Look At the Stars

Posted on Thu Jul 7th, 2022 @ 9:54pm by Lieutenant Commander T'an & Lieutenant Commander Kim Standish

Mission: Prelude: The Gathering
Location: Deck 3, Aft Observation Lounge, USS Proxima
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0640

[Observation Lounge]
[0640 hours, Day One]

The aft observation lounge on deck 3 was quiet. No. Quiet wasn't quite right. It was nearly deserted. On a ship as large as the Proxima this would normally be unusual at this hour, but then she wasn't yet carrying a full crew complement. Soon, though. She would be soon.

Kim had chosen one of the long blue couches that faced the center of the ship's disc for her morning coffee. Centered nearly perfectly she had a view of both nacelles and the dark space beyond them. A little birdy had told her they would be dropping out of warp soon, shifting to impulse for the remainder of their approach of Lambda-2 and she wanted to watch the way the stars popped back into existence. It fascinated her every time. Coffee clutched in her hands she stared out the windows, listening for the telltale change in the hum of the deck plates as the ship shifted to slower speeds.

No. Not yet. Still at warp. She sighed and lifted her mug to her lips. She could wait.

The soulless nature of Engineering had gnawed at Commander Rhowin's reserves of patience before her morning meal. The whisper of the Lounge's doors opening into a dark and mood-lit space. Rhowin looked out over the upper deck toward the lower and the view of the dome and nacelles beyond.

She rubbed her neck and shoulder and announced her presence, "Wait for it," she said while she moved for the synthesizer. "It'll be any moment." The Barzan smiled in profile, eyeing the door of the synthesizer and the menu illuminated next to it. She hesitated: did she go for the real food or the fast replicated kind? Her afternoon, she suspected would be choked with onboard briefings and informal interviews. Each one demanded a touch of Barzan custom.

"Bowl of sea papaya, with salt." The synthesizer hummed and chirred to life. "A mug of Tarkalean Spice Tea." A second telling mechanical sound mingled discordantly with the first. Both opened. Rhowin pickled up the bowl of small, bluish fruit that appeared cut. It had sprinklings of sea salt. The tea was plain and reddish-brown. Rhowin moved to sit down near Standish.

At that moment the tunnel of blue and white light broke like a snapping band. They'd entered real space as a blanket of stars expanded across the window. They were joined by what looked like large chunks of white and blue ice, sparsely sprinkled and ever-tumbling in the pinpricked blackness.

A deep inhale and then slow breath exhaled and a particular shine to the doctor's eyes was the only outward evidence that the change in view had impacted her. Her eyes scanned the horizon taking in the pinpricks of stars and the larger chunks that tumbled nearby. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of that," she commented to Rhowin as she brought her coffee back to her lips and took a deep sip before setting it down next to a small bowl with a spoon.

With a deft movement she dragged the spoon through the thick creamy substance in her bowl before popping it in her mouth, spoon flipped upside down so she could lick the majority of the yogurt from the spoon before going for another bite. "Ready for the influx of the masses?" she asked after a moment, finally turning to regard the XO.

Rhowin used her fingers for a piece of the mandarin orange-sized, cut fruit. She brushed an excess of salt off one and enveloped it with surgical precision between her rebreathers. She covered the line of sight to her mouth with her hand. Her nod of assent was that the view was always impressive- if rather cold and sterile, it had a bleak loveliness. She knew enough astrobiology to understand that each of those stars had the possibility of life if even an outside chance. And those chunks of ice were little short of being ready to thaw soups of organic material that could be life.

The sea papaya was very sweet and had a citrus tang. But the salt brought out a briny, oceany umami aftertaste. "It's not bad from the front of the ship either," she said with a glance. Again she assented a nod. "As ready as anyone can be. Are you?"

Kim shrugged, though the motion didn't quite come off as nonchalant. "More bodies means more patients means more work," she said. "But then that's pretty much the norm for a doctor, so I can't say as I'm not ready. It's been nice to have the slower pace for a bit though."

Rhowin made a noncommittal noise with a double bob of her head. She'd enjoyed the quiet... but at times it had been quite eerie as entire sections of the ship were on standby, devoid of personage.

The coffee was back in her hand now and she glanced down at the mug noting almost mournfully that it was more than halfway relieved of its contents. She tipped it back anyway, downing the remainder in one long draught while it was still warm rather than let the rest of it come to room temperature.

"Anyone coming aboard that you know already?" she asked, curiously. It wasn't entirely uncommon for something like that to happen, though her own scan of the manifest hadn't brought any former crewmates to her attention.

Rhowin shook her head. Another piece of the salted fruit passed her lips and she masticated, forming a knuckle in her cheek. "None. An Andorian engineer. An Argelian navigator. That will be a first," she noted of the Navigator in particular. She'd studied over a hundred crew profiles in the past week and they were all blending together.

"This is as far as you've gone rimward?" Rhowin asked. She reached for her tea but rather than consuming it as Standish had, she blew over it and disrupted its lazy steam.

Kim nodded her confirmation, eyes still on the stars beyond the nacelles before turning to regard the Barzan woman. "An Andorian and an Argelian." She repeated this like a statement rather than a question before giving a small dry chuckle. "Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. An Argelian and an Andorian walk into Sickbay..." A small quirk of her lips showed her amusement and her eyebrows crept upward.

The Barzan smiled over the stream of soft breath over her tea. "It needs a Vulcan. Or an Arcturian."

"What about you? Furthest you've been?" Kim asked.

The Barzan serenely nodded with a sip. "Furthest rimward. My last berth was on the other end of the Federation. Near Kzinti space." She sat back and crossed her knee over the other. Ancient ice glistened like it was in a glass full of liquid dark. The navigational field fizzed in a flash as a piece of ice large enough tripped its sensor band. "Do you know the new Captain?"

A few more spoonfuls of yogurt had been consumed, but Kim still held the spoon, twirling it absently between her fingers. "Not personally," she said before adding, "by reputation, though, yes." She seemed to realize that she was twirling the spoon then and looked down at it, stopping the motion and dipping another creamy spoonful which she popped into her mouth.

"I was surprised to get tapped for this posting, you know? Not disappointed, of course. But surprised. Don't know anyone on the crew and the head doctor on the Shelley wasn't exactly eager for me to leave." She shrugged. "It's an interesting thing starting from scratch with people you don't know. A bit unique to the service. Would you agree?"

"Starfleet works in mysterious ways," Rhowin said toward her meal, masticating a piece of fruit in her cheek. She glanced at the Human, "To paraphrase an old Human religion." She shrugged. "I didn't know anyone on either of my last assignments either. Or this one," she said honestly. "Starfleet Medical might operate differently than some of the other departments." She set her dish aside and picked up her drink, "Now being pulled from your last CMO, that might be strange."

Standish shrugged. "Medical works just like the others I guess. Or if it doesn't then I don't know any better. Wouldn't complain about a bit of continuity though. Helps to know people. Not that I haven't met some pretty interesting folks along the way. There was this Bolian on my last ship. Most amazing fashion sense I've ever seen on a man."

"The wigs?" Rhowin replied curiously, based entirely on her own experience with a Bolian on the Ochoa. While she spoke, she circled the crown of her head with the sway of a finger.

Kim nodded with a grin. "You wouldn't think that a person could have a new wig every day, but it sure seemed that this guy did. I should have kept a count of them." The CMO stood then, arching her back as her arms tugged above her head in a stretch. When she released, she tugged the jacket of her uniform back into place and then bent to retrieve her mug, bowl, and spoon for recycling. "I should probably get back to it. More faces and names and records to look over than I have minutes in my day." She started back toward the door but paused next to Rhowin. "Thanks for the company Commander."

And then she was off, dropping her dishes and disappearing through the door to the lounge.

"And you. Doctor," the Barzan nodded agreeably, smiling up at the redhead. The wigs. What was it with Bolians and the wigs?

Rhowin finished her tea. She finished her fruit. It was a "Barzan thing." When you have so little, you have to take joy in what you do have. She had tea and she had breakfast. And she had a view. And then, after that, she had duties to perform.