Santra: A Life Well Travelled.

[Sjet]

(FIve years before he takes command of Starbase 42, Captain Santra was once a Jay Gee Lieutenant on route to the USS Sunfire. Surely he'll have mellowed with age, yes?)

If a cat were being fed into a blender, tail first mind you, and that blender developed a fault before the grizzly end, the sound echoing through the stations open air promenade would resemble its tortured wailings. For every pitch perfect note that was wrung from the violins strings as the bow worked slowly to and fro, a dozen sour chords rattled fillings and shattered the calm of the midnight hour. Fortunately the sound was intermittent, puttering out for protracted periods of time as the player carefully placed bow and instrument down beside himself. The sound of tormented strings would be replaced by the oddly oceanic sound of a slight pop, and then a gently glugging sound.

This would then be replaced with either a slight clink of glass, or the tittering cry of the bottle rolling away as it landed on its side. A chorus of curses, both in Bajoran, Cardassian, and the horribly flat tongue the humans preferred, would follow as bottle was brought back to where it belonged. Findings good Kanar on a Federation starbase was one thing, finding real Cardassian Kanar was a wholly different story. A replicatior might be able to mix up the right combination of amino acids and long chain molecules, perhaps even if programmed correctly it might be able to synthesis some of the regional variances, but it always tasted less than superior.

The man looked from the bottle he held in his hand, now two thirds depleted, and tilted his head back to take another long pull on thick tar like substance. Its taste was not for everyone, and in fact a common reaction amongst none Cardassian's was a sudden and usually quite deadly allergic reaction. Of course, like most poisons, if administered in small dose over a long period, a body might acquire a tolerance to it. Perhaps even an enjoyment of the bitter, liquorice like spirit.

And Santra Arron, doctor and prisoner, had had nearly 30 years with which to become an old friend to the black stuff.

He placed the bottle down beside his legs, which dangled out over the edge of a suspended pedestrian walkway, and looked out at the empty promenade of the starbase's civilian sector. So many rectangular shapes, so many angles, and so little variation in colour! Was the Federation the only civilisation in all the heavens that had not accepted the idea that beige was not the answer? Of course thoughts like that had forced him to drink his last bottle of Kanar, a present he had been saving for that special day when he had figured out a way to be free of the prison he wore in the form of a uniform. At hearing he had been transferred to a Defiant class ship, a tin can fully of leatherneck's and bright young go getters, Arron had decided the fates had it in for him.

Not the Prophets mind you, as many might believe a Bajoran such as he might believe in, the fates. At least the fates, the odds of chance and causality, acted out their powers in the material world. A man might prepare the odds in his favour, thus devoting a small amount of his will to the Fates, and come out on top for his preparedness. A man might also devoutly pray to the Prophets, and still find himself buried beneath the ruins of his life without hope. A case of spitting in one hand, praying in the other, and finding more in one than the other.

Arron had always been good at finding another hand to spit in that was not his own.

He reached for the violin, feeling a wave of nausea approaching that only Bach or Mozart might cure, only to find the neck of the wooden instrument horribly deformed. There was a lump on it, and a rather hefty one at that: easily it felt a trio of inches across. And smooth to, so it was covering the instruments neck and not welling up from it like a tumour. Then the bump moved, and Arron turned his head to look at...

Ah.

"God heaving hoof icer."

No...wait that didn't sound right. Arron frowned before realising he had taken the combadge off of his open jacket, and this was attempting to speak English whilst under the influence. Some would argue that was the only way t9o accomplish the task. He held up a finger and to halt any further verbal communication, shhing the entire time he did this, and placed the badge back on his jacket.

"Good evening officer." He allowed himself to say again, in a reasonably sober voice he thought. He only mumbled the first syllable, and managed to drawl out the final word, but overall the meaning of his words had muddled through. The security officer, a portly fellow with chief stripes on his cuffs merely looked down at the boozy rummy. Arron took a moment to look the man up, and then down to his booted foot which rested gently on the neck of the violin "Would you mind removing your locomotive bipedal limb from the device I desire? You seem to have stepped lightly upon it."

"Been drinking long?" the chief asked, not removing the foot.

"Considering what poor whimsy fate has placed before me I would argue I have not drunk enough! But would that I could!" he wailed, repeating the last part for emphasis as he turned and plucked the bottle from where it rested beside him "For alas, this fine soldier who has stood by my side these many years of confinement, has fallen most graciously upon his sword for my honour."

He brought the open bottle to his lips, tilting it back so the Kanar might well flow...only to have the bottle torn from his hands. It took him a few moments to realise that the bottle was no longer in his hands, and was in fact commencing a narrow parabola up into the air, and then down through empty space. After a few seconds of free fall, and ten meters below his feet, the bottle crashed into the lower promenade deck plating with terminal results.

"Come on old timer, last call-" the chief grunted, pulling Arron up onto his feet as the echoing tinkle of broken glass died in the air "-and you need to be off the street."

"We are on a space station! What street could I be on?!" he protested, leaning against the rail as the chief released him, turning on him in a heartbeat "I am as much 'outside' here as I would be in my quarters! Here, there, over there by that small shrubbery, we're all within the same space! Should I drink in my quarters would you be there to assault me and destroy my property?! Huum? Well answer me!"

"Look," the chief glanced at Arron's rank pips "Jay-Gee-"

"I am no mere Junior Grade!" Arron snarled, an aristocratic air attaching itself to his words as he stood up fully "I am a doctor, and will be referred to as such by profession and not the menial rankings of this hive like contrivance!"

"Fine! Doctor it is then!" the chief snapped, pointing down the promenades raised upper level "You need to be off the promenade after opening hours, especially after the bars have closed and definitely not whilst creating a racket on that thing! Now you can either leave, head back to your quarters, or you can come with me and spend the night in station lock up until you sober up. Your choice."

Arron frowned, and weighed his options. It did not take his incredible mind long to come to the conclusion that acquiescing to his request might be the only winning move in the game.

"Fine..." he growled, leaning down unsteadily to pick up by the violin and its bow, but also the long obsidian black working cane that he used to steady out a limping left leg. Once steady on his feet he looked first down one way, and then down the other way, before returning his attention to the chief.

"Transfer billets are down that way, just past the turbolift station." The security chief sighed.

"How did you know I was just passing through your dull little station?"

"Cause I sure as hell hoped you weren't my problem."

And of course the man was right. He was, after all, now the problem for the crew of the USS Sunfire. Well, he'd be a problem once he sobered up at least.

[Nevian]

One appreciates wit.

[Sjet]

Well he has a point: to be outside on a space station is to be quite dead. You cannot fault his logic.