Shades of Green - Part 4

"No," he said, answering her first question with the honesty it deserved. "It doesn't surprise me. It tells me something about how you approach things, which I find more useful than the answer itself." The turbolift hummed and moved and the three of them stood in the particular closeness of a small space containing at least one very large person. Zedd was not uncomfortable exactly, but he was aware of the recalibration required. "One topic at a time is a reasonable method," he said, picking up the second thread without losing the first. "The ship is a fair place to start. You'll be living inside her decisions as much as mine." The lift slowed and the doors opened onto deck two and he stepped out into the corridor with the easy relief of someone returning to a more workable amount of room. He glanced back at her. "What's your read on her so far, from what you've seen?"

“She seems sound and in better condition than I was expecting as I mentioned earlier.” Tiraa walked with him easily and looked around with the same amount of comfort he had on his own ship… likely because of the walking barricade trailing slightly behind them. “I never developed an interest in ships to the point where I have some sort of bond with them; my attentions in life were focused elsewhere. I’m afraid you’ll likely find my answers rather dispassionate because of it, but I imagine your crew fills in those gaps. Young Cormus certainly seems interested.”

"He is" Zedd said, with the particular tone of someone who had noticed that about Cormus early and had since stopped being surprised by it. "He has a relationship with anything that flies that most people reserve for things that are alive. It's useful." He walked at an easy pace beside her, hands loose, glancing at the corridor ahead only enough to navigate it. "The crew fills in the gaps and then some. That's been the better surprise of the last few weeks, how quickly the right people found their way to the right places without much engineering on my part."

They came to the briefing room, just outside of the bridge. Zedd tapped the door panel and motioned in for them to join. He quickly checked the small PADD he had in his pocket and sent a message for Mei-Lin to report accordingly. “Make yourselves at home.”

“You’re very fortunate to have found that before you’ve even started on your journey; usually it takes a long while, and sometimes it never happens.” Tiraa walked around the briefing room slowly. She slid her hand along the backs of the chairs, and her black eyes moved around the room in an appraising but non-judgmental way. It would be obvious from the previous evening that Tiraa was used to a very high standard of living that this ship couldn’t hope to compare to, but she had joined them anyway.

“I do wonder why Starfleet chooses to keep its ships so… bland.”

The door had been open when Mei-Lin came through it, PADD already in hand, still moving with the particular efficiency of someone who had been in the middle of three other things when the message came through. She had caught the last part of it from the corridor without meaning to, and answered before she had fully crossed the threshold.

"Uniformity," she said, stepping in and pulling the door shut behind her. "Every station identical to every other station so any crew member can sit down on any ship and know exactly where everything is without thinking about it. It makes tactical sense." She glanced at Tiraa with the calm, direct assessment she gave most new things, taking in the duster, the gold trim, the easy way she moved around the room like she was pricing it without being rude about it. "It also makes for very boring briefing rooms, you're not wrong about that."

She looked at Zedd as she moved to the table, just briefly, the way she had gotten into the habit of doing when she walked into a room he was already in. He was in captain mode, composed and easy, giving nothing away that he had not decided to give, and she found that particular version of him quietly compelling in a way she had mostly stopped arguing with herself about. She pulled out a chair and set her PADD down. "Mei-Lin Zhao," she said, settling into the seat. "Structural systems and hull integrity. I keep the ship in one piece from the inside out." She looked at Tiraa with the same even attention. "The message said to bring the technical picture so I have it, but introductions first seems reasonable."

“Tiraa Shai.” Tiraa introduced herself simply, then canted her head slightly toward Rallid. “Rallid, my escort. I’m glad to meet you, Miss Zhao.”

Her body shifted just slightly and Rallid stepped up next to her, pulled out the nearest chair for her, and she sat down in it with all the elegance and grace to be expected of someone like her. Her hands folded on the table, and her legs folded underneath it. Instead of engaging the conversation herself, she instead looked up at Zedd where he stood. He was the captain, he would lead.