OOC: Again takes place sometime pre-sim

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Drudoc entered her quarters, it was 2100 hours in the evening as she did so. Entering she looked around and found much to her pleasure that the kitchen area was cleaned up as were most of the more general areas of the quarters. She had asked Tel’eck to do this before she went to bed for the evening and was glad to find her daughter had followed through. Drudoc though wasn’t returning from a duty shift, no this evening it had been an effort upon her daughter’s request to ‘get out and mingle’ with the single members of the crew. The ‘meet and mingle’ party down in a private section of the recreation hall had been as uncomfortable and awkward as she imagined it might be. The problem of her rank and position made things worse, not to mention that most of those present were quite younger then her even among the older lived crew present. Added to the fact none wanted to get entangled with the needs of a teenager made the whole situation a flop in Drudoc’s opinion. This musing of the night had brought her to the small stand where the small family memorial to her now dead husband and Tel’eck’s father Bradley Mitchell rested. Activating the personal memorial imager she saw his strong male frame pop up in a back relief of holding Tel’eck just a bit more than three years ago now. The sight made her eyes water and her throat tighten up in sadness. “..Oh Bradley Taeth h’levreinnye. Jol, il’‘ukiudh hwiiy heieu ueiik’h’unhr saith valhthealh..” She said softly it translated as ‘Oh Bradley, my love, may you rest in peace now’. Her fingers passed through the holoprojection as tears stung her eyes.

A rustling from behind followed up with a soft, “..Mom? You’re home already?” From Tel’eck.

Knowing her daughter had likely caught her words and the fact she was crying Drudoc did nothing to hide it and simply wiped them away. Turning she smiled a bit sadly. “..Yes, things were.....interesting, but ultimately I left early.” Drudoc said.

Tel’eck came up and gave her Mother a hug. “..It’s good to have you home then Mom. At least you’re trying to get out there again. I know its uh probably hard for you but it’s what Dad and I want.” She said. After getting a return hug in reply Tel’eck sat down at the kitchen table after getting both of them a small cup of mint herbal tea. Once Drudoc nodded her thanks and took her own seat, “..So how did it go?” The teenager asked.

Sipping the warm tea to buy time for as long as she could to avoid replying, Drudoc sighed setting the cup down. “..It was as you say challenging. Everyone there was much to young for me, were put out feeling awkward by my rank and position, or were not willing to find commonality of even simple talking given…” She said then trailed off

”..Given me, right.” Tel’eck filled in.

Sighing Drudoc nodded after a second or two. “..Most there just wanted a quick fling or friends with errm…” She said awkwardly, she knew her daughter wasn’t foolish in matters like this, her maturity said as much on bringing it up to her the other day. But it still felt strange to be this personal with her daughter. “..Well I’m sure I don’t need to describe such in more detail for you.”

Wrinkling her nose a bit with a smile, Tel’eck shook her head no. “..No you don’t Mom, but.....would uh that honestly be so bad at least in the short term?” The girl asked.

Drudoc raised both her eyebrows at that, “..Honey, I may be ahem…lonely, but I am not someone to just frivolously use my body for such things. I thought I would have taught you better then that.” She chided her daughter.

Getting an eye roll in reply Tel’eck continued. “..You did and are Mom! Sheesh, I’m in no rush or eager to do that myself calm yourself! I meant though for you, it’s just a bit of fun right? What would be the harm?” she said.

Drudoc took another long sip of her tea before replying. “..The harm my Bright Star, is how would such look as being Captain of this ship? Not to mention my own personal pride and respect in myself and this family.” She said.

”..Urgh fine, Mom! Fine…no flings.” Tel’eck stated.

Obviously happy for a reason to change the topic Drudoc did so, “..So how was school today?” She asked.

”..Blegh of course you change the topic. Yeah school was fine. Ms Stevens mentioned about us having an enginerring and science fair sometime in the future ‘soon’. My team and I are thinking of making refinements to EXR-11 and submitting it for the engineering portion. Not sure what we would do for the science part. We’re still trying to come up with ideas there that aren’t your usual boring stuff like volcanos or something stupid..” Tel’eck replied, then sipped her tea again.

”..I must admit when Lieutenant Fayth mentioned EXR-11 I wasn’t too thrilled that you and the other children in the various classes were using it to visit the department heads. While no harm was done, I’m sure you can understand how distracting that could be if a crisis broke out suddenly..” She chided.

”..Yeah yeah Mom. I get it. Hmm…” Tel’eck said trailing off, “..Oh! Maybe for the science portion we could submit a miniaturized design for a mobile site to site transporter!! Mechanical engineering!!” She beamed.

”..And where pray tell would you get the parts for such an endeavor?” Drudoc pried with a quirk of her left brow.

”..Well it’d be boring to just use already assembled parts obviously! So we’d have to request some time in the machine shop lab with proper supervision obviously!” Tel’eck began.

”..Obviously..” Drudoc chimed in letting her daughter’s excitement of her idea calm her in turn down from the sadness she had felt earlier.

”..So we’d make our own, though the range would be limited to no more then a few meters I’d think since it would have to be mostly powered off the fusion pack that EXR-11 has! Something that’s just enough to get from inside most rooms or corridors to an out of the way place. That should be doable right?” Tel’eck asked looking to her Mother now with an excited look in her eyes to plan something out like this.

”..Assuming you’re using a common fusion pack for the school, and assuming you modulated the power needs and targeting array right you should be able to get a site to site transport one way from most places on the ship to say our quarters, at least from areas you can commonly access.” She confirmed

Giving a whoop and jump of excitement, Tel’eck beamed. “..I know that, duh Mom! But this is great, thanks!” She said coming over and hugging her Mom again. “..I can’t wait to tell the others, maybe we can refine this in some other way too who knows!” She said.

”..Heh, true enough my Bright Star. Your teammates may have good ideas to contribute too, never forget that. Now off to bed with you, it’ll be a long day tomorrow.” She said. Giving the young teenager a gentle push to go to her room again.

”..Alright, night Mom! Thanks again for at least trying to mingle, you’ll....do it again right?” The girl said not quite letting the original topic drop.

”..No promises but I will try at least as my duty and work load allows..” Drudoc stated finishing off the tea.

Nodding Tel’eck then turned and entered her room once more, vanishing from sight. Soon Drudoc too cleaned up the two tea cups back to the replicator and entered her own section of the quarters. Stripping down to the nude she took a little time to get a sonic shower to clean up and wash her hair most of all. Before exiting the shower and dressing in simple undergarments. Murmuring a prayer to the Elements and the Path which may come before her on the next day by her alter she then turned in for a hopefully peaceful night’s sleep. As sleep began to claim her she idly wondered what the next few days might bring.

Drudoc Andone CO / Tel’eck Andone Daughter