STO Season 11.5 Agents of Yesterday
"Anthology of Ragnarok: Tabletop Beginnings"Captain Oroku Seifer spent the better part of his morning at the Synthbar located within Earth Spacedock's Club 47. But instead of drinking martinis, he had several PADDs in a mess before him, working on a few at a time.
"Can I just ask you something?" approached the El Aurian bartender who had already made a big deal about Seifer not drinking and taking up bar space. "Why couldn't you just compress all your data into one device? What is the point?"
Seifer looked up, aimlessly, and in momentary realization that the bartender was speaking again. "Huh? Oh, the point is that's how we Starfleet officers organize our information. Sure, there's a minor strain on bulkhead material resources, but the more PADDs, the more clutter, the more Starfleet one is! It's well-established, standard officer tradition, actually." And then, a second realization, "Bartender! Another PADD!"
"Ugh," Nelan moaned as he turned away to replicate one more, finally giving up on freeing that spot.
Commander Allura, in command of Spacedock's operations division, approached the bar and sat next to Seifer. "Congratulations on your new command, Captain; that of the U.S.S. Ragnarok," she said by way of exposition and greeting.
"Thanks," Seifer answered, pleasantly surprised by the blind Aenar's presence. "I've been finalizing the paperwork for my new Bridge officers. Much of it crossing t's and dotting i's as is the style of this incomplete font we're using now."
She nodded. "It was implemented as punishment for our reluctance to arrest Sela after the Iconian War. What we were on, I will never know." Then, "Oh, and by the way, you're taking up bar space when you should be working in an office, or, at least your ship's Ready Room."
"Since I've been grounded and working here at Spacedock by the malfunction of my old ship, hit by two Breen dissapators, I've come to think of this place as a second home. I know this station is massive, but it turns out all 1000 guest offices are currently being used by equal segmented groups of an Evora delegation."
After Allura was handed a drink, she slammed it on the table for dramatic effect. "Damn! What the Evora lack in height, they make up for in pure, unrelenting numbers. The truth is, they're here for another head-bead ritual, only, this time, the entire station has to partake in it."
"Phew! Perfect timing, since I'll be heading out into sectorized space with the Ragnarok soon. I skipped my ship and crew inspection due to excitement-paralyzation. That's a thing in this century, you know."
The Aenar gestured to what she sensed as two Tellarites in a single trench coat, one standing on the shoulders of another, both behind Seifer. "This is our seat, buddy!" the double man argued; both completely identical.
"Tomsin and Tomsin??" Seifer turned in shock and surprise. "I thought you were reassigned to the Valhalla?"
The bottom Tellarite grumbled in his own realization at whom he had just encountered. "They wouldn't accept us as a single officer, claiming we were two separate entities now!"
"Captain, please don't tell me you had something to do with this?" Allura interrupted.
Seifer began stacking his PADDs neatly for a possible quick exit. "Well, after more of the overtly dark, unaided whodone-it mystery from the attack at Caldos III, Starfleet wanted me to focus back on the science and weirdness of our original theme. As usual, the Admirals took excitement in the 'return to our roots' thing— an odd obsession of theirs— and when I attempted to initiate artificial atmospheric distortions in a small patch of Earth's atmosphere to lure anaphasic lifeforms, a transporter confinement beam, whence doubled, containing Tomsin, interacted with it and Riker-duplicated the Tellarite back to Earth's surface."
"And we would've been able to live a normal life if Seifer hadn't promised us a position on Admiral Cid's ship! Now we've got no where to go and our acts of illegally boarding the Valhalla are on our permanent records!" the top Tomsin argued.
The bottom Tomsin added, "Yeah! And the duplicate thing too."
"Hey! You'd better watch how you speak to a superior officer, Ensigns!" argued Seifer, annoyed.
Top Tomsin slammed his drink down on the table next to the Captain in yet another dramatic effect. "Well, we've been drinking, so our aggressiveness is easily excused through a bar-based social paradigm! How many have you had, sir?"
"Err," Seifer looked at his space, which contained PADDs and no drink as not preferred, apparently. He saw no way to play into the suggested cliché. Instead, he pointed at the seemingly unmoving line to the club's lavatories by way of distraction. "Whoa! Did they just move up one!?!"
Both Tomsins, actually interested in that, turned in hopes to witness, when Seifer suddenly took the opportunity to activate an emergency transport unit he had held in his hand this whole time. Allura sensed and heard the dematerialization beam take Seifer away.
---
Meanwhile, on the Bridge of the Pathfinder-class, with Discovery-class pylons, U.S.S. Ragnarok, the new crew had just finished preparing everything and all systems for departure. Seifer beamed in, unexpectedly, and took his place at the center.
"We have to exit immediately. No time to explain! Just trust me whoever you all are!" he commanded in a general non-direction at who-knows who.
Aramaki walked over and handed him a duty roster PADD. "Admiral Cid used his connections and had two Ensigns, a Tomsin and Tomsin, transferred to us before we were to leave. Just waiting on that before we go."
Suddenly the tactical officer's console beeped, confirming another transport.
"Oh, that should be them!" Aramaki confirmed, happily. "Yes, we're ready to go now. Shall we, Captain? We polished the holo-consoles and everything. Not that they needed to be polished, since they're holographic."
Caught, suddenly mis-sorted, Seifer lost his train of thought and patience, quickly. "Uggh! Those guys again?? Can't I be one of those Captains that just runs away from things? We literally don't have any Captains that do that." And then, "Well. I suppose it's going to be up to me to be a different kind of Starfleet commanding officer, completely off from the Picards and Kirks of the past! All of a sudden, I no longer feel that combo excitement-paralyzation syndrome my old chief medical officer, Doctor Lox, diagnosed me with. I'm just left with just the excitement."
"Should I have the Tomsins meet you on the Bridge for assignment?"
Captain Seifer just waved it off. "Just post them in a corridor somewhere. In the meantime, I'm going to replicate myself a celebratory martini. It would seem our adventure, to hopefully be accompanied by a powerful orchestra-based melody, is just beginning! Seifer out."
Since he wasn't on comms to begin with, he just turned and headed to his Ready Room. The 25th century, in whatever fashion he would be meant to find it in, was now his to command.
