846: Full Swing

by Commander Salvek
90404.1404
Concurrent with Cast No Shadow

-=Quarters of the Executive Officer, USS Serendipity=-


“How should I dress for this affair?” Salvek asked.

“Well as I understand it, the Captain and Reece have assembled many of the greatest minds from history and placed them all in some sort of mock club for adventurers.” Lair Kellyn sat, brushing out her hair, as she considered what she was going to wear herself.

“Then this is not intended to be a costume party?”

“It’s a social gathering. I think we are free to dress up as much or as little as we care to.”

“Then perhaps I will simply wear my uniform, unless there is something you would prefer?”

Salvek spoke his offer with that gleam in his eye the she had missed so much. His secret smile that she thought was lost had returned to her.

“Well you should wear whatever makes your comfortable,” She said, before pausing, “Although, I seem to recall some rather sharp outfits being worn during Liis and Keiran’s wedding. Perhaps a similar formal outfit, appropriate to the time period of the club, would be a better choice. For the sake of maintaining a dignified appearance before the crew, of course.”

“Of course,” Salvek concurred.

Kellyn asked the computer for some examples of tuxedos and formal wear from the 1930s on Earth, and was quickly led to an actor from the time period by the name of Fred Astaire.

“Oh yes, I think this will do nicely,” Kellyn said, adding a wave of her hand to fan her neck as if to indicate the room were becoming warmer. She ordered the clothing from the replicator, size adjusted to fit Salvek, and held it up for a look.

“A dignified yet sensible ensemble,” Salvek said. While he could have simply worn his uniform, truth be told he enjoyed the idea of wearing something dashing for and debonair for Kellyn’s enjoyment much more. The looks she would be flashing him during the evening would make it all worth it.

He stepped out of the room to dress in privacy, so she could see the finished product when it was ready. Kellyn returned to the computer to see she could choose for herself to match Salvek’s attire. She couldn’t, after all, expect him to dress up like a million bars of latinum, and show up herself in an engineer’s uniform.

“Ginger Rodgers, or Cyd Charisse?” She contemplated as she brought up images from several movies of the era. “Sorry Cyd, but I’d never make it out of my quarters in that one,” She added, as she viewed an image from The Band Wagon. She had little doubt Salvek would enjoy the outfit, but being that it was more revealing than several articles of her own lingerie, she figured he’d lose interest in ever going out to a party if she wore it.

“Let me see more of Ginger Rodgers please, computer.”

The photos scrolled across the screen, and she offered her critiques out loud to the empty room, until she saw one she liked.

“No. Lovely, but I’d feel too much like February Grace. No. No. Yikes. Stop! Enlarge image from The Gay Divorcee.” The computer beeped, and blew the photo up for her to inspect closer. The cut of the dress was lovely, even if the colors were, at best, a crime. “Computer can you replicate this dress with a red theme instead of green?”

^Affirmative.^

“Then do it.”

The dress appeared, red on the top from the neck down to below the waist, then transitioning to a deep wine color from there down to the floor. Kellyn slipped it on, and spun around looking at herself in the mirror. When she stopped, she realized Salvek had returned and seen her little display.

“Well, this is the best I can do for the old girl. What do you think?”

“Beautiful,” He replied with sincerity. Kellyn grinned. Beautiful was a word she never associated with herself, but she wanted Salvek to see her that way this evening. Judging by the look on his face and the single word he chose to describe her, apparently she had succeeded. “I will of course require a dance from you this evening.”

“I don’t think there’s dancing at this party,” She said.

“I did not say anything about the party, Kellyn.”

“Oh, I see,” She replied. Salvek linked his arm with hers.

“Shall we?”

“We shall.”

He kept his grip on her as they walked through the ship, not letting her stray more than a centimeter from him. At the entrance to the holodeck, they met the O’Sullivans, who had apparently gone for the aviator look for the evening. Bomber jackets, white scarves, and Liis had even added a helmet with goggles perched atop them to complete the look.

“Nice touch, Captain.”

Seeing her now, brought Salvek back to two days prior, when they had returned to the Sera from Vulcan, and he had met with Liis for the first time

-=Flashback, Just after Dude, Where’s My Chair?=-


As the turbolift doors to the bridge opened, Salvek was suddenly face to face with Paxton Briggs. The last time the two men had spoken to each other in any sort of private fashion, Briggs had relieved Salvek of duty.

“Commander.”

“Commander.”

Briggs waited for the Vulcan to step off the lift, before he would step on. Salvek, did so, slowly, and Briggs stuck his hand in the door to keep it from closing. Salvek stepped right up to Briggs, so he could lower his voice to the point where he would not be overheard by the entire bridge crew.

“I’m not sure what would have happened to me, or my family, if you had not done what you did. Thank you.”

“Welcome back.” Briggs answered simply. Salvek nodded, and Paxton slipped into the turbolift.

She knew the sound of his gentle and precisely measured gait, as he descended down the ramp towards her. She turned slowly, her eyes meeting his, and holding his gaze as Salvek closed the distance between himself and Zanh Liis.

“Permission to return to duty, Captain.”

There was a clearly defined protocol for situations such as this. When a Captain saw fit to relieve one of her senior staff of duty, there were steps that needed to be taken when that person was to be readmitted to their previous post.

A full medical examine, by the Ship’s CMO was the first step, to assure the crew person was in good physical health. Second, a visit to the ship’s Councilor was required to ensure that whatever mental problem existed that may have lead to the officer being relieved were now gone. Lastly an interview with the Chief of Security was standard procedure as well, to ensure that the crew person posed no sort of threat to the ship or crew as a result of whatever traumatic event they had just endured. In this case, that would mean both Zander Blakeslee, for the Sera, and Keiran O’Sullivan, for The Alchemy Project.

That was standard procedure.

But she was Zanh Liis.

And he was Salvek.

As she had once so eloquently put it to him, during the brawl in the lounge, when she wished for Salvek to end the fight, ‘Shove protocol.’ She new damn well if would stand before her, and request to return to duty, that he would only do so if he were truly ready. She needed no one else’s opinion.

Moreover the look on his face, and the life that was back in his eyes, told her this was no longer that dying man that had returned from the Romulan ship. This was her friend, and her First Officer.

“Granted.”


-=End Flashback=-



“Thanks, you look pretty sharp yourself,” Liis replied, as she absentmindedly adjust her goggles and looked Salvek and Kellyn up and down. Truth be told she was far more interested in the way the couple looked together, than what they were wearing.

Keiran and Kellyn nodded politely to each other. He then met eyes with Salvek, and there was an understanding that whatever actions Salvek had taken that may have endangered Liis, were in the past now. He knew that, besides his own family, the Vulcan cared for little more than Zanh Liis’ well being, and that Salvek simply was not himself on the Romulan vessel.

Salvek and Keiran each entered the holodeck with a Bajoran on their arm, and counted themselves the luckiest men in the galaxy for being able to do so.

Liis looked back over her shoulder, and wondered if one other person, who would also no doubt count herself the luckiest person in the galaxy, would be entering with a Bajoran on their arm soon.

With the Captain and First Officer having arrived, only the guest of honor was needed for the party to hit full swing.

A female holocharacter approached Salvek and Kellyn as soon as they got inside. “Welcome to the Adventurer’s Club! I’m Samantha Sterling, explorer extraordinaire. We’ll be having shows throughout the night at the times listed on the entrance to each room. In the meantime, feel free to wander around and talk to everyone here. There’s a Vulcan over there, but I got to tell you he’s a bit on the quiet side.”

“Don’t forget to offer them a drink!” Dabin Reece popped up behind Sterling. “And make sure you don’t miss the Balderdash Cup later. Yours truly is participating.”

“Not for anything,” Kellyn said. She didn’t know what a Balderdash Cup was, and she really didn’t care. If Reece was in, it had to be good.

“Drinks,” Sterling pointed towards the bar, as if to indicate she realized she was insulating their intelligence by doing so.

They each decided to forgo the drink for now, and approached Surak, the father of Vulcan logic, who was already having an animated discussion with one of the characters. Well, at least half of the conversation was animated. Surak remained calm as the man, who both Kellyn and Salvek recognized immediately, gestured wildly in outrage.

“Excuse me, just so everyone knows who’s who.” Dabin Reece popped in again, slapping a big, ugly blue and white sticker on both of the holocharacters. The Vulcan’s read ‘Hello, my name is Surak.’ The name Surak was scrawled in Dabin’s own personal handwriting.

The second sticker read ‘Hello, my name is Albert Einstein’.

“I have had this argument with Bohr, and you are wrong, Surak. There cannot be any degree of uncertainty in nature.”

“But there is, I am afraid the prevailing theories regarding quantum mechanics have long since advanced since your lifetime.”

“I cannot believe it! Perhaps it could not be proven then, but certainly in the future, with better experiments, I was proven correct,” Einstein declared proudly.

“Commander Salvek,” Surak indicated his Vulcan compatriot should set the human straight.

“I am afraid Surak is correct. The Heisenberg Compensators are an integral part of our modern day matter energy transport systems. They work to counteract the uncertainly in the state of each individual particle. Without it would impossible to reassemble a person from energy back into matter.”

Einstein shifted his eyes from Salvek to Lair Kellyn.

“Sorry, pal,” She said, indicating she had nothing to offer him in support.

“The Blakeslees are here!” Dabin Reece’s voice bellowed out over the room. Salvek and Kellyn turned toward the slowly opening doors. The guest of honor had arrived.

************************
Commander Salvek
First Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012