Working Meal
Posted on Sat Jul 25th, 2026 @ 6:58pm by Commander Vren'desh Son of Rukas & Lieutenant JG Liora Sen
2,177 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Mission 1: Through the Janus Gate
Location: Mess Hall, USS Resolute
Timeline: MD002 - 1313 hours
Liora had intended to eat.
That had been the whole plan, simple enough that even Starfleet should have struggled to complicate it. Fifteen minutes in the mess hall, something warm from the replicator, no open reports, no tactical overlays, no half-decoded intelligence summaries glowing accusingly from a PADD beside her plate.
Naturally, the PADD was already there.
So was the report.
The mess hall carried the usual off-shift murmur around her: cutlery against trays, low voices, someone laughing too loudly near the forward viewport, the steady background hush of a starship pretending it was not full of people all waiting for the next strange thing to happen. Liora sat at a small table just far enough from the busiest section to look accidental. Her meal steamed quietly in front of her, mostly untouched.
On the PADD, a line of Klingon text sat above a Starfleet translation.
She frowned at it.
The translation was too clean. That was always the problem with language files. They could tell you what a phrase meant, but not what it cost to say it. Klingon history was full of words that looked simple in Federation Standard and carried half a battlefield behind them. Honour. Challenge. Worth. Weakness. Victory.
Liora dragged one finger down the screen and opened a second file: a short strategic note on non-state actors and technological overreach. Pakled examples were marked in yellow. Dominion-derived engineering references were marked in red. The Janus Core sat in the middle of both categories like an unexploded argument.
She finally picked up her fork, remembered she was supposed to be eating, and took one bite.
It had gone lukewarm.
“Brilliant,” she muttered, without much feeling.
The computer did not defend the meal. Sensible of it.
Liora sat back, curls shifting over one shoulder as she glanced across the mess hall. It was not a command space, not officially, but starships rarely respected neat boundaries. People brought their departments with them in the set of their shoulders. Engineers looked tired in one way, Security in another. Science officers had a particular haunted look after finding something fascinating enough to be dangerous.
And Intelligence, apparently, came to dinner with three open files and a private irritation about Klingon grammar.
Her gaze caught on Commander Vren’desh.
For half a second, her thoughts misplaced themselves.
Not badly. Not in any way visible, she hoped. Just enough that she became aware of her posture, the fall of her hair, the PADD angled beside her plate with its Klingon tactical notes glowing like evidence of a crime.
Liora looked back down at the screen.
Professional interest, she reminded herself.
It was even true. Annoyingly, conveniently true.
Vren’desh was the executive officer. He had cultural context she did not. He had command experience she could learn from. He had the sort of presence that made an entire room seem faintly more aware of its own spine, which was not relevant to the report and therefore could be ignored.
Mostly.
She closed the general history file, leaving only the strategic note visible, and picked up the PADD. The movement felt casual enough. Probably. She took one more bite of the now-disappointing meal, decided it was beyond rescue, and stood.
There were better ways to ask a question, of course. She could send a message. She could wait until morning. She could route it through formal channels and spare herself the faintly ridiculous sensation of walking across a mess hall as though crossing open ground under observation.
Instead, Liora carried the PADD with her and stopped at a respectful distance from the XO’s table.
“Commander,” she said, her voice even, warm enough to belong in the mess hall rather than a briefing room. “I hope I’m not interrupting. I was reviewing some strategic notes on the Pakled situation and ran into a Klingon phrase that Standard is making a complete mess of.”
She lifted the PADD slightly, allowing herself the smallest, rueful smile.
“I thought it might be safer to ask someone who’d know the difference before I accidentally turned a tactical assessment into an insult.”
Vren'Desh had replicated his favorite lunch. A meal that he became a fan of during his Academy days. It was the closest he could get to Klingon food on Earth. A line of Korean dishes. There was a plate of Korean style beef tartare, a plate of Gejang (raw fermented crabs), Gat Kimchi as a side dish (mustard leaf Kimchi), and the highlight was Sannakji (live octopus). He was about to take an octopus and dip it in a spicy, sour fermented chili paste when Liora stepped to his table. Her arrival was met with mixed feelings from Vren'Desh. On the one hand he enjoyed his solitude and on the other he was very partial to red heads. This could be because red hair does not occur naturally in Klingons. He smiled as the octopi in the bowl moved around. "Lieutenant! This is a surprise. Please have a seat and I will see what I can do with the translation."
Liora returned the smile with a small, grateful dip of her head. “Thank you, Commander.” She took the offered seat, settling the PADD neatly on the table before her gaze flicked, despite herself, to the movement in his bowl. Her composure held, though one eyebrow lifted with quiet curiosity. “I’ll admit, my lunch has never tried to leave the plate before. Trill cuisine has its moments, but it’s usually less ambitious.”
She angled the PADD so he could see the highlighted line. “The phrase keeps translating as spoils taken by an unworthy hand, but the context suggests something more tactical than ceremonial. It came up in a comparative file on undisciplined groups acquiring technology above their ability to control.” Her fingers rested lightly beside the screen. “Given the Pakleds and the device we’re looking at, I’d rather not build an assessment on a translation that’s polished all the meaning out of it.”
Vren'Desh took the PADD, held it with one hand as he read it, and took a piece of kimchi in his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. "My people have very little distinctions at times. Very often if we mean to say that you do not know how to use something we will say that you are unworthy. That being said this phrasing means that the device was a spoil of war, and that someone who did know what they had took it..." His voice trailed off as his eyes focused on a particular part of the Klingon text. "...But this vowel use here." He indicated a particular part of the text. "This is usually used from something or someone without honor." All at once it dawned on him. "I believe that the device was taken by Klingons during the war. As a spoil of battle, a trophy. It was then stolen."
He placed the PADD down and took a few bites of his food in sequence. This sequence ended with the octopus. "This is Human food, delicacies from Earth that I was introduced to during my time at the Academy. Closest to Klingon food I could get on Earth. Please help yourself if you wish. It is Klingon custom to just reach into the communal plates."
Liora’s eyes returned to the highlighted text. “So the Klingons took it as a spoil of war, and the Pakleds are the unworthy hands that stole it from them,” she said, following the logic through. That made the next step obvious. Quietly obvious, at least. She would need to start pulling Klingon records, or find someone willing to answer questions without deciding Starfleet had misplaced a trophy that was never theirs to begin with.
Her attention shifted back to the food, and the octopus earned a brief, involuntary grimace. “I think I’ll leave that one to someone braver.” She accepted a plate and chose some of the tamer-looking beef and kimchi instead. “There’s a spiced root dish from home my mother used to make that I couldn’t find anywhere on Earth. The replicators always got the texture wrong.” She settled the plate beside the PADD and gave him a warm nod. “Thank you, Commander.”
"It could also mean that during the Dominion War a Klingon vessel took the device as a trophy. Someone stole it from Klingon custody and sold it to the Pakleds. I am not entirely sure that the Pakleds would be able to steal the device themselves. I would reach out to the Klingon Science Minister. Do it through official channels this way he will actually answer." While he spoke Vren'Desh continued to eat. Watching a Klingon eat was a mixed experience. They truly enjoyed their food, enjoyed everything about it. However, it was not the prettiest thing to see. "My pleasure Lieutenant. Now tell me about this dish, that your mother made. Spicy food is a chance for glory."
Liora nodded, conceding the refinement. “That’s more likely. Someone with access to Klingon custody moved it on, and the Pakleds ended up as buyers rather than thieves.” She made a brief note on the PADD. “I’ll route the request through the KDF intelligence liaison rather than the Science Ministry. We’re more likely to get an honest chain of custody than a polished statement about how nothing was ever missing.”
The question about the food drew a more genuine smile from her. “It’s called vekar root. My mother slices it thin, ferments it overnight with citrus salts, then cooks it down with hot peppers, sweet leaf oil and something she refuses to name because apparently family recipes require operational security.” She glanced at the kimchi on her plate. “It starts sweet, then becomes vindictive. You’d probably approve.”
"Well then I must try it. Can an Intelligence Officer such as yourself break the operational security of a family recipe?" Vren'Desh said with a smile. It was a genuine smile, one that most of the crew did not see from such a stoic Klingon.
Liora’s smile widened despite herself. “Possibly,” she said, lowering her voice a fraction as though the table had suddenly become a secure channel. “But family recipes are highly classified. I’d need something of equivalent value.”
She picked up her fork, eyes bright with quiet humour. “A Klingon state secret might do it. Nothing catastrophic. Just enough to make my mother feel the exchange was honourable.”
"Not a state secret, but a secret about my people nonetheless. Outwardly Klingons show that the male has the power, the authority, control of the house etc. However, it is the female that has all the power when the doors are closed." If one did not know any better one may have thought that Vren'Desh flirted. It did have the benefit of being factual.
Liora’s eyes lifted from her plate, her smile taking on a more knowing edge. “That must be why Klingon doors spend so much time closed,” she said, light enough to leave him room to take it however he pleased.
She had caught the shift beneath the explanation, factual as it might have been, and felt herself become rather more aware of the space between them. “I think my mother might accept that as a fair opening bid. Though she’d probably insist on testing your tolerance for vekar root before releasing the final ingredient.”
"I should like to meet your mother. Then I will eat this root, and we can test whose might is better." Vren'Desh took another bite of his food and realized how his comment may have sounded. "That is if you wish. I did not mean to overstep." He backtracked for the moment. He would have to look into Trill mating rituals.
Liora laughed softly, the image arriving far too easily: six siblings, both parents, and one large Klingon at the family table turning dinner into a test of courage. “You haven’t overstepped,” she said, still smiling. “Though bringing a Klingon home without warning might finally be the thing that leaves my family speechless.”
She glanced at the PADD beside her plate, then gathered it up with a reluctant little breath. “I should get this request moving before Intelligence starts wondering whether I’ve defected to lunch.” Her gaze returned to him, warm and just a touch amused. “We can continue the negotiation another time, Commander. Preferably somewhere the food isn’t trying to escape.”
He was relieved that she had taken his faux pas the wrong way, and that she perhaps wanted to see him again. "You tell me when and where and I will be there. But, next time leave the Klingon translations on your desk." It was his way of saying that they should get to know each other better. Vren'Desh smiled and tucked back into his food.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant JG Liora Sen
Strategic Operations/Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Resolute
Commander Vren'Desh
Executive Officer
USS Resolute
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