The Good Yeoman

Posted on 06 Feb 2024 @ 7:50pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeysa Zeror

2,531 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 19 - Tomorrow's Galileo
Location: USS Galileo-B - Deck 1, Captain's Quarters
Timeline: MD 02, 1940 hrs

[ON]

It had taken some persuading and a couple of innocent lies to get Petty Officer Ubax to let Jeysa beam over to the Galileo-B without orders but her powers of persuasion were still good and so she moved gracefully down the corridors of the future timeline ship towards the quarters of the admiral responsible for their being flung into the future, the woman who apart from the short briefing she had not spoken to for some time.

A bag full of freshly cooked foods hung over her shoulder alongside a couple of raw but sealed dishes just in case the her quarters had their own cooking facilities. Eventually reaching the quarters she had been heading towards she tapped the chime and stood back to await a response.

There was a momentary pause of silence before a distinctive, light and accented Orion voice replied. "Come...?" The rear admiral was seated inside her sparsely-decorated quarters behind her desk with her traditional full-body uniform jumpsuit discarded along one of the far walls. She wore a simple gray and black Starfleet tunic over her torso which revealed the entirety of her emerald-skinned arms, shoulders and neck. She wasn't expecting any company. Who would visit her, here and now, with the future of the Federation currently at stake? And...why?

Jeysa entered the Admiral's quarters, the spartan room showed that a lot of the Orion woman's friendly, arts and entertainment inclined personality had no doubt been drained out of her by the long war. "Good evening Admiral." She said as she came to attention before switching to Orion. "The years have been very kind to you, despite this conflict"

Lirha Saalm looked up from her LCARS terminal to the red-collared petty officer who'd just entered, her light green eyes dilating with surprise. "Jeysa..." She suddenly found herself at a loss for words when seeing her former yeoman now entering her quarters. And with a potent-smelling bundle of food accompanying her, it seemed. "What...how did you get here...?"

"Fairly easily." Jeysa replied switching back to English. "Told the transporter operator you had asked to speak with me in person, took a little persuading but I have my ways."

Lirha's eyes creased upon hearing of her crew's lackadaisical security precautions which should have been much tighter during a sensitive mission of this nature. Nevertheless, Zeror was here, and the rear admiral possessed no inclination to turn her away. Not yet. "I see. Well...what is the nature of your visit?"

Jeysa put her bag down on Lirha's coffee table. "I thought I'd bring you a few things for you to enjoy," She replied smiling slightly. "From what I have heard your ships replicators are not working ideally right now, I bet you have missed my cooking."

The yeoman's mention of Galileo-B's food rationing protocol seemed to indicate a level of scuttlebutt making its way through the -A complement's ranks. "That's not entirely accurate," Saalm replied, leaning back in her chair with the new understanding that this was a social visit. "Our replicators are functioning fine, but we haven't been able to resupply at any starbase facilities for over thirteen months. We have no fresh food left on board and our power consumption had to be rationed to prioritize our temporal displacement technology. But...you are right. It's been a long time since I enjoyed one of your meals," she weakly smiled before gesturing to the nearby couch to indicate for the Trill to sit.

Jeysa sat herself down on the couch. "I bought enough for more than just us if you wanted to invite anyone else to indulge in my culinary skills." She said and began to unpack her bag. "And I'm sure I can persuade your sister and the Ops chief to give us enough fresh food to give everyone on the ship at least one good home cooked meal."

"That is a," the surprise of the wholesome offer caught the weathered Orion off guard, "generous offer. I don't believe Nesh will want to see me again or do anything for me, unfortunately. Even in this future, we remain estranged." Thoughts of her previous attempt at reconciliation with the younger Saalm surfaced back into her conscious memory, most potently the very verbal rejection Nesh had given her. "However, I'm sure my crew would enjoy one final fresh meal. It would certainly boost morale. As long as such a task doesn't take priority over your other, more important duties aboard your ship."

"Persuading Captain Tarin may prove a little harder than Nesh or Lt Serran but I can work on that." Jeysa unpacked a couple more boxes then offered one to Lirha. "But for now, help yourself."

Saalm rose from her seat behind her desk then joined the petty officer on the small sofa. She looked at the various containers the yeoman had brought and could detect distinctive aromas emanating from each of them. The one which Zeror had indicated for her to indulge in smelled so very familiar, and as she opened it, her heart skipped a beat. Fried wing slugs; an Orion delicacy she'd long forgotten throughout the years of the present conflict. They looked fresh, battered and seasoned, and the rising steam's scent filled her nostrils with a most pleasant sensation. "You shouldn't have..." she managed to say with surprise to Trill in the form of a compliment.

"How could I not have bought wing slugs for you to enjoy first Lirha," Jeysa replied using the Admirals first name. "They're as fresh as I could get them, I found a few left in a stasis container, they're quite hard to get at Regula One." She'd make it up to their original owner eventually.

"A stasis container...?" repeated the captain with skeptical eyes, raised eyebrows and an intuition that perhaps that statement wasn't the entire truth. "You took them from Nesh's reserve, didn't you?" Because where else could any crew member find authentic Orion wing slugs in the depths of the Pleiades Cluster almost a hundred light years from her people's homeworld.

"I'll make it up to her." Jeysa said by way of an admission. "But all my recipes work better with fresh wing slugs not replicated ones, I have a reputation to keep after all." She said with a slight chuckle. "I'd have bought a little something to wash all this down with but Tarin confiscated every drop of alcohol onboard."

Saalm exhaled a heavy breath through her nose while she attempted to relax. Nesh doesn't forgive, she privately mused in the wake of their recent, tensioned encounter. Then her thoughts turned to the mention of alcohol and Commander Tarin. As liberal as Lirha had once become with crew conduct, she couldn't fault the new CO for enforcing such a restriction. "Now is not the time to drink or celebrate, unfortunately." She managed to force another smile across her gold lips then gestured to the food presented in front of her. "May I?"

Keeping the uncooked portion of the food in her bag for now Jeysa pulled out a pair of plates and a napkin wrapping up some cutlery. "Go right ahead."

Lirha tentatively took a wing slug from its container and raised it close to her gold lips, first studying its battered and fried appearance. How much she'd missed this delicacy which now was a distant reminder of her past... She hesitated for a brief second then pushed the delicacy half into her mouth then bit down. The crispy crunch of the external breading was audible, yet within her mouth, the gooey interior of the wing slug broke apart and flowed across her palate. Her eyes closed when she experienced the long-lost culinary sensation, after which she chewed once, then twice, then more furiously. The soft and slimy texture of the wing slug was cooked to perfection and the Orion's eyes subtly dilated with pleasure.

Jeysa smiled at Lirha's reaction to her Trillian twist wing slugs, she'd cooked them just the same as she had when she first met... her Lirha more than six months ago. "I bought a lot more than just wing slugs."

Galileo-B's captain quickly finished one of the delicacies then began to reach for another one before hesitating. She withdrew her hand then set both of her wrists down on the edge of the table while contemplating exactly why this was happening - both the yeoman's presence and the gift of food she'd brought. "I appreciate this," she gestured to the various food containers and the wing slugs, "...all of it. But why are you doing this, Jeysa? Many within your ranks have openly expressed contempt for my crew and I for bringing the -A into this future. I can't imagine a reason why any of you would bring me such an offering. Not unless it was purely altruistic."

Jeysa chuckled ever so slightly. "I could say I'm here to lull you into a false sense of security and get you to divulge information you haven't told Tarin and the others. But that's not the case." She said before she picked up a wing slug and slipped it into her mouth, they weren't her favourite but she'd acquired a bit of a taste for them over the years of serving on the Orion homeworld. "I could tell from the moment I saw you, you were stressed and overworked, to your own detriment. I thought I could help you relax, even if it was only for a few moments."

Narrowing her eyes slightly, Lirha looked over Jeysa's distinctive Trill spots while wondering how she could have come to such a conclusion. Maybe it was obvious to all, or maybe not. Was it the truth that she was experiencing stress? Of course. How could any Starfleet officer facing the total destruction of the Federation experience anything less? "You're a yeoman, not a counselor, Jeysa," she lightly chided the younger woman accompanied by a rare light chuckle. "I never doubted your intentions but I...needed to be sure you weren't milking me up." Was that the correct idiom?

"You're right, I'm no counsellor but after all the time I've spent with you and Orions in particular I'd like to think I'm good judge of them. Plus a yeoman would very well be the first to spot any signs of distress in their Captain, even the ones they manage to hide from their crew and magically a counsellor appears shortly after." Jeysa opened another pot and poured its contents out onto a plate. "Eat." She said pushing the plate towards Lirha.

Ever so slowly, the rear admiral began to shake her head in the negative. The meal portions were inviting and so was the young - now dead - yeoman's presence, but Lirha struggled to find any semblance of joy within this offering. In a morbid way, it reminded her of a macabre gesture akin to a prisoner's 'final meal' before their eventual execution. She pushed the plate back to the middle of the table. "I'm afraid I don't have much of an appetite right now. I don't have the luxury of indulging in...luxuries. I hope you can understand."

"I can't say I'm happy with your decision but I understand." Jeysa picked up a fork and stabbed a piece of meat from the plate. "I can't force you to eat," She put the piece into her mouth and began chewing. "I can't force you to talk to me, but I can listen if you want to talk, no matter what it's about."

Saalm frowned, observing the youthful blond with a slight dose of scrutiny. The young petty officer seemed much more outspoken than she'd ever appeared aboard Galileo during the Orion's tenure as the vessel's former commanding officer. "Zeror," the rear admiral shifted back to formality because the conversation was becoming too casual for her comfort; the present dire circumstances in full consideration. "I wish we could have met again in a future not like this one," she gently waved a green hand around the room in reference to the cosmos beyond. "I am simply...not the same person you once knew. I am a shell of myself living on borrowed time until the inevitable occurs, as are all of my crew." She heavily sighed then glanced out through the window into the distant stars. "My only purpose here, with your crew, is to ensure I deliver you back into the past so none of us will have to live this nightmare in the first place. Nothing else matters, Zeror...not my comfort, or geniality, or hospitality. It's not personal. And I hope you understand this."

"I do, but you're no good to either crew if you're burnt out and over stressed, take a little time for yourself here and there, Lirha, please." Jeysa said, she knew she wasn't going to get much further with her.

The emerald-skinned woman lowered her eyes to her quarter's gray carpeting. The yeoman was right, and it hadn't escaped Saalm's awareness that she was headed down a path of no return if she continued to push herself. Yet here they were, her crew quite literally on such a path. Sacrifices were difficult; self-sacrifices were even more arduous. "I...will try," she replied with a half-truth before looking back up to Zeror. "Whether it's me or one of my crew, we will enjoy the rest of your cuisine. You have my promise. As long as you deliver a message to Nesh for me."

Jeysa smiled, she could tell Lirha's response was definitely half hearted but it was a start. "Of course I will."

"Remind her...she will always be a Saalm, and she will always have my love and support. In this time, the past, and the future. Forever." She swallowed an emotional lump in her throat while her thoughts once more drifted to her most cherished family member. As if to console herself, Lirha then reached out and retrieved another wing slug from the plate and began to bit into it. Because this food delicacy, here and now, was the closest she would ever come to a semblance of home ever again.

"I will pass on your message Lirha." Jeysa picked up several of the containers she had bought with her and put them to one side. "These containers are stasis sealed but will need cooking. The rest are fully cooked."

Sighing while enjoying the sensation of chewing on yet another wing slug, the captain offered a small smile of gratitude to the other woman. "You're a good yeoman, Jeysa. One day, if we succeed here, you'll make an even better officer and captain." She raised a new wing slug in the air with a symbolic gesture. "To Galileo."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence." Jeysa said, she picked up one of the wing slugs and held it up too. "To the Galileo."

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-B
[PNPC Tarin]

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

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