Work Text:
“Come,” said Ruth. The door swung open. Vette stood in the doorway, posed heroically.
“Are you okay?” said Vette.
Ruth looked around. She had been reviewing plans at the console in the little common room of her quarters. It was more restful than ops, and anyway she wouldn’t be on duty for another hour.
She completed her scan of the eclectically cluttered room. Everything seemed to be in order. “I’m fine,” she said. “Uh…are you okay?”
“When’s the last time you asked me that?” Vette scoffed. “It’s just, I was going to do some scouting, another deep-space haul, and…”
“So soon?”
“I know. You keep paying me to go have adventures. It’s a rough life, but someone’s gotta do it.”
“You want the political-stakes and battlemaster circuit?”
“You could not pay me enough,” Vette said emphatically. “Well, you probably could. But that’s what I’ve got you for, right? And ordinary lying, cheating, and stealing gets delegated to me. We’ll exchange stories of life-threatening scrapes when we get back.”
“Fair enough.” Ruth nodded philosophically. “Come in. Did I hear you had to get your sublight engines replaced?”
“Now that is a long and expensive story, which Bowdaar can tell way better than I could. You might like how it started, though– OH NO WE NEED TO SAVE THE GALAXY RIGHT NOW”
Ruth shot to her feet. “What is it?”
Vette Looked at her. “It is ‘you need to loosen up.’ Come with me, ol’ buddy. See me off in style.”