Moving Day

Posted on Sat Jul 5th, 2025 @ 9:51am by Senior Chief Petty Officer Gaz & Ramielos Volsunga

1,040 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Serpent's Tooth [3]
Location: Volsunga's Quarters, Lower Sphere
Timeline: Morning - MD12

Gaz looked up as the door opened, then he looked up some more, until he finally found the face of the man he was here to see, looking down at him.

“Yes?” Volsunga asked, looking down at the small porcine man in yellow.

“I’m Gaz. Operations Chief. Mind if I come in?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the man in charge of the facilities here. And uh, to look at you, I’d expect you’ve got some special needs.” Gaz realized in that moment Volsunga had kind of a hippie hairdo for a soldier. But then again he probably wasn't allowed anything sharp.

“Come in.” Volsunga told the little Tellarite, and moved out of the way so he could.

Gaz looked around the room. A couple of light fixtures had been removed, one looked cracked, Gaz assumed he’d hit them with his head. “Our Captain sends his apologies that we didn’t have time to get it up to spec before you moved in. People don’t usually get quite so tall around these parts.”

Volsunga didn’t respond, standing next to the door silently as it closed.

“How are you finding the place? I’m guessing the lights are a bit low.”

“Yes. Other than the obstacles it is adequate.”

“Furniture’s a bit small, isn’t it?” Gaz said, looking at the seats and table. He figured the bed was regular size too.

“I haven’t used it.”

“Really? They’re pretty good. Starfleet’s best ergonomics. Even if they aren’t your size.”

“I have no need of it.” Volsunga told him.

“Alright.” Gaz said with a shrug. “Want us to get rid of it?”

“It is of no use to me.” Volsunga said.

“Okay, you’re the boss.” Gaz tapped his combadge. “Removal team, come on in. We’re taking everything.” He moved to the door and pressed the open button. Through the way came a nervous-looking collection of Ops crew, who started to remove the furniture piece by piece.

“So what does where you live look like back home?”

“Smaller than this. Closer to where you kept me before. There’s a bed, and a rack for weapons and armour. A table, a chair. I do like that I have a private refresher here. On the Battle-Barge they are shared spaces.”

“Battle-barge. That’s a ship?”

“It is. Longer than this station."

“Big ship, then.” Gaz said, moving out of the way of a pair of officers carrying the mattress.

The conversation lulled there, and Gaz looked around, watching his people go to avoid any awkwardness.

“I would ask you a question.” Volsunga asked.

“Go for it.” Gaz told the supersoldier.

“What are you?”

“Me? I’m a Tellarite. My people are from a world called Tellar.”

“Where is that?” Volsunga asked.

“In the binary star system humans call 61 Cygni. 15th closest star system to Earth.” Gaz said.

“That was once a human colony where I come from. Are you abhuman?”

“I don’t know what that means.” Gaz admitted.

“Humans who mutated over time. Adjusting to their environment.”

“Oh. No. I don’t think we have those. Humans haven’t been in the stars long enough to adjust like that. Other than the ones that genetically engineered themselves, anyway.” Gaz said, though he knew almost nothing about the subject.

“Almost all the xenos around here look very human. Other than a few.” Volsunga looked from the busily working Ensign Thayn to Petty Officer Tas-Engta, both of whom were carrying out furniture and trying to pretend he wasn’t looking at them.

“Well, yeah. We don’t exactly know why that is. We’ve found a few different records of ancient species who say they’re responsible for all the humanoids being, well, humanoid, but most people are happy to leave it as a mystery until we have something more definitive.” Gaz said with a shrug.

“Heresy.” Volsunga said without emotion or affect. Volsunga himself found his own muted response to a claim that disupted the Emperor's divinity strange, but did not think further on it.

“Yeah, maybe.” As the last of the furniture was removed, someone handed something that looked like a wall-interface to Gaz. He took the device and affixed it next to the door.

“This is a holographic interface. Touch it here to turn it on. You tell it what you want, and it’ll make it for you. You can live the window view as it is, or it can make a new one for you. If you can describe it, it’ll make it. You can also make new furniture to your liking as you need it. It runs off its own power source so it won’t shut down if we have any power issues. Do you know how to use the computer?”

“No.” Volsunga said, but in truth he had some idea since the human woman Flynn had told him about it. He assumed he would be locked out of it since leaving his previous enclosure.

“Just say computer.” There was an affirmative chirp from the system, “and ask it what you want. If you ask it for food it’ll come out of the replicator alcove.” Gaz said, pointing at the segment of wall where it was found.

“I see.” He was hungry, he hadn’t eaten since they’d let him out of the other cell four days ago, he assumed they would bring him something but he hadn’t wanted to ask about it.

“The computer’s very smart, but it works on feedback. If you don’t get what you want, be more specific. Don’t be afraid to refer to abstractions like yourself for the size of things. It might not tell you everything you’ll want to know, but you can access more or less anything a civilian can.”

“I understand.” Volsunga said.

“Alright then, unless you’ve got any questions, I’ll be off.”

“No. Thank you, Chief.” Volsunga said, though it still sounded a bit strange coming from him. It definitely wasn't something he was accustomed to saying.

“You’re welcome.” Gaz said, and left the room feeling just a bit less nervous than when he went in.

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