Tommy & George

Posted on Thu Jun 21st, 2018 @ 2:16am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commander Fiona McCray
Edited on on Thu Jun 21st, 2018 @ 2:22am

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Future Tense
Location: Home of Starfleet Rear Admiral Thomas Jones
Timeline: 2285
Tags: Jones

George and Tommy had started out together as cadets back in the Academy, and they had remained friends now for fifty years. Their careers had taken them on different paths, and they had both made considerably different choices- Tommy was the family man, still married to Mildred, with children, grandchildren and his first great-grandchild had arrived last year. The Jones legacy would likely endure in Starfleet for quite some time to come.

George on the other hand had chosen his career over family, dallying here and there when he could, enjoying the pleasures available to a man who put in at many ports of call who happened to be a dashing officer. But he had never settled down, never taken a wife, never started a family (at least, not that he knew of, and Tommy would have found out if he had left some half-alien bastard behind somewhere in his wake). There would be no Nimitz legacy in Starfleet- at least, not from his line.

He found it ironic... Tommy had embraced the shadows and secrets and the operations that no one else wanted to get their hands dirty with, yet he slept like a baby at night, maintained a family and enjoyed his life. Whereas George was on his second heart attack, took a handful of pills every day and had to watch what he ate or drank in order to keep his stomach from rebelling and reminding him that it was possessed of a very thin skin these days.

Right now that thin skin was a little too thin, and as he tried to digest what Tommy was trying to explain to him, it was getting thinner by the moment.

"So let me see if I've got this straight. You want me to forcibly retire a newly-promoted career man who has finally gotten his first command, and a prize command at that... and you want me to take a Romulan spy who accidentally traveled twenty year forward in time who you claim is loyal to Starfleet and promote her to captain, and gift her with this command because it is what's best for Starfleet?" Vice Admiral Nimitz could feel his blood pressure rising, and he just knew he was going to need a drink and some antacid medication, perhaps not in that order.

Rear Admiral Jones of Starfleet Intelligence smiled... the craggy face was surprisingly genial, and he understood his friend's distress. If it wasn't his plan he wouldn't believe it either.

"Look, the Deltans want her... and with what they've got going, it's in our best interests to keep her close. According to all reports, the more responsibility we saddle her with, the stronger her ties to us become. We make her responsible for an entire starship, she should be ironclad. Plus," he added with a wry grin, "the more duress we place her under in defense of a starship, the better she seems to perform. Unconventional solutions, brilliant technical applications, bluffs, dodges and she doesn't appear to be afraid to fight, either. She's a bit raw, I'll grant you... but she's got what it takes."

"Tom... all of this is really just to cover up the fact that twenty years ago we promoted a Romulan spy all the way up to commander? I know we can't afford the public embarrassment it would cause, but are you sure this is the right solution?" George dropped a few of the fizzing antacid tablets into a tumbler of scotch, taking care of two vices at the same time.

Jones sat down on the couch opposite his old friend , placing his hands together palm to palm. "Her crew... they're loyal to her. Well, not the Deltan and the Orion... they're wild cards. But she's an investment to the Deltan, and he'll take care of her and keep her monitored. And he and the Greenie are a package deal."

"But the engineer and the pilot... they'll go to the wall for her. She's earned their respect, and I think she can do it with a crew as well."

Sipping the scotch and tonic, George narrowed his eyes a bit. "You have a fallback, don't you? In case this all falls flat. I know you better than that, Tom. What's up your sleeve?"

"We assign her to the Crossroads to do border patrol... nobody wants that duty. She can hold the line out there for us, and there should be plenty of peril to keep her moving in a direction that we want her to proceed. If she goes rogue, we blow the ship remotely and blame whomever was in the neighborhood at the moment and then we just work on getting concessions through some sabre rattling."

"Cold, Tommy," the vice admiral commented. "But I can't argue the effectiveness of it all. What about John Herod?"

The craggy-faced admiral smirked. "He's an ass, unfit for command and he's had his moment. Forcible retirement, he gets to keep the captaincy and we'll send her aboard to deliver the news as her first assignment, and she can install her own senior staff."

"You set him up for this from the start, didn't you? He was never going to command her out of spacedock, was he? If it wasn't this one, it would be someone else taking his place, wouldn't it?" The intelligence admiral just sipped his drink and said nothing, and George snickered.

"Fine. Play your games Tom... even if it blows up in your face you'll still come out of it smelling like a rose, and you've never stabbed me in the back or let me down, so..." he raised his glass in a toast. "Here's to the first Romulan lady captain in Starfleet."

"Vulcan lady captain, Vice Admiral," the rear admiral corrected, and he clinked his tumbler against his old friend's.

 

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