Cooking at Debbie's

Posted on Sat Oct 12th, 2024 @ 5:46pm by Ensign Jyl-eel Tor & Lieutenant Paisley F'Rar & Ensign Mei Ratthi & Ensign Eekit Drol

Mission: Mean Green Queen
Location: Junior Officer's Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 5 at 2240

[Junior Officer's Quarters]
[MD 5]
[2240]

The suite had been so empty the last time Paisley had seen it, before her check-in with Lieutenant Oliveria, it was hard to believe it was the same place. There still were no humanoids in it now despite the hour, but the main room had been scattered with a variety of debris from what had clearly been a flurry of activity and a hasty exit. Flashing in large, unmistakable letters on the terminal screen was a message to the new engineer, welcoming her and directing her to a place called 'Debbie's Diner,' where they were cooking a meal.

[Debbie's Dinner, back kitchen]
[2250]

The Carjoran engineer LOVED a party. It didn't matter the location, reason, etc. She was there. She was often the life of the party-outgoing, friendly, and willing to do just about anything for a bit of fun. She found the diner, and rang the chime. "HEY! It's Paisley F'rar!!" She called out. She was wearing a pair of pink pants, a white t-shirt, and jean jacket, and her black hair was pulled back. On her leather-like feet-the Cardassian type thick skin was the bane of her life- were some sparkly sneakers. Her bright blue eyes were rimmed in charcoal, and she wore oversized sunglasses. Yes, on a starship. She always had had a flair for the dramatic, and besides, she thought it made her look sophisticated. "I have a BUNCH of food," she said, as the pneumatic doors opened and she let herself in. "Hesperat soufflé, Tojal with Yarmok sauce, Kanar, and...some popcorn!"

The Earth treat was a favorite of hers, and there was little that Paisley enjoyed more than salty snacks. "How is everyone today?" She continued. Paisley never shut up except when she was deep in a project; a fact that would become obvious to the rest as the evening went on. "I am still getting used to things but everyone seems nice so far," she said, pulling bowls and containers out of the bag she carried. "Where should I put this stuff??" She asked. "I also have some Kanar if anyone wants, but please be careful...it's not for the weak!! I can get some Springwine, as well, if anyone wants?" She posed the final statement as more of a question. As she turned around, you could catch the faint glitter of the Bajoran earring she wore on one ear-her mother's. "Oh my Prophets, it smells GOOD," she said, finally settling down.

Mei looked up from the vegetables she was slicing and grinned at the newcomer, rather than try to wave with a knife in her hand. “Hello! Welcome to our temporary kitchen. We have the run of the place for a couple of hours, but we’re honor-bound to clean up after ourselves, lest we face the wrath of Debbie. But you can put it all right where you’re putting it now. We can move it later if we need to. Ooh! Popcorn! I like popcorn” She laughed at her own non-sequitor, then nodded over at Jyl-eel. “She’s the one responsible for the wonderful smell. She’s in charge tonight.”

Paisley nodded. "OK!! I gotta meet this Debbie," she said. She placed the final bowl out, and stood back. The spread was amazing already. "I don't mind cleaning up!" she said.

Jyl-eel seemed like a young matron in training, pleasantly plump and wearing a comfortable sort of wrap tunic and very loose harem-like pants that came to mid-calf. She was shifting a saucepan in a circle with one hand and stirring with another. "Oh, just a first among equals. And only in the kitchen, I assure," she smiled. She turned her attention to Eekit, "A little more of that Nori," she pointed at some thin strips of seaweed, "And some more of that Kelpien azarq?" She pointed at something that looked like an aquatic mushroom, soaking in salty water. Jyl-eel turned attention to lift and toss the mixture of mushrooms and things already in her plan.

"T'shi, Paisley," Jyl-eel greeted from her profile. "Or do you prefer F'rar?"

The Carjoran stood there, watching the interaction carefully. She might be a talker, but she also liked to observe people-you could learn a lot about them if you did. "Paisley is fine," she said, nonchalantly. "I answer to pretty much anything except m'Ura," she said, pronouncing the word as "murah". "It's my Cardassian name, and I hate it. Paisley was the name of one of my father's wives...she was his mistress first. Could you imagine asking your Bajoran wife to name her child after your human mistress?" Just one of 749477 reasons she hated that man. "What on earth is Nori?" She asked, using a Human colloquialism. She reached out to finger a piece of the green foodstuffs. "Ooh, it's...weird feeling!" She said. Still, it SMELLED good, so she didn't care. Paisley ate just about anything, anyway.

"Its a kind of Earther sea plant," Jyl-eel taught. "I would use Tarkalean brine-grass, but I used the last of it a few weeks ago. I won't be able to get anymore until we return to the Alpha Quadrant. Nori is similar in taste? And the replicator knows how to make it."

Paisley leaned over and gave it a sniff. "OH! Seaweed!" She said. Her brain knew that!! She liked Asian style foods from Sol, and seaweed was weird, texturally, but tasted good. "We have a similar plant," she said.

Eekit, dressed casually in sweatpants and a dark t-shirt under a zipped-up hoodie, her black hair plaited into a braid that hung down her back, jerked her gaze up at the Cardassian name, followed so swiftly by Paisley's venom. "What's wrong with Cardassian names?" she asked, with deceptive neutrality, every line of her casually-dressed body suddenly stiff.

Paisley shrugged. "Nothing, per se. I just don't like MINE," she said. "It is just the Cardassian word for Paisley-the fabric. It's dumb," she rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Like, my father couldn't even have been bothered to care enough to think of something original," she said. "Even my grandmother's name would've been preferable. Rice Mesgad. Isn't that nice?" She asked.

Eekit's expression was flat. "I do speak Cardassian," she pointed out, an edge to her voice as Paisley explained her name. Perhaps if her hackles were not raised, she might have empathized with callous fathers. As it was, she barely had enough grace to incline her head stiffly and agree, "A lovely name." Without further conversation, she returned to the task Jyl-eel had given her: nori.

Paisley shrugged. "I am sure you speak a lot of languages!!" She said, cheerfully.

Working cautiously around Paisley's hand, Eekit carefully picked up the seaweed, as though it would break. There was precedent-- the last lot she'd tried to hand to Jyl-eel had crumbled in her hands. Once it was safely in the Valt's concoction, she turned to the azarq. "Um... chopped?" she asked, clearly out of her element entirely, "I'm not--" Eekit's statement cut off as her mind, derailed by her defensiveness, caught up to the rest of what Paisley had brought-- and the Carjoran's seriously unique sense of style. She couldn't help staring for a long moment that bordered on rudeness. "Anyway, welcome," she managed to mutter, mustering her wits and tearing her eyes off the oddly-colored woman to turn to the room in general and demand, "and why the hell does everyone have kanar except me? I'm the Cardassian!"

To this, the coy Valt curled a smile and gently shrugged a single shoulder.

Paisley stiffened for just a brief moment when the other woman had appeared. She was clearly a hybrid-how would this Cardassian respond to that? She'd find out, she guessed. "Hello," Paisley said, aloud. "I have Kanar because Gul F'Rar sent it to me last year. He was getting married AGAIN and I think it was a peace offering," she said. "Can I do something?" She asked.

Jyl-eel smiled at the brightly-clad newcomer. "If you would set places at the table, that would be lovely," she requested of the Bajoran-Cardassian. "So Gul F'rar, are they a parent?" She asked, ever-interested in helping expand her family's mercantile businesses, though the dripping venom Paisley seemed to have toward the figure gave her pause. "My father does a lot of trade within the Union and some of the independents around them. Malkalians and Proxcynians. You know. Is F'rar worth trading with, or cutting out of trade?" She smiled.

"Yes, it's my father," she said. "My mother died when I was very young," she said. She looked around for the plates, and once she located them, began to place them carefully. She was always calculating and this helped her to form a unique pattern with the table setting. She wasn't artsy, but she thought it looked nice.

While Paisley explained her Kanar connection, Eekit asked in a low aside to Mei, "Is popcorn that stuff that's mostly air?"

“Yes, mostly air but enough substance that you can put all sorts of seasonings or other toppings on it. I like caramel, but you’d probably find that a bit too sweet.” Mei grinned and pushed aside the sliced bits from the first vegetable, carefully wiped the knife off with a rag, and held a hand out for the azarq. “And you’re not the only one who doesn’t have Kanar. I don’t have any, either. Now give me that before you squish it.”

Eekit scowled at the thought of caramel on anything, but at Mei's admonition, abruptly snatched her hand back from the azarq's bowl, shaking salt water from her fingers and peering through the disturbed water to see if she had indeed squished the fungus-like objects. Finding them only mildly bruised, she fished them out and handed them to Mei with extreme care, looking abashed. "You don't even like it," she countered of the kanar, "so it doesn't count. She just came on board!" Of course, this last reason was precisely why Paisely might have kanar when she herself did not, but the significance of that did not seem to dawn Eekit.

Paisley laughed. "Most of us don't LIKE it," she said. "We drink it because it's tradition!" She said. "Anyway, if you'd like some, I do have some, though I offered some Springwine, too. I can just run down the hall to my quarters and grab it. I will probably only drink iced tea, though, with the meal," she said. She retrieved the intricately carved bottle of blue, viscous liquid from her bag, and offered it to Eekit. "Here," she said, holding out the bottle. "It's aged in Jumja barrels. Old as me, likely," she said.

"Speak for yourself," Eekit muttered. She actually did like it, if only for the taste of home. And then, all at once, she was being offered the beautiful bottle and she took it more out of surprise than real gratitude. Her dark eyes were wide as she held it carefully, raising it to the light and making the blue spirits glow in the kitchen lights. Lifting a browridge, she eyed Paisely speculatively over the graceful neck of the bottle. "A generous gift," she commented as she carefully placed it near the Tarkalean tea that was brewing just to one side of the hot stovetop.

Paisley smiled. "Enjoy it," she said. Paisley actually did also enjoy the drink, but she wasn't about to give her father the satisfaction. "Now I have a Kanar drinking buddy," she said. "Most of the others can't handle it. I had one guy at my last posting-one of those blustering types who thought he was the Prophet's gift to the Universe? Anyway, he tried some. Knocked him out for two days. I told him not to drink a full glass..." She laughed as she retold the story.

Jyl-eel had meanwhile re-indulged in the culinary-olfactory pleasures of cooking their dinner. Her fingers were deft and learned as she stirred their truffle-based dinner. She splashed some of her own Kanar into the dish and gave it a shake and a flip. She gave a count of ten to reduce the alcohol and then tilted it enough to set it flame. With a pretty roar of red and orange, the dish was set alight and then it snuffed itself as its easy alcohol was burned away. Jyl-eel then began to plate the dish and mentally started preparing her next dish.

"Table is ready. Can I do anything else?" Paisley asked. She didn't like to just sit around while other people worked but she did understand.

Mei pushed a couple of dishes toward her. “Take these,” she pointed first at the freshly sliced azarq, then at the second dish that was full of a reddish oil with bits of spice suspended in it, “and dip them in that, then set them aside. Make sure the azarq is fully coated. And be careful with them. They bruise easily. And my name’s Mei, by the way. Mei Ratthi. I’m in anthropology. What department are you in?”

Paisley nodded. "I can do that," she said. Carefully and gently, she began the task. She was concentrating, so her blue eyes were focused on the bowls. "Engineering," she said. "Anthropology? Neat." Paisley had a minor interest in science. Engineering was science-adjacent, really. "What do you do, exactly?" She asked. She accidentally bruised one, oops. "Oops, I bruised one. Sorry," she said, grimacing. Dumb fat, leathery fingers!!

“It’s alright. They’re still edible. I think it’ll just change the texture a bit. Some people don’t like the softer bits when it’s bruised, is all. It’s not the end of the world,” Mei said as she finished cutting the last azarq. She wiped the knife off again, then straightened. “As for what I do– I study people and their cultures. If you’re looking for practical reasons as to why you’d have anthropologists aboard a starship, I can provide them.” Her tone was wry, like this wasn’t the first time she’d expected to have do such a thing.

"Oh, makes sense," she said. "We meet aliens, you're the man of the hour," she said, nodding. "Not that we aren't all aliens, but...ya know," she said. She sniffed the air. "Smells so good," she said. "I am hungry," she said. "Any food not eaten sitting on a concrete floor with my head stuck in a Jefferies tube is ok with me," she said. Such was the life of an engineer.

The Valt smiled, meeting Paisley's eyes as she approached. "Nothing so grand as Jeffries ' Tube rations today, sorry to say," she said warmly. Jyl turned her eyes toward the Anthropologist, "Smells very nice, Mei," Jyl-eel complimented her Azarq while she carried her own dishes over to the table. She also brought her partially-used bottle of Kanar, smiling at Eekit and Paisley. "Apologies if I was interrupting. You were saying Mei, you are an Anthropologist? And Paisley, you are an engineer?" She paused, mentally pinning to ask the Bajoran-Cardassian what her engineering specialty was.

Paisley nodded. "No, I think I was interrupting. I do that, I apologize. Just tell me," she said. "Sometimes I miss social cues. It's something I am working on with the Counselors," she said. A part of it was her natural personality, but some of it was how she was raised-cloistered, a bit sheltered and naive, "Yes, I am an engineer. My speciality is Civil engineering. I was trained to build, ya know, actual buildings and bridges and infrastructure. That's why most of my assignments were Starbases but I was really missing ship life," she said. "I like the closeness of the crew. I can have many friends. You're more anonymous and remove on a Starbase, particularly a larger one," she said. "HQ is NUTS," she said, remembering her time there. She'd been "picked" for an assignment there as part of her post-Academy training, rebuilding parts of the Academy building that were outdated and needed refreshing. She took one of Jyl-eel's plates. "Let me help," she said, jumping quickly to the next topic.

Meanwhile, Jyl-eel turned the bottle's end to Eekit, offering for her to take it.

Eekit drifted over to the table with the rest of the comestibles, keeping half an ear on Paisley and Mei's conversation. She still hadn't entirely relaxed around the babbling engineer, but Jyl-eel's offering at least tickled a halfsmile out of her. The alcohol was, after all, the reason for the meal. She nodded to Jyl-eel and took the bottle, wafting its neck under her nose, letting the potent liquor burn her nasal cavities. Temptation tugged at her. A little sip couldn't hurt, right? Nothing ever happened on the mid shift anyway. And that damned shift had already stolen enough happiness from her life. With one swift movement, she tipped the bottle up and swallowed a quick gulp. All at once the hard lines of her ridged features eased, the suspicion and defensiveness melting as the taste raced along her tongue and burned down her throat. She sighed out and lowered the bottle, her halfsmile turning rueful as she tipped the vessel toward Jyl-eel in thanks.

Paisley chuckled. "That's how ya do it," she said. "Feel better? A bit like home, no?" She asked Eekit. She sat down, smiling, but waiting for the others.

Surprised to be addressed again by the engineer, Eekit shot Paisley a sharp glance. "Is it?" she asked, just as sharply. "What do you know of my home?" There was a dangerous undercurrent to the Cardassian's words, a warning for anyone listening carefully enough, her words an unpleasant counterpoint to Paisley's lively joviality.

Paisley shrugged. "Sorry, I just assumed you'd grown up on Cardassia Prime," she said. "But you know what they say about assuming, I guess. Anyway, my apologies." The Engineer hadn't missed the woman's tone-she just simply ignored it. "Kill them with kindness", though it wasn't a kindness often extended to her as a child on Cardassia. Until she'd become an adult and left, in fact, "kindness" wasn't a part of "kill them" that she had known. But she wasn't that- a killer, like her father, and his men-and she wasn't a pacifist, like her Bajoran mother. Stuck somewhere in the grey area of a no-mans land built of war and tragedy, she'd had to make her own kindness, and had vowed from early childhood that no one would feel badly on her account if she could help it. "Are you ready to eat?" She asked. "I am starving, and it smells so good!!" She loved food, and loved to eat.

“I am more than ready. I haven’t eaten since lunch, and if I don’t get something soon I think I’m going to start gnawing on the table. Here, Eekit, put those at the place settings, would you?” Mei handed the Cardassian a double handful of silverware tightly wrapped in paper napkins and gestured toward the table Debbie had pulled aside for their express use. Plates and bowls were already in place, though the glasses had yet to be filled with their various beverages of choice. “What does everyone want to drink?”

While Eekit wasn't precisely 'dead' of kindness, she was certainly taken aback by something in Paisley's easy apology, her expression nonplussed. On her, it just looked kind of grumpy-- Cardassian facial features were good at grumpy. By the time she'd regathered her wits to snap something scathing about where she grew up, Mei was at her elbow with the cutlery and she was neatly derailed. She juggled the wrapped silverware briefly before finally managing to stage them on the table where Mei had indicated, conveniently ending up across the table from Paisley, as far as was possible in the intimate little setting. "Want?" she asked, looking up from her task to flash a grin at Mei, quite at odds with her earlier scowl, "That entire bottle of kanar. But I still have to work the mid after this," the scowl returned, "so I guess I'm trying some of Jyl's leaf juice. Hopefully I replicated it right."

Paisley settled in. "Thank you, Mei," she said. "I will have some Springwine, and then some tea or water; whatever's easiest," the woman replied. "You are welcome to take the Kanar with you and finish it later, Eekit," she said. "I can also get some more," she offered. Her father owed her that much, after all.

The Cardassian mumbled something that might have been thanks, but equally might have been some kind of cursing. It was difficult to tell as she bent over the teapot, pouring her drink. Certaily, she didn't respond with good grace.

Jyl-eel had looked on at the gathering, her glass held close to her bosom and enclosed well in her hands. The Valt liked her alcohols warmer, so she could taste the nuances that cold might take away. She studied the women present, interspersed with drifting thoughts and idle curiosities about her and their workflows. She seemed reasonably intent to listen, though Eekit and Paisley's vastly differing styles made Tor a little uncomfortable.

She looked down and finally decided she was ready to eat some mushrooms. "Well all of this looks very delicious..." She said with a blossoming smile.

“Is it time to eat, then?” Mei asked as she placed the requested drinks around the table. She would have said ‘yes, of course’ based solely on the amazing scents in the air, but she wasn’t The cook or even A cook. She’d picked up a lot of odd little skills in her life, but cooking, sadly, was not one of them. “Or are you going to torment us with fantastic smells for a while longer?”

"I think it is," Jyl-eel said gently, a single nod and a single blink of her eyes as she picked up her fork. In truth she was quite hungry and the umami and savory smells in front of her stirred her appetite.

"Yes, the answer is yes," Eekit cut in, "I am not giving Jyl-eel a chance to torture us further. Again," she added with a mock-sour look at her roommate. Perhaps the Cardassian was never going to forgive her that last drawn-out meal prep... Lifting her mug of Tarkalea tea in a toast, "To Jyl-eel's culinary skills and sense of the dramatic!" With that, she took a cautious sip of the tea, eyed it with unconvinced speculation, and took up her fork, piling it with her first bite and slipping it into her mouth without delay. She chewed speculatively, eyeing Jyl-eel closely as she attempted to keep her in suspense. Even so, she couldn't help the little curl of pleasure at the corner of her mouth.

Jyl-eel smiled bemusedly at Eekit. "I guess its back to the agonizer, then." She lifted her glass, humble and slightly blushing, "Please please, just eat."

Paisley laughed. "Well. You heard the lady," she said, settling in at the table, placing a glass of Springwine in front of her. "It DOES smell good!!" She smiled, and then raised her glass as Eekit called for a toast. "Cheers!" She said. She eyeballed the other woman, and then turned to Jyl-eel. "So. What do you do here?" She said, helping herself to some of the noodles. A moment later, her piercing blue eyes shut. "OHHHHH. That's GOOD," she said, in a low voice, then giggled a little. She smiled. "Sorry...I am just used to meals eaten on a greasy floor in the Hangars or piecemeal throughout the Jeffries' tubes. When I am not on duty...it's usually replicated," she explained. "I am a mess in the kitchen myself. It's weird, don't you think? Like I can put together an entire building-well, not by myself, obviously, but you know-but I can't boil water!" She shrugged. She had zero interest in it, and if things didn't hold her interest for longer than a few minutes, she grew bored quickly.

"My friend has told me about how you all eat down there. They really should give you engineers better replicator options on duty." Jyl-eel commented. "All he eats are fried cheese logs." She shook her head. "In some kind of a white sauce? Tangy."

Eekit, her fork halfway to her mouth, froze, blinking blankly at Jyl-eel. 'Fried cheese logs,' she mouthed, and then visibly shook herself clear of the mental image those three words had conjured, just managing to get her fork to her mouth without incident.

Paisley laughed. "Yeah!! Those things are so good but if I eat too many, I get sick. And yes, they should!! But what can you do?! I manage, I guess," she said. "Though we did manage to replicate an entire cheese pizza yesterday, so that was fun," she said. Paisley loved to eat, and kept fit so she didn't worry about her diet too much.

“I’m not much better. I learned a few things when we lived with my grandfather when I was little, but I’ve forgotten a lot of that,” Mei said, staring down at her plate like she couldn’t decide what to try first. “And it was Betazoid cooking, anyway, which is a lot different from this. Still, if you give me a basic task and directions, I can manage. Like with the azarq. I think I got them right, anyway. Do they taste alright? Now I’m second-guessing myself.”

Jyl-eel remembered her first- and last- taste of Betazoid food. It was some kind of leaf with warm sap inside. It was... atrocious. But she smiled along the delectable flavor of mushroom, kanar and springwine. She nodded enthusiastically. "The Azarq is lovely thank you Paisley."

"Thanks!" She said. "I've only had one Betazoid dish. The salad thing with the wide leaves?!" She said. She couldn't remember what it was called. "My last romantic...partner was Vulcan so we ended up eating a lot of vegetarian dishes. She was sweet, though, and really tried to at least try new things," Paisley explained. "I am glad it's at least edible," she said. "I DID panic a bit, I am not going to lie, especially when I accidentally smashed that one with my finger." Paisley was normally very deft and careful. "It wasn't great, the salad thing, but it was fun to try." The Engineer prattled on. "What about you, Eekit? Do you have favorite foods?" She asked.

"They're excellent," Eekit assured Mei. She actually wasn't sure which taste went with which food, for she was one of those people who piled everything together before shoving it in her mouth, but that didn't preclude her liking the azarq. As her own experience with Betazoid cooking was nil, she instead concentrated on washing down her bite with a swig of tea. The sound of her name startled her-- she'd been starting to tune Paisley out as she went on-- and she barely avoided jumping with surprise. "I mean, yeah. Most of them, you can't get in the Federation. Or at least," she cast a narrow-eyed glance at the engineer, "most people can't. I tell you what though, if you've never had Xahean ginger syrup on your-- well, on anything, you've never lived."

Xahean ginger syrup and syrup of Squill make the galacy go round?" Jyl-eel said with a sweet closed smile while she chewed. "Klingon coffee, Tarkalean tea and that flaky dry cheese Humans love." She looked perplexed a moment, "Parmesan. I think."

Paisley nodded. "Ooh, is that the stuff they put on pizza?" She asked, with a wrinkle of her nose. "I've never heard of Xahean ginger syrup. I must find it one day," she said. "For me, well..I am not one to ask. Most of my food is pretty much junk-I work in a department heavily male-some whose wives send them with food but we end up usually replicating a giant pizza or burgers or something. It's amazing I don't weigh three hundred pounds," she said. She was very active, though, and worked hard. She was lucky, too, to have a high metabolism. The only thing she couldn't handle much of was Sol dairy products, and the occasional Space stew made her belly hurt.

Eekit shot a sidelong glance at the Valt, asking suspiciously, "All together? That's a helluva replicator request." She flashed Jyl-eel a toothy grin to show she was teasing-- mostly. Hopefully Jyl-eel would forget the comment by the time Eekit remembered to try ordering up the strange concotion of Klingon, Tarkalean, and Human. Eyeing Paisley, she asked dubiously, "You work with people with wives?"

Before the engineer could answer however, Eekit suddenly stiffened and half-rose out of her chair, spitting, "Hăcet! How in the-- how is it that late already?" Apparently having caught sight of the chrono at the corner of one of Debbie's well-positioned terminal screens, she now pushed frantically to her feet. "I'm going to be late. How are you even late on something this small?" She shot a glare at Paisley, as though it were the newcomer's fault, and said Shit," in Federation Standard, just for completeness sake. Scooping up her tea, she knocked it back like it was rotgut whisky, grimacing a little at the sheer volume of liquid, and then lunged for her uniform jacket, which she threw on over her undershirt. Hopefully that would be good enough for the stupid mid shift.

"Thanks for dinner Jyl! Catcha later," she added with a wave toward Mei while she hurried for the door.. "Oh," she added over her shoulder to Paisley as an afterthought, "Nice to meetcha." Distracted as she was, it was difficult to tell whether the sentiment was genuine. Without another word, the Cardassian disappeared, leaving a moment's silence in her wake.

“Bye,” Mei finally said to the closed door. She chuckled. “At some point, you think she’d start paying attention to the time a little more. But this shift rotation has thrown her for a loop. She’ll be in a better mood when she’s had more sleep. In the meantime, though, I fully intend to enjoy dinner. It’s not often we have a home-cooked meal, so thank you again, Jyl.”

Paisley's head spun-a first in awhile for the woman. She was the one usually making people's heads spin. She smiled. "Nice to meet you," she said, and shrugged. Oh, well, she'd meet Eekit again, she figured. "Ah, yeah, Beta shifts are sometimes difficult to get used to," she said. "And yes, it's...rare for a Cardassian to be late, " Paisley noted. Interesting. "Anyway, yes, a lot of the Engineers have wives-it's a male-heavy occupation, but I don't mind," she said. "I find most of them to be pretty nice, and the ones that aren't? Well, there's not much that a couple of nights "accidentally" locked in a Jefferies' tube won't fix," she joked.

Jyl-eel's head almost spun with the sudden frenetic activity. "Oh. Ah well, thank you for coming." The pleasantly plump Botanist had begun to stand as the Cardassian had bolted out the door. She sat back down. "Very Cardassian trait," she agreed. She smiled slowly at the joke Paisley had made. She nodded at Mei. "My pleasure. Well. Cheers as the Humans say." She said, raising her glass.

Paisley smiled. "Indeed," she replied, raising her own glass. Weird Human trait that they'd all apparently picked up. She smiled. "What about you all? How do you guys find your departments so far?" She asked. "Where did you all transfer from? Or is this your first posting?" She just realized she was the "senior" officer of the group. Oops, acting like the fool. Oh, well. She didnt' take herself seriously off the clock, so why should anyone else?

"Science is quite different than most departments on a ship," Jyl-eel observed. "And this is a small ship. So much of the time, we are on our own because most of are the the only experts in our field aboard." Jyl-eel finished the lingering delights of her mushrooms. "I don't have a botanist colleague. I have a few science-trained yeomen who float through the different departments to help as we need. Inter-division meetings are rare. Lieutenant Durand trusted us to do our jobs. Most of my work is during away missions. So I don't need the sensor arrays." The Valt shrugged delightfully, "I am an introvert so it suits me."

Paisley nodded. "Neat!" she said. "My old ship had a full arboretum. I loved it," she said, helpfully. "I am the opposite of an introvert but I'll do my best to not overwhelm you," she said.

She smiled and, in matron fashion, he leaned to top off the drinks of both Paisley and Mei. "This is my second posting." She smiled at Paisley. "Well I know a couple of those boys are single, in your department. Socially awkward beyond belief but... single." She smiled knowingly. "Balsam and Parsons are a..." She chuckled cordially, "Very much in that category. Fairly sure they're both the single types." She smiled slyly. "Mulhern and Grav I know hardly at all. And I only know about the specialists in the computer core because Balsam talks shop." Her brows popped, "A lot." Her eyes turned to Mei.

Paisley snorted. "What are you implying?" She asked, smiling. "I am not looking for a mate, currently," she said. "Besides, Engineering isn't exactly the place to start looking. Buncha nerds we are," she said. That included herself.

Mei swallowed a bit of her food and took a hasty sip of her drink. “This is my first posting, and it’s certainly been a time. I hadn’t realized anthropology could be quite so alarming. I spent two years working on my Master’s degree on Andor’s northern polar region. I had an opportunity to study with the Aenar, and the higher-ups were willing to let me defer my first posting for a while. So here I am now. And I’ve recently made the absolutely insane decision to start work on my Doctoral, so I don’t think I’ll be very familiar with sleep once I start that.”

"Ooh! That DOES sound like fun," Paisley said. "But yes!! It is a LOT of work," she said. "That's why I haven't done mine yet. I have my degree in civil engineering, specifically. I like to build stuff," she said, sipping her drink.

Jyl mused softly at the delicacy of the last few bites of her food. "What do you like to build? That seems like a very common engineer's trait." She sat back and looked at Mei. "Andor is an absolutely stunning world. And such incredible biothermal flora. Imagine, warm-sapped moss that can create oases of temperate climates. Small pockets of loveliness." She smiled, remembering seeing an arboretum devoted to just such cold climes, yet cold did not mean colorless.

Paisley shrugged. "Mostly buildings," she said. "That's really where my skills are. Not sure how I figured I was going to extrapolate that to Starfleet but it's worked out, I suppose," she said. "It's definitely helped for things like First-Contact situations," she said. "The last actual building I built was part of a hangar at my old posting-a refueling station," she explained. She moved on. "Andor, huh? Is it really cold, like they say?" She asked. She'd never been there.

“It gets so cold on Andor. Especially in the polar regions, where I spent most of my time. There are more temperate areas with some fantastic plants, I’m sure,” Mei raised her glass to Jyl, “but I didn’t really spend any time there. It was gorgeous in the Wastes, though. Don’t let the name fool you. I’ve got a holoprogram I recorded of some of our jaunts outside, and the colors are amazing. The Aenar are fantastic, too. They were so gracious and made a lot of accommodations for us. Zero regrets. Would do it again. I wish I could have the luxury of being able to focus on my doctoral like I did my master’s, but alas. Nope.” She looked over at Paisley. “I think you and my sister would get along. She’s a structural engineer. Civilian, not Starfleet, but whatever. She’d be happy to talk your ear off about materials and wind sheer and whatnot. It all went right over my head when she talked to me about it.”

Paisley laughed. "That happens a lot. We tend to forget that most people don't find the differences between Earth timber and Martian timber all that fascinating," she said. "I would like to see your holo!! I like learning about new places. I've never been to Andor and it's on my list of Federation planets to visit," she said. "I'd like to see them all, if I can," she said. " I feel like learning about all the Fed worlds is how we forge peace from now on," she said, nonchalantly. It wasn't some big lofty ideal for Paisley-it was a lived experience. She had had to learn to accept and adapt to different worlds due to both her heritage and her father's work, and she learned that with a little understanding of other cultures, you could go a long way to make friends. "I have considered pursuing more education, but indeed....it's difficult maintaining a career AND school, and I don't even have a family, too..."

“Same. I may end up questioning my sanity once I’m neck-deep in my doctoral program. It’s a crazy idea, really. There aren’t enough hours in the day as it is. But here we go.” Mei finished off the last bite of her food. “But back to holoprograms– I have a bunch of them if you want to experience some other places. I’ve made some little recording of pretty much every place I’ve been since I was about fifteen, so that number’s starting to get up there. You’re welcome to take a look on the holodeck, with or without me.”

"Your holos sound like a lovely time. Have you got one of Balosnee by chance?" Jyl-eel mused with a smile. She leaned her chin on her wrist. "The colors of the sky and the sound of the wind through the wind harps is supposed to be very relaxing." She gestured that off, "Have either of you ever been in a holo-program set in a place we could never go? Well, like this?" She gestured at their forms. "Like... Tholia."

Paisley shook her head. "No...but that's a cool idea. We could do that after we eat-and clean up!" She said. "I've always wondered what Cestus III was like!" She said, with a laugh. "But in a safe way. I never want to meet one of those...creatures," she said, shivering. Ew.

“I’ve never been to Balosnee, but when you describe it like that, you make me want to go. Maybe there’s a holo of it in the ship’s library? Or we can check out Cestus III. Or the oceans of Europa. I’ve heard they’re pretty amazing. I am usually in the mood for an adventure. Just point the way,” Mei said, her face alight as she looked back and forth between her dinner companions. “Once we clean up here, where are we going?”

Paisley perked up a little. "Oh, that would be fun, too!! Bajor, even!" She said. "Oh...uh. I'll think about it!" She said. She ate a bit more, careful to not spill anything on her outfit. "Mei, any ideas?" She posited to the other woman. "Maybe someone or something you'd like to see?" She asked. "Ancient Egypt, on old Sol, so I could see how they built those pyramids!" Ever the Engineer, wasn't she?! "Just ideas!" She added, hastily. No need to bore new people.

Jyl-eel too turned her attention to Mei, the resident Anthropologist. Perhaps there was a way of combining relaxation and their interests. She knew little of this Ancient Egypt place. "There might be..." is all she added regarding a program about Balosnee. It was, of course, near Ferengi territory. If Starfleet didn't have one, maybe the extended archives would allow a purchase on the data market.

“I don’t have anything on ancient Egypt, either,” Mei said with a faint frown. “I’m no help here. We spent about six weeks on Kriszt, and that was a desert planet. I think it’s the only desert planet I have in my own library. I don’t think they had any pyramids. They were all about shaded arches and tunneling into rock forms. But anyway. I think we’ll need to rely on whatever the ship’s computer has on file for now, so hopefully they’ll have either ancient Egypt or Balosnee. I haven’t see either one, so I have no preferences. Should we– what’s the saying? Flip a coin? And see which one to go with?”

Paisley nodded. "That's the term, yes," she said. She fished around in her pockets-the Engineer kept many things in her pockets-all of them, all the time. She came up with a washer. "We can mark it," she said, also unearthing a grease pencil she usually used to mark measurements on wood. It'd do, though. She set the items on the table. "Either would be fine!," she said. "You want to flip it?" She asked, after quickly doodling a star on one side, and a moon on the other. "Star is Egypt, and moon is Balosnee!" She handed the washer to Mei. "Good luck!" She turned to Jyl-eel. "You call it. Say which you think it'll land on!" Her time on Earth finally proved useful.

"Star," Jyl-eel said as she watched the disk shape flip and turn. She as eagerly leaned toward the result, curious of where their escapade would take them.

Mei watched the washer rise and then fall, reached out to catch it, and nearly dropped it on the floor. She managed to catch it in one hand, her fingers closing around it before she could fumble it completely. “Oops,” she said, laughing. “Almost messed that one up. Let’s see what we’ve got.” She uncurled her fingers and revealed the washer sitting there, moon-side up. “Looks like it’s Balosnee.”

"Balosnee awaits then." Jyl-eel cheered and finished her drink.

A Post By:

Lieutenant Paisley F'Rar
Assistant Chief Engineer

Ensign Eekit Drol
Security Officer

Ensign Jyl-eel Tor
Botanist

Ensign Mei Ratthi
Anthropologist