First Meetings (part 2)

Posted on Fri Oct 23rd, 2015 @ 8:20am by Captain Darius Cayne & Commander Raven Adams

1,029 words; about a 5 minute read

[CONTINUED]

[OLD[

"Okay." Darius replied, taking a sip of his drink before placing it down on the table. "And thank you for ordering another drink. I hate to see good scotch go to waste. I could tell from your first sip that it wasn't to your liking, which begs the question. Why did you order it in the first place?"

She paused for several seconds. "Bad day."

[NEW]

"Welcome to my world." Darius replied, raising his glass a bit before finishing his drink and placing it on the table. "Everyday is a bad day. From morning to night. I'd rather keep myself going than close my eyes. It's probably why I drink so much. To forget, but you can't really forget, can you? Every scream. Every voice. Every ounce of blood is stuck in here." He said softly as he placed his hand on his head and closed his eyes. "No matter how fuzzy or hazy it gets, they always come back." He paused for a moment, opening his eyes to stare at her before finally speaking. "Do you mind if I ask what your bad day was?"

"You can never run away from your past. You just have to accept it," she said. "It's what makes you the person you are." Her chocolate shake was placed in front of her and took a sip, closing her eyes as she enjoyed the flavor. "Arguing with stupid Starfleet officers about why they can't break the rules."

"What if who you were is worse than who you are?" Darius replied quickly, looking at her for few moments before speaking abruptly. "Don't you hate that? Starfleet Officers who are too afraid to break a rule? Like their expecting to be spanked by their parents. My opinion is that rules should be broken when the situation calls for it. You can't have an Officer who goes above and beyond if their too afraid to break or bend a rule. I haven't met a rule I haven't broken for the right reasons. I'm sure viewing my service record showed you that."

She met his gaze again. "I haven't read your service record. And I'm not talking about breaking a rule for the greater good, I'm talking about bringing a ship you can't scan, that has the marking of a hostile government onto a starbase just because you want to know what's inside," she said. "And if who you were is worse than who you are, you're obviously doing something right."

"How does making me remember all the wrong make it right, Adams?" He replied quickly as the waitress placed another drink in front of him. He sat their quietly, taking a sip of his drink before looked over to her and continuing. "Well you read something because throughout this entire conversation you never once asked me for my name. Now you would only have to have done that if you did look up something and, as the Chief Intelligence Officer, I thought you would have gone the whole nine yards and looked into my bio. My mistake."

Darius brought his drink up to his lips and was about to drink before lowering it and returning his gaze to her. "If it were me I would have run it through every scan known to Starfleet and some just for kicks." He said softly as he lowered the glass down to the table and raised a brow slightly as he continued. "I thought it was routine for places like this to give every ship, shuttle, and escape pod every examine short of an colonoscopy? I couldn't possibly been away so long that everyone in a commanding position lost their common sense."

"It's never all wrong, Cayne. You have to keep reminding yourself of the good. And make the present better." She took another long sip of her shake. Straws were slower, but sometimes more rewarding. "I ran the scans. It was unreadable. I only know where it came from because I did a visual observation. And it's not all, it's one. One stupid tactical officer who thinks it's okay just because the ship is old. Even when the away team beamed over and found everything on the ship dead except life support he still didn't think it was a trap." Talking about it made her angry again and she took another long drink of her shake. "I didn't read your bio, but I did find out who you were and what ship you were with. Besides, I never told you what I did, just who I was, so you clearly know something about me, too."

"Well clearly something in my head doesn't want me to remember the good because it keeps shoving the bad in my face, but if it helps, talking to you is better than talking to any psychologist I've ever talked to." Darious said as he raised his glass again, in a tipping like fashion, before taking a sip and placing it back on the table. "Shortly after docking, I made sure to take a minute and had Merlin, that's the ships VI, brought up each bio of all the senior staff. That security officer part of me still insists on knowing who I am dealing with. A force of habit from my old job." He paused, giving a slight smirk before hiding it behind his glass before taking a final sip.

He sat their in quiet contemplation before finally raising a brow as he placed his hands on the empty glass and looked back at her curiously. "Whose brilliant idea was it to bring in a ship with hostile markings after your scans all proved to be inconclusive? Has no one here ever heard of the Battle Of Troy and a certain wooden horse?" Darius paused for a moment, looking down at the glass before looking back at Raven with a surprised look. "Who runs security on this place? Mister Magoo?"

(To be continued...)

Captain Darius Cayne
CO, USS Arthurian

Commander Raven Adams
Chief Intelligence Officer
Starbase Typhon

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