...And Then There Was Butter

Posted on Tue Oct 13th, 2026 @ 9:56pm by Lieutenant Tyler Rehman

618 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Mission 4 - Siphoning of Stars
Location: The Khelvari Ship

ON:

“Butter?”

Lieutenant Trevor Rehman mumbled to himself. The chief science officer looked up from his tricorder and tilted his head in thought. He currently stood at one of the consoles on the Khelvari ship. So far, the translations had been going well, the controls and commands had made sense in Federation standard. There were controls for sensors – long and short range, planetary, etc., communications, and the various engineering controls from propulsion to life support.

Then the tricorder translated the word tel’var’sui in the word “butter.” Rehman almost started to laugh; it was beginning to boil in his tummy. However, he suppressed it for fear of looking unprofessional in front of everyone, including Commander Sledge. He hadn’t been around the chief of operations that often. Occasionally their paths crossed on the bridge, but he really didn’t know the man. In fact, as he thought about it, he really didn’t know any of the senior staff save Gulati.

Rehman shrugged his shoulders at those thoughts. When he returned to the Concord he would maybe make time to get to know others. Though, if they returned to the Alpha Quadrant…

Would it even matter?

“Huh… hadn’t thought about that did you, Ty?”

When the Changeling had almost killed him, when he ended up in sickbay, a lot of these thoughts had plagued him. He was angry that they were stuck in the Delta Quadrant, even though he didn’t really express that anger. He went with the flow (and orders), like a good little Starfleet officer. Sure, their circumstance allowed his curiosity to begin to itch. They were in a part of the Delta Quadrant that had to be explored – at least on their end. He had also felt anger for Gulati for dragging him into the whole mess with the Changeling. He may have been a trained scientist, but he was not trained very well in security tactics. Sure, he could fire a phaser and knew some hand-to-hand combat moves, but that was it.

I think I need to hit the gym, he mused.

Anyway…

Rehman absently scratched his cheek as he contemplated his tricorder once again. He knew the one word couldn’t mean “butter” but he wasn’t sure of any other algorithms to choose to see if it meant something else. It was odd for him not to have a solution and yet here they were – topsy turvey world it seemed. “Maybe it is the control for the bussards?” he mused softly. He ran the translation matrix one more time and it still came up with “butter.”

Deciding that this was nuts and made no logical sense, Rehman reached out with his free hand and began to tap controls only to find that he was locked out. A dark brown eyebrow lifted in suspicion, yet he wasn’t surprised either. “Well then…” he tried another sequence and when he touched the tel’var’sui control; again, there was a soft buzz, and he couldn’t go any further.

“Oh, honestly!”

Rehman closed up his tricorder and holstered it. Having memorized the console controls, he began to enter in sequences he assumed were allowed. The Khelvari didn’t exactly give carte blanche, but he should have been able to access some of the records regarding sensor readings of planets and surrounding space. But nothing. He sighed and gave it all a quick think. He looked over his shoulder to see the much taller lieutenant commander accessing a different console.

“Commander, you might want to come and see this… I think we might have a problem.”

To be continued…

OFF:

Lieutenant Tyler Rehman
Chief Science Officer

 

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