Serren Tan & Mikali sh'Shar - Andorian Blues: The Deal, Part IV

[David Adams]

(( Sto'Vo'Kor, USS Gorkon ))

The conversation wound down for a bit as the two ate. Apparently, he'd ordered way, way too many pancakes for sh'Shar, since she stopped about halfway through, patting her stomach. Despite gorging himself over shore leave on multiple occasions, Tan still had an appetite.

sh'Shar: Oof. I am stuffed. Defeated. Done. Kaput.

Tan: Not a big eater these days, huh?

She shook her head, emitting a loud belch that she didn't even bother covering.

Tan: Wow.

Mikali puffed out her chest happily.

sh'Shar: Impressive, yeah?

Serren just shook his head.

Tan: Just the same as ever. Good to see some things don't change.

Mikali's white eyebrows darted down.

sh'Shar: "As ever"? What's that meant to mean?

Tan smirked, waggling a fork at her.

Tan: I'm just saying. It's very typical of you.

sh'Shar: Hey! ::she folded her arms defensively:: Name one thing that I've ever done wrong.

He knew she was prideful. Even so, it was strange for her to be pushing him like this, with a fierceness in her voice that was difficult to understand.

Did she want him to start listing things?

Tan: One thing. Just one? ::Tan stabbed at his pancakes idly:: Oh, where to begin.

sh'Shar: Phht. Come on. You can't even name one. Go on.

Serren raised an eyebrow curiously. Well, if that's what she wanted...

Tan: First thing that comes to mind is the time you did something weird to that Caitain, S'Acul, and when he was yowling and in pain, you told the transporter team he was dying and had him beamed directly to sickbay. Just so the medical staff could see that all his fur had fallen out.

sh'Shar smiled softly at the memory, the corners of her mouth tugging upward.

sh'Shar: I miss that kitty, you know. 

Tan did too. He hoped that wherever that fuzzball was, he was doing great.

 

sh'Shar: So yeah. That happened, but... you know. That was funny. ::she folded her arms:: But that doesn't make me a bad person. Name... seven more things I've ever done wrong.

Weird that she was pushing this, but he brushed aside the thought. Playful banter was all.

Tan: Just seven, huh? Hmm. Seven. Let's see. Right off the top of my head...

He cleared his throat.

Tan: You told the counseling staff on Starbase 118 you thought one of the cargo bays was haunted. When we met those lost traders, you told them over the communicator that you were a Klingon for seemingly no reason at all, then when you met them you pretended to speak Klingon but it was actually just jibberish, even when you discovered that one of their crew was Klingon. You have previously mentioned several species as "the worst", including Romulans, Breen, Klingons, Humans, Trill, all four Xindi, Tellerites, Vulcans, and most embarrassingly Andorians. You told Ensign Sutel that the Romulan Ale we found that one time was made from Romulans. You offered to "dispose of it in an environmentally conscious manner", which was drinking the whole bottle in one swig. You didn't share any. You subsequently threw up the Romulan ale in Holodeck Two and let the lower decks crew clean it up. Boom. Seven more.

Mikali grunted and shoved pancakes into her mouth.

sh'Shar: Mpph. Okay, so there's a few things. I've made some mistakes in my time.

Tan: ::sceptically:: Just a few.

sh'Shar: Sure. ::she waved her hand dismissively:: Name like, uhh, ten more things.

Only ten?

Tan: You removed your prosthetic finger, threw it at someone, and claimed it was an ancient Terran rite of "giving them the finger". You spent a whole day repeating whatever I said in a high pitched voice. You ate that slug on Cataman IV. You performed the Hartmann manouver. The thing with the Breen. You prank-called Starfleet Command. Twice. You promised to buy me a drink after the Independence was lost, and you never did. You lost your combadge that one time. You said each planet had a unique theme, and that Earth's was "boring world" and "being named after dirt". That's ten.

Although she had directly pushed him into this, for some reason, hearing the list of less-than-appreciable acts seemed to enrage her. Mikali waved her arms around wildly, antenna twisting themselves into knots, her whole face blue with frustration and anger.

sh'Shar: That doesn't prove anything! ::shouting:: Name a hundred more things! Bet you can't do that, can you?

Skeptical, but without skipping a beat, Tan launched into a long recital.

Tan: You swapped around characters in various holodeck programs, seemingly at random, screwing up everyone's shore leave. You told Chief Petty Officer T'tala that Vulcan should have been "blown up with Romulus". You lied to Captain Vetri about that thing. Then there was all the stuff when the crew was trapped in Eden; I mean where do I even start?

Mikali gestured for him to continue.

Serren sat back in his chair, firing off a list of incidents in rapid-fire.

Tan: You stole S'Acul's pants and ran off with them, so he had to chase after you through the camp wearing only the shirt of his uniform. You ran around the camp with your arms out making warp core sounds. You hid alcohol from the crew and drank it yourself. When that ran out, you fermented that weird red plant growing everywhere, made 'Mikali Vintage', drank it, and got sick. You snored. Loudly. You painted your spear red so it would, quote, "kill people faster". You skipped out on latrine duty regularly. You almost burned down your tent trying to smoke some weird plant you found. You pretended to be deaf for no reason for a month. You threw a water balloon into S'acul's tent while he was asleep. You plotted to overthrow the Captain. You plotted against Commander T'Lea. You plotted against me. Also Eerie. And Venroe. Basically everyone. You ate the blue ones even after you knew what they did. You said you "drank in everyone's suffering like a fine wine". You said that when we got back, Petty Officer T'tala would be "prostituted to the fullest extent of the law" for nearly killing you. Although, to be frank, you perfectly deserved it. You said the Borg queen was "way hot" and that she could "totally assimilate you, if you know what I mean, wink wink". You --

sh'Shar: Eden doesn't count and you know it.

Tan: Oh, well, that's okay, I got more. Heaps more. You told those Bajorans that they could draw on Commander Eerie while he was asleep "whenever they liked". Speaking of drawing on things, you laser-etched a lewd symbol on your fighter. You laser-etched a lewd symbol on MY fighter. You laser-etched a lewd symbol into your quarters. You said "Marine" stood for "Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential". You said the motto of engineering was "No unnecessary holes in the hull." You tried to have the ship's red alert status replaced with "Awesome Alert". You once described space as, quote, "stupid and full of Romulans". You narrated yourself for a whole day, describing everything you did as you did it. You asked if Doctor Skyfire was a "real doctor, or if he just played one in holonovels". To the best of my knowledge you have never done a single bit of paperwork in your entire life.

sh'Shar: ::whistfully:: That's why I loved the Independence. My favourite ship. Zero paperwork.

Serren's face flushed.

Tan: There WAS paperwork. A lot of it. I just did all of it. For. You.

sh'Shar: Oh. ::she squinted in confusion:: That would explain... that.

Tan groaned and continued.

Tan: You convinced Ensign Sutel to try Klingon food and laughed at him when he couldn't get down his gagh. You said that DS-17 "smelled like the inside of a Breen's suit". You deliberately mispronounced Ayelet Kadosh's name for as long as she was serving with us. Also, you called her a "furry" for dating that Caitian. You later dated a Caitian yourself and said that "didn't count". You said that all Humans look alike and it was impossible for you to tell them apart. Over shore leave you were really flirty with Alleran's mother--

sh'Shar: Who, in my defense, was super hot. And also into it.

Tan: I didn't need to hear that. You once told security on the Tiger that your name was David Whale. You tried to eat your own head "to see if you could". You claimed the Vulcan philosophy was "die young and suffer". You said that "Borg" was pronounced "Bored". You claimed your antenna counted as a "higher power" because they were powerful, and above your head. You sent a long, rambling, drunken two-hour holomessage to Fleet Captain Jaxx about gods knows what. You wore a monocle to that staff event. You painted "Alleran Sucks" on the outside of a shuttle then parked the shuttle up against the hull outside my window and beamed back on board and left the shuttle there, so when I looked out the window all I could see was the side of the ship and your message. You said you were allergic to cats just so you wouldn't have to feed Zlix. You tried to, quote, "make the holodeck go crazy and try to take over the ship for laughs" at least once that I know about. You once told a Ferengi crewman that a Prometheus-class vessel was worth "at least eight" and refused to specify eight of what. You physically said the words, "Once you go blue, you'll always be true".

sh'Shar: I did not! I said, "When You Go Andor, You'll Approve With Candor".

Tan: I'm sure you said both. At a staff function, you ate *all* the hors d'oeuvres yourself, and justified that by saying that "they were for everyone".

sh'Shar: ::indignantly:: I was part of everyone.

Tan: Regrettably, yes. ::he coughed:: You once told me you didn't trust Doctors because they had all taken the "Hypocritical Oath". You borrowed my favourite tricorder off me, the one with the purple stripe, and never returned it. And that one from poor Ensign Sutel so that makes two. You told me that the motto of the Borg was, "Make Friends And Assimilate Them". You said you knew science better than the "blue necks" in Science because your whole skin was blue. You licked an iceicle and got your tongue stuck to it, then tried to melt it free with a phaser and nearly blew half your face off. You claimed that Bolians do not defecate. You said that Vulcans were basically giant cats and that the best thing to do with them was to release them into the wild, where, quote, "nature can take its course". You played connect-the-dots on Alleran's spots while he was asleep and made most of the "art" lewd images. You tried to have "Hypothetical" listed as a language you spoke on your Starfleet profile. You said Vice Admiral rank meant one was "The Admiral of Vice". Everyone knew you were never Queen of Andor, by the way. You claimed Ensign Sutel had been replaced by an evil changeling and the only way to find out was to cut off one of his toes. You rollerbladed around the ship and nearly ran into people. You bet Ensign Sutel three days leave you could eat more of my very rare Trill honeycomb chocolate than him, lost, threw up in Holodeck Two again, made the lower decks crew clean it up again, and finally never paid up on the bet because you didn't have any leave left.

sh'Shar's eyes widened greedily.

sh'Shar: Hey, speaking of, do you have more of that stuff?

Tan: You know Andorians can't handle chocolate.

sh'shar: Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

Tan: Well, I don't, actually. I kinda went off sugar. This new host prefers savory food.

sh'Shar: Oh. Dammit. But... please do go on.

Tan paused a moment to think.

Tan: You prank-called me on the Vaadwaur world and said you'd been kidnapped by the Obsidian Order for being "Way Beyond Cool". You said reading mission briefings was lame. You accidentally dropped your communicator in the toilet and had me fish it out for you. You punched the Captain's twin in a bar and got sent to the brig for a week. You said Vulcans were Romulans with a medical condition called "emotional constipation" and that the cure was to "have a drink and get laid". You had no idea Bajor was ever occupied. You said the DS-17 station computer was in love with you. You referred to Trill as "know-it-all marsupials". You told visiting schoolchildren that there were no toilets on-board and that "we just used the transporter". You once beamed across the ship because you were too lazy to walk. You made a ship-wide announcement that included a loud belch. You said things about Orions that... that I can't even bring myself to repeat. You said Breen, Bolians, Bajorans and Betazoids were all the same species, like the Xindi, because they all started with the letter B, something you called "The Bindi".

sh'Shar: You can't prove that's not true.

Tan just ignored that.

Tan: You annotated Alleran's medical record, highlighting his brain and enclosing it in sarcasm quotes. You told Ensign Sutel he was "not good enough" for me, even though he and I were never dating, had no intention of dating, and in fact had barely spoken. You were name-checked in a Starfleet Academy instructor's resignation letter. You tried to start a female Ferengi fashion line called "Light and Breezy" but didn't make any clothes at all, later claimed that was the point as they don't wear any, and then tried to sue random Ferengi females for "wearing" it. You said that Trill swear words had no bite to them, therefore it shouldn't even be profanity. You were kicked out of your quarters on Starbase 118 after *one day*. That whole thing with the shuttle you crashed. You showed up to a shift with food stains on your collar. You described Alleran as "basically a mouse with a mouse-sized phaser" to some Klingon you met in a bar. You fell out of a buggy on shore leave and landed on a sacred relic of the local people, breaking it. You later blamed me for breaking it even though I was on the other side of the planet at the time. You said human first contact was with "the miniature giant koala people" and that some koalas lived on Earth to this day, with "full citizenship". You said that the Tal Shiar credo was "Be Yourself".

sh'Shar: Wait, you're saying it's not? Huh.

He took a deep breath and continued.

Tan: You said artists, philosophers and writers were "all trash". You described a Bat'leth as a traditional Andorian eating implement. You called the security staff "goons" and "meatheads", and said their job, our job, was "beating up whoever the Captain wants". You bought cake into a biosecurity area and dropped cream onto the deck. You shot yourself with a phaser set on stun to "help you sleep". You insisted on using the replicator in Sutel's quarters because it was "faster". You said the "F word" was "Ferengi". You told your ex that you were a Bajoran Prophet and were going to live on some far-distant space station instead of just breaking up with them like a normal person. You sang a bawdy rhyming song that made fun of the enlisted crewmen. You also said the engineers "just made stuff up and were dropouts too stupid to go do science". It's worth noting you said exactly the same thing, in reverse, about the Science division. You spilled Klingon bloodwine in the pilot's Ready Room and stained the deck permanently. You challenged a Federation diplomat to a boxing match saying they were "a chicken". And lost. You confused the Terran cities of Atlantis and Atlanta. You said that Command Ensigns were "teacher's pets". You claimed to be an evil alternate-universe duplicate of yourself. You said that human languages sound like squawking birds. You programmed "Edible Crayons" into the replicator and went around offering them to the Marines, claiming they were a "traditional Marine snack". You claimed Earth was once devastated by a "thumb war" that engulfed much of the population. You said that the Christmas Spirit was a ghost who ate children. You called Jhen Thelev a "reprobate" for drinking tea, then you took up the habit yourself without even saying sorry. You dropped crumbs on the Helmsman's console constantly. On a trip to the beach, you wore a top with an obscenity on it, and a bunch of children saw you, and their parents wrote in complaints.

sh'Shar: The top with the pineapple? I didn't realise pineapples were offensive.

Tan: ::angrily:: The pineapple was not the problem, the word below it was the problem! ::he thought for a moment:: You tried to ride a horse like a skateboard. You said that your fighting style was "warp speed groin kicks". You once ate an onion like an apple. You de-tuned Ensign Sutel's violin right before his big performance. You once tried to convince me to accept latinum from a "Vulcan Prince". You made a weird face behind Captain Vetri's back constantly and you thought the crew didn't know, but we all did. You followed Sutel around for an hour chanting "Lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover." claiming a weird parasite made you do it. You said that "pantsing" was a form of Andorian cultural protest rite. You added Romulan Ale to the non-alcoholic punch at a staff event like some stupid teenager.

sh'Shar: Only after almost everyone else had left!

Tan: You said you could only understand Sutel because your universal translator spoke "idiot". You said that diplomatic relations with other species were, "Andoriain't my problem". After getting demoted, you said, "being an Ensign means you don't have to follow the rules because they can't demote you any further", forgetting that they can still make you a Cadet again, or even kick you out entirely. Something I'm sure you're well aware of now it's actually happened.

He exhaled sharply.

Tan: And that's a hundred and thirty-six more. Threw in a few extra just to prove the point. Plus the seven more from earlier, that's a grand total of one hundred and forty-three sins, Mikali. Sins.

Mikali was quiet for a second.

sh'Shar: Well, when you say it all like that, I guess it does sound pretty bad.

--

Ensign Serren Tan

Security/Tactical

USS Gorkon

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