Family Feud

Posted on Thu Feb 23rd, 2023 @ 10:06am by Captain Tristan Faust & Fleet Captain Manolis Chiotis

1,872 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Mission 2: Rendezvous At Starbase 10
Location: Starbase 10: The Top
Timeline: M2 MD06 (2268.6.08) 1500

Word had gotten around that a second starship, the U.S.S. Franklin was now docked at Starbase 10, a fact which annoyed Captain Faust incredibly. It was not a wounded vanity, such as wanting to be the only starship at the Starbase, but it was the starship in question that was incredibly unnerving to Tristan. The Franklin was a venerable Ares class with a respectable reputation but her Captain... Her Captain... Was none other than Fleet Captain Manolis Chiotis... Or as Tristan knew him growing up as Commander Chaotic.

The young Captain had gone to the Top on Starbase 10 to hide. To avoid a conversation with the old man. He told the on duty communications officer that he was unavailable on personal business. Perhaps it would work.

"Captain Faust!!" the door swished open and Chiotis' theatrical tones filled the room "A new Captain Faust, they told me! 'He won't be anything like his Father I cried... thank goodness!!"

"Ah! And there he is!! The most insubordinate, undisciplined, prrrrrankster of a Midshipman ever to serve under me!" Ah yes, he still rolled his rrrrs in that over-the-top way.

Captain Faust stood up, a rather horrified expression spreading across his face.

Chiotis also continued his habit of having conversations with himself, for the man was quite alone. He looked Tris up and down, striking a pose of utmost horror at what he saw. Captain Faust just stood there and listened.

"Good gracious, it is true, Mister Faust! The Fleet has finally gone mad. Made you a Captain? Of a real honest-to-goodness Star Ship? I was hardly aware you had made Ensign yet, my boy!"

The old boy in the green wrap-around made a show of struggling with himself, pulling a pained expression on his face and holding out a hand gingerly.

"Well, I suppose I ought to congratulate you Mister Faust, although what this means to the Fleet I dread to think!"

The new Captain Faust stiffened up but he was rather startled as always around Captain Chiotis. As a midshipman the man frankly scared him to death, although he would never admit it. "Thank you Captain Chaos... I mean Captain Chiotis," he said trying to force a smile, "And welcome to Starbase 10. We are set to depart rather soon..." How about that?

The old man's eyes narrowed at the Captain Chaos crack, but he let it go.

"Yes, well you'd better not depart too soon! I've got a little present for you, without which, or rather, without whom your next mission would prove to be rather pointless!" he replied.

"Oh? And whom might that be?" Tristan asked, "And I suppose you'd better sit down... I'll buy you a drink."

"Buy me drink! Buy me a drink?! Do you really think I have time to sit around in bars drinking all day!?" he queried, before catching the barman's eye. "Ouzo, please."

"Would you like that watered down Sir?" asked the barman.

"How DARE you!" replied the Fleet Captain.

"Coming up neat, Sir." nodded the barman.

Chiotis turned back to Faust.

"UFP Representative Talbot. You may recall the name from that fiasco diplomatique on Andor some time ago. Since then he's become a little too fond of the..." he nodded to the glass of strong aniseed smelling alcohol the barman had just placed on the bar "... and in their wisdom, the UFP are sending him to be their representative on... well, you know where. You, I understand are taking him there."

Chiotis didn't know why he was being so coy and cagey about the location, Nimbus III, the Romulans and Klingons knew all of this anyway. Habit of a lifetime, he supposed.

"Nothing wrong with a little drink or two, of course. But you and I know how to take it in moderation!" the older man declared, picking up the glass, downing it in one, but defying stereotypes by slamming it back down on the bar, rather than throwing it against the opposite wall.

"I suppose so," Tristan responded, "So what do you have lined up next? I heard that the Franklin is scheduled to be decommissioned." It was a sore subject but if he could just make Chaos a little uncomfortable it would put him in a better position to deal with.

"Ha! Oh yes, I dare say your dear Father would like that, eh? And me still inside it when it goes into the scrap metal crusher! Well, there's a few more years in the old warhorse yet! A little rust around the nacelles, perhaps, and the photon tubes aren't what they used to be, but that's what happens after so many years in space. The ship is in a similar condition, too."

"And how is my Commander Stryker fitting in with your merry band of misfits, Mister Faust? You poached a good one there, I say!" the ancient mariner asked, with questioning eyebrows.

"Adjusting very well and enjoying the challenge of a Constitution class with the latest and greatest technology," Tristan responded with a smirk, "The ship has already shown what it's made of. Same with its crew. We have a young but talented crew."

"WHAT?!" exclaimed Chiotis "Like that bumbling old quack 'Crippler' Kitchner?! My God, his first ship was the Ark! Oh, how we used to shudder on the old Vasa when we were injured and saw his two great hairy arms coming towards us, and those great sausage fingers. I cant imagine he has improved in his dotage!" quipped Chiotis, who was only a few years younger than Kitch.

"And who was that dreadful woman? Jenkins, yes! The Nurse Ratchet of the Star Fleet Medical Service! She graduated the same year as I, which hardly qualifies her as a spring chicken, if I say so myself!" he rolled one eye, other other was busy trying to catch the barman's.

"You forget Dr. Kirchner is my godfather and he volunteered to sign on for this voyage. I needed a chief surgeon to launch and he as kind enough to fill the post," Tristan explained, "And if I recall Jenkins helped deliver me... As scary as that is."

"You certainly have a good memory if you can recall that event, my dear boy!" Chaos declared. "Barman, another drink!"

When the barman, who was obviously a spy, had disappeared and was out of earshot, the older man's voice became a little quieter.

"I hope you will take good care of our Mr Talbot, Captain [not Mister Faust, suddenly!]. It would have serious repercussions for Galactic Peace should anything happen to him either en route or once he reaches his destination. Who is your Chief of Security?" he had stopped his banter and now seemed quite serious.

"Lt. Miyake, she and her team are good at their jobs," Tristan responded

Chiotis frowned as if trying to recall the name but came up blank. "Another one of your 'young but talented crew' or someone who knows what they are doing?!" he queried. Either way, he had something of a reputation as a misogynist, so wouldn't have approved of a female chief of Security whatever her bona fides.

"I may assign him my personal guard, Ensign Novak. The man is a linebacker with the mind of a cop."

"You have a personal guard!?" chortled the old man "surely you're not that unpopular with your crew already?" he joked. "Seriously though, that might be wise. There are whispers. Rumours. I've already seen a few characters around this star base who would be up for such a job, though I doubt they would use a known face." he muttered cryptically without annunciating whom 'they' might be.

"With our run in with the Orions it made sense to have a security officer follow me around. It paid off actually," Tristan responded, "Poor Peter, took a disruptor blast meant for me, but he's healed up." He sighed, "Well none of the major powers really want this Planet of Galactic Peace initiative to succeed. It's more of to keep the Organians off everyone's backs... I'm sure we'll be at war with either the Klingons or the Romulans soon enough."

"Ah, excellent!!"

It was hard to tell if the Fleet Captain was talking about the prospect of war or the second glass of ouzo that had just arrived in front of him. Nah, actually it wasn't. Tris would have known that he meant both!

"Yes, you've known the horror of war my boy, the pain and the loss. But you've know the exhilaration of it, too. The thrill of the victory, or even the fighting retreat. Imagine that multiplied a hundredfold when you are leading your own ship into battle."

Before the newly minted skipper could mouth any worn out, politically correct phrases about the desirability of galactic peace, Chiotis cut in "Come, come. Don't look so shy, Mister Faust: when you were fighting those Orion scum, half your crew lying wounded around you, your bridge in tatters, don't tell me you didn't feel more alive than you ever had in all your peaceful humdrum life! Ha ha, YES! Once more unto the breech or fill the walls with our Federation dead!"

Chiotis had a strange light in his eyes now, almost manic, Tris would have seen that light before, during past battles: this old Greek, for all his faults, his Achilles Heels, had the heart of an Hector.

"υγειά μας!" He downed the drink.

Tristan rolled his eyes at the old man's display. They always say wars are started by old men and fought by young men.

Again he slammed the glass on the bar and turned again to Faust "And anyway, if anyone does get hurt on your ship, not to worry. I hear you have half the doctors in Star Fleet stuffed inside your sickbay. People are starting to think that you are becoming a hypochondriac, my boy!" he chuckled. He sighed and wiped away a tear at his own joke.

"One experienced doctor and 3 who have never left the solar system prior to three weeks ago," Tristan responded, "Thankfully they've done well so far. These Constitutions were designed for multiple doctors and for training crews with the latest equipment."

Chiotis just made an unconvinced grunt. He was going to make a quip about a real ship only needing a combat medic with a saw and a pint bottle of cordrazine; but he remembered how Tristan's friend Joe Amato had died and didn't go there. He wasn't completely insensitive.

"Well, I can't stand around here all day, giving you advice, Mister Faust, much as you no doubt need it. I have a ship to run and an Ambassador to dump... er... see off with all due honours. Say hello to your Father for me, if it doesn't necessitate waking him from his afternoon nap, and remember me to your mother. Oh! Poor Anna, what she must have to put up with!" he sighed, turning to go.

"Oh!"

He turned suddenly.

"... and be careful nobody assassinates Talbot!"

And then he was gone!

Tristan sighed and flipped over his empty Martini glass. Captain Chaos at his finest... Storms in and storms out, just like a tornado.

 

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