Lost, Dazed or Confused? Part 1

Posted on Thu 23rd May, 2013 @ 10:14pm by Lieutenant JG Lys Greystone

1,474 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/4
Location: Orchids & Jazz
Timeline: MD 01, 1425

Lys walked around for a while on the merchant sector of the Base, she finally decided that she need to sit for a while and why not in a place that might have some soothing music. Lys stepped into the Orchids & Jazz lounge not sure what to think.

Reon bowed slightly to the beautiful young woman who stood in the entrance of the restaurant. In some indefinable way, she reminded him of Jade. Their coloring was different, their manner was different, but there was still something that niggled at him.

"Greetings. Would you like a table? You are fortunate to have come late for lunch. We've had so many circus people in here since about eleven hundred. Things are clearing out now, however, and a table should be available. Or perhaps you would prefer to be seated at the bar for dessert or a drink?" For Reon, this was absolutely babbling.

Lys smiled a soft smile. "I have time so perhaps a table, somewhere where I can watch people as they move around the promenade." She queried in a soft quiet voice. "If one would be available."

"As you can see, the restaurant is closed off from the Promenade except for the entrance. Why don't I have Jenna seat you in the loft? You can watch people on the first floor of Orchids & Jazz, since you are a people watcher. Will that do?" Reon inquired.

Lys nodded "That will be fine." She didn't want to explain why she watched people, it would simply help pass the time away as she missed her husband.

Jenna smiled and said, "Right this way. I prefer the upstairs myself." She led the attractive woman up the broad staircase and toward a table that overlooked the stage platform, and many of the tables. The way the plants were placed, people were mostly invisible, but she could watch them come and go, and several couples dancing on the wooden floor in front of the platform. At the moment, the strains of The Very Thought of You poured from the instruments of the 3-piece combo, the Cymbidiums, currently on stage.

Jenna seated the woman and pointed out the menu embedded in the center of the railing, above the table. "Our daily specials are on the first page, and if you press this button," she indicated the correct one, "it will flip pages through our entire available menu. Foods are made from scratch from fresh ingredients, for the most part, though an occasional item must be replicated. I'll be back in a few minutes to take your order." She hesitated before turning away, searching the woman's face carefully, then shaking her head and moving toward the stairs.

Lys nodded, "Thank you." The woman smiled as the music drifted up to her and she leaned on the table lightly and hummed along even as it made her very sad. A few minutes passed and Lys pressed the button to look at the menu. It didn't take her long to find what she would like, but she wanted to hear more about the specials before she made her mind up. If she stayed on the base for long, Lys had the idea that she might enjoy this place a great deal. She knew that her husband Orrin would have.

Jenna intercepted Jade as she came out of her office. "There's someone I think you should meet," she began. "She's up in the loft, table 7A. I don't know what it is about her, but Reon and I both felt it."

"Have you taken her order?" Lantz asked.

Jenna shook her head. "Not yet. You want to?"

"I'll take care of it." She took an order PADD from the end of the bar and headed up the steps toward the indicated table. As she approached, she could sense what Jenna and Reon had sensed. The only difference was, she knew what it was.

"Hello. I'm Jade Lantz, owner of Orchids & Jazz," she said, sitting down across from the woman. She didn't mention what she had figured out. If the woman wanted to tell her, she would, and if not, it didn't matter anyway. "Welcome. I hope you're enjoying the music. I noticed your fingers tapping time to the beat. Did you know that song is 450 years old this year? I don't know how good it was back then, but it's still good today, isn't it?" The combo reached the end of the song and immediately segued into Harlem Nocturne.

Lys smiled her dark eyes flickered over the woman before her. "Hello, Jade. I'm Lys Greystone, and no I didn't know it was that old." She smiled at the next tune as it played she really liked it, as if jarred a memory from long ago. "Ma'am, why exactly are you as the owner come to take my order?" Lys could sense something different about this woman but it was new to her. She had not met anyone like this woman who sat calmly before her.

"Frankly? Because something about you attracted the attention of both my doorman and my head server. It made them uneasy, and Jenna asked me to check you out. It was only because they didn't understand it. You're at least part El Aurian, aren't you?" Jade asked her, now that Greystone had opened the door to that discussion.

"Yes, Ma'am. My mother was I believe. But, I don't know anything about them other than the Borg destroyed their home planet long ago. Straight from Starfleet database and not very useful." Lys smiled but didn't explain that her mother had disappeared sometime when Lys was a child and that she never remembered feeling what she felt right now. Lys did know that her siblings did not give off this same intuitive ability that Lys could feel from Jade. Lys wondered if it was what made her feel the desire to eat at this locale versus another. "There are not many like you, are there?" Lys asked quietly as she watched someone move around down below and then met the woman's eyes once more. She looked timeless to Lys.

"Not many El Aurians remain. In order to remain a viable sentient race, we needed at least 50 to avoid initial inbreeding and 500 to maintain genetic variability. However, we needed at least 5000 for long-term evolution of the species. There hasn't been a census, because survivors are so scattered, but I doubt we have the 5000 spread throughout the Alpha Quadrant," Jade shrugged her shoulders, "so the outlook isn't good for our kind. It's probably why your mother chose to marry a compatible species, even though it's unknown what that does to the statistics." Or the offspring she added mentally.

"Would you like lunch while we chat? It's on me," Jade said.

Lys smiled "I would love to, talk with and lunch would be nice. I'd really like a Bacon & Tomato and Coffee, black. Please."

Jade punched in the woman's order and her own salad and lemon Coke, and flipped it back to the kitchen. "It will take only a few minutes," she said. "Tell me, do you have siblings?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I do, two brothers and a sister. All older then I. They don't or can't, they aren't like you." Lys replied in her soft tone. "Do you have family?"

Jade shook her head, "Only the Earth family who adopted me, which makes me very curious about yours. You're saying they don't sense things about others? What about you?" She was surprised to find she couldn't read the young woman's aura very well. There was a tinge of teal that surrounded her, and that was a very rare color. If it meant a combination of the emerald green and royal blue that one would expect, it indicated someone tender and loving, perhaps a healer, and also someone spiritual and generous. Yet Jade also sensed a deep sadness in her.

"At times I do, but often I don't say anything about it as it is often easier not to. My siblings are very closed, they have almost a lifeless feel to them. So I think they have more of my father's human side in them. I grew up following some of the old ways of my grandmother's people. She taught me a great deal of herbs, plants and their medicinal purposes ... it fueled my desire to join Starfleet and my love of science." Lys replied, a small smile played on her lips.

"Really. Your mother's mother or your father's mother?" she wondered aloud. There were a great number of wise women of earth heritage, women who knew things others didn't. Perhaps that had fed into what Jade sensed about Greystone.

More to come ....

Lt.jg Lys Greystone, CSciO
&
Jade Lantz, Civilian (Owner of Orchids & Jazz)

Starbase Protector

 

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