"Downtime and the Thoughts it Breeds"

[OdileCondacin 0]

Two days.

 

Two days to think and breathe.

 

No. More like... two days to not think any more than was necessary. Yes. That was what was needed. The chance to let thought give way to a sort of quiet oblivion.

 

For the moment -- though she did still harbor some guilt at the fact -- Odile did have a few "quiet moments".

 

Sailing away from Earth was helping to alleviate some of that guilt. There wasn't the constant, smoldering reminder out the window when you were back in space.

 

Odile'd had half a mind to raise a hell worthy of holiness when she'd heard they were departing Sol system. But one, somber fact had stayed her sharp tongue -- after ten... twelve... however many days it'd been, survivors of the initial attack were either rescued or dead. Blunt, yes, but it did mean that Earth wasn't in desperate need for as many hands to dig as possible.

 

So yes. They had downtime. And if Odile was needing it... well... her homeworld hadn't even been the one attacked. Certainly her Earth-raised comrades were needing it. So the Xenexian grudgingly accepted "rest", and accepted that it was "good", and therefore did not complain to either colonel.

 

Rigel was pretty, or so she had overheard from one of the Argosian twins on Beta shift. Though, Odile highly doubted (and decided not to tell them), she doubted they'd be getting shore leave. Vulcan was more likely -- and more welcome to the desert-born Xenexian -- assuming they weren't called somewhere else when their ferrying was over.

 

Under normal circumstances, Condacin would have liked to poke fun at the bureaucracy they were headed to retrieve, but this time... she really couldn't bring herself to. She couldn't even come up with a private quip about the Federation having a severe lack of good, rugged, sword-bearing clanleaders.

 

Odile was losing her touch.

 

Ah well. Maybe with the few extra hours of sleep she'd been able to pilfer, her wit would return.

 

Odile wasn't really sure about much concerning the secretary of state and passenger of honor. She was on Rigel, and she was a "she" by all accounts. The Xenexian had never cared much for politics (aside from critiquing Federation leaders' methods of not waving swords around -- literally) and thusly she was, so to speak, "out of the loop". She rather liked it that way, quite frankly. Childhood spent being coerced into learning the intricacies of Xenexian governship was quite enough time spent on the subjects for one lifetime, thank you very much.

 

On the other hand, she grudgingly knew enough hostessry and protocol to say to some degree of certainty that they would need to hold some sort of... event... or meal... or something, once said secretary appeared on board. Even if a good swine-roast was neither appropriate nor feasible (and Odile struggled to see Harper making a good showing of breaking the first pig's leg off said roast -- proper custom for the most senior leader present), there was surely something they could do.

 

She'd talk it over with Harper, Odile mused when she made her way from the lift, and leave the Federation parties to her to conceive. She had a bad feeling that if she planned it without Harpy's direction, she'd end up smacked -- or worse -- it might work out too well, and she'd be made events-planner for all their gatherings.

 

And that was anything but a happy thought.