After spending the morning hanging out on the patio or in the water near the villa, everyone had split up after lunch.  Mee IH had gone to meet up with his old friend Dean in the nearby capital again, Timmesin, Luke and the other Beluga’s had swam off to go check out a unique rock formation about 10km off shore.

Lt. Kyra Tesa decided to pack herself a small cooler with some drinks and snacks and a foldable portable lounger chair and head out to enjoy some ‘beach time’. She had noticed as the tide went out there was an ever growing sandy beach emerging in front of the deck, and 100 yards down the way a long sandy spit was emerging. It was right near the point where the shoreline made a sharp turn in and started forming the bay that Colludea was built around. It seemed like a great place to go and spend and afternoon soaking up some rays.

As she approached the lengthening, and now drying sand spit she saw that she wasn’t the only person who had the idea. A few small groups of people and lone tourists were making their way from the bay towards her. In the lead was a lone blonde woman.

“Looks like we’ve found a popular spot eh?” Tesa addressed the human looking female.

“I’m Lt. Tesa, from the USS Trenton.” She offered her hand to what she assumed was a fellow member of the Fourth Fleet on vacation.

Mara accepted the offered hand with an easy smile.

“Mara Wallace, USS Medea. Engineering,” she introduced herself. “And yes, apparently we did. I saw an isolated strip of sand and thought it looked peaceful. Everyone else seems to have reached the same conclusion about thirty seconds later.”

“Yeah apparently. Well, I got some cetacean friends that might be swimming out near the end if you’d like to join me for a bit of a walk.” Tesa said. What the two failed to notice was the sign that was partially covered with shrubbery that warned the sand spit was unstable and subject to “large and swift tidal shifts in the sea level”.

Mara glanced back at the small procession making its way along the beach, then down at the portable chair and cooler Tesa had brought with her. Her own preparation consisted of a towel slung over one shoulder, a bottle of water and a pair of sandals she had already grown tired of carrying.

“You planned this considerably better than I did,” she admitted. “I grew up on a freighter. You’d think that would have taught me never to go anywhere without emergency supplies, spare components and at least one tool I probably won’t need.”

A shallow thread of water slipped through a channel in the sand nearby, briefly surrounding Mara’s bare feet before retreating towards the sea. She barely noticed it.

“What department are you in?” Mara asked, her interest visibly sharpening. “Engineering, by any chance? I was told to stop thinking about work for the afternoon, but I’m not entirely sure discussing someone else’s ship counts.”

Tesa laughed, “I’m the Head of Propulsion actually. Come on, we can pick eachothers brains about ship guts.” She nodded her head out along the spit and started walking.

“So the Medea’s a Gagarin class right?”

“That’s right,” Mara said. “Fast, compact, and complicated enough to ensure engineering never gets bored.

“So you got your intermix ratio above 99.6 yet?” Tesa asked.

“Close. Have you?

“Yeah, break-in period on new ships are nice.”

To be continued…