Barflies

Posted on Sun Aug 19th, 2018 @ 5:17pm by Lieutenant JG Neza Glenn & Captain Cynthia Jackson & Lieutenant JG Alastair Hallewell II

2,484 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Mission 0 - Christening of Legacy and Crew Arrival
Location: Bar Near Engineering
Timeline: 2261.182 0945

Walking and talking, Cindy led the Ensign down to the Bar. She figured that much of the crew would probably spend time down here by Engineering at this Bar. However, what was surprising was that there was already someone there, waiting for a drink.

Cindy had to know who this person was. Taking long strides in her gold sleeveless miniskirt duty uniform, she approached the figure and said, "Hello. Who might you be?"

Alastair heard the footsteps approaching and sat down his glass that contained a drink that, to the untrained eye, looked to be tequila. Not the case, as it was from his native Britain. He could be picky when it came to his beverages and only the best would do. He sat the drink down, his glass making a gentle clink as his class ring hit it, and stood up. Looking at the two ladies who had just entered in their uniforms. It must've looked out of place, two obvious Federation officers walking in on somebody in a suit and tie. Given the colors, he simply discerned two points: The one in gold was overly peppy and that both of them were going to be fellow officers. If the mind could sigh and shake its head, his would have, but he kept a good poker face.

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Alastair Hallewell the Second, reporting for duty Commander."

Cindy laughed. "It doesn't look like you're reporting for duty to me, Lieutenant." She gave him a genuine smile and discounted the drink. "I'm Cindy, Captain of the Legacy. This here," she said gesturing at the Ensign, "is Neza. She's a science officer."

She took a moment to think and said, "Lieutenant Hallewell, you said?" She paused for a moment. "Oh, my! You're the Chief Science Officer. Look Neza, we found your commanding officer. Isn't this wonderful?"

Neza hadn't heard the name of who was going to be in charge of science before she'd left Earth. But, at least now she knew. Her eyes glanced to the drink and then to the one at the bar, giving a polite nod. "Lieutenant." His outfit seemed a bit much, but she pushed it to the back of her mind.

Alastair returned the nod, following Neza's eyes carefully.

"It's 40% Freya Birch if you're wondering Ensign, a little taste of home before things get underway. First introduced before World War Three, a true blessing that the mixture survived as the world would be less for it.'

He finished the drink before pushing it away.

'Yes, much less for it. Do pardon the appearance, I stayed in that which I arrived to make introductions before we started duty. Though I intend to change shortly. It's a pleasure to meet you both."

Offering his hand to his fellow scientist, he gave a smile that wasn't so much a friendly gesture as an insistent one.

"I trust we can avoid any unpleasantness while working together?"

Nodding to the explanation of the drink, Neza watched her department chief for another moment, listening. The way he spoke sent a slight shiver down her spine, but she didn't let it show. He seemed maybe a bit uptight. However, she extended her hand. "I don't plan on there being any unpleasantness, Lieutenant."

His tone of voice didn't change, nor did the look in his eyes.

"Good, hopefully that continues over time. As I'm sure there will be plenty of oddities out there, it would be prudent to avoid infighting."

His eyes retained their cold appearance as he faced his new boss, relatively unchanged from how he looked at Neza. Unusual, given that he was speaking to his commanding officer. However, he was never shy from casting a penetrating gaze towards his superiors. While his past COs had been his superior officers, he rarely found them comparatively "superior" in anything.

"Again, I presume that we can all work well together."

"Of course we'll work well together," Cindy replied, flipping her long platinum blonde locks behind her. "Why would we ever not do so? We're going to have such a great team!" She looked over at Neza and Alastair and grinned. "Perhaps I should let the two of you discuss your department. Even though it was my former department, I know how each Chief likes to do things their own way. So, I shall be going." She started to turn to leave the bar.

Neza bit her lip, was she really going to be left here, after the offer to go on a ship tour had been given? Her eyes bounced between the two of them. "In all honesty, I think I'd rather go and unpack a bit, maybe do some reading." There was something about Alastair that just made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was the way that he spoke to them, maybe it was the outfit, she wasn't sure.

Cindy turned back around and placed an arm gently around Neza's shoulders. "Nonsense, Neza. You have several days to unpack and read. Why don't you sit down right here," she directed Neza to a seat next to Alastair, "and we shall get you a nice drink? Then you and Alastair here can get familiar with each other since you will be working closely together."

She called to the bartender, a youthful looking woman and said, "Get my friend here a drink. Something that will take the edge off of her." Turning back to Neza, Cindy asked, "What kind do you prefer? Sweet? Sour? Spicy...?" She grinned at the last word, innuendo clear.

As Cindy spoke to Neza, he had taken his seat at the bar again, waving away the offer from the bartender for a refill. He wasn't sure if he'd need to change his mind later. He turned his gaze back to the ladies before him, ignoring the obvious innuendo. If he was interested in romance, he would have never joined Starfleet and stayed back home in London. He would have had no issues finding a suitable wife there.

"It matters not if she wishes to go and spend some time to herself. We launch soon and it may be a rarity once we're underway."

With a heavy sigh, Neza sat, listening to the offer of a drink to 'take the edge off'. This annoyed her more than anything else, but she was never going to turn down a drink. "Something sweet I suppose." Her eyes rolled at the innuendo, seemed like that might happen often on this ship.

Cindy laughed at the Lieutenant and waved her hand at him to indicate that his notion was nonsense. "Really, Lieutenant, you should not scare the young Ensign like that. There's plenty of places to be alone and plenty to meet people if you want."

She then turned to Neza and asked, "Do you have any preferences? Otherwise, I'm sure that I could find something as sweet as you."

“Something as sweet as...seriously, I’m not sweet, far from it. You’ve caught me on a good day, Commander.” Neza was getting just a little annoyed, and had decided to not comment on the ‘places to be alone’ statement. “If you must know, I normally order a martini that is fruit flavored.”

Cindy's eyes darkened to green when she was referred to as Commander. "Very well," she said pleasantly. "A fruit flavored martini, it is." She nodded to the bartender who started pouring the drink.

Catching the eye color change, Neza wasn't quite sure what to think. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Nothing at all, Neza," Cindy answered simply as the fruit flavored martini arrived and was placed before Neza. Cindy let her demeanor relax, her elbow propping on the bar and praying that these two would see how perfect they were for one another.

His eyes took a noticeably different look when he heard the mere mention of adding a fruit to a martini. A veneer of confusion and disbelief barely covering an outrage.

"BARBARIAN!" is what he wanted to say, ruining a perfectly good drink by adding what he perceived to be a horrid perversion on a classic mixed drink. His homeland made some of the finest gins in the world, the flavor to be destroyed by some Ensign who obviously had no appreciation of her heritage. How dare she attempt to pass herself off as one of his fellow countrymen by committing such blasphemy.

"A fruit flavored martini? You must be joking. It's near blasphemy to degrade such a classic drink. To degrade it with such foolishness is an insult to gin makers past and present, you're British and thus should know better."

As much as she wanted to hold her tongue, Neza knew there was no way she was going to be able to. Her eyes nearly gave Cindy a ‘sorry’ look before she blew up at the man next to her. “You think I give a damn about what you think?! Why does it matter if I’m British? I never could stomach a straight martini, so I add the flavoring so that I can. Who are you who thinks you are so much better than I am. Doesn’t matter your family or how ‘rich’ they are here. You obviously think you are better than all of us, and don’t mind making it known. Well, get this through your thick head: you can’t make me believe you are anything more than a stuck up pampered child who had the easy path in life, looking down on anyone who didn’t.”

Alastair chuckled, immune to her tongue lashing.

"Well for one, you best give a damn about what I think because I am your direct superior officer. Second, pertaining to the straight martini, my suggestion is to try a straight gin instead. It could be a good alternative, depending on how much you like gin. Either that of maybe the vermouth, make it a 50/50. Three, I wouldn't necessarily call getting a masters in physics from Cambridge "easy", especially trying to do it before you're eighteen."

He held up the hand with his class ring, which had a "MPhys" on the side along with his graduating year on the other. The same year he turned eighteen.

"That said, it is manageable. Besides, I only think I'm better than the people I know I'm better than. Genius must be born, it can never be taught."

Cindy could not believe what she was hearing. Two of her officers were behaving like spoiled children. Worse, they were both in HER department, well, her former department. This simply would not do. Her eyes darkened to brown.

Glaring first at Alistair, in a calm, serious and dangerous voice, Cindy responded, "Let us be clear about one thing, Mr. Hallewell. This is my ship and I do not care who or what you were before you got here. You will treat your crew and your less senior officers with respect. Do I make myself clear?"

She then looked at both of her officers and continued in the calm and dangerous voice. "You both need to remember that we are a team here. To put it in American football terms, I am the coach. I could even be considered the quarterback on offense. Regardless, we are a team and we need to function like one or whatever is against us is going to blitz our line and we're going to be suffering a loss. I will not accept it. Now, if you two can see past this off duty spat, I will conveniently forget it happened."

Watching the eyes of her commanding officer change color again, Neza realized that snapping wasn't the best thing to do. But, he'd gotten under her skin, and he was lucky she didn't just give him a right hook like she usually did. However, Commander Cindy's statements were true. If she wanted to keep her place on this ship, they had to forget about this. Though, she didn't understand the American football reference. The only part she understood was 'coach'.

"I can see past it," is all she said, keeping her cool.

"As I said, I hoped we can work together and, as a reasonable man, I'm willing to do my part if she's willing to do her part. That aside, I think we can learn to work together. I think our discussion here will be enough to let out any pent up stress that we all may possess. First day jitters, you could say. Friends can be hard to come by in my case since most people don't like to by analyzed by the person they're meeting for the first time. I've always done it and it's an old habit, so don't get upset. I even do it to family whom I haven't seen in a long time, nobody's immune to it."

Unsure about Alistair, Cindy's nose wiggled from side to side, as if weighing her options. "I might suggest that you talk about that with the ship's counselor whenever he arrives. It is not an order. Just a suggestion. Everyone should get along here." Her eyes lightened a bit.

Her tone lightened substantially and she brightened. "Well, perhaps I should leave you two alone to work things out. I have a bit more of the ship to explore and a couple places that I need to stop."

With that, Cindy picked up and started walking off. However, before she left, she gave Neza a sharp look that told the woman that she should probably stay at the bar for a bit longer.

Neza caught the look that Cindy gave her and sighed. She didn't want to just sit here, especially with him. She didn't care if he was her superior officer, that didn't matter. Right now, neither of them were on duty and he was too damned rude. "Enjoy your tour, ma'am."

She then turned back to her drink, not really saying anything, curious if he would say anything.

Without turning around, Cindy gave a wave of her hand and found her way to the turbolift hoping that Neza and Alistair would find a way to work out their differences.

Alastair watched the commander walk off with a dismissive wave before turning back to his own drink he had reordered during the attempted tongue lashing.

"You can leave too if you want, I assume you have no desire to be down here while I am so I won't stop you. That said, I may have to leave. Duty calls and I have to get dressed for the occasion."

He polished off the drink before setting the glass back down.

"It was a pleasure to meet you."

She watched out of the corner of her eye, seeing him down the drink. She kept any other comments to herself, she had to work with this man, no matter his attitude toward her. If it got bad enough, she'd report it. "Likewise."

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