Being in such a central position, Jedera knew he wouldn’t go unnoticed for too long, and so wasn’t very surprised when his solitude was broken. One minute he was watching Lieutenant Daniels, Rell and Chianeé arguing over the glass Daniels had put on a statue, and the next, two midriffs had blocked the view. Apart from a quiet regret at not seeing the irate Prarrian upending the glass’ contents over the Security Chief’s head (as seemed likely given Chianeé’s angry threats and Daniels’ impudence), Jedera gave himself happily to the notion of company. He had discovered long ago that studying a happy group from a central position often attracted others, and if there was one thing Jedera liked more than studying people, it was the chance to actually interact, and hopefully to make friends with them.
"Would you mind if we sat with you, Jedera?" Doctor Willbanks, who’d asked this, seemed a little warm about the face, though the Ralexim couldn’t see any evidence of it in the colour spectrum as he looked at her. However he could detect the slight flush in her cheeks and lips owing to his heat sensitivity, and he wondered what that signified.
He smiled in welcome.
"Please do." His whisper was barely audible over the surrounding clamor, but spreading his hands invitingly got the message across. "Who is your friend?"
Lisa half-turned towards the woman who’d been waiting a respectful distance behind her and beckoned.
"Jedera, this is Chiharu Takahashi." Lisa said as the delicate woman stepped forward. "Chiharu, Jedera. This is the one I was telling you about before, Chi. The things this man can do for a broken-down biobed, you wouldn’t believe!"
Abruptly Jedera was seized by an intense feeling of modesty, and involuntarily he lowered his eyes.
"It was nothing." he murmured self consciously. "I was there before you or the medtech, that’s all."
"Yeah, right." Lisa muttered. "And that’s why all your repairs are now being copied on the other beds!"
"I am pleased to meet you, Chiharu." the scientist continued, smiling at Lisa’s comment..
"As I am you, Lieutenant."
Politely the two bowed at each other, though Jedera touched his left hand to right shoulder as always. He was pleased to note someone had a similar custom to himself, though he knew it couldn’t mean the same as his own.
The two newcomers took their seats, though Lisa took hers somewhat huffily, as though these initial pleasantries were a trial she barely tolerated. She had chosen the seat next to Jedera, looking towards the far side wall, and she seemed distracted by something. Chiharu, however, was looking at him with the expression he’d come to know as the human repression of curiosity on her face.
"You can ask, Chiharu." he prompted.
"Oh?" A small giggle, and the woman smiled. "I was just wondering… When you put your hand on your shoulder, I saw tattoos on your hand…?"
"My glorinillil?" Rolling up his sleeve, he allowed her to see that the intricate copper designs wound further up his arm. Captivated by the detailing, Chiharu took his extended hand for a closer look.
"They’re beautiful!" she sighed, losing herself amid the tiny swirls, patterns and lines.
"Yes." He loved his glorinillil, and he enjoyed showing them off.. "They were put on me after I reached adulthood, to show I was an independent person and was writing my own history. All of this is the story of my family; who my parents are, my siblings, my name… My Over did a fantastic job at designing them, didn’t she?" Pride softened his features as he withdrew his hand and covered the arm once more.
"So that’s your birth certificate?" Chiharu was intrigued by this. "But it looks so decorative! Tattooing, but with ink instead of metal, used to be an honoured art among my people until it became linked to the Yakuza and fell out of favour. But I have to say I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, even amongst records of the old art."
"I’m glad you like it."
"Tattooing is still done on Earth." Lisa put in. She hadn’t given the glorinillil more than a cursory glance, but had tried to keep track of the conversation. "Some of the people from my home continent keep up the tradition, for example, but for the really beautiful examples of it, you have to go to the colony worlds."
"Not that you’d know, Earthling!"
A blonde vision in teal provided this observation as she swept in to sit next to the doctor; ‘next to’ as in ‘right against’. The reaction this person’s entrance had upon the two other teal clad officers already here was interesting by virtue of the contrast between them; Jedera smiled and made her welcome, while Willbanks looked as though the Cardassians had just invaded whilst she’d been watching the Neutral Zone.
Upset at her own folly, Lisa let her face set and coldly glared at Carmen, saying nothing.
"Ooooh!" Carmen said, shuddering at her approaching companion. "If looks could kill, I’d be a dead woman; but they can’t, can they?"
"You should be glad they don’t."
This tired sounding comment prompted two responses worth noting - Lisa’s wild look of hope, and Chiharu’s rapid move back to her feet as she recognized the voice of her immediate supervisor.
"As you were, Chi." the Mantanan chuckled, waving her back down into his seat as he took his own. Absently pulling at the restrictive collar of his dress uniform, he said to Carmen, "You shouldn’t pick on her so much."
The botanist pouted, then glared at the doctor.
"He doesn’t love me anymore, and it’s your fault!"
"Ha!" Lisa announced primly, crossing her arms to turn away in haughty victory.
Two mutually antagonistic friends were interesting to watch, but do have a tendency towards ruining an evening’s conviviality. You never really knew if one combatant meant the insults, or if the other was feeling insulted, and the resultant tension ate away at enjoyment. So with this in mind (as well as really wanting to know), Jedera decided to deflect the situation by asking,
"Has anyone met the Captain yet?"
"I haven’t." Chiharu said in a small voice. Since Jondalar’s arrival her temperature had dropped a little, and she seemed a little uncomfortable. "But I’ve heard she’s nice, really good."
"I have." Lisa announced, shooting off a glance towards her unknown target before answering Jedera completely. "When she came in to make sure her and her kids’ med. records got here. She really know what she’s doing and was interested in the workings of Sickbay."
"She came on to the bridge with the Counsellor this afternoon." Jondalar reported. "She wasn’t there very long, so I really can’t say much more than that, except that in a way she’s everything I expected, but in others, she’s not."
"Well, that makes sense!" Carmen scoffed. "Could you elaborate, perhaps?"
"It’s a feeling I have about her, but anything more specific, no. I’ll let you know when I pinpoint it."
"So it’s just a feeling?" Carmen was still skeptical as she said, "Surely there was something specific? She came into the arboretum and I saw nothing strange."
"No." Jondalar said evenly. Carmen sat back in surprise.
Perhaps bolstered by this, Lisa looked towards Jedera.
"So what do you think of her?"
"Me?" A shrug. "I haven’t met her yet, and I wanted to know what you all thought of her. I’ve met Commander Randall though - and he’s going to be fantastic to work with…!"
Carmen rolled her eyes at that, but remained silent.
"…He’s got so many ideas of what he wants Sciences to be, but he’s got it worked out so we keep our autonomy as well! The man is brilliant! You should have heard him at the meeting, talking about our personnel structure and the way he wants it to work so that the juniors get practice in all areas. I’m really going to love this!"
"I can tell." Lisa smiled encouragingly, though his enthusiastic details had put a slightly sick pall on it. She’d had enough administration for the day now that Chi had managed to get her out of the Bay, and she now wanted to distance herself from it enough to have some fun, not to hear about more.
"Of course," Carmen teased with a wink at the ‘victim’, "the only reason he’s so enthusiastic about Commander Randall is because he made him the bridge Science Liaison!"
Jondalar laughed knowingly.
"Oh! So you’re the bunny who got stuck with it?"
"’Bunny’?" Apart from being unfamiliar with the term (well - he couldn’t see how rabbits would apply in this context), Jedera wondered at the attitude. Though light and joking, it was a strange one for him to have. "I wanted to be on the bridge!"
"Well, it explains why he wanted to know about Captain Randall." Lisa noted dryly, getting to her feet. "I’m going to the bar - anyone want anything?"
"A chakrit, thanks, Doctor." Jondalar replied gratefully, whilst Carmen grinned vapidly.
"Sweet raktajino, waiter!" she ordered.
"I have my water." Jedera brandished his glass cheerfully when the gaze settled on him.
"Chiharu?" Lisa prompted when the woman didn’t immediately answer.
"Oh! A tomato juice, please." Chiharu said, slightly embarrassed.
Lisa nodded and stepped away from the table.
A hush fell over the gathering as the Randalls walked in, a vaguely militaristic rigidity falling over everyone in the room.
Regally Susan surveyed her new command, chin raised high and said,
"Please - don’t let me spoil the party! Carry on, for God’s sake!"
She grinned, and waved them on after her exasperated command, enjoying the ensuing laughter as she and Ian disappeared into the crowd.
Somewhere music started to softly play, and the party resumed.
"Wow! Isn’t she great?" Viana nudged the one standing beside her in the crowd, and only got a non-committal grunt in reply. She turned savage eyes on her companion’s pig-like snout and complained, "You’re no fun, Laj! I’m going to go and find someone else!"
As Viana stomped away grumbling, the all too rare sight of a jovial Tellarite met Chianeé as she made her way through the crowd.
"What are you so happy about?" the felinoid asked cheerily.
"Oh, the itch got scratched." came the cryptic reply. "The irritation is all gone."
"You should have asked me to do that for you! It’s what I live for!" Chianeé chided, moving away again, but caressing the Ensign’s shoulder before she left.Grieg stepped away from the bar with his mug of rhangosh steaming in his hand. He was having a good time, though judging by some of the looks he was getting, he didn’t appear as though he was. Though a rather aloof seeming personage, cool and commanding - and this attitude had caused the flocks of interested observers to wander over to the Captain now that she had arrived - he was enjoying his slow wander through the gathering, and so far had managed to change these early impressions of himself to any that actually spoke to him.
By nature he wasn’t a social extrovert; he was never the type who could mesmerize huge audiences with impromptu banter or exciting tricks, though given an intimate group engaged in conversation and he could more than hold his own. He was a man of stunning wit and quiet intelligence, never seeking to impose his views on others unless duty demanded it, and it seemed that there was no subject he didn’t know something about.
He was also very aware of responsibility and duty, and it was this which made him make himself approach others when he would actually prefer others to come to him. First contact had to be made with these people at some time or another, and he knew what he would seem like to the average person if he didn’t. It was so much better to greet them now than to start from scratch in his official capacity tomorrow. However, he’d been doing this so long - first in his purview as the Portsmouth’s Ops Manager, then later as its Acting Executive Officer - that any nerves he used to feel on approaching someone new were immediately submerged in the wash of the immediacy of duty’s demands.
Pausing for a moment to sip at his drink, he surveyed the room for a likely target. The drink was hot, and as he blew across its surface to cool it, it seemed like a cosmic cue-in for someone to bump him from behind…Lisa was mortified by what she’d done. She’d quickly grown tired of the growing party at Jedera’s table and had been looking for an excuse to leave temporarily while she got her thoughts in order. A glimpse of Commander Grieg gave her the heart palpitating inspiration she needed, and the Captain’s entrance had given her a wonderfully extended opportunity to study him. Then when her order was being placed before her, she’d lost track of him and, annoyed, she’d been backing away from the bar when she’d struck somebody from behind.
She’d faced him with a hasty apology on her lips, but on seeing who her victim was, she began to panic like an overwhelmed schoolgirl.
"Oh my God, sir!" Her tray was almost flung back on to the bar. "I’m so sorry! Are you alright?"
He was still in a hunched-over stance, hovering over his dripping beverage in an attempt not to get it on his boots, but the smile he gave her was one full of open humour.
"As they say in the classics, ‘missed me by that much’!" he laughed. "Though the floor will need mopping. How about you? Do you need a hand?"
"Oh no, no… I’ll be okay once I’m facing the right way. Thank-you anyway, sir."
"You’re welcome."
He watched the shamefaced doctor retrieve her burden and solicitously waited for her to hurry back to her seat. It wasn’t until she’d disappeared amongst her friends that he allowed himself to chuckle kindly and, shaking his head, he went in search of the lounge’s personnel to help him clean up the mess.Joenn had slunk back into Paris hoping she’d go unnoticed until after the Captain’s address, after which she’d planned to leave as quietly. She didn’t want to be here; she didn’t really want to be anywhere except Correlli, really; but for now she felt she had no other choice but to stay.
Her plans didn’t pan out that way, for the Counsellor had been waiting for her. The crafty Klingon didn’t simply pounce as she walked in, but instead had waited until the scientist had found a quiet corner to hide in and then worked her way through the crowd as though there was no particular goal to her roaming. She never sparked any undue notice from Joenn, for by the time she’d reached her she’d spoken to every person along the way, thereby making her approach to Joenn seem just another casual meeting.
To begin with the Centauri had been hard to reach; friendly on a superficial level, but giving nothing away about what was eating at her. It had even taken a while to get her to stop gazing beyond her and to look directly at her, but the Counsellor had persisted, and now the meeting was going well for a first-time "unofficial" (as K’Teira called consults where she couldn’t really act as Counsellor).
Joenn at least was beginning to talk a bit now. Perhaps it was knowing that the Captain was there and would give her address as soon as the last of the Admirals arrived, but it was a step in the right direction.
From the hints Joenn unwittingly gave off, Chianeé’s diagnosis of the problem was mostly proven to be correct, though it was a little more complex that pure homesickness. Moreover, K’Teira found that she was going to talk if only the right question was asked. Joenn wanted to talk, needed to talk, was bursting to talk; but like so many others here, had no one here they knew to talk to.
K’Teira intended to change all that.
"What do you think of Earth?" she asked conversationally, looking out towards the blue sapphire rotating beside them.
"It’s nice." Joenn enthused hollowly, melancholy now darkening her words. Before this the little she’d said had been exceedingly polite in tone, so K’Teira felt hopeful this meant she was getting closer.
"How long were you down there for?"
"Over four Terran years - I was at the Academy there." Then came the sigh K’Teira was hoping for and, "I haven’t seen home for so long, and I miss it. Sometimes I think…"
Nothing followed but a pensive dreaming.
"…you’ll just give it all up and go home." K’Teira compassionately supplied. "I hear that a lot, and not just from juniors."
"Do you ever feel that way?"
A quick judgment in the face of desperate youth. Training dictated that one didn’t relate situations back to one’s own state, thus staving off possible recriminations later. Experience, on the other hand, had shown that personalizing the advice with selected true stories made up for a better bond of trust and helped the counselling reach deeper levels, though this worked only some of the time.
"I have done." she announced truthfully. "And I cannot say I won’t again, but I made my choice and now I intend to stand by it."
"Do you ever wish you could go home?"
K’Teira paused. How to answer this one? She was accustomed to thinking of the Federation as home; certainly it accepted her more readily than her people ever had. She knew this wasn’t an appropriate time for the exile story; considered telling her the story of how she came into the Federation in the first place, then discarded it.
"I used to." she said slowly, thinking of her childhood dreams of Qo’noS. "But I became used to missing it, then I learned to see what was good about where I was rather than wanting other places out of my reach."
Joenn’s face darkened in a skeptical scowl, and K’Teira fought the desire to copy it.
"It won’t come to you in a blinding flash of light and an instant revelation." she warned. "It may not come at all to you. It takes a lot of work to get to that level of acceptance.
"But for now I can tell you this - it always helps me to remember my homeworld is waiting for me if I choose to go back, but my home is me, not where I live."
"Sounds like a platitude." Joenn sighed. "Something to make me feel better in the short term."
K’Teira smiled inwardly, turning her head slightly so the little woman wouldn’t see all of it.
"One day you may understand." she replied serenely. "Then you’ll wonder how you didn’t before.
"Why don’t you tell me about your tribe?""Admiral Grainger, your shuttle is cleared for docking in Main Shuttlebay." Elek intoned as she toyed with her panel. "Welcome to the Fairburn."
"Understood, Fairburn. It’s nice to be here."
"An honor guard will meet you there." Elek continued as she waved at the security personnel she’d ordered here for this express purpose. Having been anticipating this, they went to the turbo lift to make their way to the bay.
"Shuttle One, turn control over to shuttlebay on my mark…" She watched the readouts on her panel. "Mark."
"Shuttle One has given over control successfully." the Bay operator reported. "We’ll take it from here."
"Understood. Bridge out."
Elek stretched in her seat and called up a chronometric display on her screen, and started slightly when she saw the time. Yet she consoled herself with the logical thought that she had has to ensure all of the special guests arrived safely before she could go to the reception herself.
"Lieutenant," she said, turning to face the operations officer seated at the science station. "You have the bridge."
The man nodded and stood as she did, but she did not wait for him before she left."It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?"
The new voice coming from behind her broke into Brynna’s daydreaming as she gazed down at the planet, but she didn’t turn around to see who was addressing them. Beside her Be’rallt’hemin’s fans were pulled in around his skull as daydream became a rather immediate nightmare, but he said nothing. He couldn’t; his vocal chords abruptly paralyzed with shock, despite the new arrival’s smile.
"Yeah." Brynna hummed with pleasure, leaning out over the planters to touch the transparent barrier between her and the scintillating planet beyond. "It puts everything in perspective up here, you know? Seeing it like this, so small… kind of makes it hard to believe all the politics and machinations that go on. It’s all so basic…"
"That’s a lovely way of seeing it." the voice said approvingly. "Sometimes horrible things come from places of such beauty; we’re here to see that the beauty wins through. Somehow it makes it easier when we’re far enough away to be able to remember the world really is wonderful."
Be’rallt’hemin then found his voice; unfortunately the words were eluding him now, and all he could do was make a pitiful ‘meep!’ noise as he tapped frantically on the engineer’s shoulder.
Irked by this, Brynna turned and snapped, "Stop that!" at him before blissfully returning to her awe-filled tone, continuing the move in order to see her like-minded comrade.
"I’ve never met anyone who felt the same way before - it’s like you stole the thoughts from my…" One, two, three, four pips… Oh, shite! "…mind…" Brynna immediately got up from the planter she was leaning on to come to attention, saying crisply, "Captain."
"As you were, Ensign." Susan waved her down. "And please, Chief, stop chirping."
The Saurian closed his beak with a soft ‘click’.
"I’d guess you don’t see much of this kind of sight stuck down there in Engineering as you are." Susan continued, her eyes out towards the planet her ancestors - and she for a time - had called home.
Her assumption that the instantly recognizable lone Saurian of the crew would be with another from his division (though the mustard uniforms were also a good clue), had paid off, for the woman said,
"No, sir. And it’s a real shame. As I said, it helps to keep perspective."
"It does - it makes you feel quite humble at times, but it makes you glad to be alive, too."
"So very true."
A sigh, and Captain Randall drifted on into the crowd.
Be’rallt’s eyes were wide and his lizard-like body quivered after the Captain’s passing.
"I wasn’t expecting her! I’m sorry I acted that way, but she surprised me!" he frantically spat, looking as though he wanted to hide.
"That’s alright Be’rallt. If it’d been me, I wouldn’t have been saying ‘meep’!"
"Do you know what that means in my language?" he asked quickly, a little humility creeping into his high pitched tone.
"No. What?"
So he answered her curiosity with explicit detail and at extreme length, after which she knew precisely why he was so embarrassed at having only that word at his command before his new Captain.
"Oh." was all she could think of to say.
