Seeing Double

Posted on Jan 08, 2016 @ 11:38am by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Jan 08, 2016 @ 11:39am

Mission: Promethean

= Seeing Double =

(cont’d from “Belladonna and the Curmudgeon”)

LOCATION: The Annabelle’s Lament

SCENE: Engineering

STARDATE: [2.16] 0107.2303

Cassie could detect the thick stink of alcohol - real alcohol, hard alcohol, not the synthetic shit - even before stepping over the threshold into the Lament’s engine room. The lights were low, most of coming from the thrumming heart of the warp drive, the rest from various consoles throughout the section. It gave the room a soft, uninviting glow which, coupled with the stink of alcohol, reminded Cassie of some dank cave where some wretched thing slept.Cassie was right about the last part, at least; as she moved past the master system console, she heard the dull rumble of snoring from over the steady drum beat of the warp core. **Typical,** she thought bitterly.

Cassidy discovered her chief engineer slung haphazardly in a burlap hammock, which he’d stretched diagonally across a maintenance walkway. The man wasn’t just asleep, he was passed out drunk. Not only was the stink of it rolling off him in waves like the heat from a garbage fire, but Cassie also noticed a trio of metal thermoses clinking around in the hammock with him. The idiot had been making his own booze again. It was foul stuff, fermented from table scraps and supposedly mixed with trace amounts of tetralubisol. Cassie had tasted the stuff herself, and she thought it might just be possible. It tasted horrible, and anyone who drank it would likely spend most of the next day puking their guts into a fresher, but it was *powerful*... and Cassie had forbidden her engineer to make anymore.

Cassie scowled and balled her fists. She had been furious when she’d come in here, and it was hard to escalate from that position, but she resolved to do her level best. An enraged scream ripped its way from her throat as she kicked out, toppling the hammock and spilling its contents - the thermoses, as well as her soon-to-be-dead chief engineer - to the deck below. They landed with a sharp clattering and a series of slurred curses, the former from the metal containers, and the latter from her engineer.

“Get up,” Cassie barked. She didn’t wait for a reply, but stepped forward and kicked again, connecting with the man’s ribs. He cried out and fell to his side, instinctively curling up to protect his midsection from another blow. The anger was driving her now, Cassie knew, but it felt good, so she leaned into it. She stepped quickly forward pinning the wretched fool’s neck to the deck plating with her boot. The man’s one eye rolled wildly in its socket, not yet able to focus on anything. The fool was so drunk he probably didn’t even understand that she was kicking the shit out of him. That made Cassie angry, and she pressed down with her boot, cutting off the whimpering idiot’s incoherent bleating for mercy.

“This is what you’re down here doing, when you’re supposed to be on duty?” she growled. “Asleep? *Drunk*?”

He was waking up now, enough that he had raised his hands to grab desperately at her foot. She eased up a little, not wanting to crush his larynx. Not yet, anyway.

Jake Crichton looked up at her with one pale blue, thoroughly bloodshot eye. His shaggy brown hair usually fell to just above his shoulders, but today it was tangled and poking out at haphazard angles. He had several days worth of stubble, the beginnings of a real beard, growing across the lower half of his face. His eye-patch had come askew, either during his nap or his sudden trip to the floor, and Cassie could see the pink and puffy tissue peeking up at her from the back of his empty eye socket.

“Good morning, boss,” Crichton said, grinning through lips caked with what could only be dried vomit. His face was turning red from the pressure of Cassie’s boot on his neck. “Did I miss the pancakes?”

“You brewed more of that *shit*,” Cassie said, flicking a gesture in the direction of the fallen thermoses. “After I *told* you--”

“I was finishing off what I had left,” Crichton said. “Honest.”

“*Don’t* screw with me,” Cassie warned, pressing her boot a little tighter against his neck. “I get enough crap from that trashmouth Ferengi. I’m not about to put up with your shit on top of his.”

“Okay okay,” Crichton said. “I’ll take down the still, I’ll--”

“Not this time, Crichton,” Cassie said, shaking her head as she sneered down at him. “The booze isn’t even the reason I’m about to paste you across the deck.”

“You on the rag?” Crichton wondered. Cassie pressed down hard enough to cut off his air again. “I was just going through the records we pinched from the Federation fleet. You want to take a guess what I found?”

Crichton couldn’t speak, obviously. He pounded weakly at her foot with his hands while his legs kicked uselessly at the deck. He sent one of the metal thermoses spiraling over the side of the walkway to careen wildly to the lower level of the engine compartment.

“You got something you want to confess?” Cassie said, leaning down to look into his face. She loosened her boot a little, just enough for him to squeak out a sentence.

“I have some of your panties in my footlocker,” Crichton said. His eyelid was fluttering, like he was having trouble staying conscious.

Disgusted, Cassie lifted her boot from his neck and kicked him again. Jake gasped in air as he curled away from the blow. He crawled towards the railing and tried to pull himself into a sitting position.

“Commander Jacob Crichton,” Cassie said. “Regular Starfleet Golden Boy who one day, out of the blue, decides to throw in with terrorists and help assassinate the Federation President. Last seen fleeing Federation space aboard the USS PHOENIX, which just so *happens* to be the flagship of the fleet we just robbed! Now I don’t know what the hell kind of game you’re playing, if you’re really on the run or if you’re some kind of mole, but I sure as hell am not going to let you…”

Cassie trailed off. At some point during her diatribe, Crichton had started to laugh. It was weak at first, since he was out of breath and still recovering from her beating, but it gradually built in strength. Now he was laughing loudly, his good eye closed, one hand clenched on the railing to hold him weakly upright. Then, the laughing fit turned into a wet retching sound, and then Crichton leaned over the side of the walkway and puked. It stank of bile and his tetralubisol moonshine. Cassie wrinkled her nose and turned away.

“You’re pathetic,” she said, shaking her head. “You want to explain what’s so funny, Crichton?”

Crichton eventually pulled himself back into a sitting position, adjusted his eye-patch so it was covering his puckered socket, and rolled his good eye up to look at her. He spat a fat, lumpy wad of phlegm and puke to the deck and gave her a crooked smile.

“It isn’t me, captain,” Crichton said.

“Bullshit,” Cassidy said. “I saw the picture. Your hair’s longer, you’re missing that eye, but it was definitely you. You’re too much of a shit to still be working for Starfleet, that’s what I think, but I don’t buy it for a minute that it’s coincidence we just robbed your former crew!”

“You’re not listening,” Crichton said. He slowly rose to his feet, though he had to keep one hand on the rail to steady himself. He dragged his other hand across his lips to clear away the residue left from his regurgitation. Then, somehow, he managed to lean almost casually against the railing, folded his arms across his chest, and fixed her with his good eye. “It. Isn’t. Me.”

Cassie blinked. She’d expected him to lie, to spin some wild story, or maybe an offer to cut her in on whatever scheme he was working. She hadn’t expected this outright denial. He didn’t look scared, didn’t look like he’d been caught. There he stood, stinking, beaten, and caked in his own puke, and somehow he had all the confidence in the world.

“What?” Cassie said, hating the word even as it slipped past her lips. She didn’t like the way it sounded, and saying it made her want to hit him again. Crichton seemed to see this, and his smile widened a little.

“Did you read the whole book, or just look at the pictures?” Crichton asked. “I know it must mention me in his file. Perfect candidate for organ donation, if nothing else.”

“You have two seconds to start making sense,” said Cassie.

“Short version, I’m not from around here,” Crichton said. “You people would call it an alternate reality, I call it a shithole I’m never going back to, but either way… I’m not your guy, captain.”

Now it was Cassie’s turn to laugh, though it was a mirthless thing. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Finish reading the file.” Crichton said.

“They could have put anything in there,” Cassidy countered.

“For what?” Crichton asked. “So that I could trick you into stealing records that confirm a story I hadn’t told you? If the Federation wanted to deal with you, they wouldn’t bother with anything so complicated. Sorry to burst you bubble, captain, but you’re just not that important.”

Cassie kicked his feet out from under him, spilling Crichton to the deck once more. It felt good, but didn’t quite compensate for the fact that the drunk fool had a point. She’d only skimmed the file, so it was possible he was telling the truth. She’d heard of the situation with the PHOENIX, of course, but hadn’t followed the story closely enough to recognize the name “Jacob Crichton” when he’d joined her crew a few months before. When she’d seen his name and face looking back at her from her computer terminal, she’d suddenly been too angry to give the whole file a thorough going-over.

“Alright,” Cassie said, leaning up against the railing herself as Crichton struggled back to his feet beisde her. “Say I believe you. What the hell is this this other Crichton doing here? Is this about you?”

“I doubt it,” Crichton sighed. “He doesn’t give a shit about me, and the feeling is more than mutual.”

“I don’t buy it,” Cassie said. “No way this just happens.”

“You’re the one who took the job,” Crichton said. “You didn’t ask my permission first. I don’t even know who the damn client is. If you pour through Starfleet medical records, you’re gonna see his picture. Not exactly a big surprise.”

Cassidy thought about this for a moment. Then she turned, jabbed a finger in Crichton’s face.

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I believe you. If the file backs up what you say. But I’ve still got my eye on you, Crichton. Don’t forget it. And if I think you’re not 100% on the level with me, you won’t get your cut.”

This made him mad, which was good, because it took that irritating sneer off his face. Cassie smiled, in control once more, as Crichton faced her.

“The metaphasic shielding was *my* idea,” Crichton scowled. His breath was rank.

“So?”

“So this job would have never worked if it wasn’t for me,” Crichton said.

“That’s why I didn’t space you the second I saw your picture in those files,” Cassie said. “You’ve used up all my good will, Crichton. Pray you don’t need any more of it before this is over.”

He looked like he was about to reply, so she brought her knee up into his stomach, dropping him to his knees to choke and sputter once more on the deck. She turned and walked away, up the railing back towards the door to the engineering section.

“And clean yourself up,” Cassie called, not looking back at him as she stepped off the walkway.

=[/\]=

NRPG: One of the Annabelle’s Lament crew has been revealed! This Jake Crichton is from the Mirror Universe, having crossed over into our dimension in a previous mission back in the GATEWAY days, and wound up staying on our side of reality. He's missing his left eye, has let his hair grow out a bit, but otherwise he's the spitting image of Jake. He’s not a very nice person. I’ll go more into his background in future posts, but look at Jake’s bio for a blurb about this Mirror Crichton if you’re interested.

Shawn Putnam

a.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX

and

Jake Crichton

Chief Engineering Officer

The Annabelle’s Lament