[USS Tempest] Cats Who Bite Snakes
- From: TKilyle@xxxxxxx
- To: usstempest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:18:03 EST
Cats Who Bite Snakes
by Jesse Orosco & Miranda Craig
Staying in his temporary quarters seemed like a safe idea but it also bored
Jesse to tears. He was feeling very sorry for himself yet the part of him
that was a counselor knew that moping was no good either. With a weary sigh,
he left the room and headed off toward a place he had no idea of yet.
Poking her head out of the air lock hatch that attached the Georgetown to
the station Miranda looked around carefully. Every since they'd docked and
been
released to some free time, that stupid little ugly troll had been tailing
her like a bloodhound with a whiff of fox up his nose. When she was absolutely
sure Nog wasn't anywhere around she made her way towards Tempest's hatch. It
had been nice seeing Tawny again and it had been real sweet of her to invite
Miranda to spend what Tawny had called Chanukah with her and her family.
Miranda really liked Tawny's sister and she was pretty sure they'd bored the
science cadet with their talks about security. She even liked Tawny's mothers
who'd come to check on Tawny's sister who was pregnant. "Shoulda made Linds
come
with me," she muttered with a smile. "She's have liked 'em too."
Jesse blew out a breath as he walked. No, feeling sorry for himself was not
going to help. He knew he ought to make himself an appointment with one of
the Georgetown counselors. That would help settle him. In the meantime,
though...he walked right into someone. He just hoped it wasn't that damned
Klingon Ralph.
Her first impulse was to swear, but with her luck it would be someone of
importance. "'Cuse me," Miranda muttered until she looked up to see who it
was.
"Oh it's just you."
Regaining his footing, Jesse let out another sigh when he realized who he'd
run into. "Yeah, it's just me so distance yourself before the captain has a
fit."
Miranda blinked. "Huh?" The guy looked like a dog who'd been kicked and she
wondered who'd done the kicking. "What's my sis....er... What's Captain Craig
gonna have a fit over?"
"In case you haven't noticed, Miranda, I am a persona non grata on Tempest
right now. I got my head bitten off and spit back at me," he said with a
shake of his head.
"I've been on Georgetown and the station a lot since we got shore leave,"
she explained. "You pissed her off that bad?"
He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, mussing up the thick
black mass. "I think you're under aged but have you ever been to Quark's or
used
his holosuites?"
Miranda blushed a little. She was underage, as her sister kept reminding her
the last time they'd been on the station. "I have, and I am, which is why my
sister was less then pleased when she kept finding me in there last time we
were here. Didn't help that she had to rescue me from a Klingon I'd been
playing Dom-Jot with." Ok so she was hustling the Klingon but he didn't need
that
detail.
Just the mention of Klingons and that bar made him twitch slightly. "Word
of advice then. Be careful with his holosuite programs then. I had no idea
they used real alcohol in them." He gave her an embarrassed smirk. "Do you
have any idea how much beer a guy can drink during a hot baseball game?"
She laughed softly. "Yeah, about as much as someone at a high school
football game. You wanna see something funny as hell go to a high school or
college
game back home in Texas. Even at my basketball games, it was likely some
drunk in the parking lot was gonna hurl."
"I'm from Santa Barbara in California and we got the same thing," he said
ruefully. "So you get the idea. Lots of beer during the game but I didn't
know it was real and then one in Quark's." He stared down at his boots.
"Then
a mug upside the Klingon's head and then swinging the bat..."
Miranda cringed. This wasn't sounding very good. "You got into a bar fight?"
"Ummm...yeah," he said with an embarrassed chuckle. "It was me, one of the
officers from Georgetown and this Klingon."
"No wonder she came down on you like a ton of bricks." Miranda just shook
her head and then chuckled. "Let me guess, the one from GT was a tall blond
named McEntire."
Jesse nodded slowly, a skeptical look on his face. "That was him alright.
If he gets chewed out over this, it's my fault. I started it after all."
"From the stories I've heard it wasn't his first time," she laughed a little
more as she recalled some of the stories she'd heard from Mac, and from
John. Guys act like macho jerks when they were her age? "Don't know how
Captain
Hale will react but Mac would be wise to avoid our fair haired captain. She
has this thing about acting all up standing cause we're a flag ship. She'll
calm down once we're back out in the thick of things. She gets antsy if we're
stationed to long, she's always been like that. Never could stay in one place
to
long."
"I might have known that if I were on board longer but..." Jesse gave a
shrug of semi-defeat. "You know I just barely got aboard before the last
mission and I was entirely too busy with said mission to get to know too much
of
the command staff."
"They're both worth getting to know," she smiled proudly. "Linds can be a
tight ass sometimes, but she's a damn good captain and officer. She's one you
want on your side for sure."
Jesse shrugged. "I've got no doubt about that but now's not the time. I'm
really on her list if you know what I mean."
Miranda flinched. "That bad?"
"Worse. I'm being sent off on an away mission back to that POW camp the
ship was at before I signed on." He snorted in self deprecation. "She even
had
all my things beamed down."
Light brown eyes went wide as Miranda whistled. "Damn you really did piss
her off."
"You think?" he asked dryly. "It was all because of..." He stopped for a
moment. Don't tell the wrong people, son. That's what he said. Jesse
supposed he understood that request. Most Humans didn't talk to people who
weren't
there, not if they were sane. "You know, it's because I got too distracted
by that program. It talked back when it wasn't supposed to."
"You have to watch the troll's programs, sometimes they get strange," she
replied before smiling. "Unless it's Vic's, he's meant to be that way. He's
self aware. Linds says it's a great program, haven't been myself. I was hoping
she and I would make it up before we left."
"No, no, it wasn't Vic's. I'm not a nightclub sort really." Jesse slid
down the wall until he was seated on the deck. He entirely too exhausted to
stand up and have to explain. "It was in one of Quark's holosuites but I got
the impression that even he wouldn't put Captain Sisko in a program."
Miranda opened her mouth to say something but suddenly didn't know what to
say. She looked at him for several long moments before finally sitting across
from him. "You don't look Bajoran."
"I'm not. Dad's from Santa Barbara and Mom's from LA via Scotland," he
explained. "Sounds weird, right? But here's the start. I had some softball
practice and I brought my own bat. After that, I still had a lot of time,
which
was kind of odd now that I think about it, so I picked a classic game to
watch: game seven of the 1986 World Series."
"And then Sisko shows up?" she asked carefully. "I've heard Bajorans talk
about being visited by the Emissary, or hoping to be at least, but I always
thought it was like believing in Santa Clues, the Easter Bunny, and seeing
Terran Christian deities in grilled cheese sandwiches."
"And on tortillas," he said with a nod. "I know it sounds crazy but I sat
myself down in a decent seat along the home team dugout and somebody sits next
to me. That's fine you know because the place was sold out. Of course I
almost spilled the drink I had when I saw him. I really thought it was
somebody's idea of a joke at first."
"Are you sure it wasn't?" Miranda asked. "Or maybe one of his son's
programs? I use to add Lindsey to my horseback riding program when I got
really down
and missed her to much."
"Interesting idea but no it was him. He was asking after Tempest and
whether or not Q had been around," Jesse told her. "He knew way too much to
be
preprogrammed."
That sent warning bells off. "Q? Why would Q be around Tempest?"
"See, now that's what I wondered. What little official logs I've had the
chance to listen to never made any mention about him. I said just that. It
seems that Captain Sisko, though he kept saying I should call him Ben, and Q
had a bit of a bet going on about the ship," Jesse explained.
Miranda frowned. She didn't like the sound of that at all. "I don't think I
like having omnipresent life forms and dead Bajoran religious icons betting
on my sister's ship."
"I wouldn't either," Jesse said with a snort. "I can't imagine being the
person they were having the bet over either. The lady must be either
freighted
or mad as hell."
"Which lady?" the young Texan asked with narrowed eyes.
"Lieutenant Le Beau," he told her. Running a hand through his hair, he gave
another shrug. "I haven't gotten to see much of her but she seemed alright
to me. No sign of being mixed up in anything weird."
Miranda frowned even more. "Rosie?"
"Ah, yeah, that's what he called her. He also said what it was about was
too confidential but it definitely involved her personally."
This was not good and getting worse. "Did you tell any of this to the
Captain?"
He shook his head and gave a soft hmmph. "Are you kidding? Aside from the
fact that it would have sounded like some story I made up to bail myself out
of trouble, I was warned not to tell the wrong people. I'm taking it the
lieutenant never did either."
"Someone has to tell her," Miranda insisted. "She needs to know if Q is
messing with her ship or a member of her crew." Especially a member who
Lindsey
considered a friend.
"You go ahead and do that," Jesse said with a snort. "Like I said, there's
nothing I say that she'll believe and there's no proof either. Apparently
wherever Captain Sisko is, he can keep tabs on things, so to speak. He said
the only reason he even bothered to approach me was because of our mutual love
of the game."
For some reason that made Miranda laugh. "Millions of Bajorans would spaz
over the chance to be visited by the Emissary and do the oddest things to get
his attention and you get visited because you like hitting a little ball with
a big stick and running around in circles."
Jesse actually managed some small amount of indignity at that. "It's not
running around in circles," he hmmphed. "It's a diamond, thank you very much.
And, believe me, I did not go there with the intention of communing with a
fellow fan, except the holographic ones. And you wonder why I wanted a real
beer after that?"
"Trust me I get needing a drink," Miranda smiled softly. "I live with my
sister slash captain remember."
Jesse's head thunked back against the wall slightly. "The least some more
than Human, less than divine person could do is be plain about what us poor
mortals ought to do with the weird things they give us. It's probably why the
Bajorans are still trying to figure out those Orbs."
"What fun would it be if we were handed all the answers in a nice little
bow?" she asked in return, sounding very much like her grandfather.
"Getting booted off an assignment is not my idea of fun," he grumbled. "The
problem with that sort of game is it's hard to play when only one person
knows the rules. Good intent or bad, that's cheating."
"No one ever said life was fair." Great now she sounded like Lindsey.
"Besides, you'll be allowed back once the captain cools off. Could have been
worse,
she could have asked for your commission."
"Shhhh!" he said with a wince. "I don't hear Kate Smith singing so
nothing's over til it's over."
Miranda looked at the man oddly for several seconds before asking, "Who?"
"Kate Smith." The look that he gave her in return was just as perplexed as
the one she gave him. "Man, no wonder Captain Sisko zeroed in on me. The
great Yogi Berra was referring to her singing of a traditional national song
back in the first half of the twentieth century but the origins fall in
traditional operas from Earth where the aria, usually sung by a large Human
female,
was the end of the performance."
She blinked and stared a moment longer before it dawned on her. "Oooo! It
ain't over till the fat lady sings." She laughed. "I get it. Though I like
Beverly Sills and she wasn't all the large a woman in her prime. She was
actually
rather beautiful."
"I'm not partial to the art much but, yeah, that's where it came from. Old
Yogi said some strange things but he was right about that bit. I'm not going
to believe I'm welcomed back and intact until it actually happens," he said
wryly.
"Let me give you my grandfather's advice when it comes to my sister,"
Miranda smiled fondly. "It's safer to treat 'er like a rattle snake ready to
strike
until you're sure she's just a pussy cat."
Jesse hmmphed softly. "A cat. Right. My mother has a cat named Spike.
Spike brings back snakes from his travels."
Miranda laughed. "Yeah well Craig women tend to be what my grandfather calls
spit-fires. Never said she was gonna be a tame pussy cat."
"She bite snakes too?"
"No but she's bit the heads off a couple ensigns in her time." She laughed
again despite being one of those ensigns.
"And at least one lieutenant commander," he agreed, rubbing his neck as if
he really had been bitten.
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