Posted by Fleet Captain Drudoc Andone (Commanding Officer) in Letters between Friends
[snip]

The pair caught up to Tel’eck who let out another whoop of victory as her PADD flashed with ‘A Winner Is you!’ on it with a big happy smiley face. Looking up turning off her PADD after telling her friends she had to go she replied to Fayth. “..Yeah, my Dad tried teaching me back when he was alive, but its soooo slow in action.” She said falling into step as the now trio entered the turbolift. “..Captain’s quarters!” Tel’eck called out humming a happy victory tune from her game.

”..You know how children are they soak up action and movement like sponges.” Drudoc said with a faint chuckle.

Sharah chuckled. “The speed of the game depends on who you’re playing with.” That reminded her of the pilot on her transport out. She’d seen her chess game on her PaDD she was playing with Joseph and Kelsey, the pilot, had told her about a chess game from an old Earth movie. It was called ‘wizard’s chess’ and the pieces actually attacked each other. Sharah suddenly had the idea to see if she could make a set for Tel’eck to play with. “But if it’s movement she likes, she might enjoy some low level parkour.”

”..Ah Jimmy told me about that!” Tel’eck said with more enthusiasm, but a glance to her Mother made her amend that slightly what she was probably going to say. “..I um…I guess it’d be ok if Mom says it’s alright?” She questioned Drudoc.

”..We’ll see, Tel’eck. You are getting older and have been good with your grades and behavior lately.” Drudoc said non-committal.

”..So Mom, is Ensign Fayth coming over for lunch?” Tel’eck asked looking between the two. “..You haven’t had anyone over really since…” A clearing of Drudoc’s throat with a warning looking that also looked a bit sad caused the girl to cease her inquiry for the moment.

Sharah forced the swirl from the captain and her daughter down into the massive ocean she surfed above. There was obviously a lot of emotion and memory there and Sharah did not want to hear it. She glanced down at her hand, recalling the memory and focusing on that rather than the noise around her.

As the turoblift came to a halt the trio went down the hall a short way to approach the door to the Captain’s quarters. “..Please come in, make yourself comfortable Ensign. I’ll get going on that Risan chicken and egg salad. Or something else if you prefer?” she asked.

“No that sounds very good. I’ve never had it and I like to try new things.” Sharah had her favorites of course, but that was one of her happier memories from the academy, was all the different cultural foods there were to try.

Entering the large quarters Drudoc clearly had modified it for family life with a child over the usual setup. The whirlpool hot tub and storage room was modified to be Tel’eck’s room now. The large living area was present but had an area dedicated for Tel’eck to do her own work as well as one for the Fleet Captain. To the right of the door was a small kitchen prep area and table and to the left was a display case of assorted personal effects. Most family or personal pictures. The first was a much younger Drudoc in a Star Empire uniform circa 2370s during the Dominion War standing next to another Romulan woman, both looking dirty but grinning from ear to ear over some event. Behind them was singularity core from a Romulan scout ship from the early 24th century. The next picture in the line was Drudoc in a Romulan-Federation officer exchange off duty uniform Drudoc’s rank in the picture was a Lieutenant in both the Star Empire and Starfleet, smiling to the holo camera with a human man in his mid-30s wearing a similar security off duty uniform, the man’s rank was Lt Commander in Starfleet. The two were situated on a rock flanked by a waterfall with some kind of water lilies in the background. The next picture was of the man in question now a Commander rank in security with Drudoc ranked the same at Starfleet Academy flanked by the class of 2385 from the enginerring and security corps. Tel’eck was held between both proud parents aged 3 or so. The next picture in the line was curiously a more recent one, what was curious was the man in question had barely aged a day in appearance from the 2385 picture, he also now wore a Starfleet Marine Corp uniform ranked as a Major, Drudoc now ranked at her Fleet Captain rank stood next to the man with Tel’eck now aged 7 or 8 between both, holding a brightly and garishly colored Apollo 11 lunar lander with bright florescent colors and stylings. Said lunar lander was next to the picture and next to it was a small holo-memorial image of the man in question in the Marine dress uniform. It read Bradley Mitchell - ‘With timeless love always, we will never forget you’. Above this picture row was a beuatifully hand carved composite wooden longbow with leaf carvings in it. (OOC: Looks kinda like this! https://www.blacktailbows.com/uploads/1/8/9/3/18935985/slide8_29_orig.jpg ). Crossed over it with arrows were an assortment of Romulan throwing daggers and arrows. Directly below it on a locked security case was a strange alien plasma blaster looking positively ANCIENT and worn but still showing signs of energy life. (OOC: Looks exactly like this! https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/6/60/Ryza_%27Helshot%27_Pattern_Plasma_Blaster.png/revision/latest?cb=20160427200823 yes its a relic from a past sim where we had a crossover of warhammer 40k!)

Next to this display area was a small Romulan shrine with burnt offerings on it. An array of awards from the Star Empire and the Federation and oddly even the Klingon empire showed that Drudoc had a quite stellar service record in her life and to her name.

Drudoc Andone CO

Sharah tried not to be nosey. She took a seat and looked around at the room. Her brother, Andrew, would like the plasma blaster. He liked old and alien weaponry. The pictures caught her attention and, being empathic, Sharah’s already naturally empathetic personality (without actually feeling anything from anyone) made her ache for them. She didn’t know if she could stay with Star Fleet when she had children. To leave them behind like that. But Tel’eck was very lucky. It was obvious how much the captain loved her daughter.

Sharah sat silently. She felt like she was meeting Melinda and Mark again for the first time. Except she didn’t have Joseph’s calming presence to stop her from being strange, quirky and shy. The captain might perceive it as awkwardness due to the young ensign being invited to lunch with her captain. But it was actually because Sharah was painfully shy with everyone. Though she was better at it now, as an adult, she never trusted herself to not slip up and respond to what her telepathy ‘heard’ rather than what was actually physically being said. So she turned to Tel’eck. She found the last weeks on board that she was, maybe not great, but she was good with the children that came into the arboretum.

Drudoc began to assemble a chicken and egg salad from a Risan bird she replicated raw from the replicator. The eggs she set in boiling chicken broth to make hard boiled eggs, while that was happening she began to pan fry the Risan chicken, which had a more tan color then a Earth based chicken, with herbs ranging from garlic and rosemary complete with a peppery spice Fayth might identify as Romulan flower peppers depending how well she knew herbs among her botany studies. If she did know reconize the spice she’d know it was a peppery sweet flavor to most meats it was used with. Soon the rich smell of roasting chicken was filling the quarters.

“What game were you playing Tel’eck?” She grinned, “I’m horribly at games, but I like learning them.”

En Fayth, Science

”..Oh I was playing a game we made in programming class! We call it Fruit Action Hero 4.0! Because its the forth time classes made it the teacher says. It uses strategy and hiding skills on a 4-D random level to sneak up on your opponents and hit them with fruit! Each time you do you get a point, and each time you get hit you loose a point, first person to 25 points wins or the timer runs out. Its cool in this version is I and Tammy found a way to optimize the multiplayer code to allow up to 50 people to play at once over the 3.0 version limited to 30!” Tel’eck said. “..Now the single player side has you being a fruit seller who has to ‘tag’ the enemies who want to ruin your shop with bad fruit. I don’t play that too much though it’s too easy if you ask me. Tammy and I are thinking about reworking the AI to be smarter and less obvious but we didn’t reach that part in our studies yet for Math and programming.” She explained.

Sharah listened intently. She knew basics for programming and computer science, but no real skill with it. Her science skills were elsewhere. But she knew enough to understand the skill it took for what Tel’eck and her friend were doing. “That is truely impressive. I have a friend, when we did our cadet cruise, that wrote a whole program for parkour. She had to get another cadet to help rewrite the safeties to work with the program and keep it safe. It took over a year to finish it. She sent me the full file a couple weeks ago. I’m sure you’ll create an awesome game once you get to that point in your studies. You’ll have to show it to me when it’s done.”

Meanwhile Drudoc was busy cooling down the eggs and peeling them for soon chopping into the salad mix. The chicken too was still sizzling and cooling in the pan while she prepared a light mayo herb mixture with thin shaved celery, onions and carrots. This was shown off a bit in her skill of chopping and dicing by Drudoc lightly tossing the vegtables and using a razor sharp Romulan blade to chop them mid-air to land neatly on the cutting board. Tel’eck saw this and grinned slightly away from her Mother’s view to lean in and whisper to Fayth. “..She must like what your doing on the ship. Mom doesn’t do that often with just anyone showing off like that. It’s um....been a while since she’s had anyone over to visit beyond my friends or someone closer to her in age.” Then to probably cover up the whisper she said in more normal tones. “..Hey you want to see my room while we wait? Mom’s probably going to make fresh bread if I know her and once we eat you and her will probably get down with ship business or something boring.....” she said cheekily. And sure enough Drudoc was busy preparing a simple seasoned bread dough to flash fry at a later point.

Drudoc Andone CO

Sharah was honored, curious, more nervous? from Tel’eck’s revelation, but she kept it to herself. Children often spoke what they shouldn’t because they had a need to release the feelings associated with the thoughts (and didn’t Sharah know how that felt.) but the Captain deserved her privacy. At Tel’eck’s question, “Sure, I’d love to see it.” She got up and followed Tel’eck. She doubted she and the captain had very much in common to discuss. Sharah was only beginning her career, and as of today she had nothing close to as impressive to show for it as the most minor thing Drudoc had on display on her self.
En Fayth, Science