Stepping through the threshold to the Pnyx, Republic’s senior officer lounge, Trid could count the number of officers present on one hand. One mauled hand at that. Of course, she’d need a separate hand to count the number of enlisted personnel present as well. Just the hand, no need for fingers.

The two officers present she noted were Commander Lake and Lieutenant Beckman and seemed deep in some sort of conversation with hushed tones and plenty of referencing to padds before them. Obviously planning their part of the birthday party.

Revin however was why she was here, not those other two. The young Romulan woman was sitting down at the far end of the bar, ready to jump to her feet and back around behind if need be. Before her was a larger padd, propped up on a small stand and displaying a variety of pictures of cakes on it.

She never really considered Revin’s Romulan heritage, the distinctive brows of some of her species absent, her ears typically hidden under her hair. But she’d tucked her hair back, at least on this side. One elbow propped on the bar, chin in hand as she ideally swiped through the images.

If the captain was to suddenly walk in, Matt and Willow would go quiet but Revin could have just kept on swiping. It wasn’t at all suspicious to see her looking at cake recipes. Which wasn’t why Blake had asked Revin to bake the cake – it was her skill.

“Hey Rev,” Trid said as she sat down next to Revin. She might have spooked someone else, but she knew Revin had heard her. Nothing snuck up on Revin. Nothing she’d see at least.

“Lieutenant,” Rev answered, sounding bored.

“Rev,” Trid half-whined in response to the title. They had been friends back on the Rose after all. But just hadn’t spoken as much lately. Work it turned out, was a pain and rather demanding for someone who had gotten used to the rather lax, compared to Starfleet at least, attitudes of a ‘legitimate salvage and freight’ ship.

She caught the slight smirk on Revin’s face just before the woman turned her head to face her. “Well, you can’t be Trid because I haven’t seen Trid in ages.”

“I’ve been busy, okay?” she answered with a shrug. “But I’m getting the hang of things again and sorting my shit out. Maybe I won’t be so ragged so often.”

“I can always have a word with the commander if you want,” Revin offered. “I have her ear you know.”

“Don’t you dare!” she said with a laugh. “Besides, if I have an issue, I know I can just talk to the boss anyway. Or the cap even.” She leaned in after glancing back to the door. “How’s the cake going?”

“It hasn’t yet,” Revin answered, dropping the volume of her voice too. “I was waiting for my accomplice.” She winked and turn turned the padd slightly. “Five hundred recipes I can make with what’s on board. Three hundred of those that won’t put someone in sickbay and only two hundred of which I want to make.”

“You’ve narrowed it down to two hundred recipes? Revin, the party is two days away.”

“Which means I can only probably make a few of them.”

And there was the dilemma. Revin couldn’t decide which to settle on. Decision paralysis was real.

“Okay, no, not happening.” Trid shook her head and reached for the padd, pulling it closer so both of them could access it without her having to constantly reach past Revin. “One cake.”

“But –“

“One,” she said firmly, holding a finder up in emphasis. “One,” she repeated.”

The single huff she got was likely the closest she’d ever seen to a sulk from Revin and it brought a smile to her face. She’d have to talk to the counsellor about that later. She didn’t want to make Revin angry, but just a little upset had been some of…relief?

“Two,” Revin demanded. “Not everyone likes the same thing. I want to cater to choices.”

A reasonable argument. She mulled it and then conceded before turning to the recipes. “Right, let’s trim these options down a touch.” She found herself putting on her work hat, relying on skills she’d been trained in to whittle down options as quickly as possible. Disregarding the needlessly complex, finding optimal solutions that worked within timeframes, skill sets and resources.

Skill set wasn’t an issue. Everyone aboard the ship who’d managed to sample Revin’s cooking would never challenge her there. Neither was resources it turned out. Revin had after all done that. The biggest problem was Revin objecting to the removal of any recipe for a variety of reasons.

And then it clicked.

“Wait…we’re doing this wrong,” she said, sitting up straight and feeling her back protest.

“Hmm?”

“What’s the cap’s favourite cake?”

“I don’t know,” Revin answered. “Should we ask Doctor Pisani?”

“No no no. Boring. Got a better idea.” She took the padd properly this time, swiping away from Revin’s recipes and pulling up a command screen. She could feel Revin’s presence looming as she tapped away, accessing the ship’s systems in a manner that was a little less than proper.

She was deep into the communications sub-systems, accessing logs, scrounging around and quietly deleting access logs as she went. Definitely not something she should be doing, but was anyway. Definitely something she wasn’t taught at the Academy but had been before her fateful deployment years ago to spy on Sidda’s band of pirates…vigilantes…unconventional do-gooders.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Revin asked, practically into her ear, she was that close.

“No,” she answered. “Well, not immediately. There’s a lot to know about ship systems first.” She shook her head, a thought rattling around. “I thought you were looking at coursework for like…counselling? Or diplomatic support?”

“I am,” Revin answered.

Nothing more was said as she dug around in the ship’s computer files before finding what she was looking for – a single record buried in the captain’s communications logs. A single contact that was labelled with just one word.

Mom

“I think, if we want to know what the captain’s favourite cake is, we should ask the expert.”

Revin stared at the screen, then backed off and sat back on her seat. “His mother?”

“She’ll hopefully have made more birthday cakes for him than anyone else, right?” She watched Revin sum up a counter-point only to discard it and nod in agreement. “Right then, says here she’s on Earth, so it’s going to be a while before we get a response. Ready to record a message then?”

Revin glanced around, the Pnyx now empty save for them two of them and then smiled. “No time like the present. Together, yes?”