Unity – So the Story Goes (Part 1)
by Commander Karen Villiers & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal & Chief Executive Officer Wayne Bradshaw
Post Details
ON:
Mokab pressed his nose up to the glass window of the Box of Delights, peering through to see who was who in the new bar.
He had passed earlier, just before the explosions and quite looked the look of eh place, though then there were few clients to attracts his lighter fingers, but now, most of the store and bar owners were inside after hearing that a meeting had been called for the promenades traders to voice their views.
Inside the waiters and dabo girls finished shoveling glass into bags, the pitt boss locked down the last of the gaming tables and the few remaining real customers waited for their escort through the wreckage to their quarters.
Yolanthe poured out another glass of Vulcan Port to another new face, and watched the man slink away to where a group of traders sat with heads together. She only recognised a handful of the people crowding her bar. Mostly the sweet old man from Connoisseurs, the girl who ran Jalandras, and the Klingon that ran Q'uit, who'd been giving her dirty looks for the last ten minutes. hah. You hadn't expected me to have Neqtai in stock did you, silly boy? She put the bottle back under the bar. This was not how she wanted to meet the neighbours, but what plan ever survived contact with the enemy?
Klia came up to the bar and reached under it for her stash of Hadiq Liqueur. She pulled the cork out with her teeth, spat it on to the bar and downed two large mouthfuls. "You're not getting power to back of house back tonight. And its going to be emergency power only down here for a while. I've got everything else routing to the Holodeck so that EMH doesn't go down." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and then her hand on the dirt and blood stained satin of her suit.
"Are there many left up there?" Yolanthe asked, not looking up to where her secondary lounges had been commandeered for the wounded by that snotty Starfleet boy.
"Nope. Anyone serious was beamed out to the main sick bay half hour ago. Just the walking wounded now. Slashes, gashes, breaks and burns. Probably another hour before they're done. Maybe two." Klia took another swig, counted the people still in the bar. Half the promenade owners association by her count. She realised her partner was silent and turned to look at her. The bokkai was liquid gold. Never a good sign. "You okay?"
"I've been planning this for three months. They ruined my big night." Her skin shifted up to the colour of butter. "When I find them, I'm going to kill them, gut them, and serve them up as bar snacks."
Klia raised an eyebrow, "Okay then."
Yolanthe ignored the sarcasm. "And then this lot descend, like I'm some bloody union meeting house."
"Be nice. We're the new girls. We've got the biggest, most structurally sound venue on the entire promenade. Of course they were going to come here."
"Well, lets get on with it." She hammered on the bar with one of her high heels until the crowd stopped talking and looked at her. Towering over most, and practically neon yellow with anger she certainly held their attention. "Okay, what happens now? Does fleet come down and tell us what happened, and when we get full power back and so on? Do I send someone up to command? How do we find out what in stars is going on, and who is responsible for it?" And where can I find them, and a selection of sharp objects. Yolanthe looked around at the silent faces. "Well? One of you must know?" She searched the faces. The Starfleet officer from the Administration office hadn't turned up either. "Who's in charge of this association anyway?"
James walked into the meeting flanked by his two eldest son's. They had all felt more then saw the explosion that had rocked the promenade. Still with an internal attack on a the starbase was enough for his company to imitate a bit of a lockdown. This mainly consisted of protecting their father and each other should another attack occur. They all took seats toward the back of the room where they could watch everyone and also anyone who would happen to come in.
Holding hands, Bryan and Mercy strolled along the promenade. The scorch marks still visible outside one of the stores with some damage to the flooring was still visible, but the majority of the debris had been cleaned away.
They said nothing to each other as they approached the Box of Delights.
Bryan saw the Bolian sitting on the floor, his back against the glass.
"Mokab?" He asked as they drew up. "Why are you outside?"
Mokab looked up at the tall man and woman, their hands clasped together and he could see the bandage just below the end of the woman's shirt. A smile appeared on his face at hearing his name. Most didn't call him by name and it pleased him.
"Forsooth sir, I have not been invited to conjugate in the proceedings." He shrugged his shoulders. "I make the assumption, that as I do not possess a premise, I am not included in this association." Mokab admitted.
Bryan looked at Mercy, feeling her grip tighten a little on his own hand. "Are you OK?" Concern rising in his voice.
"Sure" she lied, wondering what was going on and why she was being led to the sacrifice to these ingrates.
"If your sure." Came his reply, before turning back to Mokab. "Mokab, come inside with us." He offered, extending his free hand to the handcart trader.
He pushed himself upwards from the floor, not taking the offered human hand.
"I am grateful." He said, rubbing his hands together, locating himself alongside Mercy.
Bryan gave a gentle squeeze to Mercys hand as he pushed open the door to the new bar.
The bar seemed to go silent as Bryan entered and he felt every eye turn towards them as they entered.
"Evening." Bryan uttered.
For a long moment the silence held, as everyone waited for someone else to start, then they all started yelling at once. Occasional words and phrases lifted out of the throng; responsible, repairs, compensation, outrage, failure, useless security, unresponsive authority, total bloody shambles.
Yolanthe let them yell for a minute, let them get it out of their systems, then threw her strappy shoe the length of the bar. It struck the last-orders gong dead center, and the deep shimmering chime rolled over the protests and returned the seething crowd to a semblance of order.
She nodded at Mercy. "Let the woman speak before you rend her limb from limb."
Bryan let Mercys hand go and his fell to the side as Mercy stepped forward.
Meanwhile, Mokab sloped off to the side, trying to stay out of sight.
Mercy looked around at the howling mob and wondered what these people were thinking?
"Do any of you realise that this mob behaviour is *exactly* what the terrorists were hoping to set in motion and you are all just playing into their hands. They wanted to set us all against each other. Starfleet didn't bomb you, we're victims too." She instinctively rubbed her bandaged arm as she spoke.
"Fortunately for you lot, we're not attacking *you* in a knee jerk reaction, or you'd all have something to be shrieking about." She looked around at the sea of angry faces.
"You're all upset, angry, hurt, defensive, shocked and looking for someone to blame and hit back at. Well, that's perfectly natural and to be totally honest, I feel that way too. But at least I realise that I have to recognise my enemies from my friends. We're on the same side here." Mercedes stood tall in the face of the heckling from those who weren't prepared to even listen amongst the crowd.
Wayne kept his council to himself for the moment. In all honesty he could not see the point in getting all pissed off over the situation. He motioned for his son to get everyone's attention, before he would say his piece.
Wayne pulled out an old style earth revolver loaded with blanks and pointed it toward the ceiling, a single shot rang out. Then Wayne stood and spoke.
"Now that I have your attention I would like to say something. I realize that you are all madder then hell right now and have every right to be so. However you are forgetting some very key items. First there were no fatalities in the attack, yes there was a massive amount of property damage but that can be replaced. I may not have been here long however I can assure you that this attack affects me as much as it does the rest of you. That being said I would like to make all of you an offer. I can make my own security forces available to you free of charge until such time as starfleet can get a handle on this situation. We need security and stability in order to rebuild and hopefully put this incident behind us." Said Wayne firmly he was not happy but there were things that needed to be done and if it took his offer of assistance then so be it.
"My Wide-angle emitter!" Klia squealed, kicking the bar stool away and squaring her tiny shoulders. "Sod your security! Do you know what I have to do to repair that you arrogant piece of shit? As If I haven't got enough to do fixing this place." She started forward to bring five foot nothing of green wrath down upon the man who had damaged her holo tech.
Yolanthe grabbed her collar with a lemon yellow arm and hauled her back. Her relief at seeing someone from Starfleet was now eclipsed by some...some.. man! damaging her bar! But years of cultural conditioning meant she couldn't let Klia hit him either. You didn't hit boys. For a moment Klia's feet kicked over two inches of air before Yolanthe put her down again. When she spoke, she was talking to her partner, but looking straight at the man. "Go check that the Medical Hologram," she emphasised the words for the mans benefit, "is still working after whatever that was." She gave the Orion girl a push towards the stairs. She'd deal with man afterwards.
Then she turned back to the Starfleet woman. "You said terrorists. So this wasn't an accident? Have you got hold of the people who did this? Or will there be more blasts?"
Bryan stepped up alongside Mercy and slipped his hand into hers.
"Well put." He whispered to her, then looked around the room at those who wee for the moment, appeased by the shoeless woman who spoke and whom he only knew as the proprietor of the Box of Delights. He cleared his throat and in a loud clear voice, spoke.
"No, this was not an accident, it would be far easier if it were. We have not yet identified the culprits or pretend to know the reasoning behind their cowardly act. What we are here to do, is assess the damage and help to put it right. We as much as you, are at a loss to explain what happened or why it has happened yet again, but as soon as we know, be assured, we will d our very best as administrators for this level, to keep you informed."
His eyes came back to Mercedes and she had no smile on her pale face and he was concerned for her.
"As some of you may have noticed, we were caught up in this explosion as much as you. We were on the promenade at the time, so please, all we ask, is for your help and assistance, to help us help each other."
Mercy was really worried about the possibility of *self-protection* and mobs. She remembered the history lessons about vigilantes, possies and people taking the law into their own hands in the name of *justice* and *protecting the community*.
Wayne and his son might feel their cause justified but it seemed like the thin end of the wedge to Mercy.
Yolanthe looked at the two humans. They were in a worse state than most here. She reached for her bar knife and took it to a selection of soft fruits in one of the baskets under the bar. "You'll keep us informed." She scrutinized the woman's collar, she didn't recognise the the marks and flashes. Not a senior officer then. She wasn't up on the lower ranks. "Tell me..."
"Chief," one of the other store owners supplied
"..Chief." She paused a moment to tip the fruit chunks into one the blenders. "If you're in this as much as we are, who's keeping you informed?"
Bryan understood the womans hostility and why it directed at Mercy. The two of them were 'Fleeters' to the civilians, but Mercy was an Aphrodite in comparison and looked every inch a woman, even in uniform.
He took another breath, but Mercy spoke before he had even formed the response in his mind.
"We're part of a tree of communication. We report to the Chief of Operations and we get our information, orders and any assistance we need from that department. Ops and Security will be liaising with the Command and Senior Staff as we speak and any updates will be relayed by our comm badges." Mercy waved a finger past the insignia on her tunic top.
"If we need immediate emergency help we can count on these to call for it and we would do so on behalf of any resident on this base. Your own security network would only serve to divide us further." Mercy explained.
This meeting was not going any place as far as Wayne was concerned. The people in here seemed more interested in the here and now rather then looking to the future. As far as he was concerned then maybe this was something that they all needed to have happen to them in order to shake up their safe little lives. with a single slight motion of his head the three men rose from their seats and headed toward the door. They moved slowly but at the same time they never had less than two men scanning the crowd.
TBC ...
by Commander Karen Villiers & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal & Chief Executive Officer Wayne Bradshaw
Post Details
| Title | So the Story Goes (Part 1) | |
| Mission | Unity | |
| Author(s) | Commander Karen Villiers & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Cardassian Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal & Chief Executive Officer Wayne Bradshaw | |
| Posted | Fri Feb 12, 2010 @ 2:22pm | |
| Location | Box of Delights | |
| Timeline | SD 16 - 23:30 |
Mokab pressed his nose up to the glass window of the Box of Delights, peering through to see who was who in the new bar.
He had passed earlier, just before the explosions and quite looked the look of eh place, though then there were few clients to attracts his lighter fingers, but now, most of the store and bar owners were inside after hearing that a meeting had been called for the promenades traders to voice their views.
Inside the waiters and dabo girls finished shoveling glass into bags, the pitt boss locked down the last of the gaming tables and the few remaining real customers waited for their escort through the wreckage to their quarters.
Yolanthe poured out another glass of Vulcan Port to another new face, and watched the man slink away to where a group of traders sat with heads together. She only recognised a handful of the people crowding her bar. Mostly the sweet old man from Connoisseurs, the girl who ran Jalandras, and the Klingon that ran Q'uit, who'd been giving her dirty looks for the last ten minutes. hah. You hadn't expected me to have Neqtai in stock did you, silly boy? She put the bottle back under the bar. This was not how she wanted to meet the neighbours, but what plan ever survived contact with the enemy?
Klia came up to the bar and reached under it for her stash of Hadiq Liqueur. She pulled the cork out with her teeth, spat it on to the bar and downed two large mouthfuls. "You're not getting power to back of house back tonight. And its going to be emergency power only down here for a while. I've got everything else routing to the Holodeck so that EMH doesn't go down." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and then her hand on the dirt and blood stained satin of her suit.
"Are there many left up there?" Yolanthe asked, not looking up to where her secondary lounges had been commandeered for the wounded by that snotty Starfleet boy.
"Nope. Anyone serious was beamed out to the main sick bay half hour ago. Just the walking wounded now. Slashes, gashes, breaks and burns. Probably another hour before they're done. Maybe two." Klia took another swig, counted the people still in the bar. Half the promenade owners association by her count. She realised her partner was silent and turned to look at her. The bokkai was liquid gold. Never a good sign. "You okay?"
"I've been planning this for three months. They ruined my big night." Her skin shifted up to the colour of butter. "When I find them, I'm going to kill them, gut them, and serve them up as bar snacks."
Klia raised an eyebrow, "Okay then."
Yolanthe ignored the sarcasm. "And then this lot descend, like I'm some bloody union meeting house."
"Be nice. We're the new girls. We've got the biggest, most structurally sound venue on the entire promenade. Of course they were going to come here."
"Well, lets get on with it." She hammered on the bar with one of her high heels until the crowd stopped talking and looked at her. Towering over most, and practically neon yellow with anger she certainly held their attention. "Okay, what happens now? Does fleet come down and tell us what happened, and when we get full power back and so on? Do I send someone up to command? How do we find out what in stars is going on, and who is responsible for it?" And where can I find them, and a selection of sharp objects. Yolanthe looked around at the silent faces. "Well? One of you must know?" She searched the faces. The Starfleet officer from the Administration office hadn't turned up either. "Who's in charge of this association anyway?"
James walked into the meeting flanked by his two eldest son's. They had all felt more then saw the explosion that had rocked the promenade. Still with an internal attack on a the starbase was enough for his company to imitate a bit of a lockdown. This mainly consisted of protecting their father and each other should another attack occur. They all took seats toward the back of the room where they could watch everyone and also anyone who would happen to come in.
Holding hands, Bryan and Mercy strolled along the promenade. The scorch marks still visible outside one of the stores with some damage to the flooring was still visible, but the majority of the debris had been cleaned away.
They said nothing to each other as they approached the Box of Delights.
Bryan saw the Bolian sitting on the floor, his back against the glass.
"Mokab?" He asked as they drew up. "Why are you outside?"
Mokab looked up at the tall man and woman, their hands clasped together and he could see the bandage just below the end of the woman's shirt. A smile appeared on his face at hearing his name. Most didn't call him by name and it pleased him.
"Forsooth sir, I have not been invited to conjugate in the proceedings." He shrugged his shoulders. "I make the assumption, that as I do not possess a premise, I am not included in this association." Mokab admitted.
Bryan looked at Mercy, feeling her grip tighten a little on his own hand. "Are you OK?" Concern rising in his voice.
"Sure" she lied, wondering what was going on and why she was being led to the sacrifice to these ingrates.
"If your sure." Came his reply, before turning back to Mokab. "Mokab, come inside with us." He offered, extending his free hand to the handcart trader.
He pushed himself upwards from the floor, not taking the offered human hand.
"I am grateful." He said, rubbing his hands together, locating himself alongside Mercy.
Bryan gave a gentle squeeze to Mercys hand as he pushed open the door to the new bar.
The bar seemed to go silent as Bryan entered and he felt every eye turn towards them as they entered.
"Evening." Bryan uttered.
For a long moment the silence held, as everyone waited for someone else to start, then they all started yelling at once. Occasional words and phrases lifted out of the throng; responsible, repairs, compensation, outrage, failure, useless security, unresponsive authority, total bloody shambles.
Yolanthe let them yell for a minute, let them get it out of their systems, then threw her strappy shoe the length of the bar. It struck the last-orders gong dead center, and the deep shimmering chime rolled over the protests and returned the seething crowd to a semblance of order.
She nodded at Mercy. "Let the woman speak before you rend her limb from limb."
Bryan let Mercys hand go and his fell to the side as Mercy stepped forward.
Meanwhile, Mokab sloped off to the side, trying to stay out of sight.
Mercy looked around at the howling mob and wondered what these people were thinking?
"Do any of you realise that this mob behaviour is *exactly* what the terrorists were hoping to set in motion and you are all just playing into their hands. They wanted to set us all against each other. Starfleet didn't bomb you, we're victims too." She instinctively rubbed her bandaged arm as she spoke.
"Fortunately for you lot, we're not attacking *you* in a knee jerk reaction, or you'd all have something to be shrieking about." She looked around at the sea of angry faces.
"You're all upset, angry, hurt, defensive, shocked and looking for someone to blame and hit back at. Well, that's perfectly natural and to be totally honest, I feel that way too. But at least I realise that I have to recognise my enemies from my friends. We're on the same side here." Mercedes stood tall in the face of the heckling from those who weren't prepared to even listen amongst the crowd.
Wayne kept his council to himself for the moment. In all honesty he could not see the point in getting all pissed off over the situation. He motioned for his son to get everyone's attention, before he would say his piece.
Wayne pulled out an old style earth revolver loaded with blanks and pointed it toward the ceiling, a single shot rang out. Then Wayne stood and spoke.
"Now that I have your attention I would like to say something. I realize that you are all madder then hell right now and have every right to be so. However you are forgetting some very key items. First there were no fatalities in the attack, yes there was a massive amount of property damage but that can be replaced. I may not have been here long however I can assure you that this attack affects me as much as it does the rest of you. That being said I would like to make all of you an offer. I can make my own security forces available to you free of charge until such time as starfleet can get a handle on this situation. We need security and stability in order to rebuild and hopefully put this incident behind us." Said Wayne firmly he was not happy but there were things that needed to be done and if it took his offer of assistance then so be it.
"My Wide-angle emitter!" Klia squealed, kicking the bar stool away and squaring her tiny shoulders. "Sod your security! Do you know what I have to do to repair that you arrogant piece of shit? As If I haven't got enough to do fixing this place." She started forward to bring five foot nothing of green wrath down upon the man who had damaged her holo tech.
Yolanthe grabbed her collar with a lemon yellow arm and hauled her back. Her relief at seeing someone from Starfleet was now eclipsed by some...some.. man! damaging her bar! But years of cultural conditioning meant she couldn't let Klia hit him either. You didn't hit boys. For a moment Klia's feet kicked over two inches of air before Yolanthe put her down again. When she spoke, she was talking to her partner, but looking straight at the man. "Go check that the Medical Hologram," she emphasised the words for the mans benefit, "is still working after whatever that was." She gave the Orion girl a push towards the stairs. She'd deal with man afterwards.
Then she turned back to the Starfleet woman. "You said terrorists. So this wasn't an accident? Have you got hold of the people who did this? Or will there be more blasts?"
Bryan stepped up alongside Mercy and slipped his hand into hers.
"Well put." He whispered to her, then looked around the room at those who wee for the moment, appeased by the shoeless woman who spoke and whom he only knew as the proprietor of the Box of Delights. He cleared his throat and in a loud clear voice, spoke.
"No, this was not an accident, it would be far easier if it were. We have not yet identified the culprits or pretend to know the reasoning behind their cowardly act. What we are here to do, is assess the damage and help to put it right. We as much as you, are at a loss to explain what happened or why it has happened yet again, but as soon as we know, be assured, we will d our very best as administrators for this level, to keep you informed."
His eyes came back to Mercedes and she had no smile on her pale face and he was concerned for her.
"As some of you may have noticed, we were caught up in this explosion as much as you. We were on the promenade at the time, so please, all we ask, is for your help and assistance, to help us help each other."
Mercy was really worried about the possibility of *self-protection* and mobs. She remembered the history lessons about vigilantes, possies and people taking the law into their own hands in the name of *justice* and *protecting the community*.
Wayne and his son might feel their cause justified but it seemed like the thin end of the wedge to Mercy.
Yolanthe looked at the two humans. They were in a worse state than most here. She reached for her bar knife and took it to a selection of soft fruits in one of the baskets under the bar. "You'll keep us informed." She scrutinized the woman's collar, she didn't recognise the the marks and flashes. Not a senior officer then. She wasn't up on the lower ranks. "Tell me..."
"Chief," one of the other store owners supplied
"..Chief." She paused a moment to tip the fruit chunks into one the blenders. "If you're in this as much as we are, who's keeping you informed?"
Bryan understood the womans hostility and why it directed at Mercy. The two of them were 'Fleeters' to the civilians, but Mercy was an Aphrodite in comparison and looked every inch a woman, even in uniform.
He took another breath, but Mercy spoke before he had even formed the response in his mind.
"We're part of a tree of communication. We report to the Chief of Operations and we get our information, orders and any assistance we need from that department. Ops and Security will be liaising with the Command and Senior Staff as we speak and any updates will be relayed by our comm badges." Mercy waved a finger past the insignia on her tunic top.
"If we need immediate emergency help we can count on these to call for it and we would do so on behalf of any resident on this base. Your own security network would only serve to divide us further." Mercy explained.
This meeting was not going any place as far as Wayne was concerned. The people in here seemed more interested in the here and now rather then looking to the future. As far as he was concerned then maybe this was something that they all needed to have happen to them in order to shake up their safe little lives. with a single slight motion of his head the three men rose from their seats and headed toward the door. They moved slowly but at the same time they never had less than two men scanning the crowd.
TBC ...