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.


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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

[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."

[seekingcrocodile]

"I know we were. When it's a matter of survival, you take what's available."

He knows it's a hollow excuse, but it made sense at the time, and he doesn't regret it. He hadn't lost who he was during those initial years. It was only later, after other losses, that he forgot a few things.

"It was the same crew, Liam. They'd had their captain die same as I had. I told them of my intention to turn pirate and that anyone who did not wish to join me was free to leave. To a man, they stood by me and my decision."

[liamjones]

He sat back, a bit stunned. It was... odd... to be touched by a show of loyalty through utter and complete disloyalty, but.. touched he was. Killian was one thing, they were brothers, and if he had died...

Well... he couldn't imagine what he would have done had he lost Killian, really. But the crew.. there were no blood ties there, and while he would have given his life for each and every one of them, this confirmation that his trust was well placed, that his people thought of him so well...

He nodded, listening. "Go on," he said, still a little sunshocked from this.

[seekingcrocodile]

"There's not much more to say about that. We renamed the ship to the Jolly Roger and off we sailed. It was not the life I'd imagined having, but I tried to live it as honorably as I could." He'd had his own code of honor and everything.

[liamjones]

He gave a small nod. "That is the thing you have said thus far that has been easiest to believe," he assured his brother.

[seekingcrocodile]

"I wish I had better things to tell you. This is my life as it is now. Or for a number of years, at least." Although he's not sure he'll ever truly be rid of the label of pirate.

[liamjones]

"For... all three hundred? Certainly the king was not so long lived, in all that longevity, you and the crew never found another to follow? You never found another to trust, my brother?"

[seekingcrocodile]

"What was I going to do, Liam? Go to someone else and say 'I was a pirate for ten years but now I'd really like to join your service'? I went where I wanted, when I wanted. I answered to no one but myself. It's a freedom that's not available any other way. Which doesn't mean I never trusted anyone. Just that I never wanted to serve anyone else."

[liamjones]

"And now... my brother?"" he asked softly.

[seekingcrocodile]

"Now there is someone I would trust with my life." There has been a lot between then and now, but they'll cover it.

[liamjones]

He gripped his brother's hand across the table again, supporting him.

[seekingcrocodile]

"Two people, now." He'd trust Liam with his life too. "It took some time to get there though."

[liamjones]

He sipped his water. "Tell me," he said, not quite an order, but something more than a request.

[seekingcrocodile]

"This is a bit of a long story. Three hundred years to cover and all." He takes a sip of his not!rum and starts. "After I'd been a pirate for some time, I was in a tavern, doing the sorts of things one does in a tavern, having a good time, when I met a woman. I didn't know it right away, but oh I came to love her so much."

[liamjones]

"Things... certainly you do not mean... drinking, brother?" he asked, startled.

He leaned in to listen about the woman, though the thought of his brother drinking and carousing in a tavern like some common wharf rat was quite distracting. And quite impossible, was it not?

[seekingcrocodile]

"Not all alcohol is bad, Liam. Just a little of it does no harm." They can come back to that.

"It was all so complicated. She had a husband, and a son, and the morning after we met, she came to me and begged me to let her come with us. She didn't love her husband, she was unhappy in her marriage, she didn't want to stay. She wanted a different sort of life, and it was a life I could give her."