Mixed Grills and Arcade Games
Posted on Tue Aug 18th, 2026 @ 7:00pm by Lieutenant Seira t'Reiza & Sublieutenant Miles Lynn
3,966 words; about a 20 minute read
Mission:
Intermission: Safe Haven
Location: Cera
Timeline: Late September, 2387
Miles couldn't help but smirk as he looked at his reflection in the canopy of one of the shuttlecraft in the hangar. His physique had filled in, and his striking turquoise hair, once untamed and messy, had been cut and styled into a semblance of the hairstyle commonly referred to as the "Pike", after the legendary Starfleet captain who sported a similar style. Of course, he still wore his old captain's jacket, one thing he would never give up.
When he heard the door to the hangar open, he turned around and greeted Seira with a cheerful wave. "Hey there! Over here!"
Seira had, admittedly, taken the opportunity to do a bit of personal shopping as well while down on the planet previously making official purchases for the colony; adding several more sets of civilian clothes to the single set she'd purchased on Drozana previously; and had taken this opportunity to wear one of them now; a silky purple-blue jumpsuit with a black leather jacket and boots over it, and grinned. "We gonna fight over who flies this thing down? I'd suggest we arm wrestle for it; but...."
"Very funny," Miles rolled his eyes. "You wouldn't even know where we're going to begin with, you know? And isn't it tradition that the one who asked the other out will be the one to drive?" He laughed. "Not that this is a date, of course."
Now it was Seira's turn to roll her eyes again, and she gestured in an overly-grandiose manner at the pilot's seat; he did have a point that she had no idea where they were supposed to be going.
------
Half an hour later, Miles extended his hand out to Seira to help her out of the cockpit of the small shuttle he'd flown them down to the planet in. They had landed on a public landing pad in the city, on top of what appeared to be a large indoor market. The city itself was fairly modest in size, with only one or two proper skyscrapers, and large parks were dotted in between the buildings, connected by wide, tree-lined streets.
Seira had taken the offered hand the way she was by now used to doing whenever humans offered her one: Her own hand grasping at the wrist and lower arm, forcing the other party to do similar instead of making direct hand-to-hand contact. Now, she looked around taking in the sights and scene around them.
"Well, here we are," Miles said with a smile before pointing to the elevators at the edge of the landing pad. "We're not far from the restaurant, we literally just have to go down to ground level and cross the road."
"Nice - we should explore the market, later, if there's time. What kinda of things do they sell here?"
"Let's put it this way, if it's legal, you can't eat it, and it'll fit into a bag, you'll find it there." Miles chuckled. "Of course, there's places to get the other categories as well."
After a brief walk, the two of them had reached the restaurant where Miles had booked a table, a small place simply called "Olga's Kitchen". The decor was cozy and homely, slightly run-down but still high quality. A tiny, wrinkly old woman with long grey hair was stood in a door in the back of the restaurant, clearly leading towards the kitchen. An equally ancient-looking man showed the guests to a table by the window towards the road and handed them two menus printed on laminated paper. "Good evening and welcome to Olga's", he said in heavily accented Standard. "Please, take your time. If you have any questions about the menu, I will be happy to answer."
The server smiled, walked towards the counter in the back, and returned a moment later with a pitcher of water and two glasses. "Complimentary, of course. Please let me know if you wish to see the wine list."
As the old man walked away again, Miles filled the two water glasses and smiled at Seira. "It may not look anything special, but believe me, this place is incredible. Olga, in the back over there, she's been running this place for at least fifty years. Refuses to retire."
Seira quickly realized an issue, staring at the menu...which she couldn't read in the slightest, and looked somewhat sheepishly back at Miles. "....I can't read this. What do you recommend?"
Miles raised an eyebrow. "Wait, you can't read standard? I never realised. Of course, the consoles on the ship are usually translated into whatever language we need." He picked up his menu and thought for a moment. "Well, do you want to go for a starter and mains, or just straight to the main dish? They do a really nice traditional soup from back on Earth, called borsht. For a main dish, I usually go for the mixed grill platter. A selection of grilled meats and vegetables served with either rice or fried potato. Oh, and would you like some wine, or tea?"
"Wine. And the grill platter sounds good." Seira shrugged her eyebrows. "You won't run into many of us who can. Read standard, that is. Or speak it. Probably only a few of the officers and crew who came aboard with the subcommander can; usually someone with command rank, or in certain lines of work like communications or intelligence where it's necessary."
"Excellent choices," Miles replied as he waved over the server and relayed the order. "I suppose I understand it, I mean, who in the Federation would learn Rihannsu. It's definitely not an easy one. Still, I do think I manage, somewhat. Your Standard is pretty good as well, comes with serving on such a diverse crew I suppose."
"Reading is harder to pick up as incidentally as verbal understanding is. People walk around talking and you can overhear them, pick up stuff over time by context. Harder to do that with written stuff, beyond the really common words."
"You have a point. I mean, I did learn to read Rihannsu enough to be able to fly Ourainavassa in case the translation matrix fails, but that's about it."
As Miles was speaking, the server returned pushing a small cart. Swiftly, he placed a bottle of red wine and two glasses on the table, followed by two plates towering with meats and vegetables. Finally, he added two bottles with what appeared to be sauces - one a yellowish brown, the other more reddish - and a basked with some sliced bread. "Please to enjoy the meal. If you need more, please call."
Seira dipped her head ever-so-slightly in thanks to the server, then realized, belatedly after they'd left, that she hadn't considered something else, and looked hopefully at the sauces and vegetables for a moment, then at Miles. "At we....certain all of the ingredients in these are safe for my species?" This issue had first come up for her on Drozana; but on Drozana; she had solved it by just carrying around a scanner at all times. She hadn't thought to tonight.
Miles chuckled as he shook his head. "You Romulans worry too much. Mila checked if there was anything served on Cera that would cause issues before we got to the planet." He grabbed the bottle with the yellowish sauce and put some on his plate. "So you'll be perfectly fine." He sliced off a piece of meat and dipped it into the sauce. "Sweet-spicy mustard, a local specialty. The other one is pretty standard barbecue sauce. Now, eat, before it all gets cold."
"Some call it worrying; some call it advance planning and situational awareness." Seira grinned; at least half-certain Mila might have fallen more of her side of what to call it, in fact, if she'd done that research herself already; then speared a piece of meat and topped it with the mustard. "Mmm, that's excellent - we may have to buy some to take back before we leave; most of the food we've been able to make so far has been far too bland."
"I'll add it to the shopping list," Miles replied with a laugh as he tucked in to his meal, occasionally taking a sip of the wine.
Soon, the meal was gone, and the waiter arrived again. "I am hoping the food was to your satisfaction," he asked as he picked up the empty plates. "Would you be interested in dessert?"
Miles glanced at Seira, and, without even waiting for a reply, nodded. "We'll have some windbags, please." Once the waiter had left, he turned back to his Romulan companion. "That's what they call profiteroles here. You know what those are, right?"
"Profit-er-oles?" Seira sound out the word with curiosity, then slightly raised one eyebrow. "They aren't some Ferengi food, with a name like that, right? I don't really like Ferengi food, that one time we tried it one Drozana...." One got the feeling her tone of voice that if Seira had been a human, she might have gone so far as to do a mock-gagging gesture at the mention of Ferengi food.
"Oh heavens, no," Miles replied once his laughing fit had subsided. "They're from Earth, actually. These little puffs of pastry, filled with a sweet cream and with a little bit of chocolate on top. Remember the birthday party we had for Mila and myself a few months ago? You had them there. And let me tell you, if you liked the version the replicator gave us, you'll absolutely love these." He leaned in with a smirk. "On Cera, the filling is usually made with honey, and a healthy dose of brandy."
"Those were good, yeah." At the last bit, though, Seira cocked her eyebrow up slightly and smirked back. "A healthy dose for humans, maybe. You're a cool species and all; but you folks mostly have the alcohol tolerance of an eight year old, from what I've seen."
Miles burst out laughing again as the waiter reappeared, placing two plates of "windbags" on the table. "We can't help our biology, you know. Though I would strongly advise you to reconsider that particular assumption when dealing Perez. I mean, there's really nothing normal about them. Oh, and don't try outdrinking the Captain based on the fact that you're Romulan, either. She cheats. Automatic antidote dispenser in that leg of hers, or so Mila tells me."
"I wouldn't call that 'cheating'." Seira seemed, if anything, approving of this strategy, not judgemental of it. "She considered a weak point, and adapted to ameliorate it. Sensible." She popped one of the treats into her mouth and then licked the residual honey off her lips afterwards.
"Fair point," Miles replied with a chuckle. Of course the Romulans would approve of the strategy. He had heard the story of the Captain's visit to a shady bar on Drozana with Subcommander Kaiae, and how she hadn't cared one bit that the drinks they had been served had been spiked.
Once dessert was devoured, Miles waved over the waiter again, taking what appeared to be a small plastic card from his pocket. When the waiter arrived, he was holding a small device in his hand. "I'll take care of the bill," the young pilot said towards his Romulan companion as he tapped the card against the device. "Now, shall we go to our next stop?"
“Sure.” Seira smiled and stood, straightening her clothes by reflex and slipping her jacket back on.
Miles nodded, and, after saying their goodbyes at the restaurant, he led Seira back to the building on top of which they had parked. "You see," he explained as they walked past the main entrance. "The market hall isn't the only thing this place has to offer." They stopped in front of a smaller door with a brightly-lit pink sign above it reading Warpspeed Gaming. "Don't know if you can read it, but this is where we are headed."
Inside, the store was filled with rows of what appeared to be computer terminals - but a closer glance revealed that they were actually displaying a variety of games. Towards the back was a row of six identical set-ups: two mockup cockpits facing each other, with screens separating the sight line. "So, you fancy yourself a pilot, eh," Miles asked with a giggle. "These are old-fashioned arcade rigs. No holograms or anything, everything is projected on the screen in front of you. First two sets are for a space combat game, where you fly as wingmen against computer-controlled opponents, and score points by destroying them. Second two, asteroid racing. You know, the kind of stuff I used to do."
His grin growing wider, Miles stopped in front of the last set of "simulators". While the other four had similar control set-ups, with throttle levers, joysticks, and a number of buttons, these ones were different, featuring instead a steering wheel and pedals. "Now these here, they are reproductions of an old racing game from late 20th century Earth. It simulates a racing series that was pretty famous, called Formula One. No flying here, these are highly specialised road vehicles, built to the highest standards of aerodynamic and powertrain tech they had back then. One of my ancestors was a driver, actually. Won the championship twice."
"So then," he added, his grin getting wider as he pulled out his credit chip again. "Since you don't have one of these, I'll cover the tab. It's pretty cheap anyway. Which one are we doing first?"
“If my nieces saw this I’d never get them out of here.” Seira grinned as she looked around the arcade, then indicated one of the space combat simulators. “That one. I trained one something similar, albeit probably more advanced, early in my training.” She suddenly thought of an issue. “Can we toggle the language settings on it, though? Otherwise you’ll have a rather significant advantage of being able to actually read the controls….” She laughed.
Miles chuckled. "Obviously, these are all reproductions of antiques. And come on, you should be able to read at least that much." Nevertheless, he swiped his credit chip at a terminal nearby, which dispensed a number of small metal tokens to be used with the game machines. He led Seira to one of the "cockpits" that had a green stripe along the top - the one opposite was marked in blue. "You'll be Player 2, since I don't think there'll be much that we can do about the language setting, unfortunately. You'll have two bars at the top of your screen, the blue one is your shield, red one is integrity. Controls wise, very simple. You have your throttle, and your stick. Trigger button on the front of the stick does exactly what you think it would do. The thumb button on the throttle can be used to divert power from shields to engines, for a temporary speed boost, the left one on top of the stick equally drains some shield power for a charged shot of your main cannon. Button on the right on the stick is for missiles, missile counter is in the bottom corner of the screen. You can read numbers at least, right? You can ignore the rest of the controls to the side, those are all for game setup."
“Numbers, yes. In Standard, at least. I learned those and a few basic terms and directional words and the like for a similar reason you did the reverse - in case the translation on the controls ever failed. It’s mostly that.” Seira indicated the various and more wordy game setup controls Miles had now said to ignore.
"Which means you'll be just fine," Miles replied as he left Seira to get settled into her pod. He quickly inserted a few of the tokens into the slot on the side of the machine, then set up the game - the pair of them would fly as wingmen against an infinitely respawning number of enemies, until both of them were destroyed. "Five points per killshot, two for an assist," he added as the option he had chosen. "Three minute timer per wave to start with, getting faster. Ten targets in the initial round, and then every wave gets one more. Let's see what you've got!"
The grin on Seira’s face became nearly feral at this, and she slid smoothly into the seat.
The grin was still on Seira’s face once she finally slid smoothly out of the simulator almost an hour later; Miles joining her a few moments later: Both craft finally destroyed by the endlessly respawning enemy computer craft he’d mentioned at the start, but after, she knew from a glance at the numbers in the high score records that showed after the game was over, multiple orders of magnitude longer than any other past players had lasted. Once hers had taken a clearly fatal level of critical damage, Seira had ended her run in the game exactly as she had been trained to respond in such a situation: If you knew your ship was mortally wounded, then it itself was your final weapon, and to use that to take as many more of the enemy with you was your last duty; her screen had gone blank to the high score list once she’d done so, so she wasn’t entirely sure exactly how Miles’ game had ended a few minutes later. “So. How’d they finally get you?”
Miles grinned. "They didn't. You did. In your attempt to take as many of them with you as you could, you ended up ramming into me." He shrugged. "I was down to five percent integrity and out of shields anyway. Now, look at this," he added with a wink as he pointed towards the high scores board. "Let's see. Here we have my last round I played together with Mila, the day before we left Cera. I'm surprised that record stood this long, it's been years. But now, well. Looks like we're tied for the new record."
He laughed, before glancing at the big chronometer on the wall. "So, this place closes at nine-fifty, and it's eight-ninety now. Just over half an hour left. Want to try your hand on racing something with wheels on it?"
“Sure.” She started towards the machines he’d indicated as for such earlier, a tinge of embarrassed police flush on her cheekbones. “Sorry about taking you out too; guess I miscalculated what the simulator settings thought about how far the blast wave would travel.”
"No need to apologise, we had fun, didn't we?" Miles kept chuckling as he walked towards the somewhat car-shaped pods for the Formula One game. "Controls on this one are extremely simple. Right pedal accelerates, left pedal brakes. Turn the wheel to steer. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it quickly."
Just under half an hour later - forty-five minutes in Ceran decimal time - a loud announcement sounded out over the arcade's speaker system, informing players to finish their current games as closing time drew near. Having just finished their sixth race, Miles climbed out of his pod with a smile. "I knew it wouldn't take long," he said to Seira with a grin. "That was some mighty fine driving, I have to admit."
"Now, unfortunately, with this place closing, it does mean that pretty much everywhere else is closing as well, so I reckon we should call it and drop you off back at the ship?"
“Sure.” This time, there was a bit of regret in the young woman’s voice; Miles and Mila were the only two among the ship’s officer ranks who were close to her own age, and she hated to see one of her friends leave; though the reason for it was both understandable and honorable. “What will you do on Cera, do you think, when you’re not caring for your father?”
Miles immediately picked up on Seira's tone, and smiled. "Hey now, it's not a permanent move. I don't think so, anyway. My dad doesn't need that much care anymore, to be honest, but having a family member around will definitely do him some good. He's been alone with the dog ever since mama passed away, and that wasn't long after we left. And who knows how long Laika is still going to be around, I mean, she was ancient before we left, and her species really doesn't have a long lifespan. Even compared to humans."
He shrugged as they reached the exit of the arcade and headed towards the elevator to the landing pad. "As for me, I'll be flying. Obviously. The moment I mentioned to Captain Fyodorevich that I was thinking of staying, he practically begged me to become a combat flight instructor. So, I guess that's what I'll be doing. Fully commissioned officer in the Ceran Defence Force and all."
“Congratulations! A flight instructor? At this age?” Seira’s eyebrow rose. “Wow humans really do do things differently - when I first met Mila, we compared typical promotion times for officers - I was shocked how quickly and how young it could happen for you all.” The slight olive flush was back on Seira’s face again. “She then pointed out you all tend to retire a lot earlier and such. It’s shocking enough to me that I’m getting to be the main pilot for a whole warbird at this age, even. Or anytime in the next decade.”
"I mean," Miles replied with a chuckle. "I'm not going to teach them how to operate the helm, that's a different job. My role is to simply share my experience of doing that in combat situations, and provide an actual, living opponent in combat simulations. There's only so much a computer can do, you know."
“So, among other things, you’ll be kicking their asses, then pointing out why and how.” Seira laughed; having been subject to a variety of such humbling demonstrations from experienced combat pilots during her own time as a trainee.
"Correction. That's what I'll be doing most of the time." Finally, they had reached the little ship they had arrived in, a sporty-looking two-seater much closer to a fighter than a shuttlecraft, owned by Miles and Mila's father. "Well then," Miles said with a sad smile. "This has been a great evening. I'll be honest, one of the reasons I am definitely coming back in a few months is because I'll just miss hanging out with you. Oh, and my sister, of course," he added almost as an afterthought, blushing slightly.
“Until then.” Seira smiled and slid into the passenger seat again with only a brief regretful glance at the pilot’s seat; this was the sort of thing she might have bought herself in a few more years, if those years had been spent actually drawing the salary she hadn’t been receiving for some time now.
"Time to get you back home, then. Hope I'm not the only one who enjoyed the evening, though!" With a chuckle, Miles took the pilot seat, slid the canopy shut, and started the little ship's engine. Staying behind on Cera was the right thing to do. He could spend time with his dad and away from Sari, and Mila... well, it would be the first time for the twins to be apart for an extended period as well. But that, too, had to happen at some point. Without saying anything, he smiled at Seira as he pulled back the controls to lift off the landing pad. No more than half a year.
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