UFP Deep Space 14 Space Station
5 - Transposition – An Invitation
by Ensign Colin Carstairs & Ensign Tolok & Lieutenant JG Seri Ohn & Lieutenant JG Corven McKenzie & Lieutenant JG Susan Barret
Post Details
Colin was sitting in his quarters debating the merits of going exploring on the station when his console chirped, "That's odd." Colin said to himself. It chirped again. Colin got up and walked over and sat down at the console. There was a message on the screen. "You have one new message." Colin typed 'Show Message'
"Meet me at the Yellow Flag at 1700 hrs. It's five o'clock somewhere. W"
Colin pulled his boots back on, "A strange invitation is better than no invitation." Colin said as he walked out into the corridor. At the turbolift, he said, "Yellow Flag."
Upon first reading the message, Susan figured it to be a practical joke as there was no indication of who sent the message. That, or the sender had ulterior motives in luring her to the Yellow Flag. However she could think of no reasons she would be targeted, so she donned the uniform she had just taken off and made her way to the Yellow Flag.
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When the turbolift stopped, he stepped off and wandered around the Promenade until he found the 'Yellow
Flag'. The owner of the bar, Quang So Tran, saw him and pointed to a room off to the side. "Ensign, if you
will step that way please." Tran said, allowing no refusal. Seeing no point in attempting to refuse, Colin walked into the room. He saw a bar on one side of the room. Colin walked over to it, "Beer," he said to
the bartender. Colin then stepped off to one side and sipped his beer, wondering who would show up and what the cryptic message was about.
Upon her arrival at the bar, Tran caught Susan's attention directing her to a room off to the side.
"In for a penny, in for a pound." she muttered, making her way into the room. Ordering some Kava juice from the gruff bartender, she took her drink over to where Colin was standing.
"Any idea what this is all about?"
Colin took a sip of his drink and replied, "I was just sitting in my quarters debating what I was going to do tonight when I got a strange message to meet an unidentified person here. I decided that I didn't have anything better to do, so here I am."
The turbolift doors hissed open, and Lieutenant Ohn stumbled out, looking somewhat confused. She was carrying a single PADD-- which was some kind of all-time record for the least PADDs she'd had to lug around in a week-- displaying an extremely cryptic and unhelpful message:
""Meet me at the Yellow Flag at 1700 hrs. It's five o'clock somewhere. W"
"Five o'clock" was, of course, an abstract concept from Earth time-keeping. In an alternate universe where Earth, perhaps, did not exist at all, it wasn't really five o'clock anywhere.
She'd never been to this part of the station before-- most of her time since arriving on Deep Space 14 was spent in Ops, in her quarters, or in the parts of the station directly between the two. She knew the specifications and layouts of the starbase by heart, of course-- but seeing a new area of the station transfigured from the abstraction of schematics and energy consumption numbers into real corridors and rooms and bulkheads was disorienting.
"Is this the... um... Yellow Flag?" she asked the bartender-- a human fellow. He was both balding and ponytailed, which struck Ohn as extremely poor planning, but he had a Marines tattoo on his shoulder and the look of a veteran who had seen like a million people die, so Ohn gave him a pass. The USS Delhi, on a humanitarian mission in a region without any real military threats (and how sad was it that that's how Cardassia's doing, these days) didn't have any marines. Ohn felt she wasn't wise yet to their mysterious ways.
The bartender nodded towards the large sign outside that said "THE YELLOW FLAG" in enormous letters.
"Oh," said Ohn. She realized that this was probably Quang So Tran, the owner of the bar-- and the reason you can't find a good game of Dabo on Deep Space 14.
Tran directed Ohn off into a side room. By this point, she was rather nervous. After she stepped inside, two things reassured her:
The first was the presence of a large, well-stocked bar. With actual bottles of things, even, not just replicators! This represented part of a rapidly diminishing stockpile of non-replicated goods. Ohn supposed it would be rather irresponsible to drink some of this precious resource, but didn't really care. She ordered a kanar.
The second was that Lieutenant Barret and Ensign Carstairs had already shown up. "Oh, hi," Ohn said, stepping up to them and showing them her PADD. "Did you guys get one of these too? That's sort of a relief-- I was afraid I was being-- I don't know-- stalked or something."
Susan glanced at the PADD held by Seri.
"It's the same message. I've translated it into both Klingon and Vulcan but have found no hidden meanings in either language or in English. I guess we'll just have to wait and see who this "W" is and what they want with a group of junior officers."
During his routine patrol of the station toloks padd he carried suddenly blinked with a message. Tolok opened the blinking message and it read as follows.
""Meet me at the Yellow Flag at 1700 hrs. It's five o'clock somewhere. W"
He was curious as to who this "W" was as he had not had time to make any new friends on the station. The CoS had kept him busy since his unusual arrival. Tolok had finally got off the turbo lift some time after his duty had ended for the day. Entering the bar he noticed several other officers and proceeded over to them.
-----------------------------------
When everyone had arrived, the doors closed. A blue skinned being appeared in the middle of the room wearing a tuxedo.
"I am the Wanderer."
A silence of several seconds passed. Ohn regarded the man's tuxedo. Only one place she'd seen anything like that before.
She was the first to speak.
"Did you just beam here from the holodeck?" she asked incredulously.
More silence.
"Because site-to-site transportation in non-emergency situations really is a waste of energy and an unecessary stress on our transporters, which are really one of the more brittle systems on this station," she continued, "And in any case walking around the station is good exercise and... uh... anyway..." She trailed off.
"Beam here?" The Wanderer asked, then continued, "No, I exist here."
"You exist here?" Colin asked. "Why have you called us here."
"You all have a similar profile, being junior officers who have acted impulsively at one point during your life." Then looking at Seri, "or lives, and have paid the consequence for the impulsiveness."
Tolok thinks to himself. Staring at the blue skinned being. "It is illogical for you to exist here but never the less you have my attention. You still failed to answer the question. Why have you summoned us? We don't need a history lesson on what has happened in our lives."
Corven had been sitting quietly in a corner drinking real beer. He'd allowed himself just one glass, he couldn't resist it. He looked at the new arrival with a great deal of curiosity. He wondered how the creature/hologram whatever it was knew so much about them all.
"Sounds like you have access to our personnel files and Star Fleet records," he said. "Now how did you manage to get through all the levels of encryption?"
Susan was equally confused about the information. DS14 was her first posting after the Academy and DLI. Any impulsive actions would have occured then but she couldn't think of anything specific.
"I'm concerned about the how as in, how do we know you aren't bluffing?"
Turning to Susan, the Wanderer asked, "Would you like me to start at the USS Tautog or maybe SB K5?" Then to Seri, "Which Ohn would you like to talk about?" Looking at Corven, "Starfleet records and encryption are no problem for me." Finally, the Wanderer turns towards Tolok, "You and Ensign Carstairs have asked the most interesting question. Why are you here? To which I answer with some questions of my own. Why summon a bunch of junior officers when there are many more senior officers available? What could you possibly have in common to merit taking you all out of circulation at the same time?"
Colin pondered the answers for a minute, "We're all junior officers from different departments. Operations, Sciences, Security, Flight Control, and StarDock Control are all departments vital to running the station."
"Yes, but if needed others in the departments are capable of taking over and running the departments."
A more sinister reason than what had been voiced, ran through Susan's mind. What if the goal was to tie up resources looking for the group and/or use them as bait to capture others. Before she jumped to any conculsions however, she wanted to see how much "W" really knew.
"You still haven't answered my question. You haven't revealed anything a first year cadet couldn't find. Give me a specific incident prior to Starfleet where I acted impulsivley."
Toloks curiosity was raised more waiting for him to answer Susan's question. Tolok stared at "W" body language and was ready to take action if they were threatened.
Corven grinned. "I think what he's saying is that we are expendable, we are willing to take risks and we have all acted on impulse on previous occasions."
He looked round at the others. "Now I don't care what indiscretions any of you have committed in the past. All I would be worried about is whether I could trust you all to watch my back if necessary."
The Wanderer smiled, then answered Susan, "There was the incident at the lake on Majaro IV, but as Tolok has stated, your history is your history. " Then he continued, "You have all hit around the point I was attempting to make. My purpose in calling you all here is this, as junior officers, you all spend a lot of time in your respective departments, trying to work on your careers. As Starfleet officers, you need to spend more time with officers from departments outside of your own in order to make you well rounded officers. I mentioned your histories to show you that you are all not that different."
"Are you trying to tell us that this is a training exercise?" Corven asked. "Bonding time with the other junior officers, team building, that kind of thing."
Susan had called the Wanderer's bluff only to find it wasn't one. Thankfully no one else knew what he was referring to. How he came across the information, she didn't know but at the moment didn't care. She glared at the Wanderer.
"Fine I'll admit it, you're correct. But that still doesn't give you the authority to lecture us on how to do our jobs."
Colin took another drink, then spoke, "It doesn't seem so bad, I could think of worse things to do. At least the drinks are free." Colin finished his beer and ordered another one.
The Wanderer looked around at everybody, raised a glass and said, "Eat, drink and be merry." Then with a flash he was gone.
by Ensign Colin Carstairs & Ensign Tolok & Lieutenant JG Seri Ohn & Lieutenant JG Corven McKenzie & Lieutenant JG Susan Barret
Post Details
| Title | An Invitation | |
| Mission | 5 - Transposition | |
| Author(s) | Ensign Colin Carstairs & Ensign Tolok & Lieutenant JG Seri Ohn & Lieutenant JG Corven McKenzie & Lieutenant JG Susan Barret | |
| Posted | Wed Mar 10, 2010 @ 9:19am | |
| Location | Yellow Flag | |
| Timeline | Slip + 10/ 17:00 hrs |
"Meet me at the Yellow Flag at 1700 hrs. It's five o'clock somewhere. W"
Colin pulled his boots back on, "A strange invitation is better than no invitation." Colin said as he walked out into the corridor. At the turbolift, he said, "Yellow Flag."
Upon first reading the message, Susan figured it to be a practical joke as there was no indication of who sent the message. That, or the sender had ulterior motives in luring her to the Yellow Flag. However she could think of no reasons she would be targeted, so she donned the uniform she had just taken off and made her way to the Yellow Flag.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
When the turbolift stopped, he stepped off and wandered around the Promenade until he found the 'Yellow
Flag'. The owner of the bar, Quang So Tran, saw him and pointed to a room off to the side. "Ensign, if you
will step that way please." Tran said, allowing no refusal. Seeing no point in attempting to refuse, Colin walked into the room. He saw a bar on one side of the room. Colin walked over to it, "Beer," he said to
the bartender. Colin then stepped off to one side and sipped his beer, wondering who would show up and what the cryptic message was about.
Upon her arrival at the bar, Tran caught Susan's attention directing her to a room off to the side.
"In for a penny, in for a pound." she muttered, making her way into the room. Ordering some Kava juice from the gruff bartender, she took her drink over to where Colin was standing.
"Any idea what this is all about?"
Colin took a sip of his drink and replied, "I was just sitting in my quarters debating what I was going to do tonight when I got a strange message to meet an unidentified person here. I decided that I didn't have anything better to do, so here I am."
The turbolift doors hissed open, and Lieutenant Ohn stumbled out, looking somewhat confused. She was carrying a single PADD-- which was some kind of all-time record for the least PADDs she'd had to lug around in a week-- displaying an extremely cryptic and unhelpful message:
""Meet me at the Yellow Flag at 1700 hrs. It's five o'clock somewhere. W"
"Five o'clock" was, of course, an abstract concept from Earth time-keeping. In an alternate universe where Earth, perhaps, did not exist at all, it wasn't really five o'clock anywhere.
She'd never been to this part of the station before-- most of her time since arriving on Deep Space 14 was spent in Ops, in her quarters, or in the parts of the station directly between the two. She knew the specifications and layouts of the starbase by heart, of course-- but seeing a new area of the station transfigured from the abstraction of schematics and energy consumption numbers into real corridors and rooms and bulkheads was disorienting.
"Is this the... um... Yellow Flag?" she asked the bartender-- a human fellow. He was both balding and ponytailed, which struck Ohn as extremely poor planning, but he had a Marines tattoo on his shoulder and the look of a veteran who had seen like a million people die, so Ohn gave him a pass. The USS Delhi, on a humanitarian mission in a region without any real military threats (and how sad was it that that's how Cardassia's doing, these days) didn't have any marines. Ohn felt she wasn't wise yet to their mysterious ways.
The bartender nodded towards the large sign outside that said "THE YELLOW FLAG" in enormous letters.
"Oh," said Ohn. She realized that this was probably Quang So Tran, the owner of the bar-- and the reason you can't find a good game of Dabo on Deep Space 14.
Tran directed Ohn off into a side room. By this point, she was rather nervous. After she stepped inside, two things reassured her:
The first was the presence of a large, well-stocked bar. With actual bottles of things, even, not just replicators! This represented part of a rapidly diminishing stockpile of non-replicated goods. Ohn supposed it would be rather irresponsible to drink some of this precious resource, but didn't really care. She ordered a kanar.
The second was that Lieutenant Barret and Ensign Carstairs had already shown up. "Oh, hi," Ohn said, stepping up to them and showing them her PADD. "Did you guys get one of these too? That's sort of a relief-- I was afraid I was being-- I don't know-- stalked or something."
Susan glanced at the PADD held by Seri.
"It's the same message. I've translated it into both Klingon and Vulcan but have found no hidden meanings in either language or in English. I guess we'll just have to wait and see who this "W" is and what they want with a group of junior officers."
During his routine patrol of the station toloks padd he carried suddenly blinked with a message. Tolok opened the blinking message and it read as follows.
""Meet me at the Yellow Flag at 1700 hrs. It's five o'clock somewhere. W"
He was curious as to who this "W" was as he had not had time to make any new friends on the station. The CoS had kept him busy since his unusual arrival. Tolok had finally got off the turbo lift some time after his duty had ended for the day. Entering the bar he noticed several other officers and proceeded over to them.
-----------------------------------
When everyone had arrived, the doors closed. A blue skinned being appeared in the middle of the room wearing a tuxedo.
"I am the Wanderer."
A silence of several seconds passed. Ohn regarded the man's tuxedo. Only one place she'd seen anything like that before.
She was the first to speak.
"Did you just beam here from the holodeck?" she asked incredulously.
More silence.
"Because site-to-site transportation in non-emergency situations really is a waste of energy and an unecessary stress on our transporters, which are really one of the more brittle systems on this station," she continued, "And in any case walking around the station is good exercise and... uh... anyway..." She trailed off.
"Beam here?" The Wanderer asked, then continued, "No, I exist here."
"You exist here?" Colin asked. "Why have you called us here."
"You all have a similar profile, being junior officers who have acted impulsively at one point during your life." Then looking at Seri, "or lives, and have paid the consequence for the impulsiveness."
Tolok thinks to himself. Staring at the blue skinned being. "It is illogical for you to exist here but never the less you have my attention. You still failed to answer the question. Why have you summoned us? We don't need a history lesson on what has happened in our lives."
Corven had been sitting quietly in a corner drinking real beer. He'd allowed himself just one glass, he couldn't resist it. He looked at the new arrival with a great deal of curiosity. He wondered how the creature/hologram whatever it was knew so much about them all.
"Sounds like you have access to our personnel files and Star Fleet records," he said. "Now how did you manage to get through all the levels of encryption?"
Susan was equally confused about the information. DS14 was her first posting after the Academy and DLI. Any impulsive actions would have occured then but she couldn't think of anything specific.
"I'm concerned about the how as in, how do we know you aren't bluffing?"
Turning to Susan, the Wanderer asked, "Would you like me to start at the USS Tautog or maybe SB K5?" Then to Seri, "Which Ohn would you like to talk about?" Looking at Corven, "Starfleet records and encryption are no problem for me." Finally, the Wanderer turns towards Tolok, "You and Ensign Carstairs have asked the most interesting question. Why are you here? To which I answer with some questions of my own. Why summon a bunch of junior officers when there are many more senior officers available? What could you possibly have in common to merit taking you all out of circulation at the same time?"
Colin pondered the answers for a minute, "We're all junior officers from different departments. Operations, Sciences, Security, Flight Control, and StarDock Control are all departments vital to running the station."
"Yes, but if needed others in the departments are capable of taking over and running the departments."
A more sinister reason than what had been voiced, ran through Susan's mind. What if the goal was to tie up resources looking for the group and/or use them as bait to capture others. Before she jumped to any conculsions however, she wanted to see how much "W" really knew.
"You still haven't answered my question. You haven't revealed anything a first year cadet couldn't find. Give me a specific incident prior to Starfleet where I acted impulsivley."
Toloks curiosity was raised more waiting for him to answer Susan's question. Tolok stared at "W" body language and was ready to take action if they were threatened.
Corven grinned. "I think what he's saying is that we are expendable, we are willing to take risks and we have all acted on impulse on previous occasions."
He looked round at the others. "Now I don't care what indiscretions any of you have committed in the past. All I would be worried about is whether I could trust you all to watch my back if necessary."
The Wanderer smiled, then answered Susan, "There was the incident at the lake on Majaro IV, but as Tolok has stated, your history is your history. " Then he continued, "You have all hit around the point I was attempting to make. My purpose in calling you all here is this, as junior officers, you all spend a lot of time in your respective departments, trying to work on your careers. As Starfleet officers, you need to spend more time with officers from departments outside of your own in order to make you well rounded officers. I mentioned your histories to show you that you are all not that different."
"Are you trying to tell us that this is a training exercise?" Corven asked. "Bonding time with the other junior officers, team building, that kind of thing."
Susan had called the Wanderer's bluff only to find it wasn't one. Thankfully no one else knew what he was referring to. How he came across the information, she didn't know but at the moment didn't care. She glared at the Wanderer.
"Fine I'll admit it, you're correct. But that still doesn't give you the authority to lecture us on how to do our jobs."
Colin took another drink, then spoke, "It doesn't seem so bad, I could think of worse things to do. At least the drinks are free." Colin finished his beer and ordered another one.
The Wanderer looked around at everybody, raised a glass and said, "Eat, drink and be merry." Then with a flash he was gone.