milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: Enterprise has come home, and Jim finds nothing but rumors.]

The outgoing captain of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A is at the bar, nursing a Romulan ale, and trying not to think much about things. But the book he brought with him (a first edition of a 20th century biography of Abe Lincoln) isn't grabbing him, and his mind keeps circling back to his ship and to how things are. Or aren't.

Conversation might be welcome.

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There's a fellow in somewhat-past-twentieth-century urban camo fatigues heading towards the bar; the book gets a glance, and the contents of the glass get a longer one. "Knew a fella once who made a drink like that from radiator coolant," he observes. "I'mma guess that ain't what you got there."

"It comes close. Romulan ale, and frankly I have no idea how it's made or what it's made from. Though I would guess there is grain in there somewhere." And possibly radiator coolant, as a plot to poison Federation types.

Shephard grunts. "Any good? We got some homebrew operations goin' on back home, but we pick up a bunch of supplies here when we can."

Liquid entertainment counts as supplies.

"Very much an acquired taste. Though it's hard to acquire in the first place as it's illegal at home." Jim suspects most captains drink it, though. Who's to see?

"Huh. Might just stick to pickin' up plain ol' Earth liquor here, then. If it ain't legal on the human side of the line in your world it's gotta be seriously fuckin' expensive," says Shephard.

"Probably. I never really thought about it." Nothing like that inexplicable Federation economy.

Shephard nods. "Folks're mostly after proper beer'n bourbon anyway," he says. "No need to git 'em interested in somethin' new we ain't never gonna be able to make ourselves."

There's a pause.

"I ain't interruptin' nothin', am I?'

"No, my concentration is shot today." He marks his page. "Captain James Kirk."

"Think we might've met before. Name's familiar, anyways," says Shephard. "Sergeant-Major Adrian Shephard. USMC."

Jim nods. "It seems possible. There aren't too many men in uniform here, so we stand out and I do vaguely remember meeting a Marine. My apologies if I don't remember more."

Shephard waves a hand vaguely. "Naw, it's cool," he says. "Ain't like I remember much of it myself. Been a while since I ran into either of the other Marines I met here anyways, but I reckon you'd recall Quaritch or Chacon if you'd met 'em. Seems I recall you're from the future too, correct me if I'm wrong."

"Late 23rd century, so at least someone's future." It's all relative, of course.

"Early twenty-first, myself," says Shephard. "Chacon'n Quaritch are twenty-second, from what I recall. You ever meet a big blue cat-lookin' fucker in a loincloth around here, goes by Tsu'tey when he's talkin' to humans, he's the same universe'n time as them."

He sees more of Tsu'tey than of the humans from that universe, frankly.

"I think I would remember that." Non-humans remain rare here. It still bothers Jim that the "Landlord" is speciesist.

"What sort of duty are you on?"

"These days? A fuck of a lot of recruiting'n recruit training, mostly," Shephard says. "When I ain't tryin' to learn to run a ship in a big fat fuckin' hurry. We, uh... we got us a little bit of a special situation back home. Long story short, we're comin' back from alien conquest of Earth, so things're kinda tight."

"That does sound familiar." Strange how after a while, parallel timelines begin to blend together in here, though. "What sort of infrastructure do you have to work with?"

"Precious little," Shephard says. "Biggest population center in the area's the one I'm based out of, 'bout four or five hunnert people in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. We're workin' out of the ol' Greenbrier continuity-of-government facility they built durin' the Cold War. Problem is, the Combine had control for sixteen years, so we got to scavenge most of our industry for starters and we spent most of last year gittin' our crop seeds'n shit from bunker-deep USDA seed vaults." He scratches his noise and adds, "Bright side, we got a fair little piece of fuel for our vehicles'n we got plenty of generator power'n fertilizer to work with. And that ship I mentioned's got an onboard teleport system, long as you don't mind havin' to talk the AI through what you're tryin' to do on account of her bein' crazy as a bag full of bats."

"I'm aware this ain't exactly the foundation of a particularly sunny sort of future, but we got to start somewheres."

"Some worlds have restarted from about that level. And some colonies either chose to build from nothing, or were forced to by circumstance.

"Just having a pre-existing city to operate from is something, though. Never mind that all the paranoia of the Cold War seems to have served a purpose." Which is strangely ironic. "How much alien tech is workable besides the AI and the transporter?"

"Oh, the AI and the transporter're human make," says Shephard. "Aperture Science prototypes. The whole thing started with teleport research bein' done on Earth, only it fucked up 'cause it plugged into a different fuckin' dimension for part of the process'n wound up letting things in. We ain't really got a whole lot of workin' teleports other'n the Borealis just at the moment, though. Far as the offworld shit, most of it's weapons, or energy generators. Some body armor'n medical gear. We also got us a fair few alien friendlies livin' on Earth these days, that's a help."

"Transdimensional portals that early. We're still trying to perfect transwarp drive, and it's pretty much been dismissed as a pipe dream. And yet..." He wonders what Scotty would say.

"I have to say that it doesn't sound entirely dire. The human race has a long history of finding its way back from the muck. Though in my timeline, the lows weren't quite so low, and there's never been anything like an invasion on a planetwide scale."

Shephard nods. "We got us a ways to go," he says. "And we ain't the only survivors, mind. There's folks on the other continents doin' their part. All's I got to work with's my one group'n some folks down in Brazil, that's all."

"You folks ever want to know how we pulled it off, my CIC's poppa'n husband worked on the whole teleport thing back when all this shit started. Her poppa's dead now, but she'n her husband come here near as much as I do. One of 'em might be willing to pass their info along, if'n you think it'd make much sense on your end of things."

"Odds are I wouldn't really grasp the science, but seeing as how I don't think your timeline would come under any of our non-interference rules, I could take a look and not get in trouble." Jim has long since decided that any perceptibly different reality is not bound by the Prime Directive.

"Her name's Alyx Vance," Shephard says. "Middling dark skin, black hair with some red streaks, green eyes. Usually has the twins with her, or the big fuckin' robot, or both. Husband's name is Gordon Freeman. Redhead, real pale, glasses, one eye and a shitload of scars. Wears a crowbar on his belt, too. Engineer'n physicist, the two of 'em."

"I think I might have met Gordon some time ago.

"Honestly, after all this time here, I've lost track of a lot of the people I've met. It's enough to remember my crew some days." It's not the age, it's the mileage, to quote an ancient and outdated proverb.

"Know the feeling," says Shephard. "There's too goddamn many people you see 'round here once or twice'n never see again to keep track of 'em all, and I been tryin'."