Grabbing the one and only towel in reach, he covered himself infront of Meila, his friend. He started to cry.

“Nope.” Meila said coldly and she sat down on the floor with him. “No emotions… I don’t do that. Not after the past couple of days Nico.”

She paused and looked at the man, who was visibly upset, “Listen, over my lifetimes, I have learnt, don’t mourn the past, learn from it. He left, remember the good times.” She took a swig of wine and passed him the bottle.

“But the memories hurt.” he said.

“They will.” Meila motioned for the bottle.

“How long will it hurt?” He asked innocently.

“I wish I could take away the hurt, but I can’t tell you. Everyone is different.” Meila smiled. “It takes time, not just a day Nico.”

“Meila…” Nico’s eyes swelled.

“Let’s go clubbing. Get dressed.” she said.

“I’d rather not… can we just listen to music? I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Plus that slip…” Nico complained.

“Oh Princess.” Meila poked fun at the man.

“I forgot, Ensign Smythe! We were supposed to hang out tonight! Shoot. Okay looks like we are going out. Let me get dressed…” Nico said.

Meanwhile, Ensign Topaz-Smythe shifted uncomfortably on a plush, emerald couch. He found himself waiting in a botanist named Thyzaa’s quarters on their way to meet Nico. His honey-brown eyes flicked towards the wall mounted chronograph once more. Caraal had shown up early, but his date seemed to be on her own timeline.

Soft ambient lighting cast leafy shadows from Thayzaa’s vertical gardens. The rich scent of moss and citrus filled the space. Caaral tried not to fidget as he listened to movement in the washroom. The hum of a sonic applicator was met with the piercing vocal harmonics of the botanist’s singing voice.

Thyzaa adjusted the luminous sweep of her hair into waves. Dark green locks curled around her shoulders like vines. She selected a scent capsule spray formed of vayari blossom and raktajino root. “Just a few more minutes”, her melodic voice called out to the Trill-Human hybrid playfully.

Back in Nico’s Quarters, his combadge summoned. He tapped it, it was his Chief Communications officer. “Nico, I need you to work tonight, something came up and well, that communication we were monitoring became more dire.”

Nico sat on the bed and replied, “Oh?”

“Yes turns out they are in some sort of event horizon, we still cannot locate them, but their communication are from somewhere in the parsec. So it shouldn’t be that hard. Head to Astrometrics, hopefully you can use the same method to get Long Range Sensors up.” the Chief Comms said.

“Sir it wasn’t my work, it was actually the Science Departm…” Nico attempted to interject.

“Thanks Nico!” came the Chief’s voice.

“Great,” he exclaimed now he had to break the news to everyone… He really hoped Meila hadn’t found any ceremonial knives or had a phaser on her.

“Oh Meila… I have to work tonight.”

“What! Who said? Who died? That’s the only reason, coz I am going to kill someone.” the Trill said.

“Raincheck.” he smiled at her. Tapping his combadge, he quickly explained  the situation to Ensign Smythe, asking if he wanted to accompany him to the Astrometrics lab.

“Work came up, huh?” Caaral listened to Thyzaa as she continued to get ready in the background. “I can’t say I’m pleased about this”, he admitted over the commbadge.

“If it’s important, I guess I’ll take a look.” Ensign Topaz-Smythe’s work had not restored long range communications. His team’s adjustments only helped clear up some of the noise, not the oscillations that rendered communication systems inoperable.

However the work showed progress alongside other tests. Caaral walked to the door. “Thyzaa, something’s come up. It may take a little while, but we’ll get together after this.”

“Ugh, this is so frustrating”, the botanist mused.

“That’s Starfleet”, Caaral said disappointedly. “We’ll spend time later.. Just you and me.”

She opened the door, half ready by her standards. They exchanged a brief kiss before Caaral was on his way.

Walking into Astrometrics, he felt odd, this was not his his forté. There was no one that he knew well, but he had to continue the work from this morning. Fortunately there was no one there. Looking around there was a console beeping. Pressing his log in, it looked like CCO already sent his information there. Listening to the song again, he sat down.

Caaral entered some time later. He went back to his room to change back into uniform. Now he entered as the doors whisked closed behind him.

“Nico.. Nice to see you”, the hybrid said. “So as I was telling you, we managed to improve the sensor rate by about 7 percent total output. These subspace oscillations are still far outside of acceptable conditions.”

He approached a nearby panel as he spoke, firing up the Astrometrics display with quick hands. “Now let’s just run some tests and have a look. The entire department has been making micro-adjustments for a few days now.”

In truth, Caaral had not had much time off. He thought he was finally getting time to relax. Once again, he was called in after his shift. Seeing a friend made the time more bearable.

“It’ll take a few minutes to scan”, Caaral added. The image of the Starbase and the hazy space surrounding it appeared through the lab’s holo-projectors.