Block Party

Posted on Thu Jun 16th, 2011 @ 12:39am by Lieutenant Cedric Shepherd & Crewman Sessan Birsi
Edited on on Sat Sep 22nd, 2012 @ 2:24pm

1,762 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave
Location: USS Ranger
Timeline: Immediately after "Fate's sense of humor"

Birsi turned to the doors of her new quarters, scrambled by just how much more immediate travel aboard Ranger was. Not quite 'blink and you're there,' swift, it was quick enough that unlike DS5, she didn't think far past her musings in the Boatswain's office. Narrower corridors made for less space and visibility than she'd become accustomed to, largely negating the distinct decline in foot traffic. And the curvature imposed by the saucer's elongation lent a dead man's curve aspect to outboard decks like this one.

Yet the specialist stood at its apex, alive and ready to unveil a newly disclosed detail about her accommodations: her roommate. The Boatswain's seeming rush to be elsewhere inclined her to take the most direct method to learning more; leaning on the door chime and awaiting a response. She could've asked the computer if someone was even in, but a childhood gaffe spurred by malfunctioning proximity sensors bolstered her preference of more certain methods.

"Come in!" the voice sounded muffled, as though it came from across the room, but the direction was clear.

The doors parted to reveal another Bajoran, but species and gender were where any real similarities ended. A few inches shorter and several kilos lighter, the differences between the room's occupant and the visitor really mounted in appearance. Rather than the gentle waves of hair that framed Birsi's face, the occupant had an asymmetrical shock of curls and spikes. Where Birsi tended to look naturally soft and open, the occupant looked naturally skeptical and hardened. The collar of her tunic was services gold instead of sciences teal. And she was draining half a glass of something pink, rising from the table as she did so.

"Um," said the occupant, uncertain of the newcomer. "Can I help you?"

To Birsi, the question was ironic considering the setting of its bestower. Her survey of the room naturally began at its occupant, who flanked a table perched by an unhealthy excuse for a meal. Fried, slathered, and stiflingly scented by the multifaceted stench of heated grease, it served as an unpleasant reminder of the so-called 'comfort food' that made her so uncomfortable during a visit to some of her father's extended family on Earth, a doctor stayed overnight in order to monitor her stomach's labored effort to put it down. The rest of the cabin didn't help matters; carved wood objects, flimsy trinkets, and artwork touting numerous tourist locales were randomly strewn about, but Birsi didn't mind their tawdriness nearly as much as the fact that they were everywhere. The holopictures were a different story. Featuring the other woman and a variety of other strangers, they depicted behavior ranging from silly to the unequivocally explicit, and abetted in provoking Birsi's second gawk of the day.

Contrary to her earlier instance, Birsi didn't burst into laughter a few seconds later. The sea of perplexity encompassing her was too vast and turbulent to let her be humored, though a smile joined her wide-eyed aspect. It was more a reflex than anything; she really didn't know how to respond to this. She found the will to speak, but it didn't translate into an assault on the mounting quiet for another moment or two, when she finally figured that someone unfazed with such brazen self-presentation surely had a sense of humor compatible with her own. So she led in with a paraphrase of a line her adoptive mother used to describe an academy colleague's similarly haphazard room.

"It looks like a Risian souvenir shop after a grenade attack in here," the taller Bajoran murmured after a soft chuckle, faintly shaking her head.

The room's occupant chewed slowly to a halt, took a look around the room, and gave Birsi a flat look. "So?"

Unlike the last instance in which her quipping fell flat, Birsi didn't feel very rueful. Suspect as she might later determine her introduction, she subconsciously brushed it aside with the assertion that reaching this point wouldn't have been a question of if, but when anyway. She might not have taken the other Bajoran's nonchalance so harshly if not for her estrangement from Bajor and its unifying post-Occupational culture making her feel alien among her own people. In a sense, the wholesale occupation of the room by someone that struck her as a quintessential instance of the rough-and-ready stereotype affixed to Bajorans she never quite goaded that seclusion, inciting an uncharacteristically aggressive retort.

"So? You don't think it rude to overrun a two-person room with your stuff?"

"You don't think it's rude to walk into a place and start cracking on it?" came the reply, quick and bristly.

"And you were expecting what of having pictures of yourself exposed for anyone entering to see?" Birsi returned assertively, though her voice ultimately wasn't the sort that conveyed menace to strangers. "This isn't the service academy, but it isn't your house, either!"

"What are you, the surprise inspector?" The other woman took a step forward. "Or just somebody looking to get punched in the face?"

Oddly inclined as she felt to be the one who threw the punch, the only connection Birsi had with the hushed snickering that filed behind the challenge was that it came from her general direction. Turning around exposed two fresh rubberneckers that while the obvious source, didn't look nearly as entertained as their baiting action suggested. In fact, the teal-clad observer regarded his lighter-complexioned, purple-necked colleague with a stare one might give a younger sibling blissfully up to no good.

In turn, he laughed smarmily. "Sorry," he began, smiling broadly, "but if we heard you two from halfway down the corridor, there's any number of others who did, too. I'd hate for you two to chance trundling through red tape over a roomie's spat; how about we reconcile your problem over drinks?"

The shorter Bajoran opened her mouth, something crude doubtless ready to fly, but then she closed it again and cocked her head, glowering at Birsi and thinking a moment. "Maybe mister diplomat here can tell me who you are, finally," she muttered, casually tossing her mug into the replicator, which caught and recycled the item in spite of the force with which it was deposited.

"Ensign Tane Mathis. And while I'd like to, I can't tell you a thing about her."

"Well, she's white as a sheet," the other bystander interjected at Birsi's marked blanching with a muted amazement that with his choice of simile, seemed to outline a nerdy nature. For all the sardonicism evident in her co-antagonist's rationing, it made her understand some key catalysts behind this inimical junction mortifyingly well.

"Are you okay?"

A soft row of dark chuckling met the other man's extension of concern.

"I almost jumped into a fight with my roommate," Birsi began anew, extending an indicative hand, "who doesn't even know that she is because I greeted her with a stupid joke instead of something more civil, like, 'Hi, Sessan Birsi. I know you moved in first, but since we're sharing this room for the foreseeable future, can we tone down the personized decor a little?' Now I'm standing with our quarters open to a pair of random guys, so embarrassed by having become so angry that one of you thinks I look as if the last time I saw sun was during a holographic demo of a solar system in elementary school. So I'm going to go with no. But I bought it on myself."

Her piece to her audience said, Birsi turned to her once-unwitting counterpart. "Look. . .I'm sorry for blowing up at you. I kept a wayward room in the service academy because I spent nearly all of my free time trying not to flunk out, so I don't mind that. But some of your pictures caught me off-guard. Still, I thought a crack would be an okay way to break the ice since you seem pretty open, just like I thought you'd figure why I'd walked in if I had a bag on my shoulder at a port. Double screw-up on my part."

The other Bajoran looked perplexed, then equally aggrieved. "Oh. . .wow," she pointed lamely at the bag. "I didn't even see you had a bag. Wow. Yeah. Um, I'm sorry I got all heated." The last bit tumbled out in a rush, like she wanted it gone, but at least she looked Birsi in the eye.

"So I'm Sisqua," she said after a moment. "Erne Sisqua." She clapped her hands once, broad and theatrical, "drinks, then?"

Birsi expressed acceptance and anticipation of coming to like Sisqua with a small smile. Her conscience lightened, she was free to confront another grievance. She nodded at the proposal, and lowered her bag just past the threshold.

"But just between you and I, okay? I don't know about his sidekick, but I'm pretty sure the only thing Ensign Mathis is looking to reconcile is his libido."

"What?" Mathis guffawed, angling his head. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I think your friend wondered the same when he gave you that look after we first noticed you both, and I can't blame him." The younger Bajoran had turned and hit Mathis, his associate, and then him again with a mildly eccentric pointer. "The whole 'knight in shining armor' act is kind of suspect when your eyes are roaming in a room with semi-nudes."

"If they were Bajoran they'd know better than to get into a girl fight," quipped Sisqua with a wolfish smile. "They'd get a beating. Besides, I am security."

The yet-named sciences officer recoiled at the revelation. If he intended to articulate a rationale, he was denied by Ensign Mathis, who after also regarding the Bajoran women skeptically, initated their retreat by corralling him away.

"Didn't I tell you we didn't need to come down here?" Mathis asserted with riant conviction. "Butting in and playing peacemaker may've worked in intermediate school, but out here, that's liable to make you the only one who ends up in sickbay with something broken. . ."

Birsi could've eavesdropped on more of the retreat chatter, but instead chose to finally allow the doors to side shut. Not as certain in her assessment of Mathis' intent as she may've seemed, she'd nonetheless learned that all it took to sell a point sometimes was reciting it with a confident face. She did however jab a thumb backwards in reference to Tane Mathis.

"If we go on a diplomatic mission and he's one of the envoys, I'm moving into an escape pod."

 

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