Beta Shift Blues

Posted on 07 Apr 2012 @ 9:14pm by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA)

1,941 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: Remington's Quarters, Deck 2
Timeline: MD02 - 0000hrs

Lilou was wiped out. It had been a long day, and it was only the first day of the mission. Perhaps, after they'd finalized the updates after 234, her responsibilities would slow down. But she was fairly sure they wouldn't. That was the point, wasn't it? If the ship could maintain itself, the Federation wouldn't need folks like her. She stepped onto the turbolift for the ride up to her quarters. Strange how she could feel so wired and so exhausted at the same time. The turbolift stopped on her floor and she almost stepped out. The easy out was... well... easier. She could go back to her room, do crunches until she was tired, and then pass out on her floor for the next few hours. Today was a big day. A new hologram to install and deflector shields to upgrade. A last chance to pick up any necessities from the star base before they headed out into dangerous ground. But she'd been invited, hadn't she? Rolling her eyes, she cleared her throat. "Change of plans. Take me to deck 2."

The turbolift started again and Lilou looked down at herself. Her uniform was rumpled from several hours climbing around in access tunnels and no amount of patting was going to straighten it out. Ah well. Such was her life. She stepped off the turbolift and navigated her way to Remington's quarters, tapping lightly on the door with her knuckles. If he was asleep, she wasn't going to risk waking him with the chime.

"Enter," Will called softly when she knocked. He was lounging on his couch with a bottle of Vulcan port and two glasses sitting on the table beside him. In his hands was an actual book. He smiled at her as she entered, "Chime broken?"

"Thought you might be sleeping," Lilou explained, stepping inside. "Chimes are a fairly easy fix and I happen to have my tools. I could check-" She paused, looking around his quarters. "What in the name of Helios do you do with this much space?"

"You should see the ops chief's quarters on a Regula class stardock or the USS Galaxy. It's not that big really." He smiled and sat up, gesturing to the wine. "I wasn't sure if you'd be up for a drink. This bottle I opened only a week before the Galileo departed."

"My quarters barely have room for my bunk and have always been like that. Not that I need space, but... I might sleep on the floor in a room like this, just to have the room to roll about." She smiled quickly and nodded towards the bottle. "Please. Never tried Vulcan wine before. So... Have you worked on a Galaxy-class?" she asked.

Remington laughed and poured out some wine into each glass. He offered one to ehr and then leaned back with his own drink. "Not just a Galaxy-class, I was an operations officer on the Galaxy-class, NX-70637, first starship of her class. I was assistant chief operations officer and my quarters were bigger than this."

"What was it like?" she asked, perching on the edge of the sofa like a tentative sparrow. "Not the room. The ship. Did you detach the saucer while you were working it? How did that work? I mean, I understand it at a basic schematic level, but the schematics never do ships justice. Especially not Galaxies... I can't believe you flew on the NX-70637!" Her cheeks flushed with excitement and she took a sip of the wine, pausing and looking down at her glass. "It's... quite good, isn't it?"

Will smiled at the girl's questions, so many of them all at once. "It is," he agreed of the wine. "I enjoyed serving on the Galaxy very much. We scratched the saucer section several times during the Dominion War. The first time I was on the team assigned to do a post-reattachment check for the saucer clamps. Of course nothing was wrong. The Galaxy is getting old but it's still in good working order from what I hear. Just had a refit."

Lilou beamed into her glass, imagining the massive saucer coming in for a connection to the rest of the ship, massive clamps extending into open space to catch and hold it, like arms opening for long lost friend. "I'm glad to hear it," she said, the tone in her voice one of reverence and friendship though she'd never set eyes on the ship herself. She'd studied it enough to think of it as an old friend. "I hope she goes on for a long while more." She sipped again, holding the small amount of liquid on her tongue for a lingering while before swallowing. It tasted like dark cherries, somehow lighter and more dense at the same time. "What brought you to the Galileo, then?"

"A series of unfortunate events," Remington replied simply. "But I've been aboard several ships in my time. I was chief of operations aboard Starbase 235 a while back. What about you?"

"I haven't been chief of operations anywhere," she remarked dryly, flicking a look up at him before returning to her careful study of the rim of her glass. It was easier to talk that way. Easier not to get full of questions and concerns. "Let alone a starbase. I was born on one. Well, a research station, so... quite a bit smaller than 235, but... relatively stationary. I didn't have many responsibilities, though. Except eating, drinking, and not blowing things up." She cast her eyes up to him for another quick glance, this one with a wry smile, before reconsidering the bluish green liquid. "What other ships?"

He chuckled as she told her story. "I was born and raised on Jupiter Station. Space is more my home than Earth. Other ships though? My last ship was the USS Phoenix. before that was the starbase. that's it, except for the Galaxy, I spent more of my career there than anywhere else, lived through the Dominion War."

She nodded, "I can't even-" She bit her lip, thoughtfully.. "I'm glad. That you did. Live." She stood, meandering through the room aimlessly. She was never sure what to say to those who had been through the war. She'd been a child, safe at an insulated and privileged academy through the whole thing. The only times it had even entered her sphere were when other children had left because of lost relatives or homeworlds under attack and that one stilted holo-card from Kestra saying she would be out of communication due to a lapse in Federation protection for Betazed. And even then it had been distant; not quite real to her, despite the evidence. War... was a messy disorganized thing that boggled her mind; there were no rules to it, no plans to follow that could be trusted, no clear reason why it had to happen at all. "Space..." it brought her back from the oddness of not knowing what to say and she closed her eyes, breathing it in. "Yes. I spent nine years on Earth and it was... very strange. It didn't feel like it was part of the rest of everything, does that make sense?" She paused. "Jupiter station. Your parents were in Starfleet, then?"

"Earth's a paradise and paradise is a bubble," Remington commented. "They worked with Starfleet, at least. They were scientists. I come from a Starfleet family, we've served the Federation for generations, even if we don't all the uniform. I do." He took a moment to enjoy more of his wine, watching ehr curiously. "How did you shift go?" he asked at length.

The quiet was a relief. It made it easier to think, to breathe. Conversation wasn't something that came easily to her, unless there was a problem to solve or a schematic to prod at. So when he spoke again, drawing her back out of her moment of peace, she was a little calmer. "It went. Things to fix, things to make better. Issued my reports on the replicator situation and I think we're getting near the end of the compound scanning on the rest of the items, so we should be good to go on that." She paused, "But you... don't want to hear about that so... it was kind of..." She looked down at herself, sleeves still akimbo, uniform rumpled. "Well. Busy." She ducked her head, tucking her hair behind her ear. "What were you reading?"

Will chuckled. "It sounds interesting even if doing it wasn't," he replied kindly. He leaned over and picked up the book. "An old Earth story, David Copperfield."

"Dickens," Lilou beamed at the ancient text. She'd read it when she was nine, but couldn't remember having seen a non-digital copy of it anywhere outside of the academy library - and those texts were barely ever let out of the containment room. "How did you manage to get a paper copy of it?"

Will chuckled. "There's a bookstore in London, the owner makes replicas of ancient texts as they originally appeared in print. Do you read?"

"I was a spacer kid with two workaholic parents on a research rig. It was read, take things apart, or become a sociopath. I picked the first two." She frowned thoughtfully. "Hopefully." She smiled a little, sipping from her glass. "Mama has a wide collection of ancient Earth stories. I liked Joyce best. Reading him was like solving puzzles. But Dickens was enjoyable, too. I liked his Nicholas Nickelby."

Will smiled. She knew a lot about books, it seemed. "Do you only read Earth stories? I've read vulcan stuff, rather dry. Klingon poetry is beyond me. Trill has some good literature. It's different from humans' but good."

"I grew up on the stories of my father's people. Have you read Razdia's 'The Tale of Novarix, the Quantum Bi-Ped, and the Gates of Ivory'? It's meant for children, to teach ingenuity and forethought, but the story is so good." She laughed, remembering the evenings she'd spent curled against her father's side listening to him read to her from the Trill novel. "I've also read some translations of Cardassian folklore, but... it always ends badly. After you've read one, you know everyone's going to die in the end, so what point is there in finishing?"

"I've never read that one... Cardassian stories always end with everyone dying? Like Shakespeare?"

"They don't all die in Shakespeare. Sometimes they fall in love. Sometimes they find happiness in other ways. There's no love in the Cardassian stories I've read. Only blood and gore. In the end, even in the ones with victors over the numerous guilty, the victors are still dead inside. It's sad. I hope it's not a reflection on their culture as a whole."

"If literature doesn't reflect a culture," he observed solemnly, "what does?" He didn't allow the question to hang there too long, giving an apologetic smile. "Well, that's why we don't see much Cardassian literature in the Federation. I wonder if they use holodecks for entertainment." He shrugged and finished off a good portion of his wine. "Ah, well."

"If they did use holodecks, maybe they wouldn't need to cause so much trouble outside of them." Lilou sipped her wine, "I hear a good scrap in a holodeck can wind you out of the worst moods." She held out her glass. "To good stories, then."

"To good stories," he replied with a smile, raising his own glass and then drinking the toast, "May the Galileo's end happily ever after."

[OFF]

Lt. Cmdr. Chauncey William Remington III
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

Master Warrant Officer Lilou Peers
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed