What A Day

Posted on 06 Feb 2020 @ 8:41pm by Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale

1,823 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Sentience
Location: Camila's Quarters
Timeline: MD 1 || 1700 Hours

With her gym bag still in hand, Joey made her way down the corridor after leaving the mess hall. She didn't know where she was going, or what she planned to do, but working out was the farthest thing from her mind. Right now... she found she needed to talk, and there was only one person the Intelligence Chief wanted to talk to presently. Of course, she'd confide in her husband, but that would have to wait until later. "Computer, locate Lieutenant Di Pasquale... er..." she began, then stopped herself. There'd been some promotions earlier that day. "Cancel that. Locate Lieutenant Commander Di Pasquale."

"Lieutenant Commander Di Pasquale is currently in her quarters," the computer intoned.

Looks like I'm going down, Joey thought as she stepped into the nearest turbolift. "Deck nine," she said once the doors were closed. Thankfully, senior officers quarters were only two decks down, and once she talked to Camila about a few things, heading home would take less than a minute. Convenient.

After the turbolift came to a stop, and the doors opened once more, she stepped out onto the deck and took a deep, calming breath. What she wouldn't give for a drink right now, but that was something that would have to wait a while. No matter how troubled Joey was, or how crappy her day had been, there was no way she'd ever compromise the health of her children. And, it was with that thought in mind that she made her way to Camila's door and reached out to press the sensor that would activate the chime on the other side of the door.

The door slid open to reveal a quarters mostly in darkness and the smell of something extremely spicy and pungent greeted Joey's olfactory senses. "Enter," came Camila's voice from somewhere in the quarters.

Joey walked inside and covered her nose, her eyes watering slightly. When she was pregnant, she might have appreciated such things, but not so much now, especially considering whatever it was seemed to be rotting. "Camlia?" She called out, trying to get a sense of where her friend was lurking. "It's Joey. You got a minute?"

"Over here," came Camila's voice from the right corner. "Lights, twenty-five percent." The lighting slowly revealed more of the obviously well-lived in quarters, for polite terms. In impolite terms, the quarters was a mess. There was uniforms tossed on the couch, bottles and plates on the table, and the scent she smelled came from what looked like a giant taco salad that someone had obviously murdered several days earlier and left to decompose. The Security Chief sat in a reasonably clean chair in the corner wearing a robe and a pair of fuzzy slippers.

"Hey," she began, looking around without trying to be too obvious about it. Joey hadn't had the opportunity to see Camila much recently, but if the state of her quarters were anything to go by, then her friend was in a serious state of... depression... something. Maybe it was good that she'd decided to drop by like this, or maybe it wasn't. She wouldn't know for a while. "How are you holding up?"

"Peachy, and yourself?" Camila asked from where she sat. She made no move to get up and gestured towards a chair that only had a few PADDs on it. "Just put those wherever and have a seat."

Joey didn't buy that her friend was peachy for a second. Given the state of her quarters told a very different story, and it was one she wanted to fix. Instead of sitting down, she placed her gym bag on the chair with the PADDs, then picked up the remnants of the nearly sentient taco salad and brought it over to the recycler. "I'm not entirely sure how I'm holding up," she answered, moving back into the main living area to continue her clean up. "What's wrong, Camila?"

"You don't have to do that," the ombre haired woman told her. "I'm just still dealing with some things and have some things to think about. How about you?"

Someone has to do it, Joey thought. Maybe becoming a mother had softened her up a bit, but it seemed that Camila needed someone to look after her since it didn't seem like she was going to do it for herself. "I don't mind, and I have a little time before I have to get home. I'm supposed to be at the gym right now, but got a little sidetracked," she explained. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"What's to talk about, Joey?" Camila asked as she got up and brushed some crumbs off of her robe. "I had a job. I failed at it. Then I got promoted on top of it for not doing my job."

"Are we talking about the Dolmoqour?"

"No, we're talking about squirrels," the other woman said as she moved over to the replicator. "Loch Ness Blended Whisky circa one thousand nine hundred and sixties," she ordered and looked over at Joey. "Want one?"

Joey shook her head. "No, thank you, and your sarcasm hasn't gone unnoticed," she stated. What was up with today? First Mila, and now Camila? Hopefully, Alison and Jameson would be all smiles for her so she'd have some kind of bright side to her day. "So, you don't think you deserved your promotion because one mission didn't go as you expected it to, but everything else before it went fairly well? Am I understanding things right so far?"

"It doesn't matter, and if you start playing psychologist, I swear that I will drive your head through the nearest wall, then I will push the rest of you through it," Camila said. "I already had a visit from one and she nearly got thrown out of an airlock. I still might. Stupid bitch."

There was a blink, then another one before Joey straightened up and completely stopped what she was doing. Her attention went straight to Camila. "I'm not trying to play anything. What I was trying to do is show you you're worth a hell of a lot more than you've been giving yourself credit for," she snapped. So much for having a nice, friendly conversation with a friend, but given the way her day had gone, why should she have expected anything different? And now there were threats being thrown around? Nope. She wasn't going to hang around and put herself through that. "I love you, Camila. You're one of my best friends, and seeing you like this kills me, but until you can get your head out of your ass and start to see yourself the way everyone else does, I don't think there's a soul alive that can help you." With that, Joey grabbed her gym bag and walked out the same way she walked in.

"Joey, wait!" Camila called out. "It isn't you. It's that damned new counselor we have. The bitch came in here making accusations, broke my last bottle of Romulan Ale, then threatened me if I didn't attend counseling. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

Joey didn't want to stop, but she did. Just on the other side of the door. Her brain told her to keep going so she didn't need to witness this downward spiral, but her heart refused to listen, and that's when she turned to make her way back inside. "Apology accepted," she told Camila as she tossed her gym bag back onto the chair. Now, the Security Chief had her attention once more. "I've met her, and I'm not a huge fan, either. We spoke after the briefing this morning, and I fully planned to tear her a new ass for getting naked in front of Harvey, but decided to take it a different route. Her pompous, haughty attitude makes my skin crawl."

"She what?" The ombre haired woman said with quiet anger in her voice. She turned and went over to a wall that had an old wooden representation of the old United States flag and flipped a hidden switch to reveal what was under it as it dropped down. "Now let's see. Which one works best on Vulcans..."

"Camila... something like that will end your career, and quite possibly your life," Joey said, unable to hide her shock at what her friend was suggesting. Yes, the Intel Chief was incredibly pissed off at the Vulcan woman, but she definitely wasn't going to ruin her life, and the lives of others, for someone she didn't deem worth it. "I'm not saying what she did doesn't deserve some kind of retribution, but you should definitely consider doing it the right way. You're the Chief of Security. Conduct an investigation. Destruction of personal property is a crime. So is blowing her head off regardless how bad you want to."

"But it would feel good," Camila said as she ran her hands over the replicated, but working Mossberg 500 shotgun and worked the pump. "Maybe I can change all the targets in Security to her face. Wait...you have a point, and Romulan Ale hasn't been illegal since the Dominion War."

"So, now you know what you need to do, and that requires you to be thinking clearly. You've got to handle this carefully given that you're the complainant and the Chief of Security. If you want her to pay, then make her pay the legal way."

"Do you still have your Sweet Birds...no...what were they called? Those two big hand cannons you had on the old ship. I got them for you."

"Desert Eagles? I still have them, why?" Joey asked in return. They were tucked away safely in the armory, and now she was a bit concerned about that.

"I couldn't remember what they were called," Camila said as she put the shotgun away and closed the hidden cache of weapons.

She found it weird that Camila would ask about them, but pushed the thought from her mind for the moment. "Why don't you go take a shower, and I'll finish cleaning up out here, then you can start deciding how you want to handle your upcoming case?"

"Okay, okay, but can you make some Raktajino while I do that?" Camila asked as she headed for her bedroom.

"I can do that," Joey told her friend as she made her way to the bedroom. At Camila's request, she put some Raktajino on, then proceeded to finish cleaning the main living area, recycling what she could, and putting anything that couldn't be into a neat pile for the Security Chief to go through when she had time. She took a look around and breathed a sigh of relief. Things looked so much better inside the quarters now, and a big part of her hoped Camila would, too.

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