"Tea and Timetables"

Posted on Sun Sep 7th, 2025 @ 2:15pm by Lieutenant Kate Cherbourg & Ensign Quen Lyra

1,859 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Second Light
Location: Starbase Fleet Ops Center

=/\= Fleet Operations Center – Starbase 369 =/\=

Quen Lyra shifted the stack of PADDs in her hands for the third time before finally setting them down on the desk. She smoothed the edge of her uniform jacket as if that would quiet the restless flutter in her stomach. The office still felt too large without Senior Chief Merrick’s presence, the way he’d filled a room with unflappable certainty, the way he’d known exactly which report the Admiral would want before she even asked. And now he was gone. Transferred to the Arawyn with no notice, leaving her holding a position that felt two sizes too big.

She had managed, so far, but only by working late, triple-checking schedules, and second-guessing every decision. The idea of another yeoman arriving, one who was new to the Fleet but not to the role, was both terrifying and oddly reassuring. When the door opened, Lyra was already on her feet, smoothing her hands against the desk as if to erase the evidence of her nerves.

“Lieutenant Nichols-Cherbourg?” she asked, her Bajoran accent soft but distinct. The name felt formal on her tongue, but so did everything these days. She tried for a smile, not the bright, confident kind she wished she could summon, but something polite, welcoming.

“I’m Ensign Quen Lyra,” she added quickly. “Yeoman to Vice Admiral MacLaren. I thought—” She hesitated, her hand half-gesturing to the empty chairs by the desk. “—I thought it might be good for us to meet. Since we’ll be… well, neighbors of a sort.”

The words came out faster than she intended, and she felt heat rise in her cheeks. Still, she pressed on, hoping her voice didn’t betray just how badly she needed someone who might understand.

Lt Kate Nichols-Cherbourg, at this moment, was also aware of how formal her name sounded. This awareness had been growing for some time and inwardly she cringed each time she heard it on someone else's lips. But at the same time, she was genuinely happy to have been invited to MacLaren's office to meet the new Yeoman. Kate had had a good working relationship with Yeoman Merrick even in the short time they had worked together, and she would genuinely miss him, but overall, her arrival with Vice Admiral Blokpoel had required so many changes of scenery lately, that she was delighted to get to know MacLaren's new yeoman on a more personal basis.

"Hi Ensign Quen," she greeted. "Neighbors bearing gifts. Thanks for stepping up and inviting me. Just call me Kate, by the way. I brought some tea for you." She handed over a wooden box wrapped in lime green translucent toile, with a generous yellow bow. "I get a package of it every so often for ViceAdmiral Blokpoel, and with her on LOA for the last couple months, I have a huge oversupply. It's really nice tea. Her special blend. I have been pretty myopic settling in here on the starbase, and I should have made a point of getting over here to meet you sooner."

Quen’s eyes widened a little as she accepted the box, the cheerful bow standing out against the otherwise plain stack of duty PADDs that dominated her desk. She turned it carefully in her hands, as though afraid she might spoil the wrapping.

“Thank you, Kate,” she said, the name tasting far more natural than the stiff rank and surname she had led with moments before. “And please—call me Lyra. I’ve been gifted plenty since stepping into this post, but it’s usually schedules, reports, and more than a little confusion. Tea is… a much nicer surprise.”

She set the box down with deliberate care, letting the small, unexpected kindness anchor her frayed nerves. Gesturing toward the empty chair, she added, “How have you been finding things here on the starbase? It’s been a lot to adjust to, even without everything changing so quickly.”

"We are both on that ship. Just getting used to the new station-wide network format here is beyond a challenge. I know it is supposed to be easier to use. Well, maybe for some programmer, but for me, every time I swish left, i THINK my little finger triggers something and the whole page changes. I can't be sure. It's does not seem to be a consciously reproducible phenomenon," laughed Kate.

Quen laughed at Kate’s network story, grateful for the levity. “I thought it was just me,” she said, shaking her head. “I swear the system knows when I’m already behind and waits until then to misbehave.”

Her smile lingered, but only for a heartbeat. She shifted in her chair, fingers brushing the edge of the yellow bow still perched on her desk. “Actually… maybe you can help me with something. Admiral MacLaren asked me to clear her calendar yesterday morning; no meetings until the afternoon. Only, she didn’t give me a time, just… ‘the afternoon.’ Which left me trying to decide what to move, what to postpone, and what to cancel entirely.”

Quen exhaled slowly, her gaze dropping to the neat stack of PADDs she’d been carrying around all morning. “Every request looks important to me, and I keep second-guessing which ones can actually wait. Since Merrick left, it’s been harder to know what the right call is and what’s going to come back to bite me later.”

She looked back at Kate, her expression open, almost pleading. “How do you sort it out? When everything feels like a priority, how do you decide what can really be pushed aside?”

"Well, I have that same problem. If I really can't decide, I don't pretend to be a mind-reader and I ask, who's more important than who? Sometimes I just know from past experience who on that list of no way will this fit in the schedule today will raise hell if they get cut, and I call everyone else on the list first in case I might not have to deal with the grumpy bastard. Then sometimes, I have created a relationship with people in contact with them before and I am sort of on their like list and it's not that hard to reschedule something. It's those time you have to ask them a second time for a reschedule of the same meeting that you have to put on your big girl panties and just say you have your orders from the Admiral." Kate explained. "But being fairly new here, and not knowing all of her associates and how well she does or doesn't like them, is a challenge. How have you found the Admiral to be to work for so far? Is she a hard ball or fairly easy to talk to?"

Quen listened closely, her brow furrowed as she absorbed every word. It was both comforting and daunting to hear the matter-of-fact way Kate described juggling impossible schedules. She gave a small nod, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“That makes sense,” she admitted. “I keep thinking I should be able to just… know. Like Merrick always seemed to. But I’m still figuring out who will work with me and who’s going to fight me for every minute.”

At Kate’s question, she hesitated, weighing her words. “The Admiral is… hard to read. She hasn’t flown off the handle at me, yet, but she has this intensity, like she sees more than she says. Sometimes I think she knows I’m second-guessing myself even before I open my mouth.” A nervous laugh slipped out, and she lowered her voice. “It’s not that she’s unkind. She’s just… precise. Like every moment matters. Which makes me worry all the more about wasting one.”

Her fingers tapped once against the bow still perched on her desk before she stilled them. “I want to do well for her. I just haven’t figured out how to match her stride yet.”

"Communication is huge and you are NOT Merrick," replied Kate. "You might even have to remind her of that," she laughed. "But seriously, she's really just a person like you, with a whole lot more responsibility on her shoulders. I doubt she intends to seem dismissive of your challenges as her new yeoman, but she's just used to dropping it on Merrick and forgetting it. He didn't get to that place overnight, or without communication at the beginning. I've worked for Admiral Blokpoel for 7 years, minus a few months while she was on a leave of absence. It's taken a lot of mistakes, but most mistakes are not life threatening. The life threatening ones, you ask, Is he gonna put out a hit on me if I tell him he can't have the 1500 appointment on Tuesday? ." She softened in compassion. "Not sure I'm much help. But don't be afraid of her. She might snap at you once in a while, but try not to take that personally. It's almost always about something else she's dealing with and not about your dismal failure as a yeoman, which isn't the case or you wouldn't have the job in the first place. You'd be manning some HR desk on a mining colony somewhere. Let's have some tea. You got time?"

Quen let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, Kate’s words settling like a small weight lifted from her shoulders. “Merrick said something like that once, that she doesn’t always mean what it looks like she means. I guess… hearing it from you, too, makes it feel more promising. Like maybe I’m not imagining it.”

She gave a small, self-conscious smile, the tension in her jaw easing. “And you’re right. I’m not Merrick. I have to stop trying to act like I am and just… be Lyra.” The admission felt strange to say out loud, but it gave her a flicker of confidence.

At the mention of tea, her expression brightened. “Actually, there’s a shop that just opened on the promenade, one of the first civilian shops to do so. It’s called Steep Space . They have a whole wall of blends I can’t even pronounce. We should check it out. I haven’t had time to stop in yet. Might be good to get out of here before the PADDs start multiplying again.”

"Very fertile, PADDs are," quipped Kate.

Lyra smiled a little more easily this time, the idea of tea, and company, softening the edges of the day.

"That's brilliant. Do you suppose good looking men in uniform hang out at a tea shop? I'd rather date one of them than one I met at a bar. Anyway, today, I'm just looking and getting to know a new friend. Let's go."

Lyra giggled as she shut down her systems. "I hope there's at least some good candy to look at. There has to be some eligible guys to ogle."
~~~
Lt Kate Nichols-Cherbourg
Yeoman to VAdm Blokpoel
&
Ensign Quen Lyra
Yeoman to VAdm MacLaren

 

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