A/N: As a reminder, this weird version of Star Trek is based on my life, so there's no telling what will happen because life is unpredictable.
Ode to A Starship by Lina Shay
Chapter Nineteen: Mok'tah
I slept in again, but I didn't have a shift that day. I thought about Joel as I got up. I wondered if his ship was still docked at Deep Space 4. I wondered if he was going to contact me.
I got up and got dressed. As I was eating my breakfast, Jala came in.
"What time did you get back?" She asked. "We were waiting for you last night."
"It was passed twenty-four hundred hours," I sighed.
"Must have been a good date, then," Jala teased.
I just smiled broadly.
Jala didn't have to remind me of the date that night, though I was doubting how well it was going to go. Jala and I made a lot of the arrangements since Darren was at a conference all day. It was getting pretty close on time before he got back.
"Manda's going to beam over soon," I told Darren. "You and Jala will meet her in transporter room two. I'll meet Ston in Transporter room four."
Darren nodded in agreement. He had some questions that I thought had already been answered, but I answered them again anyway.
I had to wait in the transporter room longer than I felt I should have. But Ston soon arrived with a plomeek tree. The tree had a large base which thinned out toward the top and sprouted only one, large leaf. The tree smelled awful.
"Greetings," he said stalely. "Show me to your kitchen."
"Yes, sir," I muttered.
I showed him to my quarters and he began to use a specialized grater to scrape off the bark of the tree into little peices. He wasn't a very good conversationalist. I was glad when Jala, Darren, Manda and Colban arrived. Manda and Darren seemed to be having a plesent converstation, which made me happy.
Jala, in fun, started speaking Vulcan to Ston. He responded, and the two began to chatter. It was all fun until Jala's face suddenly turned suspicious. She stopped talking in Vulcan for a while. I wondered what was said.
Everyone bustled around my kitchen making different foods. It was a sort of combination of cultural foods. It was rather interesting. I wasn't very fond of most of the cuisine, especially the plomeek soup. It was terrible.
Jala chalanged Ston to a game of Kaltoh. He accepted. The rest of us watched as the two struggled over the game. Jala seemed, oddly enough, to be doing better than Ston. Ston got more tense every move and began to look very irritated. Jala won, to which Ston slammed his fist on the table in an angry manner. It scared me for a second. I had never seen a Vulcan so angry.
The whole mood of the evening changed after that. Jala and Ston seemed completely out to irritate each other. I tried to stay out of their way and I actually avoided talking to Ston. I didn't like how he was acting.
Darren decided it was late enough to walk Manda to the tranporter pad. Jala went to walk Colban to his quarters. I was alone in my quarters with Ston. I was trying to clean everything up before my roommate got off duty.
"This was a quite intriguing social event," Ston told me. "I should return to the outpost."
I went to hug him, but he backed away. I hugged him anyway just to spite him. After he left my qaurters, I kept thinking that we were definately not compatible. Jala entered my quarters as I was putting dishes away.
"I'm sorry I left you alone with him," Jala apologized. "But I had to get Colban's empathic opinion on something."
She looked worried so I gave her my full attention.
"I first noticed it when I was talking to Ston," Jala told me. "He had a strange sort of accent. You know that I speak Vulcan because my former host, Kadar, lived on Vulcan for much of his life. He became very familiar with them. Kadar knew everything about Vulcans..."
"Ok," I said, not quite understanding.
"I have to tell you," she began nervously. "Ston is no Vulcan. He's a Romulan."
I had to think about it for a moment, but it all made sense. He was acting so strangely. I wondered if he was spy, if we should expose him.
Jala tapped her comm badge. "Security to transporter room four."
She pulled out her phaser and left my quarters in a stealthy manner. I wondered whether or not I wanted to watch this. Being me, I would rather be out of the way when it came to conflicts. I decided to let Jala handle it.
A/N: We're pretending this is in the timeline where Starfleet and Romulans still don't like each other.