It was only after they turned the corner onto the high street that Danbo remarked, “That’s not fair!”  

Having left Fenton Manour far behind them, a bustling thoroughfare of London-town’s commerce rowhouses stretched out before Danbo and Rals.  Each structure lining the street was taller and narrower than the one before.  Danbo could only assume the architecture was chronologically accurate for the time period –the year 1913– because he knew so little about the planet Earth, let alone its distant past.  From what he had seen of the holo-novel so far, not one of these shops looked half as grand as the Fenton Manor they had left three blocks back.  Rather, these shops were all crammed in side-by-side, much like overpopulated Belross City, back on his homeworld of Barzan II.

Rals flung his arms around Danbo’s waist, hugging him close enough to prop his chin on Danbo’s shoulder.

“Life’s not fair,” Rals retorted in a sing-song.  With the weight of Rals against him, Danbo felt his own body sway under Rals’ power until Rals released him.  

Then, Rals asked, “What does that mean?”  There was a newfound lilt of recognition in his voice.  “What’s not fair?” he asked, as if his understanding of Danbo’s words had arrived on a delay.

“That maid,” Danbo said, pulling Rals aside.  Danbo turned to face Rals on a less-populated patch of granite pavement.  

“How did you charm her into telling you everything about the impending gala?” Danbo asked.

Rals shrugged.  “I couldn’t say.  Her heart is her own.  How might I guess what she chose to see in me?”

The most caring blue eyes Danbo had ever seen were staring back at him.  There was some sign of a realisation crossing Rals’ face: an expression like concern creased the Bajoran ridges over Rals’ nose.  Even under the layers of wool the holodeck had dressed Rals, Danbo could see the physique of a professional wrestler who had never known hunger in his lifetime.  Given the fine crafting of Ral’s formalwear and bowler hat, Danbo had to assume the holodeck had cast Rals as a wealthy and powerful gentleman.  

As if it knew him to the bone, the holodeck had chosen to dress Danbo as Rals’ valet, in a simple shirt and waistcoat.  His lower status in this society, Danbo assumed, was why the locals on the high street paid no attention to the small breather attachments Danbo wore on his jaw, those which allowed him to breathe in an M-class atmosphere at all.

“I’m sorry.  I need to know,” Danbo said dejectedly.  Defensively, he looked away until he reminded himself that Rals had never once issued judgement on him.  Meeting Ral’s eyes, Danbo explained himself by saying, “How did you persuade the maid to offer you a tour of the manor?  You, a stranger?  I practiced the five techniques of a con artist with the driver and he wouldn’t even give me a tour of Lady Fenton’s motorcar.“

Rals punched Danbo in the arm, but there was no weight behind the fist.  His knuckles hardly grazed Danbo’s bicep before Rals took hold of his arm in an affectionate gesture.

“You wanted the driver to take you for a ride, huh?” Rals suggestively asked.

“I’m not joking,” Danbo said and he shook his head once.

Shrugging helplessly, Rals said, “I don’t remember.  I think I listened more than I spoke.  The words came out of me.” –He fished for something in his jacket pocket, maintaining his smile on Danbo the whole time– “I was more focused on remembering what my mother taught me to do if the Cardassians ever came back.”  –From his pocket, he produced a set of house keys and jangled them in the air– “Nimble hands served me in pick-pocketing as well as they served me in medical school.”

Despite Ral’s warm showmanship, Danbo narrowed his eyes on him.

Danbo asked, “Why did you introduce me to the maid as your fiancé?”

After a quick scoff, Rals said, “You were lurking in the alley.  If I hadn’t introduced you, she would have become suspicious.”

“But fiancé?” Danbo said, trusting that the universal translator was communicating the fullest meaning from his native Barzan language to Rals’ native Bajoran.  “You introduced me as your fiancé rather than your husband.“

Squinting back at him, Rals asked, “Is that what I said?”

Cutting through a floorboard with a centrebit and an awl, it occurred to Ensign Danbo that he might as well have worked a double-shift making repairs in the USS Constellation’s Jeffries tubes instead.  It had been disheartening enough when Captain Taes’ had cancelled shore leave.  Emotionally, Danbo appreciated the need for the entire crew to hold hands all together in repairing the ship after the Borg tragedies.  But some small part of him wondered how better he might understand what the Borg had done to him if he could only slow down.

This “Heart Heist” holo-novel was meant to be rejuvenating.  Half of the Constellation’s holodeck library had been deleted when the fleet formation programming was wiped from the computer core.  Upon selecting it from a list, Danbo had been charmed by the notion of losing himself in a time and place where the word “nanoprobe” would be meaningless.  Stealing the Sacred Heart Ruby was meant to be a bit of fun: rooftop acrobatics, seducing burly guards, running around in costumes with Rals.

And yet Danbo found himself laying atop a cabinet in Fenton Manor’s darkened downstairs.  He had pried off four of the overhead ceiling tiles, which allowed him to cut through the floorboards of the level above.  That entire floor above was creaking and buckling beneath the weight of the gala’s guests.  Muffled sounds of music and dancing sprinkled down on Danbo, just like the dust falling on his face.

“Time check?” Rals asked, standing at the foot of the cabinet.  He put a hand on Danbo’s shoulder; it felt like an offer from Rals to share his strength.

“Maybe another twenty minutes?” Danbo supposed, “I still need to cut through the floorboards and then the base of the ruby’s display cabinet without setting off the alarm gongs.  You’re confident the concealed wires were connected to magnetic contacts on the glass viewing pane and the top hatch and nowhere else on the display case?”

“I believe it,” Rals replied.  For the gala, Rals was costumed in the robes of a type of spiritual guide who would be considered beyond suspicion in this era.  Even without the cultural context, Danbo felt himself trusting Rals even more than unconditionally.

Danbo asked, “How much more time do you need to distract the local security officers?”

“Intoxicating the guests with absinthe to loosen their perceptiveness isn’t working,” Rals said.  “The manor’s crew refuse to imbibe and the guests are proving to have a remarkably high tolerance for alcohol.  I think it’s time I rejoin the gala.  I’ll close my eyes and surrender to the guidance of the Prophets.  Their hand will lead me better than any plan I could devise.”

“No,” Danbo spat out.  When he saw Rals striding away, Danbo raised his voice in a hushed whisper to add, “No, no, uh, no.  Talk like that is how you go to bed hungry.  If a plan doesn’t work, you try again, or you try the next plan.”

“Thirty minutes!” Rals called back from the doorway.  “You’ll know when.  Trust me.” 

Clasping Rals’ hand tightly, Danbo shouted, “Run!”  

As one, they sprinted from the grounds of Fenton Manor, following the same winding path they had charted to the high street.  The soles of Danbo’s boots felt far slicker than his Starfleet standard issue, but he still ran with all abandon.  The holodeck’s safety protocols would protect him, he supposed, if he were to slip and smash into the pavement.

Keeping pace with Danbo, Rals huffed out between heavy breaths: “Sorry!  ‘M sorry!  Should have listened.  My distraction fell short.  Saw them searching you for the ruby when you left.  Did they get it?  Did they get it??“

Ducking into an alley, Danbo flung himself back against a wall and he clutched Rals to his chest.  He snaked a hand behind Rals’ neck and he kissed him.

“You’re brilliant!” Danbo exclaimed, between kisses.  “The Prophets are brilliant.  If we have kids.  I’ll convert to your religion.  Promise!”

His eyes widening eagerly, Rals asked, “Does that mean you have the Sacred Heart Ruby?”

“I don’t!” Danbo enthused.  He could hear himself.  He sounded just as thrilled and exhilarated as he felt.  “The nurse feigning illness was iconic.  As soon as you collapsed against the display cabinet, you set off the alarm gongs.  I couldn’t trip the alarms a second time when I climbed into the innards of the cabinet.”

Shaking his head in puzzled frustration, Rals said, “So you did get the ruby?”

“No, I thought you knew,” Danbo said.  As before, his intonation betrayed his feelings, and his uncertainty couldn’t have been clearer.  He dragged his palms down Rals’ back and then he clasped Rals’ right wrist between both of his hands.

“I thought…” Danbo said hesitantly, “You know, maybe the Borg DNA the Changelings installed in our brains kept us connected.  Did you not hear my thoughts, my plan, through our private collective?”

Rals’ body stiffened.

“Kosst, no,” Rals snarled.  “That’s all over now.  All the Borg are dead.  They can’t get in our head and Taes promised.  Taes promised Starfleet would find a cure.”

Danbo choked down his reaction to Rals’ tongue lashing.

Forcing out an uncomfortable laugh, Danbo slid a hand up the sleeve of Rals’ robe.  He squeezed Rals’ forearm and then his elbow and then his triceps.  When Danbo withdrew his hand from Rals’ sleeve, Danbo proffered the Sacred Heart Ruby and he shook it in the air, just like Rals had done with the keys.

“I don’t have the ruby,” Danbo remarked.  “Because you do.  While you were rolling on the floor in counterfeit agony,” Danbo said, “I reached out from under the cabinet and tucked it into your–“

Before Danbo could finish his sentence, Rals took hold of him, kissed him again, and said, “Oh, you jewel!”

Rals plucked the ruby from Danbo’s hand and then he tossed it aside, into the dark of the alley.

“You’re the only one I need.”

Sinking his whole weight into it, Kellin pressed the heel of his palm into the tritanium railing until it locked into the torpedo launcher tube.  The machined pieces interlocked with the most satisfying clacking sound. Kellin had lost count of precisely how many launcher tracks he had reassembled as an ensign.  Maybe it had been a hundred or maybe it had been a thousand?  Either option was just as plausible as the other.  He cast a sidelong glance at the parametric scanner he’d left on the deck, but he didn’t need much reassurance from its readout display.  He knew what torpedo tube alignment felt like by touch.

That wasn’t the only thing he felt. His stomach snarled. Contributing to the repairs of Constellation’s torpedo launcher had consumed his mind and body for the last four hours. The tightness in his left shoulder and a pang of hunger in his gut signalled him to take some rest.  After packing up his equipment, Kellin handed off his toolkit to the duty engineer from the Avalon Fleet Yards.

The turbolift was silent.  The turbolift was still.  It wasn’t until Kellin’s eyes focused on the control console that he saw himself in the reflective surface.  The familiar, repetitive drudgery of repairing tactical systems had offered Kellin a welcome reprieve from perceiving himself.

Staring at his reflection, he could see that he had done it again. Before his shift, evidently, Kellin had unintentionally dressed himself in the mustard-shouldered uniform of chief security officer. There was still something… strangely repulsive about seeing himself draped in command crimson. He had no memory of being selected as this ship’s first officer. In practice, Captain Taes had promoted Kellin’s Changeling imposter. Taes had mentored the Changeling, celebrated with him. And Taes never noticed.

The way the turbolift doors hissed open elicited a pang in his stomach, one even stronger than hunger.  That sound reminded him of the stasis pod opening. Each time Kellin had awoken in the bowels of Deep Space Seventeen for weeks, that sound was his welcoming song, his door chime. That sound heralded the arrival of another Changeling, demanding, drugging, decking more information out of Kellin. They asked him about the ship, the crew, the security protocols, Taes—

The turbolift had paused on the wrong deck and Dolan was stood on the other side of the opening door. Kellin thought he saw a flinch. It looked like Dolan hesitated before stepping into the turbolift cab. Despite any hesitancy Kellin perceived, Dolan looked at him unblinkingly, looked right at him.

For his part, Kellin was standing in the centre of the cab. He didn’t think to step aside, to make room for Dolan. Dolan sucked in a deep breath and then he squeezed between Kellin’s left elbow and the wall of the turbolift cab.

As soon as Dolan requested his destination, Kellin spoke up.  He didn’t look at Dolan.  Kellin just kept his eyes forward, staring at the sealed doors.

“I can’t thank you enough, Melchor,” Kellin said to him.  “Since my first breath aboard Constellation, everyone has been so kind to me.  Even after all you’ve been through.  So kind.  I know you’ll want to be kind, but I also know you won’t lie to me.  You can’t.  I know you.  It would make you physically ill to lie to me.”

Kellin tilted his chin down to meet Dolan’s eyes.  “You confided in me when you were body-swapped with Captain Taes and you confided in me when you broke up with Nune.  You won’t lie to me.  I need you– I need you to tell me…”

“Do I still deserve to wear the uniform?” Kellin diffidently asked.

“You can’t ask me that, commander,” Dolan replied, rather swiftly.  He shook his head at Kellin without breaking eye contact.  “I haven’t collected enough data since you were rescued from–“

Sighing, Kellin interjected to say, “That’s not an answer.”

The turbolift came to a halt just as suddenly.  The doors opened onto deck eight.  Without a hint of hesitation betrayed by his body language this time, Dolan stepped off the turbolift car and he looked back.

“I won’t lie to you,” Dolan affirmed.  “I promise.  Kellin, I went on five and a half dates with you.  I believed it was you.  It wasn’t you.  It was the Changeling who wore your face.”

By fate or by design, Dolan didn’t say anything more because the turbolift doors closed between them.

“What, may I ask,” Yuulik demanded, “is that noise you’re making?”

Before she even posed the question, Yuulik had tilted her head in Kellin’s direction.  The Arcadian’s bulbous eyes looked alit with electricity, a reflection of the warp-distorted stars through the forward viewport.  She was seated in the co-pilot’s chair beside him; there was hardly even a metre of space between them.  

“My… breathing?” Kellin supposed aloud.  There was a hitch of hesitancy between the words.

“No, it’s not that,” Yuulik said with plain dissatisfaction in her delivery.  “It’s like I can hear you thinking.  Your sub-processors are grinding and groaning in there.”

Yuulik tapped the side of Kellin’s head with two fingers, right on the trail of Trill spots down his hairline.  He kept his hands on the runabout’s flight controls.  After taking a breath, Kellin met her eyes, his eyebrows rising up his forehead as he spoke.

“I may not have passed biology the first time, but–” he started to say.

Yuulik breathed out a “tt” between her teeth and then she said, “I don’t need you to fly me to Arriana Prime.  I’m probably a better pilot than you are.”

“Fair.  I won’t deny that,” Kellin said and he shrugged at her in an expression of acceptance.  “You’re a level four pilot.  You’re a better pilot than me and you’re probably a better engineer too.  I couldn’t spend another day repairing Constellation with the way–“

Kellin cleared his throat.  He admitted, “I wanted to get away.  Look, you’re doing me a favour.  I’ll owe you, Sootrah.”

Snorting derisively, Yuulik posed, “Whatever will I do with an errant security boy on Arriana Prime?  Professor Yunusa invited me as an independent archaeologist to keep an artefact safe while his crew undertakes a humanitarian mission.”

“So… you’re going to bodyguard a clay pot?” Kellin teasingly said.  “And you can’t imagine how a security officer could help you with that?  C’mon.  Be real.  You wanted to get away too.”

“From what?” Yuulik suspiciously asked.

“You know what–” Kellin started to say, and he was cut off when the doors at the aft of the cockpit slid open.

Her body jolting in her seat, Yuulik cried out a ragged scream at an ear-assaulting pitch.  She swivelled her chair in search of the source of the noise.  A pink-scaled Saurian ensign was standing in the open hatchway.  Yuulik raised her palms towards the Saurian defensively and she screamed again even more loudly.  In palpable terror, Yuulik threw herself across Kellin, positioning him as a broad shield between herself and the Saurian.

“Yuulik, what’s wrong?” Kellin begged of her.

“What’s wrong?” she echoed Kellin sarcastically.  Waving a hand in the Saurian’s direction, Yuulik asked, “How did she get here??  We’re in space!  At warp!”

Kellin was quick to answer, “I invited her!”

While she found her footing on shaky legs, Yuulik’s shoulder jabbed into Kellin’s chest.  She pushed off of him to get to her feet.  Kellin spun his chair to keep an eye on Yuulik.

“Yeah, well,” Yuulik accused, “the last time you invited me on a runabout, you tried to kill me.”

Kellin looked away.  His throat tight, he replied, “That wasn’t me,” referring to the Changeling who had posed as him for weeks aboard Constellation.

“Uh, Commander Yuulik?” the Saurian spoke up in a tone that showed difference.  “My apologies, ma’am.  I thought I introduced myself to you in the sleeping cabin?  Before we left Avalon Fleet Yards?”

Yuulik winced at the Saurian and then she raised her chin.  The appraising gaze much resembled the one she had used many a time to decipher if artifacts were treasures or trash.

“I thought you were unpacking my luggage before we left,” Yuulik said flatly.  “Did you not unpack for me??”

After clearing his throat, Kellin adopted his formal timbre to say, “Lieutenant Commander Yuulik, please allow me to introduce you to Ensign Lyra Parze, the newest science officer assigned to Constellation.  Lieutenant Pagaloa assessed Parze’s engineering skills to be… lacking, but she graduated from Starfleet Academy as a member of Cadet Squadron Bravo.  Her specialty is psychology research.  I thought we could use this field trip to teach her what it’s like to be a generalist science officer aboard an explorer.”

Pivoting, Kellin then said to Parze, “This is my best friend, Chief Science Officer Yuulik.”

Yuulik scoffed.  “I thought Taes was your best friend.”

Snickering softly, Kellin admitted, “Taes is also my best friend.”

“Well, this feels like a trap,” Yuulik insisted.  “Your best friend is trapping me.  You’re all setting me up to do– to say–“

Breathing in through her nose, Yuulik pursed her lips rather than finish that sentence.  She cut a glance at Kellin and then she narrowed her eyes on Parze once again.

Yuulik asked, “Ensign, given your age, I assume you were assimilated by the Borg’s Jupiter-signal on Frontier Day?”

Nodding stiffly, Parze said, “Aye, ma’am.  I was.”

Bluntly, Yuulik asked, “Did you kill anyone as a drone?”

Parze crossed her arms over her chest.  “Preliminary reports from Avalon Security tell me I did not kill anyone.  Successfully.”

“Hmm,” Yuulik intoned before she sat back in her chair and turned her back on Parze.

Then Yuulik said, “Maybe there is something we can teach you on this field trip.” 

By pulling away the hardened hull plate, he revealed the secrets of communication within.  Only the hull antennas were normally visible through the small opening in the plate.  This unassuming appliance, designed to blend into the starship exterior, possessed the great power to connect a crew with beings in other systems and other sectors.  The simple repair work that had already been completed on the hull plate sbelied the dysfunction of the USS Constellation’s ability to communicate, hidden under the skin.

Nune swayed the tricorder, built into his environmental suit’s gauntlet, closer to the transceiver.  He was hovering in the zero gravity of space, attached to the starship by a tethered line.  His hands reached into the opening in the hull while his legs trailed behind him.   The holographic scanner readings, hovering over his forearm, told Nune the subspace transceiver array was in working condition.  The readouts also confirmed its connection to the electroplasma system had been locked out, protecting him from electrocution.  It was the direct field energy waveguide that had been shattered into little more than crystal dust.  Without that waveguide, nothing connected the antenna to the transceiver.

While he used a small suction tool to remove the crystal debris, Nune continued his voice recording.  He was preparing a communique to be transmitted to the crew’s liaison officer to their Romulan Free State scientists, Laken.  Ever since the day Laken had returned to RFS territory, Nune had been prone to record rambling voice messages, detailing the minutia of his day.  In his previous career as a Starfleet engineer, Nune had replaced enough waveguide crystals to repeat the maneuver without it requiring his full attention.  As he affixed a new waveguide into place, Nune narrated the Romulan food he had tried for breakfast that morning and the name of the new Kolar Blight song he thought Laken needed to hear.

The holographic display in Nune’s helmet began to blink at him upon receiving a subspace communique from Laken.  Nune paused his recording but he didn’t open the communique just yet.  He magnitised his tool kit and he affixed it to the hull.  Nune closed his eyes and he surrendered to the feeling of weightlessness.  He closed his mind to the starship hull and to the drydock beyond. He gave in to the giddy feeling of his body snugly protected by the EV suit while simultaneously being completely freed from the constant tension of artificial or planetary gravity.  There was nothing pushing on him, nothing pulling him down.  Nune felt like little more than free-flowing consciousness in this state.

The last subspace message he’d sent to Laken had been of a similar temperament.  It had been an hour-long ramble about the happenings and stray thoughts of Nune’s day.  At the message’s conclusion, though, Nune had posed a question he expected to be provoking.  He asked Laken why he hadn’t kissed him when he was leaving Constellation.  Nune’s Betazoid senses had picked up on Laken’s physiological reactions, his desires, as he’d stepped on that transporter pad.  Every fibre of Laken had screamed to reach out to Nune and yet he had resisted.

Laken’s response was brief and to the point.

Filling Nune’s helmet, Laken’s recorded voice said, “To kiss you would be a cruelty.  We are discordant,  the two of us.  Doomed.  Don’t you think?”

Captain’s Log, supplemental.

 

With the support of our entire crew complement, our ship repairs are proceeding ahead of schedule.  The facility commander of our drydock expects Constellation will be back to newly-refit condition soon enough.  …However, she has requested that I not return her back to the fleet yards again quite so soon next time.  My inquiries to the personnel deployment department have not been as encouraging.

 

The scope of casualties on Frontier Day, especially at Earth and across the quadrant, has been staggering.  Starfleet has lost a great many of its experienced officers, eliminated by the Borg because they hadn’t been successfully assimilated by the Borg DNA programming hidden in our transporters.  My requests for crew rotations and replenishment will only be satisfied by a small handful of recent academy graduates.

 

As a result, I take confidence in my decision to maintain the battlefield promotions I offered to my senior staffers through the Dominion invasion and Frontier Day.  I am proud to log Executive Officer Kellin Rayco’s promotion to commander, Chief Medical Officer Pimpinellifolia’s promotion to lieutenant commander, Chief Science Officer Sootrah Yuulik’s promotion to lieutenant commander, and Chief Operations Officer Indira DeVoglaer’s promotion to lieutenant.

 

These promotions are overdue for some and they pose a leap of faith for others.  All of them will be tested in their new responsibilities and authority as we chart a course back out there.  Now that the Constellation has been rotated out of task force seventeen, we’ve received new orders once our repairs our complete.  And those new orders come from the Delta Exploration Initiative.

That song.

They were playing that song.

It wasn’t just the decor.  In honour of the Constitution-class USS Constellation, the Planetarium lounge was styled in the eye-punching crimson and mid-century furniture of the twenty-third century.  It was a style that was considered futuristic when Nova was young, yet now, that same decor was considered old-fashioned.  The surroundings were evocative of another time and place. That loose perception of time travel was fully immersed by the song playing over the comm-system.  

It had been her mother’s favourite song.  If she concentrated, Nova could almost remember the sound of her mother humming that melody.  At first, she would hum it absently, and then she would belt the song to be heard over the life support system in their colony dome on Mars.  It was the strongest memory of that time that Nova could hold onto.  The only fragment of her mother than Nova retained.

From her vantage point on the raised dining platform, Nova’s attention was drawn by a flurry of movement on the planetarium floor.  Nova saw a figure in a black and teal science uniform, causing a commotion.  With a widescreen PADD clasped between both hands, like a shield, Yuulik was drawing near.  The attention of Yuulik’s bulbous blue eyes was clearly locked onto the display.  In fact, Yuulik’s left shoulder collided with a waiter and then another patron, but she didn’t look up from her PADD either time.  Yuulik didn’t even slow her stride; she continued her trek to the base of the ramp.  She only looked up to see Nova standing at the ramp’s upper reach.

“I reserved the private dining room for your birthday,” Nova said with barely controlled enthusiasm.  “You survived the Changelings and the Borg this year.  You deserve nothing less for expanding your wisdom by another year.”

Yuulik looked up at her.  Her brow creased in an expression that looked somewhere between wonderstruck and mild indigestion.  Yuulik lowered her hands and the PADD to her sides.

Yuulik blinked at Nova when she asked, “What are you wearing, dear?”

Raising a hand to her chest, Nova touched the broach where her Starfleet arrowhead should have been.  It was made of metal but resembled an elaborate bit of greenery.  She quirked a crooked smile at Yuulik.

“It’s mistletoe, remember,” Nova remarked.  “Haven’t you heard of Christmas in July?”

“No, I haven’t,” Yuulik said blandly.  There truly was no hint of recognition in her voice.  “But it’s the uniform I’m asking about?”

Nova cleared her throat and lowered her hands, tugging on the lower hem of her uniform jacket.  Rather than her black and mustard jacket, it was a nostalgic Starfleet uniform of navy blue with copper piping.

“It’s what I was wearing,” Nova said, “the last time…” but she hesitated before she said anything more.  Before she said: the last time you kissed me, the final time you said you loved me.  

Meeting Yuulik’s eyes, Nova could see no recollection of fond memories reflecting back at her.  In their months of service together aboard Constellation, those memories aboard the Brigadoon felt about as far off as Nova’s childhood.  A lifetime ago, only in a matter of months.  Seeing that chasm of absence behind Yuulik’s eyes, Nova supposed any hope of romantic reconciliation was just as scorched as her childhood home on Mars. 

Nova took a couple of steps down the ramp, closing the physical distance with Yuulik if nothing else.

“When you saved me from the inversion fold,” was what Nova finally said.

Yuulik cocked her head to the left, and she blinked at Nova.

“Does that mean I should eat you?” Yuulik asked.

Nova yelped out an ever-so-brief bubble of laughter.  She took four more steps down the ramp towards Yuulik.

She replied, “That’s not the response I expected.”

Smiling tightly, Yuulik asked, “Was it the response you hoped for?”

“Hope would imply I understood it?” Nova admitted, moving closer.

Yuulik scoffed at Nova as if Nova was teasing her.

“Be real, Nova,” Yuulik insisted.  “Jólaköttur.“

Nova hooked an arm through the crook of Yuulik’s elbow, tugging her towards the private dining room.  Nova leaned in close to ask her question in a whisper.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“You should know.  You’re the Christmas freak,” Yuulik said.  “I don’t know what game you’re playing.  Jólaköttur is the mascot of Christmas.”

“No, that’s not it,” Nova riposted.  “I’ve never even heard of that.”

Although Yuulik allowed herself to be led up the ramp by Nova, she continued the verbal tug-of-war.

“It’s a yule cat, from the definitive poem Christmas is Coming.  The cat eats you if you aren’t wearing new clothes by Christmas.  That uniform you’re wearing is categorically old clothes.  They don’t suit you anymore.”

Making no effort to hide her surprise, Nova asked, “How do you know about a yule cat?  You didn’t grow up with Christmas.  I had to teach you about mistletoe last Christmas?”

Scoffing, Yuulik said, “I am an archaeologist.  I know things about history.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Nova said unevenly as they entered the raised dining room.  “It might be time to put this uniform away.”

Looking right at her, Yuulik said, “You’re here now.”

“They’re here now too.  The other guests are here to celebrate you,” Nova said, nodding to members of the senior staff and science department, following them up the ramp.

Nova sighed.  “A crowded room. Friends with tired eyes.“