A follow-up to https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61752407/

See the alt version here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/64130503/

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A Meeting of Paws: Familiar Currents

Starbase 27 — Recreation Deck, Promenade Level

Stardate 2270.069

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MENG OREN: (pausing mid-stride, ears rotating forward) Lieutenant M'Ress.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (turning from the viewport, eyes widening) Lieutenant Commander Oren. (straightening immediately, tail stilling with the conscious effort of it) This is... I wasn't expecting to see you here.

MENG OREN: Nor I you. Though I suppose when two ships dock at the same starbase, the odds improve considerably. (a measured nod toward the viewport, where the Enterprise's primary hull is just visible through the reinforced transparasteel) How long has the Enterprise been in?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Approximately thirty-one hours, Commander. We sustained some minor damage to our primary communications relay during a close pass through the Mutara sector. Nothing serious, but Captain Kirk wanted repairs completed before our next assignment.

MENG OREN: And the Enterprise crew? Resting, I hope.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Those who can, yes, Commander. Senior staff have been in briefings for most of the morning. I'm currently off-duty until 1800 hours.

MENG OREN: As am I. The Reinard is in for routine maintenance—Lieutenant Commander Scott has commandeered every engineering bay on this level, apparently. He has an ongoing argument with a plasma manifold that I've chosen not to involve myself in.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (a small, controlled smile) That sounds... familiar. Our Mister Scott has a similar relationship with the Enterprise's intermix chambers.

MENG OREN: It must be a Scott family trait. (she gestures toward the quieter end of the promenade) Are you waiting for someone, Lieutenant, or would you object to some company?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I would welcome it, Commander. (falling into step beside her, though conscious of keeping a half-pace behind in deference to rank — a habit Meng notices)

MENG OREN: You don't have to walk behind me, M'Ress. We're off duty on a starbase promenade, not on a bridge.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (adjusting her pace, coming level) Old habits. I tend to default to protocol when I'm... uncertain.

MENG OREN: Uncertain of what?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (a pause, tail giving the smallest flick) Whether it's appropriate to approach a senior officer off-duty. Particularly one I've only met once before.

MENG OREN: We're also both Caitians a very long way from Cait. That earns you a certain amount of latitude, in my opinion. (dry) Besides, I remember offering you a subspace call the last time we spoke. An in-person conversation is arguably more efficient.

---

They settle at a table near the outer viewport. A service unit delivers Caitian spiced tea without being asked — M'Ress has apparently become a regular in the short time she's been aboard.

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SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I have to admit, I thought about that conversation quite a lot over the past year.

MENG OREN: Did you? (wrapping both hands around her cup — she'd asked for the same, noting it without comment)

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: The things you said about representing our species. About not performing Caitian-ness for human colleagues, but also not suppressing it. I've been... working on that balance. It's harder than you made it sound.

MENG OREN: I probably made it sound easier than it is because I'd already done most of the failing required to get there. (a pause) How has the year been? Honestly.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (considering) Extraordinary. And occasionally very lonely. (catching herself) That wasn't a complaint, Commander. The Enterprise's missions have been—

MENG OREN: M'Ress. I asked honestly. You can answer honestly.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (quieter) It's still... a lot, sometimes. The Enterprise moves fast. The missions move fast. There are over a thousand crew members and I know most of them by voice now, which is useful at my station, but— (she stops)

MENG OREN: But knowing someone's voice isn't the same as knowing them.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: No. It isn't.

MENG OREN: I know that feeling. When I first came aboard the Reinard, I was the only Caitian on a ship of a hundred and forty people who had largely never served beside one of us before. They were kind. Most of them. But there's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being someone's first experience of your species.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Yes. Exactly that. (leaning forward slightly) How did you manage it?

MENG OREN: Badly, for about two years. (she says it with a frankness that clearly surprises M'Ress) Then better. Then well enough to stop thinking about it constantly. (a beat) You'll get there. You're already ahead of where I was at your stage.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: You were ahead of where most people are at any stage, if the stories are accurate.

MENG OREN: Stories exaggerate.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: "Oren's Needle" doesn't sound like an exaggeration.

MENG OREN: (ears tilting, caught between pleased and embarrassed) That one is mostly accurate. Though the asteroid field was somewhat smaller in reality than it's become in the telling.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: And the Klingon Bird-of-Prey? The asteroid field near the Neutral Zone?

MENG OREN: Also accurate. Also not as impressive as it's been described. I had excellent people covering my approach. (she studies M'Ress over the rim of her cup) You've been following the Reinard's mission reports.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (a fractional pause — ears just slightly forward) I follow Caitian officers in Starfleet when I can. It's useful to know who's out there.

MENG OREN: Is that the only reason?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (holding her gaze) You were helpful to me the last time we spoke. I was curious whether that was representative.

MENG OREN: And?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: The evidence suggests it is.

---

A comfortable silence settles. Outside the viewport, a supply shuttle moves in slow transit between the starbase and the Enterprise's aft cargo bay.

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MENG OREN: What's your next assignment? If it's not classified.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Diplomatic escort through the Tellarian system. Routine, mostly. Commander Spock has been preparing cultural briefings for the past week, which means there's nothing routine about it whatsoever.

MENG OREN: (a soft sound that is almost a laugh) And you'll be coordinating subspace channels for how many simultaneous delegations?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Four. Possibly five, if the Coridanite ambassador confirms attendance. (dryly) I've been running the communications configurations in my sleep.

MENG OREN: I used to do the same with navigation plots. Dream in star charts. My roommate at the Academy found it unsettling when I'd describe the route to class as a series of bearing corrections.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (smiling now, genuinely) I dream in frequency spectrums. I'll be translating a conversation in my head and wake up before I can deliver the response.

MENG OREN: Does it resolve correctly in the morning?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Usually. (a beat, softer) Once or twice the translation has been... interesting, when I've thought about it afterward.

MENG OREN: Interesting how?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (tail making one small, deliberate curl) Languages carry things that direct translation loses. Implication. Warmth. The space between what is said and what is meant. (a pause) Communications isn't so different from navigation, I think. You're always charting the distance between two points, trying to find the most direct route.

MENG OREN: (quiet, considering her) That's a good way to put it.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: You sound surprised.

MENG OREN: Not surprised. Just— (she pauses, tail briefly still) you observe carefully.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I'm a communications officer. It's what we do. (a beat, her eyes steady on Meng's) I've had a year to think about certain things.

MENG OREN: (setting her cup down, mildly cautious) What kinds of things?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (meeting her gaze without flinching, but her ears angling forward just slightly) Things that are easier to consider at a distance than in person.

A beat. Meng reads her expression, ears shifting a fraction, and makes a decision to let the comment pass.

MENG OREN: (evenly) How are the modifications to the Enterprise's communications stations working out? I sent you Lieutenant Commander Scott's technical notes.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (accepting the redirect with grace — and what might be the ghost of a knowing smile) Very well, thank you. The ergonomic adjustments improved my response efficiency by eleven percent. Mister Scott aboard the Enterprise noticed and asked where the specifications came from. I may have mentioned your engineer's name, and there was a thirty-minute conversation about nacelle housing tolerances that I only understood half of.

MENG OREN: That sounds exactly right.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: He did send his regards, through me, to your Lieutenant Commander Scott. Something about a standing wager involving dilithium matrix calibration.

MENG OREN: I am deliberately uninformed about that wager. Dane has mentioned it and I've chosen not to pursue the details.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Wise.

---

The promenade grows slightly busier as the afternoon shift change filters through. Officers in various uniforms pass — a knot of Andorians, a Tellarite lieutenant who nods at M'Ress in recognition, two human ensigns comparing PADDs.

---

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (after a moment, quieter) Can I ask you something personal?

MENG OREN: You can ask.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Has it gotten easier? Not the loneliness I mentioned — I know you addressed that. But the other part. Being noticed. Being... the Caitian. The one people watch to see how you handle things.

MENG OREN: (slowly) Yes. Though it never fully goes away. What changes is your relationship to it. You stop performing competence for their benefit and start practicing it for your own. The audience becomes irrelevant.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I'm not sure I'm there yet.

MENG OREN: You're further than you think. (she tilts her head slightly, studying M'Ress with the particular attention she usually reserves for navigational problems) You handled yourself well, just now, when Lieutenant Teviss nodded at you. You didn't check to see if I was watching how you received it.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (a brief blink — she hadn't noticed Meng notice) That's a very specific observation.

MENG OREN: I pilot ships through asteroid fields. I notice specifics.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (something shifting in her expression, soft and slightly exposed) Do you notice... a lot? In general?

MENG OREN: (a careful pause) Enough.

---

Another silence, this one carrying a slightly different weight. M'Ress turns her cup in her hands.

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SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I have quarters assigned here on the starbase. Deck 7. (measured, not quite casual) They're quieter than the Enterprise. Better light — the exposure to the viewport is wider. I've been going back there between shifts when I want to think.

MENG OREN: That sounds sensible.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I was going to head back now, actually. (she looks at Meng, direct and unhurried) You mentioned you have the day. If you didn't have other plans, you'd be... welcome. There's more tea. And it's nicer to think in company than alone.

MENG OREN: (a beat, reading her) I don't have other plans. (quietly) I'd like that.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (the smallest exhale, as if she'd been holding something) Good.

---

Deck 7, Starbase 27. Guest Quarters, Section C.

The room is as M'Ress described — broad viewport, late-afternoon light pooling across a low table where a handful of PADDS and an open star chart have been left in comfortable disarray. A Caitian k'rthan sits propped against the wall, strings still humming faintly from recent use. The space has been quietly, unconsciously made into something that feels like a person.

M'Ress crosses the room and sets the door control. The lock engages with a soft click.

Meng notices.

---

MENG OREN: (mild) You've locked the door.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (turning, measured) Yes.

MENG OREN: (a pause, ears angled forward) M'Ress.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (still across the room, not moving closer — her voice carefully steady) I owe you honesty. I'm in... you know. That time of the year.

A silence.

MENG OREN: (quiet) Ah.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I've been managing it. I have been all week. But being close to another Caitian— (she stops) I wanted you to know. Before anything else.

MENG OREN: (a long, controlled breath) That's— (she pauses, and something in her expression shifts by a fraction — the precise, guarded kind of shift that means information is being registered and processed very carefully) I appreciate the honesty.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (watching her) You're doing that thing where you're very calm in a way that means you're not calm at all.

MENG OREN: I'm calm.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Your tail hasn't moved since I said it.

MENG OREN: (a beat) I'm also— (she stops. Reconsiders. Then, with characteristic precision) The timing is not dissimilar for me. I've been— managing it as well. Vulcan meditative techniques. Suppressants. I'm Polar Caitian, I experience it more often than you, M'Ress. Monthly.

Another silence. M'Ress exhales slowly.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: I didn't invite you here to— I wasn't trying to— (she seems to be selecting words with unusual difficulty) I just wanted to spend time with you. I've wanted to since last year. The other part is simply a complication.

MENG OREN: (evenly) A significant complication.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Yes.

MENG OREN: M'Ress. (firm, kind) Why didn't you say something before now? Last year, or any point in the past year when we've exchanged correspondence?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (ears flattening slightly with something that is clearly not fear — more like a deep, reluctant admission) Because you outrank me. And because you're older, and more experienced, and I couldn't tell if what I felt was admiration or attraction or simply— a response to being lonely and finding someone who understood. And it felt unfair to put that on a senior officer.

MENG OREN: (she is very still) And now?

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: Now I've spent a year distinguishing between those things, and I'm reasonably certain I know the difference. (direct) I find you attractive, Meng. I have for a while. I was just being careful.

MENG OREN: (a long pause — the kind where a great deal is happening behind very controlled eyes) I held back for the same reason, for the record. You're junior to me. The asymmetry felt— problematic.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (barely audible) Felt?

MENG OREN: (meeting her gaze) Still presents certain ethical considerations that I would, under normal circumstances, feel obligated to enumerate at length.

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (taking one step forward) And under current circumstances?

MENG OREN: (her composure is perfectly intact, and her tail has still not moved, which is doing a great deal of work) Under current circumstances, I am an experienced officer with excellent discipline and I am entirely capable of maintaining—

M'Ress closes the remaining distance between them. Her hands are steady and sure, and the height difference — all thirty centimeters of it — is suddenly, entirely apparent as she lifts Meng by the waist with an effortlessness that speaks of a different kind of precision entirely. Meng's back meets the wall, and M'Ress holds her there, eyes level with hers for the first time, a half-second of absolute stillness between them.

MENG OREN: (flustered, her composure fractured precisely at the edges, voice still carrying a full Lieutenant Commander's authority even at this altitude) Lieutenant, put me down at once! I'm your senior, for fuck's sake!

SHIBOLINE M'RESS: (calm, steady, her eyes never leaving Meng's, ears perfectly forward) No.

And Meng's tail, at last, begins to curl.

The silence that follows is very loud.

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End.

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Story and character: Meng Oren ©  An Orange Space Cat

Art by:  DirtyJace

Shiboline M'Ress, Caitian species and related lore © Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry and owned by Paramount Global