Will you join me for lunch?

Posted on Mon Mar 31st, 2025 @ 7:36am by Wilhelmina Vermeulen & Delaney O'Callaghan

Mission: Shackles
Location: Messhall, SS Mary Rose
1711 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure

"Did you check under the sofa cushions?"

During an average mealtime, there was usually enough of a general hubbub that the arrival of one side of a conversation via the comm. system normally wouldn't have stood out like a sore thumb. There was some scope for leeway in that expectation where Delaney was concerned but even she generally wasn't loud enough to interrupt an entire room's conversation. The times in between, however, when the only occupants tended to be those who had been held up on shift or just not in the mood for socialising, where a different story. Not only was the room far quieter but there was at least an equal chance that it would be the same person casting her gaze upwards to the ceiling as she waited for the response she knew was coming. It was never all that difficult to find the woman; if she wasn't in the process of eating, she was somewhere wishing she was. Right now, she was raising her eyebrows to aid a mischievous smirk as the voice on the other end of the line confirmed her instincts.

"Mystery solved. I'm grabbing something to eat, do you want anything?"

The clatter of a tray partially drowned out the response, which was apparently reasonably expected because Delaney continued unperturbed. "We're not meeting them for two hours, and I technically skipped lunch." If the claim was true, it certainly accounted for the amount of pasta that wound up on her plate as she finished dishing up. "I'll be done in 10 minutes."

It was then that the redhead turned and, spying an unfamiliar face at her second-favourite table, paused long enough to register a change in priority before updating the ceiling. "Maybe 20." Silence ensued, possibly because Leiddem was a wise man who knew not to stand between a woman and her food, but didn't linger as it was almost instantly replaced by the gentle clatter of a pasta-laden tray set down at the table's single empty chair. "Room for more or are you new-peopled out?"

“No go right ahead.” Will answered before really registering whoever it was. She looked up from the recipe she was tinkering with blinking, a forkful of her lunch poised halfway into her mouth. Then she dropped the fork to gesture to the chair in front of her.

“Naturrlijk, please join me.” She swept the data pad up and placed it on her lap so as not to have devices on the table in company. “I am always happy to meet a new face, I do not think we have been introduce yet?” She offered her hand over the table to shake. “Wilhelmina Vermeulen, although if that is too much of a mouthful, most call me Will.” She had an easy, relaxed tone of voice, her accent adding a warmth to the way she shaped her vowels and differed her W’s to V’s.

The first few months after leaving Earth, Delaney had entertained the idea of curbing her own accent to make it a little easier for those unused to its cadence but the result had been such a haphazard mess, owing mostly to her capacity to forget when enthusiastic, that she'd abandoned all attempts pretty swiftly. She grinned at the subtle inflection of another European variant, though, despite having studied in both Germany and France, Laney would have been the first to admit she had no ruddy idea where she'd heard it before. "Delaney O'Callaghan," she replied cheerfully, extending a hand to reciprocate. "I don't mind what you call me as long as it's polite." Her features scrunched thoughtfully for a second before she added, "At least to my face."

“I would not call you anything behind your back I wouldn’t call you to your face, pleaseant or otherwise.” Will chuckled and then took a bit of pasta. Her movements were slow and unhurried. “If I were to call you names you would be the first to know, but I doubt that will be the case.” She chewed the forkful of pasta before swallowing so she could continue. “Tell me Delaney, how long have you been aboard the Mary-Rose? Do you like it?” In the rush to get aboard and settled before the Mary-Rose had to leave Freecloud, Will had not had much time to speak to many of the crew. It was nice to take a moment to pause and chat with someone.

Pausing long enough to suck pasta sauce from her thumb, Laney then went through the motions of reeling off a measure of time by the allocation of fingers. Once she ran out, she held up her hands, fingers spread, and then waggled them as if to dismiss the effort as a waste of time. "Over a year-ish." She grinned, her eyes lighting up at the realisation. "And you know, oddly enough, more than I expected. I had grand plans for all these space adventures and now..." The redhead hunched her shoulders. "This is home. I came here looking for an experience and found family instead." Rolling her eyes playfully, Laney dangled a piece of pasta over her mouth while she added, "Not a very original story, actually. Left home, met a guy..."

There was an audible 'pop' as the noodle slithered between pursed lips.

"You here to work or just catching a lift?"

“Take as old as time.” Will said with a warm smile. “I was also looking for adventure. Like in the stories you are told as children I thought if I could read and make maps maybe one day I could find treasure. Although it turns out that working as a navigator is a steadier way to earn a living, which is why I am here. After a turn or two I began with the FCA and when the Mary-Rose requested a navigator, it was deemed I was the most suitable.” In between sentences Will occasionally paused to take a bite. Her table manners rough, as she devoured the pasta like she had not eaten in some time.

“But it speaks well to the first impressions of the ship that you talk about it with such warmth. What is your role on board? I assume since it is home to you you are not merely along for the ride as you say.”

A much younger Delaney would have succumbed to her own curiosity and completely failed to register the final query, too fixated on the revelation that not only had Gregnol hired a navigator but that the woman in front of her was it. Experience had tempered her somewhat, though arguably not enough for her response to avoid seeming flippant before she deviated to her own queries. "Operations management in the security division. They let me fly a shuttle once in a while," she continued, more relevant to her current interest. "Not so much on letting me in the seat of the gentle giant though, and I'm not suicidal enough to try and arm wrestle Kali for it. You're an astro-nav then?"

“Security? How did you get into that?” Will looked relaxed in her chair, a little slouched since often the ergonomics of furniture were designed for shorter people. However she had a steady gaze that seemed to take in the small details as she listened. If it wasn’t for the perpetual upwards tilt of her lips it might almost have been unnerving. “That’s me. Astro-nav and stellar cartography. You ever need help planning routes for those shuttle flights just give me a call.” Usually most shuttle pilots didn’t need her, considering their routes were generally short range, but it never hurt to offer.

The chuckle at her own expense was almost immediately. "So far, they've only let me fly in emergencies, but with someone else pointing me in the right direction, who knows." Delaney took a long drink from her cup before she tackled the first question, accidentally giving herself a decent amount of time to think about the steps that had lead to her current position. "Astro-nav was actually on my list growing up. In my family, you're either a pilot or you're an engineer, but when it was crunch-time and I needed to decide what I was going to study, I realised I wanted a job where I actually got to talk with people. Logistics and resource management is vague enough to apply wherever you want it if you get creative enough." She grinned. "At the moment, the armoury's manifest is my lovechild and I've adopted all the security equipment as well. If you pick up a fire extinguisher and it doesn't work..." Delaney wrinkled her nose. "Means I ran the risk of getting someone else to service it."

Will raised an eyebrow at that, unsure if it was professional paranoia and pride or a mistrust in the rest of the crew. “That is quite an eye for detail.” She opted for a fairly neutral response, not wanting to challenge a woman she had only just met. “I imagine that must be part of what made you a natural fit for that line of work.” She then finished off her last mouthful of food, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a serviette to make sure that she hadn’t left any pasta sauce around her mouth. She then gave Delaney a warm smile. “I should probably get back to work, but thank you for coming to eat with me. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

Having wolfed down an impressive mouthful, Delaney struggled to swallow in time to respond, using one hand to wave whilst she pressed the back of the other against her mouth to maintain her manners. "Pull up a pew any time," she offered, and hesitated a moment as she watched the other woman weave through the tables to leave. For once, the niggle of conscience was loud enough for her to heed, and Delaney found herself wondering if the abrupt departure was her own doing. The prospect of coming across as an annoyance dampened her spirits for at least several seconds before she scooped up her plate and finished its contents on the way to returning it, setting aside self-depreciation for another time.