TEST DRIVE #1 - Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

You know how you were standing there, back in your home world, just minding your own business?

Time to forget all about that.

Instead of doing whatever the heck you were just doing, you're standing in the middle of this very stylish, sedate barroom. Happily, you're not alone there - in fact you're surrounded by people who seem to be as confused as you are...and some of them look a little, well unusual

Now would be a great time to do....well, something. Ask some questions of the person nearest you, throw a fit, stage a coup....maybe do a little exploring? No matter what you do, you're going to be here for a very long time.

For others might call it the USS Enterprise, but for the foreseeable future, you'll be calling it home.

[OOC: this test drive's open until the next app period.]

Comments

[i_candozat]

When Pavel Chekov--a quite young Pavel Chekov--materializes into Ten Forward he looks slightly less out-of-place than most of the rest of the people with him.

He tugs on the hem of his gold overshirt, looking around the room. "Ay, ayayay," he breathes, Russian accent coloring even his verbal nonsense. "Chto eto za?" he asks without thinking, not translating automatically.

Welcome to the USS Enterprise D, Ensign Chekov, Pavel Andreievich.

[home_fires_burning]

Some people don't need translators. For one reason or another.

"Alcohol seems to help," suggests a young-looking woman leaning against the bar nearby, in Russian with a faint Polish accent. "Cushions the shock to the system, or so I am told."

She's mixed hers with orange juice. None of that blue stuff, thanks.

[she_listens]

She inclines her head, not pressing him further on his exclamation. People say all kinds of things when they see Ten Forward for the first time.

"Perhaps a drink, then?"

[rivera62truck]

He eyes her up, as subtle as any guy you might expect to see in a low-lit bar. He doesn't usually go for the goth-type, but she's cute. Given the clientele this place attracts, why not?

"Yeah," he snorts, running the tip of his tongue along the inseam of his smile. "Good thing, too. Not sure I could take this place without a little liquid courage."

His accent is thick - New York, maybe Brooklyn, tempered with his Puerto Rican roots. Nobody tell him the booze around here won't get him drunk. "Can I buy you somethin', sweetheart?"

[stark_spangled]

He looks at her.

"Were other confused civilians here when you got here, or did they show up after?" he asks, looking for the door handle. The door opens with a computerized swish as soon as he's within a few feet.

That still takes some getting used to.

Outside, the corridor is -- different. Well-lit, which is a plus. Cut-out walls in a material he doesn't immediately place. He can't see too far in either direction, so it's a matter of blindly picking left or right. He listens for any hint of a hum, but the ship runs quiet compared to anything he's experienced. It's hard to say which way leads to the engine room, and from there where the helm could be.

[stark_spangled]

"I'll let you know when this is all over," he says, without missing a beat. He meets her eyes, but he'll make her work for a smile in return. It could be there, lurking under the disapproval and bruised feelings, but who's to say?

It doesn't matter right now, anyway. Regardless of what's happened between them in the past, or what might happen in the future, they aren't the only people on this boat. Before she ever answers his questions he picks out four souls that don't belong here, and soon after that spies the full eight. Nobody looks harmed or desperate, but they're in various states of shock. Steve recognizes that look.

"And if we're floating out in open space, as the view would suggest, there's no reason to stage a rescue until we know what we're dealing with," he mutters. It's delayed agreement with her remark on the door. Assess the situation, gather intel, and find the way back home. It makes more sense than twisting arms and breaking kneecaps. "Has anyone been in and out of these doors? I count one on the left and one on the right, and my guess is there's some kind of storage room or office behind the bar."

[fallaces_sunt]

"Both."

She scans the corridor herself, then frowns.


"Keep an eye out for a terminal or a screen of some kind. All ships should have maps"

[from_the_outside]

"Fair enough."

She follows his quick assessment, and nods at his count. "I haven't seen anyone new leave yet. A few of the uniforms have gone through both main doors -- from here, I didn't see anything more than a lit-up hallway. No one's come in or out from behind the bar yet, but if you're right -- and I think you are -- we'll get more information outside than we will from a storage room or separate office."

This room is contained, curved along what must be the hull of the ship or station, and it doesn't make sense to go further in and risk being cornered. Nobody keeps their important intel in the bar unless they're deep undercover or working a front, and somehow -- she furrows her eyebrows at a uniform walking by -- she doesn't think this place is going for that kind of subtlety. "No security at the doors. We go out there, find an exit, and gather intel on wherever we are."

She crooks an eyebrow, turns to him. "What's your call, Captain?"

[splendid_roman]

"A drink would be perfect." He became more animated at the suggestion. There was nothing that a good cup of tea or pint of beer couldn't solve. "Whatever beer you have." He didn't want to put her out too much.

[queenofmay]

He's polite, if nothing else. And there's something about the way he holds himself. Something heavy. Well-meaning, but heavy. She can note that, even as she gives him a polite curve of a smile and takes the offered seat next to him and folds her hands into the lap of her skirts.

"I wasn't," Marian said, with an easy frankness. Her home world wasn't stolen from her this time. She closed that door in blood, and it remained edged in ash, like it had burned that way to the wall of Milliways, to remind her some choices -- like living, and dying -- could not be unmade. Nor could they be kept without a heavy price.

But at the very least, and sometimes it did seem the very least, that had been her choice and no others.

"But I do understand what you mean. It can be very hard on people the first time that happens."

[queenofmay]

Marian's not quite sure she likes being looked at so closely, but she understands why. Especially since Acre; and Milliways immediately after Acre. And even if she's not fond of it, there are a few people, less than five, of which Kate is one, that she'll let do it. Let look at her, even for a second like they might be appraising if she's really there, in her own face, behind her own eyes.

But she is relieved it lasts only the space of a breath before Kate is hugging her. Because the hugging at least she doesn't hold her breath to find out if they are right, and she might be gone. She can just gently press a hand to Kate's shoulder and breathe in the familiar leather, dust, and horses all the way down into her heart, and mean it even more when she smiles when Kate steps back. She has missed her so.

"Good. Things are good." Ambergeldar is good. Caspian and his boats and his sister and her tiny, beautiful children who have Caspian's heart wrapped around their little fingers. And she's. Well. Finding her way. One step at a time. Slower than she thinks anyone wants. But at least there are steps. Even if she has to remind herself of that more than them. "And you? How have things been?"

[evilontheloose]

The girl does not look up from the game, but of course she heard him. "Hmm?" Oh, triple score and a row-wipe.

[tea_earlgrey_hot]

"Berlin?" he says, with noticeable interest. "Nineteen-thirty-seven, my. You must have come here straight from the belly of war."

He is, perhaps, not as versed in his Earth history as his famed predecessor, but he is nonetheless well-educated. This would be the time a person more accustomed to dealing with children would smile or offer a sympathetic word. He does neither. "I was born in La Barre, France, in the year twenty-three-oh-five."

She'll notice he speaks with an English accent. The French language became obscure by the 24th century.

"And you are one of the first to recognize my insignia," he adds. Not very long ago, some Midwestern imbecile had the gall to insult his ship, not recognizing he was in fact speaking to its captain.

[tea_earlgrey_hot]

"Then I ask for your forgiveness," he says, sitting once she is seated. "May I offer you a cup of tea?"

He is surprised by her answer, but it hardly shows. He mistook her for a woman from Earth's past, not for someone who boarded willingly. But then, that closing remark is rather curious, is it not?

"'The first time'?" he repeats, smiling around his teacup. "Does this happen often where you are from?"

[pyrrha_pandora]

She's tall, even in her flat Chuck Taylors; and her tiny shorts, fishnets and faded Depeche Mode t-shirt leave plenty of skin showing, even if she's not particularly curvy. But she doesn't have a lot of makeup on or an overly elaborate hairstyle--this is a casual moment, here.

"I don't know," she says. "You have to be careful with that--it's a bar in space, so who knows what they drink here? You could be one minute doing some weird rainbow shots or something and the next you're getting alien-probed. Maybe they do that here."

She doesn't sound worried about that possibility, though. Just amused.

"But if they got those Italian sodas, I'd love one."

[never_felt_better]

Oh, Ian hasn't even scratched the surface of worrying things John does. He only gets worse from here.

"Do you know where we are?" he giggles, with all the weight of somebody who's got a secret. "No, you know what? I can't even say it out loud. One minute I was on Moya, and the next ... boom, hailing frequencies open. Wait a second, the same thing happened to you? You don't know where Earth is?"

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate's had to find her own way through more than enough trauma in her still-too-few years. If the others concern themselves with how slowly Marian comes back to them, Kate almost certainly never will. Marian's been there through some of Kate's more self-destructive years. They share that bond, if nothing else.

"Well 'nough. I always envied folk who'd talk of sailing the stars, seein' distant worlds, an' discoverin' new things the way Lewis an' Clark did. Now I'm here."

She laughs, a little helpless and a little thrilled, all wrapped up in the same sweet song.

"Takes some gettin' used to, don't it?"

[splendid_roman]

Ian thought that perhaps this man was crazy. Or he reacted to the strangeness in an odd way. But it was a very odd way, and Ian gave him an odd look. "I don't know where Earth is from here. I don't really know where he is, except somewhere in space, and space is big."

[abyssum_invocat]

"We are at war, yes," she says with noticeable lack of emotion. She's not old enough to honestly remember anything not war. But she doesn't much comment on it; the fact that she's plainly not anywhere near Germany now means her father's war is not her primary concern. (Until she meets someone she recognizes. Then all bets are off.)

"But you don't speak with a French accent," Sinthia notes. "Or even German. You sound English." This is confusing, obviously, by the way her brow creases. It's not the year; the year makes no sense to her, she can't process thinking that far ahead yet. It's well out of her projected lifetime.

She debates for a moment on what to say about his insignia before she opens her mouth again. "I wouldn't say I recognize it. I still don't know what each thing means, but you have four dots along your collar and I've seen no one else with as many." Sinthia does not add that he thinks of himself as captain, which is the surest thing she could point to, but letting slip she can hear thoughts seems both short-sighted and ill-advised in a strange place.

And she knows people don't necessarily like the idea that she's in their heads. "I assumed you would correct me if I'd addressed you by the wrong rank, so I guessed."

[bobbyprentice]

One minute, Ten Forward is just Ten Forward. The same bar he's been coming to after his shift for nearly a month now. Calm, cheerful, half-full with crewmembers and civilians, Guinan in her usual spot at the bar.

The next it's standing room only: the room is filled with people, in a variety of styles of dress and - quickly - in a variety of levels of panic.

Bobby Prentice, sitting at his table in the corner, jumps visibly in his seat and looks wildly around at the unexpected crowd. What the - ?

He shoves his glass away from him - he's only had two; surely that's not enough to make him hallucinate - and casts around for a familiar face. Not that he knows anyone on board very well yet; the downside of being newly-assigned. But he can't see anyone he knows, only a multitude of strangers.

"Hellfire," he says to himself.

[stark_spangled]

Schmidt.

The dirty rat had a kid? A little girl? Where was she when he was building his death machines, or torturing soldiers -- his friends? She couldn't be more than 8. What has she known in her life to this point? How to hate?

Steve takes a deep breath, forcing down the anger he feels boiling his blood. This would go differently if she was an adult, but she isn't. She's just a kid, Johann Schmidt's daughter, and Steve's seventy years and a million miles away from the war.

"Johann Schmidt doesn't want to stop the war, he wants to kill thousands of people." Rein it in, Steve. Breathe in, breathe out. He flexes a fist, letting all his tension drain from his fingertips. With a softer voice, he continues. "I was never interested in hurting your father. All I want to do is protect the people who can't protect themselves."

[ikissdhimbck]

"Mmm."

It's the only 'agreement' he's gonna get, though it don't really sound that way. She's smirking at him again, hazy eyes filled with the devil. If they was being perfectly honest with each other, it is a good thing he showed up; Kate doesn't like things when they're too quiet.

But when are they ever honest with each other?

"I guess it will give me a good chuckle when they haul your skinny ass off t'the brig for disturbin' the peace. Maybe it'll take everybody else here a while t'know what I already do — that Jack Twist is a troublemaker — but they'll figure it out."

Now her smile is all broad delight, rivaling the sunniness of her golden hair.

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia takes half a step back, pressed against the wall, and though nothing shows on her face or in her bearing, she feels a tremor of fear. She has none of the biological responses for it, her breathing doesn't cease and her eyes don't widen; her back is already stiff and straight.

She can hear every question he thinks about her, and the tone of all of them. "So do the Allies. They'll want me dead too."

[tea_earlgrey_hot]

She is intelligent, but as brazen as a teenager. Picard's eyebrows go up, then go down, and his pout intensifies.

"I do speak with a French accent. You see, this is how people sound by my time. It is quite a distance in your future," he says, shifting to face his teacup. "You made a wise guess. I'm sure you must be at the top of your class."

Observant, headstrong, impetuous — yes, Picard knows the variety intimately. Her coolness over the war also points to the fact that she has already matured beyond her years.

[stark_spangled]

"Right," he nods, deciding on left. His pace is quick and quiet, never too fast or too slow for Natasha to keep up.

Her answer doesn't help him narrow down possibilities for what's happening. There could be a chance they're connected to the other people they just left behind somehow, some sort of specific harvesting work that's just begun; or this could be part of some long-term mission, gathering people over a period of years for genetic testing and psychological experiments.

What? Steve has time to watch movies sometimes, and 1960s sci-fi is entertaining. "We should have a plan in case any of these people in uniform try to apprehend us. Assuming they don't have weapons, I can handle at least six in hand-to-hand, more if they're spread out."

They pass a door marked "HOLODECK 5", and on the wall adjacent is a computer panel.