a vast arsenal... it worries me, Liyar."

The Vulcan exhaled, slow and sure, not breaking his stare. For the briefest of moments, the cold dark feelings itching in his fingers and teeth cast an empty, callous shadow over his eyes, before that too cleared. Instead, his hands tapped against one another again, fingers forming a triangle in front of him with careful deliberateness. "Yes. I can see that this is so." His voice hadn't raised an iota. "If you feel unsettled by him again, you will contact me." He remained silent, the left side of his jaw tensing minutely before it seemed to break, as though he'd been under a spell. "Have you filed the appropriate complaints."

Maenad eyed him, uncertain what he meant by you will contact me. She decided not to pursue it. "I have," she shrugged with her voice. "Commander Holliday told me that there have been many complaints by a lot of the crew. I don't think anyone told him not speak to me like that again, though." She stuck a few more carrots with her fork and ate them. "Don't worry about me," she laughed quietly.

Liyar pressed his lips together. He determined that if no one had taken it upon themselves to insist Jeremy Stone treat Maenad - crewmembers, he corrected himself in his head - with respect, that he would undertake that little task himself. "I am certain that he will be told," was all Liyar offered in response. Vulcans may not have lied, but they sure evasively maneuvered the truth when it suited them.

She wasn't so sure. Holliday had indeed cared about what she had said to him, but he didn't seem very intent on doing anything about it. Such was life; everyone cared, but did little about it. If Maenad, however, had any inclination on what Liyar considered doing she would have stopped him right there and then. But, she didn't, and all that she did was eat some more noodles.

"Anyway," Maenad changed the subject. "Now that you have finished with the probes, does Commander Coleman still want you under my wand?" She silently wished that the intelligence chief had spoken to her about Liyar. The reminder that the woman still had never spoken to her beyond a few words, and only by association through someone else, had left Maenad paranoid that she was disliked.

Liyar shrugged a hand upward. He could read tiny impressions of her thoughts floating around, but he decided to let the matter drop. At least, between them. "I could not say. I suspect so. Her orders were to assist the science department. I am assuming that for now it means for the duration of this mission."

"No," Maenad waved her hand to dismiss the idea. "I will speak to her about it. It's not fair to have you running back and forth as the middleman. In the meantime, I've ordered the rest of the department to enjoy their free time until we get to Rojar, so I will allow you to resume your normal duties until I have something for you to do."

"Understood. I have spoken to her regarding this. She does not appear to be overly insistent upon my participation in your department, although she has maintained that I am to help you where I am able. She has allowed me to continue the work I am engaged in," Liyar told her. He then looked at her sideways. "What is a wand?"

"Oh," Maenad said. She looked at her bowl. Well, that helped her somewhat. "A wand? It's a figure of speech; a magician has a wand that he uses to put his magic into motion. It's magical stick or something, I don't know," she laughed. "So I would be the magician and my department would be my magic." Her cheeks flushed a little. "It was an awful play on words," she smiled, embarrassed.

"Magical stick," Liyar repeated deadpan, arching his eyebrows and tilting his head to the right slightly. "I see. You believe I am magical." His expression remained blank.

"I don't believe in magic," she said quickly. "But," she grinned, "Yes, I do think you're magical." Her eyes playfully darted between his. "You have a talking plant and you can read minds."

Liyar's eyes crinkled again in amusement, although he remained still. "I suppose," he started slowly as though contemplating something quite serious, "That I am simply, naturally gifted," he said Very Factually, gesturing again.

"Yes," she replied. "You most certainly are." The noodles were gone and just a few vegetables remained. She stuck them with her fork, ate, and swallowed. It occurred to her that she hadn't offered him anything. "Can I get you anything? Something to eat, a drink?"

"Pre tarmeeli," Liyar said off the top of his head, nodding. He wasn't specifically hungry, but it would be rude to ignore the offer. He was finding that he did not want to be perceived as rude. Although, he did not know if Maenad would even consider it such, as she was not Vulcan. The behavior was ingrained.

Without saying anything, Maenad uncrossed her legs and got up. She recycled the bowl in the replicator and returned with Liyar's curry-like pre tarmeeli. It smelled pretty good, she thought, but was satisfied with what she'd eaten. "Here you are," she passed him the bowl as she returned to her seat beside him. She let out a long sigh as she sat back and closed her eyes for a moment.

Liyar took the chopsticks at the side of the plate and picked up a few of the vegetables between them, beginning to eat quietly, but without enthusiasm. "You should sleep in a bed," he said to her the same thing he always seemed to say when she was nodding off on the couch.

She sat upright. "No, I'm just relaxing," Maenad clarified. Though, she would have liked to have been in bed. "How is it?" she nodded to the 'curry.'

"As exceptional as any dish constructed from our replicator facilities," Liyar responded diplomatically, taking another vegetable.

"Good," Maenad said. She glanced at the clock on the sidetable and saw that it was almost time for her to be heading back to the bridge. "Well, Liyar, I should get going in a few minutes."

Liyar stood with her, grabbing only a few extra veggies before depositing the remainder of the pre tarmeeli into the replicator, dissolving it. He was grateful for the distraction, since it meant he didn't need to eat any further. "Indeed. I must also return to my duties." He realized that he was being awkward again. Confusion warred with uncertainty in his mind, but he didn't understand why. Only that the room had somehow become smaller, and before she could say anything else, he bowed his head in farewell. His mannerisms weren't such that he had been offended, but almost furtive. "Good day, Lieutenant. Take care." He then ducked out through the door, but poked his head in one last time to take the PADD back that he'd forgotten. "Yes. I shall speak with you later. Lieutenant." With that, he was gone again.

Maenad watched him with a strange frown. She didn't mean right now. But he was gone after coming back for his PADD, and forgetting things wasn't something that Liyar did. She blinked at the closed doors from the now-empty room. She thought that they could have walked as far as the turbolift. Oh well. "Bye," she said with a confused smile to no one. She went to the lift and returned to the bridge.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

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