(no subject)

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

Jim sits quietly at the bar, looking over various and sundry briefings from Starfleet. He's particularly interested in the rather understated announcement that the transwarp drive aboard Excelsior has been removed and will be replaced with a standard (if state of the art) warp core. The Great Experiment is over, and Jim isn't at all surprised.

Come say hi.

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"Greetings, Captain Kirk!" Teja says, coming to the bar to refill his tea.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Good afternoon, Teja. How are things?" Here is one man for whom the difference between warp drive and transwarp drive wouldn't matter.

[ostro_goth]

"Interesting," Teja says. "Fate continues to bring the strangest flotsam and jetsam of all the universes to this place."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Who or what have you encountered this time?" Jim signals Teja to sit.

[ostro_goth]

Teja sits. "Did I speak of the Nobodies, before?" he asks.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"I've met one of them. Rather difficult beings to understand, I'd say."

[ostro_goth]

"They are from a universe where many things that are metaphors in most worlds are literally true," Teja says. "They do seem very strange to many -- they are truly strange!"

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"And have you succeeded in understanding any of the seeming metaphor?" Because Jim was surprisingly perplexed.

[ostro_goth]

"Oh yes," Teja says. "Once I accept that they are nothing like me in fact, they are surprisingly like me, in metaphor."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"In what way?" Jim can stand to be educated about these (and is there a better word?) aliens.

[ostro_goth]

"I lost my heart to darkness, early in my life," Teja says. "Only, in a sane world like mine, it did not happen that literally. But it happened literally, for them. They are walking, talking metaphors for the darkest aspects of the human condition, and an experiment in applied metaphysics; by observing them, and questioning them, we may glean deep insights into ourselves as human beings."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps." Jim is a bit dubious. He prefers his metaphors to remain metaphors.

[ostro_goth]

"Whether we wish to gain insights is our own business, naturally," Teja says. "But metaphor made literal, they will always be, whether we use them or not."

[anold-soul.livejournal.com]

Oh, Tommy is going to say something like 'hi'. Actually, what he says is:

"Sir!"

And there is a young man standing stiffly at attention, giving a deliberately upside down and backwards salute, and looking like he has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or torture device.

Senior Information Officer The Being Designated As Tommy Solomon was not expecting to see the supreme and possibly evil leader of his race here.

And he also can't remember if he has ever seen The Big Giant Head this sober before.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"I beg your pardon?" The youth's too young to be in Starfleet. And the clothes is from the wrong era. Though in the Bar the latter matters little. "Are you in the academy?"

[anold-soul.livejournal.com]

Tommy drops the salute in confusion.

"What? No," he sputters. "I'm the Information Officer. From Dick's Unit? You know, Earth?"

Tommy gestures to his human form like he's Vanna White. Maybe The Big Giant Head isn't so sober after all. That would be a good thing. Less likely to throw someone into the sun. Because he'd miss.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Um...I'm afraid I don't know who you're talking about. Are you sure you don't have me confused with someone else?" The Mirror Universe version of himself? Lord, he hopes not!

[anold-soul.livejournal.com]

"I...," says Tommy, nervously wringing his hands. "Um. You...aren't Stone Phillips, are you?"

Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh-

"Riiiiight. Oh god he's gonna be so mad."

Nobody gives The Big Giant Head a second-hand body. Nobody.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"No. I'm James Kirk." OK, not someone from the Mirror Universe. But still odd.

[anold-soul.livejournal.com]

"Wow. Okay," Tommy says, still squirming a little. "Um. Awkward. I thought you were..."

A drunken womanizing overlord who only got the position by kissing butt and outrunning the big giant fireball.

"...this guy I know."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Who's your commanding officer in a space fleet?" What are the odds?

[anold-soul.livejournal.com]

"Um," replies Tommy. "Or! I'm just a youngster and these, these are youthful shenanigans."

Even he's aware it's a bit late to try to insist that.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"No, I was the victim of youthful shenanigans both when I was a student and when I was a teacher." Sometimes from expert upperclassmen such as the infamous Finnegan, who made the point of using the word "shenanigan" just to annoy Jim. "You aren't a very good pranskter, at the least."

[anold-soul.livejournal.com]

"You would so not be saying that if I had my glue-stick," Tommy counters.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"But you don't. So have to assume you are indeed the information officer on a mission to Earth from a non-terrestrial source." Which is not a good thing, either, come to think of it.