Some Kind of Used Car Salesmen (Part 2)

Posted on Mon Jul 20th, 2015 @ 5:42pm by Admiral Maximilian 'Max' Hunter & Captain Darius Cayne

1,620 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Ghosts of Mirror's Past
Location: Classified Intel Rehabilitation Station Classified

OLD:

Darius raised a brow as he lifted his glass again, taking a sip. “Is this some kind of joke? They told me it would be another month or so. They need to run tests or whatever the hell.” He took another sip and looked at Max, clearing his throat slightly before speaking again. “Science-y stuff, I guess. They tell me about two things here. Jack and sh-.”

NEW:

“I can get you out of here as soon as tonight.” Max said, interrupting the officer in mid-sentence. The reply made Darius look at him curiously as he took another sip. “You’ll be assigned to a new starship with some familiar modifications. Your modification.” Max said as he stepped forward and handed him a PADD, showing the ship design and modifications he was talking about.

Darius took the PADD slowly and placed his glass down. He thumbed through the PADD as soon his eyes raised in surprise. “These are my designs. I’ve been working on these since I’ve gotten into this hellhole. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.”

“And now you’ll be one up on nearly everyone onboard.” Max replied softly.

“You took these designs from me.”

“No, you left them for us.” Max said quickly, shooting him a stern look. “Where do you think you are? This is an Intelligence Rehabilitation Center. Whatever work you put into these computers is accessible to the people who run this place. That includes me. I commissioned it to help Intel Officers get through difficult injuries and hopefully get them back out onto the field.”

Darius looked up from the PADD than back to Max, unsure of how to react to what was happening right now. His work, untested and private, was now on a new ship without his permission. “I’m not an Intel Officer. I don’t work for you.”

“You do now.” Max said quickly, his eyes locking onto Darius as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Who do you think is responsible for your new arm? Your recovery? Getting your designs pushed through the system?”

“Without my permission.” Darius replied, tossing the PADD onto the bed as he stepped closer to the man in the black suit and tie. “You stole those plans. You plan on placing them into a ship without any idea of whether or not they even work. How the hell am I supposed to trust a man who would go behind my back?”

Max took a step to Darius, holding onto his smirk as he raised a brow and answered softly. “The same way I am trusting you with an untested ship and its crew. With trust and faith.” He placed his hands back behind his back and took a moment to let out a breath before continuing. “I see a lot of potential in you, Mister Cayne. You’re a fine officer and a hell of a man, but you had a tough blow to your pride and ego. Suddenly, the man who believed he was untouchable, was brought back down to reality and crashed hard to the ground. So, in your attempt to bring the rest of us down with you, I made a choice. A choice that should, I hope, will not only benefit Starfleet but you as well. Bringing you back to this game of chess in the middle of this black void. We need officers like you. Officers who, not only, have a fighting spirit, but also are smart and creative enough to find different ways to resolve a problem aside from brute force. My job here it so give you the tools. Your job is to use them.”

Darius looked down to toward the plans for a moment before looking back to Max. The man certainly had a flair for words, but he also made a good point. As shady as his tactics were he seemed to have a good cause behind it, but in Cayne’s experience, he was waiting to see when the other shoe was about to drop. “You want me to take this ship and start scoring wins for the home team? What’s the catch? How much of my soul do I have to give? Ever heard the old saying: Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword”

“I’m not a man trying to sell you a broken ship with a fancy new paint job, I’m trying to fix you up and get you back to doing some good in this universe that isn’t as black and white as we thought it was.” Max replied softly, placing his hands on the man’s shoulder.

“So you’re not trying to sell a broken ship, but a broken man.” Darius replied quickly.

“You’re not broken, Cayne. Not yet. I’m trying to prevent you from falling further and further into that drunken hole. You fell. You fell hard. You lost more than most officers should. That’s not in question here. The question here is whether a man, with your record, is strong enough to push himself back up and continue the good fight. To look his enemies in the eyes and show them they haven’t broken his spirit. His soul.” Max said as he placing his hand on the man’s chest and looked him in the eye with a determined look.

Darius looked at him oddly and raised a brow. “How do you tell that to a species that aren’t afraid of anything?”

“By giving them something to be afraid of. By putting the fear in them. You know what the best part about facing the Borg? If you can scare one of them, you can scare them all. And that is what really counts. All you need to do is send one of them a message and the rest of them will hear it. Their Hive Mind isn’t as great as they make it out to be. They have their flaws. The difference is they hide it behind their We are the Borg and Resistance is Futile battle cries.” Max paused for a moment and looked away, looking toward the PADD on the bed before focusing his attention back to Darius. “If Captain’s like Sisko, Janeway, and Picard can come back from a Borg encounter stronger than before. For you, it should be a walk in the park.”

Darius looked at Max and narrowed his eyes. With a stern look on his face, and in his eyes, he took a step toward him. Without cracking a smile, he tilted his head and spoke, keeping his tone straight and solid. “Are you sure you weren’t some kind of used car salesmen in a past life?”

“Honestly.” Max replied, without missing a beat and keeping to his own straight forward tone. “I always believed, in a past life, I was a secret agent for MI-6. Or maybe even a Detective in Miami with a red Ferrari. I have no idea why?”

Cayne looked at him sternly before a smile formed on his face. Soon that smile turned into a laugh. Max would begin as the tension between the two seemed to settle down and Darius began to feel a bit more at ease. “With that suit on, I would lean toward secret agent. Unless you’re wearing a Hawaiian shirt under that, the Miami thing would be more my gig than yours.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Max said as he cleared his throat and took a step back. “So, are you done wasting your hours drinking and brooding or do you want more time with that?”

Darius took a moment to look toward the bottle of whiskey before looking back to Max and nodding his head. “Sign me up. One thing. I want to name her.”

“And what name should I put down in the file, Captain.”

“The Arthurian.” Darius said softly, smiling a bit as he said it.

“The Arthurian? Why?” Max asked curiously, smiling slightly.

Darius took a moment before responding. “When I was a kid, I fell in love with the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, The Quest for Excalibur, Camelot, and Merlin the Sorcerer. My father made a point to read them with me and I had planned on doing the same with Hailey but all that changed.”

Max paused a bit and raised a brow. “You could always call it the Excalibur?”

Darius returned the look, this time much more stern. “No. I don’t plan on throwing one little piece of literature. Besides that’s too cliché. I plan on throwing the whole damn book at them. From the rock that held the stone to the castle itself. I want them to remember that name, because I don’t plan on forgetting what it means to me.” He kept his stern look as he seemed like he was about to break off at the seams. At any moment’s notice his anger could rush back out and he would lash and anyone or anything.

“You got it.” Max said with a nod. “I’ll even make sure you have your own Merlin.” He smirked and walked out of the room leaving Darius to his thoughts and memories.


OFF:

Admiral Maximillian ‘Max’ Hunter
Chief of Special Operations
Starfleet Intelligence

&

Captain Darius Cayne
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Arthurian

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