What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? (Part II of II)

Posted on 30 Jan 2018 @ 4:28pm by Ensign Miraj Derani & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius
Edited on on 30 Jan 2018 @ 6:38pm

2,590 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - San Francisco, Sam's Bar and Grill
Timeline: MD 102, 2303 hrs

Previously, in What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor..

"If you don't care how you get 'em, then what's the problem?" Lamar asked.

"I don't care how I get 'em. But a fine ship would have been nice." She swigged the last of her rum, "And the problem wash that no-one is posting me even to courier jobs. And now the problem is that no-one will post me to anything decent unless I'm prepared to choke on a cap'n's beardsplitter for the privilege."

And now the conclusion


She slammed the bottle down, more by accident than on purpose, and the force of the movement made her list dangerously to starboard. "Are your courier jobsh on a ship of the line?" She asked, her words were slurred, but there a little bit of bleary hope in them.

He quickly reached out and grabbed her by her arm to keep her from swaying too much. "Yeah I think so," he thought out loud in reply. "One of my old friends is on a Centaur-class. Local VIP transport type of stuff. Then my other friend, Javier, he's on USS Deltona. Soyuz-class, Marine transport.

"Blow me down, are they shtill in servish? Woh-" The world span around her. "I can fly either of them." She lifted her bottle. "The rum is gone," she said sadly, then looked down the bar to the bartender. "More rum, Rum Bosun!" she waved the now empty bottle in the air, and tipped fully into Lamar. "Lead the way, Mr Darius. Once I have the rum."

"Oh so I'm your chaperone tonight?" he laughed, not entirely sure if another bottle of rum was good for the young woman. "Maybe you should slow down a bit. I'm gonna have to carry you if you keep up the pace."

"Don' wanna shlow down." Miraj murmured as a fresh bottle was brought, and cracked open for her. In a bout of hope over experience, the barman poured a measure into her long ignored glass. "Wanna fly at transwarp. Zoom! Except no-one wants me." She shoved her glass into Lamar's hand, and clinked it with the neck of her bottle. It took two goes. "Ourselves! Becuash no-one else is likely to be carin'!" She tried to drink, and managed to spill half of it down her lurid orange-brown dress.

After he downed the shot in his glass, he watched her miss the mark with her attempt and took the bottle back from her. He also spotted some darts in one of the lounge areas near the bar counter. "I'll take this," he motioned to the bartender, "and you need to slow down." A large glass of ice water was placed out on the counter which he took and handed to her. "Drink some so we can go play darts."

"Don't wanna shlow down," she pouted, but drank the water obediently, eyeing the dartboard suspiciously. "You want me to throw sharp pointy objectsssss around?" She looked up at him in disbelief. "You savvy I be loaded to the gunwalesh?"

"What, you don't think you can hit the board?" he teased, taking her hand and pulling her around the side of the bar to the game lounge. "I thought all you Academy ensign pilots had good reflexes and coordination."

Miraj made a grab for the rum bottle before she was pulled away and missed. "When I be shober," she pointed out, looking back forlornly at her bottle of rum now sitting all alone at the bar. "Right now, I be squiffier than a squiffy thing." She went up to the board and claimed the darts before swaying gently back to the oche that was marked out on the industrially hard wearing carpet. She threw. The first hit dead centre.

Unfortunately, she'd thrown it so it had arched, and the whole thing had hit the board length ways. It dropped to the ground, bouncing of the flights before finally sticking in the carpet. Her next shot had more force. It flew straight and true, into the wall twenty centimetres to the left of the board. She threw the third. It hit the very bottom edge of the board, wobbled, and fell out. "See?"

He laughed when she finished her volley then went to retrieve the darts. "Well if you weren't wobblin' all over the place when you threw, you'd have stuck some of them!" he continued to chuckle. Walking back to the line, he positioned his feet and throwing arm with his elbow bent, then tossed them out in rapid succession. Each one stuck in the board at various random places, but nowhere near the bullseye or squares.

She pulled at the front of her dress. The rum had now thoroughly wiked through the fabric, and it was clinging in an inappropriate manner. And she was sticky to boot. She let it go to give Lamar a suspicious look. "If ye think I'm buying that performance, Mr marine, ye be wildly misinformed." She stumped back up to the board to get her darts.

"I used to be good. Like good. But my brother was better, he ran the pro circuit for a couple years back in '89. I haven't played in years though, before the Gal." He sighed inside when he thought about the ol' girl. Such a sleek ship with a purpose, blown away by renegade Klingons. But now they'd rebuilt her, newer and better.

Miraj aimed again, her arm pitching back and forth worse than jolly boat in a tornado. She threw and the dart bounced off a wire and skittered off into a corner. "I think you're still going to win." She threw again, this one fell short, hitting the wall two foot under the board. She squinted at the board, fixing it with an attempt at a vicious eye that would have intimidated no one, let alone an inanimate object. She took a breath, tried to stop swaying, and used every ounce of concentration she hadn't pickled in rum, and made a throw.

It hit. "Wooo! Double Seven!" she squealed, throwing her arms up liked she'd scored a 180. Fourteen was still a fraction of Lamar's first throw. "How do enlisted do it?" she asked. Do you get a choice where you go? Or will you just be packed off somewhere?"

Lamar grinned with respect for her recent throws and went to retrieve the darts for his turn. "Marines? Hell, we don't care. Everyone wants a forward post at first, they want to see action...until they finally do and then want back off the front lines," he replied. "But I'm a warrant now so they treat me like an officer. Most of the time." He took his stance, aimed, and fired off three more shots. One stuck in the box and the other two grazed the outline of the bullseye but failed to enter. "I still think you should reapply to the capn'. She'll want to have you."

Miraj went up to the dart board and stared at them One neatly in the treble 20, the other two in the twenty just outside the inner bullseye. She sighed. Even sober she'd never be that good. She pulled them out and went back up to him. "Obviously she, or whoever it is, doesn't want me." Miraj threw her dart. It hit the outer eleven, and went in up to the barrel. "And I don't want them," She threw the next one, but it was fuelled by anger, hit sideways and bounced off. The third throw was even attempting to play the game, she flung it at the board. It tumbled end over end, spinning until it smacked against the wall above the board and clattered down to the floor.

"Yes you do, don't lie," said Lamar as he picked up her two misses from the floor and removed the third from the board. "Look, I remember being your age, wanting it all and thinking I was the best qualified for everything. Then I realized the brass doesn't work like that...we're just a couple names out of the pool with millions of other Starfleet names. Sometimes the wheel needs to get squeaky to get fixed."

"I don't need fixing." She protested. "An' I'm not in'rested in grovellin' to Galileo. I'll go back to the pool. Eight hundred thirty one hours be eight hundred thirty one hours, it only be six months, even on one watch a day. It wouldn't have been the same, anyway." She sniffed, and looked back to the bar. "I need rum."

"You need more water," he corrected while looking down at her. "You know, you're kinda cute when you sulk," he chuckled, handing her the set of darts for her throw.

"Not sulking," she muttered. "Rum mixed with water?" she asked brightly. It was a compromise, and there was nothing more piratey than grog. She squinted at the dartboard. It was floating slightly, and kept moving as she tried to focus on it. She threw the darts and missed with all three. "The board keeps dodging," she complained before collecting the darts. "Have you been reassigned yet?"

"Yeah fine, you can have your water rum," he smirked in good jest. "But where I'm going, they drink the real thing," he winked. "Got an interview with the captain of Galileo-A in two days. Just enough time to catch a transport to the Rigel system." Despite the pleasant, warming burn of the alcohol now rushing through his system, he looked at his young friend with sober eyes. "You should come with me," he proposed.

She looked at him and her jaw fell open. "You get an interview but I get dismissed out of hand?" She went back to the bar, and retrieved her bottle. She started to tip it up for a slug, and then stopped, and put it back. Her shoulders slumped, and she just stood there, trying to breathe through the roil of emotions inside her.

He followed her back to the bar and was about to steal her bottle again when he saw her put it down. "I reapplied. Twice actually. You know what they say about third times," he chuckled again. "Captains like that, the persistence. But me? If I was captain, it'd annoy the hell outta me."

"Me too. No be meaning no." She kept staring at the bar top, blinking rapidly. "And thanks for the offer, but Its probably best you go alone. As I said, I don't want a commander who plays games. I'll be fine."

He looked at her for a long while and sadness started to build up inside him. If she wouldn't take up his offer or advice, then she'd just be another person who would disappear in the chaos that was Starfleet deployments. "So that's it, huh?" he huffed, folding his arms across his large chest. "You won't come with me because of some pride thing and we'll never see each other again?"

He'd been turned down twice, which meant if she went, she was just as likely to be turned down a second time by whatever arrogant jumped up little dictator they'd brought in to replace Lirha. She wasn't sure she could face another rejection. But Lamar's comment on not seeing her again touched her. At least someone liked her. Probably "You'd miss me?"

"Yeah, definitely," he quickly answered with a bit of incredulity in his voice. She had a youthful affinity and passion for flying that he hadn't really seen in any other helmsmen he'd ever served with. "Won't you miss me too?" he then wondered.

"Totally!" she signalled for the barman to bring some water, and added a generous measure to her glass for him to top up. "You're lovely." she drank the grog mixture. "I'll come if you need moral support. But I'm not interested in the ship. Well. Not with that commander."

He chuckled again, this time at the forwardness and blunt honesty of the drunken young sailor. "Yeah right, you want to fly a new ship. I know it...I've seen you talking to the shuttles before. You live for that."

She made a hmphing sound. Of course she wanted to fly the new ship: a shakedown tour on her CV would be really helpful. But too much had happened to her in the last few months. She wanted a stable commander, not someone into manipulative mind games. "There always be 'nother new ship to launch." She replied, but without conviction.

Taking her drink from her then stealing a long sip of the water-brandy, he pushed the glass back into her hand. "When I was playing ball at the Academy, coach always told us to find our shot. And if we couldn't find it by running the play, then you had to create it. But anyway, you gotta leave it all on the court when you show up to play." He looked at her with a more serious expression. "Sounds like this is the game happening right now and this is your chance to score. Don't pass the ball and wait. You got too much going for you to sit on the sidelines," he analogized.

She swigged some rum straight from the bottle, then added more to her glass. "That made exac'ly no shense." She told him, "I know nothing about balls."

Yeah right, he privately chucked to himself. "Look, basically you got to play the game or else the game plays you. Go get that job you want otherwise Starfleet will bounce you around wherever they want to put you," he tried to clarify. "You don't wanna be hauling freight for the next two years just to get your hours..."

"Six months." She corrected. That was all she needed. An she didn't have to get a new ship. It could be any ship. But Darius had gone three times for this role and he'd been jerked about enough. Weren't officers supposed to stand up for their juniors? "I'll give you a lift. And I'll hang around in case this crappy captain be wantin' a reference. And if he turns you down again, I'll unload Queen Anne's waste reclaimator down his shiny new paint job. How that be for you?"

He looked at her with surprise evident in his big brown eyes. "..Oh yeah? You'll take me to Rigel? And give me a reference?" It was an awesome proposal and Lamar wanted to make sure she wasn't just letting the rum talk.

"Coursh I would!" She beamed. "Least I can do." She drank more rum, "Not 's'if I got a reason to be stayin here.. Might as well be doin something useful."

"Well we'd have to leave early in the morning tomorrow." He eyes her inebriated state a bit more closely and wondered if she'd be sober enough to fly in six-or-so hours. "Which means you can't drink anymore tonight. Don't want to get our licenses revoked 'cause of a PUI, you know?"

She swung round to him looking mock affronted. "I'm not that drunk!" Then she claped her hand over her mouth, and her stomach bucked in contradiction. The first one subsided, only to be followed by a second, stronger spasm. She tried to get off her stool, but wasnt' fast enough.

With surprising force, she puked all over Darius.

[OFF]

--

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

Ensign Miraj Derani

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