Shore Leave: The Beach

Alex comes up from her ill-timed leap coughing and sputtering. And laughing. She wipes water from her eyes and runs her hands through her hair. "That was... better executed in my head," she says weakly, coughing a bit more water out. "Still... Captain Thompson? I can only imagine what he'd say, watching that display. 'Nice job, old woman. Looks like you're even less graceful than you are useful in negotiations, which is saying something!'" she says, with a pretty fair imitation of the captain's unmistakeable pompous tone. Alex grins widely and splashes water toward Cass.

Cass laughs, trying to dodge the splash but still taking some of it in the face. She swims slightly further out, kicking to splash back at Alex. "Oh, he wouldn't use something as mundane as 'old lady,' would he? It'd be more like, 'Nice job, granny.' But that was a killer imitation of him." She thinks, once again floating and lazily treading with her hands. "Okay, what do you think he sounds like when he's actually trying to charm someone? Like, how would he go about trying to pick someone up in a bar?"

"Granny!" Alex cries, and turns to catch the return splash in the side of the face. "I knew I wasn't getting that part quite right!" She fixes Cass with a suspicious look. "Though you did come up with that awfully quickly..." she says, overdoing the skeptical tone to indicate the joke.

Alex sinks down in to the water up to her chin and goes into her Thompson impersonation again. "Drinking a Nekkian Spiderweb, I see. My favorite drink. You know, I'm sure you don't know this, but that's made with milk from a Nekkian animal a lot like the cows we have back on Earth. Beautiful place, Earth. I saved it from destruction single-handedly seventeen times? That's right, seventeen. If any one of those negotiations hadn't had my brilliant insight available, boom. Whole place, destroyed.

Cass grins and tries her own impression of Thompson. "Also, the warp engine? It was my idea. Well, not the original engine, of course, but the modern version. A paper I wrote for school when I was twelve got picked up in the astrophysics community and inspired the latest improvements we have today. Of course, I didn't get credit for it. They offered, but I turned it down..."

Alex looks skyward and laughs. "What a raging asshole he was. How we managed to sneak through that business without him destroying everything we'd worked toward..." She shakes her head in amazement. "Glad to have rid ourselves of him.

She lies back and floats idly on her back. "And Commander? Regardless of what's in store... it's been an honor and a pleasure. You'll get that promotion, and you'll deserve it. There aren't so many Thompsons in Spacefleet that they'll fail to recognize talent."

Glad that Alex seems to finally be starting to relax, Cass murmurs her thanks for the compliment and tries to conceal her complicated feelings on the topic. She plunges underwater and swims in a lazy circle to surface near where she was when she started, resuming her floating posture as she idly scans the beach full of rowdy cadets. "They have no idea what life in Spacefleet is really going to be like, do they?"

"Did you?" Alex responds. "I'm not sure anyone ever does. All I wanted was adventure. When I signed up, I thought it was going to be an endless series of dramatic encounters with strange life forms. Then it turned out to be bureaucracy, paperwork, talking, and... well. I guess one series of dramatic encounters with strange life forms."

She turns to look off toward the beach again, a faint, rueful smile coloring her features. "Makes me think of my daughter."

Surprised, Cass turns her head sharply at that, but manages to keep her voice casual. "You have a daughter? Where is she now?"

Alex turns to look at Cass, smiling. "You're supposed to say, 'you can't possibly be old enough to have a daughter!', you know."

She chuckles, takes a deep breath, and can just barely been seen shrugging under the water. "Getting ready to graduate from the Academy. Or she was when I heard from her last. She hasn't answered my comm requests the last couple of days. She's a bright girl. She'd love this place, actually, though mostly for the terraforming they've done. Planetary geologist."

"Wow, she sounds amazing." Cass hesitates. "Do you usually... Does she generally communicate regularly? Are you worried something might have happened?"

"No," says Alex, casually waving away any worry with a chuckle. "She’s pretty busy. I’m sure she’ll respond before long."

There’s a long, nearly uncomfortable pause, when Alex says, "How about you? Anyone eagerly awaiting news of your shore leave? Family? Friends? Enemies?". The way she puts a slight emphasis on your shore leave gives an indication that maybe she’s not so unaffected by her daughter’s lack of communication as she pretends to be.

Cass gives a little laugh that sounds a bit more bitter than she'd intended. Apparently, the fact that Alex is trying to conceal her feelings about her daughter's radio silence are corroding Cass' own emotional armor. She sighs, resolving to ask Alex more questions about this later.

"I got a message from one of my brothers who apparently heard something about the Veron mess from a friend of a friend. I gave him the non-classified summary of things, which he said he'd pass on to our other three brothers. My dad..." She pauses, trying to work out what she really wants to say about him. She decides to just go with the unvarnished truth. "My dad and I have never gotten along. He never supported my Spacefleet career, just like he never supported much of anything else that I wanted to do. Right before the mission where we rescued you and Lorq, I sent him a communication. No details, just that I'd been thinking about him and that I was on a big mission, but maybe I could come and visit him when it was over."

She reclines even further back, doing a slow set of lazy backstrokes. "I've still not heard back from him, even though I'm sure Danny - that's the brother I mentioned - told him about... what just happened. So I guess that really is more or less giving me his answer."

Cass turns over onto her stomach abruptly and slips underwater, swimming until she's under Alex. Reaching up, she grabs Alex's elbow and pulls her under before darting away and surfacing. When Alex comes back up, sputtering, Cass grins at her. "C'mon, I bet those drinks I ordered have been served."

Cass notices the three cadets as she and Alex move toward the shore. Since the louts seem determined to stay right in their path, she adjusts course to go around them on their way to their chairs.

Cass glances at Alex and says, "She might consider her commanding officer to be annoying, but no, I have no complaints. And thanks, but we're just here to relax and forget about things for a while. Enjoy your vacation, guys." She continues to their chairs.

Grinning, Cass rubs her hands together in a theatrical show of anticipation before reaching to lift up the glass box. "Now, this is a real drink," she says, handing one glass to Alex and lifting the remaining one to her lips.

She watches for Alex's reaction as they both drink, but frowns as the expected zing doesn't materialize. Cass takes a second, larger sip, then flops into the chair with a sound of frustration. "Why does everything have to be such a disappointment? Can't a simple drink just be what I'm expecting?"

Alex takes a drink, holding it in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. Her lips purse in a speculative look, and then she nods. Without a word to Cass, she activates the comm unit and says, "All right. Listen up. I don't know what bartender you dragged out out of the gutter, but here is exactly what you're going to put in the next Tail Twisters you bring us, because you're missing about three of the most important ingredients."

She launches into a detailed explanation of how to properly make the drink, with exact measurements, specific types of liquor, and careful directions on how to mix it all. "And if the next two drinks come back tasting of mediocrity and hopelessness, I'll be speaking with Toram Al-Vintar myself. He owes me a favor, you see, for the time I helped him with a very personal problem," she finishes.

Deactivating the comm unit, she lays back on her chair with a satisfied smirk. She looks to the side at Cass. "And if that doesn't work, I'll make you one myself. I worked with a Garabnian on Hyetian-1. Remarkable drinks." She rests her head back and closes her eyes with a mischievous smile. "Great with the hands. All four of them."

Cass wears an ever-broadening smile as Alex schools the bar staff on the Tail Twister. When the diplomat promises to make the drink herself if the next one also falls short, Cass clasps her hands to one shoulder. "My hero!"

The mention of the four-handed bartender makes her a little sad, in view of the loss of Marbo from the Potential's crew. She's going to miss that fishy weirdo. So many things have changed in such a short time.

The question seems to speak itself, without the participation of her conscious mind. "Do you think people really do change?" She's surprised at having said it, but now that it's out, she feels obliged to clarify. "I mean, at their core? Or do they just adapt to changing conditions with what they know is expected of them?"