"Olfactory Assault"

[Damian Porter 0]

"Olfactory Assault"

 

A joint log by Lieutenant Damian Porter and Chief Petty Officer Rosalind Wills

 

 

CPO Rosalind Wills was not happy. This was nothing new, but it bore repeating at this particular point because now it was singularly emphasized by the smell emanating off of her. As a matter of fact the entire cargo crew, more or less, was bearing this olfactory underscoring of their discomfort, given that all of them had passed at least once (most of them more) through Cargo Bay 3, which was still playing host to a crashed semi-biologic fighter in addition to all the damaged goods that needed to be extracted from it. This would have been difficult enough without Commander Chirakis wandering into the bay earlier in the day, reaching inside of it, and dumping its extremely pungent guts out all over the deck, but she had, and now they all smelled like the inside of a sewer system in addition to everything else.

 

She would have liked to have dismissed everyone off-shift for a shower at that point, but she didn't exactly have the people to spare for that at the moment, so they had all grinned and bore it until end of shift. Wills was now on her way back to the non-com quarters and her mood was as sour as the odor wafting off of her, and wasn't improved by the idea of going back to the cramped dormitories and probably staring at some of the same faces she had been looking at for the past eight hours.

 

Making a sudden decision, she twisted her head around and barked a different deck number at the TL, then stepped off when it arrived and approached a door a little ways along the corridor, tapping the chime.

 

Porter was in the shower when he heard the chime. He thought it was probably his mate Steve. They were supposed to go to Drankum's the next day, but Porter wasn't at all surprised that Steve had mixed up the days; he was a bit of a scatterbrain. This was a bit scary considering Steve worked as a med tech. With a sigh Porter got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself. "Come in!" he yelled from the bathroom.

 

The door slid open and Wills walked in, looking around, quirking an eye at the sparsely decorated and messy but (relatively speaking) quite large quarters of the commissioned officer. She whistled under her breath slightly. "Nice."

 

Porter stood in the bathroom door half naked and quite surprised but not in the least embarrassed. "Chief Petty Officer Wills, I wasn't expecting you; how nice of you to drop by." Only when he stepped into his bed/livingroom he noticed the pungent smell emanating from Wills. "Ah, I see you put the good perfume on for me, too. What on earth is that smell Wills?"

 

"Clearly you haven't been anywhere near Bay 3, L'tenant," Wills grunted. "That smell is the inside of our newest guest, which is now lying, in large part, all over my floor." She glanced at Porter, who was shirtless and looking somewhat surprised to see her. To tell the truth she was rather surprised to find herself here, and had no real explanation except that she had reached the point where, between seeing the cargo grunts for another minute and seeing anyone else, she'd take the latter. "Not a bad time, I hope?" she asked nonchalantly, ambling over to the window.

 

"And what do you expect me to do about our smelly friend on your floor? Actually, hang on, make yourself at home while I get dressed. If people catch us like this they might start taliking." With that he turned around and went back to his bathroom.

 

Wills rolled her eyes and made tracks for his replicator while he disappeared back into the bathroom, ordering herself a stiff drink and waiting a few moments in silence. When he did not immediately emerge, she continued the conversation at a slightly elevated volume, assuming he'd hear her through the door. "Don't expect you to do anything in particular," she said with a shrug. "It appears the powers that be intend for it to make its home there permanently, for all the effort that's being made to shift it."

 

Porter put on a pair of comfortable trousers and a t-shirt and took a couple of minutes to groom in front of the mirror. "So, why the olfactory assault on my quarters then? Did you come here to flirt? If that is the case I strongly suggest you take a shower first. Take mine if you want." He grinned at himself in the mirror.

 

"Figured I'd share the misery, I suppose," Wills said dryly, gulping down a bit of her drink and staring at the floor thoughtfully for a moment. The offer of a shower was an appealing one, but she had her own to use a few decks down. That wasn't why she was here. "It's just...annoying, you know?" she said after a few minutes. "How many science labs have we got and they want everything to grind to a halt while they examine it there and throw its intestines around."

 

Porter finished and stepped out of the bathroom, made his way over to the replicator to get a beer and then sat down in one of his comfortable armchairs as far away from Wills as possible. "None of the labs is big enough, plus, we thought you'd like to be in the midst of things for once." Porter grinned at her.

 

Wills gave him a dark look. Now she remembered why she had come here; Porter could be counted on to be aggravating enough that she could expect an excuse to vent at him. "It's not funny, L'tenant. I'd be happy enough to never hear a word from the level of CT operations except the occasional Christmas card. This is just...nuts..."

 

He took a sip of his beer before answering. "Aww c'mon Chief Pity Officer, you know you wouldn't be able to live without me."

 

"Try me."

 

Porter laughed. "May I remind you that you came here... uninvited." He was having way too much fun teasing Wills, almost as good as going to Drankum's with Steve and chatting up girls.

 

Wills glanced at him sideways and then grinned faintly. "Which I take as a sign of the times...when you're preferable company to my teams, things must be going downhill."

 

"Ouch Wills, very, very ouch. But it's all good; I know you gotta pretend you don't like me." He took another sip and just looked at her.

 

"Doing a damn good job of it, I hope," Wills said dryly, tossing back the rest of her drink and dropping it into the replicator.

 

Porter laughed. "Suit yourself. So, anything else I can do for you?"

 

Wills said nothing for a moment, then downed the rest of her drink and redeposited the glass in the replicator. "Just remember the Christmas card, I suppose," she said with a resigned sigh. He couldn't do anything, probably wouldn't want to even if he could, and as a matter of fact, given her current smell factor, she was probably lucky he hadn't tossed her out on her ear. "Thanks for listening, Porter," she said, shaking her head, and pushed off the wall she was leaning on and walking out of the door again, still not entirely sure why she had come.