"Jenna, my friend!"
"Don't even think about it, Starbuck. I don't have enough food here to dole out all of everyone's daily rations, much less sneak you a little extra." The woman who menacingly waved a metal spoon at Kara was no older than the hotheaded pilot herself and her expression was just as formidable.
"Nah, no food raids today, just came by for a friendly chat."
Jenna cut her eyes at Kara. "Just talk?"
Kara nodded and flashed a grin that she hoped was less than mischievous. "Maybe a game of Pyramid if you're not too busy. I've got a bottle of Ambrosia stashed in my locker if you've got the time." She fanned a deck of cards easily in one hand.
"Uh huh. Well, talk I can do. That at least hasn't been rationed to within an inch of its life… yet. You're gonna have to wait on that game though." She gave the contents of the large pot in front of her one more stir before setting aside the spoon and wiping her hands on her flour-dusted apron.
Kara slid backwards into a chair and watched as Jenna struggled to extricate herself from the kitchen. It had been too long since she had paid the mess personnel a visit, she decided. Jenna looked positively skeletal.
Jenna had seen better days. Kara had even witnessed many of them. The woman she remembered had been tough but soft, her body given more to curves than brawn. Now, the lieutenant's collarbone jutted out from her shoulders, visible by the half fastened uniform she wore, and her hands were so thin Kara was almost certain she could count the tendons. She watched her closely as her friend sunk into a chair opposite her. Dark circles shaded her eyes and true exhaustion colored her irises.
"You okay?" she asked, growing truly worried.
"I'll manage… for a while more at least. But if we don't get some more food resources soon…" her voice trailed off.
"Frak! We're that short?"
"Oh, we're beyond being that short. We're just trying to scrape by now. It's getting harder, what with being severely understaffed." Jenna scraped at her face with reddened hands.
"Understaffed? But we had a full contingent, I know we lost a lot of pilots in the fighting, but you're not combat officers. You weren't anywhere near the fighting." Kara was confused, a feeling she did not like in the least. Confusion tended to bring out the barely controlled anger of violence. Almost everything could be settled with a well placed fist.
"No, we didn't lose anyone that way. But once the reports started coming in from the other ships… Well, no one was prepared for anything like this, several ships simply didn't have the crew needed to care for a full compliment of passengers for as long as they're now having to. We kept shuttling our staff off to the other ships to help out. They were supposed to train whoever was willing to work in the kitchens but incompetence is running rampant out there and none of the civilian cooks seem to like the idea of rationing. We couldn't get the civilians to cooperate and so we had to leave our guys there, just to make sure the food stores weren't completely depleted in the first week."
Kara chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip. "How many do you have left on board?"
Jenna sighed. "The lead cook, me, three others. We manage to get four meals out each day but just by the skin of our teeth. We work for four hours, sleep for two, then it's back to work for another four hours. You get the picture. We were told that we should be happy we're given eight hours sleep time each day but that doesn't take into account getting to our racks and actually falling asleep. It's more like four, if we're lucky."
Kara shook her head. She had heard rumors of the difficulty that had been arising with some of the other ships. No one had anything better than a tenuous grip on their sanity in the aftermath of the Cylons' attack and it was showing. Luckily she had managed to avoid any first-hand contact with the problem makers other than the recon mission to extract their own people from the prison ship where they had been held hostage. It was lucky because she doubted she would be able to control her temper and she really was not that keen on visiting the brig just because she had decked a civilian.
"I'm so tired."
The comment had been so soft that she nearly missed it. "You look like hell."
"Yeah, thanks." Jenna used trembling fingers to refasten her hair at the nape of her too-skinny neck. "We may be the ones preparing the food, but we're last in the food chain."
"What do you mean?" Kara discovered her anger resurfacing and had no target for its growing energy.
"It's the rationing. It's not exactly equal, you know. The Commander and the pilots come first because we can't risk you getting sick. You're our only chance against the Cylons. Next it's CIC, then medical and engineers and so on. We fall in last and, to be honest, there just aren't enough rations for all the rest much less us. I'm usually lucky if I can swipe half a nutrient bar a day." Jenna closed her eyes. "Lords," she whispered, "we're all on emergency rations to begin with. Emergency. This is short-term we're talking about, not long-term. No one can expect to remain healthy if they stay on 'em too long."
Kara remembered her Academy training, knew Jenna was right on target. She also knew something needed to be done about it but hadn't the first clue what.
To be continued…
