06-13-2024, 06:25 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-13-2024, 06:27 AM by Kalli Thorn.)
Kalli's curiosity began to perk up as the CEO began quoting someone about recognition. She then considered the box as if she was unsure about opening it or not. He had told her what was inside, so there was no real need to open it. Kalli simply stared at the box while he continued with his ritual of making the coffee. She was clearly thinking about something, but remained silent until he slid the cup over.
Finally breaking her gaze at the box, her grin returned to her face as she picked it up and gave it a good sniff, her grin widening as she did so, "One should never pollute a beverage before sampling it in the natural state."
She took a sip and let it sit in her mouth a moment, evaluating the flavor and letting it warm her mouth. It went down smooth and she took another sip, this time a bigger one. As she finally brought it away from her mouth, but kept it in her hands she commented, "This is GOOD! If a coffee is middle of the road, I might add something to it to smooth it out and give me some added sugar to get me going, but this is fine as is. I do appreciate someone who knows their drinks. Perhaps I will have to share with you my hot chocolate recipe. It has a hint of a chili pepper added to it, from a very ancient recipe, or so I'll told. The little bit of heat from the spice makes for an unexpectedly delightful flavor enhancement."
Her grin had turned into a wide smile and she took another long moment to inhale the aroma of the coffee before taking a gulp this time. She savored the drink, not rushing it, but genuinely enjoying it. After a moment, she gave a nod toward the box and began to speak of what had been going through her mind, "When I graduated the academy, I got a ribbon. I thought I understood the concept of ribbons and medals at the time, but now they only confuse me. I have no idea how often these are given out, so I am not sure if it speaks good or ill of my performance to say that this is the third one of these in four years. Please, don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining, I'm just a little confused is all. On the Copernicus, I managed to help save the ship from being taken over by the Borg. I confess that with ships blowing up and Borg boarding the ship, my blood pressure was definitely up that day. that one made sense to me. On the Titania, I saved the life of my then FO, Commander Talion. He apparently had a difference of opinion with some kind of Q entity or whatever and I had to carry him out of a forested region for a number of miles. Nobody even took notice...well, other than Talion, of course. We're still friends to this day. Then I manage to resurrect a drifting derelict from 10 years of scavenging and even restore warp power to it to...well...wait...um...that part is classified...maybe all of that was...anyway the Geronimo gave me one for that, so that sort of fit."
She pointed a finger at the box and gave a half eye roll, "Huh...now I get another one for showing up on a backwater colony where they are happily attempting to slowly kill themselves with stupidity and I patch up some simple plumbing. How does that compare? How do I rate what some young troop under me deserves when my own points of reference are so different? I mean, if I had killed the murderer who was fine with taking as many lives as it took to get someone's attention so they could hitch a ride off the planet, then I could understand getting a medal. I will admit that the thought did cross my mind for just a second, but nobody was in any immediate danger, so we did the civilized thing and took them into custody. The only thing I found good about that mission was that we likely extended their life spans considerably. Curing them of the lead poisoning was pretty simple after I pointed out that we could simply use the biofiltering of the transporters to remove the toxins and we treated the entire colony in short order. I still think they are doomed in the long run, but that was out of my hands. I also managed to get some valuable data from field testing my program with the drone prototypes. I'm still excited about how well that went, but hardly anyone is even going to care to read about that for a while, other than a few of the people on this ship."
Kalli chuckled and looked a little embarrassed as she looked into her mug, "Wow, I'm going to guess this has a pretty high caffeine content. Here I am babbling away like I've been drinking espresso."
== Tag Niels ==
Finally breaking her gaze at the box, her grin returned to her face as she picked it up and gave it a good sniff, her grin widening as she did so, "One should never pollute a beverage before sampling it in the natural state."
She took a sip and let it sit in her mouth a moment, evaluating the flavor and letting it warm her mouth. It went down smooth and she took another sip, this time a bigger one. As she finally brought it away from her mouth, but kept it in her hands she commented, "This is GOOD! If a coffee is middle of the road, I might add something to it to smooth it out and give me some added sugar to get me going, but this is fine as is. I do appreciate someone who knows their drinks. Perhaps I will have to share with you my hot chocolate recipe. It has a hint of a chili pepper added to it, from a very ancient recipe, or so I'll told. The little bit of heat from the spice makes for an unexpectedly delightful flavor enhancement."
Her grin had turned into a wide smile and she took another long moment to inhale the aroma of the coffee before taking a gulp this time. She savored the drink, not rushing it, but genuinely enjoying it. After a moment, she gave a nod toward the box and began to speak of what had been going through her mind, "When I graduated the academy, I got a ribbon. I thought I understood the concept of ribbons and medals at the time, but now they only confuse me. I have no idea how often these are given out, so I am not sure if it speaks good or ill of my performance to say that this is the third one of these in four years. Please, don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining, I'm just a little confused is all. On the Copernicus, I managed to help save the ship from being taken over by the Borg. I confess that with ships blowing up and Borg boarding the ship, my blood pressure was definitely up that day. that one made sense to me. On the Titania, I saved the life of my then FO, Commander Talion. He apparently had a difference of opinion with some kind of Q entity or whatever and I had to carry him out of a forested region for a number of miles. Nobody even took notice...well, other than Talion, of course. We're still friends to this day. Then I manage to resurrect a drifting derelict from 10 years of scavenging and even restore warp power to it to...well...wait...um...that part is classified...maybe all of that was...anyway the Geronimo gave me one for that, so that sort of fit."
She pointed a finger at the box and gave a half eye roll, "Huh...now I get another one for showing up on a backwater colony where they are happily attempting to slowly kill themselves with stupidity and I patch up some simple plumbing. How does that compare? How do I rate what some young troop under me deserves when my own points of reference are so different? I mean, if I had killed the murderer who was fine with taking as many lives as it took to get someone's attention so they could hitch a ride off the planet, then I could understand getting a medal. I will admit that the thought did cross my mind for just a second, but nobody was in any immediate danger, so we did the civilized thing and took them into custody. The only thing I found good about that mission was that we likely extended their life spans considerably. Curing them of the lead poisoning was pretty simple after I pointed out that we could simply use the biofiltering of the transporters to remove the toxins and we treated the entire colony in short order. I still think they are doomed in the long run, but that was out of my hands. I also managed to get some valuable data from field testing my program with the drone prototypes. I'm still excited about how well that went, but hardly anyone is even going to care to read about that for a while, other than a few of the people on this ship."
Kalli chuckled and looked a little embarrassed as she looked into her mug, "Wow, I'm going to guess this has a pretty high caffeine content. Here I am babbling away like I've been drinking espresso."
== Tag Niels ==