"Lo" Tea
Posted on Wednesday May 6th, 2020 @ 19:50 hours by Lozen Nachtnebel
Mission:
Safe Passage
Location: Deck Two, SS Fawkes
Timeline: MD02 - 13:30 hours
822 words - 1.6 OF Standard Post Measure
Lozen looked at the duffle bag sitting on the cot – her cot, her new bed aboard the Fawkes. It looked small – was small, really, just containing enough for the basics of hygiene and travel. A few mementos of her old life. A life she would never return to now.
She sighed, went over and began unpacking. Thoughts like that did nothing to help, she told herself. Nothing at all to help. She tried to clamp down on them, to make herself think and feel only what she wanted, but the effort just drained her and left her with a hollowness that was almost worse than feeling the pain of the last two years. Of course, that was the whole point of the Fawkes, of shipping out of Starfleet space, of getting as far from Earth and the Fleet and her old life as she possibly could. Maybe, if she could put enough lightyears between her and her memories, she could find herself – or at least find a version of herself that she could spend time with.
The photo her parents went on the little nightstand, wood frame out of place on the worn aluminum. Arnold Nesmeth and his wife smiled out of their frozen depths into the room, his beard already salt and pepper while Adeweild Nachtnebel managed to look as youthful as a woman half her age. Lo stared at her mother’s frozen smile. Her dark red hair fell across her shoulders, her eyes dark pools which reminded Lo too much of her new captain.
Lo turned away and picked up her PADD. Three rejected offers for May’s one acceptance. Three COs interested enough to dig into her backstory and find the hint of scandal. A Maquis mother, an AWOL father… and herself: a close confidant of a disgraced Fleet Captain. Not the best resume. She looked down at the messages from May and wondered if her new captain did know about the finer points and simply did not care. She struck Lo as a hard woman to read – a thought which forced a bitter smile to her lips, if only for the sake of the pun.
“Well… I’m here now," she said to herself. "Here now and good riddance to the others. One branch off the tree. Feet on the path, woods or no.” She gave the photo one last look. “I think you’d like it here, Dad. It has something about it that reminds me of you.”
---
After putting away her clothes and the few other little odds and ends she owned, Lo made her way to the middle of Deck Two where, earlier, May had pointed out the Mess Hall and its tiny lounge. This time of day the place appeared empty save for a man leaning up behind the serving counter, his attention fixed on the PADD he held. She must have just missed the lunch crowd.
“Hi,” he said as Lo approached. “I’m on fry duty today, I guess. Anything I can get you?”
“Can your replicator do tea? English tea—I mean, ‘low tea?’”
The man shrugged, his clean-shaven face slipping into a slight smile – not wide enough to show his teeth but enough to bring out the strong lines of his jaw. “I do not know what that is, myself. I think the replicator will, though. Fawkes has a big database.” He turned and went to the kitchen replicator. “You're a passenger?”
Lo shook her head. “Crew. Just signed on about two hours ago.”
“Oh?”
“New Quartermaster. Lozen. ‘Lo’ is fine though.”
“Onyx,” said the man, tossing her another of his small smiles. “Just a deck hand here. Doing the gritty work that needs to be done. Now, let’s see…” he began typing in a query on the replicator panel. “Yeah… Earth recipes… English… there’s a preset alright.”
A moment later he brought a big tray back to Lo on which lay a plate heaped with an assortment of tiny sandwiches and a big china pot covered in little blue flowers from which wafted the strong scent of black tea. Onyx blushed a little when he handed it over and his fingers brushed against Lo’s. She decided, at that moment, that she liked him.
“Thanks, Onyx,” she said. “I’ll see you around?”
“Sure… uh, I’d like that.” He flushed again.
---
Back in her room, Lo settled herself into the little armchair provided with the space and poured herself a cup of tea. The sandwiches were a selection of favorites, including ham salad and cucumber, and she ate one daintily while opening up a connection to the Fawkes’s computer from her PADD. Fleet experience or no, running supply for a ship like this was – Lo had the feeling – going to be a very different sort of job.
[OFF]
Carl Clark IX
Deck Hand (NPC)
&
Lozen Nachtnebel
Quartermaster
S.S. Fawkes
