—- USS Luna, Holodeck 2 —-

“This doesn’t get any easier does it,” asked Lieutenant Yi Zhang, mostly as a joke. 

The pair was taking the containment filters from the Holodecks and replacing them. The ‘materials’ that they collected would be treated and then broken down into their component molecules for us in the replicator. It was ensuring that nothing, no matter how gross, was wasted. Everything was reused and recycled, which was helpful on the kind of multi-year missions that the USS Luna had been designed for. The fact that their multi-year mission had been cancelled due to looming war between the Romulan Free State and the Klingon Empire did not change the fact that they still made good use of everything.

The crewwoman Vanuoma Vedda, who had just been assigned that rank last week by the Captain after they had agreed to find the Orion a home on the Luna, frowned, “So this is the kind of thing I have to do all the time.”

“It’s not the only job you’ll have but yeah, the holodecks get cleaned at least twice a month maybe once a week depending on usage,” Zhang said. The Lieutenant did not usually take care of these jobs any more, but like most he’d started off with the worth jobs on the ship and worked his way up. Now he was passing his knowledge on to the next generation of guck cleaners. 

Vedda seemed unimpressed, “I miss nepotism.”

Her mother was the Captain and leader of an Orion criminal faction, that called itself a free trade conglomerate, and so she had never had to do any grunt labor like this. Arguably the standards on the Orion ships she’d lived on had been lower, but there had still bean biological matter to clean. Now she had to actually work, and worse by order of the Captain she was on pheromone blockers that ensured she did not mind control anyone into doing her work for her, which she had often done back on her mother‘s ships.

Zhang shrugged, “I wouldn’t know, but I assume it’s nice to have an admiral father or something to sort of speed your career on. As much as we pretend it doesn’t exist, well…“

After a day’s worth of work, and several more holodecks, the pair finished and Zhang sighed, tiredly, “I forgot how much hard work it is to have to do all that stuff. Next week you’re on your own, or with another crewman, so that’s nice for me at least.”

He grinned and said, ”Hey did you want dinner? I’m meeting Lieutenant Junior Grade Torma for dinner, but we can forgo the officer’s lounge for the mess hall if you want to join us.”

Not wanting to impose Vedda shook her head, “No, thank you. I’ll see you at 08:00 tomorrow morning.”

Zhang shrugged, “Suit yourself, see you tomorrow.”

—- USS Luna, Mess Hall —-

The replicators did not do Orion food justice. While the mess hall’s standards were well above what the main bulk of the crew got aboard Orion vessels that she’d grown up on, the Orion food was not as good, likely a result of the rather small percentage of Orions that were in Starfleet. Vedda had learned that it was not entirely unusual, but it was certainly nothing like Vulcans, Andorians, and Humans who still made up the backbone of the fleet and as a consequence had much nicer and more accurate food. Tonight Vedda had opted for a human dish that sounded interesting, raw fish that they called sushi.

She sat and poked at the fish, popping a sashimi in her mouth. It was not bad, though not quite what she was used to. She had been eating for about ten minutes, tentatively poking through the fish on rice when a shadow was cast on her. Looking upwards she saw a man in red with the officer’s rank of Lieutenant and some curious facial hair.

”Mind if I join you?” he asked and then sat down without waiting for an answer.

Vedda poked at her fish. 

”I’m Lieutenant Randolph Mckenzie,“ he said, “Chief Communications Officer.”

Vedda picked up a roll with some crab and something as green as her in it and popped it into her mouth.

Clearly expecting the announcement to have been impressive Mckenzie frowned at the lack of response, “And you are?”

”Off duty for the day,” Vedda said, “So I’m done cleaning for you Lieutenants.”

Mckenzie nodded, “I was most trying to make your acquaintance, get to know some of the faces on the ship. I just transferred onboard at Starbase 86, I’m still working on learning how the ship works.”

”I am newer than that,“ Vedda said, “I have no idea how the ship works, go talk to someone else. They’ll be more helpful.”

”I’ll confess that some of my interest is that you’re quite attractive,” he said, “if you don’t mind me saying that.”

Vedda studied him, “You know Orion women are always told that they’re quite attractive, over the centuries we’ve learned to use that and males’ weakness to our advantage. You think I would be so easily impressed by compliments of that kind?”

He shrugged, “Alright, I’ll leave you be.”

Vedda sighed, “Fine, stay sitting down Mister Randolph of Communications. Maybe you can explain why you have that on your face beneath your nose?”

”My mustache,” the Lieutenant asked surprised, “I just like it, it grew while I was on leave a few years ago and I haven’t shaved it off yet.”

Vanuoma Vedda seemed unconvinced that this was a good addition to his facial features but said nothing. She was finding it hard to have gone from being the daughter of the Captain and thus an extension of her to a lowly crewwoman, or crewman, or whatever she was. It seemed like everyone outranked her and while she had not expected to be made a Lieutenant Commander or whatever her mother had initially requested some deference would be nice. Instead she was forced to speak with humans with weird facial hair.

Finally accepting the offer to sit down he relaxed into his seat. Many officers seemed to eat in the lounge which was just for officers, and Vedda had only seen while also cleaning that. That Mckenzie was not a part of that was a sign that he must not have been welcomed into the Senior Crew yet. He had a sandwich of some kind and proceeded to take a bite of it, letting roast beef hang from it as he chewed and set it on his plate.

”So you like sushi?” Mckenzie asked, trying to make conversation.

”The Orion food the ship’s replicators make is sub-standard, I wanted to try raw fish but this is too delicate,” Vedda said.

”I guess you could ask for like an uncooked steak or something,” the human suggested, offering a shrug. He knew that Orions were rumored to have varied tastes, but he wasn’t sure if raw beef would suit what she was looking for. 

“Perhaps I will ask for that next time,” she said, “but I have consumed enough calories for the time period of after work.“

”Did you want to grab a drink or something, take a walk in the arboretum?” Randolph suggested, “You know as social friends, I can show you some of my Orion language knowledge.”

He attempted to speak Orion.

”You have just said that your shoes are tasty,” Vedda said, considering the offer of social company, if not his language skills. She finally nodded, “Fine we will look at the plants Starfleet keeps on their ships, as if we were on a planet and not a ship.”

Quickly stuffing the last of his sandwich into his mouth Mckenzie got to his feet, “It’s to help people not feel homesick in between long voyages.”

”It’s shocking your entire race was not enslaved and sold to the Klingons,” Vedda said as she stood and returned her tray to the area where someone at the crewman rank like he would recycle the left over food to be eaten again. It was apparently the way these humans, and other Federation types lived, and she knew that sadly it was the way that she too now lived.