(Backpost) Campfire Stories

Posted on Wed May 17th, 2023 @ 7:35pm by Captain Charlotte Rhodes & Lieutenant Jackson Rutledge II & Lieutenant Alex Drake

2,076 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 1: Runner
Location: Captain's Quarters, USS Defiant
Timeline: MD 5: 1900 Hours

Captain Rhodes' hand shot out to grab onto the support strut on her quarters' outer wall as the ship yet again rocked from an ionic impact. The ion storm's density certainly seemed to be getting worse the farther in they got. As the telltale orangish-grey charged particles washed by her viewport, she steadied herself.

"You doing ok there, Ace?" she asked soothingly into the ball shaped enclosure in front of her. Inside a gyroscopically balanced bed sat her grey striped cat, Achilles.

Achilles, for his part, cooed calmly, perfectly content in his little orb even among the rocking. At this point, starship rocking was old hat. When things got shaky, he simply hopped into the safety ball and waited it out. Sometimes, Charlotte wondered why Starfleet didn't just make these little things for their officers.

After providing the obligatory chin scratches, she headed back over to the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the meal. She was retrieving the pan from her cooking surface when she heard the door chime ring out. "Enter," she replied, hearing the telltale click when of the computer picking up on the voice command and granting unlock authorization.

Alex walked in, looking far less tense than he usually did on duty. He was wearing his uniform pants and boots, but had thrown on a long sleeve T-shirt with the Starfleet logo on the back, a souvenir from the Academy.

"It's not every day I get invited to a dinner with the Captain, so I was able to clear my schedule. If intelligence asks, I'm asleep. I wanted to get out of that call more than you could believe."

"I won't tell them if you don't. Besides, maybe it's interference from the storm. I'm sure we'll be cut off from external comms at some point," the Captain said, as she surveyed the pan in front of her. She'd gotten out of uniform herself, opting for a maroon turtle neck and black pants. Her hair was in a messy bun to keep it out of her face. Her conversations with Callie had her trying to branch out more and continue more casual interactions with the crew, despite the anxiety she still felt. "Dinner will be ready momentarily. Can I grab you anything to drink?"

Alex nodded, "ion storms can do that. Temporal interference or not." To respond to the actual question, he smirked. "Well what I want to drink and what you will let me drink are two entirely different things, as I'm partial to Booker's True Barrel Bourbon." The 125-proof bourbon was almost continuously made since the 20th century and was a 62.7-percent ABV Bourbon.

"Lucky for you, on the occasions where I actually allow myself to let go a little, I am a bit of a whiskey girl myself," she said, cracking a smile. She pointed with her spatula. "Check out my stash at the end of the kitchen. I don't think I have any Booker's, but I've got some Irish, Scotch, Rye, and at least some sort of Bourbon. I'm sure you'll find something to your liking."

Alex wandered over and shuffled through the bottles, pulling out a nice Scotch vintage. "This ought to do, where are your glasses?"

"Top shelf, second cabinet from the right," Charlotte replied. "Cold stones are in the little freeze unit in the same section."

Rutledge was concerned. He had received an invite to the captain's quarters. Usually invites like these are for informing a member of the crew that they are being shipped out when the ship makes it's next stop. So he threw on his cleanest uniform, and headed down to the captain's quarters, to face the music.
Stepping off the turbolift, he walked to the door to her quarters and pressed the door buzzer.

"Come on in," Charlotte called out, looking over toward the door. As the door opened, she caught sight of the Operations Chief in a crisp clean uniform. "Ah, Lieutenant, apologies. I meant to let you know this wasn't particularly formal."

It took a moment for her mind to register his very tense posture. "Is...everything alright?"

Alex smirked at Rutledge behind his glass. "Bit overdressed there, Lieutenant."

"I wasn't aware that this was a social engagement, Lieutenant, so I dressed in what I thought to be the correct garb," Rutledge replied.

"It's alright," Charlotte said, letting him off the hook. "For the future, dinner in the Captain's quarters isn't a fancy function. At least with me. Casual clothes or your uniform from the day is perfectly acceptable."

With a flourish, she pointed the cooking utensil at one of the raised bar stools at the table. "In the meantime, though, come on in and grab a seat. Dinner is just about served. I hope you two don't mind Earth 'fusion' food."

"Depends. Is it fusing food with non-food? If it's not, then I'm good with it. Last time I ate food fused with non-food, I nearly ate a fork." Alex chuckled to himself, remembering the time on the Berlin.

Charlotte let out a laugh. "If I did this right, it should only be fused with other food. No promises though." She finally turned revealing the prepared plates. "I present my very best attempt at bulgogi tacos. A Korean spin on one of my favorite genres of food. Hopefully edible, but you're under strict orders to say it is regardless."

"I am very adventurous when it comes to trying different food, captain, so I will gladly try the food, thank you." Rutledge had grabbed himself a drink, Earth beer, and sat at the table.

Charlotte set out the plates in front of them before taking a seat. A massive flash of lightning ripped across the clouds outside her quarters. "Well the storm is certainly trying to set a mood," she laughed. "Reminds me a little bit of the worst Ion Storm I'd ever seen, back when I served on the Maui. Can't say I'm too fond of being reminded. That was one of the worst experiences of my life."

Alex looked out of the viewport himself, frowning. "My first real one. We do simulated ion storms in the academy so I was familiar with the protocols..." He stopped when he remembered his department. "Right. Both of you didn't take that class cause it's an intel thing."

"I may not have taken your intel version, but I was cross divisional for Science and Helm. Plus I’ve flown through these before. This one is on another level, but so is Defiant. The one back on the Maui was honestly not that intense, our big issue was that the Maui was just…old. An old Walker-class, tougher than she had a right to be but with tech way out of date,” Charlotte added. “Our comms array got fried. Left us out of contact with Starfleet for three weeks. And then the Nausicaans showed up.”

Alex froze with food halfway up to his mouth. "Hold on. Did you say Nausicaans? How'd you guys end up dealing with those without comms to get help?"

"Not very well. We were in rough shape after the storm, with power failures on numerous decks, and sensors that kept shorting out. The Nausicaan ships were almost on top of us before we even knew they were there. 3 against 1, we would have been outgunned on a good day. That was not a good day," the Captain said, taking a drink. "The battle didn't take long. We were disabled in minutes, locked into tractor beams by all 3, and boarded. We could have tried to put up a fight, but they would have just blown us to dust. So Captain Adebowale attempted to surrender and negotiate for the crew's freedom. He offered himself and the ship. The Nausicaans only wanted intelligence on Federation fleet movements. Our Captain either wasn't willing to provide it or didn't have it in the first place. So..." Her eyes got distant for a moment. "So they executed him in front of the bridge crew."

Alex clenched one hand into a tight fist. He hated Nausicaans, he'd had too many friends over the years get killed in similar methods. "Should've eradicated them when we had the chance."

"It's very easy to dehumanize a people based upon their worst actors. Their culture and ours are not ones that can coexist very easily, but...we shouldn't lose site of the fact that they are people. And that their entire race is not defined by the pirates among them. Let's not act as if there aren't humans who would do the same," Charlotte replied. Her tone was even and calm, without a sense of scolding. She understood the impulse. It had been hard to resist the thought and she'd failed on more than one occassion. But their Federation ideals aimed to be better than that. "I've tried not to harbor those feelings if I could. Besides, I had my vengeance that day."

"Smashed a few heads, Captain? I don't take you for a fighter like that." Alex said with a slight smirk at the thought.

"You might be surprised. I got my first taste of war on my cadet cruise. I'm not overly fond of fighting, but if you threaten my crew..." She trailed off a little. "I can rise to occasion if the moment requires it. What about you? I imagine you've got your own fair share of old war stories?"

Alex nodded. "Several. One time I went up against a whole squad of Klingons with a half busted phaser." He shook his head. "I should be dead."

Jackson sampled the captain's dish. "On my last assignment, we came up against 2 Romulan Warbirds. After they disabled our shields, they boarded us." He took a sip of his beer. "They took the captain, first officer and the bridge crew prisoner. Then they started searching the rest of the ship. I was able to gather up as many the remaining crew together, and we found whatever we could to arm ourselves. I was able to find a bow and arrow set from the rec room." He took another bite of the food. "This is very interesting, captain. Pleasant aroma and taste."

Charlotte held up her hands. "Ok, hold on. You two are breezing past these stories like they're standard fair. First off: Drake, how does one hold off a squad of Klingons with a busted phaser?"

Alex chuckled, "one doesn't. One simply hopes to get help before the Klingons decide to gut them." He shrugged, "I said I should be dead. I overloaded the phaser and threw it off to one side. Dermal regenerators are the only reason I've still got a face."

"Fair enough," the woman replied, turning toward Rutledge instead. "Ok, so...a bow?"

Rutlidge nodded. "The Romulans had the weapons lockers guarded, and a search of the rec center resulted in a bow and a quiver of arrows. Bad thing was, the arrows were rubber tipped, to prevent injuries, so I broke the tips off, leaving a shape point."

The Captain’s eyebrows were fully raised. “Damn. That’s pretty scrappy. I guess the Romulans won’t forget to guard the rec room next time!”

Rutlidge nodded to the captain's comment. "I had to shoot 4 of them. Two I wounded in the leg, then we got close enough to knock them out. The other two I had to kill, unfortunately. I was in therapy for two weeks because of that."

Rhodes gave an understanding nod of her head. "Taking a life can be hard. I think its a good thing it doesn't come too easy. One of the strangest things about commanding a ship like this is reconciling our peaceful mission and the world leveling amounts of weaponry on this ship. And how easily giving the order to use said weaponry comes when the time arises."

Jackson nodded as he listened to the captain's words. "I believe there was a bounty on my head. Seems one of the Romulans I killed was from one of the high-ranking houses on Romulus." He paused. "Command seems to have straightened it out, thankfully."

"Command is good at that," Rhodes said with an amused shake of her head. "That reminds me of the time when..."

Outside the window, the violent Ion Storm occasionally lit up the surrounding space with a streak of ionic lightning. Defiant's crew had been through a lot before. It would take more than a storm to stop them.

 

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