Bolians are Cool

Posted on 29 Dec 2014 @ 5:43am by Petty Officer 3rd Class Melinda Clare & Lieutenant Olsam Mott

1,887 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Mess Hall, Deck 2
Timeline: MD 07, 2200 Hrs

ON:

Melinda Clare picked up her food from the replicator and scanned the area with bright blue eyes. The place was busy, but that was to be expected seeing as how the dinner hour was upon the Gamma shift crew. By the bulkhead sat a table for two, one of the chairs occupied by the Bolian who worked in medical. She tried to recall his name, Doctor Moon, Doctor Moot, Doctor something with an M. Mott maybe? Like the applesauce? she thought to herself. No, that didn't seem right.

She approached and the Bolian male was hovered over what she assumed was his tray of food. The only thing out of the ordinary was the doctor was alone. She knew from dating a Bolian briefly that the species, as a generalization, didn't like to eat alone. Maybe being on a starship would cause to adjust that mentality. She wasn't really sure and she didn't give it much more thought. As she approached, she heard soft, muffled moans and she couldn't really help but smile. The doctor was certainly enjoying whatever he was eating.

Once at the table, she looked down to see a plate full of food, it looked like a hodge podge of different cultures and alien cuisine. "You look like you are in love doctor," Melinda said as she took the seat across from the Bolian and set her own tray down.

"I do?" Olsam said, looking up from the food to the petty officer seated across from him. It took only a moment or two to recall her medical file: Petty Officer Melinda Clare, Operations Department. "How can you tell? Must be something very subtle cuz I haven't noticed it, yet... I wonder who I'm in love with. Can you tell that, too?"

"I can," Melinda said as she leaned forward. She kept her gaze on the Bolian and the smile fell to a thin line. "Your food," she said in a soft, conspiratorially tone. "Moans of pleasure are hardly ever mistaken."

Olsam's eyes slowly turned downward to look at his plate. Then he grinned. "Oh. Well. You wouldn't be the first person to accuse me of being in love with food." He lifted his chin and creased his brow, looking exaggeratedly dramatic. "We have a tempestuous relationship, food and I. She's a harsh mistress: demanding, delicious, ephemeral... It's hard to keep my hands off her, even in public. And just when I'm fully wrapped in her embrace, ready to lose myself to love and lust, she's gone. Vanished! Disappeared from my plate, leaving behind nothing but the memory of what we had. And then a few hours later, she's back in my life and I tell myself, 'No! Olsam, you must resist; how long can one man endure this torture?' But I throw myself into it all over again, giving myself over to the fire, throw my very life away, unable to resist her charms...."

Melinda drew back to lean into the back of her chair. She picked up her fork and pushed around some lettuce on her plate. "I don't think I have ever heard anyone talk about food so sensuously." She offered a broader smile. "You should have become a chef instead of a Starfleet medical officer."

"Eating can be a very sensual experience," Olsam said, unintentionally sounding salacious. "I thought about becoming a chef, but how many Bolian chefs do you see? They're everywhere. The market is saturated. I'd probably never find a job! It's much better to be a doctor and cook on the side. Doctor is more interesting anyway. You get to use laser scalpels! There aren't a whole lot of Bolian doctors, so I get to be a rarity. We're mostly bankers and traders and cooks and hospitality managers and things like that. Science is too solitary for a Bolian!"

"Aren't there doctors on Bolarus?" Melinda asked. "Or scientists?" She didn't really know much about the Bolians, just that they were blue and liked to talk after sex but that was what a friend of hers had confided in her.

"Well. Hmm. Yes, some. But the work of a doctor or a scientist can be somewhat lonely, you know? Like those remote research outposts... Some of them only have three people! Can you imagine me talking to the same three people for five years? I would probably die, just fall over and die. But mostly we engage in occupations that put us in contact with people more often and stray away from hard sciences. There are a lot of Bolian businessmen and Bolians in the service and hospitality industries. Oh, and chefs, of course! All the famous chefs are Bolians. Well, not literally all of them. Just some. A lot..." He trailed off as he started counting in his head, then remembered he wasn't alone. "Oh! Uh. So... Did you always want to be in Starfleet? In Operations? What do you do in Operations, anyway? Operate things?"

Melinda nodded at the questions that were asked. Though she didn't really know the doctor, not at all really, she did find she was enjoying their conversations so far. "I have always wanted to have a career in Starfleet so I didn't mind going the enlisted route," she explained. "As for my job, it's just mostly power allocation. I sit at my station and watch the ship board activities. We work closely with engineering and science."

"How do you stay awake?" Olsam asked, looking so comically baffled that it helped undercut some of the offense one might take from another person questioning your entire career field. "I'd fall right asleep if I had to sit and watch something, especially power flow. Doesn't it just keep flowing? You must have to come up with things to do. Do you have games to amuse yourself, like seeing how much power one junction can take before it overloads? Sometimes it's slow in Sickbay so I have to make up things to do. My favorite game is 'Knock Over the Medcart.' It's pretty self-explanatory - I knock over a medcart and then put everything back in its place. It's a lot of fun."

Melinda couldn't help but laugh at that. "What happens if there is a medical emergency while a cart is down for the count?" she asked. "Also, what if you break something, or if you trip and fall on said cart?" She smiled at the Bolians. "More importantly have you ever been caught pushing down medcarts?"

Olsam's eyes narrowed in suspicion so convincingly it was hard to tell if he was joking or not. "I thought you were in Ops... That's an awful lot of pointed questions for someone working in Ops. Are you sure you aren't with Security?" The Bolian's mouth fell open incredulously. "Wait just a moment! You're from the Federation Medical Board, aren't you? The Physician Supervisory Subcommittee again, is it? I've just about had it with you people, it's like a personal vendetta or something. Like clockwork! Every six months you come around with your...your... Your questions!"

The doctor huffed and flopped back in his chair, arms crossed, frowning over the table at "Melinda," or so she called herself.

Melinda's eyebrow arched at the change in demeanor from the Bolian. "No, just operations," she said. "Though, part of my job is making sure the equipment on board is safe and secure. Tossing over medcarts is counter productive to that," she replied. "However, I won't tell unless you start asking for more medical tricorders and hyposprays."

"I never ask for more than I need, unlike some people. I once worked with a doctor who insisted on using a new tricorder every week to avoid 'cross-contamination,' which is ludicrous given how well everything in sickbay is sanitized. And besides, it's not like I toss the medcart over. It's more like...a gentle nudge. Nothing gets broken, it's all too sturdy for that." He squirmed in his seat and tightened his arms across his chest until it looked like he was going to burst. Given how poorly he was doing under an imaginary one, the Bolian would clearly be a wreck under an actual interrogation. "You try sitting in Sickbay with nothing to do all day! Sometimes I think I ought to go out and break people's limbs for them because it's not like they're doing it themselves. At least you've got energy to shuffle around the ship. I haven't got anything to shift so I have to knock things over. It's a necessity! For my mental health."

"Mental health is important," Melinda agreed. "So why a starship then?" she asked. "Why not a starbase or even Starfleet medical?"

"Well, I would never work at Starfleet Medical again. I spent a lot of my residency there, and it is so boring. No one ever dies. No one gets murdered or wounded by phasers or abducted by hostile alien species or suffers from chronic incurable inflammation of the enteric nervous system brought on by a space-borne pathogen from an ancient civilization seeking to inflict diarrhea on their eternal enemies. Do you know what doctors at Starfleet Medical do?"

Melinda didn't have anything to say to that, so she just simply shook her head.

"They sit around, formulate medical policy, do laboratory research, see patients with boring seasonal colds, and, worst of all, engage in palliative care. I mean, if somebody is gonna die then why not move things along, you know? Otherwise you're just standing around routinely injecting some analgesics and fluffing pillows." Olsam snorted derisively, emphasizing his culturally formulated thoughts on euthanasia. "And starbases are just so... Well, they're both stationary and transient. No one ever stays long enough for you to get to know them, but the station itself never goes anywhere. It's like assembly-line medicine: see patient, treat patient, send patient out the door, see patient, treat patient...so on and so forth. It's too routine."

She listening closely and Melinda really couldn't be sure if Mott was exaggerating or really telling the truth. She knew there was going to be a lot of downtime on any assignment. Even people who saw battle had some downtime. He had wondered if other officer's felt like Mott.

"So a starship is definitely for me," Olsam grinned. "You get to know your patients, sometimes they develop life-threatening illnesses and you get to travel. It's the best of all worlds, even if it can be a little slow on a small ship. Maybe I should transfer to a Sovereign- or Galaxy-class vessel? I bet someone is breaking their arm all the time on a ship that size..."

"That is certainly an option," Melinda said. "Huge staff, hundreds of people, I bet the sickbays are constantly busy." She smiled at the Bolian. "What's important is you are happy with you decisions and if knocking down carts makes you happy and less bored then so be it." Her smile broadened as she looked down at her own food. "We should do this again, you are a fun guy," she then continued to eat.

OFF:

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Asst. Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

&

PO3 Melinda Clare
Operations
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Williams, IV]

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