Brass Lunch
Diziara made her way into the mess and looked around. A frown crossed her face as she saw Spiegel had beaten her there today, and she made a beeline for the replicator. It only took a moment and a couple button presses for her to end up with a plate full of BLT and a glass of something orange and fizzy. She crossed to his table right smack dab in the middle of everything, circled it twice, and finally sat down in the chair across the table from him. He watched her with mild amusement, and then pretended to pay attention to his PADD again.
"Why do you always insist on sitting in the middle of the Mess?" Diziara asked him, and he looked up from the PADD as if he's only just realized she was there. The look he directed at her was clearly intended to convey innocence, but all it did was serve to make him more guilty.
"You're too paranoid," was all he answered, then dropped his eyes back to his PADD as he blindly took a bite out of the folded slice of pizza in his hand. She growled softly, and stared at him. "I just noticed, there's a holographic extension to the consoles in the Obama," he said as he swallowed his bite of pizza. Diziara leaned across the table and snatched the PADD away from him. He grinned and chuckled softly.
"You should have found this while we were still in the damn thing, so I could try it out," she insisted after her eyes skimmed the PADD quickly, then plunked the thing back onto the table. Spiegel shrugged, then casually took the PADD back.
"The trip to the mirror universe left me a little shaken. Under normal circumstances, I would have read the updated specs a dozen times within the time you pulled your first shakedown maneuver test, and you would have been able to test it out within a couple hours of leaving the shipyards." Spiegel sounded mildly defensive as he said this, and Diziara slouched back into her seat. The doors into the mess slid open, and when everyone noticed it was Admiral Johnson who'd just walked in, the ambient noise level dropped significantly. Diziara silently watched him get his lunch from the replicator as Spiegel turned his attention back to the PADD. "He's pretty odd for Brass, huh?" Spiegel asked, without turning to look at Johnson who selected an empty table only a couple over from the one Spiegel and Diziara were sharing.
"I don't think I've met another Admiral who will take a meal in a mess. Heck, I think most officers break themselves of the habit once they hit Captain," Diziara commented. As she said this, the door to the mess opened again, and Voralis Cryn entered, and Diziara bristled. He made eye contact with Johnson, then hit the replicator.
"Who's that?" Spiegel asked as Cryn passed their table on his way to Johnson's.
"He did my debriefing. Told me I could call him Voralis Cryn," Diziara explained, not taking her eyes off him as he passed the table. Spiegel actually turned around to look at him a moment, then turned back to Diziara, chewing on his lip.
"You don't like him."
"So, what do you think of Diziara?" Johnson asked Cryn as he sat down.
"She actually offered to punch me hard enough my children would feel it," Cryn opened up with, which provoked a chuckled from both men. Diziara, listening from the other table, tensed up, and a low growl escaped from her.
"Diz?" Spiegel hissed, causing her to turn her attention back to him with some effort.
"I don't know what they find so damn funny, I would have punched him that hard," she muttered. Spiegel frowned.
"She talked me into a sparring ring on Andor, she was this far away from convincing me to let her kick my ass a second time when her friends called to save her from me," Johnson commented when the two men stopped chuckling, which caused Cryn to shake his head. "But what did you think of her?"
"There wasn't anything about her that wasn't covered in her file, but she was a little off-putting," Cryn answered. Spiegel leaned across the table to wave a hand in front of Diziara's face even as she was growling again.
"You might want to be a little more subtle about eavesdropping on Johnson," he suggested under his breath as he sat down again, and Diziara sighed.
"They're talking about me," Diziara explained, also under her breath, but adjusted her position to make it a little less obvious that she was watching the Admiral and his friend.
"She's had plenty of reasons to not trust people, and she doesn't know who you are. Of course she's not going to trust you," Johnson explained with a chuckle. Diziara muttered under her breath hearing this, and Spiegel shot her a look.
"She's got a bit of a reputation with senior officers and brass," Cryn allowed with a shurg. As he said this, he picked at the food on his plate with his fingers, and brought a mouthful of gagh up to his mouth. Noticing this, Diziara turned to get a better look.
"I don't know how you can eat that," Johnson commented of Cryn's lunch choice. An evil gleam crossed Diziara's eyes hearing the Admiral's comment.
"I don't know why I bother with it replicated, but it's been so long since I've had any properly prepared..." Cryn explained. "You know, there was one Admiral noted in Diziara's file as someone she got along well with, that Romulan defector, Khazara."
"I met him once, when HQ was holding the planning meetings for the Delta Force mission. I was in SF for something else at the time and introduced myself when I ran across him." Johnson said as he picked at his Caesar salad, occasionally glancing over at Cryn's plate.
"You're fascinated by oddities," Cryn dismissed, and Johnson shrugged.
"At any rate, I can understand why Diziara respected him. So many flag officers simply assume that because they've got rank, they automatically get the respect of the junior officers and the enlisted," Johnson tapped his fork idly on the edge of his plate as he spoke. "That may work with the greenhorns, the naive and the fleet brats, but those who had a life before joining the fleet, those who think for themselves, and those who didn't exactly plan on having a fleet career, they're a little more skeptical on handing out blind respect. Shar'Reen doesn't assume he has the respect of his crew, he makes a point to earn it. In return, he does expect his people to earn his respect too."
"I noticed that her time with Delta Force showed the lowest frequency of reprimands. It's too bad she chose to transfer away from that assignment, if she hadn't, she probably would be on the threshold of promotion to Lieutenant Commander, if she wasn't there already," Cryn speculated, and Johnson nodded understandingly.
"Why don't you just invite yourself in on the conversation?" Spiegel finally demanded of Diziara. She stared at him with her head cocked to one side. "With how much Johnson likes you, I doubt he'd say no... though they might be a little less blatant about talking about you if you're sitting at the table."
"It's kind of interesting to hear what people say about me when they think I can't hear, though," she objected.
"If you're into that sort of thing, I can introduce you to this guy who has the whole ship bugged. You might know him though, blue skin, 5' 4", gravely voice," Spiegel teased with a smirk. Diziara shot to her feet with a growl, drawing the attention of some of the crew at the neighboring tables. Johnson and Cryn seemed oblivious to the red-head's actions. Spiegel chuckled at her, even as she scooped her plate up from the table and stalked towards the Admiral's table.
The closer she approached the Admiral's table, the less certain the look on her face was. It was almost as if she was having second thoughts, but at the last moment she resolved herself and finished her march with a certainty in her step.
"Do you suppose she'd...?" Johnson asked Cryn, trailing off in such a way as to imply that he expected Cryn to know exactly what he was asking about.
"I'm not sure which way she'd go, so we need to just be patient for now," Cryn answered before he noticed that Diziara was standing behind an empty chair at their table.
"You know it's no good dead, right?" she asked him, causing both men to look up and notice her at the same time. Her drink was balanced on the edge of her plate, which was clutched in one hand, and her other hand was on her hip. The silence she received in response caused her to add, "The gagh." in clarification.
"It's been too long since I last made the mistake of replicating it, I'd forgotten how horribly the replicator mangles it," Cryn offered up as an excuse, as an amused grin crossed his face.
"Join us," Johnson said, his tone of voice making it hard to tell if it was an order or a request. Diziara didn't hesitate, as that had been her goal from the start, and took the chair she'd been standing behind. There was a noticeable drop in the ambient noise in the mess as she did this.
"If you want something delicious that replicates well, but will still scare off half the people you're sharing a mess with, look into some of the sushi dishes involving squid or other seafood that still resembles its living form when presented on those cute little rice morsels," she suggested, provoking puzzled looks from both men. At this, she grinned widely.
"I do believe she's trying to stir the shit, Zach," Cryn accused.
"The only reason I know of to eat replicated gagh in a mess is to alienate the rest of the crew. Those who appreciate the real thing will assume you have no functioning taste buds, and those who don't will just be disgusted by it," Diziara added, and Cryn pushed his plate to the center of the table.
"Let's talk about something a little more appetizing," Johnson suggested, finally taking a forkful of his salad. "Other than the unscheduled visit to the mirror universe, how did the Obama treat you?"
"She handled well enough, though I honestly didn't get enough of a chance to really test her out. The crossover took place too early in my first round of maneuvers, and once we got back we were all pretty eager to head back to the Shingen." Diziara was quick to attack her sandwich as she finished saying this, acting as if she'd only just noticed she hadn't touched it at all since she'd replicated it.
"I hope she measures up when you get a better chance to try her out properly. That report you sent me pretty well tore apart everything the fleet has to offer you to fly, and there's nothing worse than a pilot with nothing worthy of their skills," Johnson commented. Diziara didn't respond, keeping her mouth full of her lunch as tactfully as she could. Johnson finally cleared his throat. "I'm still not sure what to make of the new panels."
"I love them," Diziara jumped in after quickly swallowing her mouthful. "The default panels the fleet expects everyone to work with are so human centric that if you grew up in any other culture, they're annoying to adjust to. Being able to reconfigure them to the preferences of the person using them is a great option. Most people will probably still leave them vaguely fleet default configuration, but someone who really knows what they want will easily get caught up in reconfiguring their panel if they have any time to fuss with it before heading out."
"It also makes it easier for exchange officers, or controlling what diplomats, defectors and other non-fleet personnel see when they're in the ship," Cryn added.
"Spiegel just mentioned to me that the new copy of the specs they gave him at the shipyards mentions they've included holographic extensions to the control panels, so I can add a stick, or other tactile control, to fly her with. I plan to experiment with it first chance I get back in the Obama," she explained. Johnson and Cryn grinned at each other, and Diziara shifted in her seat, acting almost as if she'd walked into an ambush.
"I haven't had the chance to see the Obama in action yet. Have you, Voralis?" Johnson directed at his friend. Cryn's grin widened, and Diziara's gaze flitted from one man to the other.
"Not yet, maybe Diz could show us what the ship's got? I'm curious about the holographic interface, myself," Cryn answered, almost too perfectly to be anything but planned.
"That sounds like a great idea. As soon as we're done eating?" Johnson jumped on his cue with enthusiasm, and Diziara frowned.
"I have the rest of my duty shift once I'm done with my meal," she weakly objected. Johnson chuckled, and waved his hand as if to dismiss the idea.
"I'll have someone take care of that," he said as casually as breathing. Diziara turned her attention to quickly finishing her lunch, clearly knowing defeat when she encountered it. She carefully kept out over the conversation between Johnson and Cryn after that, even though they kept trying to bait her back into it. It was also obvious there were subjects they were carefully dancing around. When she finished her BLT, she cleared her throat as she stood from the table.
"If you'll excuse me a moment," she said, taking her empty plate and glass in hand.
"We'll meet you down at the flight deck," Johnson told her, to which she nodded and quickly made her retreat. Her path to the replicator took her back past the table Spiegel was still sitting at, and he directed an innocent look at her as she approached.
"How's Johnson doing?" he asked her casually, and her hand twitched around her glass as if it wanted to lash out in his direction. Instead she favored him with a tight, forced, grin as she set her empty glass on her plate.
"Oh, you know, normal," she answered and tapped on the table in Morse code, I will get you back. Spiegel chuckled and tapped back a reply, It was worth it. This caused her to narrow her eyes at him as she stalked away towards the replicator to return her plate.