TEST DRIVE #3 - Alien Bazaar/Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

#1

Option 001. Alien planet, marketplace: So you're new to this whole space travel thing. The ship is cool and all, but there are hundreds of alien worlds out there. You want to explore. To see what the universe REALLY looks like.

Well, here's your chance! Your first stop is this lovely indoor marketplace, which looks kind of like a mall. There are stalls one after the other as far as the eye can see, and they sell all kinds of things: food, clothes, trinkets, animals, fabrics, jewelry, perfumes, books, etc etc. Some things look human, easy to recognize; other things look very alien. There are two levels, and constant chatter as people hawk their wares and discuss prices.

Do you want to explore? Poke at the weird shops? Buy a gift for a new friend? Flirt with someone at the food court? Maybe you see a pickpocket, and must run to the aid of the victim. Maybe there's some other villainy afoot. After all, a crowded marketplace is a good place for villains to lurk, causing trouble. Whether you're a hero or just an unassuming traveler, there proves to be some adventure for you on this planet.


2

Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

Comments

[dreams_dont_die]

Dylan turns at the voice, partly because it's familiar, and partly because it's asking for help, and for a moment, he stares.

Oh, for ...

This is just great. What did he say to Rhade? That expanding his horizons into unconsciousness wasn't a smart move, and there he is, passed out on the floor.

What is his future self thinking letting a member of his crew get into a state like that? Rhade had seemed annoyed with Dylan's future self, but right now, that's nothing on how Dylan feels about him.

"I've got it," he says, striding over and bending down by Julian and Rhade. "Let me guess, he passed out again?"

[asklepian]

"He did. I'm guessing because of the alcohol already in his system, I handed him a virgin drink."

Julian also has a PhD in being a little shit.

"I'm stronger than I look, but he has to have a good 25 kilos on me at least. I can't drag him down by myself."

Once he got Telemachus down there, it would be a simple enough matter to administer a hypospray to clear the alcohol from his system and put in a referral to Counselor Troi for some suggestions on healthier coping mechanisms before he needed a liver transplant.

[dreams_dont_die]

"He's heavier than he looks, too, he's a Nietzschean."

Dylan sort of knows that from experience. Not from Telemachus Rhade, but from Gaheris.

Because sometimes a captain winds up having to help his wounded first officer to medical treatment.

(He has to force himself not to see Gaheris' still, dead face when he looks down at the unconscious Telemachus. He'd bent over Gaheris' body, crouched by him as he'd died.)

Not that Gaheris, proud Nietzschean that he was, would ever have been in a situation like this.

"Lucky for him, I'm stronger than I look, too." And that means a lot more coming from Dylan, tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, than it does from Julian.

Thanks, mom, for the heavy grav strength.

"I can take most of the weight, you just tell me where to go."

[asklepian]

There's quite a large difference, Julian feels, between someone with the slack face of unconsciousness and the expression of a dead person. He's seen both, many times, and there's no way he'd mistake Telemachus for dead.

"Right, then, just follow me. Once we get to the turbolift, it'll be easy enough going."

Julian swings one of Telemachus' arms across his bony shoulders, indicating for Dylan to take the other. Between the two of them, they should be able to manage well enough.

"He said he was from the Andromeda Ascendant as well, he's one of your crew?"

[dreams_dont_die]

It's just the memories. Memories it's really hard to shake when the best friend who betrayed him, who he killed, is genetically reincarnated and here, now, in front of him.

The beard helps, a little, but he'd had that face at his right hand for years and he still looks at an old photograph of it in his quarters most mornings.

"Apparently. Some time in my future." As if the whole genetic reincarnation of Gaheris Rhade thing wasn't enough to put Dylan on the back foot, Telemachus knows Dylan and Dylan doesn't know him.

He's had more than enough of these temporal twists to last several lifetimes.

"I've never met him before today, but he sure seems to know me."

Julian's got one of Rhade's arms slung across him, and Dylan gets the other, wrapping one arm around the Nietszchean's back to take the bulk of his weight when they lift him.

"You ready?"

[asklepian]

"Well, you'll just have to get to know each other again." Though inwardly Julian's cringing at the potential ramifications on space-time. Q is really buggering everything up. "He's probably not too thrilled about the difference either."

"Ready." Julian straightens properly, from the knees. Between the two of them, he's only very slightly shorter, so at least there isn't disparate heights to be worrying about.

They just have to drag him out and down the hall to the turbolift, with a small apologetic glance at Guinan for the commotion.

[dreams_dont_die]

"I can't wait." Which is probably unfair. Telemachus seemed nice enough in the conversation they'd had. But it's been a hell of a day, and hauling Nietzschean is not on the top of his list of favorite things to do. Though he'd probably have to admit if anyone asked that he's curious just how in hell he managed to wind up with Rhade serving on his ship.

He must have won his trust somehow.

"I get the feeling he's not. Apparently he's annoyed with me in the future."

Dylan and Julian straighten up together, Dylan's arm across Rhade's strong body taking most of the strain, and it is a strain, carrying a dead weight like that, or would be, if it weren't for his mom.

Besides, Dylan's a soldier and he's hauled plenty of wounded comrades back to safety on ops when there wasn't the advantage of a readily available stretcher and medical androids from his ship's med deck.

"Let's go."

[asklepian]

"Wonder why that is?" He honestly does, Dylan seems like a good Captain.

Out the door takes a little maneuvering, Dylan and Rhade both are large and powerful men, and the door was only built for one. Julian trying to push through it at the same time doesn't help matters, despite him being far more slender.

Once they get into the nearby turbolift, Julian calls for deck 12 sickbay. It doesn't take long for the turbolift to cross the distance between the two areas, then they just need to angle themselves through the doorway again.

"Over to the biobed with him," Julian says cheerfully enough, turning them in that direction.

[dreams_dont_die]

"Apparently he's sick of saving my life," Dylan says, shifting his grip on Rhade's arm because even passed out, a Nietzschean's bone blades aren't something he particularly wants to tangle with. He's had enough of them used to attack him to be complacent about them.

To be fair, Rhade would be far from the first person on his crew to say something like that about him, and Tyr is usually the first to point out when he thinks he's being cavalier with his life. A lot of Nietzscheans have trouble with understanding the importance of sometimes needing to make that gamble in order to win big.

But Dylan's still here. It's working so far for him.

They have to squeeze through the door, and Dylan's going to ask how far it is when Julian stops and leads them into ...

What turns out to be a lift.

"Your ship has lifts."

That is ... really impressive. He's not sure what level they were on to begin with, but ... as reluctant as he is to entertain any criticism of his ship, a lift would make getting around a a hell of a lot easier.

With the lift, it's really not far to the med bay, large, light, and with far more people in it than he's seen in Andromeda's for a very long time. Given that his med deck is run by Trance and Trance alone, that's not hard.

They maneuver Rhade across to one of the beds that Julian indicates, and when they get him there, Dylan bends to let the weight he's carrying down onto the bed.

Heavy worlder or not, that was easier with two than one.

"I guess I should say thanks for my future self."

[asklepian]

"Bloody hell, if we had to use the Jeffries tubes to get everywhere we'd never get anything done."

Julian is merely fascinated by the natural weapons, their own Augments has nothing of the like--just brute strength and dangerous cunning. Not that he's ever seen one of those in person either, the closest he gets is looking at himself in the mirror, and he doesn't have anywhere near the physical power of one of them.

"Well we'll get him sorted out, then you can thank me."

He picks up a tricorder, running a quick scan to get the proper dosage of medicine, calculating the amount needed in an instant in his head.

Then he loads a hypospray with the required dose of antitoxin and presses it to Telemachus' neck deftly and presses the trigger to release the drug that will clear the alcohol from his system. He'll sober up right quick that way.

[dreams_dont_die]

Dylan laughs.

"Sometimes it feels that way," he agrees, his voice a little rueful. "Using ladders to get between decks can slow things down. The Andromeda's a big ship."

It's hard to run somewhere when you have to stop and haul your way up a ladder every time you need to get to a new deck.

Which is why when he'd had a full complement and had to get quickly from one place to another in drills or in battle, he'd jumped down the ladder shafts with his anti-grav harness on, several decks at a time. Even though it annoyed Andromeda. Because sometimes, he had to get places quicker than he could by climbing.

Once Telemachus is settled onto the bed, Dylan takes a step back, out of Doctor Bashir's way.

"All right, it's a deal."

[not_gaheris]

Telemachus stirred awake, hearing two voices. One, familiar, the other, wasn't he talking to him before? That guy in the blue with the weird smile? Moving one of his hands, he rubbed his face, trying to clear the grogginess out of his system.

"What happened?"

He opened his eyes, and looked around. Not Med Deck. Oh, right. They had been fucked over yet again and were no where near Andromeda. Figures.
"How'd I get here?" It was a legitimate question. Normally when you fell down drunk on Seefra you woke up with no wallet or a bunch of prostitutes hanging around you. Or maybe that was just him.

[asklepian]

"You passed out," Julian says simply and obviously, coming back into Telemachus' line of sight with a tricorder. "When you do so while talking to a doctor, you generally end up in sickbay."

He looks over the results of the scan, satisfied now with Telemachus' low blood alcohol level--it had been dangerously high for humans, but with his different genetics, Julian wasn't sure what he could put away before alcohol poisoning set in.

"This should help with your headache." Julian has another hypo in his hand, Telemachus has approximately 2 seconds to stop him before he sticks him with it.

[dreams_dont_die]

"The doctor and your captain had to haul you down here," Dylan says. He's pulling rank, a little, but that's one of the perks of being a captain and having someone around who apparently answers to the same military as he will in his future.

He's glad Doctor Bashir was there; sobering up a guy who's so drunk he keeps passing out is far from Dylan's expertise as a starship captain. That's what Trance is for, though he'd hope he'd never wind up having to haul one of his crew into Andromeda's medbay to sober them up.

"Time to narrow your horizons again, Commander."

[not_gaheris]

Telemachus was a Nietzschean, and thus he had no problem getting medical treatment for something. Headaches and hangovers were generally bad. They made you weak, slow, and your reaction time dulled. Not very good for survival. So, Rhade just let Julian do what he needed to do.

"Thank you, Doctor."

Telemachus took a deep breath, and put his hands to his face, trying to clear the fuzz from his brain and remember exactly what he'd done. "It's been a long day. A very long day. Cut me some slack." From what happened back home to being winked into another universe? There was only so much a boy could take. But Rhade supposed he should just be thankful Dylan doesn't want to take him up on charges.

"Yes, sir." Rhade answered, falling back into old routine until he could clear the cobwebs from his head, flipping between a good Commonwealth solider and wanting to just flip the world off.

[asklepian]

"My pleasure. Now I suggest you take it easy before I have to culture replacement liver cells for you, alright?" Julian puts down his hypospray and picks up a tricorder, scanning to make sure the alcohol is being cleared from his system satisfactorily.

It wasn't like he was unused to seeing people dealing with intra- and extra-personal conflict at the bottom of a bottle--Quark's bar served genuine alcohol, unlike most starships, and in forms that were certainly less than legal in Federation space proper. He'd treated his share of people suffering from the consequences of their overindulgence.

"I can leave you two alone to talk if you like."

[dreams_dont_die]

"And before my future self kicks your butt for conduct unbecoming a High Guard officer," Dylan adds, crossing his arms.

Rhade's at least not giving the doctor any of the attitude he was giving Dylan earlier, but Dylan's had just about enough of looking after his future self's Nietzschean mess.

"I don't know, Rhade, is there anything else you need to say to me?"

Now that he's more sober.

Some of what he'd drunkenly said had been not the sort of thing a man should say to his captain, but ... since he's not Rhade's captain yet (there's a mind-bending thought), he'll let it slide.