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How To Make Cheese

Posted on Tue Oct 8th, 2019 @ 10:56am by Commander Nokomis Diza & Lieutenant K'Larn Yaserina

Mission: Side Posts
Location: Nokomis's Quarters
Timeline: Before Entering System

Nokomis was a pansy. She knew it. Oh she was plenty strong in character and in will, but her fragile Kriosian body had always held her back. Growing up, Logan had always been the one to look out for her. He ran for help when she'd fallen from that tree and broken her arm. He'd picked her up during basic training and put her back on her feet. The truth was Nokomis had always known her weaknesses and she'd relied on the strength of her mind to get her through things.

So why, for the love of every god in the universe, could she not fix this replicator? No matter what she did, what tool she used, it refused to bend to her will and she was ready to rip it out of the wall and throw it out the nearest airlock. Patience, she reminded herself, was a virtue.

"Diza to Engineering. Please send someone up to fix my replicator before I have to shoot it. Please and thank you."

K'Larn dropped the hyperspanner when her combadge scared the shit out of her. "Of all the reckless and stupid times", she muttered before she answered, "K'Larn to Diza, I'll be right there", she answered.

Picking up the spanner and getting her tool kit, K'Larn headed for the XO's quarters. Replicators were finicky things and sometimes a mind of their own if not programed right. From the tone in Diza's voice, K'Larn gathered that this was the reason for her call. Hitting the door chime as she stopped outside the door, she fixed her uniform and baldric.

"Come in." Nokomis called over the sounds of her replicator spewing out steam as if it were an espresso machine. "I pressed one button," she practically yelled over the noise. "I'm tempted to press a lot more but I restrained myself." She waived her inside. "Do your worst."

"Good god!!! What in the name of Kahless.........", shouted K'Larn shouted as she began to shut the system down. Apparently the replicator decided to do its own version of espresso but without the coffee. Once the thing was offline, "Well that was interesting. You only touched one button initially and then it went crazy?....Hm......could be a programming problem", she commented, running the tricorder over the replicator's open panel.

"No, I touched one button after it gave me coffee when I asked for mint tea and then it decided to have a tantrum and nothing I did afterwords made any difference." She brushed back her light blond hair which was now almost curly from all the hot steam. "Have you been having issues with the replicators or am I just lucky?"

"For the moment you are the only lucky one with it. Let's see here now.....", K'Larn said as she took out the spanner and began to repair the misbehaving replicator. "You know, the last replicator that went AWOL on me almost tried to kill the occupant by giving him sour milk and cheese at the same time. It then proceeded to give him a poisoned beverage. I took that replicator apart a piece at a time, and triple checked it. Someone had hacked into the programing by bypassing all the safety protocols and poisoning the food replicators", she chuckled. Replacing the inner cover she looked at Diza. "Well let's see if it will give you your tea. Give it a shot", K'Larn said nodding at her.

"That's comforting K'Larn, thanks very much," Nokomis gave her an odd look followed by a smirk. She stepped up to the replicator and said, "Tea, lemon ginger, 95 degrees." She stood there expecting to see a mug or tea cup come into existence. Instead a stream of white liquid came squirting out at her, hitting her directly in the face.

"Fek'lar!", she cursed. "That was not supposed to happen! That means that something else is very wrong and it has to be in the programing or in the computer systems. Damn it!", K'Larn said, sinking to the couch.

"Well," Nokomis said, finding something to wipe her face off with. "At least it's not hot." She let out a big sigh. "I better tell Logan we're going to be using our supplies and the hydroponics bay for a little bit. And that we need everyone to not use the replicators."

"Well I am not sure if it is the same with all the replicators on the ship. I would have to get teams from engineering to run the ship and check. Damn. Captain is gonna be pissed!", K'Larn said shaking her head.

"Logan is rarely angry, unless someone does something intentionally." Nokomis tried to soothe her. "He actually has quite a big heart. I'm sure he'll understand that things like this just happen. Maybe someone made a mistake but it's a learning experience."

"Learning experience Fek'Lar be damned. This was intentional. I will swear by it. Mechanical things just do.....", not getting the chance to finish as the replicator squirted out a bluish white cold cream hitting K'Larn square in the face! "P'tagh! I'll fix piece of spoiled metal", she yelled. As she went to swing at the replicator, a small amount of the liquid got into her mouth......"Mmmm...hey wait a minute this actually tastes pretty good. Try a little, seriously....tastes a little like cheese", she added, smacking her lips.

Nokomis had stepped back, surprised at the sudden outburst of the engineer. She stood there with both eyebrows up watching as she half expected the woman to totally destroy the unit until K'Larn suddenly stopped and tried some of the substance that was now pouring out of the replicator. Nokomis was reluctant to try anything coming out like that, but on a whim she held out a single finger and put it to her lips. "Huh, you are right about that. Wait, did you say deliberate?" That changed things.

"Yes I did say that. This is a piece of machinery. It takes what you say and the computer makes it happen. It ypu mess with the program or system, it becomes deliberate", K'Larn said, licking the test of the cheese off her face.

Mis sighed. "Okay, looks like you and I are going to go visit the Captain after all. As soon as you're sure this thing isn't going to spew out more cheese or whatever this is? It's going to take a week to clean this up," she sighed.

"Not really, I have a friend that loves cheese. I will bring him over when we leave to see the captain", K'Larn was not going to tell her about Macho, as he was an animal.

Not the strangest thing she'd heard all day, Nokomis shrugged off the comment and gestured for the chief engineer to lead the way. "We're off to see the wizard," she mumbled under her breath.

Commander Nokomis Diza
Executive Officer, USS Orion

Lieutenant K'Larn Yaserina
Chief Engineering Officer, USS Orion


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