Read Me

Posted on Wed Feb 5th, 2025 @ 12:37am by Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Irynya

Mission: Mean Green Queen
Location: Irynya's Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 21 at 2230

[Debbie's Diner]
[MD 21; 2130]
[Shortly after Blue Light Special]

"I'm pretty sure B'Tano thinks I'm taking advantage of you."

This was delivered in a flurry of speech as Irynya flopped backward onto her bed, arms and legs spread in a pose that roughly resembled a starfish and, caused the fluffy comforter to make a whumph-like sound at the impact. "Or something like that," she continued. She stared up from her position at Noah, widening her eyes meaningfully as she met his. "I swear he wanted to say something when we left. It felt like his eyes were going to burn a hole in my head."

Noah had stayed standing, hovering near the edge of the bed. His face, for much of their walk back, was flushed and a little conflicted. But when they arrived in Debbie and Irynya's quarters, and swept into Irynya's room without delay, Noah rounded his eyes. "I-I don't feel taken advantage of... so... don't worry. I just didn't expect it to go like that. Or find it that way. Uh, c-can I use your terminal? Real fast?" Noah pointed at Irynya's wall unit and small work area.

"Oh," Irynya responded as if she was realizing she'd forgotten her manners. With a wriggle she pulled her limbs in and rolled onto her stomach propping herself on her elbows as she said, "Yeah, of course. You don't even have to ask. What's mine is yours." She watched Noah move to the terminal and wriggled again until she was laying across the bed and facing him... or rather the back of him... as he accessed the terminal.

"I didn't mean to suggest you felt used," she added, continuing her earlier thought. "More that B'Tano probably has a wrong idea of... umm... what we were up to. But even then it doesn't matter. I know you said he's a stickler. I just..." she trailed off realizing that her own thoughts were unclear and she wasn't really sure how to explain herself. She just wanted B'Tano to lighten up and to not give Noah a hard time... ever. Whether it was about her or the echoing jeffries tube or the game... But whatever kind of reaction B'Tano might have to any of it was really out of her hands. "I'm not making sense," she finally amended.

"Thanks..." Noah approached Irynya's terminal, his back three-quarters perspective to his friend. He chuckled and looked over his shoulder. "I-I can handle Crewman B'Tano. He's kind of a jerk but.. it-it sounded like he was used to what we were doing. Which kind of makes me wonder how many times he's seen people do it under false pretenses."

From the bed Iry made a contemplative sound of affirmation, turning the thought over in her head. He was right... there had to be others for B'Tano to make such a claim. But how many more could there actually be?

Noah's fingers had been in motion the whole time. And with a final beep he uttered an, "Ah!" sound. "Interesting." He pinched at Irynya's screen and then flung it to the wall. The holographic systems in the Risian's computer picked it up and projected it. What appeared was the pleasantly average face of a warm brown-skinned man with blue eyes, a shaved head and a Risian symbol in the middle of his forehead. "Anbeo Rittu. Native of Risa. Propulsions Construction Specialist, Petty Officer First." Noah gestured at the image. "That-may be uh our guy. There are two other Risians on the Antares Yards staff. But they both work in logistics and supply."

Iry nodded slowly, taking in the visage that now stared out from her wall. He was a shade or two darker than her own skin, but with the same year-round tan sort of appearance and blue eyes that stood out in contrast all the more for it. His symbol was ever so slightly different from her own, marking him from a different family and, she suspected from his skin tone and eyes, from a different part of the planet altogether. Risians in Starfleet were, still, something of a novelty. Not completely absent, but rare enough all the same. "Could be," she said, bending her legs at the knee so that her feet met, one cupping the back of the other about a foot behind her head.

She twisted her mouth to the side trying to puzzle through the whole thing and looking for connections between the Antares-horga'hn, the man in front of her, and the game. Finally she dropped her head, staring at the comforter beneath her arms as she said. "I feel like I'm missing something."

Noah smiled, straightening his back, "I-I think you're overthinking this. I um think we've found the game. We found coordinates. Now I think-" He pointed at the man, "- We've found the uh, designer of it. We've found the basilisk- the data is in the symbols. They're encoded. Now we uh need to use your console to unlock the code. Which I'll do now."

"Oh," Irynya answered a bit sheepishly as her legs dropped back to the bed and then shimmied back into a lotus position with her hands dangling off her knees at the wrist. "Good call."

Noah tapped and swept at the terminal. The sigil zoomed in and blinked, then pulsed with a scanning light. It flashed and a blank bar appeared with a blinking cursor. Noah smiled and pointed. "We're in. I think. See? Confirm Player One." Noah chewed his lip, "Did I put my name in first on Deb's replicator, or did you?"

"I'm pretty sure you're Player One," she said. She was moving again, this time scooting toward the edge of the bed as if her body simply couldn't find a comfortable... or still... position to stay in while the mystery was unraveling. She gripped the edge of the bed with her palms, wrapping her fingers along the sides and hunching her shoulders as she did.

"OK," Noah replied while his fingers tapped in his name. He entered it.

The screen flashed, "Confirm Player Two." It stated.

Sliding off the bed, Iry came to stand next to Noah, her shoulder brushing his slightly as she leaned in to enter her own name. The screen flashed again, Iry's name disappearing with the flash and the cursor returned at the top of the blank screen, blinking. She glanced sideways at Noah's face wishing she had some idea of what he was thinking before the cursor's movement drew her eyes back to the console.

The word, "Welcome", appeared on the screen one letter at a time as though someone where on the other side of the conversation typing out a reply. The screen flashed again and presented them with a list; or the beginning of one. Two items at the top appeared clearly marked:

1. Kali-fal
2. Geocache

Beneath them the numbers continued down the screen, but the words behind each were blurred as if locked. Once the full blurred list filled the screen it flashed again and presented them with an image of a spinning ball. Numbers appeared and disappeared in rapid and random order on the ball until finally it settled and flashed the number at them.

5

"Five?" Irynya asked, more out of necessity to say something than any real desire for confirmation.

The list appeared again and this time the fifth item down was unveiled.

What's in a Name?

Noah's face had resumed its quizzed and conflicted eye scrunch. "What's in a name?" He blinked. And then the Ensign turned to the Chief Helmswoman. "By the uh, way. I noticed this designer had two names. Is it... like..." Noah shrugged, "Anbeo Rittu or is it Anbeo-rittu?" He tilted his head, "Do you have a second name and you just prefer to go by Irynya? I can't believe tha-that's never come up." His eyes rounded, "I-I mean, I have three names... and a suffix. But..." He blinked and looked at the Risian, waiting to be taught.

Noah's line of questioning momentarily distracted from the list on the screen in front of them. “Anbeo Rittu,” Irynya answered automatically, carefully creating space between the given name and surname of the game’s architect.

She had mirrored his movement when he turned, instinctively matching the openness of the movement, but now shifted back to the bed, sitting towards the middle so that there was plenty of space for Noah to sit next to her if he wanted.

“Risian families are usually identified by our ja’risia.” She pointed vaguely at the round golden mark between her eyes. “But there is a spoken version of the name. Mine…” she paused then gestured at her friend to communicate that the name belonged to Noah as well, “ours is Keora.” She pronounced it slowly, the sound coming out as, Kay-ORE-Uh. Like her given name, Irynya gave the softest roll to the r syllable in the middle, a minor difference in the sound, but one that many missed when pronouncing her name.

"So... Irynya Keora, or Keora Irynya?" Noah asked.

“On Risa you'd say it, Irynya of the family Keora," she answered with a smile that was, almost, shy. "I don't think I've actually said my family name out loud to someone who wasn't Risian since I left home." Her expression softened ever so slightly as she made that admission. "Our family name is, on Risa, very old and our mark is easy to recognize. Many families simply rely on their marks as identification rather than writing out a surname. Some, though, choose to articulate their surnames in writing the same way they do their given names. It’s mostly down to preference and ease. I’m sure Anbeo found it easier to simply list a written last name for his Starfleet record. The ja’risia are harder for outsiders to read.” Absently her hand rose to the bridge of her nose, rubbing slightly just below the golden mark.

"Oh. Okay." Noah bobbed his head. "What if there's more than one Irynya in the Keora?" He asked. He paused with a grimace. "Maybe I-I'm thinking too far into things that don't happen. But on ancestral Earth, a city might've had a lot of Johns. or Kims. or Juans. Surnames helped but... sometimes you had a few John Smiths in a city. Or Kim Lis. Then we had to get inventive. I guess. I-I ask because I'm not the only Noah Balsam."

"Ah," she said. "No, you're not overthinking it. I mean..." she shrugged slightly and gave him another half shy smile. "We're big on genealogy. When a family has a child they consult their family's registry. If there are no others living with the name then they can select it. If there are then they must choose another. As long as I am alive I am the only Irynya in my family." Now her smile spread full, "And you're certainly the only Noah. You'd be Noah of the family Keora and if you have your ja'risia in place people would recognize you as part of my family. Within the family you would be Noah of the family Keora, first graft of his line. Meaning you were adopted in... at least in your case. It's similar for spouses marrying in."

"That sounds like... a lot of paperwork." Noah smiled as he shifted from the controls. He swayed some, and chuckled. "I'm the third Noah in my family. My Dad uh, is a Noah. And his Dad was the first one. And we're all named after, uh, basically my... five greats grandfather." He shrugged. "Some families on Earth make it, um, a point to use the same names in a line. Never been really sure why?" "Mmm, anyway. Noah Keora. It sounds nice but... also, does that thing ever?" He gestured at his own forehead to indicate her ja'risia. "Itch or feel weird? I feel like I'd always be really aware of my forehead if I had one. How do you avoid that?"

Her eyes rolled upward as if she could see her own ja'risia giving the comical effect of appearing to stare hard at the ceiling. "Honestly I feel weird without it," she answered. "I mean..." The corners of her mouth twitched downward in a thoughtful frown. "It's very... intimate... to go without it. That probably sounds odd, though." She hastily added, "and didn't really answer your question. The paints are usually created specifically for your skin. I.. uh... didn't get a chance to do that with yours. I just used my own. So... yeah... it probably itched. Sorry about that."

Noah shrugged goodnaturedly, his nose wrinkling, "It's probably not the paints... I have sensitive skin. But I guess I see what you're saying. Like you'd feel naked without it. I'd feel that way without my commbadge. Almost. Or maybe..." His eyes narrowed in thought, lips pursing. But after a moment, he shrugged. "Well... I guess just commbadge really. Um." He glanced back at the terminal where Irynya sat and he'd been half-leaning. "What do you think that means? What's in a name?"

It was too tempting an opening to let him get away with so, ignoring his question for the moment, the Risian raised her eyebrows playfully. "Just a commbadge?" she asked adding a slight inclination of her head to the question as if doing so might make her intended meaning clearer. Her eyes danced with mischief, but before he could answer she added. "And how, umm, do you deal with keeping each other clear? If there's three living Noah Balsams..." she let the statement slide into a question and waited.

Noah's nose wrinkled. He didn't have enough time to think through an answer, or really to process what Irynya might have meant. He just held a look of confusion for the moment until his lips, cautiously, wet themselves and he began. "Age. We're different, uh ages."

Irynya took that answer at face value and nodded before she turned her eyes back to the screen where the list still appeared. She quirked her lips to the side, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she thought. "Can we... umm... ask it?" she suggested. "Like... is there a way to select number 5? I feel like it's always disappeared when it's done before... but then... we haven't really seen much of it yet, I guess." She knew she was making an assumption, but the name of the task seemed too little to go on. "Or maybe it'll be like this time and it'll give us a clue at some random time and we have to follow?"

"I don't know." He shrugged one shoulder up and down rather emphatically and for a moment- a brief one- he wondered if this game was more trouble than it was worth. He'd not really enjoyed wondering around in the warp coils and getting the stink eye from B'Tano. His nose wrinkled again. "I... don't know," he repeated. "If its anything more weird or... in-intrusive than the last one, I'm almost okay with saying leave it. I guess it depends on what the next one is and if its that hard to find."

Getting back to her feet the Risian resumed her spot next to Noah at the console. Almost wistfully her mind drew her back to Erolic and the magic of his thumbs pressed into the knotty parts of her shoulders. Their time on the holodeck felt much earlier than just a few hours ago. As if on cue, her she felt the pressure build in her chest and roll up through her neck until it released in a yawn. She turned her eyes from the console back to Noah. "Yeah," she agreed, "we can always stop if it seems too extreme." A tiny voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Debbie made mention of there being something that could happen if they didn't complete a task, but then she also trusted that Deb would never send them off to do something insidious with her blessing.

She moved for the console controls, eyes scanning the screen one more time. "We've been at this for a while," she said, as much thinking out loud as commenting to her friend, "and there's plenty of blurred out tasks here. I can't imagine the game intends us to go on without sleep or duty shifts." Her top lip found its way between her teeth and she tugged before releasing it. "I'd be happy to leave it here for now and give our brains a break. We have the basilisk file and can look at it again." Her hand hovered over the control to turn off the console. "What do you think?" she asked.

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes fluttering with a fatigue. "I-I think I'm done for the night. I have to be up early anyway. We're updating the software for the ventral sensor array." Noah straightened and then, placing hands backward on his hips, popped his back. He nodded consent for Irynya to just turn it all off. His eyes closed. "Mmm, think I'm heading to bed. After a shower maybe."

With a quick tap of Iry's fingers the console screen went blank and shifted to standby mode. "Me too," she replied a second yawn insistently rolling through her. She eyed her friend and then, since he already had his arms at the perfect angle for threading, she tucked her arms through his and hugged him. "You're welcome to crash here, you know?" she murmured against his chest. "If you don't feel like trekking back to your room, I mean. I'm sure Deb wouldn't care if you used our shower."

She pulled back and looked up at him not letting him go exactly, but making sure he could see the offer was sincere.

Noah smiled tiredly and sweetly at his friend. "Sometimes a guy just wants his own shower and his own bed. But thanks Iry." He leaned down and touched his cheek to hers, patting her arm. "I'll see you tomorrow. At some point?"

She nodded, squeezed him one more time, and released him, matching his smile with one of her own. "Definitely," she said.

A Post By

Lieutenant Irynya
Chief Helmswoman

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist