Equal Parts Tentative and Boisterous (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 22 Oct 2015 @ 10:41pm by Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant JG Lenaris Marika & Ensign Miriam Kallan

1,958 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Mess Hall
Timeline: MD 04 - 1900 hours

[ON]

Although his eyes were drawn out to the stars, Andreus Kohl hadn't managed to secure himself one of the tables beside the viewport. He was one table over, and two tables back, from the nearest viewport in the mess hall, but he could still capture a decent view of the stars from where he sat. On the table before him was a PADD, an empty glass, and a bottle of Argelian hepsbah whiskey. Once upon a time, Kohl had written himself strict rules about consuming anything but synthehol during starship duty. But in those days, Kohl had been practicing medicine. It was getting to the point Kohl's medical career felt as if it were entire AUs behind him. Even during this last catastrophe aboard Galileo, although Kohl's medical expertise had been called into service, he hadn't once thought of reporting to Sickbay. His responsibilities to the command staff had overruled that urge.

Kohl wasn't sure what that meant, nor even what that meant to him. And on a cold night such as this, he needed company, and the whiskey was the only company immediately available to him given some of his social interactions of late. Sitting in the mess hall, though, meant that could change. When an Operations crewman served a platter of oskoids to Kohl's table, it took Kohl a minute to size it up. He determined that that platter was absolutely massive; it would be wasteful to have used that replicator energy and raw particulate matter on himself alone. Turning to the next person who walked past his table, a face that looked vaguely familiar, Kohl asked, "Are you hungry by any chance?"

The young El-Aurian, was slightly shocked when a voice stopped her in her walk toward a far table. She had been expecting a quiet meal on her own, with a hot cup of Vulcan spice tea but at the question her face immediately lit up. A meal with another person, was always better than a meal alone and the fact that this person was her direct commanding officer was even better. It was always nice to get a better understanding of the people you're supposed to work with.

With a light smile, Miriam nodded, "Yes, indeed, sir. In fact I was planning to eat this lovely ration pack of..." She looked over at the bland silvery package in her left hand, reading off the name, "..beef stew with hearty vegetables, with my tea." She lifted the cup in her other hand slightly. She looked at him cheerfully, seemingly unfazed by the fact that her meal was a ration pack. "Did you want some company, sir? Or am I not supposed to ask?"

At the sight of the ration pack in Miriam's hand, suddenly Kohl felt all the more guilty for using Galileo's energy for a replicated meal. Perhaps it had been force of habit, or perhaps he already considered tomorrow's mining mission to be a complete success. He didn't speak of these things, though. His eyes followed the ration pack for just a heartbeat, and then he looked up to meet Miriam's green eyes. "Sit. I insist," Kohl said. He swept a hand out towards the chair across from him. Despite his choice of words, Kohl's intonation was for an offer, not an insistence. "Why wouldn't you be supposed to ask?" he asked.

At his polite insistence that she sit, Miriam smiled faintly and did as she was told. She hadn't been feeling so hot since the accident, but she couldn't let that be her senior officer's first impression of her. Not that they hadn't met, but not really long enough to chat due to their circumstances. As his question she gave him her best smile, "Well, you know, Cadet's get plenty of talks at the Academy about how to behave with their senior officers. We hear stories, you know, sir."

Miriam looked down at her ration pack casually, turning it about before activating the self heating mechanism. Setting it aside she took up her cup of hot tea with both hands while she waited for the food. She blew on the hot liquid before taking a small sip. She was hoping the hot tea would settle her stomach enough to let her eat something. She hadn't really been able to eat much thus far.

"I would imagine you've already learned," Kohl said --and he paused long enough to pluck an oskoid leaf from the platter and bite into it, careful not to let the sap drip down his face-- "Not everything they teach you at the academy is conducive to life on a starship." He finished chewing and he began to eat another. As he chewed some more, his eyes wandered from Miriam as he struggled to remember what he'd skimmed from her file. "Are you joining us," he asked, "directly from the Academy campus?"

Miriam just smiled, "Of course, I assume it's not as bad as they make it out to be. One can never be too careful though, sir. It's often best to err on the side of caution." She took another long sip of her drink. The warm liquid felt wonderful in her empty stomach. "Oh," She looked up at him, having been momentarily distracted, "Yes, sir, I arrived just before the war games. We met once or twice, it's just been so busy here there's been little time for becoming better acquainted."

Walking, or more accurately prancing into the room, came a young Bajoran archaeologist in search of food. Hellos and good mornings were spread to all who encountered her path. The fact it was evening according to the ship's internal clock, somehow did not seem to register with this one. Having been pointed in the direction of the ration packs, she promptly bounced her way to them, picking up the first one and reading it’s label. After going through several packs, the crewman in charge of food distribution kindly asked her to stop, and just pick one.

“But, I’m allergic to mustard and it’s derivatives! Do you want me on the floor, sprawled out in convulsions?” As she asked, she mimicked a seizure of some kind, to a now frightened crewman. Several of the nearby crewmembers moved away, or at the very least gave her a strange look. “See? Nobody wants that, not them, not me, not you. Now of course if we’re lucky, you get me to the infirmary in time and all is good, but I don’t really want to get to that point, it’s never fun. And besides, can you imagine all the paperwork involved? I mean, infirmary, the science department, the senior staff. Not. Fun. At. All.”

She punctuated her last words by waving her right hand dangerously close to the young man. Whether he had understood anything she had spewed out as fast as a moving train was unclear. “So if you’d be kind enough to find me something without mustard or any of its derivative I’d be most grateful. And so would all of these nice people.”

Giving the man some time to find something she could ingest, Marika looked around, observing the faces she found. She didn’t register those who seemed to look away when she was looking in their direction, and eventually stopped on a familiar face. One that had promised her a dinner date at that. Jumping in joy and sending out a few energetic waves, the young ensign attempted to make herself seen.

That waving form pulled Kohl's concentration away from Miriam's words. His gaze shifted over her shoulder, following the shape of indistinct movement, until he caught sight of Marika Lenaris. Kohl was quick to raise a hand and wave Marika over, welcoming her to sit with a series of hand gestures. To Miriam, Kohl asked, "Have you met Marika yet?"

Miriam blinked a few times when Kohl began waving like a weirdo, and the corners of her lips turned up in a smile as she followed his gaze to a pretty Bajoran woman. She looked vaguely familiar, but then, it was a small ship. It was hard to not have seen most people in similar departments. At Kohl's question, Miriam looked back at him and shook her head, "I've seen her around, but I haven't had the pleasure of a formal introduction."

As he waved back at her, Marika beamed an even larger smile at her superior. Grabbing the pack the young man was looking at for the second time, she started towards the table, completely ignoring the man protest.

Bumping into a few people as she made her way through, still waving as if to make sure everyone knew exactly where she was, she arrived at her destination ignorant of the half dozen annoyed looks behind her.

"Haiiii! Who's your new friend? She's preeeeety! Is she your date too? We making this a diner for three? Awesome! Hi! I'm Marika." She offered the hand not holding the pack and smiled so very genuinely at the young woman.

Miriam briefly forgot how yucky she was feeling and let out a light giggle. This woman was all sorts of amusing. She had to admit she enjoyed a good outgoing person. It made conversation all the more interesting. The young El-Aurian offered a light wave at the Bajoran just as her CO began speaking.

Kohl tilted his head back to offer a lazy grin in Marika's direction. Given her questions about their impending dinner for three, Kohl said, "As Earth's great bard Shakespeare once wrote: Count your blessings: one, two, three. I just hate keeping score. Any number is fine with me -- as long as it's more." Kohl cleared his throat as he swept a hand out to indicate the woman sitting across from him. "Marika, this is Miriam," Kohl said in diplomatic tones; "Miriam joins us from Starfleet Academy and will be working in our life sciences team as a xenobiologist."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Marika," she told the woman brightly, "I look forward to working with you." Although she meant every word, she was having a hard time hiding her discomfort. She'd never felt this jittery before. Everything usually came so naturally to her so being this nervous was indeed very odd and uncomfortable.

Picking up on the El Aurians subtle clues, Marika attempted to bring it down a notch, thinking perhaps she was the reason the young woman looked uncomfortable. Her smile still as intense as usual, she sat and retracted her offered hand, seemingly unaware it had received no answer. “I’m Archaeology, although at the moment I’m mostly not getting in the way. I wonder what a people living on asteroids would be like. Hey! Have you met the doctor yet? She’s soooooo pretty. With the wings and the eyes… my those eyes.”

For a moment there Marika seemed mesmerized, but quickly snapped out of it. Glancing between the uncomfortable woman and her superior officer, she quickly continued. “Am I interrupting something? Because if I am I can tooootally get out of your hair. I’m sure I can find another … table… somewhere.. Or you know, just go eat in a jefferies tube or a transporter room or something. You wouldn’t believe how fun a jefferies tube can be. Oh and transporter rooms are sooo underappreciated. Transport this, transport that, ok, let's just leave it.” Shaking her head slightly in apparent sadness, she gave them both a sympathetic smile. “Poor transporter rooms.”


[OFF]

To Be Continued


Lieutenant Commander Andreus Kohl
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Lenaris Marika
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

Ensign Miriam Kallan
Xenobiologist
USS Galileo

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