The Igloo (Miraj's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Part 2 of 4))

Posted on Tue Mar 28th, 2023 @ 6:44am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Captain Gary Taylor

Mission: Season 6: Episode 2: Survival
Location: Ice Planet
Timeline: Current MD02 2100
3532 words - 7.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Hans Mueller, owner of Da Alpine Haus and Cosmic Confections on the mighty starship Elysium. looked around his newest venture ... a bar aptly named the Igloo. He had taken some chairs from the Das Alpine House and part of its bar to make one here inside a prefab building. He had even managed to bring a mirror down to hang behind the bar with the name Igloo in lights that hung unevenly across the top of th mirror. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing.

He also had plenty of liquor. Das Alpine Haus was known for its wide selection 'spirits' and while a large part had been damaged, he still had a healthy supply of rum and Andorian ale even a few bottles of Romulan Ale along with some whiskey and brandy. A few cases of domestic beer also survived but they wouldn't last long once the marines found out. Now he just needed to get a bartender, perhaps a waitress or two. He had snacks consisting of pretzels, peanuts and some trail mix. But until he got a bar tender or a couple of waitresses, he would be the bar tender. He walked over and flipped a jury rigged switch that lit up a small open sign and he waited for the customers to arrive.

Miraj knew that trying to sleep was pointless, so she wandered the camp, mostly avoiding people, until she saw a pale light, far to the back of the second cave. She turned towards the feint pink light like a flower turned to the sun, and her feet found their way to a tent with a small sign outside. A penguin was holding up a martini glass. Above, in cheerful letters, was the name. The Igloo.

Well, maybe that was a sign from the universe. End this horrible day with a drink. She pushed the door open, slid inside and hastily shut the door against the chill of the cold. Nice weather for Andorians, not so much everyone else.

There weren't many people inside. A couple of exhausted looking engineering crew nursing dark coloured liquor in tired silence; a Bolian officer in red, strategic ops, not flight control, Miraj didn't recognise her, was flicking through a padd, a glass of something bright blue to her left; an Andorian in teal sat staring into the feint flames coming out of their hurricaine glass. It was quiet and private, and a far cry from the almost foced joviality of the MWR. It was perfect.

Miraj hopped up on a bar stool. "Rum, please."

A big man with a warm, welcoming smile, came to stand in front of her, "Certainly Fraulein, one rum coming up." An instant later a glass of the amber liquid was in front of her. "I hope it helps Miss; you look like you have the weight of the galaxy on those pretty shoulders."

It was that obvious? She took the shot, and downed it in one. Feeling the burn. She'd seen a couple of Mal's birthday benders: he'd always said that you should drink proportionally to the amount of shit you've had to deal with during the year, and some of those nights had been spectacular, when Z would literally carry him back, black out drunk. And the one time on her midshipman cruise when he'd called her begging for a lift, and telling her how much he loved her and she was the best baby sister ever. Except she had been on a supply run to DS9, and he'd been somewhere in Orion space, and she could hear Ilon laughing himself sick in the background. That level of drunk might take a while, but no-one could ever say she lacked perseverance. "Another one, please."

"Certainly, Fraulein." Hans answered simply and poured another shot of rum for the sad looking young lady. He silently wondered what could be troubling her to look so glum, so downtrodden even as he pushed a small bowl of pretzels down in front of here in case she wanted something to nibble on. "If you need anything else, I'll be right over there." He point to a spot on the bar where some glasses were stacked, waiting to be put in their proper place.

"Thanks." Miraj took a bit more time over this one, and the third. She was getting the warm fuzzies now. Except her warm fuzzies weren't particularly warm and not so much fuzzy as wobbly. People came and went in the back ground as she stared into her glass, wondering what she was doing. Besides working on getting three sheets to the wind.

She'd be wondering even if they weren't thirteen million light years from home.

Hans came back to check on her, "Fraulein. I believe you have had enough to drink. A young lady like you shouldn't drink so much. You should go to your tent and get some sleep. You will feel better in the morning. " His concern for her well-being evident.

Miraj looked at him. "I've had three. I'm squiffy, not bilged." She pushed her glass towards him. "Rum please. And leave the bottle?"

Hans looked at Miraj, a smile playing at his lips at her explanation. "Ah, I see Fraulein and what exactly is the difference between being squiffy and not bilged? I am unfamiliar with those terms, so please explain them." His hand still on the bottle.

"Squiffy is fuzzy. Buzzed. Warm. Not that anyone is warm on this ice cube, but you know what I mean. Bilged is holed below water line, so all the crappy water comes out, and good clean very-good-at-sinking-you water comes in. So properly drunk, like can't stand up, can't talk, drunk, inebriated, three sheets to the wind, loaded to the gunwales, the main-brace is well and truly spliced. I know how do that when its not a figure of speech too." She put her own hand on the bottle just above his, and gave an experimental tug.

"Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. now Fraulein, my next question is, I do not wish to see you bilged. Squiffy is acceptable, bilged is not. I have no desire to see you in such a condition. How do you propose we prevent that from happening? His hand remained around the bottle. "Not so fast Fraulein. An answer to my question first."

"I want to be bilged. I'm a grown up. I'm allowed." Miraj muttered, and pulled harder on the bottle. "What question?"

"And I do not. A grown up?" Hans didn't laugh but the woman seated before him looked barely legal drinking age. "You are not allowed to act a fool in my place of business. The question Fraulein of how we prevent you from being bilged." His grip tightened around the bottle and he pulled it from Miraj's fingers.

She slumped on the bar stool. "We trust that I've done this before and can take my grog?"

Hans looked at her long and hard, took the bottle and ran his diamond ring across the bottle making a line on the bottle about two thirds down. "You drink to this line and no further agreed?" He asked not handing the bottle back yet.

"Aye-aye, Rum Bosun!" She gave him a sloppy salute and held her glass up.

Hans allowed a grin to appear on his face as he poured Miraj a drink before handing the bottle back to her.

She poured herself a generous three fingers, and swirled the run around in the glass. But a full glass provided no more answers than an empty one. Miraj watched the rum move, like currents in an abyss, or waves on a dark ocean. The face of Samuels was reflected back at her, the empty despair of his final moments boring into her, the terrible sounds of sickbay as they tried to save him and the hideous silence when they called it. She shuddered, and knocked back half the glass quickly, the burn feeling like penance.

What was she doing here?

Her decision had been split second, born of the absolute knowledge that she was the very best. And she’d stranded them beyond hope of rescue. Turned them into the a bigger version of the Hokkaido from when she was a child. And the giving up was starting. And for all that people said it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t, couldn’t, believe that. Going to warp in slipstream had been her decision, her choice. She could, so she did, and to Davy Jones with the consequences.

Maybe she deserved this. Maybe she deserved worse. The Filament had robbed them of lives and safety, but shed taken their hope.

She swallowed a good finger down, accepting the tingle it left in its wake, and the buzzing in her brain, almost like drifting. Drifiting away sounded good.

Hans had taken care of a few other Starfleet and civilian customers before wandering back Miraj. He took a glance at the bottle and then Miraj, She was well on the way to being what did she call it? Squishy? As he walked back to her he spoke quietly. "Fraulein, why are you sad? You are too young to be sad. Would you like to get what is bothering you out?"

Miraj stared at her glass, seemed to realise that it was empty, and added another generous serving with exaggerated care, taking the bottle below the half way mark, in the hopes it would make a decision for her. But no. She stared at it for a while before she finally said. “I think Starfleet was a mistake. I’m not cut out for this.”

"A mistake you say? I doubt that Fraulein. You seem to think they made a mistake with you? Why do you feel that way?" Hans asked as he moved the bottle out of Miraj's reach.

The young pilot frowned at the restreating bottle and pullled her glass closer, ready to defend it. How to explain? "Well. Imagine you have a boss. And your boss is like the best bar tender whoever existed, right? Every drink they make is perfection, the mix things that are never supposed to be mixed, should go horribly wrong, and yet it never does. Everything they do behind this bar makes you look like a five year older who.. who can barely read the labels or pour a measure? With me so far?"

"Yes Fraulein. I am still with you." Hans replied while wondering just where this conversation was going.

"How would that make you feel?"

"I would feel inadequate and that I had to improve my skills. I would work harder, learn more. Not give up." He replied honestly.

"Okay. Now imagine that this genius bartender who is your boss can't...." She had to stop and think. "Can't do maths!" She gestured wildly with her glass, getting warmed up to the metaphor. "And cant get the rotas right, and messes up ordering supplies, and never remembers to lock up, or give people time off, and you know you're stuck with this stupid, idiot boss who couldn't count to twelve without taking off their socks, despite making a zombie prince that could make a grown man cry tears of joy. But you know all of this, like how to do the accounting, and hire cleaners but becuase the owners put the boss in charge, you have to keep doing dumb shit, like ordering too many crisps and not enough peanuts. And then. And then! on top of all that! Your boss goes and accidentally burns down almost the entire bar, like, all the back bits where the offices are. so you've still got abit of grog left, and some of the bar itself so you can serve, but the rst of the building is toast.. Then how would y you feel?

"I would feel unappreciated Fraulein. That the owners do not know what is going on and who us actually doing what." Hans paused as he considered the rest of what the young lady had said. "I would be upset to be sure but still see the upside Fraulein in that I still had a bar to serve customers, that I could still help people, that people could still come to unwind." He added, "After all, half a bar is better than no bar Then I would get to work on rebuilding the bar."

She took a pensive mouthful of the rum. "Good for you. But in this scenario, Im the boss. Not you. And that's why I think starfleet was a mistake. I can't be an officer, however good I am at flying. I'm not good enough at anything else. And now its killing people."

Hans could she how serious the young officer was so; he wasn't going to make light of the situation or crack any jokes. "I believe you are doing a terrible disservice to those who made you an officer and yourself as well. Do you think those above you didn't consider all your merits and demerits. They saw in you what you cannot, an officer. Oh still wet behind the ears but an officer nonetheless. I know who you are Ensign Derani." Using Miraj's rank and name for the first time. "You feel terrible because you think and feel over your decision. You should not. You saved the ship and the crew. Yes, people died and that is a tragedy, but it is not your fault. I do not think you can see the forest for the trees my young friend. You do not see your redeeming values. You are second to none in your piloting skills. You made an error, learn from it. Don't be drowning your sorrows." He shrugged his shoulders, "Just my opinion."

At the sound of her name she went still. Of course he would know who she was. Everyone knew who she was. How many pink haired people were on the Elysium afterall? "I'm so tired of it all," She admitted, "Not like right now, we're all tired right now. But its been five years now and nothings getting easier. And this isn't like the academy where i can swap coaching in navigation for tutoring in something else. I thought I'd scrape through finals, and get a posting on a farily middling ship and have time to learn. And then they dumped me on the biggest ship in the whole fleet, and put me in charge!" her voice rose with hints of panic.

"I don't know what I'm doing! And now people need me, and I've got to lead people who either outrank me or have more time in service and they're expecting to me to get them through this. And I can't do this. I'm the youngest in the whole department." Her hands shook a little as she emptied her glass, and she wasn;t sure if it was becuase she was cold, or she could feel the damn inside her starting to break. "I just want someone else to make it all better."

Hans could see and hear the stress and the beginning of panic inn Miraj's voice. "My young friend." He began, "The trick is to let others think you know what you are doing. Do what you described in your story to me. If you have a member of your department that is good in making shift rotations assign the duty to them and say, "Make a schedule and if I like it, I'll approve it. If you have another who is good with maintenance of the shuttles and runabouts. Same thing assign them making a list of what service needs to be done and when and if agree with the schedule who will approve it." He looked into Miraj's eyes and could the haunted look. "There is no one else. You can do this. Use the confidence you have in flying with people. After all are people not the most complicated machines ever devised?"

Miraj looked at her empty glass, then pulled the bottle back and carefully poured ot until shed reached the line he had draawn. "I don't think anyone is ever going to believe i know what i;m doing." The other stuff though. The other stuff might work. But, "Isn't getting other people to do your work cheating?"

Hans shook his head, " Absolutely not Liebchen, it is called delegating and as a leader of people that is the first rule you learn to delegate." He looked across the bar at her, her slumped figure, defeated attitude. "Have confidence. As I said earlier, fake it. You can do this and each time will get easier and easier. What have you got to lose. Try it."

Get easier and easier. The thought of something like Samuels death getting easier threatened her stomach far more than any of the rum. "And the dead people? Do they get easier?"

"No. They do not. It never gets easier." Hans replied firmly. "However right here in the here and now, you can't afford the luxury of grief. You have a ship to repair. Later, you can lock yourself and cry your heart out or get drunk. If you choose the latter, I will join you."

For a moment she swore, over the burnt sugar of the rum, she could smell the burnt flesh of a phaser boring through brain tissue. "I saw a man die today. He was right in front of me." she whispered. "And I don't feel shocked, or saddened. I don't feel grief. I don't feel anything at all."

Hans nodded soberly. "I understand Fraulein. You are numb. Trust me the emotions you are numb to will come and they will come like a tidal wave, threatening to drown you. But you will get through it. You are a survivor, Ensign Derani." Hans answered confidently, sure in his judgment.

Samuels had decided being a survivor wasn't worth it. Should she make a different call? "Surviving isn't living." It wasn't thriving. Could she get through all of this and do more than just survive?

Hans shook his head at Miraj's comment. "Perhaps not in the terms one usually thinks of living. However surviving is living at its most basic level and it keeps you alive until you can actually get back to living."

"How long does that take?" She didn't want to go on like this. Not forever.

"Unfortunately, there is no set answer for that question. Your body will give you the answer. Until then, you must do your job and lead your department, fly this ship when it is repaired and get us home." Hans answered solemnly.

Miraj sighed. Not the answer she wanted. Yet, it was kind of her job. Get people home. It was about the only thing she could do. "Is that enough?", she asked, nor meaning to speak aloud.

"Not enough? Hans repeated confusedly. "Fraulein it is everything. Without your superior piloting skills, this crew will never see home again."

Miraj's brain flikered, and then stopped, like one moment she'd been floating on a cloud of rum, and then the cloud had vanished. She wasn't sober. The gneral moroseness didn't vanish with it, but something had pierced the cloud. She had got them stranded, and maybe that had been an accident. But if she gave up, they'd definitely stay stranded, and that would be the opposite of an accident. "I. I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Now you have something to consider my young friend other than drowning your sorrows away." Hans replied. "So buckle up, time to be a grown up and do what you were meant to do. Be a pilot and get your crew home."

Miraj looked at her empty rum glass. "I. You might be right. I." Everything swirled inside her "I need to think about it. "

"Very good my young friend. That is a positive start is it not? To think, to work on a plan of action and to think, you must be clear headed, so no more of this" he said moving the bottle further from her grasp. "At least for tonight." He added.

she blinked at him. "But its my birthday?" she tried.

Hans raised an eyebrow at her statement. "You wouldn't be joshing Hans would you Fraulein?"

She shook her head. "Twenty two today." She looked at her hands. "It's kind of sucked."

"Happy Birthday Ensign." Hans replied and poured her another drink. "Wait one moment." Hans told her as he wandered away for a moment only to return a moment later with a chocolate cupcake and a candle in the middle of it. "Happy Birthday Ensign. I will make you a birthday cake next year."

Miraj felt her lip wobbling. "I'll hold you to that." she picked up the cupcake and blew out the candle. Making a wish. "Thank you."

"You are welcome and please do." Hans answered with a smile. "Remember, things will get better.''

And because she felt a sudden flare of defiance, bright and life-affirming, she swiped the bottle of rum from the bar. "I will." And she took her bottle and cake, and ducked back out into the cold.

 

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