The dinner had turned into a party. At least it appeared so to Burgundy,
though he wasn't sure when it had happened. He was, however, sure about
the fact that he was standing up, as were the others. Well, he was
reasonably sure that he was standing up, anyway. The world kept moving
no matter how still he tried to be.
There was also music. Who turned the music on? he thought idly. Another
sound was there in the background, and he imagined it had been there for
some time. A monotonous droning that made him want to bash his own head
in.
He turned around to face his department head. "Would you please for a
minute just shut the fuck up?" he asked, as sweetly as he could muster.
"You've been yabbing on forever with that robot voice of yours!" He
looked around for a drink, only to realise that he was holding one and
he had just spillt some of it on his shirt. Damnit. He'd forgotten
something, too: "Sir," he added to Perdita, before taking a couple of
quick and unsteady steps away from them - and directly into someone
else. Someone rock solid, as it were.
Somewhere between the champagne and the generous amount of brandy that
had been poured into his coffee at dessert Harun found himself in a
state of inebriation he hadn't enjoyed since his father had first
introduced him to kanar. He rose, albeit slowly, from his chair and
paused as he felt the room roll beneath his feet as if he were aboard a
sea borne vessel rather than a star ship.
He closed his eyes, letting his natural awareness of his surroundings
compensate for the fact that his eyes and the fluids in his ear canals
were deceiving him. Once he felt steady he opened his eyes again and
began to pick his way around people and furniture. He was just about to
clear the table when he heard a noise just behind him. Turning he was
just in time to catch the mouthy science officer barreling into his
chest. Automatically, his arms closed around the man while he did
everything in his power to remain upright.
They ended up standing there, in a quiet embrace, for several seconds
while both tried their best to not tip over. It took a little time for
Burgundy to understand who was hugging him. He wanted to push the man
away, but that was likely to make them both fall down. "I... am not a
hugger..." he mumbled. The awkwardness was palpable; he was stiff as a
corpse, and had even forgotten about the drink he had held in his hand
(an empty glass now, its contents spread across the floor).
"And yet," Harun said in a warm, suggestive tone that had more to do
with his intoxicated state than his actual feelings, "you decided to
bury your face into my chest." The Cardassian dropped his arms now and
took a moderate step back before tilting his head down to look at
Burgundy with sardonic smile, "I am beginning to get mixed signals
Ensign."
Harun of course had no intention of making good his flirtations with the
bulbous Burgundy but the man was so delightfully easy to bait. That the
'Cardy' from earlier that evening made Burgundy fair game for whatever
he had coming to him in Harun's eyes.
The ensign wriggled himself loose in a bout of mild panic. He pointed a
finger at the Cardassian, then at himself, then back at the Cardassian
again. This to-and-fro continued arythmically while his mouth was trying
to make sounds. His brain hadn't yet figured out what kind of sounds to
make, leaving the mouth to move randomly in silence. "You!" he
exclaimed finally, his finger pointing at himself. "I!" came next, his
finger now waving about in the air. "I and signals! We don't mix!" the
words came out sluddered in exasperated bursts,
He turned to face the crowd, even though nobody was paying attention and
he could hardly be heard at all through the music. "You are all crazy!"
The statement felt definite. It was longer and more eloquent in his
sober imagination, but had roughly the same content. Deflated, he turned
back to Harun. Again his mouth moved long before he had words to say.
"Why are you here?!" he blurted out. "You," his movements could indicate
that Harun was in fact just a part of the wider 'you' of the room, or
indeed the ship. "Are inflicted on me!" Proud of his choice of words and
eager to end while, in his own mind, on top he grabbed Regina and
pushed her surprisingly gently towards Harun, as if to shield himself.
She had been hovering nearby, no doubt to see if the Cardassian needed
another refill. She objected to his manhandling, although maybe not to
its direction.
The Cardassian caught the woman, seeming to immediately sober at the
prospect of a face full of hair. Much like with Burgundy, Harun closed
his arms around her in an attempt not to topple over though it did
nothing for the liquor that now sloshed upon his tunic. Taking a quick
assessment to ensure Regina was alright his eyes once again fixed on
Burgundy and narrowed.
In Cardassian culture older members of the species were revered, seen as
sources of strength, wisdom and power. So for Burgundy to toss the much
older Regina at him as if she were some cheap Orion slave girl struck
Harun as deeply offensive. The look he gave the science officer was, to
put it bluntly, murderous. “Apologize,” he said in a dark and frigid
tone that held the unmistakable hint of command. “Now.”
Regina looked at the ensign expectantly, with a smug smile on her face.
Burgundy looked back at the two (four, to his eyes) of them. He snorted
defiantly. "Sorry," he muttered insincerely. His attention turned then
to finding the exit. He'd had quite enough of the current company. As
soon as he'd located the door, he walked unsteadily towards it. He
didn't mean to make it look like he was escaping, but he walked quickly.
It wasn't just that he wanted to get away from Harun, Regina and the
rest of them; his stomach was telling him other things wanted out too.
Years of living with two younger sisters had taught Harun to know an
insincere apology when he heard it and his expression darkened further.
He was about to pursue the abhorrent Ensign for the purpose of dragging
him back by the neck and making him apologize properly when a hand
touched his shoulder and he turned his head to see Regina looking at him
solemnly and shaking her head.
“Its not worth it dear,” she said and then returned her attention back
to watching Burgundy’s hasty exit. Harun knew that she was right of
course, strangling Burgundy in front of the senior staff would do Harun
no favors, but he decided that punishment would come eventually.
SD201901.28 - Captain's Table, Part Five: Just Desseerts. [Felix/Regina/Lester/Edie/Harun/Tonx/Burgundy/Perdita]
When conversation had just about resumed to the ordinary Perdita turned
to Burgundy. “You know the fate of Lone Star-D,” they said. It wasn’t
clear whether it was a question or a statement. “I saw your name on the
paper two years ago.”
Burgundy looked up. “Hm? Oh, yeah, I led a group in my science class when we helped our professor prove his theory. We built a pretty advanced simulation to test it all.” He left it there, fully focused on trying to get some dessert down. The chocolate was overwhelming.
“Well what was the theory, young man?” inquired Regina impatiently after a few moments.
“Oh! Sorry, Uhm. They crashed into a telescope,” the ensign offered. “I mean, it was a little more to it than that, but basically they… uh, crashed into a big damn telescope.”
“Expound,” said Perdita Animo. It was clear that the inebriated scientist needed some nudging along.
Burgundy cleared his throat. “It was a big mystery for a really long time. The ship was a Constitution refit on a survey mission back in 2321. They flew through a nebula and just bam! Exploded.” He took another couple of bites of the chocolate cake, but swallowed it down with a full glass of champagne, while holding up a finger to indicate he would continue soon.
“So, here’s the thing. The thing we proved, or at least proved to be very, very, very likely. The ship hit a big glass lens. Right at the edge of it. According to our calculations the ‘lens’ so to speak was about a kilometer in diameter, but only about half a foot thick. Coming at it at full impulse from an angle where only the side of the disk is visible… it’s pretty much invisible. It would show up for a couple of seconds and look like a glitch in the forward sensor array, just a thin vertical line. And if you hit the disk at that speed two things happen.”
Felix winced. He wasn’t the galaxy’s finest mathematician but the physics of torsion, shear and acceleration were no stranger to him. He hated this story.
“The first is that the disk cuts straight through your deflector shield. It almost doesn’t matter how powerful your shield is: the sheer physical force of the lens is just too hard and too narrowly focused. It slows you down like a hammer, which would save you if it weren’t for the second thing. The disk loses structural integrity and explodes. The tension inherent in the structure causes that explosion to spiral out along the sides of the disk, sending dust particles out like a saw blade at up to two per cent of light speed. It cuts through your ship like a hot knife through butter. When that hits your warp core… You know the rest.”
He finished his story with a shrug and tried to pour himself more champagne, but the bottle was empty again. de l’Isle wafted an instructive hand towards Edie to pull the open bottle, of red, a hint further from his reach.
“What they found afterwards was a dust pattern that didn’t match up with previous scans of the nebula. It makes more sense with this theory. As for that disk? We think it’s part of a telescope, probably left somewhere else by an ancient civilisation and drifted over millions of years. We’ll probably never know.”
“Chopped to death,” whimsied Monkfish, somewhere near Touvoy’s shoulderblade. “Obliterated. Quite literally.”
“Thank you for your contribution, Mister Burgundy,” Felix intoned grimly, while Lester developed a sudden and intimate fascination with one of his rear heels. Checking the faces of his primary staffers, he double-checked that the forcefield between his balcony and the Arboretum was absolutely, certainly intact. “Shall we take a break with coffee?”
Coffee and a reasonable amount of brandy replaced the dessert. Expectant eyes turned to the lithe blond at the head of the table.
Felix surveyed his bridge crew. Anticipations, expectations and antagonism had all laid themselves bare this evening. He commanded the room silently for a tick longer. His way to command was through unspoken authority: it was often through their manner, gait, speech or calm that the best captains, in his observance, took the space to claim that command.
And, anyway, it was one of his favourite stories.
“Computer. Display file de l’Isle, ell-ess-kay-twenty-three.”
Above the dinner table, as the waiting staff moved away, a three-dimensional representation of the Kappa Upsilon system manifested. It rotated alluringly, designed to present to, and then attract the attention of, the company. Tendrils representing traffic lanes, spacial aberrations, known elements and quantum stringing took different colours on the map.
“The year is 2368. Picard’s been at the tiller of the Enterprise for four years. Voyager’s just fucked off to the delta quadrant for a few years’ holiday and the USS Lone Star-K, under the command of Captain S’tep, sets course for the Mostade Cluster. It takes them 17 days, four hours and 51 minutes to reach the phenomenon, where it will study for covert fleet build-ups by the Romulans, the Breen, the Maquis – and the Cardassians.”
The see-through screen shimmered. The same lines appeared, magnified: varicose strands in the Milky Way’s infinite and confusing muscle. When Commander Animo had said there were 87 dimensions, how could that be? Where were those planes?
“Meanwhile, in 2370, NCC-28513-L turns out of spacedock into the hands of Captain Ursula A’nat’na. Wasn’t her first command; she’d led patrols across the frontiers of Typhon, Romulus, survived Wolf 359; every powerhouse of that era you can think of. Their first mission? To fix a node on the Argus Array. A’nat’na’s helmsman, charted an innocent enough course bisecting the eastern cluster of Dranten Prime, here in sector 771.” Knowing it by heart, Felix drew its waves with its finger. “And then, something extraordinary happened.”
Burgundy, who had already helped himself to a second brandy, snorted loudly. “‘Meanwhile in 2370’ is wrong,” he explained to a waiter who wasn’t listening. “2368 and 2370 are two different years.”
From the head of the table the Prepondrian received the shut the fuck up glare. Felix continued, otherwise unperturbed.
“The LS-K never filed a flight plan and was officially declared lost in 2369, assumed to have been destroyed by whichever aggressor it found at the other end. But the fate of a mid-range science vessel wasn’t much on A’nat’na’s mind as she took her spanking new Galaxy-class ship out for its maiden voyage. The helmsman, one Lieutenant Commander Wu, plotted the following course. I might have done the same myself, using the scanners available at the time. A course that drags the Ell through this minute cluster of baryon radiation – here.”
The captain’s audience adjusted along with the display. “Except it’s not a cluster of baryon radiation. It’s a dichromatic spacetime shear with a very precise causal calibration point.” In the bottom right hand corner a hysterical list of numbers processed rapidly.
The science chief was focused solely on that list, for the moment. Time was just one of the four most simplistic dimensions in its experience. ”The shear’s pivot point around its temporal axis appears to be centered around a radiation frequency common to Starfleet sensory and communication instruments,” they noted without emotion.
“Exactly. This near-impossible numerical catalyst is struck because an administrator at Starfleet Command failed to advance the Lone Star marker along the board. The transponder for the K and the L therefore give off exactly the same latent carrier wave. So, when Captain S’tep orders a level-three scan using an anti-baryon beam and Captain A’nat’na orders a level-three subspace pulse using a positive baryon wave to stabilise it, the two accidentally incubate a singularity within the shear.”
”Fascinating. That event would close the integral circumference of the axis. Time ceases to be in a normal manner; those ships are either looping through a repetitive pattern, frozen in place or a variation of the two. Forever.” Animo tilted their head, taking in the full imagery for the first time.
“Theoretically for ever.” Felix wasn’t often in the habit of correcting scientists. “Computer, provide live telemetry from grid nine-delta-four-beta.”
As sure as the dinner was long, two Starfleet vessels ignited the point and began to encircle one another.
“The two ships are examples of four types of temporal paradox simultaneously. Starfleet’s tried everything: we’ve sent in ships, appealed to twenty-ninth century temporal specialists, infiltrated both vessels. Even just asked the Klingons to blow it to shit in the late 2380s. Nothing has worked.”
“Do we know why?” came a query from the assembled company.
“Because neither captain is in the habit of listening. It’s a causal distortion that will simply never end due to its mathematical perfection and dimensional integrity. And it remains one of the great scientific mysteries of our time.”
-= [to be continued] =-
Burgundy looked up. “Hm? Oh, yeah, I led a group in my science class when we helped our professor prove his theory. We built a pretty advanced simulation to test it all.” He left it there, fully focused on trying to get some dessert down. The chocolate was overwhelming.
“Well what was the theory, young man?” inquired Regina impatiently after a few moments.
“Oh! Sorry, Uhm. They crashed into a telescope,” the ensign offered. “I mean, it was a little more to it than that, but basically they… uh, crashed into a big damn telescope.”
“Expound,” said Perdita Animo. It was clear that the inebriated scientist needed some nudging along.
Burgundy cleared his throat. “It was a big mystery for a really long time. The ship was a Constitution refit on a survey mission back in 2321. They flew through a nebula and just bam! Exploded.” He took another couple of bites of the chocolate cake, but swallowed it down with a full glass of champagne, while holding up a finger to indicate he would continue soon.
“So, here’s the thing. The thing we proved, or at least proved to be very, very, very likely. The ship hit a big glass lens. Right at the edge of it. According to our calculations the ‘lens’ so to speak was about a kilometer in diameter, but only about half a foot thick. Coming at it at full impulse from an angle where only the side of the disk is visible… it’s pretty much invisible. It would show up for a couple of seconds and look like a glitch in the forward sensor array, just a thin vertical line. And if you hit the disk at that speed two things happen.”
Felix winced. He wasn’t the galaxy’s finest mathematician but the physics of torsion, shear and acceleration were no stranger to him. He hated this story.
“The first is that the disk cuts straight through your deflector shield. It almost doesn’t matter how powerful your shield is: the sheer physical force of the lens is just too hard and too narrowly focused. It slows you down like a hammer, which would save you if it weren’t for the second thing. The disk loses structural integrity and explodes. The tension inherent in the structure causes that explosion to spiral out along the sides of the disk, sending dust particles out like a saw blade at up to two per cent of light speed. It cuts through your ship like a hot knife through butter. When that hits your warp core… You know the rest.”
He finished his story with a shrug and tried to pour himself more champagne, but the bottle was empty again. de l’Isle wafted an instructive hand towards Edie to pull the open bottle, of red, a hint further from his reach.
“What they found afterwards was a dust pattern that didn’t match up with previous scans of the nebula. It makes more sense with this theory. As for that disk? We think it’s part of a telescope, probably left somewhere else by an ancient civilisation and drifted over millions of years. We’ll probably never know.”
“Chopped to death,” whimsied Monkfish, somewhere near Touvoy’s shoulderblade. “Obliterated. Quite literally.”
“Thank you for your contribution, Mister Burgundy,” Felix intoned grimly, while Lester developed a sudden and intimate fascination with one of his rear heels. Checking the faces of his primary staffers, he double-checked that the forcefield between his balcony and the Arboretum was absolutely, certainly intact. “Shall we take a break with coffee?”
Coffee and a reasonable amount of brandy replaced the dessert. Expectant eyes turned to the lithe blond at the head of the table.
Felix surveyed his bridge crew. Anticipations, expectations and antagonism had all laid themselves bare this evening. He commanded the room silently for a tick longer. His way to command was through unspoken authority: it was often through their manner, gait, speech or calm that the best captains, in his observance, took the space to claim that command.
And, anyway, it was one of his favourite stories.
“Computer. Display file de l’Isle, ell-ess-kay-twenty-three.”
Above the dinner table, as the waiting staff moved away, a three-dimensional representation of the Kappa Upsilon system manifested. It rotated alluringly, designed to present to, and then attract the attention of, the company. Tendrils representing traffic lanes, spacial aberrations, known elements and quantum stringing took different colours on the map.
“The year is 2368. Picard’s been at the tiller of the Enterprise for four years. Voyager’s just fucked off to the delta quadrant for a few years’ holiday and the USS Lone Star-K, under the command of Captain S’tep, sets course for the Mostade Cluster. It takes them 17 days, four hours and 51 minutes to reach the phenomenon, where it will study for covert fleet build-ups by the Romulans, the Breen, the Maquis – and the Cardassians.”
The see-through screen shimmered. The same lines appeared, magnified: varicose strands in the Milky Way’s infinite and confusing muscle. When Commander Animo had said there were 87 dimensions, how could that be? Where were those planes?
“Meanwhile, in 2370, NCC-28513-L turns out of spacedock into the hands of Captain Ursula A’nat’na. Wasn’t her first command; she’d led patrols across the frontiers of Typhon, Romulus, survived Wolf 359; every powerhouse of that era you can think of. Their first mission? To fix a node on the Argus Array. A’nat’na’s helmsman, charted an innocent enough course bisecting the eastern cluster of Dranten Prime, here in sector 771.” Knowing it by heart, Felix drew its waves with its finger. “And then, something extraordinary happened.”
Burgundy, who had already helped himself to a second brandy, snorted loudly. “‘Meanwhile in 2370’ is wrong,” he explained to a waiter who wasn’t listening. “2368 and 2370 are two different years.”
From the head of the table the Prepondrian received the shut the fuck up glare. Felix continued, otherwise unperturbed.
“The LS-K never filed a flight plan and was officially declared lost in 2369, assumed to have been destroyed by whichever aggressor it found at the other end. But the fate of a mid-range science vessel wasn’t much on A’nat’na’s mind as she took her spanking new Galaxy-class ship out for its maiden voyage. The helmsman, one Lieutenant Commander Wu, plotted the following course. I might have done the same myself, using the scanners available at the time. A course that drags the Ell through this minute cluster of baryon radiation – here.”
The captain’s audience adjusted along with the display. “Except it’s not a cluster of baryon radiation. It’s a dichromatic spacetime shear with a very precise causal calibration point.” In the bottom right hand corner a hysterical list of numbers processed rapidly.
The science chief was focused solely on that list, for the moment. Time was just one of the four most simplistic dimensions in its experience. ”The shear’s pivot point around its temporal axis appears to be centered around a radiation frequency common to Starfleet sensory and communication instruments,” they noted without emotion.
“Exactly. This near-impossible numerical catalyst is struck because an administrator at Starfleet Command failed to advance the Lone Star marker along the board. The transponder for the K and the L therefore give off exactly the same latent carrier wave. So, when Captain S’tep orders a level-three scan using an anti-baryon beam and Captain A’nat’na orders a level-three subspace pulse using a positive baryon wave to stabilise it, the two accidentally incubate a singularity within the shear.”
”Fascinating. That event would close the integral circumference of the axis. Time ceases to be in a normal manner; those ships are either looping through a repetitive pattern, frozen in place or a variation of the two. Forever.” Animo tilted their head, taking in the full imagery for the first time.
“Theoretically for ever.” Felix wasn’t often in the habit of correcting scientists. “Computer, provide live telemetry from grid nine-delta-four-beta.”
As sure as the dinner was long, two Starfleet vessels ignited the point and began to encircle one another.
“The two ships are examples of four types of temporal paradox simultaneously. Starfleet’s tried everything: we’ve sent in ships, appealed to twenty-ninth century temporal specialists, infiltrated both vessels. Even just asked the Klingons to blow it to shit in the late 2380s. Nothing has worked.”
“Do we know why?” came a query from the assembled company.
“Because neither captain is in the habit of listening. It’s a causal distortion that will simply never end due to its mathematical perfection and dimensional integrity. And it remains one of the great scientific mysteries of our time.”
-= [to be continued] =-
SD201901.28 - Captain's Table, Part Four: In the Main. [Felix/Regina/Lester/Edie/Harun/Tonx/Burgundy]
The Cardassian eyed the canine a moment and the two shared eye contact
for a brief moment before the dog lowered its muzzle in acquiesce of the
more dominant creature. Harun, satisfied, began his story.
Animo and Lester maintained a look thereafter and the dog harrumphed quietly. What, if anything, was shared between them in that moment remained unsaid.
"I read the official report of what happened to the Lone Star-F, that a malfunction in its navigational array led it to careen off course into a plasma storm where it was reportedly torn apart." Harun's tone was light and conversational, holding an excellent cadence for storytelling as he helped himself to a bit more champagne, "But I heard from a friend of my father's that it wasn't the whole story. In fact, it is a story of betrayal, jealousy, and a pair of surgically altered Cardassian Voles."
Regina, seeing that the Cardassian couldn’t quite reach the bottle, picked it up and poured its contents into his glass. Harun nodded his thanks and continued, "It all started on Cameron Station when a young Petty Officer decided to pick up a gift for his lady love. He approached a merchant who offered him a pair of mated Risian ferrets; little did the Ensign know that they were surgically altered Cardassian voles. "
Harun paused to take a sip of his drink, his eyes lingering on the glass a moment and admiring the bubbles that rose to the surface of the golden liquid before he returned his attention back to his audience. "Now the lady in question was not actually in love with the smitten young man. You see he worked in engineering and she discovered with a little smile here, a small flirtation there, he would do her repairs faster. To my knowledge she was in a relationship with the ship's executive officer."
"Well," Harun paused a moment for dramatic effect, "when the Petty Officer had the voles delivered to the woman's quarters as a gift her lover was the one who answered the door. Deciding to teach the Petty Officer a lesson he released the voles into the air ducts." At this Harun shrugged a bit letting his gaze drift down the table to eventually land on Regina who was seated next to him, "I suppose he thought they would die, cause an odor and the Petty Officer would be the one to end up doing the repairs. Rather cruel really but a solid plan."
"However, the voles did what Cardassian voles do best and after a month or so the systems on the ship began to malfunction. Cut wires and destroyed components led the crew to suspect a saboteur." Harun smiled a little bit as if he enjoyed the idea of everybody turning on each other aboard a ship. "Yet, with no definitive evidence and more systems beginning to fail the crew began to blame each other."
"Eventually, the voles got into the navigational array and the ship careened off course. All the while the crew accusing each other of treachery, a paranoia that only escalated when a shuttle went missing.” He now raised his glass as if in salute, “And so Lone Star-F drifted into the storm and was never heard from again. Though, there is rumor that it was found and taken apart for scrap by an enterprising group of Ferengi."
Edie could feel her blood pressure rise at the thought of such damage being done to her own beautiful Lonie. She had heard horror stories over the years from many of her colleagues in Starfleet, about the chaos created from these creatures. “That poor starship…” The wires, the eaten conduits, the bits of isolinear chips – it all came together in one convoluted thought which led to a single tear being shed. The CEO quickly dabbed it away with the provided cloth napkins each guest had received with their table setting.
“And what of this shuttle?” She composed herself before looking up at Harun once more, this time pickle-less.
“Oh, that,” Harun was now draped back into his seat looking a bit more relaxed than he had been when he’d first come into the galley. He knocked back the rest of his glass of champagne and smiled at Edie, “There was an agent of the Obsidian Order on the ship. She recognized exactly what was doing the damage and decided to abandon ship before she was compromised or killed.”
Around the table people were nodding, smiling and chuckling appreciatively at the Cardassian. They were all interrupted by a string of curses mumbled a little too loudly and slurrily. “Where’d it go?” said Burgundy to the table, and to Lester. Just as the Prepondrian had found himself drunk enough to regain his appetite his food has disappeared. He looked under the table, for reasons that weren’t entirely clear even to himself.
When his head came back to an upright position his plate had been replaced with a new one. The dessert had arrived. It was a cake, essentially made of seven layers of different chocolates. The coating was made from a type of cocoa that had been crossed with a Risian bean, gaining extraordinary culinary qualities. It smelled sweet, full, a little smokey, carrying a promise of aphrodisiac.
Burgundy looked at it in horror. He just wanted something simple and plain.
“That agent is reputed to be Gul Beza, who became chief administrator to Enabran Tain,” Felix said, primarily to Tonx. Around them the senior staff had started to slither. They’d once laughed about it as a conditioning measure: he had to know that, if incapacitated in any way, the siren could sound and the ship could respond to any order.
Someone, likely Regina, had refilled Harun’s glass and he blinked at it stupidly as if the champagne had replicated by magic. He sipped at it and pondered the mystery of regenerating alcohol. It was in this revery of magically appearing champagne that the Cardassian actually noticed the arrival of dessert. Not one for sweets his nose wrinkled a bit at the overwhelming smell of sugar.
Yet, somehow, a piece of the cake appeared on a plate in front of him and not wanting to be rude he ate some of it. The cake was, as the Cardassian had already surmised, unbearably sweet but yet he found himself eating more of it. Surely it cannot be this awful, he thought taking another bite and before he knew it he found himself pondering the nuances of how awful the cake was.
Felix was considered an aphrodisiac in his own right by four separate cultures. He spooned his way into the mixture happily. His eyes looked to the right at Tonx, probably for a second too long. Her three months’ penance were nearly up. And they were due to be on tour for far longer than that.
And, adding grist to his own mill, Omega Fleet command training manuals were being written up on the bridge the next morning and he’d be damned if an inspection of the Arboretum wasn’t more important. The captain purred under his breath, pleased to have found a way to abuse his privilege.
Tonx met Felix’s gaze, and smirked ever so slightly, “Gul Beza? Had quite the reputation from what intelligence reports I’ve read, and had quite the career if she became chief admin to Tain.” She glanced briefly towards Harun before looking at the chocolate cake before her. The dessert was a work of art in her mind, though she had a weakness for chocolate second only to her weakness for... well, extracurricular activities. Since said activities had been sidelined by her ‘house arrest,’ she had to settle for the cake, but what a cake it was. Taking a bite of the overly decadent desert, she closed her eyes as she savoured the taste. “Oh my word. Whoever picked the desert, I love you.”
“Who’s a good boy,” Felix whispered across the table to Lester, missing Tonx’s declaration.
-= [to be continued] =-
Animo and Lester maintained a look thereafter and the dog harrumphed quietly. What, if anything, was shared between them in that moment remained unsaid.
"I read the official report of what happened to the Lone Star-F, that a malfunction in its navigational array led it to careen off course into a plasma storm where it was reportedly torn apart." Harun's tone was light and conversational, holding an excellent cadence for storytelling as he helped himself to a bit more champagne, "But I heard from a friend of my father's that it wasn't the whole story. In fact, it is a story of betrayal, jealousy, and a pair of surgically altered Cardassian Voles."
Regina, seeing that the Cardassian couldn’t quite reach the bottle, picked it up and poured its contents into his glass. Harun nodded his thanks and continued, "It all started on Cameron Station when a young Petty Officer decided to pick up a gift for his lady love. He approached a merchant who offered him a pair of mated Risian ferrets; little did the Ensign know that they were surgically altered Cardassian voles. "
Harun paused to take a sip of his drink, his eyes lingering on the glass a moment and admiring the bubbles that rose to the surface of the golden liquid before he returned his attention back to his audience. "Now the lady in question was not actually in love with the smitten young man. You see he worked in engineering and she discovered with a little smile here, a small flirtation there, he would do her repairs faster. To my knowledge she was in a relationship with the ship's executive officer."
"Well," Harun paused a moment for dramatic effect, "when the Petty Officer had the voles delivered to the woman's quarters as a gift her lover was the one who answered the door. Deciding to teach the Petty Officer a lesson he released the voles into the air ducts." At this Harun shrugged a bit letting his gaze drift down the table to eventually land on Regina who was seated next to him, "I suppose he thought they would die, cause an odor and the Petty Officer would be the one to end up doing the repairs. Rather cruel really but a solid plan."
"However, the voles did what Cardassian voles do best and after a month or so the systems on the ship began to malfunction. Cut wires and destroyed components led the crew to suspect a saboteur." Harun smiled a little bit as if he enjoyed the idea of everybody turning on each other aboard a ship. "Yet, with no definitive evidence and more systems beginning to fail the crew began to blame each other."
"Eventually, the voles got into the navigational array and the ship careened off course. All the while the crew accusing each other of treachery, a paranoia that only escalated when a shuttle went missing.” He now raised his glass as if in salute, “And so Lone Star-F drifted into the storm and was never heard from again. Though, there is rumor that it was found and taken apart for scrap by an enterprising group of Ferengi."
Edie could feel her blood pressure rise at the thought of such damage being done to her own beautiful Lonie. She had heard horror stories over the years from many of her colleagues in Starfleet, about the chaos created from these creatures. “That poor starship…” The wires, the eaten conduits, the bits of isolinear chips – it all came together in one convoluted thought which led to a single tear being shed. The CEO quickly dabbed it away with the provided cloth napkins each guest had received with their table setting.
“And what of this shuttle?” She composed herself before looking up at Harun once more, this time pickle-less.
“Oh, that,” Harun was now draped back into his seat looking a bit more relaxed than he had been when he’d first come into the galley. He knocked back the rest of his glass of champagne and smiled at Edie, “There was an agent of the Obsidian Order on the ship. She recognized exactly what was doing the damage and decided to abandon ship before she was compromised or killed.”
Around the table people were nodding, smiling and chuckling appreciatively at the Cardassian. They were all interrupted by a string of curses mumbled a little too loudly and slurrily. “Where’d it go?” said Burgundy to the table, and to Lester. Just as the Prepondrian had found himself drunk enough to regain his appetite his food has disappeared. He looked under the table, for reasons that weren’t entirely clear even to himself.
When his head came back to an upright position his plate had been replaced with a new one. The dessert had arrived. It was a cake, essentially made of seven layers of different chocolates. The coating was made from a type of cocoa that had been crossed with a Risian bean, gaining extraordinary culinary qualities. It smelled sweet, full, a little smokey, carrying a promise of aphrodisiac.
Burgundy looked at it in horror. He just wanted something simple and plain.
“That agent is reputed to be Gul Beza, who became chief administrator to Enabran Tain,” Felix said, primarily to Tonx. Around them the senior staff had started to slither. They’d once laughed about it as a conditioning measure: he had to know that, if incapacitated in any way, the siren could sound and the ship could respond to any order.
Someone, likely Regina, had refilled Harun’s glass and he blinked at it stupidly as if the champagne had replicated by magic. He sipped at it and pondered the mystery of regenerating alcohol. It was in this revery of magically appearing champagne that the Cardassian actually noticed the arrival of dessert. Not one for sweets his nose wrinkled a bit at the overwhelming smell of sugar.
Yet, somehow, a piece of the cake appeared on a plate in front of him and not wanting to be rude he ate some of it. The cake was, as the Cardassian had already surmised, unbearably sweet but yet he found himself eating more of it. Surely it cannot be this awful, he thought taking another bite and before he knew it he found himself pondering the nuances of how awful the cake was.
Felix was considered an aphrodisiac in his own right by four separate cultures. He spooned his way into the mixture happily. His eyes looked to the right at Tonx, probably for a second too long. Her three months’ penance were nearly up. And they were due to be on tour for far longer than that.
And, adding grist to his own mill, Omega Fleet command training manuals were being written up on the bridge the next morning and he’d be damned if an inspection of the Arboretum wasn’t more important. The captain purred under his breath, pleased to have found a way to abuse his privilege.
Tonx met Felix’s gaze, and smirked ever so slightly, “Gul Beza? Had quite the reputation from what intelligence reports I’ve read, and had quite the career if she became chief admin to Tain.” She glanced briefly towards Harun before looking at the chocolate cake before her. The dessert was a work of art in her mind, though she had a weakness for chocolate second only to her weakness for... well, extracurricular activities. Since said activities had been sidelined by her ‘house arrest,’ she had to settle for the cake, but what a cake it was. Taking a bite of the overly decadent desert, she closed her eyes as she savoured the taste. “Oh my word. Whoever picked the desert, I love you.”
“Who’s a good boy,” Felix whispered across the table to Lester, missing Tonx’s declaration.
-= [to be continued] =-
SD201901.28 - Captain's Table, Part Three: Fishy Fables. [Felix/Regina/Lester/Edie/Harun/Tonx/Burgundy]
Tonx listened to Perdita as she rotated her champagne flute. Every so
often she'd look around the table to observe her fellow crew members.
She was always observing. It was a trait she couldn't just turn off,
much to the annoyance of some of those who knew her. The dynamics
between their newest crew member and the ensign were curious and
somewhat amusing. She realized Animo had finished their story, and the
Chief Security Officer flashed an amused smirk, "While Lt. Commander
Animo might have one of the more unusual stories of a previous Lone
Star's demise, I might know the tale of one of the most amusing
reasons."
Pausing to take a long draw of her champagne, McKenna set her glass down and looked around the table before looking to Felix, "The year was 2319, if I recall correctly, and if you read the official reports, the ship was on a diplomatic mission. If you dig a bit deeper and have the proper clearance, you would learn that all was not as it seemed.
"The relationship between the Federation and the Klingon Empire was anything but peaceful. The official report shows our illustrious crew was off to try and mediate a conflict around resources between a Klingon outpost and one of our Federation colonies in territory that was. . . well, disputed. As the ship neared the location of the colony and the outpost, it received a distress signal from the Klingon outpost. The official report says there was an outbreak of a virulent strain of some type of flu. The report is partly true," Tonx paused to take another sip of her champagne.
Her smirk grew, "The flu, though, jumped species from tribbles to Klingons. Now. . .the cute, fury pests are not known for their love of Klingons, and if you find the unofficial report, you'd find that some of the Federation colonists were. . .rat bastards, really, and snuck into the outpost so they could drop off about 20 or 30 of the fur balls. They apparently left their colony with two, and that is how fast the things multiplied.
"Now it was bad enough our colonists infected the outpost with tribbles, but the tribbles were more than a typical plague on the world. They carried an odd strain of flu that jumped species. The strain of flu was bad enough that it was deadly to the Klingons. They hadn't gotten vaccinated against different flu strains," Tonx explained. "When the Lone Star-C arrived, they found the outpost had been decimated. They found two survivors who were close to death, and beamed them aboard. One of them wouldn't let go of a bag. . .it contained their father's bat'leth or some otherwise important weapon. The bag also contained a couple of tribbles.
"This was the beginning of the downfall of the Lone Star-C," Tonx let her smirk turn to a grin as she looked to Edie. "These rat bastards can breed faster than Edie can run a level 3 diagnostic, and somehow. . .don't ask me how, some of the critters managed to get into the manifolds and antimatter chamber. They set off a chain reaction the engineers could not stop, and the Lone Star-C went off like a roman candle," she started to wrap up her story. "Now, we had two Klingons aboard when this happened, which created a massive headache for the Federation, never mind the paperwork. Though the two Klingons were celebrated for their bravery... in facing death by tribble." As she finished her story, servers came in carrying what looked to be the fish course of their five course meal. Tonx licked her lips and smirked, "Mmm, time to eat!"
“Edie,” Felix suggested, hoping to lighten the mood. “You’ve heard most of the ballads of Lone Stars past. Is there a tale you’d like to share?”
Edith cleared her throat, slightly caught off guard by the Captain’s gentle verbal prod. She welcomed the distraction from the whirlwind of her own mind, if only for a brief time.
“Oh yes… Captain.” She gave Felix a wicked grin before taking a large gulp of champagne.
“Ladies, gentlemen... gelatinous beings.” Edie took a moment to make brief but awkward eye contact with each of the guests. “What I am about to reveal to you is the long lost story of the Lone Star-J. It must never be repeated. In fact. This conversation never happened in the first place.” She looked around once more, making sure to receive some sign of agreeance from each of the participants. A large holographic image of an ugly Oberth-class vessel appeared above the dining table.
“The year the Lone Star-J went missing was 2367. Over fifty-two years ago now. I was a third year cadet at the Academy. The Federation had received a devastating blow from the Borg at Wolf-359. The Klingon Empire had entered a state of civil war. Even with all that going on, I still remember hearing the rumours that plagued the hallways of the Academy about its disappearance. Some said the ship had been lost to the Borg, others suggested that there had been a fatal warp core breach in some remote sector. The official reports, however, state that the ship is simply missing in action.”
Edie had gone against her promise and successfully hacked through the classified protections that hid the true events behind the Lone Star-J’s disappearance. What she had found was both perplexing and disturbing.
“The Lone Star-J never existed.” She gave pause for a moment, to allow her peers to react to the blatant and cryptic statement.
The captain, who had heard this one before, allowed his eyes to gleam and his lip to curl, but gave nothing else away. Others in the crowd reacted with suspicion, surprise or – in Regina’s case – glee.
“You see. People remember there being a Lone Star-J. On paper, there are reports and crew logs from apparent members of the Lone Star-J, but in actuality the fictitious ship and crew were all part of some Federation wide social-black-psi-ops program. It never actually existed. It was an elaborate ruse which has fooled all of Starfleet to date. Until now that is. There are apparently several other vessels and events that never took place either but I dare not get into those. I may already be marked for death by exposing this.” Edie’s eyes shifted across the room. She had been ruthless in her attempts to make her hack untraceable and could only hope her efforts were not in vain.
“Seventy years old and my undoing may be due to a dinner party.” Her facial expression was rather serious but only for a brief moment. “There’s worse ways to go I suppose.”
A few of them chuckled. “Life hasn’t caught up with you yet, Edith Freelove, and experience tells me that it won’t today, either. Who was the captain of that fated vessel?” Felix asked.
“Captain BJ Cobbledick. Not a very convincing name, is it?” Edie stated this rather flatly and then turned her attention to a lonely dill-pickle on her plate. She picked it up with vigour and took a loud bite off of the tip. As she did this, her eyes made contact with Harun and she gave him a playful wink before chewing, enjoying and savouring the crunch of her pickle.
Harun watched with a sort of morbid fascination as Edie bit into the pickle. To Edie’s credit Harun had to admire the technique although he personally could have done without the biting. He merely favored her with a raising of both his eyebrow ridges in a silent question he wasn’t certain if he wanted answered.
Burgundy chuckled and poured himself some more champagne, from a new bottle as he’d already emptied one. “Good story, at least,” he mumbled. He didn’t believe it for a second, of course. The old lady was clearly a bit off the rails.
Felix had ripped through his plate – seared tuna on a bed of alpha quadrant sea foliage, something dessicated and a pleasing but not perfect foam sauce – rapidly during his engineer’s story. His senior staff, while incomplete at this gathering, was coming together. No doubt the non-human members of his top team might struggle with enforced society, but the others would know the importance of cohesion and familiarity when the chips were down.
The plates were cleared and the bubbles switched out for a choice of delights from the wine cellar. In one corner Lester, who had been hitherto unnoticeable, stirred slowly in Felix’s old hammock. The smell of its accompaniment, a goulash that had been cooked over several days, began to fill the dining room of the apartment. The captain’s able-bodied but aged terrier jumped calculatedly, before strolling demurely toward the table.
“Petty Officer third class Lester on deck!” giggled Regina Monkfish into Harun Touvoy’s ear. The availability of champagne had a tendency to make the Chief of the Boat’s abnormal defensive system fall by the wayside.
It was impossible for Harun not to notice the canine with Regina practically shouting it into his ear. The Cardassian tilted his head away from the Chief’s lips with a slight hooding of his eyes while a grimace touched his lips. “Lester?” he inquired at a more reasonable tone.
Lester, quite apart from this, took his place next to Ensign Burgundy, where a place setting had been provided. The dog glanced once at the Prepondrian before ignoring him and turning to the source of his name. Around them, the bustle began and the new course laid out as the helmsman took over the story-telling.
-= [to be continued] =-
Pausing to take a long draw of her champagne, McKenna set her glass down and looked around the table before looking to Felix, "The year was 2319, if I recall correctly, and if you read the official reports, the ship was on a diplomatic mission. If you dig a bit deeper and have the proper clearance, you would learn that all was not as it seemed.
"The relationship between the Federation and the Klingon Empire was anything but peaceful. The official report shows our illustrious crew was off to try and mediate a conflict around resources between a Klingon outpost and one of our Federation colonies in territory that was. . . well, disputed. As the ship neared the location of the colony and the outpost, it received a distress signal from the Klingon outpost. The official report says there was an outbreak of a virulent strain of some type of flu. The report is partly true," Tonx paused to take another sip of her champagne.
Her smirk grew, "The flu, though, jumped species from tribbles to Klingons. Now. . .the cute, fury pests are not known for their love of Klingons, and if you find the unofficial report, you'd find that some of the Federation colonists were. . .rat bastards, really, and snuck into the outpost so they could drop off about 20 or 30 of the fur balls. They apparently left their colony with two, and that is how fast the things multiplied.
"Now it was bad enough our colonists infected the outpost with tribbles, but the tribbles were more than a typical plague on the world. They carried an odd strain of flu that jumped species. The strain of flu was bad enough that it was deadly to the Klingons. They hadn't gotten vaccinated against different flu strains," Tonx explained. "When the Lone Star-C arrived, they found the outpost had been decimated. They found two survivors who were close to death, and beamed them aboard. One of them wouldn't let go of a bag. . .it contained their father's bat'leth or some otherwise important weapon. The bag also contained a couple of tribbles.
"This was the beginning of the downfall of the Lone Star-C," Tonx let her smirk turn to a grin as she looked to Edie. "These rat bastards can breed faster than Edie can run a level 3 diagnostic, and somehow. . .don't ask me how, some of the critters managed to get into the manifolds and antimatter chamber. They set off a chain reaction the engineers could not stop, and the Lone Star-C went off like a roman candle," she started to wrap up her story. "Now, we had two Klingons aboard when this happened, which created a massive headache for the Federation, never mind the paperwork. Though the two Klingons were celebrated for their bravery... in facing death by tribble." As she finished her story, servers came in carrying what looked to be the fish course of their five course meal. Tonx licked her lips and smirked, "Mmm, time to eat!"
“Edie,” Felix suggested, hoping to lighten the mood. “You’ve heard most of the ballads of Lone Stars past. Is there a tale you’d like to share?”
Edith cleared her throat, slightly caught off guard by the Captain’s gentle verbal prod. She welcomed the distraction from the whirlwind of her own mind, if only for a brief time.
“Oh yes… Captain.” She gave Felix a wicked grin before taking a large gulp of champagne.
“Ladies, gentlemen... gelatinous beings.” Edie took a moment to make brief but awkward eye contact with each of the guests. “What I am about to reveal to you is the long lost story of the Lone Star-J. It must never be repeated. In fact. This conversation never happened in the first place.” She looked around once more, making sure to receive some sign of agreeance from each of the participants. A large holographic image of an ugly Oberth-class vessel appeared above the dining table.
“The year the Lone Star-J went missing was 2367. Over fifty-two years ago now. I was a third year cadet at the Academy. The Federation had received a devastating blow from the Borg at Wolf-359. The Klingon Empire had entered a state of civil war. Even with all that going on, I still remember hearing the rumours that plagued the hallways of the Academy about its disappearance. Some said the ship had been lost to the Borg, others suggested that there had been a fatal warp core breach in some remote sector. The official reports, however, state that the ship is simply missing in action.”
Edie had gone against her promise and successfully hacked through the classified protections that hid the true events behind the Lone Star-J’s disappearance. What she had found was both perplexing and disturbing.
“The Lone Star-J never existed.” She gave pause for a moment, to allow her peers to react to the blatant and cryptic statement.
The captain, who had heard this one before, allowed his eyes to gleam and his lip to curl, but gave nothing else away. Others in the crowd reacted with suspicion, surprise or – in Regina’s case – glee.
“You see. People remember there being a Lone Star-J. On paper, there are reports and crew logs from apparent members of the Lone Star-J, but in actuality the fictitious ship and crew were all part of some Federation wide social-black-psi-ops program. It never actually existed. It was an elaborate ruse which has fooled all of Starfleet to date. Until now that is. There are apparently several other vessels and events that never took place either but I dare not get into those. I may already be marked for death by exposing this.” Edie’s eyes shifted across the room. She had been ruthless in her attempts to make her hack untraceable and could only hope her efforts were not in vain.
“Seventy years old and my undoing may be due to a dinner party.” Her facial expression was rather serious but only for a brief moment. “There’s worse ways to go I suppose.”
A few of them chuckled. “Life hasn’t caught up with you yet, Edith Freelove, and experience tells me that it won’t today, either. Who was the captain of that fated vessel?” Felix asked.
“Captain BJ Cobbledick. Not a very convincing name, is it?” Edie stated this rather flatly and then turned her attention to a lonely dill-pickle on her plate. She picked it up with vigour and took a loud bite off of the tip. As she did this, her eyes made contact with Harun and she gave him a playful wink before chewing, enjoying and savouring the crunch of her pickle.
Harun watched with a sort of morbid fascination as Edie bit into the pickle. To Edie’s credit Harun had to admire the technique although he personally could have done without the biting. He merely favored her with a raising of both his eyebrow ridges in a silent question he wasn’t certain if he wanted answered.
Burgundy chuckled and poured himself some more champagne, from a new bottle as he’d already emptied one. “Good story, at least,” he mumbled. He didn’t believe it for a second, of course. The old lady was clearly a bit off the rails.
Felix had ripped through his plate – seared tuna on a bed of alpha quadrant sea foliage, something dessicated and a pleasing but not perfect foam sauce – rapidly during his engineer’s story. His senior staff, while incomplete at this gathering, was coming together. No doubt the non-human members of his top team might struggle with enforced society, but the others would know the importance of cohesion and familiarity when the chips were down.
The plates were cleared and the bubbles switched out for a choice of delights from the wine cellar. In one corner Lester, who had been hitherto unnoticeable, stirred slowly in Felix’s old hammock. The smell of its accompaniment, a goulash that had been cooked over several days, began to fill the dining room of the apartment. The captain’s able-bodied but aged terrier jumped calculatedly, before strolling demurely toward the table.
“Petty Officer third class Lester on deck!” giggled Regina Monkfish into Harun Touvoy’s ear. The availability of champagne had a tendency to make the Chief of the Boat’s abnormal defensive system fall by the wayside.
It was impossible for Harun not to notice the canine with Regina practically shouting it into his ear. The Cardassian tilted his head away from the Chief’s lips with a slight hooding of his eyes while a grimace touched his lips. “Lester?” he inquired at a more reasonable tone.
Lester, quite apart from this, took his place next to Ensign Burgundy, where a place setting had been provided. The dog glanced once at the Prepondrian before ignoring him and turning to the source of his name. Around them, the bustle began and the new course laid out as the helmsman took over the story-telling.
-= [to be continued] =-
SD201901.28 - Captain's Table, Part Two: For Starters. [Felix/Regina/Lester/Edie/Harun/Tonx/Burgundy/Perdita]
-= Felix’s Quarters, USS Lone Star =-
The captain looked at the assembled company, now seated and engaging with their starter: a selection of charcuterie from across the quadrant with freshly-baked breads, home-made chutneys and a paired Bajoran ice wine. While Monkfish chewed his ear off about alternative theories regarding the demise of the Lone Star-A, he glanced down the table and winked at Edie who, as the next most senior officer, sat opposite him at the long end. That would’ve been Tonx’s seat if she hadn’t screwed up to the extent of demotion.
Burgundy noticed that the avatar of his department head wasn't eating at all. The hologram emitters in the ship could handle replication and de-materialisation the same way the emitters in old holodecks could; if Perdita would eat anything it would cease to be normal matter and turn into photons, just as most of the avatar was only photons until it was about to interact physically with its surroundings. The technology was quite frankly a marvel, but so old and tested by now that nobody thought about it. As for why the science chief wasn't eating? Probably because they didn't understand the point of it, thought Burgundy.
As the commotion settled down the synthetic voice of the science chief was heard over the crowd. "Have I told you how truly sorry I am about the Lone Star-O, Captain?" it said, flat but loud enough to carry through the room. The avatar was seated a few feet from the wall where Felix had placed all the models of earlier Lone Star incarnations. They were transfixed; their non-blinking gaze falling upon the Akira class model whose real counterpart was lost in 2400, almost to the day 19 years earlier. "It still haunts me." Despite the unnatural character of their voice a deep sense of loss and regret came through.
Trust Perdita to come up with a tale of doom, Felix thought, well aware the gelatinous being was liable to be able to read his inner mind. That said – or, rather, thought – it was unusual to find Animo in reflective mode. “Her end was ignominious, even for a Lone Star.”
“Before Thalev,” Regina uttered to Harun at her side. “A most unscrupulous man. A psychologist. A lieutenant. And, I believe, a hairdresser.” She whipped an antibacterial cloth from about her person and wiped fastidiously around her place setting. “I forget the tale of the O, Commander.”
Animo was quiet long enough for everyone to start wondering if they were going to divulge the story or not. "The Lone Star was fleeing a battle when their sensors picked up an irregular singularity that was about to form. In an attempt to shake their pursuers they decided to slingshot around it, and tried to fire quantum torpedoes just around the event horizon hoping that the enemy sensors wouldn't see them coming. The singularity interacted with the forces at play near it, warped out of shape and exploded in 87 dimensions."
The lieutenant commander turned to eye everyone around the table, unblinking and slowly. There was more to the story, of course. Everyone recognised that an event like that would leave no survivors, yet the scientist wasn't in the habit of peddling stories as fact. So how did they know?
Regina was about to speak up – maybe to ask just that , or maybe to hit on Harun – but was interrupted as Perdita Animo continued.
"I was the reason for that singularity. It was a ceremony among my peers, in which I was supposed to transcend to higher planes. There was no way for me to know that an event in the minor four dimensions would so interfere; they are usually as invisible to us as bacteria are to you." For the first time since the food was served the hologram paid it some attention, poking and prodding it absentmindedly with a fork. "As it so happened I did not ascend. Instead I was transposed into a most rudimentary existence. Barely a fragment of what was once me remains; my physical shape in this plane was hastily thrown together from organic debris around my point of entry, as I quickly lost functions my consciousness has always taken for granted."
Felix nodded silently. He had promised Animo long before that he would not divulge their origin story without their permission.
A moment passed as that sunk in, but then Burgundy couldn't hold his curiosity. "Wait a minute," he said, "Are you saying you're composed of the bodily remains of former Lone Star crew?"
The avatar turned to face him, expressionless as always. "Only the useful grey matter," they said, "But mostly neural gel packs, to be honest. You humanoids have precious little brains." They turned to face the captain. "I believe the incorporation of humanoid memories in my being is the reason I have such a keen understanding of the humanoid condition," they said flatly, before putting their fork down and resuming to look placidly at the room decorations.
Before Felix could respond with an observation about the calibre of that understanding – its lack of respect for interpersonal boundaries, say – Regina had intervened on his behalf. “Do you remember each of the crew’s memories up until the point of the accident?” The CoB was suspicious, as ever, of foul play. Felix shot her a look imploring sensitivity. “I assume you do not hold yourself responsible,” she added hurriedly, primping a lateral clump of her hair back into position.
Perdita didn't bother to face Ms Monkfish as they replied. "Only bits and fragments. As neurons were rearranged in my formation most was lost. Some is clear as day, still. Like the fact that Captain Yanu was planning her wedding while cheating with her yeoman on a regular basis." The gelatinous being considered this a fact as easily shared as, say, someone's favourite colour. They looked at the different Lone Star models again. "And no," they added, "I am not responsible. But it is a loss nonetheless, and one in which I played a part."
Burgundy thought about splattered brains assembling into a gelatinous thing as the looked at his food. Jelly-like. A little like the chutneys. He put his cutlery down with a grimace of disgust, deciding that he'd lost appetite for the time being.
If Harun was bothered by the fact the science officer was made of the pulverized remains of the crew of the Lone Star in one of its former incarnations he gave no outward sign of it. He merely cast a sideways look to to watch Burgundy squirm, an activity the Cardassian was finding very enjoyable. When the Ensign inevitably looked over Harun very carefully popped a bit of food into his own mouth and chewed with an expression of Cardassian intestinal superiority. The ensign tried to hide his abdominal reaction at the sight, but couldn’t quite suppress a shudder.
Edie eyed the holographic avatar of Perdita and absorbed the tale of the Lone Star-O. Unbecoming of her own self, she remained quiet and reflective as she played with the food on her plate. There was one particular and most-disturbing thought that kept creeping its way forward into the forefront of her mind:
What does Perdita taste like?
Indeed. The disturbing thought was one even Edith Freelove knew was best kept to herself; unexpectedly even the flighty and most-forward CEO of the Lone Star-S was capable of some proper etiquette at the dinner table.
At that moment Animo looked at Edie, fixated for quite some time, before again resuming their survey of the room.
-= [to be continued] =-
The captain looked at the assembled company, now seated and engaging with their starter: a selection of charcuterie from across the quadrant with freshly-baked breads, home-made chutneys and a paired Bajoran ice wine. While Monkfish chewed his ear off about alternative theories regarding the demise of the Lone Star-A, he glanced down the table and winked at Edie who, as the next most senior officer, sat opposite him at the long end. That would’ve been Tonx’s seat if she hadn’t screwed up to the extent of demotion.
Burgundy noticed that the avatar of his department head wasn't eating at all. The hologram emitters in the ship could handle replication and de-materialisation the same way the emitters in old holodecks could; if Perdita would eat anything it would cease to be normal matter and turn into photons, just as most of the avatar was only photons until it was about to interact physically with its surroundings. The technology was quite frankly a marvel, but so old and tested by now that nobody thought about it. As for why the science chief wasn't eating? Probably because they didn't understand the point of it, thought Burgundy.
As the commotion settled down the synthetic voice of the science chief was heard over the crowd. "Have I told you how truly sorry I am about the Lone Star-O, Captain?" it said, flat but loud enough to carry through the room. The avatar was seated a few feet from the wall where Felix had placed all the models of earlier Lone Star incarnations. They were transfixed; their non-blinking gaze falling upon the Akira class model whose real counterpart was lost in 2400, almost to the day 19 years earlier. "It still haunts me." Despite the unnatural character of their voice a deep sense of loss and regret came through.
Trust Perdita to come up with a tale of doom, Felix thought, well aware the gelatinous being was liable to be able to read his inner mind. That said – or, rather, thought – it was unusual to find Animo in reflective mode. “Her end was ignominious, even for a Lone Star.”
“Before Thalev,” Regina uttered to Harun at her side. “A most unscrupulous man. A psychologist. A lieutenant. And, I believe, a hairdresser.” She whipped an antibacterial cloth from about her person and wiped fastidiously around her place setting. “I forget the tale of the O, Commander.”
Animo was quiet long enough for everyone to start wondering if they were going to divulge the story or not. "The Lone Star was fleeing a battle when their sensors picked up an irregular singularity that was about to form. In an attempt to shake their pursuers they decided to slingshot around it, and tried to fire quantum torpedoes just around the event horizon hoping that the enemy sensors wouldn't see them coming. The singularity interacted with the forces at play near it, warped out of shape and exploded in 87 dimensions."
The lieutenant commander turned to eye everyone around the table, unblinking and slowly. There was more to the story, of course. Everyone recognised that an event like that would leave no survivors, yet the scientist wasn't in the habit of peddling stories as fact. So how did they know?
Regina was about to speak up – maybe to ask just that , or maybe to hit on Harun – but was interrupted as Perdita Animo continued.
"I was the reason for that singularity. It was a ceremony among my peers, in which I was supposed to transcend to higher planes. There was no way for me to know that an event in the minor four dimensions would so interfere; they are usually as invisible to us as bacteria are to you." For the first time since the food was served the hologram paid it some attention, poking and prodding it absentmindedly with a fork. "As it so happened I did not ascend. Instead I was transposed into a most rudimentary existence. Barely a fragment of what was once me remains; my physical shape in this plane was hastily thrown together from organic debris around my point of entry, as I quickly lost functions my consciousness has always taken for granted."
Felix nodded silently. He had promised Animo long before that he would not divulge their origin story without their permission.
A moment passed as that sunk in, but then Burgundy couldn't hold his curiosity. "Wait a minute," he said, "Are you saying you're composed of the bodily remains of former Lone Star crew?"
The avatar turned to face him, expressionless as always. "Only the useful grey matter," they said, "But mostly neural gel packs, to be honest. You humanoids have precious little brains." They turned to face the captain. "I believe the incorporation of humanoid memories in my being is the reason I have such a keen understanding of the humanoid condition," they said flatly, before putting their fork down and resuming to look placidly at the room decorations.
Before Felix could respond with an observation about the calibre of that understanding – its lack of respect for interpersonal boundaries, say – Regina had intervened on his behalf. “Do you remember each of the crew’s memories up until the point of the accident?” The CoB was suspicious, as ever, of foul play. Felix shot her a look imploring sensitivity. “I assume you do not hold yourself responsible,” she added hurriedly, primping a lateral clump of her hair back into position.
Perdita didn't bother to face Ms Monkfish as they replied. "Only bits and fragments. As neurons were rearranged in my formation most was lost. Some is clear as day, still. Like the fact that Captain Yanu was planning her wedding while cheating with her yeoman on a regular basis." The gelatinous being considered this a fact as easily shared as, say, someone's favourite colour. They looked at the different Lone Star models again. "And no," they added, "I am not responsible. But it is a loss nonetheless, and one in which I played a part."
Burgundy thought about splattered brains assembling into a gelatinous thing as the looked at his food. Jelly-like. A little like the chutneys. He put his cutlery down with a grimace of disgust, deciding that he'd lost appetite for the time being.
If Harun was bothered by the fact the science officer was made of the pulverized remains of the crew of the Lone Star in one of its former incarnations he gave no outward sign of it. He merely cast a sideways look to to watch Burgundy squirm, an activity the Cardassian was finding very enjoyable. When the Ensign inevitably looked over Harun very carefully popped a bit of food into his own mouth and chewed with an expression of Cardassian intestinal superiority. The ensign tried to hide his abdominal reaction at the sight, but couldn’t quite suppress a shudder.
Edie eyed the holographic avatar of Perdita and absorbed the tale of the Lone Star-O. Unbecoming of her own self, she remained quiet and reflective as she played with the food on her plate. There was one particular and most-disturbing thought that kept creeping its way forward into the forefront of her mind:
What does Perdita taste like?
Indeed. The disturbing thought was one even Edith Freelove knew was best kept to herself; unexpectedly even the flighty and most-forward CEO of the Lone Star-S was capable of some proper etiquette at the dinner table.
At that moment Animo looked at Edie, fixated for quite some time, before again resuming their survey of the room.
-= [to be continued] =-
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