Coffee and Contemplation Part 2

Joint post by Redsword, Omni, CS, and Kudzu

...meanwhile, back at Cryo...

Vera Kirby slowly became aware of things she didn't want to acknowledge. Painful light...disruptive sounds... a deep, aching chill all the way to her core. None of her senses had anything positive to report. She heard others stirring about elsewhere and thought 'good for them...they can wait!'.

Slowly, she began to wiggle her toes and fingers... stretching and flexing everything a little at a time. She was in no rush to move, knowing from experience that she could lessen the impact of the already present headache by tapping into her inner sloth and making no sudden movements.

Eventually she brought herself to the point where she would invariably open her eyes and then quickly close them tightly again as she cursed under her breath.

"It NEVER gets easier.", she griped, to no one, as she methodically began to force herself upright from her restful position in the pod.

As she shambled to her locker, peeling off trodes as she went, she glanced around to see that most of the pods are empty, including Asahi's. She started moving with a little more purpose, looking forward to checking in with him. Once her locker was open, the trodes she peeled off got stuck to one of its inner walls, joining a growing number of older ones there.

She suited up in the casual attire she'd worn into this room months ago and, after a look back at the remaining crew members she headed for the source of the most noise, which seemed to be the galley...

Overhearing the chatter about Hydr8tion in the Medlab as she approached the galley, Vera stuck her head in the door and said, "I'll settle for water... just a gallon or three. How is everyone?"

As she entered, she gave her pal Asahi a head-nod on her way to getting herself some desperately needed refreshment.

Ogai glanced at Vera and said,"The Hydr8tion is probably better. If you don't wanna travel to get it, I'll grab some for you. And I need to grab my stuff from my locker. Medlab first." He rubbed his hand over his face as he made his way down the corridor, trying to remember the layout of the place.

Right, that wasn't too far away from food storage. He stepped into the medlab, seeing the pristine walls and floor. He opened a cupboard, rooted through and finally found some of the stuff. He uncapped it and swallowed it down. It tasted like water with some off-putting aftertaste. Oh well, it worked at least. It managed to make his mouth feel normal again and his headache felt slightly better due to the fact. He grabbed one more for himself and two for Vera.

He then left the medbay and made his way to the lockers. Alright, should probably get properly dressed. He dressed into the more casual clothes of the ship, stretching his arms slightly. He then slipped a picture into his pocket. A picture of him, his parents and his younger brother, Hoshiko Ogai. He sighed as he shut his locker, grabbing the packs and moving back to food storage.

Vera didn’t wait and quickly chugged a glass of water, then refilled it and slumped into a seat next to the Marshall.

"Glenn...how are you feeling? You don't look so good."

She seemed actually concerned and placed a hand on his as a friendly gesture.

"You know me, I am a bit slow coming out of the deep sleep," Roberts said looking at her. "I see you are doing pretty well, Vera", he said with a smile.

He moved his hand, not in a rude way, but so he could pick up his knife to cut his food.

"Ogai did not look so good though.", he took a bite of food. "Know when the Captain or the pilot will be up?", he asked, then took a drink of water. "Maybe we will get lucky and the Company Rep hopefully will sleep for the whole trip.", he said and chuckled.

"If we make a strong enough case for that, as a team, for the sake of our mental health, maybe we can convince Doc, here, to make that happen...", Vera said with a smile before downing half a glass of water.

He let out a quiet laugh. "That I would like to see. I know the Captain would never go for that, he needs him around so he can get extra bonuses out of him.", Roberts said, finishing his coffee and starting on some water.

Roku smiled at Vera Kirby’s comment, knowing that the agents aren’t all that bad, she was sort of a “Company-girl” herself.

She looked around at the crew. This was her new family... she sighed and sipped her peppermint coffee and scribbled in her sketchbook.

She played the part of being cryosick, but she thought how lucky the others were to not know the pain she knew.

She popped up suddenly remembering something. “Oh!”

She exited the galley abruptly, leaving her beverage on an open sketchbook page.
Roberts looked up at Roku, "OK DOC, what are you up to in that book? If you are sketching me, make it extra ugly and 10 fewer pounds." he said jokingly.