Strike!

Posted on Wed Jan 18th, 2023 @ 9:27am by Captain Tristan Faust & Lieutenant Commander Dimitri "Dima" Stoneking M.Eng.
Edited on on Fri Jan 20th, 2023 @ 10:18pm

147 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: A Fool’s Errand
Location: Deck 20: Bowling Alley
Timeline: M1 MD08 (2268.23.05) 1900

The Midway was set to intercept the Orion vessel at 2200. The Captain had ordered the senior officers to take a rest break between 1700 and 2230. For himself, Tristan was hoping for a quiet dinner and a nap but neither of those things happened. Dealing with the nonsense over Dr. Meddows was enough to both ruin his dinner and keep him from sleeping.

Instead Tristan decided to try out one of the ship's amenities which he had yet to try, the bowling alley. Located on Deck 20, the ship's bowling alley offered five lanes with a lounge and a small bar. He ditched his uniform instead wearing a black long sleeve polo shirt, a pair of khaki pants and a pair of shiny russet leather bowling shoes. He walked down to Lane 3 and set his ball bag down onto the bench. The alley was empty so that was something.

"Evening Captain." Dima greeted, popping up from the deck plating under the ball return. "Decided to play a few frames I see, good idea." He added conversationally. "I'll be out of here in a sec."

"Nothing else to do," Tristan responded. It wasn't as though he could sleep hours before a battle anyway. Never could even during the war. "Thanks for joining me," he said, "It's never fun to bowl alone."

"Very true, it is not a solitary sport." Dima agreed, climbing out from under the ball return now and dropping into one of the seats. "Had to stay busy, I'm not good at waiting."

"Being in the service for life you'd think we'd be used to it," Tristan said as he placed his gold bowling ball into the return, "It never used to be so bad until climbing into the center chair, but time at least seems to move faster..."

"Everything's easier when you're not the leader." Dima observed. "You know I was a team leader for a long time, so... I get the stress you're feeling, to a degree anyway. I only had a team of six and a support staff, you have four hundred... same same, but different."

"Knowing what you know now, if you could do it all over again, would you still take the center chair?"

"I would," Tristan responded. He said before tapping the console and picking up his ball, "I've heard the feelings around command especially command of a starship in quasi religious terms... That it's something you are almost born to do." He walked to just before the line and executed a near perfect form, releasing the ball just slightly late. The ball skidded down the polished wood lane and hitting the left hand side of the front pin, causing all but 3 pins to be knocked down. "Damn!" he cursed.

"So would I." Dima replied truthfully. "Though if I had it to do over again I would have made sure that the registrar filed out the paperwork correctly. D'you know I actually get paid less now as an officer?" He said it lightheartedly, but it was the truth. "Granted I don't know about the whole starship command aspect, or the religion around it, but it seems to me that if you get command of a ship like this that kind of power can go to your head."

"It depends on the officer," Tristan responded, "I've found most of my peers tend to be young but experienced, level headed but ready to take risks. I would say consider yourself fortunate to have a second career. Many of your peers have difficulty... You know better than I that Seals either age out and retire or don't see retirement." Tristan knew Dima was getting close to the age cut off for service in the Seals. Dima no doubt knew this, but Tristan wondered what an effect him saying it would have.

"Well yeah, but I would have preferred it not to happen because someone made a mistake with paperwork. Though you know as well as I do that happens more often than the service would like to admit. Myself I always envisioned ageing out, fighting to stay in a little longer or coming home on my shield." He paused to wipe nonexistant grime from his hands. "You know how it is, my dad's a retired Admiral, my brother's a Captain, my sister teaches at the Academy... hell, my wife is XO of starbase thirteen. I had to work hard to prove that my career choice was valid and then one day while I was just trying to add to my skillset suddenly I became an officer and it was as if none of my career choices, or that struggle to prove myself mattered."

"So what do you want me to do?" Tristan asked as his second try knocked off the last three pins, "Transfer you to security, demote you to Master Chief?"

"I was just sharing, Captain. I thought we were having a real conversation here. Besides, you and I both know there's nothing that you can do, and the only thing I could do would be to resign my commission. Maybe... I don't know, I suppose I thought I could talk to you. Maybe I need to find someone my own age to talk to, which I think just leaves the doc." He laughed, he was the second oldest member of the crew which wasn't saying much as he was only in his forties. "Then again, maybe I shouldn't."

He wiped yet more nonexistent gore from his hands "I know what you want, you want me to move on. Problem is... I don't know how, I don't even know where to start." The last half of the sentence was almost muttered. "Ignore me, I'm no fun and you're supposed to be having fun... Captain's orders, after all."

"Sorry... I'll drop rank," Tristan responded with a sigh, "I'm just exhausted and can't sleep. Too much going on." He sat onto the hard plastic bench. "I've been through a war, but I know sitting on the bridge flying a console is different than being in the trenches, but I've lost people and other things..." He said, "Two months ago I lost my best friend and no one can exactly tell me why..."

"What happened?" Dima asked. He'd lost people of course, but he'd always either been there or been able to find out the how and why of it.

"Joe was on the Defiant. The Enterprise never gave much of an explanation," he said,"other than some sort of space madness and the ship disappearing." He sighed as he went up for another round. His ball knocked over all the pins this time, "Well that's something," he said as he walked back to the sitting area, "Anyway, its been hardest on Dr. Amato... Joe was his older brother."

"Fuck." Dima drew out the word a couple extra syllables. "I assume Kirk feels he had good reason to conceal what happened but... it still doesn't feel right, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," Tristan responded before sitting back down, "I read the top secret report and frankly other than more details it doesn't shed light on much." He stood up again, "God I could use a drink, want anything?" He asked.

"Sure, what's in the selection?" Dima responded, standing back up. He was off duty, just lending a hand to the bowling alley manager.

"Quite a bit actually," Tristan responded, "I'm having my usual, a gin martini.

"Guess I'll have a rye and water." Dima replied and followed the Captain as he left the lane. "While I have you here, I've been thinking... it's pretty annoying having to clean up the mess everytime the pool overflows. I'm thinking about installing forcefield generators above the water that we can use to keep the water in when the pool isn't in use. The power expenditure would be negligible since it would only really use power with water comes in contact with the field and completes that circuit."

"Make sense," Tristan responded, "I'm guessing the yard engineers didn't think about pool water flooding the deck." He chuckled, "A ship's pool, can you think of such a thing? It's as ridiculous as a... ship's bowling alley."

"Heh, yeah, odd choices for sure. I love swimming and I also like bowling but I have to say I am a little surprised there's no batting cage aboard." Dima replied.

"Huh I never thought of that," Tristan responded, "Would actually be quite useful, at least to me..." He downed another sip, "Maybe we can program the holographic recreation deck to do something similar.

"I don't see why not... I'll look into it once the present situation is handled." Dima answered. "Would be nice to hit some balls, haven't had the chance since before leaving Earth... failing that I'm sure we could cobble together a ball machine, it's just be a matter of finding the space."

The Captain looked down at his wrist chronometer, it was almost 2000. "I think it's just going to be one game for me tonight," he said, "We both should try and get some sleep before we intercept the Orions... It's bound to be a mess."

Dima nodded, though sleep was unlikely. "Another time." He said in reference to bowling. "Good night, Captain."

"Good night Commander," Tristan responded before placing his bowling ball back into its bag.

 

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