Old Soldiers

Posted on Sun Feb 4th, 2024 @ 3:04am by Lieutenant Alexis Ryan & Commodore Jacob Kane

Mission: The Trojan Horse
Location: USS Athena - Dionysus Bar
Timeline: MD-02
1796 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

"Hey there, stranger."

The woman wearing Marine-issue fatigues approached the redhead at the bar with a smirk and a light punch on the upper arm. A little shorter than the average Marine, with platinum blonde hair and crystal blue eyes, Master Chief Brooke Tyler was an odd mix of traditional beauty and rough-and-tumble soldier. Her shit-eating grin never left her face as she hopped onto the stool next to Alexis and snatched up the half-finished drink from in front of her.

"Still drinking this brain-rotting stuff I see?" she quipped, taking a drink from the glass while keeping her eyes on the other woman.

Nostalgia, Alex was starting to realise, was determined to sneak up on her these days. Ever since arriving on the Athena, she'd spent as much time revisiting her past as she had plotting her future and though aspects of it weren't objectionable as such, they were certainly complicated. So far, the parts paying her a visit were from vastly different eras, far enough back that Alexis liked to reassure herself she wasn't the same person anymore. Most days, she nearly succeeded.

This, at least, was a fond resignation. Huffing a laugh, she hitched both eyebrows at the theft of her drink and retorted, "Synthehol isn't a dirty word, you know."

"I've heard you use plenty worse, Lexi," Brooke chuckled. "What was it you used to say about that old drill instructor? About having a face so ugly a Klingon might think it was his lunch?"

A slight twitch at the corner of the Science Chief's mouth was arguably not an admission of guilt, though it quickly vanished behind a sip of her drink so that only her eyes were left to plead her innocence. "Just a casual observation of fact," she eventually tried to pass off as nonchalance, already a far more tactful response than would have been her younger self's defense.

"How long has it been?" Brooke asked, waving for another pair of drinks. "Last we met, you were accepting that discharge. Found yourself a different colour uniform, I see." She touched the turquoise trim of Alexis' uniform. "At least it's not gold."

"It has been once or twice," Alex warned. "I stuck with software engineering, Starfleet's a little indecisive about where that places me at times. Looks like you stayed put though. That rich, mysterious El Aurian hasn't materialised yet to sweep you off your feet?"

"Do you know how hard it is to find a rich, mysterious El Aurian in this quadrant? All the good ones are taken." Brooke grinned, sensing the return of familiar banter. "You're looking at Master Chief Tyler now. Someone upstairs recognised my greatness after all this time."

It was on the tip of Alex's tongue to tease the woman about Zora's presence on board but she thought better of it, at least in terms of putting ideas into the other woman's head. Instead, she focused on the promotion and dipped her head in congratulations before gesturing to her own pips. "They commissioned me."

"Get out of town. You went officer track?" Brooke eyed the collar. "Well, well, Lieutenant Lexi. Sir." She threw up a mock salute, grinning. "I never would have expected the wild young Lexi Ryan, an officer."

"Well, life threw plenty of unexpected curve-balls at us."

It went without saying that, at the time, Alexis herself hadn't expected a life outside the marines. Being injured the point of not being able to serve hadn't been part of her agenda. Being injured to the point of not being able to serve without an eye replacement and considerable rehabilitation. The silent correction was immediately discarded, Ryan's capacity to procrastinate in that one very specific area of her life was not exactly a squeamishness to be proud of.

"They pay me to write my nerdy code for a living now, so reprogramming your shower was worth it in the long run."

"Seems that way." Brooke tossed back a shot. "You miss it? The life?" she asked, her tone shifting, somewhat ironically, to a more sober and direct one.

Alex considered the question a moment. It wasn't the first time she'd been asked it, but it was the first time it had come from someone so perfectly poised to call her on her bullshit if she tried her normal tactic. "Sometimes," she conceded. "The people more than the work." Camaraderie wasn't absent from her work life these days but it wasn't the same, perhaps because she wasn't the same. Far more reserved, less inclined to insert herself.

"Could have used you a few times." Brooke's eyes glazed into a vaguely distant stare for a few moments, recalling some almost-forgotten event from the past. "Lost some good people. Remember Atlos? The Kriosan guy with the scar? Always said he would get back home...until he caught it from a Klingon dagger. Idiot never could watch his corners properly..." she sighed, her melancholy moment evidently stirring discomfort in herself. "Well. Sometimes the work is all you have when the people don't last."

It was a sobering truth and one that prompted a silence Alex didn't immediately seek to fill. On the surface, the life that she'd pursued once her days as a marine were over was still riddled with an equal risk-reward ratio. Closer examination of Ryan's specific career, however, did involve some elements of playing it safe; positions accepted on smaller vessels and, of course, her time at the shipyards. If one dug even deeper into it, there was a long history of detachment, a notable gap between her skill as an officer and her willingness to invest herself in any capacity beyond the purely professional. Alexis Ryan was a personable woman, a fair and approachable leader and performed, her service record declared, remarkably well under-pressure. It made very little sense, then, that the woman in front of her was probably a far closer friend than anyone Alex had served with in the 15-odd years that had passed since they'd met.

Never could watch his corners properly...

It didn't get easier, you just made yourself harder.

"Not getting morose on me, are you?" The flip into teasing was intended as a relief for both of them, despite Brooke being well on the way to being drunk enough for a morbid trip down memory lane. Reaching out with a foot, Alex nudged the other woman's leg. "What happened to staring down the fat lady?"

Brooke flipped, almost like a switch, from sober to mischievous. "Oh and there you go setting me up for a 'your momma' joke," she retorted with a grin. She lifted her glass, tapping it against Alexis'. "Here's to dying before we become fat ladies ourselves."

Though Alex's expression harboured a deep sense of momentary reflection, the toast was met with a soft chuckle and a reciprocated ting of her glass. "The endless battle." It was a placeholder of a response, however, something that fit the moment whilst she tried to pin down what it was that was bothering her. News of Atlos' passing was unfortunate, though she'd never really known the guy very well. That was the problem though; Starfleet life wasn't immeasurably different but marine deployments had a way of thrusting groups of virtual strangers into potentially the last moments of their lives together and that kind of thing forged kinship without necessarily a lot of foundational work required. It was exactly, if Alex was honest, what was missing from her current career path.

Frowning, she looked down into her glass and hesitated before taking the sip to close off the gesture.

"Do you hear from any of the rest of them?" A quiet question, asked with reservation.

"Just Ray. And one or two others. A lot of them didn't make it. Others decided to get out while they still could." Brooke studied the bottom of her own glass, mirroring Alexis' own movement. "I suppose the fat lady sung for a few of them."

"You were never tempted to leave?" As much as hearing about the others held some merit, Alex realised that she was seeing in Brooke perhaps a very similar situation to what would have been her own without her injury. Would she have ever been able to leave the marines by choice to pursue her passions elsewhere? Most of the time, Alexis had viewed the change in circumstance as a positive thing, her new career allowed her to focus on areas that were much more appealing to her creative side, but choosing to step away was an entirely different matter to being forced to.

Brooke fixed her with an odd look. "And do what? Join Starfleet?" She smirked. "There's only one way out for me, and that's feet-first."

"There's always retirement and all the perks that come thereafter." The very faintest of frowns didn't do much to dampen Ryan's amusement, though it didn't escape her notice that her old friend still had a particularly fatalistic view of her life's trajectory. "Hell, they might even let you yell at some cadets for a few years."

The marine's eyes closed as her chin lowered, as though completely disappointed with Alexis' suggestion. "You and I know that's not my path, Lexi. I'm a combat marine; I lead people into the fire." She put her glass down, not seeking a refill or replacement. "One day that fat lady will be singing my name. I've accepted that already."

"And I fully expect you to tell her to shut the hell up when she tries." With a shake of her head, Alexis gave up, having no real heart to try and budge the stoic soldier's stance. Selfishness, she realised, would make a safer option seem more palatable but there wasn't a whole lot of point preserving life if anything that gave it purpose had been sucked clean out of it. With a fond smile, she finished her own drink and pushed the glass away. "If you're done here, I've got time to show you around for a bit. Our shooting range isn't half bad."

"Two drunk women with live phasers, what could possibly go wrong?" Brooke smirked, spinning away from the bar. "I bet I can still shoot straighter than you can..."

The squint of her damaged eye became Alex's best efforts to recall a time where Brooke had ever out-shot her, accuracy-wise. Somehow she got the feeling the tally had been heavily skewed by the entropy of time and wishful thinking. Using a foot to kick her chair in, she took several strides to catch up and bumped the other woman in the back with her shoulder.

"You're certainly welcome to keep trying."