Creche

Posted on 07 Jul 2015 @ 12:31pm by Cadwyn Lane & Petty Officer 1st Class Pieter Van Zyl Ph.D.
Edited on on 08 Jul 2015 @ 3:18am

1,803 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Mess Hall, Deck Two
Timeline: MD 1, 1600 hours

[ON]

"I want you to stay here, Cadwyn. I'm not going to ask you again."

"Listen, Commander, you might be the First Officer of this tiny little ship, but don't forget, you're not the boss of me."

Stace rolled her eyes. It was a jibe back to their ageing youth and she knew it. They were close, Cadwyn and Stace, in a sibling sort of way. They didn't so much grow up together but over the years had grown close together. And with that formation of a brother and sisterly relationship came the taunts. Ordinarily Stace could give as good as she got but not on this ship, and certainly not in this uniform.

"I'm serious."

She held that glare that meant business and with a breaking smile Cadwyn relinquished. "All right, all right," he protested defensively. "I still don't see why I can't stay in my quarters."

"Because I'm telling you otherwise. Now I'm be back after the battle games and then you can go about your business as normal." She flashed her eyes at him and then left him to the Mess Hall. It was no busier than usual and so Cadwyn sauntered over to the replicator, replicated a pot of coffee and then scanned the room. Only one face did he recognise and so he made the walk over with his cup and pot and then set it down on the occupied table, standing over Pieter. "Do you mind if I join you? I'm under house arrest here 'for my own safety' and could use the company."

Being deaf, there were certain things Pieter, as an officer, couldn't participate in and while it seemed to be the subject of sympathy to many people around him, Pieter never took it that way. He was comfortable with who he was and what he could and couldn't do, so when the war games were announced, he knew right away that his participation would be limited, if he were to participate at all.

As the games began, he'd transferred all of his work from the Botany lab on deck 4, to the Arboretum. That way, he could still carry on with his job as usual, without having to duck and maneuver around everyone playing war. He knew just how clumsy and stupid people got during a crisis, real or fake.

He looked up at Cadwyn as the young man approached and nodded to his question while motioning towards the seat on the other side of the table before going back to his lunch.

Cadwyn slid the chair backwards with his leg and then plopped himself down with a sigh and smile. "Thanks!" he exclaimed, not looking fully at him as he moved the cup before him and began to pour the coffee. "Can I offer you any?"

Pieter nodded again, pushing his cup towards Cadwyn, watching him. He seemed like a nice enough young man, from what he'd seen of him around the Arboretum. He was polite and didn't cause any trouble, so far. For a civilian, it was close to a miracle.

"Thank you," Pieter said once his cup was full.

Cadwyn, upon realising that Pieter was using an electronic device to communicate pulled his mouth downwards into an impressed frown and nodded as he flicked his eyebrows up. "Fancy bit of equipment that, mate," he added, taking his cup up and taking a draft. "How long have you had it?"

Putting his cup down, Pieter shrugged. "Since I was seventeen." Anticipating the next question, he continued. "But I've been deaf since I was a child."

Cadwyn then blew air through his cheeks emphatically. "Most people tend to talk a lot of rubbish anyway so I can't imagine that you're missing that much." He smiled widely to betray his jest but then changed conversational tact, unsure whether or not the man was comfortable talking about his affliction. "Stuck here as well?" he asked gesturing to the door where Norvi had left him only a moment ago. "I don't quite think the commander trusts me to sit back and keep out of trouble while the games are on."

At that moment, Galileo rocked with the impact of a training torpedo and Cadwyn reached out to clutch at his sliding coffee cup. "Damn! It's gonna be a rough wait, I think."

Pieter grabbed his cup as well, but some of the hot coffee spilled onto his skin. Shaking it off, he wiped his hand down with his napkin, nodding in agreement to Cadwyn. "The more the ship rocks, the worse we're doing." As if to prove his point, the ship rocked violently once again, nearly sending both men off of the chairs.

"Civilians aren't authorised to be in critical areas of the ship unless they serve a certain function. Like some of the scientists. That's why the Commander put you here." After a pause, he added: "I'll keep an eye on you." Due to the tone of the VOICE device and Pieter's schooled expression, it was hard to discern whether he was joking or not.

But Cadwyn didn't take offence nor was he concerned by the expression and tone, he merely smiled at Pieter and snorted a chuckle. "I'll bear that in mind if I end up in sickbay." As he spoke yet another volley of training torpedoes impacted against the shields. "And it looks as though that might be sooner than even I thought!" He took to his cup again to attempt to drain at least half out so that if it did skid across the table top again there would be less spillage but the liquid burnt his mouth more than he anticipated. "Damn!" He wiped the excess off with his own napkin and then, with a looser tongue, began to the conversation again. "How thlong hath you bin onboar'"?

Frowning at the screen, Pieter tapped it several times, activating a subroutine to make up for any interference. "Could you say that again, please?" he asked, showing him the blinking Error sign on the small screen.

Cadwyn reached into his mouth and then pulled at his tongue, jiggling it about in his mouth for a second or two. "How long hath you been onboar'?" he managed again, somewhat a little more clearly. He quickly stood up, keyed a command into the replicator and then gulped down the cool water as it soothed his tongue.

"About six months or so," Pieter replied. "I was transferred after the USS Belgrade was retired. I had served there for almost ten years."

"Was it home to you?" he asked, genuinely interested. "And how does it compare to here? She's my first ship and I don't have a lot of experience."

Pieter didn't speak for a moment, thinking on it. "I like to think that it was. My family wasn't there but they're scattered all around, so we communicate regularly. But the Belgrade was my home, as much as any position can be. I like the Galileo but things were slightly more balanced on the Belgrade probably because crew transfers weren't so common. We all had time to get to know one another, professionally and personally," he explained, wondering how he could put the nostalgia and the sentiment into the words.

"Sounds terrifying," Cadwyn countered with a flash of his smile. "I like the anonymity to a degree. That's not to say that I don't want to fit in or ever suffer what some people describe as loneliness. But I left my family a while back and I survived. I like the change. The newness. Have you not settled here then?"

"The atmosphere is different," Pieter pointed out once again. "People here seem a little too preoccupied with their personal lives rather than their work. But, I get it, in a way," he explained, shrugging. Thinking on what Cadwyn had said, Pieter observed him for a moment. While isolation from your family was something he was familiar with, his own hadn't been self-inflicted so the idea that one would voluntarily leave their family felt foreign to him. Still, he knew better than to ask.

"The newness wears off and it's nice to have someone to share some off duty hours with," Pieter explained, taking a small bite from his plate.

"To a degree," he amended after a moment.

"I'm all about the degrees." Cadwyn lifted his coffee cup in an agreeing manner to cheers the man. And as he did so a projected phaser struck the window of the Mess Hall rocking the deck once again. Luckily, the man managed to save what was left of his drink and then returned it to the table top. "This is getting very old," he muttered but loud enough for Pieter to hear.

Pieter, on the other hand, didn't seem to have any problems balancing himself or his food. In fact, with each rock, he bent this way and that to compensate, making sure his coffee didn't spill. Once the Galileo was steady, he set his cup down again.

"You get used to it. I served as an engineer during the war. If the room wasn't shaking, I wasn't working in it."

"Haha!" Cadwyn laughed out rather too loudly than he anticipated but then settled down and took the remaining dregs of his coffee. "What was it like? Serving in such a thing? I was too young to know of it but Norvi talks of it a lot. And I never know what to say or how to ask anything. She talks about it with such regret."

Pieter nodded. Many people had regrets about the war and not for the first time, he felt happy that he hadn't been one of the soldiers on the ground.

"I don't have any regrets," he said, shrugging. "I try not to have them. You have to, otherwise it's all you can think about. I know some of my old crew still haven't gotten over it. PTSD."

Sighing, Pieter took a moment to gather his thoughts. "Serving in something like that is difficult but I tried to keep my mind on the work, rather than the idea that, on the other ship, there was someone just like me doing the same thing for the same reasons. You have to think like that."

"I suppose you do," Cadwyn pondered. He looked to empty coffee cup and rationed that pouring out another cupful was pushing his luck. "Here's to the future, then," he said, as he raised his empty cup once again. "And to settling here. In some capacity."

Nodding, Pieter raised his glass a well, clinging it gently against Cadwyn's.

[OFF]

PO1 Pieter Van Zyl
Botanist
USS Galileo
[PNPC Oren Idris]

AND

Commander Norvi Stace
First Officer
USS Galileo

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