Points Of View

Posted on Dec 08, 2016 @ 4:02pm by Lieutenant JG Stavik
Edited on on Dec 08, 2016 @ 4:02pm

Mission: Aftermath

“Points of view”
(Contd- “Things Are Never Easy")

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Location: Cape Town
Scene: Nooka Resteraunt and Café
Stardate: [2.16] 1206.2243


Cape Town was agreeably warm even in the late evening sun as Skavik slipped in to the seat he generally occupied in the small café for his evening meal.

The café was in a small old building, the door was opened by hand, the wood stairs to the second floor of seating creaked when anyone climbed them but the space was clean, the kitchen was well maintained and the spicy vegetarian options on the menu were preferred to the limited choice many places offered, indeed in his early days at this assignment when he had ventured in to town he had been met by strange looks when he had asked for a place serving good vegetarian food. He could have eaten from one of the replicators in the small local Starfleet facility from which he was stationed but for many years he had found that a true break away from work, easier to achieve when you left the facility entirely, was conducive to a more productive following day.

From here he could also engage in one of the other activities he found he had slipped in to since he had first visited Earth when joining Starfleet Academy, studying the people around him.

Earth maintained a vast multi species population and although that was more obvious in locations such as San Francisco the varied culture even amongst the humans, along with the spattering of other species living here, still made Cape Town a fascinating place to sit and observer from his seat on a second floor balcony.

A group of young children, largely human although the pale blue skin of a Bolian was also visible, raced down the street laughing and chasing one another down towards the distance harbour. Unlike many adults they had soon forgotten the strain and worry of the days past when Earth had been sequestered in the Aegis shield.

As the slight wood and glass door behind him opened to the soft footsteps of Keya, one of the café staff, and the scent of his order reached his nose he moved his gaze to a slower much cluster of adults walking past, close to one another despite the heat, their low conversation hidden even from his sensitive hearing.

The bowl of vegetables was fragrant with spices, and a rich tomato sauce coated them. A chunk of potbread was also present on the tray as Keya set it down, along with a second dish which appeared to be made of corn. Skavik had for a while now stopped making a specific order, Oyama the chef took delight in making more and more varied meals for their Vulcan customer, they were always agreeable to his palette and nutritious enough for his needs although for some time now he had noted the portion sizes getting bigger and bigger, despite the fact that Skavik ate the same amount each time, apparently someone in the kitchen thought he needed ‘fattening up’.
Skavik nodded at Keya who smiled and bobbed her head before turning back inside.

Later, as Skavik walked through the cooling streets back to his office where he planned to work on performance reviews for his pilots he as usual tuned out much of the snippets of conversation that his Vulcan hearing allowed him to catch.

Mindful of being aware of his surroundings however he had a practised ear that when he heard mention of Vulcans he focused his attention on the three young humans some way up the street heading towards him.

“…look there’s one now, I’m tell you they are trying to get rid of us.” Grumbled the middle of the trio, tall with shoulders beginning to hunch he was stood between the other two.

“He’s a Starfleet officer though, not him.” Protested the shortest of the trio, with a higher pitched voice Skavik concluded he was the younger of the trio also.

“Him too I bet, they all think alike they do, we should do something about it.” The taller one responded, getting louder and not just from their approach.

“Ag man, all of them?” whined the shorter again.

“Ja.” Snapped the tallest, nodding his head with a sharp jerking motion.

“You soeking, they have the strength of 10 they say.” Whispered the until now silent third member of the group, his hand moved to the shoulder of the taller, the pressure he was exerting intended it would seem to direct the others away from Skavik.

“Mal.” Gasped the shortest, now tugged a little on the arm of their more vocal friend.

“Fine fine, bet that’s it, bet they are bullying.” Groused the tallest again as the approached what would be normal hearing distance for a human.

Wherever their erroneous information about the strength of a Vulcan had originated it apparently was entirely silent on their amplified hearing noted Skavik and he continued his walk, barely noting the stares of the trio as they passed him.

There had been a number of grumbles Skavik had heard since the announcement of Earth losing their permanent council seat, although this had been the most overt and potentially threatening to Skavik, Even after spending a number of years among Humans he still found it difficult to predict them on a generic level. The variety of different thought processes and emotional reactions was vast across the species.

On an individual level he could predict the reactions of many of the Humans he worked closely with but randomly encountered Humans were quite a wild card still.

As a species he could predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy the reactions of any other Vulcan, logic offered only so many routes to a reaction and only variances in the information available to an individual at the time would likely affect the outcome of the logical process, if only other species were so agreeable.

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Scene: Starfleet fighter base, Cape Town


The confidence he had in his ability to eventually understand the people he worked with was in evidence when he turned to the base to find Ensign Gorchev, his flight second, in conversation with pilots from elsewhere within the wing.

“Not at all, Vulcans are not a collective, they are individuals, I do not believe ze Lieutenant hates humans, I do not believe ze Lieutenant would think all humans are trying to take power, ze Lieutenant he understands humans are different to one another just as I understand ze Vulcans are.”

“They have taken the seat from us, humanity earned that seat, we….”

“We have done nothing more than most races in the Federation, yes Humanity was one of the first but zat was not us, zat was the pioneers of the Federation many years ago. Now what we should do is show zem that we are not all like Edgerton.”

Gorchev caught Skavik’s eye and nodded, the other’s noticed him and went quiet, Skavik was quite sure Gorchev had known he was there from the start, he nodded in return and headed through to his office space.

The Cape Town base was not large, there was a local liaison presence and their fighter wing and support staff no more, the office itself was shared among all the flight leaders including the two squadron commanders one of whom, Command Toth, who also commanded the entire wing.

None of the other officers were present when Skavik entered but a message blinked, demanding his attention.

His eyes scanned the message and without thought the eyebrow above his right eye arched.

Intriguing.

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NRPG:

Hey all, meet Skavik, there will be a bio going up I am sure, it is for the moment at least very limited, Skavik is not a very fleshed out character although this is quite deliberate, hopefully as I and others write him we can uncover more about him and what makes him tick, I don’t think I have ever written a full blooded Vulcan in detail before so this should be interesting !


Peter Aspinall

The voice of….

Lt J.G. Skavik
137th fighter wing
Earth