Tough Love III

Posted on Sat May 13th, 2023 @ 8:01am by Lieutenant Mariya Karashka Ph.D. & Petty Officer, 2nd Class Vithi D'Kiva & Vasha
Edited on on Tue Jun 20th, 2023 @ 11:38pm

1,446 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Mission 3: The Peace Ship
Location: Science Lab III
Timeline: After Tough Love II

Vithi was unaccountably nervous, waiting outside the science lab for Vasha to arrive. She had messaged the Kelpien girl where to meet and when, and indicated that she should wear something a little more formal looking than 20th Century style jeans and t-shirt. But nothing TOO formal: she didn't want the lanky xeno showing up in a ball gown. Just something formal-science-y-psychiatry-ish.

Why was she so nervous? The light green palms of her hands were sweating like a bridegroom's. She who had faced off against the Carrot-men of Cestus XIII and the Crying-folk of Andressi System. Scared to go and ask an officer for a favour for a friend. Geez.

Vashi appeared around the corner, her long shadow preceding her, and D'Kiva smiled at how nice she looked.

As it turned out Vasha did have a dress sense when it came to simple but not too simple dressing. Dressed in jeans, a dark gray button-up shirt and hooved shoes (well, they were the only kind that could fit her, anyway) she was the picture of a psychiatrist. A younger, more hip one anyway. Screw tweed jackets and boring denim. She smiled back at D'Kiva, wondering why the green-skinned woman's smile seemed a little brighter upon seeing her. Oh, wait. She did know why.

"D'Kiva, I can't thank you enough. Who is this person we're to meet? Is she a fellow psychiatrist, perhaps? Or a doctor?" Probably not, seeing as they were now standing outside a science lab. "Either way I'm honored to meet them."

"Well, let's wait until it's over before you do any Thank Yous, huh?" suggested the tough security woman. "It's Karashka, Science Lieuty." the green woman explained. "Come on" She operated the door and because no dangerous or secret experiments were going on at the moment, it opened obligingly and they entered the lab.

Honestly, Vee had no idea who this Karashka person was. The lab was full of people in sciences blue uniform and she could've been any one of them. Many glanced up from their stations in confusion as they regarded the odd-looking duo of Kelpien in oddly Terran smart casual and a security officer at her side. All except one.

Ensign Dora, the three armed, three legged Edosian ambled up to them: he was even weirder looking than Vasha. "Yeeeeeeees?" he enquired in his usual lazy drawl.

"Er, here'ta see Karashka, Lootenant Karashka" the Orion corrected herself.

"Thiiiis waaaay..." the strange creature led them to a separate office door. The lab boss didn't mingle with the hoi polloi.

The Edosian buzzed and an ominous "Come" sounded from within. D'Kiva ed the way in. The woman was in her 30s, not unattractive, and well upholstered where it mattered.

"Ah, Vithi. And who is this?" she asked, oddly using the green girl's first name and cocking an eyebrow at the Kelpien.

"My name is Vasha. I am- well, I was an intern to ship's counsellor doctor T'Mora before her demise." The tall, gangly alien offered proactively. The woman she was speaking to was attractive, well-endowed and definitely very, very smart if she was head of this lab, as she could tell. She couldn't tell which was stranger, that she'd been brought to see a scientist instead of another counsellor, or that D'Kiva was actually her Orion companion's last name. And to think she'd always thought it was a lovely name for a beautiful green bombshell like her.

"I was told by... Vithi... that you could help me." God, saying her first name felt freaking weird, now that she knew what it was.

"Hmmm" Karashka purred, thinking, before looking up to the Orion girl "Well, get the lady a seat, Vithi." It was a waspish order, but the hardened security woman responded with alacrity, bringing Vasha a chair from the side of the room, she herself then lounged against the wall with her arms folded. The blue clad Scientist coolly appraised the Kelpien.

"I heard about T'Mora. Pity, she was an extremely intelligent and attractive woman. Wasted in Psychiatry, of course. And you were her little helper, eh? What are you, some sort of empath?" Karashka was almost as terse as T'Mora had been in her speech, but without the excuse of being Vulcan.

"Tell her, Vee" D'Kiva encouraged, and gave the tall, gangly alien a little smile to remind her she wasn't alone. Karashka might be a little lacking in touchy feely warmth of manner, but the green girl knew that she was about the only person on board who would actually be able to help Vasha fulfil her dream of staying on board, and not being sent to the back end of beyond.

"Well..." Vasha offered a kind smile as she sat, unphased by the terseness of Karashka's tone. Endure working with a Vulcan therapist for a few months on end and you can endure most anything in her experience. "I am empathic, yes, but not very much. I am a psychiatry student in fact, formerly assigned to doctor T'Mora as am assistant. "I'd like to continue staying aboard to complete my on-the-job training; I think there are many more opportunities for me here!"

Karashka tipped her head quizzically. "Hmmm" She was wondering why some frosty Vulcan psychiatrist would want to have an inexperienced psychology student getting under her feet.

"Did T'Mora use you in her therapy in some way?" she asked pointedly.

"If by 'use' you mean use my empathic abilities to have a clearer picture of her clients' emotional states, then yes." Vasha supplied helpfully, unphased by Karashka's frosty reaction. "Pure logic isn't always the best way to help someone who's going through issues that are emotional after all, and that's where I came in!"

"Logical" conceded the Lieutenant, compactly.

"You'll find that she found me quite helpful, if you checked her mentor's notes on me,"

"That's all right, I believe you... Vasha." She looked at the alien girl long and hard, as if she was searching for something, who knew what? Maybe Vasha felt something, maybe not. Either way, the human woman seemed to come suddenly to a decision.

"I'm just looking up your Academic Institution, what is your Programme Leader's name?" she asked as she pressed a number of buttons on her computer.

"Professor Stralia Keen. Wonderful woman. You'll find everything in my personnel file." Vasha said with an obliging smile. "With the... MIT. I could never pronounce the name of the city it's in, and all the students called it that, so I did as well." She shrugged her slender shoulders.

Karashka was bringing up Vasha's details on her computer, and only looked up to ask "Mars Institute of Technology? Oh, you mean Massachusetts? I just always think of a Dentist's front window with a display of numerous pairs of dentures: Mass o' Chew Sets." she said and went back to work.

"Ah, here you are. All right I'll put in a request to have you stay on the ship to do research with me and act as a Level 3 counsellor, that will involve group therapy sessions and the like... no full scale psychoanalysis or anything like that." she looked up and smiled, which would have amazed the young men who worked under her, who thought of her as an absolute ogress.

"All right, I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything back: hopefully it will be good news and I shall square everything with the Captain." she stood, pulling down her short blue uniform, which had ridden up revealing firm muscular thighs and held out her hand for Vasha to shake, her signal that the interview was at an end, for now.

Vasha smiled and shook the offered hand, ignoring the well-endowed scientist's muscular thighs just about square in the middle of her line of sight. "Thank you, ma'am. I shan't disappoint you, promise! I'll be looking forward to the good news then!"

Vithi nodded at the officer "Thanks Mariya" and made to leave with Vasha.

"All right. Might see you later." the older woman acknowledged and didn't seem to bat an eyelid at being addressed by her first name by the Orion girl.

They left the office and walked through the lab, watched by the odd male junior officer whose head bobbed up from their scientific work at the distinctive click clack of d'Kiva's regulation jackboots on the hard flooring of the room; but a swish of the door and they were gone.

Outside in the corridor, the security woman beamed up at the lanky alien. "Hey, I think that went well... how about I take you for a celebratory drink? Well, tentatively celebratory." she offered.

 

RSS Feed