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Posted on Fri Jun 6th, 2025 @ 3:41am by Commander Rhupert Tyree & Lieutenant Katya Davi

2,515 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: On the Trail
Location: SS Adelaide, Pilot's Cubby
Timeline: Eight hours after Update and What's Next.

Rhu sat in his hammock, a three dimensional screen wrapped between him and the cubby’s hatch . He’d appropriated the cubby for his own quarters/office, leaving the rest of Valiant’s officers to pick and choose among themselves. He didn’t need much room and was used to the cramped quarters. They’d cleaned the ship from stem to stern, though there was still work to do. Everything needed repainting and some TLC, but that was something for another time.

Right now, the ship’s systems were getting all the love they could give them. Engineering spaces and Life support were at the top of the lists. After meeting his new officers and spending half a day aboard Valiant, he’d gotten back to the Adelaide, put on a ship’s suit that had seen much better days and gotten to work replacing filters and working through the life support specs on a full Level 1 diagnostic. After six hours, he was grabbing a break and some lunch, giving the rest of the crew freedom to spend the last few hours aboard the station as they liked.

Lounging in the cubby, feet dangling from the hammock he’d gotten some Betazoid Lilac music going and was eating spiced noodles with chunks of seafood, courtesy of the BDF outreach program. The Adelaide’s replicators were sub-par. They’d get the job done but he’d already arranged to put in a full-fledged galley aboard the ship and hoped they could get some family style meals cooked as they went along.

Hearing a shoe scuff the decking, Rhu leaned back and sensed a presence.

"Heyo, Katya. That you?" he asked, sensing her. Or at least what he thought was her.

He could pick up her mental chuckle as she approached. "Me or my doppelganger. Mind if I interrupt your lunch?"

Her mental chuckle brushed against his awareness, which wasn't really that great as telepaths went.

"Interrupt or join, though the seating arrangements are kinda iffy. "He gestured toward a large pillow on the deck and said, "The hammock will take two, but..." Grinning, he nodded toward a small side board, "Some stir fry vegetables and noodles as well as another box of the seafood and vegetable spicy noodles."

After a couple of beats he said, "How goes the war?"

"I'll go for join. I love spicy." She flashed him a grin as she went over to the sideboard and fixed herself some stir fry and spicy noodles, then joined him on the hammock. "It goes like it goes. I've put in another order for parts to do some upgrades. How about you?"

Giving her a flicker of a side glance, Rhu moved from straddling the hammock so they could sit side by side. It wouldn't do to have her in his lap, even if they weren't on the Valiant. "Most of the big orders are in: the galley replacements, the new shower units for the state rooms and the commons. FI had a store of torpedo's marked as popcorn machines tucked away so we have half a dozen. There are enough isolinear chips and biogenic gel packs so that we should make good headway replacing everything as we go. All these Level one diagnostics and maintenance routines are going to take some time though. I'm projecting a couple of months."

Dipping his chopsticks into his food container, he half shoveled the spicy shrimp noodles and veg into his mouth, ensuring a fairly liberal amount of sauce dribbled about his mouth. Using a thumb to wipe his lips, he licked it clean. "Not having an industrial replicator is going to be a problem between FI sanctioned bases. We'll be able to get some components shipped ahead, when we know where ahead is going to be." Experimentally, he reached out for his tumbler of water and had to fish a leg up to counterbalance them on the hammock.

"You should get a run ashore before we warp out in..." he glanced at the time in one corner of the bulkhead, "About twelve hours or so."

"The last time I was on Empok Nor, I went to that club with the hallucinogenic dance floor. I still have occasional dreams about the things I saw there." She shook her head, then chuckled. "Next time, I want to go with someone who wants to be there with me." She wouldn't mind going there with Rhu, but asking was definitely out of the question. She took a bite of her noodles and looked around the cubby, noticing he had a calendar with a Vulcan on a beach, dressed in a bikini for the picture of the month. She raised an eyebrow and moved on. "There's a lot that needs to be done here. I may just see how many projects I can complete in the next twelve hours."

Giving her a look, Rhu grinned. "I was there you know. We did dance together, though it was something of a blur. I do remember us singing with the butterflies that weren't there." He'd noticed her noticing the calendar and said, "Like it? Part of the Logan persona to have artwork in their cabin."

"It's a good image. Very artistic." She flashed him a grin. "For Neverwinter, you may have to dance with me again to help me remember. I do recall singing to the butterflies, though. I love their harmonies."

"Harmonies?" Rhu said. "Yeah. My brain remembers them tasting like cinnamon." Her closeness was unsettling and he could smell her shampoo. Pushing away stray thoughts, he dug his sticks into his food and fished out a pepper. After chewing and getting the even more (barely) distracting heat that wanted to melt through the back of his skull, he continued. "I think we're going to be good to go on time. It's going to be mostly fine tuning and deciding what needs to be worked on next. I plan on polling the crew but are there things we need to work on first from an Ops point of view?"

Kat's thoughts had followed the shimmer of heat in the air that was almost palpable. "Umm..." She paused to take a bite of her spicy pasta to distract herself. It didn't help. "I want to set up more shielding. We're working on masking the upgrades and the crew area, but I'd like external scans to think we have a shipload of stem bolts, screws, and scrap metal. I'm also going to ask Amy to help me search for hidden compartments. I found one with tools in one of the crew quarters. I want to see if there are more. If so, we can use them for our own cargo." She paused, grinning mischievously. "Maybe we could add a dance floor with a disco ball for...recreational purposes."

Then she grew more serious. "Are you going to keep training me?"

Nodding as he chewed, Rhu said "Yeah. We'll have time while we're traveling and there's a gym kit for one of the cargo holds. Mats for the floor and walls and some basic pads and a weight rack. We'll start tomorrow probably in the afternoon, after we've gone to warp and then decide on a schedule. Meditation might be a good place. I've some...humors that need calming."

Kat looked at him for a moment, subtly listening to the feel of the room. Then she raised an eyebrow. "What sort of humors do you need to calm? That sounds like a Vulcan approach to a Betazoid problem."

Marshaling his Betazoid half, Rhu grinned. "Sexual tension, among other things. Too busy to scratch itches properly and good looking, smart capable women under my command that pretty much any Fleet Admiralty board would have my dangles in a box over for fraternizing with. BDF regs are a little less forgiving, but this isn't the BDF."

"I was always told that as long as it doesn't interfere with you doing your job, it's okay." She shrugged. "Mostly because we spend so much time in space it's inevitable, so command loosened the regs." She didn't miss that it was women, plural. Or that Amy and Daynah were both beautiful and fun to be around. She shrugged, choosing to tighten her own shields so her own emotions wouldn't bleed through. "I've seen fraternization and cohabitation on every ship I've served on." She couldn't help smiling as she added, "Except this one. Ultimately, it's your ship and your rules."

Then a thought struck her and she chuckled. "However, if a captain decided to fraternize with every female on his ship, the admiralty would be the least of his concerns."

Smiling, he used one foot to rock them lightly in the hammock as he said, "And there you go. If Valiant were a bigger ship, then I probably could be free. With this tiny a crew, getting to know any of the beautiful women I work with better could be worse for moral than me choosing to admire from a-near." She'd masked her thoughts, but they were in close proximity and he felt her shields go up. That alone told him enough. "Kat, I do admire you, and will continue to. I'd enjoy getting to know you better. For right now though, while we sort all of this that's all I can do. I'm not choosing one person over the other. That would be like picking a flower from a meadow."

He was guessing a little, but that's what you did when you had to.

Kat couldn't keep herself from blushing, but she tried. "I have no expectations. And, if I'm honest, I couldn't compete with the other women on this ship if I tried." She gave him a wry smile, knowing it was his telepathy that gave her away. If it wasn't for that, she could have gone on keeping her feelings hidden. "I'm not going to chase after you, so you're safe--but I seriously want to keep training with you. I only know what I was taught in the Academy, and your fighting style could be helpful at some point." Plus, she wouldn't mind getting to know him as a friend. She tried to keep him from picking up on her embarrassment that he knew how she felt. She couldn't help that, but she could try to do a better job of containing it.

Rhu watched her, seeing the blush out of the corner of his eye and said, "Here," he said, gesturing around the cabin, "Aboard the Adelaide and since she's not a flagged Fleet vessel, I can say if you weren't under my command I'd have done my best to have your clothes off by this time and seen where things went." Winking, he stretched and said, "I do like the flirting and of course I'll continue with the training. We might just have to live with the discomfort. Above all we're sensual, beings and it's good to remind each other of that as long as no one gets hurt."

She nodded, even though she could feel the heat of her blush. But his words did help her feel better. "It would be hard not to flirt with you." She flashed him a smile. "So, I'm glad you're okay with it." She wouldn't say no to the other, either, but she respected his choice. "Thank you for the training." She still felt embarrassed and a little tongue-tied, but she was doing better--as long as she didn't let her thoughts dwell on getting naked.

He saw her blush turn a bit deeper and his eyes flashed, "You know," he said casually, "When you boil it all down, we're all naked under our clothes all the time."

She laughed. Her blush was more about being naked with Rhu, but she'd take this distraction. "Or we dance naked--but only when we're alone. I don't think it would go over well if we dance naked in a Jefferies' tube." Then she raised an eyebrow, a twinkle in her eye. "Or would that depend on what we're dancing to?"

His own eyes matched her twinkle and said, "Well. Now you're moving into a discussion of vertical versus horizontal. you do blush prettily, I must say." After a few moments of considering what she must look like naked, he said, "It's a good thing I've mostly gotten these showers installed. I do think I'm going to need a long, cold one today."

Chuckling Rhufully he said, "Nothing like a little self-indulged torture."

His comment helped--and made it worse. Especially as she was picking up his thoughts and imagining them showering together. Now she was the one feeling Rhuful. "I'm going to have to work until I'm too tired to think." She couldn't help giving him an impish grin as she added. "I can always dance to keep myself awake."

She finished her spicy pasta and seafood. "I've been comparing the Adelaide's blueprints to the scans I've taken of the different sections of the ship." She paused, then continued. "I think she was used for smuggling at some point. There are a few places on the ship where the two don't quite match up. I'm going to ask Amy to work with me to check them out. I doubt there will be anything of value, but if there are hidden holds, we could definitely make use of them."

Rhu scraped at the sides of his container, picking out the last of his shrimp as he thought about that. "Good idea. Given her history. Pay closest attention to the overheads. For some reason, inspectors rarely look up, though it's easier to get things into the deck with the structure on ships. Saw an entire false bulkhead built into a cargo bay once. It read fine but they got the paint wrong...."

She raised an eyebrow. She hadn't considered that, but he was right. It would be a good place to look. "I'll do that. Thanks." She hopped off the hammock. "And thanks for being honest with me. I appreciate it." Even though she felt awkward, his bluntness was appreciated.

Rhu used a foot to steady the hammock, making a point of looking at her posterior, before he looked up to meet her eyes. "Yeah. That's me. All steadfast and honest," he said with a wry smile. "My door is always open."

She gave him a slow once-over. She fought the urge to give him one kiss, just to have something to think about, but she refrained. That would be pushing boundaries he wasn't willing to cross. However, as she walked to the door, she couldn't help adding, "So's mine." The mental accompaniment let him know she was talking about more than her office. Then, before she embarrassed herself further, she left to go take a brisk shower.

Rhu caught her thought. Bit his lip and let his own mind wander down the thought of following after.

Then stopped. Mumbled exasperatedly to himself and decided to turn his thoughts to something safe.

Like knife fighting blindfolded.

 

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