By Lt. Cmdr. Avery Breaux and Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
80306.1830
After Tools of the Trade and Mother Says Hello
80306.1830
After Tools of the Trade and Mother Says Hello
--= Mess: USS Alchemy =--
Breaux arranged his meal break to coincide with Rada and the two met in the mess of the Alchemy. Breaux had taken a table far from the main entrance, away from the replicator console, his back to the wall, able to see the entire room. Old habits died hard it seemed. He had requested the machinery provide some dishes native to his New Orleans home-Avery figured if Rada didn't find them to his liking, the replicator was only steps away, but there was the off-chance that Rada had either sampled this type of food before or would find it appealing. The gesture outweighed the menu.
Rada entered and made his way to the table. Breaux welcomed him, "Forgive me for being sentimental in Sickbay...I think I had reached my saturation point. I'm glad you could join me. We have some of my favorites from my hometown, if you'd care to try them. Chicken and andouille gumbo. Smothered okra, and pompano duarte...well at least as close as the replicator could come."
Rada thought that a people’s food gave an insight into the people themselves. Vulcan food was like the Vulcans, sometimes a little bland and typically vegetarian. Klingon food was a lot like the Klingons, typically very much alive and often requiring a strong stomach to deal with. In a strange contradiction Terran food defined the Terrans by lacking any real definition. There was no common ground, no classification, there could be individual flavours down to the smallest towns themselves. Rada had to ask himself what this food said about where Breaux came from.
He sat down and said “Thank you. It looks very nice”. He took a small portion of what looked like the safest thing; it had some kind of small, dead, pink crustacean topping it. One bite and his breath was gone, just Rada’s luck that chilli peppers were one thing that the replicator had mastered. He tried to hide his inability to breathe by looking down and trying to seem curious about the pink thing.
“Shrimp,” stated Breaux, Rada wasn’t the brawniest person around but he still didn’t know why Breaux would want to start insulting him.
“That’s what that’s called… a shrimp,” elaborated Breaux.
Now Rada understood, one of those many quirks of Federation Standard, they use the same word for a hopefully edible anthropoid and a disparaging term for persons of minute stature. No wonder so many races have trouble understanding humans. Still unable to speak he just nodded to acknowledge Breaux’s explanation.
“Are you…alright?” Breaux asked, Rada nodded again “It’s just that you’re not doing all that much breathing…part of my medical studies was that I learned that that’s generally a bad sign.”
This caused Rada to let out a wheezing laugh and a cough.
“Here, this should help,” explained Breaux whilst handing Rada a glass of water.
Rada quickly took a gulp and replied with a very wheezy, “Thank you.”
This made Breaux smile.
“So tell me Rada, why did you become an Engineer?”
Rada got his breath back and replied. "Why did I become an Engineer. . .”
He took another bite and kept the water close at hand. Rada thought hard about which of his usual responses to this type of question but for some reason he wasn’t entirely sure of instead decided to just be honest.
“No other profession in Starfleet really occurred to me. I don’t trust my coordination enough to be a pilot, a doctor or in security. I don’t trust my tongue enough for communication…” he explained, Breaux took this as a joke but Rada was actually quite serious.
“Then why aren’t you working in say…Stellar Cartography?” asked Breaux.
“Truth be told Engineering is really the only thing that my people tended to be all that good at. Prior to the Tarsian War most of our ships didn’t even have weapons installed and even now that we do have some we typically won’t use them anyway. This has unfortunately made us far too vulnerable to some of the nefarious types around this galaxy to be explorers. Consequentially we’ve had little use for professions such as Stellar Cartographers or Science Officers who tend to deal with the unknown. All that’s really been left is localised intellectual and consequentially technological development, meaning we have plenty of Engineers. Our work does tend however to be much more theoretical than practical.” explained Rada.
He took another drink of water before chancing another bite and then asked “So, if it’s not too personal, what about you? Why are you in Engineering? Or more to the point why do you want to be in Medicine?”
Breaux thought for a long while-to the point of awkwardness. It seemed Avery was growing tired of his past and the constant need for him to conceal a great many parts of it. Sitting before him was yet another trustworthy mate who had just been candid with him and now Avery was at the crossroads again-to continue to spin the story or to be honest.
Knowing the need, but feeling disappointed in himself, Breaux began earnestly, "I struggled with where I wanted to be in Starfleet since the Academy...medicine gave me fits and so it eluded me. Assignments kept cropping up and proved to be obstacles, so I've only just sent in my Med exams. I suppose it's a calling...I was lucky though, in the interim I was posted to Erasmus. A fine ship, with an even finer crew." Breaux took a sip of his coffee..."If not for them, I probably would have left Starfleet ages ago..."
Avery paused and scrutinized Rada's working over of the meal, "I hope it's to your liking," Avery countered with, "I'd love to try some of your homeworld dishes sometime."
Breaux continued, "On the Erasmus we had an initiation...when we met new crew, we had to share our best moment and our worst. If time allowed, which it always didn't...we could elaborate...but it really got us past the perfunctory politeness. If you'll indulge me. . ."
Avery finished off his cup of coffee, walked to the replicator and got a new cup, speaking as he walked and watched the new cup appear, "Worst moment...we lost sixteen of our mates on the Erasmus on an Away Team. What made it the worst was not the sheer numbers...meager by wartime standards...substantial by an Away mission...no..."...he sat down and took a sip..."...what made it the worst was that we were betrayed by a crew member. Still angers me to this day. But my best moment Starfleet-wise...I had a chance to save the life of a child of a crewmate." Breaux laughed, "there's that damned medical rearing its head again."
Avery looked to Rada, and allowed him to compose his thoughts.
Rada had always hated trying to decide on the best and worst of things, in a full life the extremes are always hard to define. Not to mention that often those great moments in life are far too intimate to be explained. It was clear to Rada that the worst moment would be the hardest to speak of and so he decided to start out with the best.
“My best moment would have to have been five years ago when I was still at the Academy. A particularly unpleasant Klingon decided that he liked the look of a young cadet who was sitting on her own in a campus bar where I was supposed to meet some people from my Temporal Engineering Class who I’d assumed had invited me because they wanted some assistance with their studies. She, the cadet I mean, didn’t want anything to do with this Klingon and he didn’t take at all kindly to that. The next thing I knew I had forced myself in between the Klingon and the cadet and I was telling him to step back.”
“What happened then?” asked Breaux taking another sip of coffee.
“He decided that whilst he liked the look of the cadet he didn’t like the look of me and so he decided to see how I’d look if he removed my arms.”
Breaux laughed.
“He stepped up to my face, let out an intimidating growl and started to squeeze my shoulders with both his hands, I felt like they were going to shatter, the pain was so agonizing that I couldn’t move and then suddenly…he stopped. I looked from side to side realized why. It was my class mates, they’d all gathered around to stand with me.”
“And the Klingon just ran away?” asked Breaux as he sat down his cup.
“No, actually” laughed Rada “he decided to break my jaw and to instigate a brawl.” He went on to that part. “But it was then that I realised that the people from my class hadn’t invited me here because they wanted my help, they had invited me here because they were my friends. That was what made it a great moment, when I realized I had a lot more friends I ever thought. It really comforted me through my time in the infirmary.”
Rada and Breaux both smiled before Breaux asked “And your worst moment?”
Rada had been dreading telling this for years but it seemed now was the time.
“My worst moment happened when I was five years old,” he took a moment to find the words.
“I had been so excited to have him back, my father I mean, first he had been at war and my mother couldn’t even sleep at night for fear that when she woke up in the morning she’d learn that he’d been killed. Then when we thought that he would be coming home, that he would be safe with us, they shoved him in that damn penal colony.
"Finally after the revolt of 2366 he had been returned back to us, it was like a dream, but that couldn’t last. One cold, cold night I got up to have a drink of water to find him with his bags already packed. I asked him where he was going and he told me he was going far away. I asked him when he’d be getting back and he said he could never return. I started crying and pleaded with him to stay, I asked him why he had to leave us but he just told me that he had to go, that it wasn’t safe for my mother and I for him to be around. I told him I didn’t care, that I knew he could never hurt us, but he just hugged me one last time, wiped the tears from my eyes and stepped out the door, locking it behind him so I couldn’t follow…” Rada sighed sadly “that was the last time I ever saw my father,”
Rada paused for a moment before looking down at his food as a fresh tear formed in the corner of his eye.
“That was why I swore to myself that I would find another way for a society like mine to survive without having to do what our government did to my father. No child can ever be made to go through what I had to again.”
Breaux was nodding thoughtfully..."That's tough...really tough. Thanks."
Breaux took another sip and looked off to his right as other crew were sitting down to their meals. "Cuts through a lot...the best and worst. Makes everyone reflect...we humanoids are amazing."
Lt. Cmdr. Avery Breaux
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012