In My Defense, I Never Left My Quarters

Posted on Wed May 22nd, 2024 @ 2:12am by Lieutenant JG Nayisa Wrea & Ensign Kateyo Fenn & Ensign Ziahli Lorel & Dominic Lowell

Mission: Character Development
Location: Nayisa's Quarters
2357 words - 4.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Nayisa slumped onto the bed in her quarters. Restricted duty sucked. After her shift ended, she returned to her quarters, now used to the security officer meeting her at her door to make sure she entered and didn't sneak out. She wasn't sure if this was Zade's doing or Zora's, but she wasn't about to tempt fate to find out. It was annoying at first, and Nayisa was admittedly a bit annoyed at Zade for it, but this would only last a few more weeks. She could manage four weeks of this.

It still sucked.

Being stuck in quarters while off duty meant she had to entertain herself with the things in her quarters. Holomovies got boring after a while, as did reading, but she had too much leftover evergy that she would usually burn off duty. It had only been a couple of days into this punishment, but she had already succumbed to the ridiculous workout videos from the 21st century just to keep herself moving.

Only 3 and a half more weeks of this.

"Ding dong, you awake in there?

The voice that carried across the intercom was not Zade's, nor was it any of the other officers who had been left to stand sentry on pain of something-worse-than-death if the incarcerated Intel officer escaped on their watch. It did belong to a Security Officer, but for all Zia's aspirations were rock solid, she seemed to have a somewhat jovial approach to earning the necessary accolades and recommendations required to specialise. At the very least, she hadn't opened the door. It was a start.

Nayisa let a quiet groan into her pillow before lifting her head to address the intercom. "Wish I weren't. I'm so bored, Zia. Wait, you're my warden tonight?"

Outside the door, Zia leaned against the wall and folded her arms across her chest. "I volunteered. Apparently the combination of having to stay alert because, in Zade's words, we're 'responsible for making sure an escape artist doesn't get to practise' and having actually nothing to do was making the other guards antsy." The Betazoid lifted her eyes to scan the panels overhead. "I wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't planted extra surveillance though, it took her a long time to agree to my shift."

"Ugh, that sounds like Didrea. Why would I get myself into more trouble? I may be stupid sometimes but I'm not that stupid."

"Couldn't tell you but I'm under stricter-than-usual orders not to allow you to talk me into anything ludicrous." Studying the bulkhead opposite, Zia smirked to herself. "Which just leaves me wondering what the possibilities might be."

The sigh that came through comms was more than enough to suggest a rather dramatic eye roll just happened.

A beep from Nayisa's computer made her lift her head from the pillow, and she got up to check it out. A holo-message request? "Yeah, well, don't worry, I won't try any persuasion. I'm gonna... I don't know, watch another movie or something. Have fun being a statue."

"I'll work on my meditation techniques," Zia reassured, only half in jest. Standing sentry was the least thrilling aspect of her current career path but it was necessary and would ultimately bode well for any future applications to specialise.

Once the comms cut out, Nayisa turned her attention back to the holo-message, her curiosity just enough to accept it. Once she saw the face on the other end, her curiosity turned into a dorky grin. "Can't keep yourself away, huh?"

The connection, it had to be said, was not the most stable. Whether this was simply the nature of a jerry-rigged attempt to slide past several security protocols or the result of a very specific engineer's best attempts to talk his new best friend through the task remained to be seen, but there was no disguising the fact that Nic's face flickered as if navigating static and then occasionally partially disappeared as the top of his head became a focal point. The ensuing half-coherent conversation seemed to suggest that the process of establishing a holographic interface was still very much in the refinement stages and, once or twice, a snort of laughter preceded the tinkle of glass hitting glass. This was a mystery solved quite promptly, as the bartender moved back into focus holding a bottle of what appeared to be ale.

Is it actually working? How is it working? How is this working? The direction of his gaze was slightly veered, as if watching someone else just out of view. Is it supposed to do that?

It didn't take much to conclude that either Nic had gotten into his very potent stash, or he had been drinking for a while. The gaze out of view, however, wasn't lost on Nayisa, and a bit of concern contradicted the roll of her eyes. "You're probably not supposed to be calling me, Nic. I'm restricted right now."

"We thought about that." A conspiratorial smugness attempted to contort Nic's features into a smile that matched the tap of his index finger against his temple, though the actual effect was something closer to passing stomach wind. "That's why we're, uh, counting this as an official evaluation of a significant security exploit." He squinted slightly off-screen again. "That's what we decided to go with, right?"

Nayisa had to ask at this point. "We?"

"Yeah some kinda bull like that," the voice said offscreen a moment before his dark face and white toothy grin came into view. "Hey Nay!" Teyo said, a little too loudly and a little too drunkenly. "Ssh," he said with fingers on his lips as he mimicked Nic's gesture. "This is a covert operation," he whispered into the screen staring at his friend on the other side.

Oh, it was Teyo. Oh god, they met each other?? Nayisa thought. A sly smirk crept onto her face as she watched the camera bounce around, an effect of some rather drunken hand-eye coordination. "Covert, huh? Is this the work of the handsome one or the charming one?"

There was a disorienting moment where the projectors couldn't quite make sense of whose face it was vying for focus. The unintentional comedic timing meant that the resulting hybrid was neither particularly handsome nor likely to be very charming, though it was a fine example of what to expect should the pair ever become victims of a transporter accident. After a few seconds, Nic's insistence paid off and he wrangled centre stage from the master himself just long enough to claim, "My idea, his execution. Also my rice wine."

A bottle moved into view, as if proving its existence was paramount.

"You know, you're supposed to sip this stuff," the bartender continued conversationally, before forgetting the topic entirely. "So what are you up to? I told you she wouldn't be starkers," the conversation rambled off to the side again, though Nic blessedly thought to qualify the comment with an explanation. "We were trying to figure out what we'd do if we were locked in a room for days. One of us believes clothing would be optional."

Teyo grabbed the bottle and stared at it. He moved it closer to his face and then extended his arm, doing his best to bring it into focus with his eyes. "You're meant to sip this? Why? It tastes so good." He turned back to the screen as if just remembering that Nayisa was there. "Yes I thought you would be naked but, listen my logic is sound. Your best friend is Trill, I'm Trill, and my best friend is Betazoid and they love being naked, ergo you might have been naked too." He stabbed himself in the chest several times with his thumb. "Smart and handsome. Oh, and charming too, Nic you're bringing nothing to this."

Nayisa leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms with amusement. "Somehow, I'm not that surprised to hear you say it, Fenn." The question of what she was doing went unanswered, as there wasn't much to report on. Her quarters were boring, she could only sit still for so long before she had to do something else. At least this provided some distraction from the boredom. "Where the hell are you guys?? And please, pick someone to hold the camera, you're going to make me nauseous with how much it's moving around."

There was a scuffle, and the muffle of voices in the throes of drunken negotiation before the sudden appearance of the ceiling moving by at great speed indicated that the current bearer of the camera had seen fit to break into a jog. The jostling lasted only a few seconds, thankfully, and culminated in the sudden, blessed stillness of what was likely the incorporation of a makeshift tripod. Nic loomed into view and then moved back into focus as he stepped back and then sat himself down on what looked suspiciously like a large cargo container.

"We were in the bar," became his initial defense, whilst a flamboyant waving of his hands presented his jerry-rigged set-up to the man left bringing up the rear. This very swiftly switched to the grabby-hands of insistence as Teyo's burden of not one, but two bottles of rice wine was diminished by one. "Fenn's a lot more game than some people I know about testing the contents of the Forbidden Stash." Ever since locating the assortment of liquor without any labels, Nic had systematically been working up the courage to continue his exploration of the more dubious ones. The ones he hadn't been able to convince Nayisa to touch.

"I just know how to have a good time, unlike some people," Teyo said directly into the camera. "Come and join us, Nay, Zia will let you out I'm sure."

A laugh came from Nayisa. The jab was fair, she wasn't about to risk poisoning herself for a little bit of fun. "You know I can't, Fenn," she responded. "I already pissed off Didrea once, I don't need to do it again. I'm also not about to bring Zia under fire."

"She wouldn't want any of this anyway." The bottle waggling back and forth between Nic's fingertips was very nearly dropped, at which point he hugged it closer to his chest and took few risks with it. "We've left a bottle for once you're out though. Greenish-black stuff, smells like permanent alopecia if you got it on your skin. All you gotta do is hurry up and serve your time." He bent low to blow into the neck of his bottle, as one might gently remind a lover of their presence. "When is that anyway?"

"Three weeks, four days, sixteen hours, twenty-two minutes... sorry, twenty-one minutes," the silver-haired woman replied. She picked up a trinket she had replicated, a simple little thing that made a light click when she moved the parts. It was easy to maneuver it between her fingers. "Usually the stuff puts hair on your chest, not the other way around. Any insight to where it came from? Unless you somehow hid it inside your guitar, I highly doubt you brought it from the station."

"At least you got a timeframe," Teyo said to Nick. His head was lolling around as he struggled to focus on the screen. "I just got a very vague answer before from her," he thumbed the screen "she probably likes you more, less offensive." He smiled mischievously.

Internally, Nayisa grimaced. She was surprised that Teyo was that observant while clearly drunk. What bothered her was that she didn't catch the slip-up, the very subtle admission that she could have some sort of favoritism toward Nic. "Please, you're both idiots," she teased with an eyeroll. "I behave differently when I'm off duty, Fenn. If you actually got to know me instead of hitting on me, you'd probably know that." Following that, she stuck her tongue out at Teyo.

There was a moment of hesitation as Nic froze, bottle to lips, to process a reaction. Narrowed eyes gave an exaggerated sense of distrust tinged with a comical glimmer that might have resembled faint jealousy before his expression cleared entirely and reverted to the gormless vacancy of intoxication. The best guess was that he'd already forgotten whatever it was he'd been about to complain about. "He told me I have nice eyes." His brow furrowed. "No, wait. Ass. Eyes or ass?" The query was posed to Teyo as if a perfectly reasonable topic for clarification.

Teyo leaned back to further study the man, trying his best to remember what features of Nic he had expressed admiration for. In truth, he didn't remember the conversation at all but that didn't mean it didn't happen, in fact, he would bet that it did. "Both," he eventually said as he flashed a toothy grin, right before he fell off his perch and landed on the floor and out of the camera's view.

Without the wherewithal to properly analyse the implication, Nic simply sat in smug satisfaction with the neck of his bottle pressed against his cheek. "See. Both."

Teyo burst into fits of laughter as he struggled to get back off the ground, only managing to with the help of Nic. He patted the man on the back and then turned to the screen and spotted that Wrea was watching them. "Nayisa!" He shouted in excitement. "When did you get here? Come out with us."

Nayisa couldn't help the stifled snort that snuck through the hand over her mouth when Teyo fell over. It was comical, the arm flailing to find balance and the way his boots stuck in the air for a moment. The two were clearly drunk enough that they'd have a hard time remembering all of this. At the invitation, Nayisa chuckled and shook her head. "Good night, you two. Don't to anything I wouldn't do." Before they could respond, she ended the connection before getting ready for bed.