In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 7: Hard Questions

Safely in FTL, they finally managed to get their food cooked. The day had been fuller than Joseph had anticipated. He pulled the finished lasagna out of the oven with an anticipatory sigh and took it to the dining room table, where Tyrone had just set out three plates.

"You can never cook fast enough when it's already past dinner time." Tyrone eying the food impatiently. "It was taking so long that I kept wondering if the oven was broken, then I'd realize it had only been a few minutes."

Both Joseph and Allison laughed at that, and the group gathered at the table to eat. As they always did when eating together, Tyrone and Joseph bowed their heads and prayed the common table prayer aloud. Allison followed along quietly with the slight awkwardness of one participating in an unfamiliar custom.

Tyrone sat down and popped the tops off two bottles of the beer he'd purchased, sliding one to Joseph's place, then looked at Allison. "I know what you said about the drinking age on Temoran, but you aren't on Temoran now. In the Teton Sector, you're old enough to have alcohol. Do you want to try one of these? If you don't like it, you don't have to finish it."

Allison weighed the options for a moment, then nodded. "I'll give it a try at least." Tyrone opened another and handed it to her as she took her seat. She took a sip and made a face, then took another. "It doesn't seem too bad. My Dad always said it's an acquired taste."

"He's right." Joseph took a sip of his, then began cutting and distributing the lasagna. It was probably large enough to feed twice this many.

"Did you make enough?" Allison echoed his thoughts with cheerful teasing.

"I hope so." His reply was mock-serious. "We'll probably have some of the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Even though we usually don't have to do anything in FTL, we don't like to cook anything that won't result in leftovers. Preparation for when we have families and need bigger meals I suppose."

Joseph sat down and hurried to take his first bite. Melted cheese and meat sauce had never tasted so delicious. The combination of eating late and risking death during the day could do that to a meal. For a moment they all concentrated on nothing but shoveling in the next forkful.

"You don't usually carry cargo you have to monitor constantly then?" Allison recovered her interest in her surroundings first.

"No." Joseph wasn't quite at that point yet, and had to swallow before continuing. "Usually the cargo bay is full of shipping containers, and we just take them where they're supposed to go. We'll be spending a lot more time than usual in the cargo bay this week."

"I'll be happy to help with that," Allison offered.

"That's good, because we weren't going to let you out of participating." Tyrone grinned at her as he shoveled in his next bite, and she laughed.

Conversation continued along those lines as they ate. They explained for Allison what needed to be done to check on the trees, and decided how they were going to divide up the duty. After that they told her about running the ship and their normal cargo, explaining in response to her questions quite a bit of their operation.

Eventually they all had as much as they wanted. Tyrone rose and started clearing plates. Joseph found a cover to put on the remaining lasagna and stuck it in the refrigerator.

"There's another thing I'm wondering about." Allison's face grew grim as Joseph sat back down with the rest of his beer. "You're risking a lot by helping me. That got more clear with every passing hour today. So why do it?"

She paused for a moment, but Joseph didn't have a ready answer to that question. Joseph glanced at Tyrone, but his muscular partner only shrugged and put the plates in the dishwasher. He didn't have one either. To them the logic was too simple to really bother thinking through. For her it was a complete anathema, something even law enforcement rarely bothered to do.