Liquid Courage
Posted on Sat Jun 20th, 2026 @ 12:34am by Lieutenant Commander Casey Virel & Lieutenant Nathaniel Voss
1,026 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2: Mine of Taurus
Location: USS Scharnhorst, Mess Hall
Timeline: 1230 hours
The mess hall aboard the USS Scharnhorst wasn't particularly busy that afternoon.
That happened sometimes on deep-space assignments. Half the crew was on duty, the other half was asleep, and everyone else seemed to be hiding in their quarters pretending they weren't behind on reports.
Lieutenant Commander Casey Virel had found himself a table near the viewport. Not because he was interested in the view, mind you. Casey had been aboard starships long enough that stars had lost some of their novelty.
No, he was there because it was close to the coffee dispenser.
Priorities.
A PADD sat open in front of him, displaying a maintenance report he had been "reading" for the last ten minutes. In reality, he'd read the first paragraph three times and spent the rest of the time staring out the window while nursing what was definitely not his first cup of coffee that day. Or his second. Or even his third.
The chair opposite him scraped lightly against the deck.
Casey looked up. A man stood there carrying a tray. Tall. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Handsome enough to be irritating about it. Lieutenant Nate Voss. Casey knew who he was, of course. A ship the size of the Scharnhorst wasn't exactly small, but people still talked. Especially when somebody new showed up looking like they'd walked straight out of a recruiting poster.
"Mind if I sit?" Voss asked.
Casey glanced at the empty chair. "I'd ask it first. It can be a little possessive."
For a second Nathaniel just blinked. Then he laughed. Not a polite laugh either. A real one.
Casey immediately liked him more than he intended to.
"I'll take my chances," said Voss, extending a hand. "Nate Voss."
"Casey Virel. Nice to finally meet you, Mister Voss."
He sat down. There was a brief silence. Not awkward exactly. Just... that strange moment where two people are trying to figure each other out without making it obvious they're doing it. Nate nodded toward the mug sitting beside Casey's PADD.
"Coffee?" He asked.
Casey looked down at it. "Oh, this isn't coffee."
Nate looked confused.
Casey pointed toward the replicator. "That was coffee. This is a life-support system."
The laugh returned. A good laugh, too. The kind that made Casey want to keep finding reasons to hear it.
"I've heard stories about you," Nate said, in between bites of his BLT sandwich.
Casey groaned dramatically. "That's never a good sign."
"Most of them were pretty positive."
"Then they're definitely not true."
Nate smiled into his lunch. "I heard you once rerouted power through an entire deck using equipment that wasn't actually designed for the job."
"Technically correct."
"I heard you argued with an engineering diagnostic program until it shut itself down."
Casey pointed a finger. "That computer knew what it did."
Vossl laughed so hard he nearly spilled his drink. Casey found himself smiling again. It was annoying. He generally preferred people to earn that reaction.
The conversation drifted after that. One topic blending into another in the way good conversations tend to do. Academy memories. Former assignments. Terrible replicator meals. Favorite places they'd visited.
At one point they spent nearly ten minutes discussing why every starship seemed to have exactly one turbolift that never arrived when you needed it. Neither of them solved that mystery.
Somewhere along the way Casey stopped pretending to read his PADD. It sat forgotten beside him. Nate was surprisingly easy to talk to. That was probably what caught him off guard more than anything. The man was handsome, sure. Casey wasn't blind. But handsome people often knew they were handsome. Sometimes they made it their entire personality.
Nate didn't. He listened when Casey spoke. Asked questions. Remembered details. Seemed genuinely interested in the answers. And every time he smiled, there was this little crinkle near the corners of his eyes that Casey found himself noticing more often than was probably healthy. At one point, Nate was telling a story about a shuttle mishap during flight training. Casey wasn't entirely sure he heard the ending. He had become distracted. Which was embarrassing for a man whose job literally involved paying attention to things.
Nate eventually glanced at the chronometer mounted on the wall. His expression fell. "Well. Damn."
Casey raised an eyebrow. "Damn?"
"I need to be on duty in ten minutes."
Casey looked at the time himself. "Huh."
That had happened faster than expected. Neither man moved. There was a pause. Not uncomfortable. Just... lingering. Nate rubbed the back of his neck. Suddenly looking much less confident than he had a few moments earlier.
And oddly enough, Casey thought that might have been the cutest thing he'd seen all day.
"Casey?"
"Yeah?"
Nate hesitated. Actually hesitated. Then laughed softly at himself. "Okay. This is going to sound stupid."
"Excellent. Those are usually my favorite conversations."
That earned another smile.
Nate looked down at the table for a second before meeting his eyes again. "I've really enjoyed talking with you." The sincerity in his voice caught Casey by surprise. It wasn't flirtation for the sake of flirtation. He meant it.
Casey felt something warm settle in his chest. "Me too."
Nate nodded. Then took a breath. "Would you maybe want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?"
There it was. No elaborate speech. No clever line. Just an honest question from a man who looked unexpectedly nervous asking it. For some reason that made it even sweeter.
Casey smiled. A real smile this time. The kind he usually reserved for people he trusted. "I'd like that."
Nate's relief was immediate. And adorable. Casey would absolutely never tell him that. Ever.
"Good," Nate said.
"Good."
For a moment neither seemed quite sure what came next. They sat there smiling like idiots. Or maybe not idiots. Just two people who'd stumbled into something they hadn't expected to find during an ordinary afternoon in a starship mess hall.
Outside the viewport, stars slid past in silent streaks of white and gold.
Inside, Casey suspected tomorrow evening couldn't arrive fast enough.
Lieutenant Commander Casey Virel
Chief Operations Officer
USS Scharnhorst
Lieutenant Nathaniel Voss
Alien Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Scharnhorst
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