A Shirley Temple for the Minor!

Posted on Fri Apr 25th, 2025 @ 5:59pm by Lieutenant Commander Andrew Star & Lieutenant Gabrielle 'Gabi' Shimoda

2,851 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Impending Midnight
Location: Deck 3 - Officers Quarters
Timeline: After "Getting up to Speed"

The Missouri was underway, the department staff had assembled and disassembled. Departments were restructured in accordance with the new Chiefs heading them, with some departments in arms, others glad someone new had taken the reins.

Newly Science Chief Andrew Star walked cheerfully down the steel corridors of Starfleets Bellerophon starship, dawning his uniform with a glass bottle with a screw on cap on, keeping a see through liquid like water from spilling over the mattalic floors on Deck 3. He stopped when he reached his destination, Lt Gabi's quarters. He pressed the ringer on the LCARS door control, while he waited, he remembered the time they ran through the corridors to the Intel suite just after they'd met the XO together, and he'd wondered if she had time to return home and set up her quarters

"Enter!" Gabi called, placing the last of the three civilian shirts she'd brought aboard in her dresser. She felt a pang of sadness as it went away; that shirt was the one she was wearing when she found the Vulcan scientist in his ship. Thoughts of the man's little daughter still filled her mind. With the vessel now underway, she guessed it wasn't just the Federation, but that little girl she'd be doing this for. She placed her dufflebag on the floor of the closet and closed it as the guest entered her room. She was curious who was stepping into her quarters, let alone why anyone would bother to visit her. She saw the science officer from before standing there with a bottle. She arched a curious eyebrow. "Commander."

"Greeks bearing gifts," Andrew said, holding up the glass bottle in his hand. He was possibly glowing; his happiness was obvious. "I have, in my hand. Vodka. Made in my lab, and I'd like you to be the first crewmen to taste it!"

"Is... um... is that allowed?" Gabi stumbled, entering the main area of her quarters, approaching him as if he was holding a gun. "You made that? In your... lab?"

With the shrug of his shoulders, "No idea! I stopped caring about politics when Khitomer was signed." He made his way through her quarters, looking for a surface to place it down. He settled on the windowsill, "With extreme difficulty," his answer to Gabi's question about his creation. "Don't worry, I've been a scientist for nearly 20 years... And an engineer for 95, any-hoo."

She did the math quickly in her head… the whole routine in the transporter room was amusing, but now the spook had questions. “Wait… that makes you… how old?”

"449, 51 more until I turn 14!" He spoke about it happily, but really it reminded him of the pain a long lifespan caused; he'd outlived so many best friends, friends, and people he knew from buying second-hand engine parts. Hoping his mask was intact, he spoke about his invention, "Oh, you're not a teetotaler, are you?"

“A what?” She figured this must’ve been some sort of ancient term she’d never heard. Encounters with unusual colloquialisms were as common an occurrence dealing with Earthers as it was out on the frontiers. With Star, she figured he’d have a broad lexicon given his age. Revelations about this supposedly youthful man were coming through at a mile a minute, it seemed. She hunted around the room for some glassware.

"Oh, uh, person who doesn't drink alcohol," Andrew said, standing up against the window, watching Gabi rampage through her quarters in search of something. "I can still remember my first drink... 1972, Ann brought back, oh I don't remember now, but it smelled of campfire smoke and tasted bold, earthy, with a lingering smoky finish... Then I woke up in a tree 3 days later," Andrew was smiling, happily rambing like an old grandfather about his younger self.

“I admit I’ve had my fair share of wild evenings when I was younger, but I never ended up inside a… tree. Here we go.” Gabi dug up two metallic Starfleet-issue mugs and sat them on the table. She gave Star a quizzical look. Again, a lot to unpack. “Wait. 1972? Where were you?”

"Lanark, a store, I think, I was fixing a door or something else taller than me." Andrew was away with the fairies at this point; he had forgotten his Earth was different from Gabi's. Was she from Earth? He'd never asked, should he ask? Now self self-doubt was settling in.

“Lanark? Where is that?” She asked. Every answer Star provided seemed to be like a pass-the-parcel, another layer to unwrap as she tried to get a thumb on what this hooch-toting boy wonder was all about.

"Scotland, on Earth," he replied, "My earth, it's a ghost town, extremely empty, and everything has fallen down sadly. I'd like to visit Earth and see it, hopefully it'll remind me of my memories." With all the mentions of Earth, who wouldn't get confused, but the UFP labelled his homeworld 'New Earth' while approving the 'Other Earth' theory and gave full independence when it left after Khitomer in '93. "You ever miss home too?" finally asking Gabi a personal question, not that he minded personal questions, it had gotten tiresome after hearing the same question over and over.

Gabi paused on that. She didn’t know how to respond to the question. The intelligence officer paused, wondering how she could respond. “I miss… a version of it. I feel you would understand that.”

She was right, even though the 60's architecture was still around (despite most falling down by now), it didn't feel like the place he grew up anymore, "100%", moving his hand to the bottle he brought, he unscrewed the cap. "Now, if you want any replicated water down cola crap best grab it now," Andrew finally ready to let the beast loose.

“Are you sure this was a good idea?” She questioned. She was no doctor, but she wasn’t sure if Star, let alone she as an adult, should’ve been downing this questionable concoction. Not that she had any right to question anyone about substances given her track record. Before the science officer could object to her objections and fuss, Shim relented and grabbed the mugs. “Go on, then.”

Andrew poured only a quarter into Gabi's mug and filled the bottle cap with alcohol, while explaining how he'd made it. "Replicators add synthol to take out the effects of alcohol, hmm? Well, I have turned children's PVA glue into 100% alcohol and that into vodka," Placing the bottle down on the windowsill, he finished with "Which reminds me why I gotta explain why I requested a boxload to Nixon (Operations Chief). Anyways, good luck," clinking the bottle cap with Gabi's mug, his body weight was much lower than hers so naturally a quarter would intoxicate him.

Gabi knocked back what she could. The liquid, oddly cool, went down her throat like a pack of razor blades. She coughed, spluttered, choked a little and then came back up for air. She felt a rush of warmth through her torso, and her lips puckered inward momentarily as she processed the strong… flavours. “P-PVA glue… you say? That’s umm… that’s… new.”

Unlike Gabi, Andrew was spluttering like an old automobile, his throat had turned into a knife, stabbing him for underage drinking. "Yi--kes... Christ, I could have done worse," he said, his voice starting to fade. "Bit of Pepsi maybe, some peaches, it'll be alright." Finally answering Gabi's question, "Well... turn the PVA into vinger then into ethanol and bingo, free drugs." Screwing the bottle cap back on, he began to massage his sore throat

“I need a water,” Gabi groaned, feeling her stomach acid already doubling back on her. She stood and clambered the the replicator. “Let me guess, you learned how to do that in prison or something.” She tried to clear her throat, the illicit liquor’s acrid notes clinging to the inside of her mouth like a freeclimber hanging on for dear life. “Water. Cold. Anything for you?”

"New Rosean IV water for me, please!" Andrew requested kindly, remembering fondly the taste of the peach-like fruit from Rosean. "Never been arrested... Interviewed for smuggling, though, but I learnt this in Starfleet, on Starbase 17. Ever been on a Starbase before?"

“Uh… ahem… yeah, I have,” Gabi responded between coughs, tapping their orders into the replicator, the drink already going to her head. ”I’ve spent most of my career on-base or in the field. My first assignment was Starbase 13, a filthy old backwater like a lot of those old stations. I spent more time in the brig than on duty. I wouldn’t recommend it as a way to blaze a trail to the top, I’ll tell you that. Sounds like we could compare notes.”

Was the spook hitting about snitching on the crooks he knew? Or referring to brig design? Whatever it was, he didn't let it bug him. "I think the 17's been dismantled now or sold to the private sector. Either way, I was reassigned to the Arizona in the end, and it worked out better that way." The refitted Sovereign Starship commanded by Acting Captain Capt Ryan ap Dayfdd did wonders for him despite old age catching up to it. He even followed the CO over to the S’parl before their spat.

“Those old stations can be… fun,” Gabi said, almost with a little reminiscence. She brought the round of waters out of the food slot and passed the science officer his fill. Meanwhile, Gabi was starting to feel woozy. “Plenty of places to hide, and to hide things. If I had to deal with myself as a junior officer now, I’d be setting my phaser to maximum. How’s that water?”

"Perfect," Andrew said, taking a sip. "I drank from the stream before capitalism came and sntached it all up." He let that sit in the air while he wondered what he was like as a junior. "Don't think I have changed," making a jab at how he was 13 joining up and still is 13.

"How do you find that?" Gabi asked, taking a seat. She became forlorn for a moment, her shoulders sinking a little as she rested her elbows on the table, sips of water dampening the burning from Star's hooch. "People move on, grow old..."

Andrew's hands caressed the glass, he took a good stare into the water, looking at himself before answering, remembering everything and everyone he knew. "Humans are very forgetful... I've forgotten my family, parents, I don't know if I have any brothers or sisters...Some days I feel lonely, and other days I miss my friends."

"I know what you mean," She replied quietly. All this business with D'Pan's family had made sure of that. Now, for some of that famous Shimoda detachment faux pas- the ill-timed curiosity about the wunderkind. "So, hundreds of years old, and yet you're... human?"

Rapidly moving his head up and down in a yes stance. "The Eugenics Years started in 1960. Children were the lab rats, and the Onlies got better immune systems than the whole galaxy!" he explained. "There was another Earth, with other Humans." Andrew hadn't been home for 116 years, and since his home country's independence in 2293, the Online have closed their borders to every grump. He'd like to go home, bring some friends too, but politics. Everything was political.

"Onlies?" Gabi repeated quietly. "I remember reading about your people when I was in the Academy; Kirk's mission on the Enterprise. You were one of those children?"

Again, he nodded. Thankfully, Gabi wasn't a book-loving Ensign from the Science division that had too many questions about the Onlies. "I never met Kirk," He said, nipping that in the bud before any questions about him arose. "But yes, I don't remember where Kirk transported to, but I was in Scotland when the Federation tamed us."

“Fascinating,” Gabi replied. Things had seemed to line up when she’d considered what Star had said. “Why did you leave? If… you don’t mind my asking.”

Andrew didn't respond at first, as if he were trying to think of an answer. "Shock treatment," he answered, "when Vulcans, Humans, and whatever else came, we didn't know what else was out there, and I guess I wanted to explore for a couple of years." It'd been more than a couple of years since he left home, in fact.

“Human curiosity seems to be strong everywhere,” Gabi replied with the hint of a smile. “Where did your explorations take you?”

"Everywhere," He responded, "I became an engineer's apprentice on a ship-for-hire, then a full engineer on other ships-for-hire, and later Chief Engineer around the UFP-Cardissan border wars. Joining up with Starfleet in 2379 because of the pain the Dominion War caused, I chose science because engineering got boring after 90 years." He didn't ask, but he hoped Gabi had the need to share her reasons why she joined Starfleet, too.

“Interesting. My father was in the border wars too. He was an engineer as well, on the Nautilus,” Gabi replied. “What area of science did you specialise in?”

"Chemical engineering," Andrew replied, despite it being antimatter mixing ratios, this engineering worked in a lab developing chemicals to mix with a warp core. "But I spend too much time admining," reviewing reports, giving the green light on experiments, he slowly became a bureaucrat rather than a scientist these days

“As officers the bureaucratic aspect of our roles can be less than exciting,” Gabi admitted. “Nevertheless, you’ve managed to get your hands dirty in the lab within your first few hours aboard, I’d say that bodes well. Do you have any feats of chemical wizardry up your sleeve?”

It had been some time since Andrew published a scientific paper, heck, even a presentation at some mandatory convention. "Oh, I've been brewing that in my shuttle transport, nothing else to do in space!" He was stalling to think when he published a paper, but a slight truth would be better. "I've been too happy reading my peers' papers and bettering their formulas than working on my own research."

“Gentleman and a scholar,” Gabi nodded, taking another sip of water. “I’m curious, given your background in engineering and science, what are your thoughts on this AI situation we’ve found ourself mixed up in?”

Andrew pondered for a moment, taking a sip of his water. "It's interesting," He answered. "I-402 is clearly better than I-400, but what I want to know... What happened to I-401?" He asked.

"If its in our information, I haven't got that far in my reading," Gabi admitted. "There is so much we don't know about this AI, both friend and foe. It appears we're in league with one of these AI beings. I try to keep an open mind, but... these types of alliances often have a way of ending in betrayal."

Andrew hadn't worked with any human lifeforms as an ally before, so this too was uncharted territory for him. "Like the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer... Only a matter of time before I-402 turns."

“We’d better hope we can recognise it when the time comes. Until then, we keep watch.” Gabi stared at the distorted reflection in the puddle of water at the bottom of her glass. Her eyes flickered up to Andrew, the reality of their situation seeming to click into place moment after moment. “Got any more of that concoction? I need a drink.”

Andrew placed his hand on the bottom on the windowsill that they were drinking. "Nope!" He replied, pushing the bottle across the ledge towards Gabi, he continued "Keep it. Time I was off anyways, G'bye" and before Gabi could get a word in, he waved to her as he walked out of her quarters.

OFF

RSS Feed