Exploration Fleet (Treasure and Appletree)

Eamon glanced around him and spotted what looked like a pad behind Kal. There was a case on the bed, too. It still looked very familiar, like he'd seen it before. He looked down at the eraser and felt it. No ordinary eraser, either. It felt gummy. Hmmm....

Clicking his tongue, Eamon suddenly tossed the eraser at Kal so he could catch it. "Never mind. It doesn't really matter. But if you want to keep your so-called habit a secret, then you might want to close the door." Eamon stepped out and picked up his box before tossing over his shoulder, "Although that's the first time I've heard of art refered to as a bad habit!"
 
Kal snatched the eraser out of the air and close to his chest, rooted to the spot as he watched Eamon leave. Only when the engineer was out of sight did he move to do as suggested and close the door. Eamons words echoed in his mind. Well he had certainly gotten the wrong picture. The dalliances he scribbled could hardly count as art.

Still a little dazed, he tidied away the eraser and pencils, closed the case and pushed it deep beneath his bed. He went to grab the sketchbook and bury it in one of the closets, but froze, staring at what he had so absently sketched. A few lines were enough to give an impression of the bridge, but in quite astonishing detail he had managed to depict Eamon gazing out at the stars.
 
Frayne finished going through the sequences on the controls and examined the map one last time. He'd altered the Craft's course to stop in a tiny quadrant that was mostly free of asteroids, planets, or anything else that might cause trouble for a pod but enough to give it something to steer around and tests its abilities. So long as they did not spend more than two or three hours there, it would offer no complications to their assigned plans. They should arrive at their destination on time.

He turned away from the consol and stretched briefly. Enough staring at charts and numbers. His eyes were starting to ache from it all. Letting out a quiet sigh, he turned and headed out to face his next challenge. Time to see what the medic thought of the medication. That was important. As much as he wanted to continue to avoid her, at least for a little longer, he did need to know that the medications were all in order. He tucked a pad under his arm and walked down the hallway toward the storage bay. He noticed Eamon leaving Kal's room ahead of him curiously, but the human was far enough ahead that Frayne didn't bother trying to catch his attention. He didn't need to talk to him right now, anyway, though he was a little curious about the box of items Eamon was taking to the Engine room.

Frayne placed a hand on the storage bay's doorpad, and the door slid open. "Medic Ahara?" he called politely.
 
Ahara muttered expletives as she shifted crates and boxes. Ground crew really didn’t have more than two brain cells to rub together. Everything had just been thrown in the hold with no system whatsoever. Oh sure, they had secured it all nicely for transport, but nothing made an inkling of sense! How was anyone supposed to unload this stuff quickly and quietly when they got to Jepison? It was quite the miracle that they had even managed to put all the items that required cryo-transport into the device that would keep them at sub-zero temperatures.

The pile of boxes she was moving slipped slightly and the top one lost its balance, toppling to the floor with a crash. Exasperated, tired and more than slightly overwhelmed Ahara let out a loud curse, just as she heard a voice calling her name from the doorway. Despite recognising the voice, she was too busy with all the other stuff to muster up any more feeling to her voice.
“Back here.” she called, in case the sound of falling boxes and words noone should utter in company (or out of it really) hadn’t been enough to alert Frayne of her position.
 
Frayne raised a brow at the language and frustration in her tone. He would have expected it had he stepped into the engine room while Eamon was struggling with a mechanical issue, but not from the medic. Had he somehow managed to pick up a female counterpart to Eamon? Now that was a terrifying thought.

He followed the noise and voice back to where Ahara stood juggling boxes. "I came to ask how the shipment looked, but I see that it is less than optimal if your reaction is anything to judge it," he said in quiet humor. He picked up the fallen box and turned it rightside up. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"
 
“I am trying to sort this dump.” Ahara bit out, edging past her captain to deposit the boxes that had remained in her arms on a jumbled pile that was certainly not up to Fleet transportation protocol. Despite her thinking she had no energy left for it, resentment was building up in her chest again. There was nothing to find amusing about this mess. If he had just come down here to watch her work and preach at her, he could hop right out of the hatch for all she cared. She had enough problems as it was.

“Those need to be cooled, but not frozen. The idiots in ground crew didn’t even look at the labels. There isn’t a cooler in sight in this whole star-forsaken hold and these will be useless within hours if they stay like that. If you don’t want a scratch on your shiny new captains record, I humbly suggest you find something that can replace a veritable mountain of cooling containers.”

She had moved back the way she had come as she spoke, but turned to face Frayne as she walked backwards and made a sardonic salute before vanishing into the maze of cargo, continuing her search for more incorrectly stored crates.
 
Frayne sighed. "Why do you insist on making things more difficult for yourself?" he asked the empty air sadly. If this kept up, he'd have no choice but to report her, but that wouldn't look good for anyone. She would resent him, and her attitude would likely get worse, and she would definitely be discharged from the Fleet, her license to practice in jeopardy. As for him, it would appear as though he had no control whatsoever of his crew, which while it would not be put like that on his record, the implication would be clear. Why couldn't she at least try to behave? For five minutes? They hadn't even made it out of Zepek space yet!

He stuck the more difficult problem of how to deal with his medic on the back burner for now and turned to face the more immediate problem of the medication's proper storage needs. He closed his eyes, conjuring up a mental image of the blueprints of the hold. He could have sworn there was some kind of cooling unit in here somewhere. Ah! Of course.

His long legs carried him quickly across the hold away from Ahara and to the wall where a large door guarded another small chamber. He disengaged the latch and waited for the rush of condensation and steam to clear before he stepped inside. Yes, long-term cold storage, primarily used for food items. He got to work, rapidly rearranging items. It did not take long as the unit was not particularly full. There was another smaller unit in the galley, and this was supposed to be a short trip. Why bother stocking up more than was needed?

After a few chilly moments, Frayne had everything rearranged and tucked away neatly on the netted shelves. He stepped back out of the unit, closed the door, and summoned Eamon via his personal com. Eamon should only take a few minutes to get here, so he walked back toward Ahara. "Medic Ahara," he called. "How many boxes need to be kept cool?"
 
While the captain had given her some (in her opinion) much deserved peace and quiet, Ahara had worked her way into the depths of the hold, sniffing out misstored boxes like a bloodhound. The pile she had been acquiring had reached an alarming level of teetering unsteadiness, but with this crate she was lugging over to her stockpile, she was fairly certain that she had gotten them all. Now she just had to figure out what to do with them.

A voice drifted to her ears over the walls of the labyrinth around her. “Ugh sure, come back when most of the work is done.” She muttered to herself, shifting the oversized box in her arms to make it easier to yell back,
“Is the mountain of unstacked stuff not enough of an indication?”
 
Frayne closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Then he walked through the maze back to the medic. He walked right up to her, standing in her back, his face expressionless yet somehow still polite. "Medic Ahara, I do not believe I understood your answer to my question," he said calmly. "Now that I am closer, I shall repeat my question in case you also misunderstood. How many boxes need to be kept cool?"
 
Ahara spun around, almost letting her box go flying in the process. One look at the supercilious expression he wore was more than enough to set her teeth grinding.
"I don't know, Captain Frayne. I didn't bother to count while digging them all out of this dump." She matched her tone to his, difficult as it was, managing to chanel her feelings into the vicelike grip she had on her box rather than into her voice.
"Needless to say there are a lot."
 
"Please count up the precise number of how many need to be refrigerated as opposed to how many can be frozen," Frayne stated. "I have cleared room in the long term cold storage, and have requested for Eamon to come down. He will raise the temperature in the cold storage to something closer to refrigeration levels, and you will help him achieve the proper balance. Anything that still needs to be frozen will be taken to the galley where the refrigeration unit will be lowered to freezing temperatures. It will mean a longer walk to get items for cooking that do not need to be defrosted, but this is a short trip, and we shall soon be clear of our cargo."

He turned to walk toward the doorway. "Eamon will be here shortly, and he will move your boxes for you."
 
Surprise sparked under the annoyance. She hadn’t known this ship was even big enough to warrant a secondary storage for food items. That would of course be a possibility to store the necessary items. Hopefully it would be large enough to hold them all. To think the greenling had thought it up himself. Then again, he was pilot as well as captain, so he ought to know his ship at least that much.

“I can move my own bloody boxes.” she muttered under her breath as the captain disappeared, though as she set the last one down next to the mountain she had accumulated her arms gave a slight protestation, so perhaps some help wouldn’t be amiss. However much help the little human engineer would be.

Still, counting the boxes seemed a little too much trouble to her. Had there been any that needed freezing, she would have placed them in the cryo-containers immediately. And she wasn’t about to take her stack apart again before it was necessary. It was half a miracle that the thing was still standing at all. Let one good asteroid graze the shields and the whole thing would topple in an instant. If they had to be counted, she could do that as they moved them and not a moment before.
 
Eamon walked in a moment later, still wiping his hands on his grease cloth. "Hey, Ah-ha," he called, deliberately messing up her name a little. "Captain Fryne briefed me on the situation. You'd think the people sending this stuff would have the decency to make certain it was all properly stored onboard. Anyway, give me a minute and I'll have the freezer a cooler. Some of the frozens will be going up to the galley cooler, which will be turned into a freezer and all that."

He headed back toward the storage room, tucking his cloth into his back pocket. It took him a minute to locate the controls, but once he did, it wasn't hard to get them adjusted to just cool instead of freeze. He opened the door wide to help warm up the room a little and checked to make certain there was enough space.

"How many boxes do you need in here?" he called out to Ahara.
 
Ahara ignored the mispronunciation of her name. She didn’t much care what people called her. It wasn’t as though she used peoples true names that often either. It had taken all of 5 seconds upon meeting each of the crew for her to establish her own label for them. She also didn’t really listen to what the bean was saying, it was just a rehash of what their wonderful captain had already decided. A good little sheep following orders.

Ahara had already started the wearying process of shifting the crates from her pile towards the freezer-turned-cooler, so when Eamons voice came out of the room, she was standing just outside the door and winced slightly at the volume as well as the actual words.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Ahara asked exasperatedly. “I don’t know! A lot! I’m sure you noticed the mountain in the hold. Not even ground crew are incompetent enough to think they could get away with leaving cargo like that.”
 
"Oh, there you are," Eamon said, turning to look at her. "Gee, I have no idea why we might want to have a number of the crates. Maybe so we can have accurate records? And maybe so that I can accurately calculate the best way to stack them in the cooler? Because things like trying to shove a mountain into a finite space is not as easy as you seem to think it is?"

He huffed and walked forward as he started looking at the crates. Then he handed her a large felt pen. "Here. Make a mark on which crates need to go into the cooler and count as you go. An easy way to do that is to make a distinguishing mark every ten boxes then you can just count those. You do that, and I'll carry them into the hold and record the number."
 
“They are all square! Just stack them in there. What's to calculate?”
Ahara was by now thoroughly fed up with the whole situation. She had just wanted to get a quick overview of what they were transporting in order to help the Station unload in an efficient and orderly way, and everything had escalated to unnecessary problems that her so called crew-mates were just making an even bigger fuss over.

When Eamon held out the pen, it was only her feelings of responsibility towards these medications and supplies that stopped her from snarling at the engineer. That and the captain's threat still hanging over her head. Chances were this boy would report directly to him and she had a feeling it wouldn’t go down well.

So she swallowed down the reply ready to leap off her tongue as well as the urge to throw the stupid pen right back at him, prefferably with the cap undone and aimed squarely at his nose. Instead, she marched over to the stack of boxes she had already carried over, marked each of them with an exaggeratedly large X, then turned back to Eamon and pronounced “Three.” Before heading past him back towards the rest.
 
"Thank you, you are truly a delight to work with and will make my first ever mission an absolutely joy to serve," Eamon drawled at her back. "I cannot wait to spend extended periods of time in a small space with you and your glowing personality! If only everyone were more like you."

He picked up the boxes and carried them into the freezer space. Yes, the boxes were square, but they were not exactly square, and the freezer space had shelves at various heights. All that meant was that he had to figure out how many he could fit on each shelf as well as the weight limit. It was a bit like tetris... but worse because what looked easy was ridiculously deceptive. Still, he kept at it, keeping a mental count of the boxes as he did so and tucking them into the corners and rearranging a bit. At one point, he had to adjust the height of a shelf after taking off a few boxes that were already on there.

Finally, he was finished. He sat outside the closed door, hot and sweaty, and started writing up the results.
 
Ahara gritted her teeth, having heard Eamons quip, but determined not to rise. Why was everyone treating her like a brainless imbecile who wasn’t worth her salt? Just because some stupid remark on her file. What did that tell anyone about her?

Still she did as instructed, keeping a stony silence whenever Eamon appeared to carry off more boxes. When she was done, instead of having to talk to the engineer, she scrawled a large 58 on the last box with a large circle around it. Surely that would be enough for the high and mighty and oh so intelligent engineer to figure out that she meant that was the total.

Leaving the pen next to her total, she left the hold. When the captain had said he was calling down the engineer to help, she had planned to still assist with moving the boxes, but now she really wasn’t in the mood anymore. Let the bean work it out himself. She headed for her room, fully intending to shut herself in there at least until there was a medical emergency.
 
Eamon didn't mind finishing up. He preferred to work alone and away from those tedious Zebek who always treated him like a moron. It was so frustrating and annoying. Still, at least this one was willing to leave him alone. He finished up his work and went back to the engine room.

The rest of the trip went smoothly, if awkwardly as everyone tried to stay out of everyone else's way except for when they gathered for meals. Eamon mostly stayed in the engine room and didn't talk to Ahara about her boxes or Kal about his art. Only Frayne seemed to act like everything was perfectly fine whenever they met for dinner, but really, what else was he supposed to do? Get mad at a group of strangers for not instantly getting along? That seemed unfair, so he just went along with it and left to do their things while he made certain the craft did not crash into anything and ran smoothly.

Then, finally, they arrived at Jepison. Frayne slowed the craft for approach, keeping an eye on the much larger craft and the planet it circled.
 
Ahara spent the rest of the journey either shut away in her room tending to her treasures, or woodenly performing her tasks about the ship. She had come to the conclusion that if their dear captain wanted a crew of sheep, that would be what she would become. At least for now.
She spoke only when spoken to and even then answered as shortly as possible. Her tasks were performed to the letter, but no more. This stoicism somehow also affected her cooking, something she usually took some joy and quite a lot of creativity in, becoming nourishing (as per Fleet standard) but bland.

Kal tried several times to engage their medic into conversation, but had just as much success as the first time he had tried during their departure from Zelbenia. Eventually he gave up, or rather settled down to wait. Surely she would thaw at some point.
He also avoided any more direct contact with Eamon, not even aware he was actively doing it for several days until it had become the norm for him. Had he noticed, or been asked, he wouldn’t even have had a proper explanation as to why. He had also avoided sketching again, though he did take the pad out and stare at the last drawing several times. Never before had he managed a picture that was so simple and yet conveyed such emotion.

He had enough other things to occupy him anyway. His test run with the pod that the captain had kindly arranged for him had gone as smoothly as could be wished, as had the changes to the pod he had requested in the aftermath, mainly improving the pods maneuverability and general sturdiness.
By that time his clearance had also come through for the Jepison data, so he had spent most of his time reading up on the Planet and the station that monitored it. The files suggested no major threats to their delivery, but he read and reread them anyway as well as committing several simple maps and other information to memory, just in case.
 
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