Seleya
Private Freighter Vessel
Epsilon Ceti B
Nuvia City, Risa

Loya sat at the smaller table, the gaming table, in the ship lounge. She hummed as she methodically broke down the PC-22a 'Peacemaker' plasma pistol. Broke it down, arranging the pieces around the table before her, before reaching and flipping open the small maintenance kit at the edge of the table.

Taking each piece, along with the corresponding tool, and beginning the long, comfortable process of cleaning, maintaining and reassembling the weapon.

Human weapons were typically the best, she mused. And being among a mostly Human crew and no longer surrounded by her own people all the time, she didn't have to pretend otherwise. The Orion people had many accomplishments and many areas they could take pride in. Weapons, though…Humans were the best at that. Maybe not as technologically advanced as some other species, including her own really, but very good at weapons.

She liked doing work like this. It was…comforting. Something rote and familiar, something she'd done a thousand times. She was able to free up a large part of her mind for other things. To think about things that she didn't usually have time to sit around and think about.

The Vulcan captain kept them very busy. She was very good at keeping them busy. And Loya was fairly sure this was because she thought they might get into trouble if they weren't busy all of the time.

And that was probably true.

Another reason she liked weapons maintenance. If the captain came along she would only look over, see that she was busy doing something 'logical' and then keep going on with doing captainy things. She wouldn't stop and make her scrub the cargo bay walls or cleaning out the lockers or do diagnostic maintenance on the sensor systems…or run down the manifest in the cargo bay again, since the captain had got it in her head somehow that she should be in charge of cargo.

And besides. She couldn't seem to make the captain understand that men were real work. That that was the important work for a woman. Not all of those other things.

It was a little crazy how she didn't seem to get that.

And it was funny. After everything that happened she was mostly just glad to get away from Kohl'ashkar. Then all of a sudden she got bored and horny and decided Malcolm was the only one available she wouldn't get in some nasty fight over. And then he stuck around the next day, so they did it again a couple more times.

Then he was just around all the time and did nice things for her. And he was nice to her and she liked having him around her and they talked about things. And they did it some more, which was nice.

Then he was just…hers. Just like that, somehow.

And all of a sudden she had a man. One that was for really hers. It was kind of crazy.

Now she couldn't seem to find the time to do all the work she should be doing. She should be keeping her man in line. That should be her job here.

Keep him in shape, making sure he was educated and had everything he needed. Encouraging him to make goals and push to achieve them. Helping him to be better and stronger and smarter, instead of just being fat and lazy and stupid, like men were when they didn't have a woman to make something out of them.

T'Pol didn't seem to get that. Hoshi neither. It was weird. How were things supposed to work right around here if the women were always doing stuff and not keeping the men in line? This ship would work a lot better if the women weren't acting like men all the time. That was just weird.

So she was thinking about the tough position she was in here. And it wasn't just that Malcolm was a very important person for the ship and that her job should be to make sure he was the best for the ship that he could be. It was also that…

Well, she didn't smell right. So he might not be hers anymore if she didn't keep him in line, and that was going to happen sooner or later. That could happen any time. As soon as they stepped off the ship, maybe even, and some other woman who smelled right got him. Or…whatever you call it when some alien woman took a man.

Someone could take him away from her. So easily. She didn't have any way to hold on to him at all.

So she should be doing something about that. Finding some way to hold onto him before someone took him away. Instead of doing cargo manifests or cleaning things…or even doing weapon maintenance, really. There just wasn't ever enough time…

The aft doorway cycled and the captain walked into the lounge, coming from the rear section of the ship. Probably passing through the bunk rooms and the galley on the way back from engineering. After probably making sure Trip was busy and not getting into trouble. Heading for the flight deck to be sure Travis was busy and not getting into trouble.

See? That's what she should be doing with Malcolm. The captain was always trying to rule over everyone else's men. Like they were all hers, not just the women. That's what a captain should do, ruling over the other women while the women ruled over the men. That was how the chain of command worked.

She should jump up and remind the captain that Malcolm was hers, maybe.

And then strut off to go make sure Malcolm was busy and not getting into trouble, like she should be doing…

The captain was standing there watching her, though. Instead of going on to the flight deck to act like Travis was her man.

Loya frowned over at her then.

"What?"

"This is the second time today you've performed preventive maintenance on your weapons, Loya."

Her voice was disapproving. And that grated on Loya's nerves.

She gestured at the pieces of the plasma pistol on the table. And the phase rifle propped against it on the side, waiting to be serviced. And the various blades and the whetstone. And the holdout laser pistol and the flamer and…all the rest of the stuff.

"You want they don't work when you need them to?" Loya challenged.

"I am beginning to suspect you perform weapons maintenance in order to avoid your other duties."

Loya frowned again.

"This is my other duties." She insisted. "I should be doing Malcolm now, not this."

T'Pol tossed an eyebrow up at that. And Loya reconsidered her wording…

But yes, that was still pretty right.

The captain hesitated, almost deciding to say something about that…then just turned and went on to the flight deck instead.

Which, good. Go rule over Hoshi's man. Vulcan pain in the butt.

It was less than a minute before Hoshi appeared, coming from the flight deck.

"What she got you doing?" Loya asked.

Hoshi smirked a little. "Making lunch. She wants us to all wait until after lunch…"

"I was going to cook the lunch!" Loya protested.

Hoshi looked slightly surprised, stopping to glance over the bits of pieces of deadly weaponry on the table.

"After this." Loya added. "You said Human men like if you cook for them."

"Well, sure, I guess. But that's more if you cook for them in particular…"

"I was going to cook a special lunch." Loya pouted.

"Oh." Hoshi. "Well…did you tell the captain…?"

Loya gestured wildly, exasperated. "It's not special if you tell everybody!"

"Okay, okay! Jeez!" Hoshi finally exclaimed. "What are you so upset about, Loya?"

"I wanted to cook for Malcolm!" She said, almost desperately. "Before we go out to Risa!"

Hoshi tilted her head a little curiously. A little confused at how agitated Loya was all of a sudden.

"Loya…we're on Risa." She smiling. "Don't cook for him. Take him out to dinner tonight. Or go dancing. Take him to the beach. There are a million different things to do around here…"

Loya just slumped.

And tossed the power cell she was holding onto the table.

And…plopped her face in her hands, suddenly looking thoroughly dejected.

Hoshi was a little shocked. She half expecting Loya to start crying now.

"Loya," She said, carefully. "What's wrong?"

"I wanted to do a nice thing for Malcolm." She said, her voice muffled in hands. "I don't want a Risa woman to take him. So…I just wanted…"

Oh.

"Oh, Loya." Hoshi said, already moving in to comfort her. "Honey, you need to stop worrying about that so much. Malcolm's a great guy. He isn't going to just run off and fool around on you."

"Someone could take him." Loya said, her face still in her hands, elbows planted on her knees.

"Loya…Orions are the only ones that I know of that can do the pheromone thing. You keep forgetting that. No one's just going to walk up and take him away from you."

"But he's sexy…and I'm not sexy very much." Loya objected, still muffled. "The Risa women are all sexy."

Hoshi grinned a little. She couldn't help it.

"Loya." She said, admonishing gently. "I don't think you've looked in the mirror recently. You're a real knockout, you know."

Loya sniffled a little.

"Really?"

"Definitely." Hoshi insisted. "And if you weren't so focused on glaring at every woman that comes within a light year of him, you'd probably notice every man in the room zeroes right in on you the second you show up."

Loya came out from behind her hands a little. Smiling…just a very little and uncertainly, humored at that.

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is." Hoshi insisted. "And if anybody should be worried about their men around here it's me and T'Pol. In fact, I don't even know why I'm trying to make you feel better. If you figure that out, we might be in trouble."

Loya snorted.

Hoshi quirked her mouth a bit, thinking.

"I'll tell you what." She said. "Forget about the captain. You go ahead and make lunch. I'll go recalibrate the transceiver. I'm still not happy with it."

Loya felt bad, but she really liked that idea. She didn't want Hoshi to get into trouble with the captain but…this was important.

Hoshi stuck around, cheering her up and making her feel better. And Loya made sure to give her a good hug for taking care of her like that. Then Hoshi went off to do communications stuff, calibrating the transceiver. So Loya gave her weapons a good once over…and none of that was as important, so she just left it there for now.

She got up and headed off, not aft to the galley, but forward. Through the door out of the lounge, into the little space between that and the flight deck. Turning right there to take the ladder at hand down to the cargo bay.

And she went right to the big stack of crates she had lashed down tight there. Because there were forty of them and they weren't locked or anything. Just a bunch of bottles in there that weren't even precisely measured. Obviously just bottled up by hand.

So the client would never miss a few ounces of t'rarthra extract.

Then she headed back up, back through the lounge, past the lift and into the galley. There she made sandwiches and tried to figure out what kind of wine would go with the sandwiches. Then she just grabbed one, since they only had three bottles to pick from. They were probably all the same thing, for all she knew.

She poured the t'rarthra extract into the bottle, once she'd measured it precisely to be sure. Because it had to be precise. That was important.

Then made her way aft again, past the personal storage lockers to the bunk rooms. Fetching Malcolm from his daily exercise regimen in his bunk to come help serve lunch. And poked her head through the aft door at hand as well, into the engineering room to let Trip to know lunch was ready, and that he should go drag the captain to the lounge to eat.

Then went back to the galley, to wait for Malcolm to carry the heavy stuff.

While she carried the bottle of wine.