Mapping Emotions

Posted on Tue Aug 11th, 2026 @ 7:28am by Lieutenant Kate Kono

959 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Here There Be Dragons
Location: Conference Room
Timeline: Current

Kate remained behind in the briefing room after the others had filed out, the hum of the Washington settling around her like white noise. She had pulled long-range sensor data to overlay onto the Vulcan map drawings, which, however precise in their notation, read to her like something a hobbit might unfold from a coat pocket. She was dragging the last layer into alignment when the conference room door slid open with its familiar pneumatic sigh.

An Engineering GravCart glided in first, smooth and self-important, navigating to its pre-programmed position without ceremony. Ensign Na'Riss followed behind it.

Kate threw both arms in the air. "Na'Riss!"

Na'Riss clasped her hands behind her back and inclined her head. "Lieutenant."

"Kate," Kate said.

"Lieutenant Nokono," Na'Riss offered, which was either a compromise or a correction. Her expression did not clarify which.

"I trust I have not disrupted your work. I was dispatched on a maintenance order. The engagement with the Romulans produced power fluctuations that have affected large display screens throughout this section of the ship. It would be illogical to allow the equipment to remain unverified."

"Oh, it's fine. I'm just trying to make this map look like something made after the invention of cartography. The Vulcans have a weird way of sending data sometimes." Na'Riss, at the mention of her people, permitted herself one glance at the screen. Then she rounded the table for a better look.

Na'Riss raised a brow and held Kate's gaze for a moment before her eyes returned to the PaDD in Kate's hands.

"Your integration of long range scan data onto the Vulcan chart is a resourceful application of your training as an Intelligence Officer," Na'Riss said. "The hand drawn navigational references the Vulcans provided are not incidental. They indicate that the original cartographers considered this region to require a degree of precision that digital rendering does not reliably preserve. You will note the fine-line topographical overlays and the marginalia along the lower quadrant. These were made by hand for a reason." She paused. "Your additions do not diminish them."

“So what you’re saying is, my additions were kickass!” Kate announced, leaning back in her chair with theatrical satisfaction. Her eyes darted between the glowing chart and Na’Riss’s unreadable profile, watching for the slightest twitch.

Na’Riss maintained ocular focus on the PaDD’s display, a deliberate refusal to engage with the lieutenant’s colloquial reinterpretation. Yet the persistent, almost subsonic vibration of Kate’s boot tapping against the deck plating, combined with the Human’s unnervingly broad grin now visible at the edge of her peripheral vision, made further evasion illogical.

“To phrase one’s aptitudes as ‘kickass’ implies a percussive interaction between limb and gluteal region,” Na’Riss stated, her tone flat and analytical. “While not the terminology I would select, it is an efficient, if emotionally exaggerated, descriptor. Therefore, by your cultural standards: affirmation.”

Kate held her fist out toward Na'Riss, knuckles up, waiting. Na'Riss set the PaDD down slowly and regarded the fist with the particular stillness of someone who has encountered something beneath their dignity but has not yet decided what to do about it.

"Is it customary among humans to require physical contact as a form of social ratification?" Na'Riss asked. She extended two fingers and pressed them against Kate's knuckles with the reluctant precision of someone defusing something. Kate retracted her fist and splayed her fingers wide, mouthing the sound of an explosion, her whole face bright with it.

"Well, you should know," Kate whispered, leaning in. "Don't you get physical with AJ all the time? He's Human." She giggled and bounced in her seat.

"I would estimate that my physical relationship with AJ surpasses yours with Ben by a factor of approximately 4.7," Na'Riss said, her dark Vulcan eyes steady and unblinking. "Particularly given your failure to pursue the Vulcan Love Slave holodeck program I recommended at dinner last week. The program has a 94.3 percent satisfaction rate. It would be illogical to continue avoiding it."

Kate burst out laughing. "Damn, you're good! Since you and AJ have tried it a whole bunch, I have to ask… As an Engineer, what happens to all of that excess stuff that happens when the holodeck ends?"

Na'Riss stared at Kate for a long moment. "That is not a relevant question." She handed the PaDD back and walked past her to the small view screen, beginning to uncouple it.

"Wait, I thought you were just kidding about Vulcan Love Slave…" Kate watched Na'Riss attend to her duties in silence. "Na'Riss! Come on!"

"I have reserved the Holodeck at fifteen hundred hours. You are invited. Bring Ben." Na'Riss popped the display out of the wall.

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"It is a Tropical Resort Dinner on the Coast of AJ's Homeland, complete with a swimming pool, for what he describes as a moonlight swim. It is not Vulcan Love Slave." Na'Riss paused. "Clothing is optional." She set the display down and picked up her engineering kit, expression unchanged.

Kate’s dark almond eyes widened into perfect, comical circles. She had meant to ruffle the Vulcan's unflappable feathers, but Na’Riss just kept working, placidly replacing components on the monitor as if Kate’s attempts at bugging her with social discomfort hadn’t phased her one tiny bit. Of course. Bested again. By a woman who probably classified humor as an inefficient social ritual.

The Asian girl's eyes burned into Na'Riss, unblinking, the kind of stare that wanted to be felt. Na'Riss kept her focus on the screen’s motherboard, fingers steady on the inserting of isolineiear structures, and when the replacement finally snapped into place, she let the smallest grin settle at the corner of her mouth.

 

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