Posted by Lieutenant Commander Jarred Alindor (Chief Engineer) in Elizabeth Alindor tours the Saracen

Posted by Ensign Kalani Kāne (Science Officer) in Elizabeth Alindor tours the Saracen
Original posts: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/saracen/notes/22573/ https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/saracen/notes/22968/ https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/saracen/notes/23126/ https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/saracen/notes/23269/
https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/saracen/notes/24842/ https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/saracen/notes/26474/ https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/saracen/notes/29118/

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Alindor’s quarters
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Kalani stretched her shoulder’s one more time working out a few of the kinks still there. She was not unaccustomed to sleeping on hard surfaces. In the field, there were rarely beds or cots yet they were on a perfectly good starship so the hard metal floors even covered by several blankets were not s soft as a bed. She smiled as Jarred came around from behind her setting another cup of coffee down along with a pile of scrambled eggs, waffles, and dish of peaches. Kalani rarely ate anything for breakfast and this combination had to be a favorite of Elizabeth by the way she was eating without complaint. What it wasn’t doing was shutting Elizabeth up. Kalani was a talker but she and Jarred had an unspoken rule about mornings. It was not talking before each of them had a cup and no decisions were made until Kalani was solidly on her second cup. This morning however, Kalani was struggling to process the words coming out of Elizabeth’s mouth.

“Thanks, baby,” Kalani said raising the cup to her lips as Jarred took a seat at the table with them.

“And my friend Jennifer’s brother said that on a starship you can’t open any windows in your house or you get sucked out and die,” Elizabeth said with a serious face as if she were imparting a great source of knowledge to the adults at the table. “I fed dat my dadhe half speful winno’s on his sip fo I won’t eye,” she added while eating a mouthful of eggs. There was no fear in her words. Just a plain matter of fact tone indicating Jennifer had to clearly be wrong.

“You know the rule pumpkin, swallow before talking.” Jarred said as he took a sip of his coffee before coming sitting down, leaning in to give Kalani a kiss and then back to Elizabeth where he kissed the top of her head as he sat down to the plate at his side of the table. So far Jarred had been running on fumes but this felt good all the same. He couldn’t help but smile at the pair as he blinked a few times slowly. It was clear sleep had been dragging on his face a bit.

Kalani glanced at Jarred wondering how well he was fairing this morning as a full-time dad. She knew it was not his first time alone with his daughter but the three of them had not gone to bed before 2100 hours last night and Elizabeth was up at 0600 hours. She and Jarred had gotten up an hour earlier to get ready for the day or was what the two of them planned to call it if Elizabeth woke up during this time. While the 0500 revelry was as active as any PT session but a thousand times more enjoyable, Kalani was already feeling the need for a mid-morning nap. Looking at Jarred, Kalani couldn’t tell really if he was dragging or not yet. TO be fair he was the one running around the quarters getting shoes and clothes and breakfast as Kalani moved at a slightly slower pace. Maybe he was fine or maybe he was just on auto-pilot and just fine on five hours broken sleep. He was good with the kiddo. It didn’t surprise her as much as it did. Jarred was a nice guy. As an engineer, he had oodles of patience that most people overlooked. This was evident to Kalani when she saw people come to the chief complaining something was broke and miming out the problem rather than use words. Jarred never broke his cool with them so of course he wouldn’t with his own kid. The difference was he couldn’t send the irrate lieutenant to his room when he pouted over a broken piece of tech. Only time would tell how far his patience would stretch with a five-year-old.

Taking Kalani’s hand as he placed his on top, he squeezed gently before inhaling deeply. He was as tired as her but he knew he had to go through this. It was what was needed of him to make this work with Elizabeth.

Looking at the clock Elizabeth dropped her fork and ran to the door grabbing an exhausted Ralph off the couch like a limp rag toy under one arm. “It’s zero eight o’clock,” she said happily. “You said last night at zero eight o’clock, we get to see the ship. It’s zero eight o’clock, now right so can we go? Can we go?,” she practically bounced at the door. Ralph let out a small whining sound as his bottom half swayed to her jumping but his neck and front paws were held firmly in place by the stockade that was Elizabeth’s arm.

“Little one, be careful with our little guy there. I think you forget how tiny he is.” Jarred said, he had to admit Ralph was taking his time as a small child’s new pet rather well. Still he could bite her if he got to angry at her playfulness. “Remember Lucy’s dog? He tried to bite Papa cause Papa wouldn’t let him have his food one day… the Ralph is still just a dog in many ways even if he is a fox, he has a limit.

“Not Ralph. I loves me bunches and bunches,” she said raising the tiny furry head to her lips as she kissed it. “And Aunt Lucy’s dog is a hobo. He farted and burped and was just a…a....hobo,” Elizabeth rolled her eyes in disgust. “Uncle Peter called him a hobo all the time. Ralph is fancy dog. Besides he likes to come with me. Miss Lani said so last night.”

Kalani got a small grin on her face. “Yes he does,” she winked at Ralph although if Elizabeth thought it was towards her that didn’t hurt anything either. This was good for Ralph. The fox was a baby too and needed to get used to small kiddos. One day Kalani wanted kids and she had seen too many times about how older pets were dorks to children. Ralph needed to learn the ropes fast and at least right now Jarred was playing bad cop with reminding Elizabeth about rules and such. This left the role of good cop wide open and Kalani was just fine filling the role. Better to be the fun one than the one who had to follow through with rules.

Dad…dad…little....help…here Ralph said looking at Jarred from across the room. This little Alindor was a lot of fun and always smelled like yummy treats but she was rather loud and at times moved faster than he did when playing ball.

Feeling Ralph squirm Elizabeth moved towards the door and grabbed her backpack. Opening the top she dumped out the contents with one hand and then worked hard to stuff Ralph in the opening with the other. “There we go Ralphie. Now you can ride with us. I will take care of you. Go to sleep and I will set you free later,” she said softly kissing his head and closing the top.

Kalani sighed with a smile. Ralph was used to backpacks but not the unceremonious stuffing and drawstringing ritual he was being subjected to by Elizabeth. The small paw reaching out of the tiny hole at the top made Kalani laugh out loud.

“Looks like she is ready and has a hostage friend,” Kalani said leaning back stretching in the chair.

“You can still come if you want, I am sure you don’t need to be at the meeting…” Jarred said as he looked at her, the look said volumes. He was a bit nervous, but part of him also knew he needed to do this on his own. She was his daughter and as much as he loved Kalani she wasn’t his wife, not yet at least.

Kalani opened her mouth and closed it after a few seconds. She wasn’t sure how to reply to Jarred. Of course she wanted to spend time with them but she also knew she was not Elizabeth’s mother and had to tread a careful line.

“Dahhhh deeeeee let’s go,” Elizabeth said impatiently bouncing back and forth on each foot at the door as Ralph let out a series of small yips and bark. “Ralph says he is ready too!”

“Baby I would love to come with you but maybe the peanut wants a bit of Daddy-daughter time. What if I give you a twenty minute head start? Maybe you take her to the engine room and I will get my lab up and ready for guests. I do have to check on the galactic zoo. She might enjoy hanging out there a bit and then I can have all my work done so I can spend the rest of the day with you....or....part…or…whatever you felt was okay,” Kalani started to stumble over her words. She had assumed that they would spend the day together like they always did when they were off. It was not until this second had Kalani thought that maybe Jarred’s comment about giving it a few days might include more than just nights.

Kalani Kane Ensign

“Okay okay.. I am on my way little one.” he said as he leaned in kissing Kalani goodbye before he took his daughter’s hand as he began to head out the door.

Alindor, CE

Elizabeth half pulled Jarred out of the room by his hand heading to the nearest turbo lift. “I want to go to the bridge. What floor do I tell it to take us too,” she said excitedly bouncing back and forth.

“Oh,” Elizabeth tried to hide her slight disappointment. Immediately however it was replaced with a new destination. “Can we go to your office,” she asked jumping slightly and tugging on Jarred’s hand as she bounced up and down. A pathetic whine came out of the back pack again as Ralph pointed out his disdain for being tossed around like a sack of potatoes.

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SARACEN ENGINE ROOM

“Whoa,” Elizabeth said as the pneumatic doors swished open to the large room dominated by soft hum of the warp core. She did not step forward and enter but stood there taking it all in. The room was far busier than normal with the shift change over from graveyard to day. People milled about updating the crew that was taking over the shift while shift supervisors tended to any issues that had arisen. All the bouncy excitement seemed to fade from Elizabeth. It was replaced with more of an awe struck quiet stare. Elizabeth was not shy by nature but this was a lot of strangers. “This is your office,” she said in a quiet voice with wide eyes. The room was a lot larger than Elizabeth expected.

“Lt. Commander Alindor,” a large Orion yelled out in a deep voice seeing the chief at the door. “I am glad your here boss. The Photonic Resonance Dampener is playing up again. We have adjusted the Secondary Field Modulator to try and compensate but it only corrected the variance by .0064%.”

Elizabeth slid closer to Jarred and held his hand a bit tighter moving right next to his leg and possibly slightly behind it. It was not that the green man was being mean to her daddy but he did sound rather angry. He sounded very angry.

“We can’t get the Photonic Resonator working until we can get the Dampener variance to .0080% and I have tried everything.” Finishing the sentence the Orion extended the PaDD towards Alindor.

Lt. Kalani Kane