Page 133 of Trove’s Purpose

“A toast,” Trove said smugly, holding up his own cup like he hadn’t also just learned what it was a short time ago. “It’s a human tradition. Of course.”

“It’s a celebration,” Grace said.

“I thought that’s what the food was,” Rok said, confused as he brought the large haunch of some beast to his mouth.

They were indeed having a feast. Back on the Vainglory, darting away from Holotulle, they were heading off to their next job. Which was, in fact, not one of Hyde’s tasks.

Their first job for him, fetching something from some deep, forbidden part of space – whatever that meant – was still incoming. Hyde had to prepare the job for them – again, whatever that meant. When he was ready, he would send them the information.

Until then, they were free to continue business as usual. And even afterwards, once he sent them the information, he said there wasn’t a time limit on it. He wouldn’t tell them how to do it or when. He would only ask that it be done when it was convenient and however they deemed the task easiest to complete.

They wouldn’t be able to send him their expenses until they were working on his job, but once they were, they had as long as they needed to get it done.

Honestly, Hyde was giving them almost a little too much trust. It would be so easy to take advantage of him. If they were less scrupulous, they probably would.

Though, he supposed if they were, Hyde wouldn’t have chosen them to complete his tasks in the first place. So, really, it wasn’t a matter of him trusting them, but him knowing that they weren’t going to take advantage of him.

It kind of made Trove want to take just a little bit of advantage – just to do so. It was an immature response, he knew.

But still…

To celebrate both their new, big client, their big jobs, and the coming prizes they would get by completing them, as well as the new addition to their crew – Chee – the females had decided to have a feast. It was planned, executed, and completed by all of them together, including Chee. His female had been excited all day. Partially because event planning was something she did as her previous occupation so it was something she could do well, but also because it finally felt like she was one of them now.

There were no more secrets between them. She had her prize from Hyde, so she had achieved what she set out to do. Once her parents arrived, she was eager to see them, but she was already an adult by her people’s standards, and for her culture that meant she was living separately from them already. It wasn’t expected that she live with them or them with her.

There was nothing stopping her from joining their crew, becoming one of them. And with the burden of her secrets and past off her shoulder, Chee was free to be friends with the others. She had been running around all day, setting up this feast, and looked like she enjoyed every moment.

And what a feast it was. She had spent nearly a solid mark just working with their food synthesizer. It was the one they had taken from the recycling facility, which meant it was designed for high capacity use since it was once designed to feed the entire base. When they went through the debris field, one of the things they found was the broken remains of their old synthesizer. The machine itself was a loss, but Vytln had been able to recover some of the internal components. And of those, one of the things he was able to recover was the memory. Their old synthesizer had been used as part of a pleasure cruiser, and as such, it had a very wide and diverse recipe library.

Chee had used that library to collaborate with Alred to make a feast where everyone had delicious food from their home planets, treats from Holotulle, and popular delicacies that had gained popularity throughout the Coalition.

Trove had provided the drinks. Alred had provided the music. The females had decorated the room.

Chee coordinated everything. She was the one who asked everyone for food preferences. She had started and set the synthesizer to get cooking. She coordinated everyone in setting the table. She was the one who went to Trove and Alred to get their assistance.

She said she was an event coordinator, and pulling together things like this feast were the skills she had gained from Earth. She said it was nothing special.

But Trove, and Tanin, had recognized what was actually going on.

She was a planner. A coordinator. She used those skills for planning a feast, but those were the kind of skills that could be used for nearly anything.

The kind that could actually be very useful to them.

Right now, Tanin did all the work of coordinating and planning himself. It was a task he was more than equal to, but one that definitely took a lot of time and mental work from him. If he was able to get assistance through Chee…

Trove didn’t think his mate realized that she had impressed Tanin with what she had done. She was just luxuriating in a job well done. In getting a huge table of food and treats laid out for them with good music in the background. But Trove knew his captain well enough to recognize when he had spotted potential in someone.

It was a feast, and an audition, and, of course, a celebration.

As Grace was explaining to the others what a toast was, Trove smiled at Chee over his blood tart – a cold and fruity treat that was quite popular on his home planet. One he hadn’t had in a long time but was even better than his memories could recall.

He wasn’t the only one who appreciated her effort. Whatever haunch Rok had been given was met with an abundance of excitement. The big male was holding it in two of his four hands, finger and face covered in grease from the way he was ripping into it. The twins had been offered some kind of stew that made them both stare, then Tebros was suddenly slurping it up while Sorbet thanked her kindly before doing the same.

Most impressively, apparently, Chee had managed to work with Alred to find foods that the females all exclaimed over because they reminded them of home.

Human recipes didn’t exist yet on food synthesizers and probably wouldn’t for some time to come. So, the humans that existed out in space had to either learn to love the foreign recipes or try to make something that reminded them of familiar tastes from unfamiliar ingredients if they wanted them.

Chee had done the latter, and apparently, she had chosen well. She found replacements for foods called cotton candy, beef steak, cobbler, fish sticks, pretzels, and chicken. Trove understood that a chicken was a kind of Earth animal that, by all accounts, was very tasty. Though, he couldn’t imagine what it tasted like, because many meats apparently tasted just like chicken.