[snip]

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 truly 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.”

”..You bet!” Tel’eck said with a wide grin.

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

”..Cool! Come this way.” Tel’eck said grabbing Fayth’s left hand in a firm grip for her 13 years of age. Crossing the divide for the living area they came to a door to Tel’eck’s room. “..This used to be the CO’s hot tub and storage room, first thing Mom did when we got the ship was gut all that and gave me my room!” She said opening the door like a magician doing a magic trick. The room was slightly rectangular in shape. A dresser and closest for clothes were evident as was a plush twin size bed with bed sheets made of eye piercingly bright green and yellow tones overlaid with a bright pink florescent starfield. A shelf with an array of PADDs, actual physical books, and stuffed animals were evident as well as a small holo projector memorial of her father Bradley Mitchell in the marine corp dress uniform. She quickly ran over to turn it off with a sheepish look to her face. “..Sorry forgot that was on! I like it being on a lot so Dad always knows what I get up too. Unless I get visitors or friends over. Then it just feels weird.” She said rubbing the back of her neck. The room was simple, mostly clean, and efficient but held that warmth only a child or in this case early budding teenager could have. “..So yeah this is my room!” She added then.

Tel’eck Andone