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Comfort Food

Appetizer

The replicator chimed. "One plate of tentacles from an Australian giant cuttlefish, flavored with lemon and orange zest, Szechuan peppercorns and extra virgin olive oil. Presented with grilled asparagus and butter-flavored orzo noodles."

Even though he had already been thoroughly familiar with the ship's specifications, Gabriel Lorca had still been tremendously impressed at the quality of the Discovery's construction when he'd come aboard. This wasn't even Starfleet's flagship, yet they had still avoided the low-bid, cost-cutting measures that plagued many of the Empire's vessels. The propulsion and weapons systems worked flawlessly, the scientific equipment was best-in-class, and even the deck and wall plating was some of the best finish material he'd ever seen on a starship.

During those first few hours, he'd found himself thinking that the obvious commitment to excellence, despite the lack of financial incentives or threats, might make it worth it to stay in this universe rather than returning to his own.

He'd shaken the thoughts off. Starfleet and the Federation were still beneath the notice of powerful beings like himself. They wouldn't last. The weak never did. And he had a mission, a purpose, a destiny to fulfill. He wouldn't waver from that, no matter how much he was tempted.

It helped that the Discovery, for all her excellence, wasn't without her problems and glitches. While the warp engines functioned at optimum individual efficiency, their respective circuit frequencies were mismatched, and it had taken an incredible amount of tuning to get them synchronized enough to even reach Warp 3. The turbolift doors had a tendency to open either a second too early or a second too late, and the resultant bumps and bruises had been the first problems treated in the ship's medical bay. Even the computer interfaces still had an annoying tendency to reset themselves into any one of a random assortment of Federation languages; while the software engineers claimed they'd nearly resolved the problem, just a few hours ago he'd been confronted with a screen full of Cyrillic characters.

So it didn't come as a complete surprise when, after taking two bites of his latest attempt to reproduce finely prepared Kelpien, he found himself gagging so badly he ended up spitting the food into a napkin. "Computer, inspect cooking routines to determine why this food isn't properly heated."

"Working. Inspecting routines. No errors found. Main entrée was heated to an internal temperature of seventy-five degrees Centigrade."

"The hell it was," he informed it as he shoved the plate back into the replicator. "Reheat, damn it."

"Specify desired temperature. Main entrée temperature is currently seventy-two degrees Centigrade."

Hardly. He might believe that it was seventy-two degrees according to the Empire's temperature scale, which, interestingly enough, existed in this universe under the name "Fahrenheit."

Maybe, he thought, that was the problem. "Fine. Heat it to a hundred and forty-five degrees."

"Caution. Specified temperature may result in injuries if not permitted to cool prior to consumption."

"Override," he snapped, turning away to dump the napkin into the recycler. "Just do it."

"Working."

Just as he turned back toward the replicator, an ear-splitting alarm blared, and he heard the atmospheric equipment spin down. "Alert, alert! There is a fire in this room! Activating containment protocols."

"Identify source and suppress!"

The replicator promptly shut itself off.

Lorca opened its cover. Black smoke boiled out, catching him full in the face. It smelled terrible and tasted worse; the greasy stink of the overcooked food was mixed in with the harsh, acidic smoke. Coughing hard, he fell to his knees and lowered his head to the deck, getting his nose away from the worst of it.

"Computer," he said after he got his breath back. "The fire's out. Re-activate atmospheric equipment and clear out the air in this room. Quickly," he added, before anyone from the bridge could come knocking to ask whether he was all right.

Or, he realized, before the smell alone made him sicker than ill-prepared Kelpien substitutes ever could.