4. Fostering #5
Jere took up the post as Chief Animal Specialist aboard the Emberkind, a position Elena had said was 'made for him' and he had smiled, until she said, "No, it was really made for you.
I made sure of it. So we could keep you.
" Jere was so much happier aboard their ship than off at research stations, traversing the galaxy like a nomad. And he ate. Regularly.
Reyna kept to her position as the Operations Officer, keeping everything running and operating like clockwork.
She'd had the opportunity to be on the hiring committee with Elena for the entire Engineering team, and she was ecstatic about the ingenious, talented team they had brought aboard, ensuring the ship ran effectively and at optimal levels.
She would never want the ship to be operating below what it was capable of accomplishing.
It was during these few years that the Coalition assigned the Emberkind its first Protected World observation missions, using it as a way to preserve elements of other worlds to keep for their archives and ensure that all life on those worlds could be listed for protection should the time ever come.
Protected Worlds were planets whose populations hadn't yet achieved interstellar contact and didn't know the Coalition existed, yet sometimes required Coalition assistance.
Non-interference was policy, but observation and necessity was permitted, particularly for species research and preservation.
The catch for these missions was that someone on their crew had to go down to the surface and blend in, which meant looking like the locals.
And the Coalition had a very good reason for asking the Emberkind to take on these missions, for they had a Qorrathi, the species of shapeshifters.
Jere was the obvious and only choice. And frankly, he was ecstatic.
His Appearance Shift could make him pass as Droven, human, even Brontari for weeks at a time, if not longer, and his natural curiosity about other species made him ideal for the work.
Elena approved the missions be administrated by Jere, with Reyna logging them.
She kept it to herself how she felt about sending one of her two favorite people to a planet of no contact, where nobody knew he existed and nobody could help him if something went wrong.
But being the man he was, Jere went anyway, with passion, curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge only he could possess.
The full effect of the missions to the Protected Worlds wasn’t clear until the first time Jere saw Earth.
He came back a changed man.
He was still himself, that bright and warm young man, still incapable of experiencing any event in his life without needing to tell everyone about it immediately and at maximum volume.
But upon his first return, Reyna noticed something new underneath his usual enthusiasm when he stepped off the transport.
He vibrated with an energy he must have picked up on that little blue planet, like a fascination that ran deeper than curiosity, and Jere's curiosity already ran deep enough to drown in.
Reyna was on the bridge, running diagnostics on her console for some small maintenance upgrades to be completed the following, when she heard him approach before she even saw him.
She heard his voice carry through two corridors, talking to someone.
Probably himself, Reyna thought. But it's just as possible that it's a wall panel.
But what she could confirm was that he was gaining volume with every step toward the bridge.
“Reyna! Reyna! Where's Elena? Ellleeeeennnaa!”
Reyna turned from her console as Jere walked onto the bridge. "She's in her ready room. What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing's wrong with me! That's just it! Something's right with me! Never before kind of right! Where is she? I need both of you! Now!”
Elena emerged from her ready room with with her eyes wide and light expression of concern on her face. But Reyna could see that some of that look was also just a captain who had been enjoying five minutes of quiet and was already mourning its loss. "Jere, you're back. You alright?"
"I'm back, I'm so much better than alright, and you're not going to believe what I found on Earth."
"I'm almost positive that is true," Elena said, settling into her command chair. "But, whatever marvels Earth holds, mission report first."
"The mission went fine. Everything's done.
The three Rippleback Tallis were brought back for observation.
In the habitat now with Lenke," Jere rattled off before stopping dead and staring Elena down, his hands active with his voice.
"Elena. Listen." He grabbed the edge of her command chair and leaned in like he was sharing state secrets.
"They have something called Jell-O," he whispered
Reyna stood up from her console and walked over to Elena's command chair. "I have a feeling I'll regret this but, what's Jell-O?"
"It's a food!" Jere shouts, pushing himself off the command chair and swinging around, his arms dangling at his sides like eels.
He finished his spin and turned back to them both, his eyes still wide and that Jere smile plastered on his face.
"But it's a food that jiggles, Reyna. Elena," he started, turning to Elena again.
"It jiggles, I kid you not. You put it right on a plate and it just—" He pauses, and then makes this wobbling gesture with both hands that conveyed absolutely nothing that either Reyna or Elena could comprehend, except his own delight.
"And they eat it! For fun after major meals!
And they eat it in little squares," his voice drops a whole octave with the last sentence, as if food in little squares is something to be respected more than the Commander of the Coalition itself.
"So, let me just get this right, Jere. You're back from your first mission to a Protected World, your mission report was... lacking, for its own lack of a better way to interpret that, and you decided to, instead, interrupt the Captain's afternoon for jiggly food," Reyna said dryly.
"I interrupted the Captain's afternoon for the principle of jiggly food, my dear Rey. There's a difference."
"No, no, my dear sweet Jere. There really isn't."
"You didn't see it, Rey! It defies all we know! There is absolutely a difference, and I will explain it to the both of you in precise detail later."
Reyna looked over at Elena and watched as the captain pressed her lips together.
She recognized the look on Elena's face as trying extremely hard to maintain authority while her best friend vibrated like a tuning fork about jiggly food.
"So, Jere, jiggly food aside, is there a mission report in here somewhere, or—"
"I just said the mission went fine. Jeez, are you even listening?
Because, Elena, I'm not even done. They have these things called lava lamps.
" He leaned, once again, over the command chair, and Reyna contemplated whether she would need to physically peel him off the furniture.
"Do you know what a lava lamp is, Elena? "
"I have to say I do not," Elena replied.
"It is colored oil in a heated container where the oil moves.
It rises and falls in these incredible blobs of disconnected orbs.
And humans just... stare at it. For hours," Jere explained, his eyes going a bit glossy as the obvious member.
"It serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
It produces no useful output and is strictly and entirely for the mere experience of watching something beautiful morph and take shape before your very eyes. "
He said the final part of his lava lamp speech with an expression closer to reverence than awe, as though describing a religious experience.
And despite herself, Reyna actually felt a slight pull at Jere's description.
Not for lava lamps, that was silly. But instead for Jere's ability to find the sacred in the absurd without ever making it feel like a contradiction.
"They stare at heated oil?" Elena asks, seeming to confirm she heard everything correctly.
"They stare at heated oil," Jere confirmed.
"And you want us to be impressed by this," Reyna said flatly.
"I want you to be moved by this! There's a—"
"If you say 'there's a difference' one more time—"
"There's a difference, Rey!"
Elena made a sound that might have been a laugh and Reyna shot her a look, at which point Elena became very interested in her armrest.
"And their pants!" Jere continued.
"Oh god," Reyna stated, turning her back to him. "Please don't talk about pants without some sort of context before going in."
"Rey, you should see these pants," Jere continued, entirely undeterred by the fact that Reyna was unhinged over how he wasn't planning to provide any context at all. "The leg openings, they get wider at the bottom.”
"Wider at the bottom?" Reyna repeated. She was fully aware that she was engaging now, asking a follow-up question, and therefore, annoyed at herself for letting this continue on. But she just had to know. "Why?"
"It's a choice. A bold, impractical, deeply human choice. Just like the Jell-O."
"Oh my god, please stop saying Jell-O," Reyna pleaded.
And Jere did stop talking about Jell-O, but what followed instead was the most comprehensive, breathless, and thoroughly delighted debriefing of a mission in the history of the Emberkind.
Prior to Elena's captaincy included. Jere catalogued Earth's wonders as though his purpose in life was to capture the cultural overview of Earth's customs. At one point, Reyna turned back to her console, ostensibly running diagnostics, but actually listening to every word he spoke.
For instance, television.