Lost in a Good Book

Posted on Sat Aug 23rd, 2025 @ 9:25am by Lieutenant Commander Drevas & Lieutenant JG Zahra el-Saad

1,499 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Prologue

Lieutenant jg Zahra el-Saad had been spending weeks looking for just the right place on the ship. A place which had privacy but was not necessarily isolated. A place with good atmosphere. A place that wasn't dull to look at.

A place where she could sit during off-duty hours that wasn't her quarters where she could read.

She had explored most of the Jeffries Tubes (some had a few of the qualities, and the 'Sweet Spot' made for a fun experience reading upside down, but she didn't want to crawl through ducts to get to a reading nook). She had also tried a number of the open areas. The arboretum was nearly perfect but too many people enjoyed going for walks there. The mess halls and lounges were too noisy.

Today was a different idea though. Today she was trying one of the observation decks. An area that was open to everyone but offered little more than a few chairs and viewports out into space.

And so one of those chairs now contained the ship's Chief Flight Control Officer, PADD in hand, matcha tea on a side table next to her, a good eBook open for her to read.

It'd been a while since Drevas had last had the opportunity to sit and read by himself. The past many days had been a whirlwind of activity, organising, planning, delegating, making the department he now commanded uniquely his. It was a mammoth task that admittedly wasn't complete yet, but took up most of his time and attentiom whenever he was at it.

Eventually, he'd decided to simply carve out the time and stick to it. The mind needs to be clear to work with clarity, and it'd always been books that brought him the clarity he treasured. So he'd gone back to his quarters at the end of his duty shift, swapped his uniform for a far more comfortable t-shirt and trousers, and brought one of his several ink-and-paper books with him to that very same lounge Zahra was now in. He arrived just five minutes after her, picked a chair, and sat with the book in his craggy hands.

Where was he... ah, yes. Page 312. He flipped to the bookmark he'd left in its weathered pages, and was soon lost in the dramatic script of an Andorian romance novel. Andorian emotionality found its best home in their creative arts.

Zahra looked over her PADD at her Kelpien crewmate who just joined her in this lounge. He took to the space right away, as if he instinctively knew this was one of the better public reading spaces on the ship.

She didn't want to bother him, but also the cover looked interesting. "Is that any good?" she asked.

At times like these, Drevas was secretly beyond glad that he'd chosen a book with extremely tame cover art. Andorian romance novels were passionate, certainly, but they usually didn't have erotic stuff on the covers. For that, he was beyond glad. He blinked and glanced up from his book at the pretty woman in a hijab seated just a few seats away. He'd not met her before, but he reckoned now was as good a time as any to get to know someone new.

"Very, actually." He replied with a half smile. "Andorian fictional works are some of the best in the galaxy." It was then that he noticed the book in her hand. Evidently he wasn't the only one who'd chosen this very spot as his favorite spot to read in. "And you? What have you got there?"

"Tellarite courtroom drama," she answered. "A culture that delights in verbal sparring can produce some riveting legal and political stories." She smiled at him. "Zahra el-Saad, Chief Helm Officer."

"Drevas. Chief Tactical Officer." Drevas smiled back at her. A human from the Middle Eastern region of Earth, he guessed - but in this day and age she could've been half Magna Roman and he'd never know.

"Tellarite literature is amusing, yes. I prefer Andorian romanticism to their dramatic arguments - but to each their own. I own several books by Tellarite authors myself."

"Andorian authors do pour their passions into their art, and it comes out beautifully," she agreed. "I read 'Winter of Heartbreak' last year and couldn't put it down. Have you tried pre-Awakening Vulcan stories though? There aren't many around but some of them make Andorians look prudish."

"I'm afraid not. Have you?" Drevas' eyebrows shot up slightly as he put his book down in his lap. Sure, the story was great, but the prospect of being able to read something else even better was, admittedly, a rather seductive one. Both figuratively and literally. He was almost sure that pre-Awakening stories of a romantic nature would be deliciously steamy to read, in fact.

She grinned at him. “Nothing in paper, I’m afraid,” she said, nodding to his physical copy. “But I can forward you a couple of ebook files. You could even replicate a bound copy if you prefer it in print.”

"An e-book is better than nothing. I would appreciate it greatly." Drevas responds with a smile. "Have you a recommendation as to which book I ought to start reading first?"

“My favourite is ‘The Bond Unspoken’, by T’Vira of Tat’Sahr,” Zahra answered. “It has a poetry to it that translates even into Standard. It’s like the author’s passion breaks language barriers.”

Drevas' eyes widen upon hearing that. "I've never gotten to read that book." He admits after a few seconds of silence. "I would absolutely love to. Would you be so kind as to lend it to me, so to speak?"

Zahra minimized the book on her tablet, found The Bond Unspoken in her library, and five seconds later there was a copy in Drevas’s inbox. “It’ll be in your quarters for you when you get there.”

If Drevas said that he wasn't excited about receiving this new and interesting (and quite possibly pretty erotic, too) book, he'd have been lying. Well and truly.

"Well, what do you do when you aren't reading?" He asked, sitting up a little straighter in his seat as he turned to face her.

“A little of everything, but not much of anything,” Zahra answered. “I like to try things but this is my only real hobby. My friends will bring me to game nights or the holodeck, or we replicate raw ingredients and cook a big meal, but that’s uncommon enough and I never seek it out. How about you? Any new experience I should try once or twice before I go back to reading?” Her tone was playful and a bit self-deprecatory; she made light of the fact that this way of life was unusual.

"I cook, or use the gymnasium." Drevas' eyebrows shot up. "Though I prefer not to replicate raw ingredients. What kind of dishes do you normally make?" Indeed, this assignment was proving to be a rather unusual one - not that he was complaining in any way, shape or form. Meeting people who made cooking their hobby was a one in a few hundred occurrence already; he liked picking the brains of fellow home cooks like himself, especially when there was the opportunity for... collaboration.

“I make a good lamb and rice,” Zahra said. “And other meals my parents taught me to make back in Aleppo. How about you?”

"Mostly different types of steaks and noodle dishes - but i do experiment from time to time.' Drevas smiled. "Though I have been endeavoring to branch out of late. I've begun to try my hand at baking, though the results are thus far not as good as I would've hoped."

"Nonetheless, cooking, like all skills, is not learned in a single night." He decided. "When one is at the bottom, they can only improve from there, yes?"

“Exactly!” Zahra said. “Someone once said, sucking at something is the first step at being sorta good at something.” She gave her new Kelpien friend a grin. “If you’re free tomorrow, maybe we could find a kitchen and see what we can make? There are some good holodeck programs re-creating the best places to cook and bake, with all the ingredients you’d need, replicated right there for you.”

"Tomorrow." A tiny smile played over Drevas' lips. "I think that is a fine idea indeed. 1830 hours, in holodeck 3. Perhaps something wonderful may come of this meeting - surely." It'd been a while since he'd cooked with someone else, but the opportunity was welcomed nonetheless. "I promise not to get too lost in your book." He added cheekily.

"Get as lost as you want," Zahra told him. "After all, it'll be the first thing I'll want to discuss while we cook.

LTCMDR Drevas
Chief Tactical Officer
USS Guinevere

LTJG Zahra el-Saad
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Guinevere

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