"The Gossip Queen of Science"

[OdileCondacin 0]

Sometime before the last sim...

 

Aiella walked into the Science lab carrying a stack of padds in one hand and a look of pure disgust on her face. "I think I am going to be sick," she said pointedly to Odile, placing the stack of padds down next to the Xenexian.

 

"Maybe you should go to Sickbay then," Odile said, idly fiddling with her dagger with one hand, and attempting to ignore the ever-growing stack of paperwork which grew every day she hid on the Bridge, away from all of her little scientists. Of course, Aiella hardly counted -- they'd been friends (in a sense) as enlisted officers on the ship.

 

"Oh no," Aiella said, sharply. "I just came from there..."

 

"Oh?"

 

"Why do you think I am going to be sick? The... tension... down there is so thick you could cut it with your little knife."

 

Odile glanced at her knife for a moment, then at Aiella. There was nothing little about her knife, thank you very much. "Tension? Oh, about the virus?" she finally asked, after that moment of confusion passed. "Or something with our Umbara birdie friends? Do they have some exotic bird flu or something?"

 

Taking her seat in one of the high stools next to a lab table, Aiella crossed her long legs over each other and lifted a brow, Vulcan-esque. "That wasn't the sort of tension I was referring too..."

 

"Oh?" Odile half redirected her attentions to her paperwork, did her daily curse of Medusa, and glanced back to the dark-haired female across from her. "A bit of a tiff down there with the vampires?"

 

"Only if you count the emotional variety."

 

... and the gossip queen surfaced in Odile. "All right, Petty Officer -- spill it. What's going on down there? My ears are too busy to be in the chain of juicy tidbits, lately."

 

Leaning back in her chair, Aiella smirked, rueing her momentary hold on knowledge that the evil queen of science had missed. "Well judging by what I saw, and what the nurses told me..." She stopped to smirk a few more times, her dark red lips highlighting the glimmer of white teeth.

 

"Yes?" Condacin demanded. "I said to spill it."

 

"Apparently there's quite the love triangle forming in the medical department." She smirked again, twirling an idle lock of her deep black hair between her fingers. "Not that a senior officer... like yourself... would be interested."

 

"Of course not. And this love triangle is between whom?" Her eyes glittered; she leaned forward to peer intently at the enlisted science officer, who'd had a penchant for gossip that'd been rivaling her own for... how long? As long as Odile'd been on the ship, for certain.

 

"Apparently that doctor we picked up off Gideon." She paused a moment. "You know that Trill woman who wears those godawful last-year stillettos all the time?"

 

"The one apparently overcompensating on a multitude of levels for some perceived lack of effeminate qualities? Gods. Yes." Who wore stillettos... on a warship, for heavens' sakes? Certainly not a more intelligent officer. Perhaps one who also worried over her height.

 

"I am not a thousand percent sure," Aiella said, looking over her nails. She wished she could find a decent manicure in this quadrant -- you'd think with those Umbara things and their talons, someone would know how to decently do nails. But no. "But I am pretty sure that in a past life, she wrote cheesy romance novels. And now she's getting to live them out."

 

Odile rose, picking up a random padd from her desk, and strode brilliantly into a small open spot of her lab, orating grandly. "Oh my love, my love, the stars beyond that porthole do not shine as brightly as your... eyes, my love. Please, kiss me and let me touch your sexy uniform, and make tender love to you on a biobed." She hit a pose. "Oh, I love you forever." O'd'yl grinned ferociously. "How's my acting?"

 

"Actually, your somehow less melodramatic. I think they were crying together in the coridor."

 

"You still haven't told me the other two members of this little triangle, Petty Officer..."

 

"Didn't I?" she asked, batting her long lashes innocently.

 

"Have I mentioned you're an evil woman, Aiella?"

 

"Almost as often as you question the species of our fine colonel."

 

"Jellyfish," she replied quickly. "I don't do it that often. Now -- you're changing the subject."

 

"But we haven't discussed the mater of payment," she said grinning widely. "You think I give everything away for free?"

 

"I don't have to bribe my own people," she replied, slightly irritated as she took out her knife.

 

"Oh," Aiella said ruefully, "I think I forgot who the nurses told me she was with in that corridor..."

 

"Fine. What do you want?"

 

Victorious. "Well... I think you can manage my shifts for the rest of the week. And oh yes..."

 

"Oh, like hell."

 

"Oh well...my memory is a bit foggy you know..."

 

Your memory is just fine, Petty Officer. I'll cut an hour off each shift for the next week. Time to start talking."

 

It was really only a matter of time now. As much as the hardened Xenexian wanted everyone to believe otherwise, Aiella had known her long enough to know that the Xenexian was at heart right at home in the most vicious of sewing circles. In fact, Aiella was pretty sure that there was a thread loop in that dagger of hers, and that she used it for needlepoint. "I don't know... there was a lot going on in Medical when I was there, and I could barely make out what Nurse Farrins was whispering to me."

 

"Aiella!" O'd'yl fairly bellowed. "You're not getting the week off." Then, more conspiratorily, "It'd be suspicious, you see..."

 

"You're resourceful."

 

"And you're manipulative."

 

"I don't know what you're talking about."

 

"Three days off."

 

"Three and your holodeck time, and I might be able to recall some more detail. You know... because I'll have to strain myself to recall the details and will need the time to relax and recoup."

 

"Have I mentioned lately how much I hate you?"

 

"You ooze it."

 

Odile's will-power was clearly fading, and she sighed. "Fine, take the holodeck time too."

 

Triumphantly, Aiella sat up in the high stool. This almost made having to listen to the sordid details of the medical triangle of love from hell worth it. The holodeck time certainly made up for having to retell it... with some slight embellishment.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

As much as the hardened Xenexian wanted everyone to believe otherwise, Aiella had known her long enough to know that the Xenexian was at heart right at home in the most vicious of sewing circles. In fact, Aiella was pretty sure that there was a thread loop in that dagger of hers, and that she used it for needlepoint.

 

Must. Not. Make. Comment. Resolve. Weakening. Odile's an Old Gossipy Biddy! (Maybe she should do a Xenexian advice column or something.) And where's my cozy?

 

<Nice Log!>