Tonight Ten-Forward was busy, and Nash paused as he entered and looked around. Typically he wasn’t one to be randomly social but he had found his quarters boring tonight, and the holosuites were booked for at least another half hour. All told, that meant he had time for a drink or a meal and he had changed out of his uniform, the red of a Tactical Bridge Officer and into more casual clothing of slacks and a simple v-neck shirt under his ever-present high necked black jacket. Having run his fingers through his hair, Nash paid no attention to the fact it was now slightly scruffy instead of the tidy style he wore on the Bridge.

A few of the crew nodded his way and smiled, those who knew him and his work while a pair of men at a far table eyed him with looks far less polite. Nash spotted them almost at the same time they saw him and just shrugged in his mind. Past members of his crew on another ship, another life, they could just learn to deal with the hand fate had dealt them all. It wasn’t them that had to live with decisions made and Nash knew he had made the right ones, despite the consequences for many.

Ignoring them as fast as he spotted them, he turned towards the bar. One or two people noted the stub of the cigar jutting out the corner of his mouth, unlit for now but most knew the man by reputation or rumor, not actual acquaintance and none made to point out the cigar. That suited Nash just fine, ignorance was as much a suit of armor as knowledge at times and he reached the bar and nodded to the bartender before taking his usual seat at the very end of the bench, away from the other patrons. From here, he could look over the room with his back to a corner.

Taking the cold bottle of beer that the bartender placed in front of him Nash removed the cigar and placed it on the edge of the ashtray, that the bartender also placed down by chance perhaps and took a drink. Fishing in his pocket, he took out the small silver flip lighter engraved with a childish style skull-and-crossbones image and placed it beside it, then as if by magic a coin appeared between his fingers. It was old and slightly tarnished it seemed but as Nash sat, sipped his beer and looked out over the people in the bar the coin flipped idly between his fingers with a relaxed control that made it look as if he wasn’t actually taking any notice of what he was doing. He sat and watched, noted the people and thought about being social for a change before checking out the holosuites or finding something else to amuse him, after his beer, of course.

Lt Cmdr Nash, CTO