Dinner with a new friend
Posted on Mon Dec 11th, 2023 @ 3:10pm by Ensign Evanora Drei & Lieutenant Njalia Sayffier
Mission:
Shakedown Shake-Up
Location: Officer's Mess
Timeline: MD3
2251 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure
Njalia sat at the table and toyed with her The while waiting for her dinner guest to arrive. It would be nice to meet someone new. Astrja was right, she needed to make more friends.
Why was Eva nervous? Was it the fear of sitting down in front of the wrong person? The half-Betazoid gave her head a light shake in an attempt to dismiss her worries. No, she had looked up Sayffier in the manifest, she knew what the woman looked like. She was the only Andorian who was also part of the senior staff, she would surely stand out.
Stepping into the mess hall, she was relieved that it was a less busy night. It made it easier to spot her new friend. Giving a slight wave, Eva went to the replicator and collected her meal, frowning at how bland it looked. What she'd do just to give this barely-passing-as-food stuff any flavor. Meal in hand, she turned and made her way to the person in yellow. "Sayffier, right? I'm Eva." Not quite sure what the air of the meal was yet, she opted to err on the side of caution. "Er, Ensign Drei, I mean. You helped me get access to a relay earlier. Thanks again, by the way."
Njalia looked up and smiled. "Hello, Ensign Drei. You are most welcome, Ops is here to help after all." She looked over Drei's tray. "Please, just dump that in the recycling slot. I have an override that will get us actual meals." The Andorian stood. "It is my tradition when meeting a new person to share a meal with them. Each of the guests selects a meal that has some meaning to them and shares it with the others, that way we get to learn about each other and experience some different cuisine. Is that alright with you?"
There was visible relief in the knowledge that Eva didn't have to choke down what the computer thought was food. "I'd love that!" Discarding the tray and the offensive contents of it, she thought for a moment. What was her favorite dish? "Oskoid rolls," she answered her question out loud. "The oskoid leaf from Betazed is used to make like a little wrap. I usually eat it with rice, cooked mushrooms, and some kind of meat."
"Do you mind fish? Most of my favorite dishes involve fish," asked Njalia as they approached the replicator. "It is frustrating, the replicators keep resetting to this ridiculous idea of 'healthy' food, ignoring the fact that the replicator encodes proper nutrition into any food, well, almost any food." She glared at the replicator. "Computer, Institute Sayffier Override, open complete menu to all."
"Affirmative," replied the computer.
"I don't mind fish." It's almost like the ship was programmed to not appeal to an organic being's desires. "Why was the ship designed liks this? Did they not expect to have an organic crew?"
Njalia's reluctance to criticize Starfleet momentary wars with her desire to talk openly with a fellow technician, openness to talk wins. "I do not know . . . yet. Many, many of our problems were caused by rushed production by manufacturers unused to this scale of building, yard instruction left intact, as you encountered, the whole Level 7 Permission fiasco," she stops. "Let me know if you are interested in more details about any of those."
She stepped up to the replicator. "Andorian bluefish, Kyan variant 3b, roast Yan, Sayffier variant 5b, and a large salad, Karulean version J. And a glass of chilled Andorian The, Azjure prime." She scanned the end result and nodded her approval taking the quite full tray, she turned. "Your turn."
Turning to the replicator, Eva silently hoped the computer wouldn't decide to go back to default settings. "Oskoid leaves, with stir-fried mushrooms, onion, carrots, cabbage, and Martian beef. Steamed rice on the side, with dipping sauce, variant Drei-one, and a glass of sparkling Sadi." The much more appetizing dish appeared once the computer processed the request, and she picked up the tray, the savory smell of the stir fry tickling her nose.
Njalia nodded. "That looks intriguing, something from your home?" She guided them back to the table.
"Yeah, it's a mix of cultures." Eva followed her new friend back to the table and took a seat, making sure to not spill anything. "My dad grew up on Earth before he moved to Mars, and his family would make these stir fry dishes. It was a whole family event where each person had a part. My mother's from Betazed and later introduced the Oskoid leaves. My dad showed me how to get the dish from the replicator before I went to the Academy."
Njalia nods. "The art of the replicator is fascinating. So, how does the dipping sauce work?" She asked taking a helping of the stir-fried food and setting it next to a portion of salad. "Nicely interstellar family. Do you have many siblings?"
"Surprisingly, no. It's just me." The truth was, Eva didn't actually know, nor did she care. She rarely thought about her mother, and when she did, it wasn't in any good light. "What about your family? Is your dish a family recipe?"
"The fish and roast Yan, yes," replied Njalai. "It was a common meal at weeks end when the family got together. The green salad is from my time at the Academy, leafy greens are rare on Andoria," she added with a smile. "Please try some."
Eva helped herself to the meal her new friend had chosen, taking the moment to savor the bite. "What a lovely combination of flavors," she commented. She was so caught up in the food that she almost forgot about Sayffier's earlier question. "Oh, sauce! Sorry, I heard you but my brain was focused on food. You can either dip the whole thing in, or you can pour some on top."
Njalia smiled. "I will be cautious at first," and poured just a small amount of the spir fry before trying it. "That is nice," she said adding a little more.
"How are you finding the Nelson? Apart from access quirk that is," she asked, her antennae quirking in amusement.
Eva couldn't help the groan that escaped her when she was reminded of the ridiculous access "quirk." It was silly to require a high-ranking person's permission to open an access panel that was so far into the guts of the ship's Jefferies tubes that it would have been faster to just rebuild the damn thing entirely. "Aesthetics-wise, the ship is nice, but there's so many weird... quirks, as you phrase them, that I keep running into that makes me wonder how the designer of the ship passed their engineering classes."
Njalia took a bite of salad and thought. "It was rushed, there is no doubt about that, and built by people new to Starfleet codes.
I think most of the problem is there," she said gesturing with her fork. "In their hurry to get the ship delivered, they made sure things worked, just but did not have the time for a final cleaning and polishing of the systems. That is why we still have all of these permission codes from the shipyard floating around, incomplete analysis of how networks will function with an actual crew, a personalized EMH left in the sickbay, just layer on layer of odd and, well, poor choices."
The mention of the personalized EMH sent a tingle down Eva's spine as she remembered the unpleasant encounter with it. To distract from the memory, Eva took a bite of the fish and focused on its flavors. "Despite the frustrations, I'm a bit glad in a way," she eventually said, after swallowing the bite. She gave Njalia a smile, "it's helping me get more familiar with the ship, which is a plus. I was expecting to transfer to a Vesta class, not an Inquiry, so I was very lost when I transferred."
Njalia nods after also taking a bite of fish. "We should be back to the Vesta soon enough. It is good to have a chance to experience a wide range of Starfleet ships. And the Nelson, so far, has proved to be . . . an interesting technical challenge."
Eva snorted, then realized she was eating with a department head and awkwardly turned her laugh into a cough. "Heh, yeah, interesting is a polite way to phrase it." She grabbed one of the wraps and poured some sauce onto it. "I certainly don't mind the experience with a Nelson. It's actually one of the 'recent graduate' favorites. But I wish I had gotten more advanced notice than after I transported aboard. It's only a two deck difference, but everything's in a different location."
Njalia nodded. "Have you looked at the computer architecture? It has power for days but is, was, terribly segmented and poorly organized and integrated. Now that have have the permissions sorted out, that is my next task."
"I haven't, but judging by the problems that have been cropping up, it sounds badly organized." Eva paused to shove the roll in her mouth, taking the moment to savor the flavors. It was never quite the same as making the rolls by hand, but man they were so good. "So my sympathies."
Njalia smiled. "Thank you but, well, I rather like such a problem. I get to see where mistakes were made and devise ways to make the entire system function more efficiently." She spears a bite of fish. "I have the whole of OpsNet to fall back on for advice, a good team here and, of course, my faithful QAI to help me. It has been quite a ride so far."
Eva nodded along as she chewed, and followed the food with a sip of the sparkling sadi. "Oh yeah, what's the weirdest thing you've had to fix? I'm willing to bet that 'help some Ensign access a random relay in a random location' doesn't even make the top ten."
"No, I am afraid it does not," replied Njalia toying with a bite of fish as she pondered. Several of those we definitely classified, so she could not talk about them. "Well, most recently, the command permission levels here on the Nelson. It was a good idea carried through without looking at the long-term consequences of how it was set up. I have put in at least sixty hours getting that sorted out but for a brief period, we could not do anything on the Nelson without permission from a senior command officer."
An expression of sympathy was the response as Eva went for another bite of fish. "That's rough. I'm glad you got it fixed, because honestly that sounds stressful for everyone."
"You cannot imagine," laughed Njalia. "But it is fixed now." She dropped her eyes to the table. "Please goddess, let it be fixed," she said in a whisper.
"But enough of that," she said. "WHat do you do for fun?"
Eva thought for a moment. "If I had to pick one thing, I'd say I enjoy trying out what others do for fun." She gave a slight smile, "It's kind of underwhelming, I know, but it's a great way to try new things. I can give you the more expected answer from an engineer: that I have a few holodeck programs where I can tinker with designs. But honestly, if it let's me learn or gets the blood pumping, I'm all for it. What about you?"
"Well, I have not had much time for such things since being assigned to the Vesta," said Njalia, "but I was beginning to get an appreciation for music and dance. I was trying some things from Terran history, some of their dances are very strange but fun and good exercise."
"Music and dance..." Eva recalled some of the music she grew up around, mostly whatever her dad listened to. "Yeah, some of the dances from Earth's history are a bit weird. Especially the ones where you dance in a line with other people."
"Those are interesting, I think I prefer the pre-industrial one from Andoria or Terra to the more modern ones," Njalia said. "They are even more social dancing than most of the other dances and would be more fun with other people. Most of my dancing is with holograms both from scheduling and shyness issues," she added with a self-deprecating smile.
Eva gave an understanding smile. More often than not, she tended to do things by herself, too. That way, she didn't have to field the more nosey questions that people sometimes asked her. It was a tough situation, to want to meet new people and do the things they enjoy, but also wanting to avoid conversation about herself. "Well, if you ever want a dance buddy, give me a call. I'll admit that I haven't shined my dance shoes in years," she commented, hoping to ease the hint of awkwardness she felt. "The only dance I really know is a side-step, but I'd love to learn a little more."
Njalia smiles. "That would be lovely. Do you think you would prefer modern or historical dances? And most of them are quite easy to learn, though some can be physically taxing. The Charleston from Terra for example."
Eva was glad that Njalia was willing to share her interests. "I think it would be interesting to see both. See how it's evolved over time." She took another bite of the fish, "I can't wait!"
