Birthday
(Many thanks to Terri for RPing this with me. Thanks, Terri!--Maer)
Monday, 15 Apr 2520
Jamestown Station, Bernadette
White Sun (Bai Hu) system
15:30 hrs, local time
The monthly maintenance proceeded apace and I had to get myself away from the Gift or I’d succumb to the urge to kibbitz. Since the consequences of that were still smarting from Highgate, I decided a drink was in order. Jamestown Station was not the sort of place it was wise to drink alone and I had it in mind that I wasn’t the only one aboard who could benefit from some alcoholic maintenance. Maybe if we were lucky, it would lead to some percussive maintenance and we’d both benefit from the work out.
“Nika?” I stuck my head in the bridge and checked her chair. “I’m going stir crazy sitting on my hands here. What say you and I grab a drink somewhere and vent?”
***
Nika is actually gathering up her gear and making last checks when Rina pokes her head in. She's wearing her sidearm and clearly looks as if she's about to leave the vessel -- in this case without even a by-your-leave. The blonde's head pivots around and she studies Rina quietly. "Yeah. Sure," she says. "I was heading that way anyway." Taking one last look around the bridge, Nika stepped out of the room and headed to the stairs that would take them both to the ground. Once dirtside, she shoved her hands into her pants pockets and set off at a ground-eating pace, her long legs making it a bit hairy for Rina to keep up. Her brow was slightly furrowed as she walked.
***
I took in my friend’s expression, gauged the line of her shoulders, and made no comment as I hustled to keep up. Whatever stress I’d looked to bleed off with a shot or two of vodka off-ship, Nika had even more of it and knowing that, a glimmer of an idea came to me. It was a long shot, but I had a built-in excuse and a gambit prepped by the time we reached the bar closest to the Gift. Nika didn’t pause but strode right in.
The Foo Bar, the paint on the windows said. Proprietress: Foo Pei Ling.
Perfect.
***
It wasn't a great bar. In point of fact, it was something of a spaceport dive. But it seemed to suit Nika's mood just fine. She glanced around the bar, offered a feral smirk at a man who averted his eyes immediately, and headed for a small table in the corner, dropping into the chair with her back to the wall. She ordered a whiskey, whatever was on tap -- and in general, she was keeping her silence on what was running through her head.
***
I gave the man who leered at Nika the hairy eyeball—Back off, she’s with me.—and let him make of it what he would. I let Nika choose her spot, thinking a little bit of control over the Universe was what she needed at the moment, and every tiny bit of it she could grab would do her good. I didn’t like the way she’d been quiet and pent up on the trip out from Sampson Array. Oh sure, she put a good face on it, but I knew private strain when I saw it, being too prone to it myself, and since she’d refrained from offering any insight voluntarily, I figured a little outside persuasion was in order. Other eyes followed our progress across the bar room floor, male and female, and I put just a touch of swagger in my stride.
C’mon, I thought to the room. Take the bait. I need the practice. I was a little surprised at the risk I was taking but more than willing to see it through for Nika’s sake. More of Christian’s doing, I suspected, his worming past my long-standing defenses working away at me internally. I filed that thought away for later reflection. For the nonce, I noted the entrances and exits and let Nika pick our spot. Which turned out to be a table on the wall, in a corner closer to the bar and the back door exit past the jakes, than the front.
***
The blonde doesn't seem interested in a brawl so much as the drink -- the bottle appeared on the table as if by magic, the bartender giving Rina the once over and a stern "Don't." before departing. Nika glanced up and smirked faintly. "Quit that, silly bint," she commented mildly. "You start a frakkin' brawl in here today when I want to seriously tie one on, and when they're done with you, I'll kick your ass all the way back to the ship." She poured liquor into the glasses.
***
“I’m not doing nothin’,” I lied. I took the drink she slid to me and knocked it back. I coughed, the stuff going down like liquid razors, and held out my glass for more punishment.
***
The first glass was downed in one firm swallow. Not a cough in sight, though Nika's eyes started to water. And then she refilled both and settled back in her chair to nurse this one a little more slowly, the tension in her finally easing some.
***
“Given the Godlike way you saved my ass at Sampson’s, you’ve more than earned the right to kick it.” I knocked the second glass back and waited for the burn to subside before getting to the point. “Speaking of which, what happened to you back there?”
***
Nika took a long swallow, savoring the burn of what had to be turbine cleaner mixed with engine degreaser. Seriously. This was the best they had? Eh... it'd do. All the way down to her gut, the heat radiated outward. And then she pursed her lips and looked at Rina. "What happened to me? You have no fucking clue just how Godlike that save was," Nika replied softly. "Not to toot my own horn or something, because I honestly believe it was 3 parts sheer dumb-ass luck and only 1 part skill... Have you ever seen one of those bastards go off?" She toyed with the glass in front of her.
***
“No,” I shook my head. “But I did take that thing apart. Doesn’t take a genius to figure how it works. Hence my use of the word ‘Godlike’.” I pulled the bottle over and poured a third glass for myself and sipped it. Drinking slowly didn’t improve its taste. Ebani v’rot, it was vile. I squinted at the label, found little under the smudged grime and faded print to clue me in as to its contents. At least the skull and crossbones wasn’t stamped on it. Although considering the way it went down, maybe it should have. I put it back on the scarred tabletop and said quietly, so only Nika could hear—or ignore me, if she chose.
“I’ve never seen you so white. What happened to you back here?”
***
"They're... well, back then they were kind of like Bigfoot, you know? We heard rumors, people said things. No one really believed they had the damn things." Nika is quiet for a long time, studying the liquid in her glass. "Rina... pulse torpedos are ... awful things. I watched one tear apart a ship that was in convoy with us. They're so gorram small, you don't really see them coming. Like with us. They're a sensor ghost until it's too late... and then they get within range of you, like just... meters. And they go to pulse, directly into your hull. They don't even have to be explosive, they literally rip you apart." She grimaces and swallows the last of her second drink. "We had... maybe ten or twenty more seconds... maybe as much as 30. Before we were fuckin' gone," she admits. "It was already too close. It had to be ramping up for a pulse at that range. And nuclear armed? I don't even... know how to react to that."
***
I sat and listened and turned the info over in my head, hers and mine. By whatever grace of God or Karma or the Bitch Universe throwing us a bone, we’d escaped. I knocked back my drink, it being the kinder way to consume the stuff, and put the glass down on the table.
“Apparently you did. We’re still breathing. So …what now?”
***
Nika blows out a breath and looks at her friend. "And now nothing. We pick up and keep going. We hope that it was a leftover from the war or that the bastards are sticking torpedos out there to catch random ships and try not to assume that it had anything to do with us in particular."
***
I grimaced. She wanted to be dense? Fine. I poured another glass of the rotgut to give my hands something to do and to make our activity look normal to the rest of the room.
“That’s not what I meant, you,” I growled. “I meant what are you going to do, inside, where it counts. Don’t tell me it’s nothing,” I interjected before she could gainsay me. “It’s obviously a big something, otherwise you and I would have had this talk ages ago. What’s going on in that head of yours, Nika? Why won’t you let me in?”
***
Raising a brow, Nika studied Rina with an expression torn between puzzlement and thoughtfulness. "Not sure what conversation you think we're having... personally, I came out here to get as drunk as humanly possible so I can quit thinking about the what-if. It happened, it's over. What am I supposed to do about it? I got us out alive. It's all you can ask for. It's a big something because I don't like the fact that a fuckin' torpedo almost flew up our ass out there."
***
“I’m asking because I’m the brooder on the boat, not you,” I snorted and sucked down my drink. “Yet you’ve been doing just that. However, since you answered my question, I’ll just get back to my original intention of drinking and toastin’ myself a happy birthday. For whatever that’s worth,” I added. “I’m glad I’m here to celebrate it. I doubt they’d have anything this fine in heaven, and I know they’ll have worse in hell.” I held up the bottle and poured myself another glass, resolutely refusing to keep count. I heard my words, reckoned them somewhat unlike me, and with four glasses’ worth already down my gullet, I found I didn’t much care.
So be it.
“Besides,” I continued, knocking more of the stuff back. “If a gal can’t get soused on her stinkin’ birthday, real or not, when the hell can she? Either way, I say I’m overdue.”
And it was true, I realized. Thanks to Christian, I’d slowly come to understand I’d spent far too long denying myself certain elemental things, human needful things: a warm bed and someone to share it, the permission to cut loose every once in a while, a friend to confide in. So here I was, indulging in two out of the three and wondering if Christian would be up for some of the third. Had anyone approached me nine months ago and told me I’d be doing this here and now, I’d have called him a liar to his face. As it was…
The Universe was trying to tell me something, and I’d finally pulled my head out of my ass long enough to listen. Of course, what the Universe says and what you hear is a matter of interpretation, and only history will judge if you’d gotten it right.
***
Nika blinked and turned in her seat to stare. "Today's your gorram BIRTHDAY? You wench," she comments in annoyance. "Why the hell didn't you say something??"
***
“I just did. Geez, whadda want, woman? A flippin’ engraved invitation?” I frowned at her, aware I was out of practice with the concept of having fun as others defined it and the booze was making me ruder than usual. “We’ve been crewin’ out together for how long and you only tell me that now? Really? For instance, I have no idea when yours is. Had I, I woulda made you something. Just don’t expect cake. I burn jello with the best of them.”
I pinned her with a glower.
“So help me God, Nika, if you ever make anyone come up behind me singing ‘Happy Birthday’ with cake and candles in public, I will kill you with my dessert spoon. Just so you know.”
***
Nika rolled her eyes and comments mildly, "I don't tell people my birthday for the same reason." She grinned at Rina. "And Christ, woman.... you want me to recount my entire war experience for your pleasure? Sounds like a lotta boring bullshit to me."
***
“Boring’s nice,” I said quietly, looking down, then up. “Boring’s normal. Something’s that’s been in too short a supply around here. Like sanity. But I’ll take boring if you’re offering.”
***
Nika shrugs. "No point in rehashing the shit, Rina." She refills her glass and merely sips from it again, mentally cutting herself off. Three's her limit when it's clear Rina's toasted beyond toasting. "Pick something else boring and normal to talk to me about, and I'll oblige." She grins wickedly. "Like this thing with you and Christian."
***
“Didn’t you just say you weren’t interested in war stories?” I looked askance at her, then shrugged. As if she didn’t already know: shipboard life pretty much precluded keeping secrets. Then again, Christian was surprisingly open about his sexuality, if not his clients, and so I shrugged and answered. “This ‘thing’ as you so eloquently put it, is kinda on hold right now.”
I reached for the bottle and then thought the better of it. I wanted to make it back to the Gift without being carried. Especially if we had to make a run for it.
“But….since that’s not exactly what you want to hear, I can say this…,” and I leaned over and whispered into her ear one of the tricks he’d surprised me with.
***
Nika looked curious at the information that it was on hold, and then visibly blushed at a number of things that popped out of Rina's mouth in that whisper, her hand going up to her cheek to hide the color that suffused her face. "I didn't need to know THAT!" she boggled at her friend. "Great Googely Moogely!"
***
“But you asked,” I said, crossing my arms and looking at her with the sense of insult that comes of being tipsy. “You should know better than to say something like that to me when I’m halfway soused. No tellin’ what’ll come outta my mouth.”
More than that I couldn’t say, because a voice boomed from across the room and the bar patrons parted like the Red Sea before Moses.
“Wei! I r’member you, you bitch!”
A burly specimen of drunken male planted himself at the edge of our table and I recognized him instantly. Bernie, the cockroach who’d manhandled me the day Joseph Potemkin hired me off the street. The months since hadn’t been kind to him, as the broken veins of his fleshy face and a fresh scar across his knuckles attested, which knuckles I got a good look at as he shook his finger under my nose. “Jimmy lost a nut on account’a you! Gonna take it outta yer hide.”
“You can take it outta my balls!” I snarled, grabbed his finger and gave it a vicious twist. Bone snapped in my grip and I kicked the chair opposite into his legs. I yanked his hand forward and head butted him hard. I barely felt it. I twisted his broken finger in the opposite direction, felt the bones grind as he howled, and I jerked my imprisoning hand in a wide sweep to the side and let go. Bernie followed his finger to the floor and lay there curled around his ruined digit. I poured myself another glass and said to him calmly over his groaning, “Only an idiot bothers the same bitch twice.”
***
Nika eyes the situation with a look that Harry would have been proud of -- part boredom, part assessment. She makes the 'Huh. Didn't see that coming' kind of face and sips her whiskey while the guy drops to the floor, commenting languidly, "I just don't get it. You'd think they'd learn. Life's a bitch, Fate's a bitch, Karma's a bitch... and so are we." She smirks.
***
I downed my drink in one gulp and slammed the glass on the table. The rest of the room hadn’t yet moved, either for Bernie or for us, and I reckoned now would be a good time to leave. I fished a ten credit note from my pocket and left it on the table to cover the damages and rose. The room wobbled and steadied.
“C’mon,” I said, swatting Nika on the arm. “Before the cops get here.”
***
There's a faint sigh. Drunk Russian bitchyness. Just what Nika wanted. She hauls herself to her feet, not entirely on the completely sober side either, and puts an arm around Rina's swaying form. "C'mon, slugger... looks like it's time you caught a nap." Nika tossed some money on the table to pay for their drinks and merely exchanged an amused look with the bartender -- who slipped her baseball bat back down into its spot under the bar -- and headed for the door with Rina.
Thanks to Terri, this barroom jaunt was more fun than it might have been, to say nothing of free of LEO entanglements. See more of Nika using the timeline links below.
Go Back to And Not To Yield | Go to Comfort
Go to Peripatetica - Rina's Journal entry and RP log
Go to Rina's Russian Glossary
Go to Rina's Crew Page
Go to EPISODES or TIMELINE
