An Evening Excursion To Waste Extraction

Posted on 26 Feb 2015 @ 9:01pm by Lieutenant Olsam Mott & Commander Norvi Stace

2,400 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: Starbase 84 - Olsam's Temporary Quarters
Timeline: MD38: 1930hrs

[ ON ]

Olsam's quarters felt like a tomb. The silence was deafening. His entire family had evacuated upon hearing a rumor about an all-you-can-eat special at the starbase's Bajoran fusion restaurant, leaving him alone. With Norvi. Sitting at the table. By themselves. For what his mother had described, with a wink, as "a night alone together."

The Bolian doctor cleared his throat and stared at Norvi for an uncomfortably long time. "So, lieutenant commander... Uh. What are we supposed to do? Should I cook dinner? Do you even eat dinner?"

Stace's silence said it all. She rolled her eyes and leaned her head in his direction, allowing it flop towards him. "No, Olsam. I live off water and sunshine. It's how I keep so trim!" She sighed loudly. "Ugh! This is ridiculous, Mott. I don't oppose spending time with you. But like this, I do. I feel trapped and anxious."

Olsam blinked. He couldn't remember anything in her medical file about it, but he had read a very interesting article about some experimentation involving photosynthesis in humanoids. If he recalled correctly, they were proposing some sort of spray-on application, a photosynthetic layer that used water and sunshine to provide sustenance. Maybe she was part of the clinical trials? But over the past few weeks he'd learned not to ask her too many questions. She didn't seem to like his questions.

"Uh, trapped and anxious? Do you want to leave? They might see us...."

"Exactly that, Mott," she exclaimed in vocal frustration. She allowed her hand to drop on her lap but then quickly brought it up to her forehead, adding pressing to ease the dull ache. "'Trapped and anxious!' We're stuck here!" She narrowed her gaze upon him as an idea popped into her head. "But it's not as if we're back on the Gally! The starbase has hundreds of levels. We could leave and not be seen. Site to site transport to somewhere... out of here!"

"I would say we could go to the Iconian restaurant on Deck 2,501 but apparently both the restaurant and that deck don't exist," Olsam said, sounding supremely disappointed. "I tried to find those crewmen to tell them they had been mistaken in directing me there, but there are so many people on the station... Um. We could take a walk in the arboretum! It's close to the promenade, but not where all the restaurants are. Or we could go to one of the research labs and see who can design the deadliest pathogen. Or I could pack a picnic and we could go to the lower decks to watch the maneuvering thrusters fire. I heard they're very beautiful when they interact with interstellar dust particles." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "We could tour the upper waste recycling center, that's probably neat. We could replicate some intelligence uniforms and go scare whoever they'd holding in the brig. Or..."

"Enough, please!" Norvi yelled, her head now pounding and her anxiety flaring up uncontrollably. She relaxed and then cleared her throat. "Sorry," she muttered. She cared for Mott, she couldn't deny that. But her current predicament with him and Tuula had sharpened the edge of her tolerance for his scatty behaviour. In truth, she enjoyed the more outlandish personalities her current host was connected to. After five lifetimes of forging friendships, it was the more abrasive and powerful personalities that now made a favourable impression, not the weak-minded and plain. But this was too much.

"How about we both go some place different? We don't need to stick together all the time, do we? I can find someone where nice to eat and you can go visit the... waste disposal levels. That'll be fun, huh?"

Olsam tried hard to conceal his disappointment. Being something of a preeminent scholar and expert on relationships, he knew it was important for a couple to spend time apart; if you didn't indulge your own personal interests and maintain an individual identity it could lead to any number of problems. But what about a fake relationship? With a Bolian? And 47 members of his family? He felt like he'd literally not spent a single moment with Norvi alone, and now that they did have some alone time she wanted to be alone-alone. It seemed natural, he told himself. Going a step further, he had to remind himself that it was a fake relationship, so there really wasn't any basis for having one's feelings hurt. It wasn't like his real wife was ditching him for a solo dinner, perhaps the greatest of all slaps-to-the-face for a Bolian husband.

"Oh. Okay. Sure, that'll be fun. I can probably ask more questions that way, I guess."

The 'oh' at the beginning of his reply stuck the Trill in the chest like an unpleasant, discourteous shard. She physically winced and then sighed, allowing her body to relax as she arched her neck backwards and took in a deep breath. "You know," she began, she tone now even and somewhat appealing, "I have always wondered how a station this size does recycle its waste. Would you suffer from the company?"

Mott's realisations were correct. Despite one thing or another, they hadn't spent any alone time together, not that that was a necessity with their current predicament, but she was fond of the blue oaf, and seeing his somewhat honest and emotive reaction, it upset her.

She sidled up to him and slipped her arm into his. "Do you know much about the process yourself?"

"Are you kidding?" Olsam asked, immediately cheery again. He was grateful over her change of heart; the reasons were immaterial. "There was a time in my life when I wanted to be a waste treatment specialist. I even submitted a design for a new waste extraction unit to replace the standard model. The Corps of Engineers rejected it because it was 'too elaborate,' 'impractical,' and 'too large.' As if it's my fault they make small ships! Anyway, I decided to become a doctor instead. I wonder if I might have somehow impacted more lives if I had followed the other career path?"

"In a positive way?" Stace answered under breath, "Probably more!" She faked the biggest smile she could possibly muster and then began to lead him out of the door to the corridor. "I assume that you know the way, Mr. Mott?"

It was only when they were in the corridor that Olsam realized they were in the corridor. With a loud gasp and a wild-eyed look, he whipped around, took Norvi by the shoulders and marched her right back into his quarters. "We can't go out there! One of them might be out there. If they see us, we'll never get away from them. We're going to have to crawl through three hundred decks of Jeffries tubes or use the site-to-site transporter. Your pick, snookums."

Stace sucked in a mock query through her teeth, faking to weigh up the two options Mott had just laid out to her. "I did just do circuit training this morning, Mott. So, perhaps, for the sake of my aching legs, we should just use the transporter. Plus, you hear all sorts of stories about what lies in the depths of those Jeffries tubes. That's why I didn't become an engineer. I valued my life too much." She allowed the gentle terror to hang in the air as, raising her eyebrows to the side in a pleased and self-fulfilled manner, she smiled.

Olsam looked more than a little disturbed. He'd never heard anything about monsters in the Jeffries tubes, but then again maybe he just didn't have the security clearance. He was only a lieutenant and Norvi was a lieutenant commander. Hadn't one of her hosts even been a captain? Maybe when he got his next set of pips it would come with instructions for accessing the files of Jeffries tubes monsters...

---

The engineer on site looked startled as two officers materialized on the duranium catwalk running above massive tanks, each connected with a series of pipes that ran between tanks and disappeared off into the bulkhead. The entire apparatus looked almost organic-like in its approach, as if organs could be easily identifiable if only one understood the system well enough.

"Hi," Olsam said, grinning at the engineer. "My lovely wife and I would like a tour, please."

"Uh..."

"What's wrong? Are you closed to tours or something?" Olsam asked, looking from Norvi to the engineer. Without waiting for an answer, he made up his own mind and waved a dismissive hand at him. "Nevermind, I'll do it myself. C'mon, Norvi. C'mooon!" Olsam took up her hand and tugged at it, practically dragging the Trill off her feet as they roughly shoved past the poor engineer. "Did any of your hosts have waste extraction experience? I don't want to talk about stuff you already know, you know."

Being swept passed the engineer, Norvi crinkled up her nose in an apologetic yet uncaring way as Mott began to speak. As soon as they'd cleared his earshot, she gripped on tightly to his arm with a renewed enthusiasm. "Consider me a complete novice, Mott. I don't think in either of my Starfleet careers have I had to scrub the exhausts or tinker down on the lower decks. I usually ordered people to do it for me." She looked about her with a subtle wonder as they walked. In truth, Norvi's interest did not lie in the actual waste disposal, but the sheer size of the process. She imagined that the Nova class' system would be less imposing or impressive. She turned to face him and added, "what's your favourite part of the system?"

"My favorite part is the reclamation unit," Olsam said immediately. He stopped and turned on the catwalk, obviously looking for something that wasn't where he expected it to be. His frown grew deeper and deeper until finally, with a look of wonder and amazement, he pointed to an enormous cylinder that pierced the deck plating above and below them. "Look at it! It's enormous! Tens of thousands of people producing tons and tons of waste, hundreds of different species each with a unique digestive tract, all managed by one gloriously efficient system of treatment and disposal..."

Olsam leaned into Norvi, placed his hand on top of hers as it rested on his arm, and stared at the reclamation unit with a mixture of awe and admiration.

"It's almost the engineering equivalent of a digestive system itself: Taking what it can from the produce and turning it into something wondrous." She shot him an admiring glance as her features warmed in his own lust for the system. They paused to glare upwards. "You could also moonlight, you know? Take a few shifts down in engineering to see how the actualities of this works?"

Olsam shifted a bit in place. "They don't tend to like me in engineering. Every ship I've ever served on, I never got on well with the chief engineer. Or the assistant chief engineer. Or any of the rest of them. Except when I was on the Nimitz, I thought I was making real progress with Commander Kerlin. Sometimes he even let me call him Boris. But I could never tell if he hated me or liked me. Most of them get really cranky about you touching their stuff and giving them advice." He huffed. "As if I'm not qualified. Engineering work is just medical work on a starship-scale. The principles are basically the same, you know. But no one wants to listen to my advice or suggestions no matter how many times I go to engineering and tell them about it. It's enough to make you think maybe people don't take you seriously or something, and that's just rude."

Stace winked at Mott and huddled closer to him. "I'm rather friendly with Lieutenant Kita. I'm sure that I could wangle at least some work-experience down there for you." She paused and then allowed her face to drop somewhat. "If the Gally were a Galaxy or Sovereign then I suppose there would be ample room but with us being a Nova there's not enough room to swing a cat. Let alone a rotund Bolian."

"Yes, it is pretty sma-... Say what?" Olsam asked, mouth falling open. "Are you calling me fat? I'l have you know I fall perfectly within the acceptable body-mass index for male Bolians of my height and age." He pursed his lips, as if reviewing his own statements, and then sputtered. "Well. Maybe not perfectly but definitely around the guidelines. Near to them, at the very least."

"What I'm saying," Stace replied, grabbing his arm yet more tightly, "is you only have to look at little Asahi. He's four foot nothing and about a buck-ten in weight. You're hardly lithe, Olsam."

Olsam looked down, then leaned forward a bit to look over and around his belly. He straightened back up and huffed dismissively. "I'm plenty lithe." After a moment's silent reflection, he spoke again. "But you're right, he is little. Really little. Do you think they have size requirements for engineering on a Nova-class ship? No wonder they don't like me down there. I bet he fits perfectly in the Jeffries tube... I got stuck in one on board the Odyssey trying to help repair the transporter systems. I just got turned the wrong way, that's all. They had to cut away a piece of bulkhead to get me out, it was kind of embarrassing. Do you do embarrassing things? Probably not. I bet you got all that out of the way in the first lifetime."

"And the second," she replied with a raise of her eyebrow. "I suppose that's how Hanor fell to his death. Ice-climbing. He was good at it but obviously not good enough. Luckily they they managed to save the Symbiont. But, outside of the liquor, I try not to make too much of a fool of myself. But never say never."

"I never do," Olsam said then gasped. "Except just then..."

OFF:

Lieutenant Commander Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer & Second Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

 

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