Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Gadi’s Quarters- Commiseration

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Bethany Kovra Gadi (Chief of Security) in Gadi’s Quarters- Commiseration

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Gadi’s Quarters- Commiseration
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

The situation having been partial resolved, Shara had focused her mind so that she was less readable, but not blocked off. She didn’t have mental shields the way a telepath did, but she did know how to control her output to an extent. All Intelligence officers did. Even if Bethy had the neurosuppressant, she didn’t want to add to whatever overwhelm she still might feel.

All in all she felt off-kilter, unsure how to read this entire evening. Unsure whether she had crossed lines, or done the right thing. Missions were on thing, where her skils around people were different, calculated, but off-duty these days she felt a lot like she was swimming upstream. “Shine is a gift as much is it is a curse. We’re going to have to get on starting a new batch before our stash runs out. Though to be honest I’m not sure how much he actually has.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Bethany laughed, “It is always a curse. It just might be delayed a bit. I snuck some of ot once when I was a teen. Hadn’ttouched it again till that night with you.” The red haired woman shrugged, “We’ll if he’s like my uncles there is stash in places they have forgotten. They never run out of their personal reserves.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara wasn’t going to reveal details that weren’t hers to, so she kept to the best reply she could. “This was a special reserve. Though there might be others.” But the against wasn’t like Micah was at the cabin all that often. As it was, Shara knew it would be hard enough to get back there once a year just to make sure her piano remained tuned.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“Well I’m sure your Micah has his ways of making sure he always has some. I did however promise to bring some back from my Uncles for Micah to try. That should save you both a bit of his own.” Bethany turned down a side passage that brought them back out close to the docking port. “That is assuming, of course, they will let me take some.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

“Are they very protective of it? Even with their niece?” It wasn’t all that surprising, given how special a commodity it could be. But that was Earth. It had been different on Tracken when the old man (a hermit really) gave the colonists ‘shine in exchange for various goods. Most of it had been food they had hunted, fished, gathered and grown, but occasionally someone who was skilled with a needle and thread would leave him new shirts, trousers, or a warm jacket.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Bethany laughed, “I got very very sick when I found it the first time. They were very strict after that. But no, the only thing they are proyective about is their recipe. Then again, every family around there is. There are yearly competitions. My uncles don’t participate. Says it wouldn’t be fun for everyone else to always lose.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara chuckled as they approached the airlock. “Sounds like good stuff. And it reminds me of when my daughter Faye experienced alcohol for the first time. She and I had a fight and so she stormed off into the woods with her friends and awhile later her best friend Cameron came rushing to the house and told me I had to come right away. So I go and I find Faye drunk as a skunk on the absinthe-like stuff an old man who kept to himself made. We traded it for goods he needed and knew it was so potent that you had to cut it with something. Well, Faye was sitting there conducting an experiment. She would take straight sips of the stuff and record how she felt. By the time Cameron got me she was completely out of it and about to pass out. At thirteen years old! She was in bed for two days and nearly had to have her stomach pumped,” she said, shaking her head. It was na amusing anecdote now, but she and Ed had been terrified at the time.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“I was 14, and would have had my stomach pumped if Uncle Kian hadn’t forced me to take yucca so I would throw up. I still had to go to the hospital. Where they made me throw up again. I decided then that any ‘fun’ feeling of being drunk wasn’t worth it.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

“Kids…” Shara said, breaking into a grin. “Well I’m glad you come out of it okay. Faye wasn’t trying to get drunk so much as piss me off by doing something she knew she really shouldn’t. But we knew even then that she’d be involved in the sciences somehow. Wish that journal of hers where she kept all her data still existed.” Thinking of Tracken didn’t hurt the way it used to, but it still made her a little sad knowing how much was lost. The lives were more than enough, but it was all the knowledge too.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“I was trying to fit in with the other kids. It was a hard lesson on the benefit of being independent and a loner.” Bethany shrugged and keyed the lock in her door and let Shara go in before her. “You planning to see your daughter while we are free?”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara stepped in and nodded, spying the bottle of tolo she had left there. “Yeah, Micah and I are going to go take our R&R and we’re wrangled some for Faye and her husband. And we’re dragging Nadine out as well, though she’s on Earth, so it’s easier for her.” She turned to Bethy and her soft smile lit up her face. “We haven’t all been together since Faye’s wedding, so I’m really looking forward to it. I need it. We all do. Though… there will be a little bit of hell to pay given I promised m=both my girls I’d not disappear on them and I was going to be around.” Seven months of covert work had not been the agreement.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“I think they will understand. At least Faye and her husband should.” Bethany sighed, “I wasn’t supposed to go out either. I was deemed unfit for covert work. Such things mean nothing when the brass wants what they want.” Bethany lmsat on the edge of her desk. “You’ll enjoy it. Make the best and don’t hurry back. Make them give you the time your due.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS

Shara snorted. “Oh they owe me. They’ll be owing me for a long time and I’m sure it galls them because I’ll remind them every chance I get,” she said, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “At least this time I only got into an argument with two Admirals, and neither of them was the one I was dealing with before. I think he had his fill of me last time.” She didn’t comment on her kids understanding. Yeah, Faye would but it was going to be a sore point, and there were going to be a lot of feelings all told, but they could work through them. Nadine was the harder one. The one she was less confident about.

She moved over and stooped to pick up the bottle from its resting spot on the floor by the couch. Shara considered Bethy for a long moment. “Look, Bethy, I’m sorry if I… pushed too much or overstepped. I’ve not had friends in a long while and I’m kind of adverse to possibly losing them, one way or another.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“Don’t apologize for caring about people, Shara.” Bethany sighed, “It’s just been a really long time since I’ve had anyone give a d@mn about me, just for me, and not how something wrong with me negatively affected them. I reacted badly, and for that I’m sorry.”

Lt. Cmdr. Gadi, COS