Over a Pint
Posted on February 9th, 2005 by Douglas McKnight and Adam Drake

Douglas McKnight and Adam Drake

The ship was almost perfect. Almost. There had been a few tweaks – engineer-specifics, Adam had called them – that had needed to be made, but other than those modifications the ship was amazingly refitted. His crews had slowly filtered in during the last shuttles from outlying systems arrived. Finally, shore leave was almost over. Adam sat at his desk pouring over crew evaluations and who was ready for upcoming promotions. Not one of the best jobs he had, but it was quiet and that in itself was a plus.

His thoughts roamed to the planet that he and the rest of the crew had been stuck on. Overall it wasn’t that bad of an experience. The shuttle home was a little less fun, but water under the bridge. Aaron was manning the helm, Zinthys had past out in the back to some sort of blissful slumber, and he and the rest of the crew had handed around alcohol. Sophistication? Bah. McKnight was a good man. Adam wondered why they were at each other’s throat on a regular basis.

He was a marine.

That was enough for Adam. The engineer smiled as he walked over to a crate next to his desk and withdrew a bottle of amber-colored liquid. “Ktarian Brandy, aged 2344,” Adam said to himself as he took the bottle by the neck and left Engineering. He stepped into the turbolift. “Security Offices.”

About that time, McKnight was wrestling with the same dilemma that beset all men of his profession in times of peace, at least with the exception of those days they preferred not to dwell on. How to look busy, when anyone and everyone knew you were full of crap. While combat between a Federation starship and some implacable enemy, familiar or otherwise, were well published, the event of two hostile ships managing to cross paths in the near infinite vastness of space was nevertheless the exception to the rule. And that was mostly a matter for the folks flying the ship in question; a security breach on a Federation starship was almost unheard of. And while that ship was still docked at a Federation starbase, its security forces supplemented by an army of the starbase’s own? Let’s just say the fear of such an occurrence was less than all consuming.

The refit did provide some interesting amenities, and nowhere was the change more apparent than in his office. However, though McKnight appreciated the fact they’d fixed the hole that Ellis had somehow managed to cause in his ceiling, the novelty of staring at an unmarred ceiling quickly wore off, unsurprisingly. He had observed the replicators producing a superior mug of raktajino, and he was willing to bet there were a few more surprises waiting for him, but spending his duty shift cycling through the replicator menu somehow just struck him as mildly childish.

He’d just opted for watching an old baseball game from the archives on his computer monitor, World Series 2004, when he noticed Drake’s presence outside his office window, not without some confusion. He was a long way from engineering after all. But it looked like his questions would soon be answered as he heard the chime ring on his door. After pressing the pause button, he delivered his response.

“Come in.”

The bottle rested in his grip as he parted the opening doors. A friendly smile drifted across his face as he placed the container on the desk in front of the security officer. “A token of my appreciation,” Adam started, sitting down in the chair opposite of McKnight, “for sharing your wealth when we all really needed it.”

With a raised eyebrow, McKnight grabbed the bottle by its neck and turned it about to read the label. As he did so, he motioned for Drake to take a seat, unaware that he had already done so. “Maybe I underestimated you Major…underestimated you quite badly. I mean, I don’t really know what the good years are, so long as I know it’s been aged, but I’m drinker enough to know a trusted label when I see it. You had a bottle of real Ktarian brandy squirreled away?”

“I’m full of surprises, Captain,” Adam said, smiling, “Just make sure you don’t go wasting that on a binge. That stuff could kill you if you don’t nurse it. Not that you’re a binge drinker, but you are a marine and we do have our stereotypes that we must bust.” The Chief Engineer cracked his knuckles as he leveled his gaze at McKnight, “I know that we didn’t get off to a great start, but I was hoping this could also be a peace offering of sorts.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Drake. The first thing humanity did after learning to grow things out of the ground was learn how to turn them into liquid liver damage, and that was well over 10,000 years ago. I’ll measure our skill at it against anyone’s. But your concern is appreciated, as is the gesture. But a good bottle of booze…I’d as soon use it as paint thinner as let it stay a conversation piece. You’d better not be thinking you can drop something like this on my desk and leave without staying for a drink.”

Adam wasn’t a stickler for the rules, but it was Murphy’s Law. The one time he let his guard down and skipped a very strict protocol would be the one time that someone saw it, heard about it, smelled it, or guessed it happened. To hell with it, Adam thought as he nodded, “Of course. Please let it breath. That stuff could neutralize anti-matter if you used it immediately after opening it.”

“Really don’t think a minute’s gonna make much difference for the alcohol content, Drake, but what the hell. You’re the gift-bearer; I’ll humor you. Computer, close shades.”

Once the room was thus dimmed and closed to outside observation, Mcknight broke the wax seal and uncorking the stopper, then let the bottle sit there as he turned to the replicator and ordered up a pair of tumblers. Filling each in turn, he slid Drake his poison and just admired the old amber hue for a moment as he tried to think of a toast. “To the Corps.”

“To the Corps,” Adam echoed, his words coming out passionately but lacking any substance. To the Corps, what bull shit, Adam thought to himself. He would serve Starfleet and the Federation to the day that he died…or at least he use to think that way. His loyalties had shifted so many times from the men around him, to the Brass above him, to his own cowardice – he felt hollow. “Thank you,” he said, nodding and raising his glass.

McKnight nodded once, clueless to Drake’s inner conflict. He wasn’t empathic after all, not in the Betazoid sense (Hell, often not even in the human sense.) and even if he was, he wouldn’t have been likely to say anything about it. A man’s past, his thoughts…all his own business. Instead, he simply took the first moderate drink from his glass, wincing appreciatively as the liquor burned a path down his throat. Damn if that first one wasn’t always the price you paid for the rest of them. “So…I guess this is the part where we sit around trying to make small talk before admitting, to no one’s surprise, that we both suck at it?”

Adam chuckled, “Yeah, something like that.” Another long and insanely awkward pause. He drank, feeling the sensation that his throat was about to spontaneously combust. “Not much to talk about these days. All quiet on the Atlantis front. Can’t say that I’m not entirely upset about it. I enjoy a nice reprieve every now and then.”

At that, McKnight leaned back in his chair a bit, eying the potent liquid a bit as he whirled it around a bit in his tumbler.

“Well, that’s the thing, now isn’t it? Most marines you talk to, they’ll all tell you the same thing. Now that there are no more Jem’Hadar to shoot, and the Rommies had the good sense to avoid another 50 years of effective Cold War, their average day IS the reprieve. Odd…the only thing worse than the boredom is when something breaks it up. Still, turning in your phaser for a flux capacitor…not sure I could get used to that. Well, you know…assuming I had any technical skill to begin with.”

“That’s why you leave the important stuff to us. We’ll have the brains, you can have the brawn, and we’ll all be one big happy family,” Adam quipped as he looked around the office. Not as decorated as he assumed it would be, “Miss the war, Captain?”

“Well gosh, Major. This stuff must be harder than I thought on those not lucky enough to be born with Scottish genes. That’s hardly a question worthy of our think tank. Lemme think about it. Trudging my way through a Coridian jungle, sweating away any good humor you might have started the day with until you half wish one of those shrouded Jem’Hadar infesting the place would just quit dicking around and take his shot or die already, so you can get back to that next field ration you looked forward to never eating again so long as you live…no, I think I’m more than happy to leave that one to the movies.”

McKnight knocked back a bit more of the stuff, his now properly desensitized throat allowing him to explore the subtle character of the drink before it killed his taste buds.

“It just…kept a guy busy, that’s all.”

“I figured that’s what you all lived for. Got a phaser in your hand and a fleet of marines at your disposal, what could more thrilling for you? We were happy to be away from everything. We enjoyed our occasional jaunt into the enemy lines with the sole purpose of fixing things and isolating the enemy using our technology,” Adam paused, staring into his drink, the golden liquid staring back at him. “When we had to fight it hurt us all. We didn’t want to be there.”

“Well, congrats. You’re not. No one is but the men we buried there, and they’re not complaining. As for me, the only reason I’m still fighting is because it’s still what I’m good at until I’m old enough to enjoy my uselessness. But I’d rather be on the diamond.” He turned his computer screen then to face Drake, finishing off his drink as he did so. The image was frozen as it had been since he heard the chime, catching Johnny Damon in full swing. “I won’t deny that counting my collection of Ketracel-white vials didn’t have a certain disturbingly therapeutic feel to it, but that’s God’s sport, Drake. Baseball. Greatest game that ever was.”

“We had something like it on Betazed, but it was some version with sixteen men. I watched a game one time while I was at the academy, the Kings were playing, I think. It was a recording of some famous game with Buck Bokei, everyone was going crazy,” Adam polished off his small glass and placed the empty unit on the desk’s surface. “Never got into sports really. There was too much else to do.”

“Oh, you poor son of a bitch! You missed the whole damn point. Well, maybe not the whole point, but I guess you’re not really the type whose heart strings get pulled by classic Americana, and I’m in serious danger of a tangent. The point of the sport, or hell, any sport isn’t the ball, or the stick they hit it with, or the net they throw it in. It’s the folks who play it, and the folks who watch it…well, that and the Cracker Jacks. It’s the rivalries! You think the Klingons and the Rommies like to rub each other’s nose in the dirt? Lover’s tiff! Boston and New York, London and Havana…now that’s a competition.”

“Don’t you think that it’s detrimental to everything that the Federation and its members stand for? I mean, competition starts wars, wars wreak havoc and kill people; forgive me if I don’t see the point of sports.” Adam wanted to pour himself another glass, but refrained, “I prefer a good read or some harmless activity like volleyball. There’s a difference between that and every other sport.”

McKnight had no such reservations as he reached for the bottle and poured himself a second glass, albeit a smaller one. He was still technically on duty after all; best not to push his luck too far.

“Yeah. It’s the sport for bleeding heart liberals who don’t like sports. Christ, Drake! Did study your poli sci texts at gunpoint?”

“Only because I had too. Wasn’t the best subject in school, I’ll admit, but I had to take it to graduate. Anyway, I ought to get back to work. I know that with things being so quiet that drinking on shift isn’t a big deal, but, well, Murphy’s Law.”

“Yeah, that Murphy. What an ass hole, huh? Well, thanks for the hooch. Come on by and help me finish it some time.”

Adam nodded, smiled, and left.

As the door hissed shut, McKnight looked after him with an expression that may have been contemplative had the marine Captain thought there was more to consider. So, that was a buried hatchet, was it? Coulda gone worse. Looking down at the slightly drained bottle, he stowed it in a desk drawer, and with a half smile dedicated to nothing in particular, he resumed work on his second glass and resumed the game.