Goodbye and Hello

Posted on Thu Jun 23rd, 2022 @ 11:13pm by Lieutenant Commander T'an
Edited on on Fri Jul 1st, 2022 @ 8:52pm

Mission: Prelude: The Gathering
Location: USS Proxima: Officer's Quarters #311
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0600

[Federation Starship Proxima]
[Personal Quarters]
[Day One: 0600 Hours]

The vibrato whine of a Fei stirred Lieutenant Commander Rhowin from the blackness. Black eyes opened and lips parted to take in the ozonous gift of her native atmosphere. It smelled clean to her. She blinked and nuzzled her pillow. "Not yet," she muttered, muffled into the cotton fabric. The trilling whimper, almost like an oscillation, curled toward her ears again. "Domega cantu," she muttered in her language. A single dark eye dropped to study the horizon of the super-single mattress. A tawny and white puffball at the end of a tail jerked and swished with impatient tension.

The Fei's goat-like, horizontally-slatted eyes studied the movement as her Barzan pet rolled with a grunt onto her back. It perked its echolocating secondary ears, swiveling like mini-radar dishes until she lifted her primary earset. Her round, Lemuresque gaze narrowed and she whistled out another annoyed demand. The tail jerked right, left, and right and then slowly swam at its agile midpoint.

"Domega cantu," Rhowin muttered again, blinking tired eyes while she stared at the back of her hand. She rested it on the top of her ridged and noded forehead.

Personal Log. Stardate 8235. After a few delays in the Mikulak sector, we are scheduled to arrive at Deep Space Station Lambda-2 this afternoon. I've been aboard for a several months. Yet it still feels strange. When I wake up I still wonder where I am. It takes me a few moments to remember that the Magee is gone. It's been gone for months. The quarters are a little smaller. Shadi is still angry. Nothing smells right and she's having to mark new territory.

The rich metallic mewl of the Fei cried a cone upward in new urgency. The Barzan closed her eyes. "Shi-shi-shi. I know," she made a sound that paused the thrashing tail for only a moment. Rhowin picked at a loose coil of hair that was pinned uncomfortably under her shoulder. A harsh emission bellowed from below. Rhowin moved up onto her elbows, scanning the stack of crates and boxes that had gone unpacked. She knew that was the secret: unpack that, let the integration begin. Begin the nesting anew. But part of her... was snagged. Resistant.

Rhowin swiveled her legs down and planted bare feet. Clinking dog tags swiveled her neck which she righted and nestled down against her cleavage. Arms tensed, fingers gripped the edge of her mattress. Shadi first began to rub her sides along Rhowin's legs and then, with more urgency, tugged at the hem of her pajama pants with a puppy-like urgency. She reached down, patting and stroking the pointy white tuft atop the Fei's head. Shadi marked her fingers with a hop and a side rub. And again. Her tail swished and she circled back.

The new Executive Officer stood and, hands on the backs of her hips, she arched and popped her back. "Tarkalean spice tea." She stated. "No." The Barzan's black eyes turned. Her lips pursed. She wagged a finger down once. "Idanian Fire Tea. Hot and slightly sweet." Shadi mewled again. "A bowl of dried Denebian waterhoppers. Medium."

Rhowin's attention steered from the hum of the food synthesizer near the small, desk-like dining area. The Barzan instead picked up two gunmetal gray devices- they had a dull, satiny gleam to them- a round joint, an arm that looked like it hooked around an ear. And a microphone-like extension. Rhowin frowned at them. Her thumb swept the lukewarm metal. She went into the bathroom- despite a shriill plea from her familiar- where she set them into a wall alcove. She tapped two flatly chirping buttons. The receptacle glowed with blue energy and the computer stated, "Sterilizing."

Rhowhin rubbed her neck, staring into her visage in the mirror. She washed her face and stared again, caramel skin glossy, a droplet of water dripping from her nose tip. She swiped it with her forearm. She flicked her hands once to shake the water off her hands and then dried them with a silvery towel.

She glanced up at the mirror and tapped it off. The picture of a posed woman, leaning on an elbow and side, and looking at the viewer, was in a comfortable sweater but nude below the waist. Rhowin tapped it off a moment later. She rubbed bunches of her coils while she stepped outside. And finally, she yawned.

Rhowin strode to the synthesizer and opened its collapsing door. She picked up the bowl full of oddly blue-green, cicada-like husks with long, water skipper legs. And she set it on the floor. Shadi was pawing at the dish before the Barzan even finished setting it down. With a nasal and throaty snort, the Fei's four-lobed muzzle opened to sharp teeth and she lunged at one of the dried hoppers. A chitinous crunch, crunch, crunch replaced the Fei's noises while Rhowin picked up her tea. She sat down at her console and brought up her schedule but it had few new entries.

When she sat back and breathed in the steam of her spiced tea, she was about to sip when the com roundly bonged. Rhowin touched the screen- audio-only. "Commander Rhowin, go ahead."

"Good Morning Ma'am," the voice stated. Rhowin mumbled morning back while her lips returned to the want of her morning beverage. "If you have a few minutes. Engineering would like to go over the recent diagnostics on the impulse injector feeds." Scintillating, Rhowin thought dryly. She rolled her eyes. Engineering was a dry and very soulless, mechanistic discipline to her. Tools said a lot about a species. But that was the limit of her interest.

Still, the weight of responsibility won. "I'll be down in ten minutes." She stated.

"Thank you Ma'am. Engine Room out."

Rhowin closed her eyes and shook out the coiling rings of her hair near her ear and the side of her hair. She watched Shadi play bat and chase a dried insect- technically a decapod- around like it was a toy before her mouth opened like a crocus flower and snapped its crunchily in half. Her goat-like eyes on a koala-like face jerked to see her Barzan pet staring at her. Her tail thrashed right and left as if to say, Mine. Back off. Chuckling, Rhowin raised a hand and sipped her tea.

Finally, she rose. Shadi set her drink aside and returned to the washroom. She reached for the gunmetal, articulated devices and gently bobbed them in her hand, and caught them. She frowned. "Here we go again," she whispered. Gently she inserted one into each of the two ports in her cheeks. She adjusted their arms to frame her mouth and then combed their arms over her ears.

A singy chirp called after she tapped each on- the haptic buzz in her cheeks was an odd confirmation that tended to annoy her. She twicthed her nose at it. But she knew they were functioning. "Computer display file Kassiopeian Avian Loop for one hour and then sleep." An image on her screen appeared to show hummingbird-like creatures with two beaks, zipping around and feeding. It didn't seem to draw Shadi's immediate attention.

Rhowin dressed and then paused at the door. She wagged a finger at the Fei. "Stay here, or I'm turning the containment field back on. Domega cantu." The Fei responded by another thrash of its tail and a studying eye on the remaining bugs in her dish. "And don't watch the screen too long. It'll rot your brain."

Rhowin rubbed her neck and stepped outside, quick to turn and make sure the door was shut and locked. The tang of an overly oxygenized and sterile Federation ship tasted in her mouth- a sensation that subsided as her rebreathers spun up to mitigate it. "Time for work," she sighed to herself as she stepped into and pivoted forward to face the exit of a turbolift. She took the handle and pulled it down. "Main Engine Room."

The doors closed.