iViva la Revolucion!

Posted on 03 Jan 2013 @ 8:48am by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Crewman Athlen
Edited on on 05 Jan 2013 @ 6:14am

2,719 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo: Jefferies Tubes
Timeline: MD16 0500 hrs

ON:

"It says here that this man was a serial killer." Liyar arched an eyebrow at the selection of music Athlen handed him.

"Yeah, but everybody ignores that," Athlen told him. For some reason, Liyar decided to pester him this morning about Terran music, which is very fascinating, and I will learn it all.

"Ignores it? How can you ignore it?" Learning all of it was not going so well.

"What? It's not like he wrote an Ode to -" Athlen huffed a sigh. Telepaths. "Well, it's... ehh, well. ... They say he's brilliant. Good for first time prodigies!" he tried, ignoring the pointed look his Vulcan friend was giving him.

"And a serial killer."

"Could you stop saying serial killer? People are staring." Athlen scowled at a couple of engineers working as they crawled through the expansive Jefferies tubes.

"I am not listening to this," Liyar declared in his usual Terrans are highly illogical and slightly horrifying voice and handed the second PADD back, using his free hand to pull himself up the ladder.

"All right, well there's," Athlen shuffled a little to prevent himself from falling while flipping a page on his PADD, and balancing the portable holographic harmonizer, "Modern rock. From the year 2019. I don't know what that is... Nine Inch Nails?" Athlen decided to find out by hitting play. A terrifyingly loud screaming blared out of the small PADD.

Several maintenance technicians stared at them both as if to ask what ungodly creature ascended from hell to assault their ears. Athlen hurriedly clicked it off. Liyar, on the other hand, just gave it a fascinated look. "Is he a serial killer?" Liyar asked, as if that were the only criterion necessary for decent music.

"They seem to be in disagreement over it," Athlen pronounced after a few moments of reading. "Up there. Best acoustics on the ship!" He climbed up and shoved open the next hatch, but blinked at the other presence working there. "Oh. Hi!" the smiling-Vulcan waved at the short Trill engineer doing something he didn't have a clue about.

The serious-Vulcan gave it no thought as he looked up from his PADD. "What is Radiohead?"

Lilou watched the data from the relay scroll neatly across her PADD, hearing the question without looking up. "Terran band, 20th Century. Basic rock song structures, subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, vocal antiphony. Not my favorite, but Black Star is a good song." She wrinkled her nose, correcting an flawed algorithm and checking to make sure the alteration had the desired effect - it wouldn't do for the power couplings to short circuit just because the installing team made some basic mathematical errors - before disconnecting from the relay and turning to face the pair of Vulcans. They were... very much as Vulcans tended to appear - clean and orderly. She fought an impulse to straighten her sleeves. "Are you lost?"

"Are they -"

"They're not serial killers!" Athlen griped.

"I am very concerned about it," Liyar maintained reasonably.

Athlen put on his most patient smile and ignored Liyar. "I'm sorry," he said to Lilou. "No, we're not lost. This area does have rather good acoustics. But it looks like we're interrupting. We can come back later?"

Liyar touched another button on his PADD and brought up something, pulling one of the small portable ear-phones out of his ear. "This one."

"Liyar, that is -" He took the PADD. Something two-tone and slightly screamy was playing in the headset. "I can't believe - Rage Against the Machine? Seriously?" the blond smirked.

"I like it. I wish to learn it."

"Have you been replaced with a Pod Person?" Athlen asked incredulously.

Lilou bit her lip, ducking her head to stare intently at her own PADD. It was all she could do to avoid laughing outright. Maybe the translation from Terran to Vulcan was being misinterpreted. Then again, maybe not. Vulcan society was rigidly organized. Why shouldn't they identify with songs ranting against government oppression and cultural cookie-cutterism? Maybe she was overthinking it... Still. She was mostly finished here, except for a few more algorithm checks... Double-tapping her PADD, she accessed the emergency audio in the immediate area of the tube and uploaded a remix of Rage's Snakecharmer by a Rigelian crystal cymbal phonic synthesizer. As the first drum beats reverberated through the narrow tube, she snuck a glib peek at them.

Athlen perked up. "Rigelians are great," he said, grinning.

"The Unbiased Annotations, by Crewman Athlen," Liyar added dryly.

"Hey, I'm totally not biased! ... Sort of."

"I will learn this one as well," Liyar decided, tapping his finger against the metal edge of the ladder unconsciously.

"Fight the man, Liyar. Fight the man."

"I beg your pardon? I am not fighting anyone."

Athlen decided it was a great time to put his head in his hand.

Lilou allowed the music to crash around her, keeping focused on the streaming numbers in front of her, until... done. As the last furious chords melted away, Lilou sent copies of the relay notifications to the server and debated what to do next. On the one hand, she was enjoying listening to their banter and she hadn't actually spoken to anyone outside of Engineering since her promotion. On the other hand, she never had any idea what to say to people. But for the first time in two weeks, she didn't have anything to do. Not actively. The remaining repairs were being handled by her team. She could monitor them from Engineering... but she really didn't want to go sit in Markum Quinn's chair. Not yet. Maybe she could just sit on the floor beside it. Stretching and monitoring repairs from the ground. Was there a policy against that? "Th'tock Alemar was the lead cymbalist for Rage in Chains," she said, apropos of the fading chords, thinking only must talk. talking is social. say something. "In 2155, he was playing for an pro-Coalition demonstration in Bor'am square on Rigel V. They were hoping that an integration with other planets in the Alpha and Beta quadrants would force the governing forces of Rigel V to reconsider some of their more authoritarian policies. That was the last song they played before Anti-Coalitionists killed him and forty-two other demonstrators." It was an awkward thing to say; she heard that almost as soon as she bothered to listen to herself. But she was in for a penny now. "That attack and the ensuing violence stalled negotiations for six months. Interestingly, there is still a law on the books on Rigel V that playing that song or any rendition thereof is punishable by a year's hard labor. But the rest of Rage In Chains' albums and Alemar's solo album are held in high esteem, so I'm not sure how often that sentence is actually carried out." She cleared her throat. "They also don't allow people to carry Exopterygota insects in their hats. I'm not sure why that is."

"Ah, yes," Athlen agreed with a deep nod. "It's considered to bring bad luck to anyone around you. There used to be much weirder ones," he promised with an amicable smile, "But they were dissolved after we had prolonged contact with the Federation. We decided it would be reasonable to have a set of laws that aren't so arbitrary. The authoritarian factional stuff on the other hand is still fairly widespread."

Liyar listened to the exchange quietly, tapping away at his PADD while he did so. He recalled Athlen discussing that earlier during one of his lab simulations, and while he found the concepts intriguing, would not endorse them himself. Then again, he often found he was at odds with most people both conservative and revolutionary when it came to his political beliefs. He couldn't really understand the lyrics of the songs, but apparently they were all about anarchy. He could see the irony now, but still, they were... what was the word... catching? "Is it catching?" he wondered out loud.

"Catchy," Athlen corrected absently.

The sounds of Killing in the Name blared out of Liyar's left earbud, which hung down his shoulder. "They use a high concentration of words that I do not understand," Liyar said. "For example, the man in the song tells people 'F-'"

Athlen was unable to contain his cackles, cutting Liyar off before he repeated it. He breathed between laughter. "Uh. Oh, yeah, well. Don't repeat that in polite company."

"Why? What does it mean?"

"Well, as Vulcans simply appear out of thin air as perfectly formed mini-Vulcans, you wouldn't know, would you?"

"You are suggesting it is a reference to -"

"Yep. But it's mostly just vulgarity, not a real reference. To Terrans, sex, body parts and functions are typically considered rude and much of their vulgarity stems from that, with the exception of religious references such as damn or hell."

"I am more confused now than I was when I first asked." Liyar Not-Frowned.

Lilou tilted her head to the side, her expression calm as a Rigelian meditation pond. "There's an excellent discussion on the variety of uses of the word by the noted historian George Carlin. You can access it through the LCARS," she added innocently.

Both Vulcanoids predictably curious, looked down at their PADDs at the same time as a few select broadcasts played out of it on speaker.

"The new Cheese Tits, and Corn Tits and Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits Onion Tits, Tater Tits, Yeah. Betcha can't eat just one. That's true I usually switch off. But I mean that word does not belong on the list. - Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. - When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not an agnostic. I'm an acrostic. The whole thing puzzles me. - 'On the fritz' is a useful expression only if you're talking about a home appliance. You wouldn't say, 'the space shuttle is on the fritz.' You'd never hear it in a hospital. 'Doctor, the heart-lung machine in on the fritz.'" Liyar blinked. "I believe the next trend in cosmetic surgery will be a procedure that leaves the person with a cryptic smile. Occasionally, of course, the surgeon's hand will slip and the patient will wind up with a baffled look."

That just about covered it for Liyar. "What aspect of history does this individual claim to study?" the Vulcan asked.

"Twentieth century Terran politics, governance, and semantics," Lilou murmured, her smile residing only in the glint of her eyes.

Athlen laughed. "There, as a diplomatic officer it is highly logical to research the veracity of frisbeetarianism as it relates to the current political climate of the Federation -" He was cut off as Liyar thrust the PADD back into his chest.

"You are engaging in humor," he determined, looking between them both.

"A little," the Rigelian hedged with a smile. "So, what are you doing here exactly?" he asked the engineer, tilting his head at her.

"That's the question, isn't it? What are any of us doing here? Is there some cosmic plan? Or are we really just bits of space flotsam that somehow evolved in various parts of the universe into the same general size and shape with the same basic mechanisms for communication?" Lilou smiled slightly. "More humor engagement..." she explained, tapping her fingers lightly on her PADD. "Last minute systems checks. I like to do them by hand, make sure that all the relay systems are communicating accurate information to Engineering." She looked between them, "And you were looking for punk rock acoustics?"

"Apparently," Athlen said with only a small measure of exasperation. It was said in his I work for an incredibly weird Vulcan voice.

"Why does this list have an entire musical category dedicated to screaming?" Liyar broke the silence, holding up the PADD. "Screamy." No. "Screamo," he corrected himself.

"I swear to the four, Liyar, if you get into screamo, I'm quitting."

"I don't even know what that is, and my mother is Terran." Lilou's ears twitched slightly as she considered the name. "Perhaps that was a particularly anxious time and tension was relieved by screaming in groups. Apparently that's something they find amusing. Screaming in groups." She shrugged. "So you're our new diplomacy officers?"

Liyar crossed that one off of his list and moved on, looking up to nod once. "Affirmative."

"Yes, though my official position on board is in the science department," Athlen said. He crawled up the ladder and into the small space, folding his legs lotus-style and sitting with his back against the wall. "This is cozy. So, I'm Athlen and that is Liyar. It's nice to meet you," he introduced them easily.

"And you," she agreed quietly, ducking her head again. Maintaining eye contact for as long as she had so far was too new to be anything but exhausting. "I'm Lilou," she added as an afterthought. "I guess you're excited, aren't you? To be headed off in search of new planets, new environments, maybe even new species. Societies." She rocked back on her heels nervously. "Societies that might like Rage Against the Machine. Where in the science department?"

"Ah, sociology," Athlen answered warmly. "So you're largely correct. Though Lieutenant Liyar would probably say he is incapable of excitement. What's your role on the ship?"

"Ensign Lilou Peers," Liyar placed her. "Chief engineer."

"Chief engineer -" Athlen started, and flushed green realizing he'd essentially monopolized a senior officer's time for no reason. He glared at Liyar, who obviously knew that beforehand and weakly added, "Awesome - and sorry for disrupting your... you know... Jefferies tubes." If the Rigelian noted her nervousness or lack of social comfort, he didn't seem to either notice or be bothered by it.

She blushed, lifting one shoulder in a mousy shrug. "No- no, it's no bother." She wasn't sure how to phrase how pleasant she'd found their strange, winding conversation without sounding insane. "I was nearly through here, anyway." She cleared her throat, "Well, I'll... ah..." She glanced between them again, gaze settling on Liyar. Spirits, but she envied that calm. Maybe she could learn it. "...see you around. Let me know if you need anything." She wet her lips and pointed up, "Follow that ladder there up through the panel and you'll get to a little storage bay. Empty right now. Good acoustics. If you still need them."

Athlen grinned again. "Great! We'll see you around, Ensign!" he called as he began climbing up the ladder.

Liyar offered her a nod. "Good day, Ensign Peers," the Vulcan said as if it were perfectly normal to be traipsing around the Jefferies tubes, before he too followed his friend up the ladder to where Lilou had suggested. Various snippets of their conversation wafted down through the metal junction tubes, though what they were saying sounded as though it were in another language.

Lilou nodded, watching them go. It had been a nice little palate cleanser of social interaction, but they had their own odd mission to perform and she had data to correlate. She swept her thumb across the screen of her PADD, activating the personnel sensors just in case. It was a good testing scenario... and there they were in her schematics. Two little ID markers huddled in a storage bay. She switched it off. At least if they got lost, they'd be easy to track down. Clipping her PADD to her belt, she straightened her shoulders and set off for Main Engineering.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

Ensign Lilou Peers
Chief Engineering Officer, SCE
USS Galileo

Crewman Athlen
Sociologist, SCC
USS Galileo

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