Dinner at Caroline's

Posted on Thursday 28 July 2016 @ 16:55 by Commander Caroline Miller & Captain Melody Jones

Mission: Old, New Ship
Location: Millers quarters
Timeline: After second lots of drills
1174 words - 2.3 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

"Here you go," Caroline greeted Melody at the door. "Expresso martini."

Handing the triangler glass to the other women she stepped to the slide to let her in, clinking her own glass to hers. "How was your day?"

Melody took the drink and tossed it back in a single drought. "Another interesting day. How's Ikiri doing? I can't help but feel slightly responsible for what happened. That was quite nice. Another?"

"It's a tough process on him but he's more resilient than he knows," Caroline answered, ordering a second martini for her.

"Well some good news is I got promoted. I'm now a full lieutenant and the ships second officer."

"Congratulations," Caroline smiled. "Well guess what the captain presented me with a small brown box too."

"That's wonderful news Caroline, I'll drink to that" She said as she took her time more with this second drink. "Caroline" Melody suddenly looked up "Are your parents proud of you? It's just I've been thinking of my parents a lot recently and I hope they would be proud of me."

"Every parent is proud of their child. And yours are no exception," she told her seriously. "What's not to be proud of," she asked. "Your strong, independent, intelligent, funny, incredibly skilled as a flight officer. And your one of the youngest second officers I've ever seen."

Melody perked up "Thanks Caroline, You're right. What's on offer this evening?"

"So I decided dinner should be steak, boilan style salad and sweet potato chips. Followed by tholian choclate mouse," she told her. "How do you like your steak?"

"Mmmmmmm, that sounds delicious" Melody replied. She was absolutely starving. "Rare on the steak for me please. So how did your Bio hazard drill go?"

"Great, decontamination procedures for a big fat nothing. I love getting stripped down to my underwear for the computer to monitor and all of my staff to see for an hour just to play the Bridges games," she stated.

"How did you crawling through Jeffries tubes go with Cale?" she asked pulling the plates out from the replicator and placing one in front of her. Caroline sat down and elegantly draped a napkin on her lap.

Melody inhaled the rich flavours coming from the steak "It was interesting. Cale has a beautiful singing voice and we managed to cover all the ground we needed to."

"Interesting, next time he's in sickbay I'll have to ask him for a tune," Caroline said munching on a sweet potato chip. "Would you like some coffee with desert. The new ops chief gave me programme for something very interesting. Apparently it's made from beans that travel through a primates system, before they are ground up into coffee."

Melody raised an eyebrow at that "Through a primate? She was not totally convinced on this but decided "Sure why not, sounds.........different. The steak was perfect by the way, thank you."

"Thank the replicator, I can't cook. Me and attempting to cook is a dangerous notion," the doctor stated.

"Do! or do not. There is no attempt" Melody quipped as she sipped her coffee "I just hope this won't keep me awake tonight."

"I'm sure you will be fine, Caroline stated. She finished her steak and then asked, "So the new strategic Ops chief says she's an old friend of yours. That's nice. I tried to get her to give me some dirt on you," she smiled wickedly "but she wasn't having it."

"Well, for your sake I hope her quarters are far from yours. I had to share a room with her for a semester at the Academy and I had to replicate a pair of earmuffs. The phrase snores like a wounded Targ is a bit of an understatement" Melody said with a grin. There are other stories involving a few too many drinks and having someone beamed into a lecture hall with no clothes on, but I'm sure you don't want to be bored with tales like that" she added with a wink.

"Oh no please tell," she grinned. "And also let your friend know that the snoring thing. I have some things that can help with that."

Melody laid back in her chair and crossed her legs "Well at the Academy there was one cadet who was making my life quite miserable, His name was Max and he was a complete egotistical arsehole. He terrorised many students but me in particular for some reason. He rigged my sonic shower to cover me in mud and stuff like that. One night, me and Li was at O'Rileys which is an Irish bar not far from the campus grounds. They used to do the best cocktails and many a night was spent hear with various hijinks ensuing. This particular night, after many drinks I was complaining about this cadet and me and Li decided to break into the local transporter hub. Long story short, we circumnavigated the lockout and beamed Max sans clothing into the main lecture hall. For some reason he didn't get the message and continued to be an arse. So I reprogrammed his shower to cover him in a compound that reacted to UV light. The next time he went out, his skin turned purple.'

Melody smiled at the memory. " He never found who did it, but he lightened up after that. There are many more stories from that bar."

"I'm sure," Caroline grinned. "And also remind me never to piss you off. Desert?"

Melody grinned "Of course."

She placed a dish of very indulgent chocolate mouse in front of her. "This is an absolute taste of heaven. I added a hint of Rigeon sugarflower extract. It just cuts nicely through the heaviness."

"It looks divine" she said as she took a bite. She paused to savour the flavours "and it tastes even better. So are you going to give any more details on this professor you seduced?" she asked innocently, licking her spoon.

"Seduced is hardly the right word. More like both of us were having a good time in a club. We went on a couple of dates before we knew I was his student. It stopped as soon as that news hit. He didn't want to lose his job," Caroline answered simply. She licked her spoon and smacked her lips. "God I love chocolate. Don't look at me like that Melody. You know I can't give you a name."

Melody sighed and shook her head "Oh well, it was worth a try. Didn't you have anyone giving you grief at the Academy?"

"Oh a couple of course. I just wasn't as inventive as you. Kept my head down mostly."

Melody raised an eyebrow "Sure, its always the quiet ones. They look so innocent. I bet you were always sneaking out late at night, and speaking of late nights" Melody rose and gave Caroline a big hug. "Thank you for a wonderful meal, I'll see you tomorrow."


OFF:

Lieutenant Melody Jones
Chief flight control officer / Second officer

Dr Caroline Miller
Chief Medical Officer