A Fiery Little French Woman

Posted on 03 Jul 2013 @ 1:51pm by Ensign Natalie Chevalier & Chief Warrant Officer 4 Cyrus Kiwosk

2,831 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Junior Officers' Quarters
Timeline: MD11 - 2200 hours

[ON]

After a busy day of moving, meeting, and having her ass chewed out for the same kind of petty rubbish that always seemed to bog down her every minute of Starfleet life, the last thing Nat wanted was to have round 2 with Sherlock Cyrus, but with annoying efficiency the computer in her quarters reminded her of the meeting.

She'd showered - wouldn't Commander Holliday be proud? - and changed into casual wear for the evening, a baggy Academy hoodie that swallowed up most of her petite form and a pair of light exercise pants. Her quarters were cluttered, though mostly with PADDs rather than personal effects. She'd set out a few holocam pictures, mostly of her and grinning protestors at various environmental rallies, and a few of scenic locations.

Padding around in a pair of sandals, she resolved to tidy up a little, and began unpacking a small box labelled 'Shells'. Seashells from a dozen planets, intricate whirls and simple patterns, brilliant colours and dull greys, rough and smooth, big and small: a whole lifeless menagerie, set out along the sill of her window port.

Cyrus rang the chime and sighed. He had switched shifts with Davis for the evening off, which meant a double duty tomorrow. He was in an old SFMC set of cargos and a jet black T-shirt that boldly showed off several of his normally covered tattoos, namely his Starfleet Marine Corps insignia and a large part of the sword rolling down his arm. His dog tags, which he always wore underneath his security uniform were dangling off his neck and lay comfortably on his broad chest.

"You interrogator is here." He passed through the comm.

"Enter," she called out, the computer opening the doors that slid open to her still unpacking her shells.

Nat smiled ruefully at Cyrus. "I'd thought I'd have all this sorted out by the time you came, but you know how the time flies. Please, come in, make yourself ... "

She was going to say 'comfortable', but she couldn't really say that with a straight face given the disarray in the room. Reaching out, she kicked a stack of PADDs from a chair, and gestured.

"Do you want anything from the replicator?" she asked, still unsure of what kind of conversation Cyrus had imagined this being: a coffee kind, or something stronger?

"whatever you're having. I'm not picky. " He glanced at the disarray. " Do you want a little help getting the place situated?" He offered. "I don't mind. "

Nat moved over to the replicator and ordered, tssking in frustration as the coffees materialised in mugs rather than bowls. Would she ever find a replicator that made a proper caf au lait? She set them down on a small glass table and swept more boxes off a second chair, seating herself opposite Cyrus.

"Thank you for the offer, but I'd actually rather take a break from sorting out boxes: I've been unpacking all day, in between meeting senior officers and shrinks - and nosy security officers," she teased, blowing on her coffee foam. "It's nice to take the opportunity to sit back for a minute. And besides, I'm very particular: no offence, but you might just get in the way."

Her claim to be 'particular' was somewhat at odds with the chaos all around them, but she liked to at least pretend that it was all part of some elaborate system.

"How long have you been assigned to the Galileo?" she asked.

He conceded the 'nosy' comment with a slight shrug and a grin before answering. "Maybe a month or two. I joined when we were still on Vega Nine." He explained. "Before then, I was a marine aboard the Fitzgerald. . " He shrugged again and sipped his coffee, wiping the slight foam on his lips with the back of his hand. He leaned forward and cradled the cup with both hands. "I sort of know how you feel. You must have transferred over from the Venture ?" He asked.

She nodded. "I came over today, yes. Mr. Darius brought me over on a shuttle; I'd guess you know him?" Nat assumed the NCOs knew one another, and had noted both sported Marine tattoos.

"The Venture was ... big. Very big. I think I prefer the Galileo already. A smaller crew makes it easier to get to know people. I only wish I were joining you at another time. For a mission I didn't have such problems with."

Cyrus nodded. "I spoke with Darius the other day. He was an Orbital jumper. I was only infantry. The Fitz was also a Galaxy so I know the feeling of being a number on a larger vessel." He chuckled. "Here at least they know you by name. Both blessing and curse I suppose."

He drummed his index fingers against the brim of the mug. " I also know what you mean about the mission. I was talking about it with my room mate before you came aboard. We recently lost a man to whatever is going on down there. " He explained softly. "It feels like the planet is telling us to back off, but we aren't getting the hint. As it was, my own research team was attacked by a pack of way too intelligent wolf like creatures. They would have wiped us to a man if we hadn't spotted in time."

Nat cupped her coffee in both hands. It wasn't very good, in truth, but the replicated smell was enough to remind her of childhoods sitting in the family kitchen, settling down in the evening with her parents as they enjoyed coffees of their own after a long day of serving other people. Her eyes widened as she listened to his story: although it was little she hadn't already read in formal reports, hearing about it in the flesh made it that bit more real. She wasn't sure whether to offer a word of sympathy for the lost crewmember, but Cyrus spared her any social anxiety by barreling on.

"So you said you were passionate about your profession..." Knowing he was treading on a fine line he decided to go it carefully. "What got you interested?"

She answered with complete certainty: she could remember it well.

"I'd always been interested in nature. You couldn't keep me out of trees, mud, ponds: I swear my parents spent half their lives replicating clothing for me. But I didn't really start to think about any of it as meaning anything until I was ten years old. The colony was trying to expand the spaceport, and they wanted to build on the site of an ancient woodland. My parents, they owned a hotel, so they were all in favour. But I'd spent enough time in the woods to see how it wasn't just a case of a few trees: there was a whole system connected to them, from bugs and worms all the way up to birds and mammals. After that, I pretty much put aside my dolls and toys for protest signs and pamphlets."

She smiled at the memory, despite it having some not wholly happy resonances.

"How about you, Cyrus? What made you want to join the Marines?"

The way she asked the question, it was clear she considered such a choice as alien to her as her activism was to him.

He whistled low and chuckled. "Good return question. i'd have to say my older brother Osric was the big deciding factor. He was the one that always would beat up the bullies and things like that. " He chuckled. "If you could imagine me with another foot in height and about 30 more pounds of muscle, that would have been my brother."

Nat tried to keep her expression level. The way he spoke made it seem that his brother was no longer around: dead or missing perhaps, or something else? It felt impolite to ask directly, but her natural curiosity had her squirming in her seat. Instead, she tried an alternate tack in the hope it might pry out some loose brick in the wall.

"My brother's taller than me, too. Not that that's hard. I think he wanted to join the Marines, when he was younger; now, I don't know. I guess he's university bound. Not Starfleet though, at least I hope not. My older sister's working at the hotel still, and little Marie-Claire is only 8, so what she wants to do changes week to week. I'm actually the only person in my family to join Starfleet - well, a cousin, I think, but we haven't talked in years."

He sat there and listened intently and nodded to show he was listening. " My brother...was killed on duty, He was surrounded with his commanding officer. The MCO showed up and offered us all condolences. " He replied. "I decided shortly after that to join, and I was in for about five years or so. I ended up switching professions though recently." Now would be a good time to change the topic.

"so you come from a big family, then? It mist have been nice, sounds like you're the middle child." He chuckled. "No wonder you're a troublemaker." He teased, smiling wryly.

Grateful to Cyrus for how quickly he moved the conversation on from that awkward pause, she smiled thinly. "Aha. Well, I'm actually the oldest: when I said 'older sister', I meant the older of the two. Suzette is 22, 3 years younger than me. So I suppose I can't even blame my troublemaking tendencies on genetics!"

She let out a humourless laugh, and pulled her legs up underneath her. Then she decided that was uncomfortable, unfurling them once again.

"But it was nice, yes. Even before my sister and brother were born, we always felt like a big family, because of the hotel. Not so much the overnight guests, but the long term ones who stay for a while or come back regularly, you sort of get to know them: what they like to eat, their sleeping patterns, their hobbies."

Pulling her legs up in front of her, she set her coffee mug down and squeezed her knees to her chest as she fondly recalled the hotel. "I'm not so close to my family any more, but occasionally I've been back, like right after I graduated from the Academy, and it's the same, really, like melting back into this big family. Some of the guests missed me as much as my parents."

It was not a wholly comfortable feeling for Nat, a recollection coloured by the arguments and divisions riven between her and her family; and also the realization that she'd never encountered that same closeness since joining Starfleet, preferring individual research and at times embarking on lengthy solitary fieldwork exercises. Perhaps the Galileo was her best chance of finding something similar, she wondered to herself.

Cyrus took it all in with relative ease, though he couldn't help but smile at the woman who was fidgeting with such speed with almost look uncontrollable. "You're twenty-five." He chuckled. "I thought I was the only young blood here." he replied. "Must have been something living in the hotel." He could only imagine the large sense of community. After his brother died his own family life turned relatively sour and recluse. Once his mother and father heard about his decision to join Starfleet he thought that they were going to prevent him from leaving the house.

He studied young lady in front of him. Fidgeting aside, it seemed that she was bitter. Of what, Cyrus could only guess. He wasn't the great face reader that his former CO was. She seemed like she held onto anger or some other powerful emotion, the way she laughed with no humour, the way she smiled, as if everything she said was going to be used against her.

Hard life for a hard woman He decided, though he stated no of it.

Instead he continued their conversation." You mentioned a hotel? And by the way you talk you're obviously from France, at least your French betrays your french. What part? "

She laughed. "I'm not from France; I'm from New France. The colony. Nouveau Granville, in particular; my parents own a hotel on the outskirts. Well, what used to be the outskirts: now it's slap bang in the centre, after the development," she said, hissing in fury at the memory of the construction project she had spent her teenage years opposing.

"Sounds like I touched a soft spot there." He stated with concern. "I'm guessing this construction wasn't well received by you."

"You could say that." Her laugh was hollow. "I spent years protesting it. Kind of drove a wedge between me and the family - I mean, the expansion was obviously good news for the hotel, but at what cost? I honestly thought we'd won the battle. Then the first year I was away at the Academy, I got the news: construction had gone ahead. Centuries old woodland, torn down in an instant. I find it very difficult to go back now."

In the cool silence that followed, she was aware the room had grown a little darker.

"I'm sorry: I didn't mean to rant like that. It's all old news now." She dismissed it with a sweep of her hand. "What about you? Where did you grow up? I'm afraid I don't have much of an ear for accents."

"no need to apologize Natalie, I'd be pissed to if i found out that everything that I had worked so hard for was gone the moment I turned my head." He sympathized completely with her and it wasn't hard to tell that it was probably that moment that had sent her on the crusade of prevention. " It's funny how us humans work." He sipped his coffee. "We claim that we are peace faring, with the thoughts of all." He paused to take a small breathe. "But it seems that 'all' only refers to humanity. The Federation is no different in that sense. We claim to think about all races and integrate all races, but in reality what are the goals the Federation fights for? Humanity's...if other races goals fall in line with us ..." he made a flourish to Chevalier and then to himself. "That's great...when not. " He shrugged. "It just seems convenient that we have fought wars against Romulan, Klingon and Cardassian because our ideals clashed with theirs.

"As for where I'm from, I guess the easiest way to answer that is Canada. " He chuckled. "I was born in British Columbia, spent most of my life in Quebec and eventually ended up living in both Nova Scotia and Ontario before moving to San Francisco to study at the Academy. " He finished his coffee and continued. "My french is recgonized as a dialect called 'Quebecois' or 'canadian french.' Though there are tons of different dialects that classify as canadian french. "

Nat nodded vigorously. She agreed empathically with everything Cyrus was saying, and though she did him the courtesy of letting him finish his speech and go on to answer his question, she was practically bouncing off her seat in her haste to jump in. The moment she sensed a pause, she leapt, words pouring out in a spewing cascade.

"Oh, I totally agree. You grow up thinking the Federation is this noble idea, when really, it's just a tool for humans to lord their superiority over every race in the galaxy. I hadn't quite realized how bad it was until I joined Starfleet, but every day I grow more and more aware of the way that any species that doesn't meet our arbitrary definition of 'humanity' or deviates from it in any way is considered inferior, an enemy or an object of disgust. Humans are the driving force behind so much destruction, yet it's seen as progress. It's a process that's only intensified as the Federation has grown: we will never learn from our history."

She shook her head, and then chuckled. "I'm sorry, Cyrus, you probably didn't come here to be yelled at by a little New Frenchwoman, did you? I'd love to hear about Quebec; I hear it's beautiful. I took a visit while I was in the Academy, but only for a day, and that was mostly to practise my French. It turns out between the Quebecois dialect and the New French dialect, we're speaking two virtually unintelligible languages. But, I fear it's getting late. Perhaps we should continue this another time?"

She showed him to the door and then cleared away the coffee cups, reminding herself to choose a different order until she could program her own recipe into the replicator.

[OFF]

Ensign Natalie Chevalier
Ecologist
Planetary Sciences Division
USS Galileo

CWO Cyrus Kiwosk
Security / Tactical Officer
TRT Squad Leader
USS Galileo

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