Valiant: That New Car Smell

[Érinthe Hetetlen]

Érinthe didn't stand on ceremony either: he was sure that the local cuisine tasted damned nice, but learned habits shovelled it into his mouth with the barely touching the sides finesse of a seasoned spacer. He spoke mostly between, though occasionally around mouthfuls as he demolished his meal.

"My last tour was out by K-Space," he admitted. "The Isis did a deep space run out on the frontier past the Delta Outposts. We poked around for the Gorn border; wound up in a few scuffles with the locals; helped set up an observation outpost on -"

He hesitated, food-laden fork hovering the air as he searched his memory.

"- Cestus III, I think it was. Nice enough place I guess; little desolate, mind. Kinda reminded me of a trip I took to the Alamo as a kid. "

He swallowed a mouthful of redbat which, as it turned out, was a lot more interesting to consume than you might have expected. Most people seemed to labour under the illusion that no matter what planet you were on, meat was meat and everything pretty much tasted like chicken: but apparently if you were a small, airborne, not-actually-a-rodent from a barely hospitable ice moon, the way your muscle structures and fat deposits arranged themselves made for a surprisingly enjoyable palette experience.

"Did a patrol tour out on the Rommie border before that. Whole lot of mind-numbing staring at nothing that was, paranoid that every scanner glitch and sensor ghost was a cloaked ship waiting to pop you in the thrust exhaust any time your shields weren't up. Being on edge like that is no way to spend time: had to keep pulling us in for R&R every few months so we didn't all go bat-crazy and murder each other."

He took his eyes off his plate for a moment to shoot a questioning look at Bear. "You ever get yourself anywhere interesting with the merchants? I here you guys get to visit the planets where Starfleet types aren't necessarily welcome."

[Dale Goetz]

"That's true. I've been all through the Orion Syndicate, a few stops in Kzinti Space. Nimbus system...that's a dive, that place."

Bear paused to carefully dole out some hot sauce onto his okra fritters, then speared one with a fork.

"Opens doors, not having the Federation advertized wherever you go. Even get to move interesting stuff when you're outside Federation proper. Can't sell Romulan Ale on Antares, but you can definitely do that on Nimbus. Still, you go into deep space without Federation protection in some places, and on ships that may or may not be armed at all. It can get pretty hair-raising. More than a few times we got buzzed by Klingon warbirds, and that was never fun. Usually just wanting protection money so we could move through their space."

[Érinthe Hetetlen]

Érin teased out a bat bone, stripping down the scrawny drumstick with his teeth.

"I guess we should count ourselves lucky," he grunted, suddenly wondering of a hands-on approach to such a greasy food morsel was a good idea after all. "At least the aliens with the cloaking technology are the xenophobic, isolationist ones."

His eyes casually began to sweep the surroundings for napkins. He retrieved one, swirling it around his hands before bundling the depleted bone inside it and dumping it unceremoniously on the side of his mostly empty plate.

"Can you imagine how much worse it'd be if someone aggressive like the Klingons or the Nausicaans got their hands on tech like that?"

He slumped back into the unexpectedly comfy chair. "Good job the Romulans hate pretty much everyone else as much as they hate us, eh?"

[Dale Goetz]

"We did a couple of trips out to the Rom zone. I'd rather deal with the Klingon warbirds. Parsecs in every direction out that way is just dead quiet space, and you know it ain't exactly that quiet."

Bear flaked some catfish into his grits, forked viinerine into that, and made a little hash before that too got the hot sauce treatment.

"That's a big reason I swallowed my pride and came back to Starfleet. I hated just waiting. Someone rears their ugly head, you get to fighting or your run away. Fight or flight and all. Guess I like the view of space from a starship a little bit more."

"You're just addicted to speed."

Akruz finally piped up after a burp, and returned to his lunch.

"Well, that too. You can push a lot of warp behind honest-to-god nacelles."