Swimming Through Space

Posted on 05 May 2019 @ 6:33pm by Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeysa Zeror
Edited on on 11 May 2019 @ 3:40pm

1,705 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Holodeck
Timeline: MD -14, 1643

[ON]

With a PADD in the one hand and a steaming cup of tea in the other Sofie made her way quickly along the corridors of Galileo towards the holodeck. It was still quite early in the morning (or what passed for the morning when your duty shift starts at 1900) but she'd managed to book in a slot of recreational holodeck time a while back and with her shift starting in about an hour and a half she wanted to miss none of it. She was already in her uniform - not that it would matter much once she got onto the holodeck - and had just had time to replicate a cup of tea before setting out.

As she rounded the last corner though the smile of anticipation began to darken. The panel outside the holodeck showed it to already be in use. Sofie sighed and checked the on board clock - 1643 - and she was pretty sure had this booked from 1630. For a moment she considered leaving whoever it was undisturbed but free time was tight and she had been so looking forward to robbing a bank or something. She grimaced and braced herself for whatever conversation might now unfold and pushed the door chime to let the occupant know that there was someone outside.

"Yes? come in." Came Jeysa's voice from inside the holodeck.

The half awake Sofie pushed her annoyance aside, pulled herlsef together a bit and opened the door. She hoped this would be over quickly so she could soon be back to riding through the outback like she had planned.

Inside was a large room dominated by a substantial swimming pool that was giving off that unmistakable swimming pool smell. In said swimming pool there was a woman wearing bright blue who Sofie half recognised as the captain's yeoman though she couldn't for the life of her remember the crewman's name.

Sofie cleared her throat and called out to the yeoman who thankfully was quite close at this point in her lap of the pool. "I'm sorry to have interrupted you."

Jeysa looked up a little but carried on to finish her length of the pool before swimming to the side Sofie stood at and rested her arms against the floor to keep herself afloat. "That is alright, what can I do for you Ensign?"

The Ensign took a gulp of tea from her mug, buying time to try and think of the politest possible way to get this said. "I think this is my slot of time." she paused and smiled sympathetically "For the holodeck."

"Are you sure?" Jeysa asked, "I booked a 90 minute slot for this afternoon last week, I've been here about an hour."

"Look, we can check, but I am pretty sure." Sofie was starting to sound a bit annoyed. She began to walk over to the control panel by the arch and gestured for Jeysa to join her.

Pushing herself up Jeysa came out of the water and joined Sofie leaving a wet trail behind her as the water dripped off her tanned skin and the blue swimsuit she wore.

While she waited at the arch for Jeysa to catch up Sofie caught herself momentarily staring at the Trill's spots clearly visible down to her ankles. They dredged up a bunch of unpleasant old memories that Sofie quickly pushed out of her mind. The woman was a good deal taller than Sofie and was a picture of traditional beauty which made Sofie feel remarkably plain. The Ensign put down her PADD and mug on a nearby ledge and activated the terminal while awkwardly scratching the back of her neck - slightly embarrassed and hoping that Jeysa hadn't noticed her staring.

An embarrassment that was only exacerbated a moment later as the terminal bluntly displayed the name Jaysa Zezor as holding the reservation for this time period. "That can't be right." Sofie muttered picking up her PADD once again to look through.

Jeysa knew she was right but humoured the Ensign a little. "I think over four months of relatively boring travel time is playing tricks on you, it has happened to a few of the crew, reporting to the wrong shifts, coming to meetings days earlier than they're scheduled for."

"I suppose that's to be expected. With nothing to punctuate our daily lives other than these rotating shifts we're all getting mixed up. I didn't know it was happening so much though." Sofie grumbled in response. The part of her that was rather prudish was getting quite awkward about the soggy trill looming over her in a swimming suit. Just as she had been unintentionally staring a moment earlier now she was doing everything she could to be looking in any other direction, conveniently one of which was down into her PADD, scrolling through her schedule looking for confirmation of her booking.

"it's the monotony, seeing as we can't really stop to explore anything we go past science does not have much to do, engineering are focusing on keeping the engines running, ops is keeping the rest of the ship running, security dont really have anything to do and medical just keep fixing people up like usual." Jeysa said, seeing a lot of the departmental reports before Lirha did certainly had a few advantages. Walking back to the pool she grabbed her towel and put it over her shoulders suddenly feeling a little cold now she was out of the water.

Sure the screen on the wall was displaying the yeoman's name but right there on Sofie's PADD was a confirmation of the booking with 1630 clearly displayed. She shook her head, and turned to see Jeysa putting on a towel. She felt guilty for letting herself interrupt someone else's free time. Though not yet guilty enough to stop her from trying to get the the bottom of the issue. "I suppose I shouldn't have doubted you." She shrugged "As the Captain's yeoman most of what you do must be scheduling and organisation."

"Lots of paperwork." Jeysa replied. "And a bit of cooking." She then added.

Sofie raised an eyebrow dropping the PADD to her side "Cooking?" She asked. "Is the captain lucky enough to have you as a personal cook?"

Jeysa started to dry herself off properly as her time on the holodeck was running out. "Occasionally, I mentioned it when I first reported to her and straight away she was interested, the next day I cooked dinner for the Captain and her sister."

"I wish I had my own chef to make me dinner every now and again." Sofie joked with a bit of a smirk. She crossed her arms. "As much as I love Chef's cooking it is starting to wear me down. I suppose those are just the benefits of being a captain though."

"You'll have to stick with replicated food for a while if chefs cooking is starting to get bland. Although at the rate people are finding out about my cooking I'll be cooking for the entire ship soon." Jeysa said as she wrapped the towel around her long blond hair.

Sofie gave a shrug and replied "I think I'd still rather have real food prepared by Chef than what the replicator puts out. I almost feel they program it to be bad." Then seeing Jeysa getting dried off Sofie's earlier guilt at interrupting a fellow member of the crew's recreational time took over again. "I really am sorry for interrupting you," she gazed down at her feet "I should have just left when I saw this wasn't my slot."

"It's ok, I was nearly done with swimming anyway." Jeysa rubbed the towel through her hair as she spoke. "I don't mind sharing the last of it with you."

For a moment Sofie stared blankly for a moment, almost like her mind was somewhere else entirely. She shook her head "If you're done soon then there won't really be enough time before its the next person's slot. I might as well be getting going." She gave a halfhearted grin as she started to turn towards the door and added in some small attempt to salvage something from the encounter "It was good to meet you though."

Finishing drying herself off for now Jeysa slung the towel over her shoulder. "You too Ensign, sorry for spoiling your plans for the afternoon."

Sofie tried to hide her frustration as she said over her shoulder "It's not your fault." She picked up the mug and left through the doors, slouched and dejected.

Jeysa watched as Sofie left, the Ensign certainly wasn't hiding her feelings about getting her reservations mixed up. With nothing she could really do about it she stripped out of her swim suit and dried herself off properly.

The science ensign paused a moment in the corridor and buried her head in her hand. This shouldn't be happening, what was wrong with her? She opened up the reservation receipt on the PADD one last time and tried to work out what happened. Then she noticed the date.

She'd made the reservation for yesterday.

Sofie leaned back against the bulkhead and slammed her fist into it in frustration. Jeysa had been right - it must be the long term space travel getting to them all. She sighed for what felt like the hundredth time today and let the mug fall to her side. Unfortunately she had neglected to consider the fact that the mug was not empty and she found her leg covered in lukewarm tea.

If Sofie had been the swearing type of person now would have been the perfect moment for some very exciting profanity, it was as if nothing more could go wrong with this day, but she was not so instead she rolled her eyes and slid down the bulkhead to rest on the carpet. She pulled in her legs and wrapped her arms around them burying her face in her knees. Pull yourself together.

She'd have to change her trousers before the shift began.

[OFF]

--

PO3 Jeysa Zeror
Captain's Yeoman
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

Ensign Sofie Ullswater
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

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