1143: Morta

by Rada Dengar
110314.2100
After The Three-Sided Square

-=An Alien Vessel=-

Morta was a woman who took few things fearfully, and to whom worry was mostly too much to worry about.

Certainly by this time in her life, she was well accustomed to the coughing and sputtering of a sickly and deteriorating engine. It was merely natural in a craft so old and poorly kept.

This humble ship was a century out of date, set to be destroyed before they’d perhaps mistakenly saved it from scrap. Much like her joints seemed to some days, it would rattle and it would shake uneasily, as they slowly traversed what felt like ever growing gaps between unwelcoming and unfamiliar stars.

Her people; the Maclaurans, were travellers, from a race; very like any other, not quite so rich as to build ships of their own, but that little bit too proud to accept any assistance in charity.

They were not explorers. They were not refugees. They were merely a people who’d chosen to take to the skies for a new life, only to discover it no more glamorous or fulfilling than living upon the dirt of home.

Their ship was self-sustaining, only occasionally taking on passengers in their journeys for a sliver of latinum for trade. For those like her, toiling in the heat of the galley, it was their only real contact with other races and their bizarrely alien ways.

In a lifetime, she’d met merely dozens. Some were friendly. Some were interesting. Others were pains in parts of the anatomy that she found it curious seemed to be possessed by even the most unusual alien races.

When their lives were threatened she took it in her stride. When her crewmates returned from missions to worlds where a relaxing day meant they merely attempted to hang, draw and halve you, she helped as she could in bandaging their wounds and then simply returned to work.

Certainly, she was not a woman easily shaken.

It made it all the more of a mystery to her then why this one guest, when she’d serve his food, had the ability, and the glare, to render her nearly incapable of speech.

For three days he had come; the picture of stoic posture and an arrogant air, and demanded she give him his due.

He was far taller than she. He’d tower over her as he stood with a waiting tray. With emotionless eyes he seemed to cut what constituted her species’ heart in two, only to coldly insist she pull herself together.

A man of few words, and fewer concerns, he’d never told her the name of his race. Only from photographs had she identified his kind.

Had she known more of that noble species though, she’d have seen something deeply incongruous in him.

“This meal. I trust it will this time meet my dietary requirements.”

Barely, could she force her eyes to meet his for a glancing brush.

“Y..yes, sir.”

“Are you certain?!”

“Y…yes.”

He didn't move. He simply continued to stand there; unfeelingly studying her soul like a crumbling book; as though it were so easily acquired and read, yet just as liable to fall to pieces in his grip.

Finally though, he seemed to be done for now.

“Very well.”

He quickly turned, his words a clear acceptance of the tray he took, and not a validation of the woman whose knees now shook before him.

As he took his seat alone by the wall, probing at his food with disgust, she had the horrible feeling that his eyes hadn’t really left her. Though hers was not a truly empathic species, she could sense something deeply unnatural in him. It was like he knew more about her than he should.

Not realising just how much he really had gotten to her, she jumped as a hand was clamped upon her shoulder.

Her eyes wide, she turned, then blushed, as she realised it was merely Gretcher; one of her fellow kitchen hands.

“Something wrong?” he asked; the sweet young man always far too concerned about the happiness of an old woman.

“I’m alright,” she said softly. “It’s just…him. He gives me the creeps.”

“I don’t see it, personally. Sure, he’s a bit weird, but they wouldn’t call them aliens if they weren’t. I met one once, I think it was called a Klingon, and it tried to sell me a lifetime supply of root vegetables, before propositioning one of the female deckhands for something called oo-mox...”

She smiled slightly, but it quickly dissipated.

“No, it’s something more than that.”

“Is this your female instinct playing up again?” Gretcher asked with a slight sigh; a frequent sceptic of the claims of higher senses being possessed by certain members of his species.

“I don’t trust him.”

“Yeah, well don’t worry. He’s supposed to be getting off at the next planet. He said, the sooner he could be released from the confines of this 'primitive vessel', the better.”

“The Captain won’t like that,” she replied; amazed at this stranger's audacity.

“The Captain doesn’t like him,” Gretcher answered. “He says his sort’s unnatural.”

Morta cringed slightly at the thought. For as terrifying as this man was, she could still not stand the Captain’s many prejudices being used against him.

“I hear though that the first officer feels differently,” Gretcher added.

”Many of the young women do,” Morta replied, still shaken. “He can be very…charming.”

“Another thing I don’t understand.” Gretcher shook his head, as he observed the cold and uncharismatic man.

Morta too continued to watch him, and it was then she saw him do something she hadn’t expected. For a moment, he seemed to look a little sad, as he took from his pocket a small and hard to make out device.

“What’s he looking at?” she asked, furrowing her brow; afraid to move any closer to get a better look.

“A holo-imager,” Gretcher answered, having caught sight of it earlier. “He doesn’t let anyone else see it, but he barely ever seems to stop looking at it.”

“I wonder why…” she asked, needing to consciously stop herself from closing the distance so she could see more clearly.

“It’s better not to know,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders, turning around to return to his work.

“No,” Morta replied, still observing him with a shake of her head. “No, I don’t think it is.”

Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012