First Impressions (Backpost with Olsam Mott)

Posted on 03 May 2016 @ 3:57am by Lieutenant JG Noah Khoroushi

1,637 words; about a 8 minute read

[Flashback Episode 10, MD 30]

Olsam Mott entered his quarters precisely two minutes after the end of his shift in Sickbay, which was only a few steps away on deck three. It was part of his daily routine. 1600 hours: sign out of his duty station in the Chief Medical Officer's office. 1602 hours: arrive in his quarters. 1603 hours: prepare his mid-afternoon, pre-dinner meal. 1605 hours: consume his mid-afternoon, pre-dinner meal. Today had been going along like any other day up until this point, when his mid-afternoon, pre-dinner meal preparation was being interrupted by the presence of an unknown entity.

It was wearing the uniform of a Starfleet engineer, lieutenant junior grade pips at the collar. It appeared to be a human male, approximately 1.9 meters in height and weighing no more than 95 kilograms. It was staring at him, and he was staring back. They exchanged no words, simply stared. Eventually, Olsam put his shoulders back, stiffened his spine, raised his chin, and accepted the inevitable.

"I knew this day would come eventually. You're here to kill me."

Noah blinked; this couldn't be right. He'd been SURE he informed the Quartermaster that he wanted Yasmin to be berthed with him. So why was he standing here staring at a Bolian male? "Ah ... who are you?" He couldn't help peering about - as if hoping to find his sister hiding somewhere to enjoy the joke.

"Name: Mott comma Olsam. Rank: lieutenant. Serial number: WM-899-6519." He stared straight ahead at a fixed point on the far wall for a few moments, trying to maintain his steely resolve in the face of a hostile intruder sent from some future eventuality to put a stop to the Bolian menace. However, eventually, his curiosity got the better of him. "Uh... Who are you?"

"I ..." The man's reaction caught him completely off guard - if Noah didn't know better ... but surely he'd been joking about that! "I would assume I am your new room-mate. Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Noah Khoroushi." He forwent the rest, never really associating personal numbers as anything outside of computer access.

"What did you do with my old roommate? Where's Arandon? You know, tall Romulan-Risian guy. Always had those sex statues everywhere... Where's his sex statues?" Olsam asked, looking around. In the time it had taken him to go on duty and return home, their quarters had been completely transformed. It looked far more spartan now. "Did he quit? Can you do that, just quit?"

What had he gotten into? "I'm afraid to say I know nothing of Arandon. I'm new to the ship and this is the assignment I was given." A twist of doubt in the pit of his stomach cautioned that this Arandon might have been a casualty of the past mission ... in a delayed sort of way. "And yes, you can quit." Granted ... the fall-out is not always so easy."

"Oh. Maybe he got a new posting. I'm sure he'll send a letter," Olsam said. He appeared thoughtful for a moment and then understanding illuminated his eyes. "You know, maybe I did get a message from the quartermaster. I just ignore most of the administrative messages. They're all nonsense, you know?" He cleared his throat and adopted a very formal tone of voice. "'There have been some changes in security protocol...' Blah blah blah."

Noah chuckled a bit at that. "You're not the first, though I'll try it not to take it personally." At the curious glance, he added, "I'm the new Assistant Operations Chief - I'll likely be taking part in providing some of those messages in time."

"Well, if you have anything important to say in them then you can just tell me before bedtime," Olsam said, finally stepping into the room. Now that he was sure the new guy wasn't an assassin, he could set about catching up on his routine. He was now three minutes behind on preparing his mid-afternoon, pre-dinner meal. "It's a good thing they hired you. Our Operations department is a mess."

"Oh?" Noah had to admit he was curious; he only hoped that this Mott fellow was simply peculiar and not touched in the head. Otherwise he wasn't sure how reliable the information might be. "I must admit I'm still acclimating to the ship on a whole." He nodded his head toward the open door of sparsely appointed bedroom. "This is mine, I assume?"

"Yes, it is now, I suppose. You might want to ask your department to thorough disinfect it though. Arandon was very Risian, if you take my meaning," Olsam said. After a few seconds, he decided to clarify just in case Noah wasn't good at picking up on subtlety. For some reason he lowered his voice to a whisper, even though they were alone, "He was sort of a slut."

"Ah ..." Noah had gathered what he meant the first time around, though he wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cringe. "That's alright. I was assured the ship had been fully refurbished before its arrival to Jupiter Station. Thanks for the warning, though." The room smelled of industrial disinfectant beneath the quiet air of abandon, but he chose not to mention that.

"Of course," Olsam said, nodding several times as he busied himself at the replicator. The smell of disinfectant soon gave way to some sort of very pungent but unidentifiable meat and cheese spread. "I'm a physician. It's my job to reduce the transmission of disease. I've been conducting a public health campaign about sexually transmitted infections because the admiral just lets everyone run wild around here as if there aren't very real dangers involved in that sort of thing. So, are you married?"

How the two subjects matched wasn't immediately clear, but the flawlessness with which the Bolian moved from one to the other suggested he felt it was a natural segue. He sat down at the table with the dishes he'd replicated and gestured toward the opposite seat, which Noah was evidently meant to take.

This one was certainly a character! "Not married, and no concerns for diseases - questionable or otherwise." Setting his bag down within the bedroom, Noah set about unpacking. "I take it you are single as well?"

Olsam stared at the empty seat across the table from him. He blinked. Then he looked toward the empty bedroom where he could see Noah unpacking his belongings. He blinked again. He'd never had anyone pointedly refuse to sit down and dine with him, so he wasn't sure what to do over such a breach of Bolian protocol. He blinked a third time, opened his mouth to speak, but found himself momentarily speechless.

"Yes, I'm single, but twice divorced. Well... Twice divorced from the same marriage. I mean to say, I married two women at the same time and then simultaneously divorced them. Although it wasn't a real marriage, just a sham of a marriage to fool my mother while she visited. You know, as people do."

There wasn't much at the moment, as the balance of his things were still divided in storage between Jupiter Station and Earth. Still, Noah had enough to get him through a few days and adjust to his new surroundings. When all was sorted, he headed back into the main room - only to be greeted by accusatory eyes and a table set for two. Taken aback, Noah tried to make sense of the snatch of conversation he'd caught and the presence "Ah ... did I miss something?"

"I don't know, did you? Are you feeling lonely?" Olsam asked, setting his fork down and turning to look with concerned eyes. "What did you miss? Is it your family? Sometimes I miss my family and forget I miss them, too. Then I remember."

He really didn't know where to go from there. Noah shook his head, somewhat bemused. "Nothing. So," His brow furrowed as he took in the meal set waiting for him. "You are a cook, I see? Or at least more than proficient with a replicator."

Mott stared. He blinked once. Suddenly his emotionless face twisted as he erupted into laughter. In his mind it was common knowledge that every Bolian was a cook; the only thing differentiating all of them from one another was how good of a cook they were.

"Oh, that was hilarious. Oh... Whew. That was a good one. You're funny for an Ops officer, they usually have no sense of humor. Ha! Am I a cook? Am I a cook... Seriously, hilarious. Are you a cook, too? Do you eat? Do you have special dietary restrictions? Are you allergic to lactose? Do you have a fear of proteins? My old roommate was a vegetarian. Can you believe that?"

"I can," Noah offered with some care. "I have no allergies or 'fears' of certain foods, though I prefer white meat to red, and more natural resources. I generally have to go for what is offered when it comes to ship life, though."

"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Right, white over red, natural... I think I can create a daily diet plan that fits your needs and preferences. Assuming you have no objection to having your meals provided for you, here, free of charge, constructed by a renowned chef slash doctor," Olsam said, leaning forward slightly, staring as if there was really only one answer.

Noah blinked. "That ... actually would be incredible. I have no issue with eating in the lounge or even the mess hall, but I come from a family that liked to explore different cultures of food, and for all that ship food has always been rather bland." Feeling some of the tension fade away, he smiled. Perhaps this arrangement would turn out well after all.

OFF

= Compilation thanks to the Creative Ingenuity of Dr. Mott =

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