TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

#1

Option 001. Cetacean Pool/Aquatics Lab: Of all the places in the world, you open your eyes and you find yourself in a medium-sized aquatics laboratory, filled with various living specimens along with various science officers bustling about trying to maintain order. There's much to explore here (and hopefully, in the crew's opinion, not break), but the main attraction is the large pool at the far end of the lab; enormous but tanklike in appearance, it contains several dolphins happily swimming about, seemingly without a care in the world.


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

[liamjones]

He opened his eyes and nodded slightly. "Thank you, brother." he reached for the tonic.

"Well, down the hatch," he murmured, then drank it in a single gulp.

He closed his eyes, feeling the effects spread through him. After a moment he sat up, feeling fit, feeling as good as he did before he picked up the curséd branch.

"Back to my old self, little brother," he said, rolling his shoulders. He stared at Killian a moment, then pulled him into a hug. It had been the longest hour or so of his life, but for Killian... it had been 300 years. On both sides, this was long over done.

[seekingcrocodile]

He's relieved, incredibly relieved, to see that it's the same cure that David got, and that Liam is fine, he's alive, there's no more poison trying to kill him.

He's never going to let Liam go again. It has been too long.

"We're all in trouble now."

[liamjones]

He laughed, giving his brother one more thump on the back, before ending the hug. "Where to, brother? You know this odd place better than I."

Now for the first time he could look around, and strange as this place was, what caught his eye...

"Killian," he said, seeing for the first time the hook. Alarm was in his face, concern in his tone.

[seekingcrocodile]

He follows Liam's gaze and knows what he's asking about. "I told you that I met someone, and then I lost her. The man who took her from me took my hand as well."

He grips Liam's arm right above the elbow. "I have much to tell you, brother."

[liamjones]

"Clearly," he said, his gaze lingering on the hook a moment longer, before he looked up to his brother's face again. So many changes there, a very different man in some ways, than the little brother he set sail with that morning.

However in the face was a message, clear as the skies on a calm day. He was exactly the same.

Liam reached up and patted his brother on the cheek, on the face that was both so different, and yet... not different in the least.

"Yes, come. Let us find a place to sit and talk of all that must be said, all that you wish to say, my brother."

[seekingcrocodile]

He heads out of sickbay and starts along the hallway, going quick enough that they won't be slowing down anyone who comes up behind them, but slow enough to allow Liam to begin to get his bearings in this new place.

He's silent until they're standing outside the doors of a turbolift. "Some of it won't be easy to hear, brother. I was headed down the wrong path for a very long time."

[liamjones]

He clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Whatever the problems may be, there is nothing that the Jones brothers can not over come," he assured up with a warm squeeze of his hand before letting it fall.

"What do you mean by the wrong path, exactly?"

[seekingcrocodile]

"If it were only that simple, Liam." It does feel wonderful to know that there's someone on his side no matter what, and that he'll have some more support again. It's tiring having to justify yourself all the time.

"Vengeance, brother. I was bent on vengeance for someone I had lost, and it nearly destroyed me."

[liamjones]

He shook his head and grasped his brother's shoulder again, firmly. "That's bad form, brother, and you are better than that. So much better than that. Tell me everything, and tell me what happened after. We'll work through everything we have to."

"Even the best ship takes on water now and again. But the best captain, and the best brothers, learn how to plug the holes, and bail out their younger brothers," he said with a bit of a grin.

He wasn't making light of his brother's issues to belittle him, or to make it seem like he did not take them seriously... but to show him that nothing he could say would ever stop him from being his little brother. He counted on his brother to realize that.

[seekingcrocodile]

"I know I am, and I'm not proud of that man I was then. I'm working hard not to be him anymore."

He leads Liam along another hallway and back into the lounge where he'd been when he arrived. "You find us a table and I'll find us some refreshment. It's not intoxicating, so it won't lead to bad form. You have no need to worry there."

[liamjones]

He nodded. "I can't imagine you taking that particular current anyway, my brother," he said with a warm smile. "This is a rather... odd meeting place, but I suppose if they do not sell spirits among the libations this place perhaps is an acceptable establishment for the moment." It still seemed rather too much like a tavern for his liking. However, so long as there were no bar-fights or lewdness, it would pass muster for the time being.

Really though, he would prefer the cabin of a sturdy ship upon the waves.

[seekingcrocodile]

You miss out on a lot by not going to taverns, Liam. He'll introduce you. "There is a reason I made a point to mention it to you. I knew you would be worried. I promise I will not allow you to experience the same bad form that I did."

He heads off to the bar, and when he comes back he has water for Liam, and not!rum for himself.

[liamjones]

He stared after his brother, confused. He tried to parse out what that meant. Did he mean that he had... no. Not Killian. He had never met anyone who felt more strongly on that issue than his brother. He had seen his brother pitch the spirits of their crew overboard to prevent them from drunkenness. So there was no way that Killian had turned to drink himself, no matter what else he had done.

Liam simply could not picture it.

[seekingcrocodile]

He sets down the water for Liam and the drink for himself. "Remember, I told you that I went down a wrong path. I know that now, but much of this, it has to do with that. Try not to judge me too harshly."

[liamjones]

"You're my brother," he said firmly. "Tell me what happened, but do not fear, there is nothing to fear, I assure you."

[seekingcrocodile]

"You know about the dreamshade and how that turned out. Well, I couldn't serve a king who would be that dishonorable. Which really only left me with one choice."

He figures his brother is smart enough to figure out what he means.

[liamjones]

"So...you quit the navy?" he asked, trying to figure out the answer, because what might have been obvious to anyone else does not even occur to him. Not with regards to his brother of all people. "How did you have enough to buy the ship from the crown? You... became a merchant?"

Yes, that was the conclusion he finally drew.

[seekingcrocodile]

"Aye, I quit the navy, but, Liam, I didn't have enough money to buy the ship. That wasn't the solution I wanted anyway. Even a merchant has to follow someone else's orders. There was only one man whose orders I knew I could trust, and that was me."

[liamjones]

"Then I am not sure I follow, brother. No, belay that, I am certain that I do not follow. Every man follows the order of another at some level. Even the highest ruler in the lands follows at the least God. And even more, if they do poorly by too many people, they find themselves ousted by the very people they once ruled over."

He stared. "You... usurped the king himself?"

[seekingcrocodile]

"Pirate, brother. I turned pirate." That much at least he doesn't regret, even if he does regret some of the things that come after. "There is an honor among them."

[liamjones]

"Among... pirates...?" he asked slowly. He trusted his brother, of course he did, but he did not know which strained credibility further, that his brother, little Killian, had become a pirate... or the claim that they had honor.

"The same thieves that besieged us whenever we sailed for a port too far outside official waters?"

[seekingcrocodile]

"Liam." It's not about that. It was never about that. "A king will tell you that he's looking for a plant that will cure any ailment or injury, and what a wonderful thing that is. No more sailors dying at sea. Then it turns out that what the king is really looking for is a poison, which he can use to defeat any enemy without giving them a fair chance at a fight." Which is bad form. "A pirate will tell you he's looking for poison. You know what you're getting with him."

[liamjones]

"That may well be, brother, but a pirate will also take that which he has not worked for, has not earned, from those who can ill afford to spare it. A pirate has little care for those he hurts along his way. This... is not a life I can see you in, truly, my brother."

[seekingcrocodile]

"What makes you think I took from those who could ill afford it? It was the king with whom I had my quarrel." Of all the people he would have expected to realize that he could be a pirate and a good person at the same time, Liam was at the top of that list.

[liamjones]

And he will come to that in time, because of his brother. "And you found a pirate crew willing to accept that as the only target? And what of those who lost their pay or worse because they could not fend off the attack?" he asked carefully, concern for his brother in his eyes.

He reached out and put his hand over Killian's. He gave it a warm squeeze. "We were once those men, knowing little of the King's betrayal."