About "That" Guy

Posted on Tue Mar 3rd, 2026 @ 2:03am by Lieutenant Commander Emni t'Nai & Lieutenant Tork

Mission: Port of Call
Location: Executive Officer's Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 17 at 2000

[XO's Quarters, Deck 2, USS Sojourner]
[MD 17, 2000 Hours]

Emni dropped onto the couch next to Tork with a whumpf of exhaustion. Somehow, despite being at port, the last 4 days had been intensely busy. For the first time since they're arrival at Pathfinder Station, she had been able to eke out more than just enough time for a meal with Tork and she was both grateful and amazed at how quickly she'd come to miss seeing him more regularly. How, on a ship this small, had it turned out that they had so little time she could not have said.

Shimmying, she shifted until she was pressed against the man's side, leaning into his shoulder. She sighed appreciatively and then leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek. "Hungry?" she asked.

Tork's lips curled into a small smile at the show of affection unconsciously as he looked over toward Emni, his attention on what he'd been reading having been broken. "I could eat. You in the mood for something here, something at the diner, the station?" The tone that had accompanied the question signaled that the Ferengi had no real strong opinion about any of the options, he'd merely presented them as a way to move the conversation along toward a decision.

"Here," she said without pausing to think. "I'd just as soon not have to talk to anyone other than you. Besides it's been a bit since we had this much uninterrupted time." Despite the confirmed desire for food she snuggled closer, sighing softly at the ease of the moment. "Someone really needs to design a replicator that can deliver food directly to your couch so you don't have to get up."

"If you add a transporter signal relay into the pattern buffer of the replicator, it could... theoretically... transport your meal anywhere that the transporters are capable of reaching," the Ferengi said in a matter-of-fact tone that sounded a lot more certain than he was trying to make it sound like he was about it.

Emni's eyebrow crept up in amusement, catching the bravado of the claim. "Sadly, the replicator does not currently do that." She sighed, psyching herself up to move. "Pizza?" She asked, stalling. "Wings? The finest Ferengi caviar?" A soft chuckle at the last escaped her, quiet enough that it would be felt more than heard.

"Hew-mon pizza is fine. I'm not interested in the wings, but don't let me stop you from having some. And you know it isn't considered 'the finest Ferengi' anything if you can made it in a replicator. The whole point is to obtain it in a way that is far too expensive and avoids modern convenience of any kind," Tork said with a shrug as his eyes drifted back to the data pad in his hand.

Deliberately she put a hand over the output on the data pad, gently pressing it to indicate she wanted him to put it down. "We are done working," she said softly, but firmly. "I am not above using my feminine wiles to enforce this."

"Nor am I above making you use them to get what you want," the Ferengi teased before he tossed the device onto the nearby table like he was discarding an old part that had ceased to be at all useful, "But you aren't wrong. Work will always be waiting for me tomorrow. No need to fill my evenings with it too."

The toss of the padd was rewarded with a wide grin. Levering herself out of the comfortable shelter of his shoulder, Emni twisted, finding his lips quickly and making use of the aforementioned wiles for a few seconds before disengaging to leave the couch. She shot a mischievous look over her shoulder that made it clear she knew exactly what she had done before pausing in front of the replicator.

"Small hand tossed pizza. Standard recipe, extra cheese and pepperoni," she ordered, glancing back at Tork quickly. "Drink?" She asked.

"Maybe something with some citrus in it... maybe a lemonade since we're going with hew-mon food choices tonight," the Ferengi said after moment's thought.

Two lemonades were added to the request and a few moments later the aforementioned food was produced. Two trips brought both requested sustenance and Emni back to the couch, the tray and cups arrayed on the small coffee table. The Romulan perched on the edge of the couch, evaluating which slice to grab first when she asked, "How was your day?"

"Weird," Tork said as he nabbed a piece of the pizza Emni had replicated and leaned back onto the couch, "Had some weirdo harass me while I was trying to get some parts put together for the refit. Real good at double speak but terrible at getting to the point."

Emni, too, snagged a piece of the pizza, using her fingers to press a slight dent into the crust to keep the slice from drooping before she brought it to her mouth. She settled back, not quite curled up against Tork to eat, but still closely comfortable. "Was he looking for the same parts or something?" she asked, wrinkling her nose in solidarity. They were in the Delta Quadrant, after all, and misunderstandings were bound to happen.

"No, he was trying to size me up for some reason. Kept blathering on about how my skills might be useful if things go sideways, but also some sass about me lack of discipline or something. I'll be honest, Em, after he started talking himself in circles I stopped giving the conversation my full attention. He was trying so hard to be all Vulcan about everything... but it really was coming off forced. Probably why I like you Romulan types so much better, not afraid to show a guy a smile sometimes," the Ferengi said as he gave the woman's thigh a squeeze with his free hand.

Emni stilled under the hand that was now resting on her thigh and lowered the slice of pizza that she had been about to take another bite of. She turned to look at Tork, brows knitting. "Did this Vulcan have a name?" she asked with an unusual amount of intensity.

"Karmin? Krammit..." Tork tested out a few names that seemed familiar but not quite right before landing on it, "Karim, that's the one. Why? You know him?"

A complicated serious of emotions raced across the Romulan's face as Tork settled in on the very familiar name she had hoped he wouldn't say. "Commander Karim, of the Pathfinder Project," she said with a quiet intensity that seemed to mirror the complicated emotional reaction. "Yes. I know him. He's a former... patient. And..." she frowned, brow furrowing as she sought out the right descriptor, "a friend," she finally added. "At least I am his friend."

Pizza forgotten she shifted on the couch, turning bodily so that she was facing the Ferengi. "Do you remember what, exactly, he wanted from you?"

"He didn't seem to want much of anything. He talked around a few things, mostly contingency stuff that people up top generally worry about, but he didn't ask me for anything specifically. I felt like he was trying to play head games and... well... I wasn't really in the mood so I didn't indulge it. Threw him a few curve ball scenarios and he seemed to get the hint that I wasn't fragile enough to crack from some sass mouth and he sauntered off like he'd won something. An 'all teeth, no latinum' kind of guy, if you ask me."

Tork shoved the slice of pizza into his maw and chewed for a few moments before shrugging, "If you're worried he's acting out some version of a jilted lover's act, Vulcan-style, you probably shouldn't. Commander he may be, but intimidating he was not in the least."

Emni blinked, eyed Tork as he finished the mouthful he'd just spoken around, and opened her mouth to speak.

Then closed it.

"We weren't... lovers..." she said carefully, not sure what else to say in response to that. "But also if Karim is going to go around interrogating any of my officers--whether they share my bed or not--he should be notifying me. Unless this seemed more informal?"

She frowned again, considering. Perhaps this was just Karim's way of putting eyes on someone he knew was important to her.

"It didn't seem overly official, no. And given what I know of officers like him, he probably assumed that he didn't need to report it to you. Would you go telling someone every time you had a chat with a person in a maintenance alcove? Pretty sure that's all it was to him, a chat with someone he's heard about but doesn't have a firm grasp of. And I am nothing if I'm not slippery when I want to be," the Ferengi grinned.

The Romulan met his grin with an affectionate, but put upon, pursing of her lips. "Yes," she said drily, "I know this from personal experience, but I doubt Karim would be interested in that type of slippery." She did doubt it, too, though more when it came to Tork than any outright lack of interest on Karim's part.

"I'm glad you've met him, though," she added after taking a moment to eat a few more bites of the slice she'd been ignoring while they spoke. The cheese had cooled slightly, but still hit the proverbial 'spot'. "He's a friend." There was something in the way she said friend that hinted, again, at complexities. "You might even find you like him... when he's not interrogating you, of course."

"I might," Tork shrugged as she snagged another slice, "Can't say his first impression was a great one, but maybe he isn't such a tube slug in the mud when you remove whatever's lodged in his exhaust gets removed. I've seen stranger things happen."

This elicited a snort from the Romulan who, with a mouth full of pizza, then had to cup her hand over her mouth for fear of accidentally spitting something out. "You win creative euphemisms for 500 points," she commented drily once she'd rapidly chewed and swallowed the bite. She popped each finger that had been holding the slice into her mouth, one at a time, sucking off any grease, before reaching for another.

Settling back again she shifted into the curve of his arm and popped the pointed end of the slice into her mouth. The saltiness of the cheese mixed with the citrusy sweetness of the sauce made her smile as she chewed. "So, you still owe me a round of kal-toh," she mentioned. "And I believe you'd mentioned teaching me dom-jot. We never did get to those two."

"You're right, I do owe you a round of kal-toh. And since you found that missing piece... unless you don't have the old set anymore and only have a new one... either way, we could have a round or two of that. Can't rig up a dom-jot table in here without some... creative engineering. Not sure if this ship has the holoprojector grid set up to support that or not..." Tork paused when he noticed Emni's eyebrow float up at his mention of not knowing a technical detail, "I've been overhauling the ship, haven't looked at the entire schematics plan for what was on board before we started gutting it. If they were planning to change something like that in this refit, I would know about it in the newest technical drawings. No point in cluttering up my head with things that won't be there tomorrow, right?"

Emni smirked, unable to help her amusement. "A likely story," she remarked wryly despite the sense of Tork's explanation. "Unfortunately, though, I do not have that kal-toh set anymore. I'll get it set up on the table in a minute. First, though," she waved her now half eaten slice in the air.

"Yes, we can't play a mind game without mind fuel," the Ferengi smirked.

One eyebrow creeping upward, Emni didn't bother to respond. Instead, she took her next bite.

--- A Debrief with Dinner by ---

Lieutenant Commander Emni t'Nai
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Tork
Chief Engineer