A first landing night with friends, what's better in life?
On the Eternal Pioneer, an exploration starship, Surgeon General Rhoda, geologist Lt. Fir Brightail and Assistant Surgeon Totori are spending a very relaxed festive night together. Fir has had some small accident during a floor coring expedition, that floor was not so solid it seems. Also, a bacterial infection of some sort found its way amongs the crew, but it was luckily threatable with known antibiotics. An happy occurrence!
Rhoda is a Caitian, and Totori's companion. Since she was a very small kitten, the whole "wife of the pride" traditional Caitian life didn't appeal her that much, and she had to find a way to be the farthest from her family. Possibly light years away.
She graduated as a Surgeon and enlisted in the Fleet as soon as she could, when she was still very young. She met Totori there, and they have worked together for the good part of a twenty years.
While Totori has left the fleet, Rhoda is still working there, though she's growin increasingly tired of space and she's thinking about becoming a civil medic on land.
Fir left the fleet too a few years ago and shi is teaching geology, planetary and extraplanetary, in several universities around Chakona.