Brownsville Station

Posted on Thu Jun 10th, 2021 @ 11:17pm by Lieutenant Percival Bálor Ph.D & Lieutenant Commander Yivliph Ra-Gruvloveii

2,129 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: The Lonesome Road
Location: USS Ontario | Deck 06 | Primary Computer Core

Poking and prodding about the USS Ontario's Primary Computer Core was more of the expertise of someone with a bit more finesse, a computer scientist, an operations officer, an engineer: A Biochemist such as Percy? No, not commonly at least. He was adequate with some things technical, but more advanced systems were not his forte. The half Tellarite was getting into communications files and sloppily working his way around a few things, but 'tripwires' were not the easiest thing to circumvent. Try as he might not to be a bull in a china shop, he was still a half-Tellarite touching things that he technically should not have been, and even if he had been careful not to alert security, he had bigger problems to deal with: a detail-oriented Efrosian, hawkish despite his poor eyesight. Lieutenant Yivliph Ra-Gruvloveii knew the ship's system as well as an Operations Officer, and being intel, he had one of the highest security clearances aboard.

What Percy was trying to do was indeterminable, but he was messing with something regarding communications, and he had done something to peak the inquisitiveness of a certain Efrosian. Percy had been sitting in a chair in the computer core at an auxiliary station when his snout turned upright. There was a change in the sterile air, a familiar scent that his mind had started to associated with the Efrosian Yiv. Percy knew that Yiv had to be close by, if not approaching him from behind. He slowly lifted his hands up from the console and snorted. "Well, this is embarrassing," commented Percy. I had to make an amateur mistake Percy thought to himself.

Sighing, Yiv spun the chair around so he could face the half-Tellarite. 'It depends. Either you really were silly enough to try and think you could sneak around in the comm system, or you were deliberately blundering about to catch someone's attention.'

The Efrosian crouched, bringing him nose-to-snout with the Science Officer, 'the question is, Percival, which is it?'

"Well," Percy said with a shrug. "If I am going to get anyone's attention and get caught poking about comms then I'd rather it be you, and you can relax Sherlock," added the Chieg Science Officer. "Of all the bad things I could be doing, this is a misdemeanor. Trust me, I'm not contacting the Kazon or anything."

'You'll need to do better than that, Percy,' said Yiv gently, 'misdemeanour or worse, Kazon or otherwise, I have to know what you're doing.' The Efrosian shrugged, 'flattery will only get you so far.'

With Yiv on his case, Percy sighed. "Keep this away from a security report please. I have already had like sixteen strikes against me by now. Well, maybe more like two that they are aware of for now at least." Percy touched the display in front of him. "I'm trying to get into contact with a Yiridian I know through a mutual associate. The Yiridian owns a shop on Brownsville Station, a remote outpost near Orion space. I'm trying to get my hands on some Snakeweed and a bit of information."

'Snakeweed?' echoed Yiv, immediately assuming the worst, 'well I can see if you're after some ... stimulant then you'd wouldn't want the transmission discovered.' So far he wasn't seeing a reason not to write up the standard Security report, but he kept quiet for the moment.

"Don't give me those Efrosian eyes," Percy said shaking his head. "I'm not a snake junkie. I need some to plant in the lab, the the ice queen XO is like a brickwall. One experiment gone off the rails with a plant, and I can barely get a shipment of tomatoes on. Okay, maybe I've tried Snakeweed a few times at the academy, but I'm not a cadet anymore."

Percy looked at Yiv. "If you are going to report this can you at least water it down a bit?"

'Right, someone who used to dabble just happens to need some of it for their plant lab,' Yiv said sceptically. 'What about the rest of it, the information? What would have the ship's Chief Scientist want to go through such unofficial channels?'

"That is the embarrassing part actually, and I'll have you know there are aot of uses for snakeweed that are not recreational." Percy pressed on. "I'm trying to get information on Lieutenant Amanda Rose, you know the Counselor...yeah her. I am trying to access her personal logs and acquire some information about her, stuff not on the general access personnel file."

His eyes went wide, 'what? What do you mean information about Amanda?' Yiv shook his head, 'Percy, none of this is making sense, and none of this makes sense. I couldn't whitewash this if I tried. Quit the knock-off spy nonsense and start from the beginning.' Yiv cast about and looked for a chair and dragged it to sit in front of the half-Tellarite.

"She's sweet isn't she?" Percy replied. "That type of girl you'd want to bring home eventually to meet the family, if it worked out and got that far." The Chief Science Officer flashed a small smile. "I have never had much luck in the romance department. I am a guy who deals with facts and data. I am a scientist, Yiv, a researcher. I both love the unknown and I fear it."

'Wait, what?' Yiv exclaimed as his brain processed the new information. 'You're looking for information on Amanda because you want to date her!?' Strong emotions reared up inside of himself, conflicted about this new information. 'That's ... really not how you do it, Percy.'

"Yeah...." replied Percy his mouth ajar a moment, stress on the last syllable. Try to save face he thought to himself. "I know. I should not be doing this, but as I said, I'm not good with any of this stuff. I'm am excellent with expressing my feelings and emotions, but not like this. Not when it comes to this." He looked nervously at Yiv. "Save me?"

'Save you? You mean coach you in how to date?' asked Yiv, increasingly incredulous. He shook his head, 'this is really not what I was expecting when I walked in here.' He grinned, the fiddling with the comm system momentarily forgotten, 'so you have a crush, huh?'

Percy scowled with a glare. "Maybe," he said in response. He did not specifically say he had a crush on Lieutenant Rose, and he was not going to argue semantics with an Efrosian, albeit both Tellarites and Efrosians stereotypically speaking, could get into some lengthy back and forth discussions. For Percy's sake, it was best to just ride this one out on the course Yiv was taking them. "Sure, give me your romance advice."

'Not so much romance advice, as good life advice,' replied Yiv carefully, 'if you want to go date a girl, just ask her out. Take her somewhere interesting, either on the holodeck or on the ship. And just listen to what she says and show your interest by asking perceptive questions.' He shrugged, 'it usually works for me, anyhow.' The Efrosian frowned once more, 'so why did you need to go to a Yridian on an out-of-the-way station like Brownsville?'

"Favors," Percy replied. "The Yiridian owes me a favor or two, plus the station is so podunk that nobody would raise much more than a brief brown at seeing a transmission coming or going from there. If I were a little more careful at least," he added. He couldn't exactly tell Yiv everything, and Yiv had the information now that Percy had been prodding about looking for more on Amanda Rose. "You know ship scuttle butt has the two of you together? Lieutenant Rose and you that is."

'Rose and I?' Yiv thought for a moment, distractedly cataloguing his interactions with Rose for a moment. 'Hmmm I can see why. We enjoy one another's company, but there doesn't seem to be more than that. It shouldn't interfere with your designs.' Belatedly he noticed the forced change of subject, but opted not to mention it.

He was worried he may have to investigate Percy further, and behind his back. 'Besides, I'm sure you know Efrosian males don't mate for life. We're more ... cavalier.'

"Yeah, I know most are...cavalier, but I did not want to stereotype or make an assessment based off your species. I get a lot of that being part Tellarite." Percy smiled a little. "How cavalier is cavalier?" Percy added with a small chuckle. "I feel a bit ridiculous that I came in here and went through all this trouble."

'As much you should. It would have been better for you to have enlisted one of the computer experts within your department,' Yiv said. 'As for cavalier, I bed my fair share of people. None since I came aboard though,' he said quietly.

Percy shrugged. "What can I say, I have a knack for getting myself into a bit of trouble. I would be delighted if we could find a way to forget this little snafu, but I know you probably cannot cover for me? Any chance we can find a way to downplay my involvement here? Clearly, my judgment was impaired, and I am not doing anything that is overly...criminal."

Yiv sighed, 'that remains to be seen, Percy. We've only got your word that you're not up to anything too criminal.'

"Not good enough for you yet?" Percy replied with a small smile. "I know we haven't had that much time together yet, I mean we haven't had a good heart to heart yet, but do I look like I am in here doing something too criminal for you?"

He hesitated a moment. It was unusual that a Starfleet officer would try and hide his intentions and mask his outgoing messages like this. As clumsy as Percy had been, that did not rule out malicious intent. Still. Yiv had been the one to find him originally, no other officers had copped the hack. He could simply file a report that it was a glitch. Might be useful in the future, he thought to himself, just keep an eye on him for now.

'Nothing too criminal,' Yiv replied with a smile. 'Sorry, I'm being uptight. I never figured you as someone who had lady problems, and it threw me, that's all. I'll log it as a glitch, no big deal.'

"Yep, that's me," replied Percy shyly. "Lady problems, constantly." He was glad that Yiv was going to let him go from all of this. It was embarrassing enough on the surface.

'OK,' Yiv clapped Percy on the knee, 'it's just a glitch for now. Nothing to worry about.' He wondered if he could discreetly look up Percy's records without having to go through many channels. 'You OK otherwise?'

"Bruised ego aside, yeah. I am trying to get settled in aboard. So far it hasn't been terrible, but the First Officer is closely monitoring me because of the whole plomeek plant gone wild incident" stated Percy. "I am going to be fine though. I'll win the crew over with my charm and wit."

Settling back in his chair, glad that the half-Tellarite didn't have anything serious bothering him, Yiv beamed, 'well you have both in spades, so I'm sure you'll win em over soon, no problem. And I wouldn't worry about the XO, if you can show you can do your job OK she'll ease up on you. Eventually. She strikes me as the kind who values professionalism over other attributes.'

Percy nodded in agreement. "Fair assessment. She is the type to value professionalism, and I am hoping that she comes to value what I bring to the ship." The Chief Science Officer smiled at Yiv. "Let's get out of here before someone else comes and finds me in here asking too many questions."

'Sounds like a plan to me, Percy,' Yiv said, extending a hand. 'Fancy a drink after all this ... unpleasantness?' The Efrosian was already mentally noting what he would stick in his report to denote the 'system glitch'. And how deep he'd have to probe into Percy's life, however distasteful that might be. It was an aspect of his work that gave him very little pleasure. 'Something alcoholic?'

"Absolutely!" Percy said excited. "Lead the way, Yiv."

'Great!' I hope you're in the mood for something hard, Percy, I know I am,' Yiv said blithely as they left the Computer Core.

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