Posted by Lieutenant Commander Paris Carisi (Armorer/Physicist) in Arrival on the Odin - The search for room 717

Snip

Exiting the doors, Mason turned left and began to look for a turbo lift. “How many bags did you pack as carry on anyway?” He asked Paris, “Couldn’t you have packed most of this stuff into a suitcase and let the cargo crew look after it? What makes this stuff so important?”

“And have them say they lost the luggage like they did that time we went to Zino II, Iota Caeli II, Mira V, Delta Persei IV, Cirri V,” Paris began to rattle off all the shore leaves they had taken over the past year resulting in lost luggage. “No way. I am not taking the chance we are gonna look like hobos.” The swish of the turbo doors closing ended her statement as they walked in.

“Ah, here we are,” he stopped by the first turbo-lift they came to. “Now it’s just a short ride and walk to our room, after you.”

As they entered the turbo, Paris leaned against the wall and drummed her hands in a bored rhythm on the wall. “Left,” she said out loud for no reason. Turning to face Mason she repeated what she said. “Babe the man said left. You said right. You meant right as in right we understand and not right as in step off deck seven and go right because I heard him say right not left.”

As the doors opened and Mason and Paris stepped out of the turbo-lift, Mason automatically turned right and began to walk, counting his paces in his head and looking at the room numbers. “Baby,” he said, sounding like he had realized his coffee was cold, “Why do these doors run from 672 downwards?” Stopping a few paces later he looked at the door they had been told was their room.

“Paris, love of my life and gem in my dungeon. Did you book our quarters in the ships Phaser Array Maintenance Access room by any chance?”

Cmdr Black, XO

“No, but that would be cool as hell wouldn’t it,” Paris had a very excited tone to her voice, “and a step up from the last office of your living room. I mean think about the options. Someone annoys you, you can shoot them. Some is a dork and you not only can assign him to clean the phasers but glare at him from your desk the entire time. I don’t know sexy, it could be a win-win situation for everyone. Oh oh oh,” she smiled larger and her eyes got that wide-eyed look showing Paris was about to burst with excitement. “We can be office mates. I am the Armorer chief. This,” she gestured, “is probably someplace I get to work at all the time. Just think of it. We can work and live together for almost twenty-four hours a day. Isn’t that going to be the best,” she hugged him turning her face away so he could not see it. “I mean how lucky can we be!”

“Surely we can’t be that lucky,” he muttered, trying hard to keep the cheeky sarcastic tone out of his voice but grinning all the same.

The reason for this was Paris did not want Mason to see how she was struggling not to laugh. Yes, she loved her fiance desperately but the saying distance makes the heart grow fonder was meant for married people that worked together. She and Mason would kill each other if they had to share every ten-foot by ten-foot space cheek to cheek. Still, it was funny to make Mason be the one claiming he didn’t want it.

Lt. Commander Paris Carisi security

“Lets keep going, this is clearly not our room. We go that way,” he pointed in the direction they had come from, then hoisted one of her bags with a grunt over his shoulder. “Why does this remind me of when those two new crew arrived on the Asimov shortly before we left? Duncan’s sister and that New Zealander called Darius wasn’t it? I’m sure he was stuck carrying her bags around like some porter as well and they looked even more formidable than these ones. Are you sure you aren’t smuggling a small moon on board piece by piece Paris?”

Cmdr Black, XO