[snip]

Glen also hoped, that in Joe’s unofficial and secondary role as an informal ship’s counsellor, that he would see his way to also visit the Forecastle Lounge. The Fantail Lounge, located on the aft most section of Deck-6, with its minor increased creature comforts when compared to the Forecastle, had become something of a command staff and VIP lounge. It was still within the Forecastle Lounge, located in the forward most part of the saucer section on Deck-5, where the Junior Officer, Enlisted and NE ranks mostly hung out, although there was no rules to enforce such a segregation. Glen felt that the entire crew could use the services of a counsellor.

It being a mid - shift period Joe thought that he would do the one thing he hadn’t had the chance to do yet which was to visit with the captain. And of course, to take him a bit of a gag gift that he had had made up for him. He was a bit nervous when he got to the bridge. He slipped across the bridge trying his best not to be noticed but in his bright civilian clothes it was somewhat difficult. He pressed the buzzer on the CO’s ready room and waited patiently.

Glen paused his form filling completion when he heard the buzzer, and he turned down the monitor’s screen. He had been completing a series of stupid health and safety questions regarding unknown threats from helium, trionium, and sirillium gases, when his orders were to disregard those hazards whatever the risks might be; a totally pointless exercise.

“COME!” he called over his playlist of post Duotronic Acid-Bolay Gardenshedcore music, before remembering to turn down the volume to zero.

Joe came in with a broad relaxed grin on his face and a change as well in his appearance. Where before he had always had his hair shorn next to his head, he now had allowed it to grow out to and astounding length of three inches which had allowed his brown hair to start to curl. At his temples though still resided a touch of white.

He was also not dressed in anything which remotely resembled a Star Fleet unform. He wore a white button up shirt with bloused sleeves and a broad collar. He wore loose fitting blue slacks, and black boots. Raising the wrapped package, he smiled and said “Well hello Cap,n sir! It’s good to see you working so hard. Maybe this will take the edge off later. Not Irish mind you, I got you a bit of Scotch whiskey. “

Joe took a seat in front of Glen’s and set down the wrapped bottle before leaning back and saying, “I thought I’d let you know that I’m set up for business now. I need to flesh it out a bit more . But for right now it will work.”

“Excellent!” Glen replied. He would take a glass out of politeness this time, but he didn’t want to make drinking alcohol while on duty a regular practice. Alcohol can temporarily numb feelings like sadness and stress but they don’t go away.

“It seems that we will be entering yet another hostile environment; distinctly dangerous, and where the crew will face challenges, possibly life changing-injuries, or even death. We must, as always, do our duty. However, I worry daily about the mental health of this ship’s crew and officers. Every one of them already has some level of post traumatic stress accumulated from our earlier missions. Being an officer responsible for sending soldiers into battle is even more stressful. I was never a religious man, Joe, but as a bit of an amateur archaeologist, there is nothing new in my fears…” Glen pulled a quote up on the screen of his monitor and turned it to face Joe.

• ‘When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou… the officers shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.’ (King James Version )

“That’s why I want you here, Joe,” Glen said. “My crew cannot return home to their family. They can’t even talk about the most secret and most stressful of our missions. But they can to you! You were there too! You were there with them when you were our COS. You know what they went through too. You know what it is to order redshirts to their certain deaths.”

Joe sat and listened to Glen with a serious somber look on his face. After Glen had finished Joe chuckled and said,” Heck I thought. you had something hard you wanted me to do boss. Joe looked down and scratched back of his head and said,” Well I guess the next time I broker a deal with you I should probably look for the small print heh?”

Glen was surprised, “I didn’t think it would be so difficult as a barman. I thought I’d had a great idea?”

Joe leaned back then and said, “I don’t think it should be too hard though. Everyone likes to tell stories to their bartender. And after watching that crazy little psychologist Wong, it became pretty obvious that about everyone was pretty close to wanting to talk about things. And well ply people with enough synthahol and good stories and the rest should come next.”

“Yes! Exactly! As Lounge Host, you can make yourself available to anyone in need, especially to the senior staff, as an informal counselor. The watering hole has historically been a place where people always stopped to talk and share stories. I want officers and crew to wind down more, and to take a break from work matters. I want them to socialise, and to reset, by talking about less stressful things, like their hobbies, personal interests, and about fun topics not associated with work. You only need to facilitate that, nothing more complicated.”

“On that subject,” Glen continued, “have you met our new XO, Verity Aphelion, yet?”

“I just wondered if she had visited your bar yet, curious about meeting her predecessor? I noticed that she never made it to the Green Dragon on DS-K5 when I think I saw most of the rest the Merrimack crew in there at the same time. Maybe she is a little bit in awe of the great Joe Milligan, eh?” Glen laughed.

“I also wanted to pick your brains on another matter too!” said Glen.

“Have you ever visited Risa?” Glen asked Joe. “The so-called ‘pleasure planet’ around the binary suns of Epsilon Ceti?”

“I haven’t been there myself, and neither has the Merrimack as far as I know, but it appears that almost everyone else in the Fleet has, and our current mission appears to have some Risan connection, so I’m at a disadvantage there, and that’s basically why I’m asking you. The planet is only now recovering from it’s occupation during the Klingon war… I also took the liberty of checking the secret library database; the one we downloaded from the NX Memorial AI from the future, and… er, forgot to give back again. I know it is wrong of me to keep doing that, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. It seems that in the future, Risa becomes an even bigger deal as a shoreleave destination, but other than that, it doesn’t seem very important at all. Except for it’s position, right on the border between the Alpha and Beta Quadrants?”

• Glen, CO