The Talisker Tradition
Posted on May 4th, 2016 by T'Lira

“God, this sucks!”

The declaration came from Elena as she fell face-first on her bed in their temporary quarters aboard the USS Champion.

“I do not believe it can ‘suck’, as the situation cannot perform physical actions.”

“I’m too tired to care if you just made your first attempt at a dirty joke.”

“I most certainly did not.”

Elena snickered as T’Lira lifted an eyebrow, “The look on your face is enough to tell me that you did.”

“As you wish. Although… I do not believe you can see my face.”

Elena turned her head to the side to see T’Lira, “Now I can.”

Any response was interrupted by the door opening and Eddie dragging Bril in.

“I found this crazy nutter trying to hack into your room!”

Elena snorted, “Death would be nice about now, wouldn’t it.”

Bril’s face crumpled, “Don’t say that, ‘Lena!”

The Betazoid bounced onto the bed and fell on top of Elena, who emitted an “oof”.

Eddie shrugged and said, “Not exactly joking material, but hey, gallows humor is all we’ve got.”

The group of cadets sat together in silence for several long minutes before Eddie spoke up.

“I heard Fitzpatrick talking to the ship’s captain. They want to make all of us ensigns, effective immediately, and then send us off to fight. A lot of people have died lately… too many.”

The doctor flopped next to the pair already on the bed and T’Lira remained in her chair.

“Y’know…” Elena began, her voice muffled by the person atop her, “I knew this crazy old history professor once. He came in to talk to my class about Cardassians. Turns out he used to be a direct envoy for the President, for a few presidents actually. But, I got to talking with him. It was after… after my mother died. Somehow, the conversation turned into a discussion about her and about death in general. He showed me an interesting tradition in his family. I think it suits us now.”

“What was this tradition?” T’Lira asked.

“He replicated two Taliskers and then said that real was better, but fake would do. Then, it was as simple as saying ‘You will be missed’ and knocking it back.”

“Sounds like my kinda tradition right about now,” Eddie muttered, his face pressed into the pillow. Elena smacked his arm as soon as she noticed that he’d taken her pillow.

Bril pulled herself off of the pile on the bed and walked over to the replicator, “Four Taliskers!”

The computer chirped and then offered a response about how it was unable to replicate alcoholic beverages. Bril retorted with a rather crude gesture and then grabbed a tool from her ever-present toolkit and tweaked the replicator, asking again for the Taliskers. This time, it complied.

“Got ’em!” she chirped happily, passing out the glasses.

“Ready?” Elena asked, sitting up and smacking Eddie on the stomach so he sat up too.

“It’s booze, I’m always ready,” the doctor grinned.

Elena lifted her glass and said “To all our comrades on the Freedom and in Starfleet who have died in this damned war so far, you will be missed.”

The other repeated the phrase, Elena saying it again in her native Swahili and Bril speaking in her Betazoid language. T’Lira chose to speak in Standard, for the ease of the language.

After that, they simply sat there and chatted quietly.