[Ten Forward:] Arrival of Starfleet Brass

[ten_fwd_npcs]

[[ Moments earlier, in Transporter Room 1... ]]


Picard re-enters Ten Forward tonight, this time leading a group of three. Only one appears to be in a Starfleet uniform, though it isn't precisely like the ones guests see every day. The color is command red, but there is extensive gold trimming which indicates that this officer is of a higher rank than any the Enterprise entertains on a daily basis.

"All of our guests, at one time or another, come to Ten Forward," Picard tells them. He looks tired already. After this, he will certainly need a cup of earl grey tea. "Most appear here on their first visit to the ship, and as such it's one of the few places they are allowed until they pass quarantine."

"Until you let them loose on the rest of the ship, and even give them employment, you mean?" the Vice Admiral counters.

Captain Picard sighs.

"Are the displaced guests allowed to mingle with the rest of the complement?" the woman asks, surprised. She stifles a yawn behind her hand, embarrassed by the slip. She's inexplicably tired all of a sudden.

"Yes, of course," Captain Picard answers. "The alternative would be keeping them under lock and key. We don't allow them in restricted areas, of course, but they are free to visit any civilian areas of the ship."

The third person among them, by far the most innocuous and average-looking of the group, slips into the crowd.

"Clearly we have a lot of work ahead of us," the Vice Admiral sighs, fixing Picard with a pointed look.


[ooc: ~casually floods the comm with Picard's face, oops~ OK, so here's the promised arrivals post for your June plots. If you're getting your characters involved in the little rascals plot, you can send one around to bump into one of our three NPCs. By tomorrow, you'll all look a little younger. If you signed up for an encounter with one of these officers, you can start first impressions here. We'll be sending links to a more formal "questioning" for all characters in the sign-ups post. This is NOT your only opportunity to get in on the kid plot. Once the first few tag in, they will be contagious and tagging them in their logs will pass the virus onto your characters. If this post gets flooded we may close it to new tags, just so we can give everyone who does tag in our full attention. If you want a thread with one NPC in particular, let us know in the subject line of your tag, otherwise we'll pull one from the random hat for you. Picard is not open for tags, but he does have an OTA post here if you need him.]

Comments

[loiseau_ou_la_cage]

Elizabeth was sitting at a table sketching a still life of a cocktail glass and fruit. The glass contained water but it looked classy and that amused her. Plus the shape was different enough to be a challenge.

She looked up when new people came in, curious about why one appeared to be more heavily decorated than the rest. The military and organizations like it seemed to love their gilded officers. It bothered her that Picard looked so uneasy. She folded her notebook closed and tucked it into a pouch on her belt before making her way over to investigate. She wanted to hear what the officer was saying to the captain, to make sure everything was alright.

(DTI guy would be lovely, but... )

[element_wizard]

Alec has been air doodling out something that looks like the Flying Spaghetti Monster on Steroids and rainbows with his chair tilted back and feet on the table. When he spots the Captain and his guests he just starts cracking up.

Like this is the funniest thing he's ever seen before in his life.

He laughs so hard that he tilts the chair over and falls to the ground with a thump.


"FFFfFfff...HAH!"


"Ow."

Have a Thor!

[thepowerofthor]

Thor had been wandering this morning, and he always made sure to make a stop in ten Forward. Now garbed in relatively regular modern clothing, he found this place to be soothing. And, of course, he could sometimes get the bartender to make him some new kind of coffee. Which, when the visitors come in, was what he was doing.

Having gotten his drink, he was rather happily sipping it and sitting near the bar when he turned and spotted the three with Captain Picard, including the one who rather adroitly slipped away. That made Thor's eyes narrow a touch, before his expression smoothed to a neutral one. That move, so smoothly executed, reminded him of Loki, and that, well, that just set off alarm bells in his head. He stepped forward, once, his first instinct, driven by the experience of the three Thors in his memories, was to watch and perhaps confront.

However, he was not those three, despite everything, and he was not going to look for a fight without knowing there was a reason. As well, he knew from a few conversations, that the captain was a formidable man. Surely he could take care of himself. It would not hurt, perhaps, to be... close, should that not be the case.

And so Thor moved nearer the group to where he could settle to an unoccupied table. He drank his coffee, and over his cup, his eyes watched the two with the captain and sometimes strayed to search the room for the third new person as well. He was hardly the only one watching, but he was also the largest of them doing so, and even with Mjolnir concealed by its power, he stood out in a crowd. And it is perhaps true that he was not trying too hard to fit in.

Some habits were hard to break.

Boom

[agathaheterodyne]

If there was ever a worst time for an explosion, that would be when you could always count on their being one, correct? Correct. Irrefutable law of science.

Completely unaware that people had come to judge her and the others, Agatha was going about her usual routine. She still had a list of projects a mile long to work on, and was getting inspired by new things all the time.

Just now... she was working on her own take on a transporter unit. Since the argument with Killian, she was determined to prove that science could move something from one location to another without visible or obvious means, instantaneously.

He claimed magic could do that, but there was no magic, only science one did not comprehend. She intended to prove it.

So far she was working on a smaller scale, trying to transport an apple from one end of the table to the other. This all could have been averted if they had shown her a transporter, but then, of course, she would have wanted to take it apart, so maybe it was just as well.

She had a dish on either end of the table, with small rays arrayed around the rim, pointing inward. She took a bite of her food as she checked the calibration one last time. If this worked, the apple she put in the left hand tray should appear in the right hand one...

She didn't bother to pull on her goggles. The mad girl gleam was in her eyes, and safety precautions were not a priority.

If they were, she might have tried to clear the room.

"Here's to science!" she said, toasting her creation with her drink before pressing the button....

Beams came from the tray it was on and struck the fruit.

The apple shook. Vibrated. Rocked. There would be, for just a moment, the wonderful smell of baked apples...

Just before the apple, and both plates, exploded. The apple really didn't look large enough for how much apple goop it shot out in every direction. This time, however, the table was more or less intact. So... that was a victory. It was messy, as was everyone around her, but intact.

[kaylinneya]

One thing Kaylin will never be used to...and never take for granted...is the abundance of food here. Free for the taking. She would be walking with a heavily laden tray, for a table, when she spotted them coming in. She turned to approach... and saw one of them slipping into the crowd.

She narrowed her eyes at that, and instead of approaching and trying to figure out how to salute with a full tray, she moved carefully, keeping a subtle eye on him, as she found a table that let her see the whole room. She sat down and kept a watch, between him and the other two...but mostly him.

If this was a test to see if they could catch someone thieving, they would pass, and the thief would be lucky if all she broke was his arm. Since he did come with the other...guests... she reminded herself no to use her daggers.

[primeverdeen]

Talking to Trevor had helped some. Oddly... so had talking to Finnick. But... Prim... was still having issues with Katniss being gone. She wandered into the lounge, looking for Killian, since she promised to come see him from time to time.

But there was no mistaking that the 13 year old girl in the over-sized leather hunting jacked, clutching a mangy old cat, was depressed. Her eyes weren't as hollow and empty as they had been, but there were still dried tear stains on her face and a bruised look that tugged at the heart more than if she actually had bruises.

She sat at a table, hungry, but... too listless to get up and get food just yet. Just walking to ten forward had felt exhausting, and she wasn't quite sure why.

[bob_fraser_rcmp]

Bob is sitting at a chair replete in his full regalia, and a winter coat. He's picking at some poutine, though is apparently dissatisfied with it.

He looked over at the new guests with some interest, though the dissatisfaction lingers.

[reincarnshaman]

Trever notices the innocuous man and watches as he slips among the crowd. You don't walk in with people looking like the Vice Admiral and the Captain and not be someone important or interesting. Especially when they work so hard to be innocuous and average looking. His Uncle Rory is really good doing that sort of thing. He managed to kill a guy once in a bar with a peanut and was so completely innocuous that no one even remembered he'd been around afterward.

After a few minutes of studying him, watching who he talked to, Trever left Veena sleeping on a chair and slipped into the crowd himself. He waited until the man had a quiet pause before coming up next to him, "So. Who are you in relationship to the guys in uniform?" he asked. "I'm thinking that you're doing the undercover, being friendly and making friends so people will tell you things that they might not tell your friends?"

[tanteiotaku]

Oh, this was interesting indeed. He glanced up from his PADD and coffee to take in the new arrivals. All that braid and extra redness definitely meant this guy was super important.

It was time to introduce himself, he supposed. At least exchange some pleasantries to get names and see what the databases had to share about these guys. To his credit, Picard appeared to not be enjoying their company, which told him plenty about the kind of people these were.

May as well make a good first impression. He sidled up alongside the group, choosing to focus on the Vice-Admiral himself rather than those he had entered with. He let out a low, impressed whistle, and gestured a hand up and down to indicate all of the man that stood in front of him. "What have we here?" Well, so much for a good first impression. Shotaro never put much by formality.

[the_blood]

Permissions post

She had had too much of the inside of her quarters. Way too much. After she and Theiorn wound up in a screaming fight about his protectiveness - with aural shields to keep anyone else from being bothered by it - She had been determined that she could out stubborn him.

Stubborn snarly pig headed MALE. She couldn't stay in quarters anymore. Couldn't. She was a Queen. She needed to be around people, even if they weren't her people. She had told the Captian that she would serve as a second circle Queen... and she couldn't do that from behind closed doors.

So she ventured out. Unsurprisingly, so did he.

Stubborn male.

So Aiylisha stalked her way to the lounge where they had arrived. She was wearing a basic dress for a working day in court. Long skirt, loose sleeves. She wore her purple dusk Jewel necklace over the top, letting the silvery setting catch the light as she walked. The matching ring graced and drew attention to her finger. Most wore their rings on their second to least finger, not her. She wore it on her right pointer finger, drawing attention to it, reminding people.

A black widow was not to be trifled with.

Theiron followed behind, looking at everyone, protective over the Queen. He had been getting bored, yes, but it had still been better when she stayed in quarters. Easier to protect her.

They looked, from coloring, like they could be related. They both had the same golden skin, black hair and flashing golden eyes. However that was where the similarities ended. She was small, almost petite, with sharp features and sharp glances. He was tall and broad and looked every inch the warrior; somehow even the Green jeweled pendant around his neck did not make him look any less masculine, worn over his white shirt.

Aiylisha sashayed in and took a seat at the bar and looked around, gold eyes flashing. She needed to talk to someone less... less.... MALE.

OPEN to any admirals who want to notice, and anyone else who might want to help her out??

[usescontractions]

It's been so long since she'd been so overwhelmed by sheer panic, she'd almost forgotten what it felt like. For a being with the ability to perfectly recall any event she's witnessed, that's quite a feat.

Still, when the fear bubbles to the surface, after seeing that flash of red and gold stride into the lounge, it's almost like a totally new experience. The barrage of thoughts and connections threaten synaptic failure for a few long seconds.

But slowly, they ebb, giving way to the most important thought being relayed through her mind.

GET OUT.

In a swift motion, she ducks out of sight, and quickly alters her appearance. Shoulder length wavy hair, sharper facial features, darker skin with a light smattering of freckles... Now, should anyone want to question Zenelle Miller, they will find little of interest.

And maybe it won't even come to that, as long as she can keep it together as she attempts to slip toward Ten Forward's exit.