Don Julio's Bar and Grill

Posted on 23 Apr 2018 @ 3:14pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Petty Officer 3rd Class Raine Ni-ya

2,578 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Rigel II - Avondale Production Facility Personnel Complex
Timeline: MD 103, 2152 hrs

[ON]

The soft pulsing neon lights of the bar's counter top were the only thing Lamar Darius' inebriated eyes could currently focus on. News had just come in on his PADD from the FNN channel less than two hours ago, and he was still in mild shock at what he'd learned. It was supposed to be a relaxing night out just by himself for a few drinks at the local starbase bar, but instead he was now six cocktails deep and trying to drink away his new sorrows.

And so, he stood there with his pint of red ale and a snifter of Courvoisier on the tabletop in front of him, wearing a simple grey polo shirt and blue jeans.

Raine Ni-ya looked around the place as she entered, wearing dark grey leggings, comfortable boots and a hooded tunic in a lighter brown. She hood was up, covering her head and her hands were covered with thin gloves. She took it all in, the neon lights, the clientele. She rolled her shoulders and walked over to the bar, one hand settling on it. She stroked it before meeting the bartender's eyes, holding them, her dark lips curled up in a small smile. "Espresso martini," she said before she turned her head, looking around almost carefully. She was always vigilant. It was a habit from her own planet, from when she had tried to overtake the government. It was safer here though. Her eyes landed on a man, sitting there and he looked...

Sad.

Raine hesitated, taking her drink and letting it go on her account before she walked past the man in the polo shirt, stopping after a few more steps. Maybe it was being exposed to so many humans. Maybe it was that she was trying hard to be more like them. Or maybe she knew the look so well it pulled at the cold places where she knew her heart was beating. Still. She found herself turning and moving to sit down on the same table, watching the man's face before raising her drink in what she had been told was a toast, taking a small sip of it. Caffeine was an amazing invention. Addictive. She liked addictive.

He saw a figure out of his peripheral as it approached but he was still consumed with his thoughts enough that he didn't flinch or look up when a white-skinned alien woman sat down across from him. But then she seemed to gesture, and his eyes noticed her gloves and tunic. And then he looked up into her eyes and took in her exotic face. The dark eye shadow, the blue irises, the dark lips. He wondered what she was toasting to and what was in her drink. "Hey," he simply said in acknowledgement. Far from his cheery usual self.

"I hear that it isn't done to drink alone," she said and put her glass down. "So I thought I'd sit here and avoid the social judgement." She took in his face, but more importantly his eyes. As if she could read them, see deep inside. He had dark eyes, she found it fascinating. But her scientific curiosity was set to the side for now. Instead, she took her drink again, sipping it carefully, not taking her eyes off him.

The mention of drinking alone helped to bring Lamar back to reality and a more visceral consciousness. The social judgement remark flew a mile over his head. "I'm just stationed here for a few days, don't really know anyone," he admitted as a bit of an excuse for his solitary projection. "But you're right about drinking alone," he smirked to himself. "And now you're here so it's all good, right?"

Raine nodded, a gloved finger tracing the stem of her glass as she watched the smirk, took it in. Took him in. "I am in a similar situation," she said after a moment's pause. "Of course, it was less the drinking alone and more the look in your eyes that made me sit down." She looked down at that, into her own glass, at the two coffee beans sitting on top of the foam. "I know that look. I have seen it before. It makes me wonder what put it there. But I also know that something like that does not exactly make you want talk about it. So you do not have to. But I am sitting here as long as I got a drink to drink. We do not have to talk. We can talk about anything. Or sit in silence. Either way..." she glanced up and her face was set with stubbornness. "I am not moving yet."

"I didn't mean it like that. Sorry," he said before lifting his head to take a deep breath and regain his composure. "You can stay, I think I need the company." He looked at her more closely now, studying her skin, features, and dress with intrigue. "I don't think I've seen anyone like you before. You new around here?"

"Yes I am," Raine said before she offered her hand to him. The human way. "Raine Ni-ya..." she introduced herself, because it was easier to do it the human way. She hadn't been offended. Not at all. She didn't take offence.

"Raine Nee-yaa..." he repeated with a strong attempt to pronounce her name correctly without slurring it incomprehensibly. He reached out with his large hand and gripped hers firmly yet with a gentleness he reserved for lady counterparts. "I'm Lamar. Lamar Darius. Conn officer on Galileo-A," he introduced.

She gave a small nod, acknowledgement of his name and position. And the way he said her name. "We will be serving on the same ship then, Lamar," she said. First name, because he had said it twice. So she thought it was what he wished for her to use. It was difficult to know. She let go of his hand, her eyes on it. Her skin was so different from hers. She liked how it looked. "Good. I prefer encounters like this rather than a briefing. I work in science."

He chuckled a bit as his lips spread into a smile to reveal his white teeth. "Yeah? You? Galileo-A?" he repeated, now feeling more optimistic that he was apparently meeting a fellow crew mate for the first time. And a science officer, of all types of people. His sorrows slowly drowned and now he felt...excited?

She nodded at the words, sitting back slightly and took a sip of her drink. "First ship too," she said lightly. People here seemed to enjoy talk like this. "I am...curious. I have never served on one, but I enjoy...the feel of ships and starbases. The metal around, the way it is almost...an organic structure in its own right. And we are the...brain, blood...nerves..." she chuckled before she shook her head, looking down. "Apologies. I have a way of going on a bit of...a rant, as they say."

Lamar had never bonded with whatever tin can he served aboard. The space frames, technology, personnel...all were simply tools necessary to operate a vessel, as he understood it. But he nodded regardless and tried to understand more. "So first ship and you're going to bond with it?" he lightly teased with a grin. "Like a mother guiding us through space?"

Raine snorted at the idea before she shook her head. "More like a body and we are the parasite..." she said playfully as she held his eyes. "You have to appreciate what it takes to keep a lump of metal working to support life. It is cold outside. We can't survive it. And this..." she gestured around, her blue eyes suddenly warmer. "Is our shield. Or blanket. Or whatever else we can call it. It always surprises me how desperate we are to explore to brave the dangers for...this. And yet..." she took her drink and sipped it. "Without it, I would never have discovered coffee."

She had a point, he had to admit. He'd always been a simple man who didn't need a lot of luxuries in his life. Especially when he was in the Corps. And that also meant he didn't give as much consideration to the spirit of exploration or the philosophy of life that Starfleet was renowned for. "I guess you're right," he admitted. "But like you said, it can be cold. Real cold, when you're on assignment and there's no one else out there to help you." He looked down at his ale and grabbed the glass to take a quick swig. "So you like coffee? At 2200?" he then randomly asked, changing the subject to her drink with awkwardness.

"I am not much of a sleeper," she said and ran her finger along the rim of her glass then saw she had gotten some of the drink on her glove. She frowned and removed the glove, trying to get the stain away before it could mark it, scraping a nail over the spot. "It's part of my people's biology. I enjoy coffee. I like the buzz. Does it keep me awake?" she chuckled softly, shaking her head. "I like finding out."

He looked at her more intently with a focus on her gloved hands. Her skin seemed different, almost scaly like a reptile instead of the smoothness of Human skin. "Who are your people? I've never seen anyone from your species before," he admitted.

"Doubt you would. I'm Cereijan..." she said and looked at where he was looking. She took the gloves off and showed her hands, with the pale short nails. They looked human except the scales. "Our scales are sensitive. It's why I wear the gloves, direct touch can be...overpowering..." she showed her palms before putting the gloves on again. "We inhabit our ancient planet's moon...we managed to destroy our home planet. We tend to stay away from Starfleet but...well. I am not like the others."

"Cereijan, huh?" He listened to her explain her biology and reveal the secrets of her gloves, but suddenly felt sad when she mentioned her people's history. "Why do your people not like Starfleet?" he wondered out-loud.

"Most likely because we are breaking every Federation law by breathing," Raine said softly. Maybe it was the company. Maybe it was the atmosphere. Maybe she was tired of keeping it a secret, a shameful thing. She had been less open with others about it. "Very few of us can reproduce, so we do genetic experiments. We alter our genetic makeup. A lot. Most of us look very similar, from genetic...batches. Each experiment should bring us closer to how we were before we started messing with ourselves. Unfortunately, that is not the case. So my people have a very...strict world...and all our resources are put into correcting ourselves. If a batch is viewed as...lesser than the one before, the whole batch is scrapped whilst growing. In vitro."

Wow. That was some heavy shit. Lamar didn't know what to do except stare at her and observe what seemed to be a woman who was the product of serial genetic engineering. And from what she'd just explained, it sounded almost worse than Earth's Eugenics Wars. "...Damn.." was all he could mutter. He grabbed his beer and took a long swig.

She took her own drink and took a large gulp, nodding. "Yep. So I think it is less that my people wouldn't like the Federation and more the other way around. No one needs mad scientists..." she leant closer, holding his eyes, her face dead serious. "Well. Clearly, they needed one."

He wasn't sure whether or not to take her seriously after what she'd just revealed to him, but he took a semblance of comfort in the knowledge that if she'd been assigned to the Galileo crew, she at least had been vetted? Hopefully? "Yeah but you're 'good' mad. Not 'bad' mad. Right...?"

She waited a few beats before she chuckled and sat back. "Of course," she said, her lips curling into a smile. "Sorry. It is my sense of humour. Besides...I am just a scientist's mate. Keeping it neutral."

"..Thank god," he mumbled again, taking another long drink from his beer-filled pint glass. "So if all your people stay away from the Federation," he started to ask, "then how'd you end up here?" He looked into her eyes and tried to decipher her. "You seem pretty sharp for a scientist's mate."

"Well, if I am going to pour out my life's story, I need another drink..." she finished hers before she turned to look at the bartender, smiling. "One more please," she called out, seeing him staring at a screen. "And whatever he is drinking."

The bartender opened his mouth to say something, closed it when he looked at Lamar before moving to get the drinks.

Raine turned back to look at Darius, holding his eyes before she shrugged. She kept quiet though until the drinks came and let her finger trace the stem as she considered how to say it. In the end, she decided to be brutally honest. "I came to a theory as I was doing my work with my people. Our experiments were getting us nowhere. The only way to preserve our species was to stop. We had some people who could reproduce but we kept them as...test subjects. Harvesting what we needed. It was...immoral. And also, made no sense. The only way we could survive would have been to get new DNA. To...mix...with other species. Which went against everything my government stood for. I became a part of a rebellion. We were...discovered and I stole a shuttle and escaped. And sought asylum here."

"Thanks," he mumbled into his glass as he tilted it back and finished up. He hadn't been expecting company or for someone to show up and buy him a drink -- even if she was pretty strange. "So...let me get this right." He paused to put together the info he'd just learned into a semi-acceptable-logical conclusion. "You left your world because you disagreed with your government and you think mixing with other races is the best way? So you went underground and they found you, and you escaped to the Federation?"

"Sums it up," Raine said with a small smile and shrugged, her eyes meeting his. "My resistance cell got compromised. We..." the smile faded and she took a breath. "A lot of people died. I didn't."

He nodded in response to her last sentence. The mention of being a member of the resistance let him know she had combat experience, and he as well as anyone knew what that was like to fight wars up close. He knew the reality of what each moment meant and the living sacrifices that were necessary. "At least you're here now, right?" he looked up at her with a small smile. Then he raised his new beer in a short toast. "To freedom...and the Federation, I guess?"

She smiled and took her own drink, gently raising her drink in response. "To freedom, the Federation...and second chances," she said and the smile widened and warmed. It was something she rarely did.

[OFF]

--

Crewman Raine Ni-ya
Science
USS Galileo-A

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A

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