Chapter Ten: Siblings

            "What is that?" Vedrann asked, giving an odd look to Naetharr as they sat together in the middle of the Replimat.

            "It's an earth dish," she commented. "Something called pad thai. I tried it a few times while I was at the Academy."

            "Does it taste good?" Vedrann asked inquisitively, eyeing the long noodles and pieces of poultry in her bowl.

            "Not as spicy as some of our own dishes, but moderate and flavorful," she critiqued. "I'd prefer lattwarv'a any day."

            "Of course you would," Vedrann chuckled. He knew how much she loved the exquisite taste of the Jetallan meat dish.

            Naetharr twirled the noodles around the silverware she had and took a plentiful bite. She glanced at Vedrann who had not eaten much of his food and was poking at it.

            "Do you not like yours?" she raised her eyes to his from his food.

            "I'm not very hungry," he shrugged.

            "Why did you invite me to dinner then if you were not hungry?" she questioned.

            "I want to have dinner with my favorite sister. Is that wrong?" he asked with a lopsided grin.

            She leaned back in her chair giving him a look he knew all too well growing up. He returned the glare which she in turn simply scrunched up her nose at him and took another bite of her pad thai. Despite it being a surrogate relationship, Naetharr understood and enjoyed the brotherly disposition he had over her seeing as he had taken care of her since he had found her on her own that night so long ago.

            "I want to give you something before I go back to working on the refits," she said stabbing one more giant bite of noodles, chicken, and spices.

            "What is it?" he asked curiously.

            "Something I brought back from Earth for you," she explained after swallowing her last bite. "I forgot about it until earlier today."

            Naetharr stood and took her plate to the replicators as did Vedrann following behind her. She made her way from the Replimat to the closest lift so they could get to her quarters quickly so she could return to work.

            "It is more than a present?" he asked with a raised eyebrow as they headed downward.

            "Yes," she nodded in reply. "I think you will be fairly happy."

            "I am getting more interested by the second," he said with a smile.        

            The lift came to a stop and the corridor opened in front of them. Naetharr stepped off as they walked toward her nearby room. The doors parted and they entered, making their way to a desk across the room. She shuffled a few things in a drawer and came out with a box and handed it to Vedrann.

            "Open it," she prompted him.

            He took the top cover off and placed it on the desk before picking up the items inside the box. Inside were a pair of gloves and he began to pull off the gloves he wore on his hands already before pulling the new pair onto his hands. The material felt smooth as he pulled them over his fingers and they also had an interesting scent he had never smelled before.

            "What kind of material is this?" he asked with awe behind his voice.

            "They call it leather," she explained. "It has better durability than what you have."

            "Thank you," he said with much sincerity in his voice and eyes as he flexed his fingers in the gloves.  "They are perfect."

            He eyed her hands a moment as she put the box away.

            "I see you have gone without yours again," he observed with a slightly annoyed tone.

            "It is in remission for the time being," she explained, her eyes narrowing. "Another 'phase', if you will."

            Vedrann stared at Naetharr for a few seconds, trying to see why she suddenly became defensive. She was hiding something else but he could not tell what it might be. He would have to let her be for now.

            "I should be going," she said as she headed for the door. "You may stay if you wish."

            She walked out the door without another leaving remark, the door sliding shut behind her as Vedrann watched on in more annoyed curiosity.

*          *          *

            Naetharr entered the Command Center and went straight to her workstation. She was slightly steaming from her last encounter with Vedrann and her coworkers sensed her bad mood. The engineers scurried out of the way as she collected from a console a couple padds that were filled with reports that had been left for her.

            She hardly noticed the other engineers around her as she read the reports and as they continued to work on the last minute retrofits they needed to have done quickly. To her surprise, things were actually going ahead of schedule and it made her feel better that they might be done with time to spare for anything else that might need to be repaired.

            Collecting a tool kit, Naetharr walked toward an open repair conduit that led to several junctions of conduits that ran throughout the station for crews to access systems and to repair them. According to one of the reports, a converter coil was acting up and giving several of her engineers headaches so she set off to see what she could do. She crawled in head first toward the section where the coil was located. She found the source and hefted herself into a hunched sitting position in the small conduit.

            After several minutes of running a diagnostic and scanning the coil with an engineering ticorder, Naetharr had determined the problem and began to replace the panel she had removed in order to access the coil. She began to place her tools back into the tool box when she felt a sudden shooting pain in her right arm.

            She gasped at the crippling pain that felt like lightening shooting through her bones and held her arm to her chest as she struggled with her pain-free hand to find the pouch she had attached to the belt of her uniform. Her hand and wrist curled into a contorted figure as if the muscles were cramping throughout her limb. She finally managed in pulling the clasp of the pouch off and pulled out a smaller version of a hypo-spray. She pressed it to her convulsing arm and the pain and cramping began to fade away almost immediately.

            Naetharr stretched her fingers and moved them about to remove the strange feeling she still had lingering. She sighed and leaned backward against the wall of the conduit as she felt her breath coming in short gasps as she attempted to relax.

            It's getting worse, she thought to herself before lifting herself and heading back toward the Command Center.

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Author's Note:

            I'd like to thank my reviewers and readers for reading my story. I hope you all are enjoying it and I appreciate the comments and critiques. Sorry I kept this chapter short but I'm planning on making up for that soon. Spring semester is starting up in the next couple days so we'll see how my time goes for writing.

~TQ