"This way, sir," Lieutenant Chell said, not exactly curtly but certainly with no friendliness in his tone. A professional soldier; she could respect that. Vekal followed him. They entered the turbolift, Chell taking a spot near the exit, standing aside to allow her to enter. As he did so Vekal noticed that he kept his face turned carefully away from her and that he drew back as she passed by.

She made no comment. "Deck Seven," Lieutenant Chell said.

As the turbolift began to move, Vekal inspected her taller companion. Not that there was any need; the details of his appearance were already stored fully and permanently in her brain. But it was something to do.

Overall, he gave a trim impression. Older than her, relatively, and probably absolutely. His skin had the faintest of cyan tinges to it, perhaps indicative of some Aenar heritage. Vekal recalled an image of a quarter-Aenar and compared its colouring to Lieutenant Chell's. She estimated that he was one-sixteenth Aenar, which meant that one of his parents had been a quarter-Aenar. Her interest was immediately piqued. She'd never studied Andorian biology; knew only that there were four genders and therefore assumed there were four parents to each pair. It opened an entirely new field of study.

Aside from the pits and grooves she might expect on any face, Lieutenant Chell had no distinctive markings. He had a square jaw, a wide mouth and a large nose on the brink of qualifying as 'hooked'. Under triangular white eyebrows, his eyes were a dark grey, piercing though they remained firmly averted from hers. His ears were larger than her own but smaller than an average human's. The Andorian's antennae, six-jointed, were at attention and his mouth, wide and thin-lipped, was set in a grim line. His hair was rather short and as white as his eyebrows.

The turbolift stopped and Lieutenant Chell stepped off. "This way, sir." Vekal nodded and followed, keeping an appropriate distance from the Andorian. She made casual note of the route, but her attention was focused mainly on the faces of the crewmembers passing them. There were fewer here, Deck Seven evidently not being frequented by crewmen on duty, but she saw seven species she recognised, four she didn't, and smiled to herself.

The few faces that turned up to meet her gaze expressed distrust and perhaps dislike, but Vekal wasn't surprised. Many of them would have had parents who'd served during the Fifty Years' War, and few of those who'd served had returned in one piece. Many had not returned at all.

Lieutenant Chell stopped. "Section 4, Cabin 31," he announced. He pressed a button beside the door and it slid open. "Yours, sir."

Vekal nodded. Then, remembering that Starfleet seemed to require verbal dismissal, she added: "Thank you." After a momentary pause, during which nothing happened, "Dismissed."

"Sir."

As the Andorian walked off, Vekal entered her new quarters.

They were comprised of four rooms. The first, in which she found herself upon entering, was a receiving room of sorts with a table, a couch and four plush chairs in addition to the sculptures and decorations that seemed to be in every section of the ship. To a human they might have been comforting and unobtrusive. Vekal found them ugly, and had to wonder how long one would survive in a room such as this under phaser fire. With sculptures shattering and shards flying around, she expected she would lose an eye at least.

Gul Narat's ready room was similarly decorated, though more tastefully, and Vekal happened to know that the sculptures and the single painting that hung behind his desk were affixed to their surfaces by permanent magnetic fields. Her own quarters were small and bare, simply out of personal preference. Vekal liked to travel light and have her possessions within easy reach.

She shrugged the matter off and continued exploring. The second room she entered was presumably a more private lounge, with a large window opening onto the stars. Breathtaking, Vekal thought. Though there was another sculpture in a corner, the room was otherwise devoid of decoration. Again, there was a table and three chairs, as well as a longer, more elegant couch, but nothing else.

The third room, opposite the private lounge, was a bedroom. Adjoining it was a washroom, having in it a toilet and a sink with a mirror above it and a shower and nothing else. Vekal left the washroom and reentered the bedroom, inspecting the place where she was to sleep. She pressed a hand against the mattress experimentally and felt it sink in deeply. Shuddered. She didn't dare sit on it for fear of being absorbed into the bed. Nor could she imagine sleeping on such a thing. The couch in the private lounge looked more inviting.

Otherwise, the suite was done up in an inoffensive grey colour, not bad, though her preference ran towards warmer colours, browns and reds. Aside from the irritating decorations, only two things bothered her.

"Computer?" she asked tentatively, quietly, and heard a chime in response. "Is it by any chance possible to lower the lighting eighty percent and increase the temperature twenty degrees?"

"Affirmative."

When nothing happened, Vekal sighed in something like irritation. "Do it, please."

As the chime sounded and the lighting dimmed, Vekal smiled. She took a seat and opened the first file on the PADD.