Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dagen Thor (CE) in Dagen and Reia’s Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Reia Shandy (C Intelligence -Comm Officer) in Dagen and Reia’s Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dagen Thor (CE) in Dagen and Reia’s Quarters
Dagen shifted about the room rubbing a towel through his hair. Dressed in his housecoat Dagen was distracted in his thoughts. There was a lot going on in engineering at the moment with shift rotations, assessments and revamping PM protocols. With all that, he was still, in the shower, mentally comparing ‘water’ with ‘sonic’. While the one was efficient, water just plain felt better. So too, there was that other thing.

It was a topic that was the, how do the Terrans put it, elephant in the room. The investment question that his parents had dropped on them. It was incredibly generous but it was causing them strain. Twice before they’d brought it up but it had been left hanging in the ‘I still need to think about it’ cloud. Reia was ‘channel surfing’ - a term that had never gotten old apparently - on a tablet. He plunked himself down near her, still working his hair. Could they not in this century find something that would more quickly suck up the water than standard issue towels? The smell of their supper was still in the air mixed with tea mugs on the table.

“I have been doing a little thinking on mom’s offer. I was wondering if you had any ideas yet.” He winced inwardly. The ‘yet’ didn’t sounds so good.
- Dagen

Reia put ehr PaDD down and turned to her husband. Perhaps it was time to give this subject her full attention and stop side stepping.

“Not really. It’s a question I never thought I’d have to deal with so I don’t even know where to start and I’m actually not sure if I want to start. I have so much going on here right now.” Reia said tapping a PaDD she used for work. It was overflowing with charts and half finished files.

“Yeah, I’d not thought it would come up. I’d figured that the two houses were going to be there and that we’d have the pick of one between us and Deela, but that idea hit a black hole,” he agreed. He glanced at the PaAD and frowned. While he tended to read trade journals he tried to leave work at the end of the shift. Reia wasn’t like that but seemed to feel she needed to finish things up. That was a dilemma of technology and work. This was the ‘Navy’ but all the same, it was a job.

“Then there’s you telling me about everything going on in Engineering at speeds so fast my head spins. I just don’t think we have time to talk about dirt.”

• Reia

Hmm. Point noted, Dagan said mentally. Less shop talk. Maybe more general gossip about the people he worked with would interest Reia. More ‘intel’ and all that. “I’ve been living and working in space longer than I’ve been on a world. ‘Dirt’ as you call it is not on my sensors either. But neither would it be good to think we’re going to be out here all the time.” In his mind he had been imagining them doing this piece of land and building it up and going there on some leaves and adding to it and everything to make it their place for when that time came when they bade space farewell. “Can we at least try to narrow it down to a world?”
Dagen

Reia shifted positions and pulled her thick robe more tightly around her. Their quarters were running a bit cool for her liking at the moment and she wasn’t really in the mood to fight Dagen about temperatures.

“I’m not sure if we can decide on a world when I’m not even certain how long we’ll be able to spend on it. It’s all just too complicated. Who would the house revert back to? Yours or mine? I know that the part of you that is Thor can’t have anything to do with me when you move to another host but that might be tomorrow if there’s some catastrophic accident and that’s the only way to save the symbiont. Then I’m left on some world with some big empty house while some part of the man I love is out there, somewhere, building a new life.”

This was more than Reia had intended to say and she fell silent,

• Reia