Lay of the Land (Judy/Sovaan)

[Sovaan]

[Secondary Sickbay -> Deck 230]

The lower Promenade. He'd already heard about it; one of the technicians on the Dekan had mentioned it when he had told the man about his assignment at Starbase Columbus. He spoke rather fondly of his visit to the place, though Sovaan didn't see it as the kind of place he'd ever frequent, off-duty or otherwise.

"Tribble?" Having actual knowledge of the furry little lifeforms caused a smirk to appear on Sovaan's usually stony face again, as he could only now start to speculate on what might have happened in their kitchen. If there was even anything left of it by the end.

Sovaan turned his head towards Judy as the turbolift neared Deck 230, tilting his head as though out of curiosity. "Well, I am going to have to hear that story, now that you've mentioned it."

[Judith Eastman]

[Deck 230]

"Well, then I guess I have to tell it, don't I?" Judy asked rhetorically, flashing her smile once again as the turbolift came to a stop and she came out of it.
"It was near the very end of September, I think, might've actually been early October, right around the Jewish High Holidays. We'd found out about an infestation of Tribbles that hit the station. They'd popped up in a couple of restaurants, in Primary Sickbay, in all sorts of places. We ended up tracking them down through records of particular flu symptoms, to Cargo Bay 32, the very same one the triage center was on. Turns out an absolutely charming Ferengi ran a little business smuggling them into the Federation, and he'd lost track of them in between all his other contraband."

Judy said all this as she walked, going around the Promenade.
"Afterwards, since Max grew up on a freighter, where they eat tribbles if they're so unlucky as to find some, he persuaded me to try to use some of the remaining ones for cooking. We made Tribble Schnitzel, Tribble Cordon Bleu, and a Tribble quiche all our own we named quiche Lunn."

[Sovaan]

[Deck 230]

Sovaan walked alongside Judy, listening carefully to the story as he examined all he could around Deck 230. He was still getting used to all the sights and noise, gently moving around people, so he was trying to learn as much as he could about how each level looked. At the least, it would help him navigate things a bit easier than the last emergency.

He wasn't surprised to hear that a Ferengi had caused the whole situation by accident, either. From what he understood, their own rules of acquisiton took precedence in their culture, and so they didn't care if their business ventures caused inconvenience, or even danger. Thankfully, it seemed that in this story, it just ended up with an amusing menu piece.

Still, one part mentioned did make his ears prick up as he glanced over to Judy. "Quiche Lunn? As in, Doctor Lunn?" Now that he thought about it, the idea of eating Tribbles didn't seem all that appealing. Too much fur on the things, even if it was removed.

[Judith Eastman]

[Deck 230]

"Yes, as in Kece Lunn," Judy answered. "I suppose you haven't heard the nickname?"

Judy happened to glance into a certain establishment, where she saw a certain silver-haired man in the distance, talking with another man at the counter. They made eye contact, she blew him a kiss, and then each returned to his or her work.

"That's Puzzles right there, and as you can guess, that was Max," Judy explained. "Hard at work, as he ought to be."

She adjusted her glasses.
"Anyway, Kece Lunn has been nicknamed 'quiche'. I came up with the name myself, actually, last winter. I believe it was right after he'd lashed out at a couple of folks, after being hopelessly pranked with clocks."

That glint came back again, once more signifying that there was more to the story, and more to the older woman's culpability.

[Sovaan]

[Deck 230]

Sovaan shook his head when Judy asked if he knew about Lunn's nickname. It seemed he was going to learn more on this tour, at least about the Lieutenant, than he ever would usually. It wasn't exactly something that would be relevant to his duties, but he found that he wanted to know about it anyway, just as natural curiosity.

"Looks like a nice place." Sovaan tried to get a better look inside Puzzles as they passed by, mostly to see if he could catch anyone eating the food to see what it looked like. He knew it was terran food, but his experience of food in different regions of Earth made him think they could be anything. Every different place did things so differently.

The Ensign decided to satisfy his curiosity whenever he could during the tour, so that meant asking more questions. "With clocks?" There was a pause as they walked, Sovaan glancing to make sure they weren't passing near other medical officers. "I'm curious about how that happened."

[Judith Eastman]

[Deck 230]

Judy noticed Sovaan trying to get a curious peek inside the restaurant.
"If you're curious, you can come along with me and Max for lunch over there," she offered. "That could make for a better time for me to tell all my long-winded stories, so I can focus on the actual tour now."

Judy continued walking.
"Now, next stop will be the ARC, the drunk tank. How are you feeling on stairs?"

[Sovaan]

[Deck 230]

Now that he thought about it, Sovaan was sure he hadn't eaten lunch with someone in quite a long time. Maybe he should take up the offer; he was curious about the stories, anyway. "Yes, of course. I was going to go in there to try the food eventually, anyway."

The thought of the drunk tank amused him. He never really got the appeal of alcohol; why would someone want to dull their senses, lose their better judgement? It puzzled him. "No issue with stairs. It's on Deck 232, right? I think there's a medical centre I'll need to check out at the brig, as well. Just in case I'm ever called there."

[Judith Eastman]

[Deck 230 -> Deck 232]

"Ah, yes, there is," Judy answered as she led the way to one of the handful of staircases on the station. "High-security detainees with low to medium medical needs get treated there. It's not a fun place, to say the least."

She entered the staircase, clutching the handrail as she did. She was steady, obviously not as fast as a younger person might be, but not a slow and feeble elder.

"The stairs are mostly around the promenade and civilian-heavy areas," she explained. "I appreciate them, since I'm in no shape to take the Jeffries tubes."

[Sovaan]

[Deck 230 -> Deck 232]

Sovaan took his time on the staircase, so that he would continue with matching Judy's pace. It didn't bother him that she was perhaps slower down the stairs than she might once have been; he was hardly the impatient sort. It was better to take his time for this tour than go at a breakneck speed, after all.

"I can understand that." If she was slightly slower on the stairs, then no doubt the tubes would prove a far greater challenge. They weren't suitable for people who were older or species who did not have the dexterity required, he could tell that much.

"The tubes can be inconvenient. Hopefully I won't have to spend much time on Deck 232." It seemed that its entire purpose was around security matters and detainment, neither of which were particularly appealing to be requested for, in his line of work.

[Judith Eastman]

[Deck 232]

"I definitely wouldn't wish for you to spend a lot of time on either side of the force fields," Judy answered, as she reached the deck. "We're lucky we can operate it mostly with on-call personnel from the regular sickbays. It would not be a fun full-time job."

Judy then stopped in front of a facial-recognition screen, took off her glasses, and let it scan her face and commbadge. Then, a force field dropped to let them through, rising up once they cleared it.

"As an officer, you only need your commbadge, but they don't trust us civilians that much, and rightfully so," she pointed out to Sovaan, gesticulating with the glasses gripped by the corner in her hand. "The amount of times I've found my grandson, or these furry hooligans, with my commbadge is just embarrassing."

On one side of the hall was the drunk tank, empty at this late morning hour, while on the other side was the equally empty brig medical center. The former location was currently rather dirty with vomit and other fun stuff, awaiting its scheduled daily cleaning, while the latter was as sterile as any other sickbay.

[Sovaan]

[Deck 232]

Sovaan took a moment to actually consider the prospect of being a medic for the brig's sickbay full-time. He supposed he would really have to be a security officer with medical training to handle a role like that, and he really preferred not to cause damage to other lifeforms. It left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Furry hooligans?" He was slightly caught off-guard by that one. Surely she didn't mean the tribbles again - that wouldn't make much sense. It was amusing to think of her grandson or any child being eager to run around in a place such as this, though. It was hardly appealing.

Not least because of the smell, which hit the Ensign as soon as they entered. The smell of vomit was already in the air despite the efforts of the force field, the drunk tank being where the contents lay. "Yes. I definitely wouldn't care for working in here."

[Judith Eastman]

[Deck 232]

"The dogs," Judy sufficiently explained her comment on the furry hooligans.

As for the vomit, she was quick with a joke.
"That stench, is the smell of my freshman year of college," she recalled. "Columbia, class of '58. We were a bunch of kids, rich kids, first time living independently, lots of freedom. We got completely shitfaced many, many times."
Judy was, indeed, a hard partier in college, but she was also a strong student whose intellect and motivation carried her through her academic work nonetheless.
"Tell me, Sovaan, did you have fun back at the Academy?" she asked as she led the way to the lift.

[Sovaan]

[Deck 232]

Sovaan looked down as Judy explained that it was her dogs she was referring to, only for one of the corgis to glance up and give him a look back. They weren't any more or less strange than the other animals that could be found out in any system, but he'd been on Earth long enough to get used to them.

The ensign was a bit amused by the idea of the professor being so intoxicated that she would've ended up in a place like this. She seemed almost like she would be too intelligent to do it, and the air she'd carried about her back when they met during the Breen attack had only made that image harder to form in his mind.

He had to cast his mind back to the academy as they walked to another turbolift. "I did. I wasn't as...exuberant as you might have been then, but I felt at home. It was good to make friends, learn about the Federation. I even joined the wrestling team." It was odd to think about now; going into it, he would've assumed he'd never do anything like that.

[Judith Eastman]

[Deck 232->Deck 312]

Judy looked over the Orion. Yeah, she could see him as a wrestler.
"I've always thought college is the right time in your life to try new things that you'd never do before or after," she mused. "A lot of Starfleet officers don't give themselves that freedom, and they come out here not really knowing themselves. As a counselor, I have to pick up those pieces, help those self-repressed uptight officers."

In the turbolift, Judy sent them down 80 decks, to the lower promenade.
"Speaking of uptight, we're heading towards the exact opposite of that," she commented. "The lower promenade is full of dubious people and activities, some of which the station has had to make secure in creative ways. The women who work here, for example, get free screenings from Starfleet's medical personnel."

Those women, as Sovaan would soon see, tended to share his green complexion more so than Judy's easily-sunburned one.

[Sovaan]

[Deck 232 -> Deck 312]

Sovaan listened quietly to Judy's musings, and found that he couldn't disagree. He had figured out much about himself and what he wanted in the Academy, whether from the kind of activities he enjoyed to the kind of friends he wanted. He only hoped she didn't refer to him when she was speaking about being uptight; he'd been described that way once or twice.

The Ensign's eyes darted over towards her when she spoke of the lower promenade, and the free screenings of those who worked there. "Ah. I see." He didn't think it would be appropriate to talk too much about that, but it was important for him to know about this area, as well; people got into fights or had bad falls anywhere.

Sovaan was slightly hesitant to move forward, and he seemed a bit uncomfortable the moment he saw Orion women around. He avoided eye contact, or would simply look in the other direction. Eventually, he just started walking faster when they passed by, to make as much distance with them as he could. "There are other decks even lower than this one, aren't there, Professor?" In his rush, it had slipped his mind that she'd already asked to be called Judy.