Drinks Reception - Where's The Whisky?
Posted on Thu Jun 25th, 2015 @ 8:49pm by Captain Aidan Rackham & Commander Ashley Kennedy & Commander William Carver M.D. & Lieutenant Rianna DiMarco
Mission:
The Belle of Bellatrix
Location: Officer's Mess [Deck 2]
Timeline: 2278.49: 2000hrs.
William Carver wandered into the Officer's Mess after what felt like much too long of a day. Spending all day in sickbay inventorying medical suppliers could tire out anyone. The nurse was cute, if a bit young and overly enthusiastic, but it made no difference anyhow. It was his personal policy to never date subordinate officers. For that matter he never dated anyone on the same ship. Well, there was that one time, but Will didn't like to think about that one. In his experience, relationships between him and a crew member were bad for business.
He made his way across the room to the drink table, and picked out a bottle of scotch, a 2263. It was a pretty good year, if he recalled, and would make a good choice for toasting the ship. He pour him a glass on the rocks, and started to make his way around the room.
Captain Rackham smiled and made his excuses to the small group he had found himself engaged with. Their conversation had been as appealing as a rotting carcass- something about transporter theory- and the appearance of another senior officer in the room allowed him to slip away.
"Doctor! I see you found the whisky." He said, as he clapped the physician on the back.
"Of course. I can't pass up a good drink." Carver gave Rackham a warm smile. "It's quite a little shindig you've assembled here."
A wicked grin flashed across the Captain's face. "It's amazing what people will attend when it's mandatory."
Carver raised his glass. He could always appreciate a little mischief in a commanding officer.
Commander Ashley Kennedy stepped into the officers' mess and looked around at the assembled crew. They were chatting in little groups, standing, drinking, eating finger food, laughing, smiling, looking around for people they knew. Ash sighed, this wasn't the kind of crowd where she could just quietly linger at the bar and enjoy a few drinks while everyone else had a good time around her. But, then again, she was the first officer; anonymity was probably never a possibility.
Ri was on her way to make a grazing run around the aperitif table when she noticed the XO standing sort of stiff and alone towards the front of the ward room. Kennedy was probably in deep thought or plotting some witty speech addition, DiMarco thought to herself, but it didn't shake the little nudge in her belly that said 'go tend to that'. Whatever that meant. She grabbed a second tiny plate, dropped a few things onto it and crossed the room to Kennedy.
"Tada," she announced, holding the other plate out to the XO. "You didn't even have to go on over there for nosh." Leaning in a little bit closer, the engineer asked very quietly "You okay? You look concerned or something.."
Ash visibly relaxed as Ri arrived with the plate. She looked down at it, almost studying it for a fraction of a second, before she let a smile cross her face. "Oh, I'm fine," she said as she took the offered plate. "I'm not really one for mingling. I was figuring out a plan of attack."
DiMarco turned back to look at the ward room as Kennedy was, only plus leaning slightly against the closest wall. "If you hold the plate at least, it gives your hands something to do. I spent my first four or five mixers with my hands in my pockets until my last CO made it regulation that I couldn't have the old jumpers any more. This is just a wave, shake hands and info gathering thing. Simple mission. Bit of frills. You've got it in the bag, boss."
The first officer turned and regarded the chief engineer with a smile. She hadn't really learned much about DiMarco beyond her service record, but she found herself admiring her casual confidence. "I wish I shared your confidence," Ash said, hoping she sounded somewhere near conversational. "I find it much easier to game out a dogfight with a Klingon Bird of Prey than to work my way through a room full of new faces and small talk."
"Confidence?" Ri laughed. She typically focused so much on the 'to do' that there was't time to worry about how she felt. Stick her in front of a bunch of dressed up decorated higher ups and she felt three inches tall and terrified that she'd reflexively curse up a blue streak. "I run on 75% BS 24 hours a day. It's an art. Really, though, just relax. If you want, you can easily turn this room and everyone in it into a list of obstacles or targets. Your objective is brief conversation followed by rapid relocation to the next target until you've finished your circuit pattern. After that you can full burn out of here if you want. Easy peasy. I can pretty much promise you that almost every person here is more worried of what you'll think of them. And if they're not, just picture them with a big old booger hanging out or something. Totally diffuses the situation."
Ashley had a mouth full of a cucumber sandwich when the laugh made it's way up. She covered her mouth and did her best to hide the snort of amusement that almost illustrated Ri's suggestion. She recovered herself quickly and wiped her mouth. "Thank you, I'll keep that strategy in mind," she said. She gestured to the crowd and said, "How about I follow you and you show me how it's done? But first, let's swing past the drinks table; I could use a drink."
"That's a big can do," Ri agreed with utmost seriousness. She'd limited herself to one drink in honor of the fancy occasion so her conversation topics didn't skew oddly towards weird stories or pro wrestling or something odd like that. Not that Ri had much filter to begin with, but being tired or mildly buzzed did away with it completely. "Anyone in specific that you want to cruise by first or are we just grabbing the first person to the left?"
Ash shrugged and looked around. "I'm placing myself in your capable hands, Lieutenant."
"I'll remind you of that after the anarchy's done," DiMarco quipped with a sly smile. "On wards to the drinks!" She ended up snagging a water on impulse and detoured quickly to the next person in sight. That just happened to be the CMO- who's name escaped her. Knowing how the folks in her department tended to operate, she figured that she'd need to know him as there'd be one or more of her guys in his sickbay every week or so.
She glanced back to make sure that Kennedy was coming along and strolled on up to the man. "Evening, doc," the engineer said with an amicable smile. "I haven't had the chance to drop by yet. I'm Ri DiMarco."
Carver shifted his drink to his left hand and extended his right towards the engineer. "Will Carver. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ri." Carver left off any mention of rank. For the most part he felt like they just got in the way. The only time he ever used his was if he needed it to impress someone, but doctor usually did well enough.
Ri took his hand and shook it firmly. "I'm sure I'll be dragging my guys in to see you soon enough, doc. Engineers are an accident prone lot. And I'm sure you know our XO: one Mizz Kennedy," the engineer said with a flourish reminiscent of 20th century game shows.
Ash raised an eyebrow at the engineer's enthusiasm, but it was a simple gesture of surprise, rather than disapproval. She found herself actually enjoying Ri's personality. She half smiled and extended a hand to the ship's surgeon. "Good to officially meet you, Doctor."
"And you as well, Ms. Kennedy," he replied, shaking her extended hand. "I hope you ladies are enjoying yourselves this evening."
"The chance to meet the rest of the senior crew outside of a briefing or something going catastrophically wrong is pretty choice." That seemed to be the usual run of the 'meeting crew and learning names' mill in Ri's experience. Unless something was broke, people didn't venture into the forbidden zone that was Engineering. "Wish the circumstances were a bit brighter, but that's up to us to change, right?"
"Believe me, I know the feeling." Like DiMarco, Carver was in a similar boat. No one really wanted to visit sickbay unless there was something wrong either. "It's always tough losing someone that we were close to. But the Elsa Gunning I knew wouldn't have wanted us to grieve. We'll just make the best of our situation, and get out there and do what we signed up to do, exploring new worlds."
Ri nodded in agreement. She was pretty sure that what little she knew of Gunning would have demanded the guilty party be curb stomped into a corner until finely pulped and then- maybe- she'd be happy. "Yeah.. out into the great unknown. It's thrilling and frightening and I'm totally sure that most of my guys aren't grasping the idea that there'll be five years of no Christmas cards or visits home. I'm trying to work out a system to balance the shock when it does hit, but I'd love to nab you for a tick at some point if you've got any ideas or guidelines or what have ya.."
"I'm a physician, not a psychiatrist," Will replied. He shrugged, "But I think about it and see if I can come up with anything. I'm sure your guys won't be the only ones that haven't quite settled in on just how long we are going to be away from home."
"Every bit helps," the engineer said with a slight shrug.
Captain Aidan Rackham
Commanding Officer
Commander William Carver M.D.
Chief Surgeon
Lt. Rianna DiMarco
Engineering Chief
Commander Ashley Kennedy
First Officer & Weapons Officer
