A Dinner party

Posted on Tue Jan 21st, 2025 @ 8:43pm by Captain Jason Elliot & Lieutenant JG Annika Wiseman & Commander Zera Tirado & Lieutenant Commander Jorel Torin II & Lieutenant Commander Johanna Lyngstad & Lieutenant Hamlyn Ambrose

3,167 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: A new era - Time for change
Location: Jason's house - Earth
Timeline: Refit Day 18; 1745 hrs

On:

The low rumble of the rawkus sounds of twentieth century blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn echoed through the main floor of the well kept ancient house, in the kitchen the clank of a cast iron frying pan coming off of the burner, it's contents being slowly poured into a bowl with the precision of a skilled cook, the steam rose off of the vegetables. Jason set the pan into the sink. With some energy he slid over too the flattop grill checking the various protein patties giving the ones that needed turning over the proper attention. Jason set out the containers with many of the traditional condiments used for hamburgers, mustard, relish, and so on.

Jason turned his attention too the deep fryer the first batch of fries were seconds from being done, as he lifted the basket from the cooking oil giving it a shake before dumping the freshly cooked item into a stainless steel bowl, Jason put the next batch into the basket before he set them into the cooking oil. Jason picked up his chefs knife and began to shred lettuce for a salad. Jason set down the knife as he heard the door chime over the music, as he walked too the front door he rolled the volume down to greet his first guest arrived, "Annika!" he paused in total surprise "Welcome, I'm so glad you could make it."

Annika smiled "Good too see you sir." she paused looking around, "Looks like I'm the first too arrive."

"Yeah, but it's good to see you how are things going?" Jason asked

"It looks like I'll be remaining with Columbia," she paused as she stepped through the door "This house is beautiful and the food smells amazing." As she looked around.

"Can I get you something too drink?" Jason offered

"A beer if you've got one." Annika said with a smile

Jason reached into the tub by the counter pulling out a brown bottle opening it with some flare and passing the bottle to her.

Johanna hadn't been sure if she was coming to the Christmas party or not. Vacation was about being away from those you had spent work time with. But then again, it probably meant a lot to Jason for her to be there.

She loved the old house as she walked up to the door and rang the bell. The house reminded her of her grandparent's house, built in the early 2000s.

Jason heard the door, "Johanna! thanks for coming, come on in!" he said with some excitement "Dinner will be a few more minutes, want a drink?"

"Yes, a soda pop would be fine. A cola would be good." Johanna did drink soda pop from time to time. "I can smell something really good cooking."

Jason smiled as he reached into a metal washtub pulling out a glass bottle to pass to his guest, "I made burgers, beef, chicken, vegetable protein no replicated stuff here, fresh veggies for toppings, and buns made this morning, and can't have a burger without fries." he said passing the bottle to his guest.

Johanna opened the bottle and took a swig. "Sounds yummy Jason. Not many people really know how to cook anymore. My grandma taught me a few things; I can boil water." Johanna smiled.

Hobb beamed in to the grounds, and made his way over to the door. He appreciated the design of the place, but in truth he much preferred the design of the family ranch back home. Knocking on the door he waited for someone to come answer.

Jason opened the door, "Come on in!" Jason said to Hamlyn.


Jorel beamed over from Starfleet HQ, where he had just finished another debrief on all of the diplomatic happenings from the last few weeks and months. Jorel took a few steps around and looked at the older style house before he knocked on the door, waiting to see if this was the right place and if anyone was home.

Johanna said, "I'll get it." She walked to the door and opened it. "Hello there! Good to see you, Jorel." She did not know Hobb. "And hello to you too."

Jason saw the arrival of Jorel "Hey! Glad you could make it!, quick intro here, this is the Chief engineer Hamlyn Ambrose." he said addressing his guests, he caught Annika out of the corner of his eye, he saw her eying the frame holding several of his service medals.

Jorel gave a curt nod to the new engineer and said, "Glad to have you onboard! I'm the Senior Diplomat onboard, Jorel Torin. If you ever need anything, just let me know!"

"Glad to meet you, Lieutenant Ambrose." Johanna said, smiling at him.

'Call me Hobb, please,' Hobb replied to everyone with a smile, 'I'm looking forward to serving with you all - and getting to know you lot better.'

Jason walked back to the kitchen, checking his work, "Anyone else want a drink while we wait?"

Motioning for a beer, Hobb accepted it gladly and took a deep swig from the bottle.

The door opened and Zera walked in. She wasn't quite sure what this was all about, but she had been told to come. She still wore her Starfleet uniform. From her expression it was obvious that she would rather have stayed on the Columbia, yet here she was.

"Hey Zera!, thanks for comming, can i get yo a drink?" Jason said

Johanna waved to Zera. "Hey Commander." She took a swig of her Coke.

Jorel saw that Zera had come into the party. He waved to the Commander and said, "Hey, Zera. It's nice to see that you've joined us!"

"Yeah... Well. I got asked and all..." she said turning her face away.

Jason opened the paperbag that had the buns, slicing the bag with a knife with the precision of a surgeon and rollng them into the basket, "I'm glad everyone could make it, I kinda wanted to touch base with everyone away from the ship before I meet with Vice Admiral Conaway."

"The sheer fact that you're getting buns out of paper bags, like Humans did back in the day. Just makes me kinda chuckle. But, what did Admiral Conaway say and what sort of updates did he give?" Jorel asked, as he walked over to help Jason with all of the buns.

"He's been very vague on many matters, the refit, missions and other assignments, it's quite odd even from my experience." Jason said setting the knife down "Even so it's strange that all of this effort has been made and no one wants to talk, then again I wasn't thrilled about the fleet formation systems and that night have more than ruffled some feathers, plus there was the meeting with Admiral Wallace."

Annika spoke without turning around, "Let me guess he showed up here, had a drink, talked about a few matters leaving this?" she said holding up an Isolinear card "He met with me in San Francisco and it wasn't at HQ, I'm not sure if he's paranoid or being cautious but it's justified."

"Maybe it's above even his level. Some really high up people are making decisions. He probably wants us to be ready for anything." said Johanna.

"Well, if it's above his level, I might be able to reach out to some people that I know on the Federation Council and through the Diplomatic Corp that I might be able to get some information from," Jorel said as he saw the Isolinear chip.

Annika looked at Jorel "Be discrete about it and don't use normal channels," she paused to pull something out of her pants pocket "Someone bugged the ship." holding out the device in her other hand "I found this one in Joanna's quarters on the underside of her coffee table, same for the other senior officer quarters, especially yours captain." gesturing to Jason.

Jason looked at the device, it wasn't anything he'd seen while in intelligence, "They wouldn't have heard much the last few weeks, with all of the shipyard crews aboard it'll be difficult to keep track of who could have planted them, let alone who may have done it while we were at Starbase Forty, or prior to that, Hank would it be a stretch if I got you and Belladonna from Security to check other sensitive areas of the ship before we departed?" Jason said as he flipped several of the burgers "Nothing that wouldn't look out of the ordinary."

Johanna looked back at Annika. She was surprised! Of course, anyone who had bugged her quarters would be able to know what she had recorded in her personal logs. It was nothing classified or sensitive, just highly personal.

"Maybe, they thought that something was going on with one of the repair crews? Or they wanted to see what would happen after we got underway with our first mission since the switch up in command?" Jorel offered up, taking a good look at the device again, wanting to make as many mental notes as possible for when he talked to his friends on the DC.

'Repair teams do have access to sensitive areas,' Hobb observed as he looked at the device. 'I'll have a look at some systems diagnostics, just in case there's something not quite, uh, right.' He shrugged, 'seems unlikely that they'd want to eavesdrop on us just to observe the change in command - they have official logs for that.'

Jason set the last of the burgers in separate warming dishes, "Zera and I can go through the personnel changes that took place during our stops at Starbase forty, Annika can you take those bugs over to Scott Taylor at the Technical institute he might provide some additional insight." pausing to look up "Let's eat!"

Johanna headed to the burgers; there were enough there where she could have two. All the exercise she did gave her a very healthy appetite. Lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mayo and pickles went on her burgers. She used the tongs to give a helping of fries. She put some ketchup on them as well. She returned to the seat where she had left her pop.

Jorel was next to get something to eat himself. He was excited to start digging into the meal, as hamburgers were something that had to truly be cooked to be good, at least in his opinion. Jorel put a tomato, onions, and ketchup on his before closing the bun to his hamburger.

Jorel looked over at Johanna and asked, "What'd you put on yours?"

"Mayo, ketchup, lettuce, tomato. I put pickles on it if they are the sweet pickles, which these are. I am 50-50 for cheese."

Annika smiled as she chewed on the burger, moments later "This is arguably the greatest burger I've had, any of those medals for cooking?"

Speaking around a mouthful of burger, Hobb chuckled, 'seems criminal if none of them are for culinary skills - it can't just be commissary staff up for those, surely.'

Jason smiled as he finished topping his burger, "Sadly no, those are all for the stupid stuff I did before I joined Columbia, Saved a diplomats daughter, raided a mutanious starship, getting blown up, and so on." he only partially admitted as there were two medals that were in a vault somewhere safely put away and arguably awareded too him, "Speaking of which," Jason reached into the center drawer of his kitchen island and pulled out a box "Commander Tirado you are awarded the Starfleet Bronze star for exempliary conduct." Jason said as he opened up the ebony box where the award lay waiting.

"Say what now?" Zera asked in surprise. She had been fine being a perfect wall flower and now she was suddenly the center of attention. On top of that she had just taken a huge bite of her burger, so everyone looked at her whilst her mouth was full! She quickly swallowed and regained her posture. "I'm getting an award? What for exactly?"

Jason smiled as he handed over the award box, "Captain Th'Zeles and I spoke on this one before he left, he felt that your efforts in your short time with Columbia shouldn't be ignored and I agreed, now too the other part of things." Jason opened the drawer again setting pulling out three additional boxes each was made of what looked to be a highly polished rose wood with the Starfleet intelligence insignia skillfully engraved on the lids, "Commander Tidera, Lieutenant Commander Lyngstad and Lieutenant Junior grade Wiseman, the office of the director of Starfleet intelligence operations has judged that your involvement in missions involving or contributing to intelligence you three are awarded the intelligence silver star for service to the Federation, this includes special citation to Lieutenant junior grade Annika Wiseman for his actions during the Campor mission."

Annika looked at the box with the brass name plate and the medal sitting inside, she blushed slightly as she lifted the box "Thank you sir."

Johanna's eyes opened wide. She had won a medal before, but that was for getting injured on her first cadet cruise. Her amazement was equal to her getting promoted to Lieutenant Commander. "Thanks." she said in a slightly trembling voice.

Jason's tone changed slightly, "As some of you know I'm supposed to have a briefing at Douglas Station concerning our next duty cycle, When I was speaking with Captain Moran from operations his comment about the Tholian border was of concern." he paused "What's not common knowledge are the events of the last forty-eight hours, USS Jacksonville was attacked by a Tholian squadron, I'd like for everyone to start preparations if we get tossed to the....well for the lack of a proper term wolves."

Arching his eyebrows, Hobb wondered what he had done to deserve assignment to such an accomplished crew. His thoughts turned darkly towards the Tholians. Absolutely do not understand their mentality, he thought as he took another swig of beer.

Jorel noticed Hobb had arched his eyebrow as some of the festivities were underway. He grabbed a hamburger on a plate and headed over to where Hobb was. Sitting down next to him, Jorel offered up the burger and said, "Well, it looks like you might be hungry. Thought I might bring you a burger."

'Thanks, Commander,' Hobb took the proffered burger gratefully and took a large bite, savouring the realness of the food compared to replicated rations. 'The first one went down real quick,' he acknowledged a little sheepishly. 'Seems like quite a crew you've got here.'

"Well, you're just as much apart of the crew as the rest of us. But, we've had a few change ups over the last year or so. So, I'm just glad we've got ourselves a good team here, yourself included," Jorel replied as he pointed to the various food on the table. He couldn't help but chuckle as he said, "Make sure you save yourself some room for all of the good food that the Commander is making."

'Don't worry,' Hobb replied with a laugh and patted his belly, 'this body wasn't built with salads.' He acknowledged the complement, and said, 'I'm looking forward to what we can achieve.'

"What else is on the menu then?" Johanna asked.

Jorel heard Johanna ask what else was on the menu and he felt like he had to ask, "Yeah, what else is there, oh Captain, my captain?"

Jason opened the oven, "A rare delicacy that even the replicators can't get right, a Saskatoon berry pie." he said as he lifted the warm dish out with care, "Who wants a slice?"

Johanna had never had Saskatoon berries before. Lingonberries were popular in Sweden; they tasted similar to cranberries. She was anxious to try this new food. "I take a slice."

Jorel took a look at the pie and came over to take a whiff of the smell of the pie. He was genuinely curious, as he had heard of several different pies from Earth. But, this wasn't on the list, so Jorel replied, "I'd love to try a piece. Do I eat it plain or does it come with something like whipped cream, much like Pumpkin Pie?"

Jason pulled out a knife to start cutting slices, "Traditionally it's served plain, sometimes with whipped cream." he paused as he lifted the requested slices on to plates "I've tried more than once to adjust replicator recipies only for it to not be the same."

Jorel handed one of the slices over to Johanna and took another slice for himself. He took a fork that was handed to him from Jason and took a bite of the pie, savoring the flavors that came with that bite.

Jorel looked at Jason as he finished that first bite and said, "This is definitely an interesting pie. I can't quite figure out the flavors quite yet."

Jason laughed "They're actually a wild berry native too the northern climate here on earth, other than the shot of maple syrup it's all berry." he paused as he downed his beer "They grow wild most of they year."

"I was wondering what that other flavor was in the pie. I could taste the berries, but I couldn't quite place the other flavor I was tasting," Jorel said as he took another bite of his own pie.

Having taken a portion of the offered pie, Hobb was busy destroying it. He was comfortable with most foods, and was savouring the new flavour of Saskatoon berries. 'It's pretty good,' he said around a mouthful of pie.

Jason smiled as his guests enjoyed desert "I have a perishable crate being sent aboard with some of them, too bad the bushes they grow on don't seem to do very well off earth, a full time stash of these would be awesome."

"The Airponics bay onboard isn't able to grow the bushes onboard or somewhere on another planet?" Jorel asked as he was eating up his own pie. He was enjoying it so much that Jorel had to stop for a moment to wipe away some of the berry juices from his face.

Johanna had finished her piece of pie without commenting on it. She liked it. "That was pretty good."

Annika set her plate down, "Haven't had one of those in a crazy long time, it had been nice doing this somewhere other than a ship of holodeck." she said as she picked up her drink.

Jason looked around, "It's not often I get too do this."

'It's a shame you can't do it more often,' Hobb offered. 'Nice place, and excellent food. It's a shame it'll be replicator rations for the most part when we're aboard.'

"Yeah, I'm glad to have had this moment to spend with all of you guys," Jorel replied with a small smile.

End

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