"Soup? From the Soup Kitchen?"

Posted on Thu Jun 1st, 2023 @ 7:06am by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath

Mission: Season 6: Episode 2: Survival
Location: Planetside - Camp Derani Mess Tent
Timeline: MD4: Thereabouts
3038 words - 6.1 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

J'airesh was exausted. It was early evening and her shift had not ended, nor was it likely to any time soon. That in itself wasn't making her unhappy but it was just a bit of an effort to keep going for so long which she was regularly fixing by stopping now and then - 2/3 times a 16hr shift - to walk out and get something to put some fuel back into her tanks. Her favourite was soup and tonight she had just asked for the Soup of the Day and been given the last portion left. She then asked for it in a Take-Out Thermos and was about to walk out to the front of the caves when she heard someone else behind her ask for soup only to be told it was all gone.

Turning round and approaching the man, J'air held out her Thermos. "I'm sorry, I had the last drop...... but PLEASE, I insist..... won't you share it with me?" Before the man could answer, J'air had turned to the caterer and requested a second Thermos, putting her own beside it and asking for the contents to be split between the two.

Samuel was on a meal break. Something other than field rations and he was hungry too. And cold. He was watch command for this shift and technically was based inside the caves and inside the marine tent. Practically speaking, he was most of the time at the entrance of the cave system assisting with maintaining an adequate watch over the camp. Keeping tabs of the marine positions and making sure that the arriving and departing shuttles had no troubles. There had been a few incidents of people trying to sneak aboard the shuttle to get back to the Elysium for some food or some personal belonging...or just to get warm. And other times, when crew refused to leave a shuttle and return to camp and the cold. Crew would bitch and complain to the pilots or the security officers; but generally that crap ended when the marine showed up. He heard the red headed assistance chief medical officer ahead of him order soup and that sounded good. His COMM badge went off and he answered the call and didn't hear that the doctor took the last bit. She was so kind to offer him some but he refused. She turned to the attendant and asked for her portion to be split. Sam stopped her.

"Really, that won't be necessary. After what you all in medical have been through? C'mon...you take it. You deserve it. Please. I insist." He smiled and was not to be moved. He asked the cook, "Is there anything hot left?" The cook offered him the leftover oatmeal from breakfast. No butter. No sugar. No syrup. Just the oats. Warm and sticky and lumpy. Sam nodded and smiled. It was food and once it was in his stomach his hunger pangs would go away. "Oatmeal sounds good!"

"Spolp! Ploop!" went the spoon and two lumps of oatmeal were on his small plate. He turned to the pretty ACMO and jested, "We're living like kings and queens ay? How badly do you miss your replicator on a scale from one to ten? Ten being you have a murder plan in motion and one...you found a way to hotwire a tricorder?" he asked and jested as he thanked the cook for the food.

J'airesh felt awful to have the last of the soup and this poor Marine was being served just a poor fare. She had a deep frown of concern on her face when he adamantly refused her sharing offer. He had said that as part of the Medical Department she deserved the soup but, in her opinion, they had *all* been through such a lot that no one profession was harder hit than the others, each in their own professional ways. She was preparing to try to tell him that when he mentioned a "murder plan in motion" which she found funny and was stopped in her imminent response, but then he added the idea of "hotwiring a Tricorder" the mental image of which completed the total distraction of a laugh.

"You're great!" she replied, still chuckling. "When we *do* get our replicators back or if that takes too long and you do manage to master hotwiring...." again the wide smile. "I owe you a proper meal! Those are the only terms on which I'm going to let you eat that ... " she didn't describe it out of respect to the cooks who were doing their best....."without me now choking on the guilt of having the soup all to myself!"

Sam didn't hesitate, "Deal. You're an optimist. That's a good trait to have as a doctor. I'm Sam, by the way. May I join you while we eat?" he asked the ACMO. "I don't think we've said more than 'hello' and 'good day' before today?"

"Please do, but I'm only going to eat half the soup and then talk until you finish that oatmeal so I can pour the rest of the soup into your empty bowl!" she threatened with a grin. "I really don't feel comfortable eating my feast when you don't have any soup and then to do so right in front of you to add insult to injury makes it so much worse. I can't bear it!" she said, accompanying her new friend to find somewhere to sit.

He shook his head, embarassed and said, "No, no...please. I know you work hard. Let me enjoy seeing you have it all. I'll be fine. I just need coffee now?" He asked the cook, "Where's the coffee?"

"Out. I can't make more for another hour. Rationed" was the reply.

He closed his eyes and said, "OK. Fine. No coffee..." he was about to launch into one his famous logical tirades but held his tongue. Instead he said to the cook, "You do know that not having coffee....is inviting like....a riot?" The cook rolled his eyes and started complaining back. Sam made tea. It was blue label tea. No brand, just a blue label "TEA". It was the only edible thing on his plate that was hot. Sam lost this one round and turned to follow Lieutenant Mora-Heath to the table. He placed his hand phaser on the table after he removed it from his belt and armor. The he realized that this was not marine mess hall. "Sorry. Habit." He placed it on his lap. "Thanks for sitting with me. Getting kinda old eating alone. So? How's medical these days? Do you have everything you need?"

J'airesh drew in a deep sigh followed by a dramatic but not serious roll of her eyes, a clue in advance that her answer wasn't going to be serious. "no, I don't think anyone does to be honest, but we do have tea.... blue label!." she tried to lighten the whole sorry situation but her grin was apologetic. "too soon?" she asked.

Sam looked at her, not used to her humor, was she really asking him for his cuppa tea now too" he thought. Then he looked at the blue and back at her face which was hosting a grin. He guffawed and let out a belly laugh. He shook his head and said, "Thanks. I needed that. Reality check."

In the short pause before he had laughed, J'air had decided she'd really done harm with her lightweight nonsensical, quite often inappropriate, silly remarks. When Sam did laugh heartily she breathed a huge sigh of relief. It probably hadn't been more than split seconds but with her breath held and her heart sinking, it had felt like an age to J'air and finding that he wasn't 'damaged for life' she joined him in chuckling along afterwards.

"Reality?" she scoffed with a laugh. "Me?" she grinned. "You clearly don't know me well. I'm the most disconnected, fanciful person here!" she assured him.

Becoming serious then, she added "I hope I didn't offend, I DO realise how horrendous all this whole experience has been for everyone and despite my own personal 'shields' as it were, always giving off 'self-defence' in the form of being a bit of an idiot, I do understand that a lot of people are hurting and don't need that snowflake approach..... " embarrassed, she trailed off and sipped her thus far untouched soup. She swallowed it guiltily and blushed a little as she did.

"No offense taken. Everybody is handling the stress...differently." He finished his food. He ate it so quickly. He just wanted to get the food into his stomach to stop the hunger pains. He started on a swig of tea. The best part it was hot. He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a small, chocolate and peanut butter flavored protein bar. He showed it to her, "Have you ever tried a marine protein bar? Because....I have had a lot of these things recently. Try half?" Here he opened the package and not touching the bar itself, expertly broke it into two equal halves. Which was just about a mouthful. These things were so packed with nutirents and protein. He offered a half to her.

"How could I possibly?" she exclaimed, horrified. "I just drank the last soup and you had to have oatmeal..... How could I eat your ration bar?"

She drew in a breath and remembered her manners. "It's very kind of you though, thank you, but I couldn't possibly"

He grinned, "It's not a problem doctor. And, I don't care about the soup. I'm glad that you got the last of it. You deserve it." He popped one half of the bar into his mouth and hungrily chewed on it. "These twelve hour shifts...are the pits. You know? Especially if you are one of the poor saps that stands watch outside the caves. Compared to outside? This is balmy." He drank more tea and realized he was eating so fast. He was used to it and truth was, the longer he was away meant that some other person was outside freezing.

"These armored suits keep us pretty warm. It's just, we been using them for a month and a half now. He popped the other half of his protein bar in and chewed it. He asked again, "Tell me something about your day? I want to hear it. All I do is work and sleep. I'm not bitchin' about it. I'm just saying, hearing something new would help me think on something else."

J'air was glad to see the Captain eat all of his ration bar at least. "I can't imagine what I could have done to 'deserve' all the soup but to be honest I have had a challenging day. No more so than you I imagine. But if it helps you disengage and think of something different then, my day has been fraught with lack of sufficient or appropriate supplies, decisions i wouldn't have had to make if we were still in our fully equipped Sickbay - preferably with oxygen, gravity and temperature levels set to normal......." she smiled. "...but I know that's just not possible and everyone is doing their best to get that happening.... so I'm not here to complain either, it's just how it is."

Sam listened and nodded, grateful for th diversion in hearing that other people were having similar challenges. Not grateful that there were challenges to be had; not that, rather that everyone was having to manage. So that it was clear to him that the problems he was seeing with the crew were not because of a few "bad apples". No, this was because everyone was geting stressed and tired and overworked. And to Sam, that meant to ease up on the rules and give people more slack. Go gentler and easy does it.

"I hear you. I think I see it on everyone's faces too. We're tired of this place. Tired of being cold. Tired of sore muscles and cold flesh in the morning. Cold showers...not enough to eat...tired of being survivors and not explorers." He said as he traced the empty cup of tea. "How are we going to make it? Repairs are going so slow. Not that I'm complaining...I couldn't do the repairs. Do we really have it in us for another....nine months to a year of this?" he wondered aloud.

"Gods no!" J'air protested in response. "but then again, if that' all we have on offer, then yes. We'll make it. We'll suffer and we'll hurt and some of us will go beyond our limits for the better or worse of it, but what choice do we have? We're Starfleet personnel, we're explorers, we *go boldly* and when it all pours shit on us, we just have to wallow in it, do our level best and fight on until there's no fight left."

J'air took in a deep breath and let out a sigh. "Oh dear, sorry. I sounded like the text book then. All I need is a drum and a banner, and perhaps even a hat to wear to make me a New Evangelist!" she apologised. "I do know this place will break a percentage of us, physically or mentally and I don't have a way of gauging who it will be or what to do to stop it or even heal them afterwards, but .... all we can do is try our best to not be one of those statistics? Do you think?" she rolled her eyes again. "I'm off again, crusader Jane. Sorry".

Sam shook his head and rested it on his hand as he closed his eyes a moment. "Nah, no need to apologize. This too shall pass." Sam said, "I'm going to lay my head down for just a minute OK? I'm sorry - I don't mean to be rude. I just want to close my eyes and rest my head." He looked at her and seeing that she was fine with it, he laid his arms on the table and rested his head on them. A took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The steam from his warm breath was rising as he finshed exhaling. He closed his eyes and said after a short moment, "Even though I am tired of being cold. Hungry for the stuff I like to eat, the cravings for comforts of home. This place...consider how lucky we are that we found it. And...I have seen some truly astounding sights here. I saw....mountains that touch the sky, ringed with lightning and winds so strong that the snow never melts away. I saw a cathedral of ice and rock...I saw plumes of water geysers that shot so high in the sky they made their own weather. This isn't home...not by a long shot. But...its not too shabby."

"Those sound amazing sights. I imagine there's probably something to be called beautiful in most places, if you have eyes for them. There will be desolate worlds around but thank the spirits this wasn't one of them or we'd all have been toast - or ice.... however you want to describe the terrible possibility." J'air rested a hand gently on his forearm. "You're exhausted. Is there no way the rotation of staff couldn't be a bit more forgiving? Do you have so few left in your section?" she was compassion itself as she really felt for him.

Her touch was light and warm and it sent gooseflesh along his forearm. We lost one-third of the detatchment. Most of them were in their bunks. Never knew what hit them. The rest...we lost in pieces. Everybody lost somebody when we crashed...or whatever it was. People are edgy, cold, irritated....tempers and patience is short. Tweleve hours on, six hours off...that's OK. Do that for ten days and then, thank ye gods, the Colonel gives us a day or two off. She doesn't take a day off and she's got a kid. XO doesn't take a day off either...." he stopped speaking, grateful for the touch and then he slowly opened his eyes. "I'm sorry doc..." he reachd for and gently squeezed her hand in appreciation. "I.....that just all came spilling out of me. Yeah, I'm tired. But, only two more days and thenI get a whole day off. You're very kind to listen and care. Isn't there something nice I can do for you to return the favor?"

She laughed softly. "One whole day?" she said, fully appreciating the length of his hours. "Sorry, I know we're all stretched thin to breaking, it's just something it feels better to have talked about than to keep inside." she sighed and as she rose, she thanked him for his company and kindness. "What you could do for me is that when you do get your day off.... after you've slept and slept...you'll let me come and talk with you some more? It doesn't have to take up too much of you important hours off. You'll need to rest and have me-time and I wouldn't want to rob you of any of that extremely necessary resource but just a coffee? ..... or soup, if they've made some more by then?" she chuckled about the dratted soup shortage.

He stretched his arms and got u from the table too. Taking both of their food trays, he bussed them back to the dirty dish rack and then joined her, "You bet. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you again Doctor Mora-Heath. Let's do it again sometime yeah? You take care and thanks for all you do. Taking care of our peeps. Taking care of Marines when our people get frostbite and...worn. I'll see you later and I will take you up on that coffee." He closed his armor and the suit made a hissing sound as it sealed and started to heat him back up.

"Let's do this again soon ok?" he asked. They parted ways.


[OFF:]


Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath
(signed off by Woolheater)

&

Captain Samuel Woolheater