Once More Into the Breech

Posted on Fri Sep 22nd, 2017 @ 9:29am by
Edited on on Fri Sep 22nd, 2017 @ 8:50pm

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Lounge
Timeline: Evening

ON:

Stallion was looking for some action - and he didn't mean the kind you would find at the controls of a fighter. And he figured the best place to find the sort of action he was looking for was in the ship's lounge. When he arrived, he found it to be fairly crowded - mostly with people he didn't know. But scanning the crowd, he saw someone he DID know - Hawkeye. He had known her briefly several years ago when they both were aboard the Pathfinder, but at the time he was nursing the hurt from Te'Elis leaving him and didn't want to risk a rebound hookup. Besides, from all he saw, she was just interested in Hot Dog then anyway. But now things were different. Maybe, if he played things right, he might be able to wet his wick tonight after all.

So, quickly crossing over to where she was, he called out as he got close to her table. "Is that Hawkeye from the old Pathfinder I see...?"

Hawkeye had been sitting in the lounge quietly getting drunk. She was hurt, betrayed, almost busted back to cadet by someone who she thought was a friend. Cobra had for all intense and purposes gutted her self confidence as a pilot. The only saving grace was her
Vulcan mind and the control that came with it except for now. Hearing the voice through the haze of her clouded mmind she looked up. Standing there in all his glory was Stallion. 'Oh my god!', she thought...nearly dropped her glass...swallowed hard..."Oh my GOD! Stallion...sit...yes from the Pathfinder, but how? I mean I knew you were here but how did you find me? I am not in uniform and I don't stand out in the crowd", she said, watching him move to sit.

He shrugged a bit as he took the offered chair. "I just came in to see what might be happening, looked around and there you were," he said. Then, getting a closer look at her, he realized the state she was in. "Damn Hawk, you're gassed!" He knew that getting drunk wasn't something she ordinarily did - at least she didn't when they were on the Pathfinder - so there must be a reason behind it. "Okay, you want to spill it...?" he asked.

"Long story...", she said.

"I don't have any place to be so I've got time," he said, looking directly at her. "You smell like a brewery so that tells me you've been sitting here pickling your liver for quite some time. You want to tell me why?"

"One word...Cobra!", she growled...taking a swig of her rum. "She insulted me, put me down, chewed me up and spit me out like I was a bad piece of meat. I never thought she was that type of BITCH!", she said.

"What's Cobra got to do..." then, the realization dawned on him. "Ohhh, I get it. You're in her squadron and she's coming down on you. Well if it's any consolation I'm in the Ice Queen's squadron and she's no picnic either. Coldest damn broad I've ever met. She can give you a look with those blue eyes of hers that'll make your blood run cold. And the way she acts and carries herself you'd swear that she was a damn Vulcan." Then, too late he remembered that Hawkeye was half Vulcan, he quickly added "Sorry, but, well...you know what I mean. So what did you do to cause her to chew your ass?"

She looked up into the face of Stallion and noted that he did look somewhat concerned and she nodded to the barkeep to get her a cup of strong coffee and sipped it as she told Stallion about what Cobra had said.

“To make it brief, you know she and I really didn’t hit it off good on the Pathfinder and well when they pulled me off before you guys got the Morton out, I was flying combat missions from the ship I was on. It was no picnic either man. We were out manned, out gunned, and out flied by these...I don’t know what to call them other than they were some of the best damn pilots I have had ever flown with. In any case, we did win and not without losses either. I lost a good many pilot in my wing and friend in the process. To say the least, we had to learn to fly even better by the seat of our pants to pull that off. Well...”, she started as she finished the first cup of coffee and asked for a second. Sipping on the cup, she could begin to feel the mist in her head to clear and continued… “when I arrived here, I had no idea that all of you were transferred here en masse like the entire engineering department was, and well when I reported to the Wing Commander and found out it was Hot Dog I almost died in my tracks. When he told me that Kat was here and that sent me into a tail spin. I looked at him and couldn’t believe it when he told me she was my Squadron Leader. I almost killed him and asked him why did he put me with her as he knew we had bad blood from the Pathfinder. He said it was orders from Lawson and I looked at him...I really believe that man has it in for me. He had it in for me on the Pathfinder and now here. This is way to much for me to accept. If that wasn’t bad enough, I had a flight training sim with Kat earlier today and the sim which she had was way too simple to show her that out here you have to fly with the skills you learned not from the Pathfinder but from fighting out here doing combat missions. Out here I have flown nearly 8,000 flight hours in that fighter of mine and I will be damned if she watches me do some third year cadet training sim in my fighter. Oh did I tell you…I named the fighter. She is called… ‘Midnight’. Got that name from hiding in the shadows of an asteroid that I had to duck into and as it was...the time of the night was actually midnight and I came out from behind it and into the shadow of the moon and nailed the bastard that had taken out my wing man. So I named her Midnight. Any way, once I finished the sim...which was one that I flew with my sister Viper on the Huron, she then proceeded to call me...something like incompetent or something that lit me up and right there on the holodeck I screamed… ‘You BITCH!’”. Realizing she had gotten loud with that last remark, her face reddened and it had actually gotten to her that she was indeed angry at what she was feeling. Finishing up the third cup of coffee, she was beginning to feel like herself and the anger was again beginning to flare. “Stallion let's get the hell out of here before I embarrass myself any further besides it is against regulations for us to get roaring drunk. I remember what happened to Maverick and what Lawson did to her. Ok so lets get out of here”, she said looking into his eyes.

He reached out and put his hand on her arm. "Hold on, not so fast. Cut your thrusters and land, Hawk.I haven't even had a chance to get something to drink yet. Let me guess - you didn't think the sim was challenging enough so you altered her program. She realized what you had done, didn't like it, and proceeded to chew your ass. Is that about the size of it?"

"Sorry Stallion, I hadn't realized that...please get yourself a drink", she said as she waved to the barkeep.

He looked at her, knowing that what he was about to say was going to go over about as well as a turd in a punch bowl but he had to say it. "I know there's been bad blood between the two of you ever since we were all on the Pathfinder, but this isn't the Pathfinder and things are different here. Number one, she now outranks you. Number two, she is your squadron leader. And number three, when you add numbers one and two together, that means where you're concerned, she gets to make the rules. I'm sure you don't like it and it may not be fair but no one ever said that everything in life - or Starfleet - was fair, and unfortunately that's just the way things are." He wondered for a moment if they should even be trying to sober her up, after all she might be easier to convince and more fun in the sack if she were drunk. Might loosen up any inhibitions she might have. 'Nah...' he thought to himself. After all, how much fun would she be if she passed out? If anything happened, he wanted her awake and responsive. "So, other than flying and fighting - with enemies and your squadron leader...." he said with a grin, "...what have you been doing with yourself?"

At his refusal to leave and the realization that he had indeed come into the lounge to look for company, she relented and decided to drink synthahol instead of the rum she had been drinking earlier. She was still feeling the effects of the rum in spite of the coffee and was still in a talkative mood. “Well… I was pulled from the Pathfinder, and I found out by whom...Wilson…although I still haven’t found out why...but anyway, he pulled me from there to the Huron and I was flying combat missions in a very hot and volatile situation. We were so damn busy it didn’t leave much time for me to have any type of fun...well social life if you can call it that. Yet between all of that I did have a few flings, but nothing worth mentioning. Mostly rookies and odd balls if you get my meaning”, she said looking at him in a different way. She had actually started to take into account of his body features and physical attributes and he did have some. He was actually stunning in appearance. Handsome, well built, muscular, and quite handsome. With the amount of rum she had consumed she though maybe it would be fun but decided that it wasn’t going to work since he hadn’t started to drink until now and she didn’t know how much it would take to get him drunk and into bed. ‘Nah...Hawkeye what the hell you thinking woman...you didn’t even try it on the Pathfinder and what makes you think it will happen here? Stupid thought...although...’ she thought. Shaking her head she went back to her synthahol intent on finding out about Stallion.

"I left after we got back to the starbase," he said. "Didn't really get along with the new CO that took over the ship, so I put in for a transfer. Besides, once Maverick made Assistant CAG she turned into a 100 percent jerk, Seems like all she was interested in was busting everyone's balls and chasing after Hot Dog. I hate to admit it but that ship held a lot of bad memories for me - especially after Te'Elis left. I don't think you knew her, did you? I think she left before you joined the squadron. I really thought that girl was the one, you know? But she got transferred just before we got into that mess with the Morton and left without even telling me where she was going. Haven't seen or heard from her in the past five years. That rather soured me on relationships ever since." He looked at Hawkeye and grinned slightly. "Don't get me wrong - that doesn't mean I haven't had fun. I've dipped the old wick a few times...okay, a lot of times, but nothing serious." He fell silent and looked away for a moment before continuing. "But if the right one should come along...who knows..."

Hawkeye heard him correctly and she thought about what he said. 'Hm...what did happen to Te'Elis', she thought. "Stallion you never thought about looking for her...I mean...you never found out why she left?", she inquired. She actually was looking an opening in this whole thing to possibly comfort the growing need to extinguish the embers growing inside her.

"I did more than think about it," he answered. "I tried - several times in fact. But each time I hit a dead end and Starfleet Personnel couldn't - or wouldn't - tell me anything. Her father was in the Romulan diplomatic corps so I'm figuring he helped her if she didn't want to be found." He shook his head slightly. "Everyone on the ship, myself included, thought she was Human and Vulcan. Turned out she was Human and Romulan and evidently her family had something to do with the Tal Shiar. So finally I just gave up and figured she didn't want to be found or else she would have contacted me."

"Wow, man that it some rough shit to find out", she said. Gently taking his face...turned it to look her in eyes..."Stallion, in all honesty I do feel for ypu but you must realize that it is not the end of your search. It keeps going on", she said looking into his eyes. Now the combination of coffee and rum were getting to her and her own emotions were beginning to get involved. She ever so slowly leaned closer...

As she leaned closer to him, he couldn't help but notice the cleavage she was displaying. That too was not like her. Usually she wore her flight uniform or, when she was off duty, something that was not as revealing as she was wearing now. That could only mean one of two things - either she was so drunk that she was unaware of it or she was attempting to get his attention. If it was the latter, he had to admit that she definitely had it. He tried to divert his attention but he quickly realized that he was not having much success. Finally in an attempt to refocus his attentions, he said "I think at this point it's all in the past anyway."

"Good", she said...leaned in and planted the kiss...on his lips.

When the kiss ended, he looked at her then said "Maybe we should continue this discussion in a more...private...setting?"

"Yes...my place or yours?", she said.


OFF:

Lieutenant Roberto "Stallion" Del Palo
Flight Leader
USS Wellington

Lieutenant T'Rylea"Hawkeye" Bishara
Flight Leader
USS Wellington