Somehow

Posted on 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:44pm by Chief Warrant Officer 2 Vasily Sokolov Ph.D. & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Tharia sh'Kari
Edited on on 25 Sep 2014 @ 2:12pm

1,318 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 04 - Room 2118
Timeline: MD 09: 21.00 hrs

[ ON ]

Tharia left her room at the noise her roommate was making. What was that? "What are you doing?" She yelled, hoping she would be heard above the noise.

"What are you doing?" Vasily shot back through the open door, finding little trouble in making himself heard over the noise. He was something of an expert at sophisticated Starfleet weapons systems, the complexities of ship design and screaming at people. After a long moment, he finally shut off some very loud variant of a bi-polar welding torch and let a heavy piece of hull plating fall to the floor. "I am tribble-proofing this room so those furry bastards will stay the hell out. What's it to you?" Vasily stood up and glared at Tharia. "You from Starfleet Division of Interior Design or something?"

"I was trying to get some sleep!" she answered, looking around the room to the mess he was making. "I have a shift in a few hours!"

Vasily stared at her for a long moment, eyes narrowed to slits, then slowly and purposefully moved his thumb across the bi-polar torch toward the button that activated the device. He raised it up a little higher then mashed his thumb down, bringing the torch roaring back to life, and continued to look right at Tharia as if daring her to stop him.

Starting to get furious Tharia took a step to the table, grabbed engineering tool of it and smack her roommate on the head with it.

"Gah!" Vasily shouted and dropped the bi-polar torch, which promptly began burning a hole in the plating he was working with. Through a string of Russian curses, he stumbled a step to the right and kicked three times at the power cord running from the wall socket to the torch. With the device safely deactivated, he looked at his hand and seemed astonished: there was a tiny drop of blood on his finger. "F--king Andorian she-devil, you hit me!"

"you should have listened" she shuddered "Instead of continuing with that noise."

Vasily scowled at her, but notably made no move to turn the torch back on. Instead, he slumped back on to his bunk and kept touching his fingers to his head wound. "You're even crazier than last lady, Dr. Coleman. Quartermaster must give Vasily roommates based on poor psychiatric evaluation."

"I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested" Tharia said, copying a old earth comic.

The Russian stared at her for a long moment then barked a laugh. "Maybe Andoria has narrow definition of crazy, then." He reached over to the emergence medkit under his bunk and retrieved the tiny dermal regenerator; the wound hardly required that but he felt he had a point to make. He looked her up and down and smirked, looking amused for reasons that weren't immediately obvious.

"I thought you needed sleep for shift? Or you're awake for stimulating conversation now?" He finished with the regenerator and replaced the kit before gesturing toward the hyper spanner she'd hit him with. "Maybe Dr. Sokolov can return favor and knock you out, hmm? No trouble sleeping then. Maybe headache in morning, though."

"That won't be necessary." she said in her usual coldness. "I just wanted to check if I hadn't hit you to hard. You pink skins are much weaker. If you'd fell to the ground while getting up I would have been awake again from the fall" she turned around and headed for her room.

He glared at the back of her head, briefly took note of her bottom while he had the chance, but quickly went back to glaring at the back of her head. Was she calling him fat and weak? He snorted derisively at her comment and proudly raised his chin. "Takes more than little flesh wound from weak-armed Andorian girl to damage Dr. Vasily Mikhailovich Sokolov."

Tharia turned around and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well, I only hit you soft and you are already bleeding. Others took way more before they bled. But that was in combat offcourse."

"You hit me on head! Flesh is thin there," Vasily snapped, sounding more defensive than he'd meant. "I killed more than my fair share of Jem'Hadar during war, so some little Andorian girl should be piece of cake. Besides, Andorian martial tradition is just puffed up, chest-thumping bullshit. I've seen Andorian fight; you cheat. Maybe I'm little gray now, but I could still hold my own against you." As if for emphasis, he looked her up and down again, snorted, and tried not to reach up to touch his aching head.

"Is that a challenge?"

Put on the spot, Vasily's pride wouldn't allow him to back down. Despite all his blustering, Andorians were tough, and he doubted he was going to come out of this with just a tiny little flesh wound. "You're sure you could handle it? I'll go easy on you. It would be unfair to expect you to fight so far out of your class."

At that comment Tharia couldn't prevent herself from laughing. "You are aware I have been trained by the Andorian guard since I was twelve year old. And have been serving with them untill 4 years ago?" she asked

He laughed back and did a good job of hiding his increasing concern. "Why should I give two shits about Andorian guard? Every Andorian has some story about military. 'I am Second Colonel of Glokta Region Defense Force,' 'I am Fourth Division Commander of Royal Auxiliary Unit,' 'I was raised since three to rip out throats of enemy soldiers.' These things don't mean shit unless you are using it correctly. If you want to impress, go kill alien things in mine or take down Cardassian flotsam chip cartel."

"I don't have a problem to show you my capabilities. I could use a training anyway" she said with a smile.

Something about a smiling Andorian seemed more dangerous than anything else she'd said. "I'm sure. Fine. You want to go to holodeck, or I should just kick your ass right here in quarters, hmm?"

"It might be better if you wait for your head wound to heal. It could influence your performance, and I don't want you to blame your losing on that." She said. "Am I correct in assuming you're trying to insult me with the word girl? I don't really see why I should? I am 30 years old, not what you earthlings would call a girl."

A grin slowly spread across Vasily's face. "Insult you? Why, I'd never. I'm older by fifteen years, makes you girl. Besides, you strut around and huff and puff like someone half your age, like menstruating teenager: 'You're making too much noise, I need precious beauty sleep!' 'I'm better and stronger and faster than you!'" He turned and swung his legs up on to his bunk, trying to hide a smile as he stretched out to rest his aching head. "Pah!"

"I'll leave you to get some sleep, grandpa." Tharia said. "We'll have a raining check for that fight, that you need to prove yourself." Again she headed for the door and this time went through it.

Vasily scoffed. She had a lot of nerve calling him grandpa. He was hardly a grandpa. In fact, he was as spry and in-shape as he'd ever been. Though his traitorous body seemed to feel differently - he felt a stab of pain in his hip and a muscle pulled uncomfortably in his lower back when he stretched out completely on the bunk. Doesn't matter, he thought, I can still take her. Probably. On a good day. While she's sleeping.

[ OFF ]

----

Tharia sh'Kari
Master-at-Arms
USS Galileo
[ PNPC - J. Voutilainen ]

&

WO Vasily Sokolov, Ph.D.
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
[ PNPC - Mott ]

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