The Place To Be

Posted on 13 Jan 2016 @ 3:20am by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast

2,124 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Rude Awakening
Location: Main Lounge
Timeline: MD 6 || 1900 Hours

Once Camila was off duty, she headed back to her quarters and quickly changed into a multi-colored pair of pants, a white t-shirt with black lettering that read "Life is for Deep Kisses, Free-Range Adventures, Midnight Swims and Rambling Conversations" and a pair of replicated black Converse shoes with glow in the dark skulls on them. Letting her blonde-brown hair down and mussing it slightly, she checked the deck listing and saw there was a lounge on deck five and decided to go check the place out. Hopefully someone would have something with a little kick to it, but she could handle synthehol just as long as she remembered not to clear her head too often.

She headed out of her quarters and ambled along until she came to the lounge. There didn't seem to be too many people present, but a slim, athletic looking Trill was present at one of the tables, a few crewmen who were playing chess and one or two other people. She tossed a mental coin and decided to approach the Trill. "Hi," she said. "Mind if I join you?"

Temerant had been sitting at a table, with a club sandwich in front of him with a pint of synthale Guinness, when the Security officer's voice broke into his train of thoughts. They were still waiting for the O'Carroll to show up, and the myriad of possibilities were tumbling over each other in his mind. In some ways, he hoped for guidance from the symbiont, but that voice had been very quiet of late.

He smiled at the Security officer, and stood to wave her into the chair across the table from him. "Of course not," he said. "Be my guest."

Camila gave him a smile and took the offered seat. "Thank you. I'm Camila Di Pasquale, the new assistant chief of Security," she said. "I don't know many people here yet and thought I'd introduce myself."

"Temerant Bast, Chief of Operations," said Temerant, extending a hand for her to shake. He smiled, and waved a waiter over to their table. "What's your pleasure?"

She looked at the waiter. "I'll have a cob'lat burger with lettuce, tomato, and bacon with a glass of icoberry juice, please."

"So what is security's take on the current situation?" he asked.

Camila winced. "I have a feeling that our main concern is how many of our own personnel we'll end up fighting. I've never had to shoot at a fellow officer. I have to wonder if I can do it, even if I know I may end up having to. Could you if you had to?"

Temerant hesitated. "I don't know," he said finally. "But if these people have turned their backs on the Federation, and threaten the peace that so many people have given their lives to protect?" He took another breath. "I guess I'll find out if and when the time comes."

"I know," Camila said, shaking her head. "What happened to Starfleet for it to come to this?"

Temerant could only shake his head at the rhetorical question. "We don't know enough about the Consortium's motives and goals to hazard a guess as to their reasons for turning against their own."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay. Enough talk about this. What inspired you to join Starfleet?"

"Pretty much the same as everyone else," said Temerant. "The call to adventure. I wanted to be an engineer, and the best place to become one was Starfleet Academy. And we get to travel to faraway places, meet new species, and see wonders that no one has ever seen before."

He smiled, and took a sip of synthale. "What about you?"

"For me, it's always been about the thrill," Camila said as her order was brought over and she thanked the waiter. "I got into Security to help people, but Search and Rescue really won my heart. It was the hardest eighteen months that I've ever did in my entire life, but it is so worth it. In fact, I'm trying to put together a SAR team from the ship. Would you be interested? We can always use multi-talented people."

Temerant nodded. "That's the thing about Operations people," he said. "We go where we're needed."

"So can I add your name to the roster for training?" Camila asked before taking a bite of her burger.

"Of course," replied Temerant. He picked up a fry from his plate and dipped it in curry mayonnaise. "When do you want to start?"

"Outside of Security, you're my first recruit," Camila said. "With you being an Engineer and Operations, I think you'd be best suited for the Technical Support Flight aspect of Search and rescue. That covers maintenance personnel, small craft pilots, operations specialists, supply experts, and transporter experts. However, everyone will be cross trained, but that will come. The entire course normally takes eighteen months, but that's usually with freshly minted Ensigns out of the Academy. I should be able to condense it into six months. I'll forward the specifications of training to you when I get back to my office and you can forward it to anyone you think might be a candidate."

Temerant nodded. "I'll do that," he said. He glanced at the chronometer. He still had about fifteen minutes to go before his duty shift. He pushed his empty plate aside, and within seconds, one of the waiters snatched it up and took it away. He leaned forward, and rested his elbows on the table. "Now tell me about yourself," he said. "Where are you from?"

Camila laughed. "You aren't going to believe this, but my family had a sense of humor when I was growing up. I was born in Bend, Oregon, then they moved to Intercourse, Pennsylvania, then we moved to Romulas, Michigan and ended up in Hell, Michigan," she told him. "I think they were just looking for the oddest places on the planet to move to and I was along for the ride."

Temerant recognized some of the names as locations on Earth, but couldn't quite place them on his mental map of the planet. But he pushed the notion aside as being somewhat irrelevant for now. "I'm sure living in Intercourse must have had its advantages," he said with a smile. "Did you live on Earth your whole life, before joining Starfleet?"

She laughed. "Intercourse was fun for the most part," Camila said. "We visited other worlds, but Earth was always home. What about you?"

"I grew up on Trill, but when I was six we moved to Vulcan, and a few years later to Andor. My father was the Trill Ambassador there. I moved to the Academy when I turned eighteen, and my family moved back to Trill a year later."

"Here's a question that you've probably heard before. What's it like to be Joined and have the memories and experience of others?"

"You're never lonely, that's for sure," said Temerant, smiling. "I have memories of being both male and female, with an... intimate knowledge of both bodies," he added with a wink. "But at first, it's mostly disorienting. It takes a few weeks to integrate the symbiont's thoughts and memories and be fully functional."

"So you're one of the few that knows how to please a man or a woman," She said with a wink. "That's a good thing. What made you decide to join Starfleet?"

"We can arrange a test at your convenience," Temerant returned playfully. "But to answer your question, it was simply the best engineering school around. And the call to adventure was also impossible to resist." He took a sip of synthale, and checked the chronometer again. "What about yourself?"

"Really now?" Camila asked, arching an eyebrow. "I bet you say that to all the beings. As for my decision to join Starfleet..I really can't say. I guess I wanted to test myself against the stars." She finished her food and leaned back. "What is the number one experience that you've had since you joined?"

Temerant had to think about that one, his eyes vacantly staring at the table while he searched for an answer. "Oddly enough," he said slowly after a while, "I think my number one experience has nothing to do with Engineering. I was on a routing supply mission with the USS Fearless, and we had to transfer supplies to a colony ship flying through the Rings of Akhaten. Now there was a sight to see. An emerald-green gas giant of a planet, with a ring system three times the size of Saturn's, made of blocks of ice mixed with... I don't know what it was, but the ice was purple, and diffracted the sunlight over the surface of the third moon in patterns of light that created a real symphony of colors and nuances that simply took your breath away. It was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen."

"That sounds absolutely amazing," she said. "I wish I could see that. For me, it was on Risa. I was at Suraya Bay during the Festival of the Moon. The moons had just started to come up and there was still different colors of red from the setting sun and it looked like the silver of the moons splashed over the water and complimented the sky."

"I've seen it. It is quite a sight," agreed Temerant.

"I bet you didn't even need a horga'hn statue to get what you wanted there, did you?" Camila asked with a smile.

"Naah. Everyone wants to know how far down the spots go," he said with a wicked smile. He looked at her. "Then again, I'm guessing you didn't need one, either."

"I wasn't really looking for jamaharon," she said. "Not that I didn't have some fun while I was there. I did have a Ferengi beg me for Oo-mox, though. I made two bars of gold-pressed latinum off of him."

"Impressive," said Temerant. "You must have very skilled hands."

"Not really," Camila said with a laugh. "The little toad wouldn't take no for an answer so I latched onto both his ears and didn't let go until he bribed me."

Temerant let out a soft laugh. "That sounds like a typical Ferengi," he agreed.

"Have you ever had an...adventure like that?" She asked.

"I can't say I have," replied Temerant. "I've had very few dealings with the Ferengi personally, and my previous hosts weren't the kind to get involved in that sort of thing. Wilem Bast was a rock climber, base jumper, deep-sea diver and all other sorts of risk-taker, but he was never one to get in trouble by trying to con or steal from other people. And Lamorra Bast was a classical cellist."

"I wouldn't say that I conned or stole from the Ferengi," Camila said. "He just wouldn't leave me alone and I was tired of it. They just don't seem to get the idea that not everything can be begged or bought, so I taught him a lesson."

Temerant nodded. "And what do you do when you're not teaching the Ferengi a lesson in manners?"

"Let's see," she said. "I practice Parkour, play electric violin, run, swim, mountain climb, orbital skydive, and work on getting higher belts in Jiu Jitsu. How about you?"

"Being an Initiate didn't leave you a lot of spare time to develop an interest in hobbies. My bedtime reading consisted of technical journals, and of course, there was the mandatory physical discipline, which constituted in a lot of running, which I still do, and swimming, which I don't get to do as often, and a form of Martial art developed on Trill, and refined on Vulcan, called the Lethani. But from my mother, I did develop an interest in cooking, and I inherited an appreciation for classical music from my first host, Lamorra."

"Maybe we can get together and play a duet some time," Camila suggested. "I could use a run and swim partner, too. Or we could spar."

Temerant nodded. "Sounds like a good idea," he agreed.

Camilla finished her icoberry juice and leaned back. "As much as I hate to, I'm going to have to head to the gym and get a workout in. I have to be on top of my game and prove myself in Security once again. I'll let you know when the SAR classes start as soon as I know." With that, she got up and headed out.

Temerant watched the Security officer finish her drink and walk out of the lounge. He knew it was only a matter of time before the storm caught up with them. Part of him hoped she wouldn't be swept away by the changing tides.

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