Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in side-sim Needing Cobb’s Advice

Posted by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) in side-sim Needing Cobb’s Advice

Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in side-sim Needing Cobb’s Advice
Casela groaned as the turbolift doors closed. She leaned against the bulk head, a hand pressed to her ribs. It STILL hurt. She grinned though, she gave as good as she got. But then…oh never mind, not right now. She had too much work to do. In her hand she had two PaDDs. She was on her way to see Cobb. He didn’t like her, but she had a grudging respect for the man. And out of everyone on this ship, she wanted…no she needed his advice. The turbolift doors opened and she straightened slowly. She forced her gait to be relaxed and natural, not to show the soreness and pain she was dealing with. She pointedly ignored looking at Ryder as she walked across the command deck to Cobb’s ready room door. She rang the chime and waited.

Lt. Synthi-er

Inside the ready room, Cobb had been…studying, that was it. Not snoozing at all, no! All around him, covering every inch of his desk and cascading onto the floor, were myriad diagrams and charts and schematics, some of them on digital screens, others on good, old-fashioned paper. To a passing observer they might have resembled nothing more than random equations and incoherent scrawl. But to a trained eye such as Synthi-er’s, once granted admission, she would recognise hand-drawn maps of the Leviathan’s jefferies tube network, hierarchical tree-charts of the ARU Research Corps and the RTF, calculations of the intermix ratio for a Mjolner-class warp engine and pages and pages of notes on everything from anomaly severity levels to three different recipes for a cocktail known back on earth as an ‘old fashioned’.

And in the midst was Zachariah Cobb, reclining in a large, comfortable desk chair that appeared as old and as decrepit as he. His head was back against the headrest, eyes closed and shielded from the surrounding ambient light by a paper copy of ‘Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus’ and his mouth hung open in a fashion that, back on earth, was colloquially known as ‘catching flies’.

At the sound of the door chime, he all but leaped out of his seat, the book tumbling noisily to the floor as it became dislodged from its resting place on his face. “Eh? What is it?” he called out, still groggy from the premature termination of his nap. “What’s the emergency?”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

Hearing his voice Casela stepped into his ready room, she sighed. At least he didn’t smell like he had been drinking. “No emergency, Captain,” the first time she’d really used his rank with any sense of respect. “I have a few personnel reports to go over with you.” To Cobb she would seem not like herself at all, but distracted and unsure, which was not like the counselor at all. “You look very busy, I can come back.” Definitely not like the counselor.

Casela had personnel issues to discuss with him, but it was herself that she needed to talk to him about, and Gen as well. But for Casela the two were intertwined at this point. The throbbing in her ribs reminded her that she would really love a stiff drink at the moment. Casela admitted to herself that she really needed to unwind at some point, but first this had to be dealt with.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

“No, not at all,” Cobb countered, moving quickly around his desk to her side. “Please, come in. Here,” he began to half-gesture, half-physically lead her towards a vacant seat, pulling it away from the desk in a surprisingly gentlemanly fashion as he nodded for her to sit down.

It had only been a few days since Cobb had first crossed paths with Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er and, in that time, he’d made no inroads to her character beyond the superficial requirements of his role as her captain. And yet, even for one as oft-insensitive as he, it was immediately obvious that something weighed more heavily on the counselor’s mind, and spirit, than the standard evaluation of personnel reports.

Not bothering to inquire whether she wanted a drink and instead interpreting her need from, not only her own appearance, but a desperate projection of his own desires, Cobb placed two clear glasses on the desktop. With no care to remove his piles of papers first, he filled both glasses three-quarters full with whiskey. Handing one to her, he returned to his seat and, for a few moments, concentrated only on the enjoyment of his beverage.

Then, the glass half-drained and quickly replenished, his eyes met with hers. “What is it that I can do for you, Casela?” he asked, softly, the use of her first name signifying, if it were needed, that this conversation would spread no further than the walls of this room.

• Captain Zachariah Cobb