The Moustache of a Tyrant

Posted on Tue Jun 17th, 2025 @ 3:01am by Captain Gary Taylor

Mission: Season 6: Echoes of the Zynari
Location: Outside the XO's Ready Room, Deck 1
Timeline: MD 5, 1734 Hours
1903 words - 3.8 OF Standard Post Measure

It has been the kind of shift that aged a man.

Garo Hakobyan rubbed the side of his jaw, where fine stubble had begun to win its slow-motion siege against morning's optimism. The last fourteen hours had included a sparking power relay in a Jefferies Tube junction with just enough clearance to crush the ego but not the shoulders, a malfunctioning turbolift that locked him between decks for the better part of an hour with a Bolian ensign on his way to Sickbay with gastrointestinal discomfort, lighting fixtures across fourteen decks that had completely blown-out, a string of replicator mishaps that had culminated in several units on the promenade producing a tasteless gelatin in place of anything ordered.

And now--this.

He stood just outside the Executive Officer's Ready Room, one pace from the door sensor and precisely eight steps past the point of no return. A nearby lighting fixture blinked ominously, flickering in a maddening way that defied diagnostics. Garo eyed it warily, as if it might launch into interpretive dance at any moment.

"Still trying," he muttered to himself--though whether he meant the light or himself, even Garo wasn't certain.

He'd never met the Executive Officer. Captain... something sharp-sounding, if memory served. Anyway, who had the time to memorize the names of the command staff? Accounts from Garo's colleagues in Operations painted the XO as a grim tyrant: a man of volcanic temperament and zero tolerance for levity, whose glare could curdle raktajino and whose moustache must never be acknowledged under any circumstances. It was the sort of nonsense tailor-made to rattle a junior officer at the end of his rope.

Garo suspected--hoped--it was all an elaborate prank. He could still hear Echevarria snickering behind a diagnostic unit when he warned, 'Whatever you do, if you make eye-contact--don't break it too soon. Unless he raises an eyebrow. Then run.'

Adjusting the collar of his uniform, Garo drew a breath, summoned what remained of his dignity, and stepped forward. The door sensor obligingly chirped at him.

He straightened his shoulders and tried to flatten the wrinkles of his uniform along the sleeves. Then he decided he would maintain as straight a posture as possible. Didn't look up. Didn't look down. Certainly didn't look at any facial hair.

"Ensign Hakobyan, reporting as ordered, sir."

Gary was seated behind his desk, going through the maintenance reports and various severity of those reports with 95 percent of the reports dealing with 'pranks' by the Zynari. Unfortunately he wasn't spared or rather his Ready Room wasn't. The replicator refused to cooperate. His vanilla milkshakes came out as a rather disgusting creamy colored sludge and if that wasn't enough he had a light that flickered incessantly on, off, on, off "One or the other." He finally uttered to the light with no results. He looked up from the PaDDs as his office door slid open and he heard a voice addressing him. Looking up into a youthful, expressive face of one Ensign Hakobyan, Gary nodded. "Ensign, glad you are here. The replicator fails to replicate more precisely, the vanilla milkshakes I order come out as cream colored sludge and that." He finished as he pointed to the flickering light, "I hope you are able to correct these problems."

Garo kept his posture military-straight for a full three seconds before the flickering light pulsed again and he winced--just slightly. A blink more than a flinch, actually--but enough to betray the long day behind him.

"Yes, sir," he said with just the correct amount of feigned confidence to get him through the doorways and awkward dinners. "Replicator degradation and flicker-loud surges are--ah--very common. Especially with the Zynari. I've seen some units producing steamed bok choy no matter what you ask it for. One even managed to synthesize a fork inside the soup."

He stepped forward slowly, eyes tactfully avoiding the upper quadrant of the Captain's face. If there was a moustache, he wasn't going to risk looking at it.

Gary looked at the younger officer, his stance rigid. "Um Ensign, you can relax, you aren't at a military parade of facing an inspection." Gary said pleasantly. He nodded his head as Garo related some other pranks the Zynari had pulled. "These pranks may have been harmless and even amusing in the beginning but not any longer. They are affecting ship systems and its only a matter of time before they tamper with a critical system." Gary finished and stared at Garo. "Is something wrong Ensign? Why are you avoiding looking at me? Out with it." He ordered so his voice was still respectful but now with a firm edge to it.

Garo's spine stiffed another half-inch. His ears, unfortunately, decided to turn a distinct shade of pink.

"Ah. Yes... sir. Nothing's wrong. At all."

He hesitated--just long enough for a truth to threaten.

"It's just that--I may have been... misinformed."

He scratched the back of his neck, still not quite meeting Captain Taylor's eyes, though now more out of embarrassment than superstition. "Someone in Ops--Specialist Echevarria--mentioned that under no circumstances should I look at your moustache. Or your eyes. Or... really anywhere above clavicle."

Gary listened in silence as Garo haltingly came forth with his story and how he had been misinformed by Specialist Echevarria on information concerning him Gary. When he finished Gary spoke in a even calm tone. "I see. Echevarria you say? Very good I will handle the good specialist. As for you Ensign, I am afraid you have been misinformed and played for a fool by your associates in Operations. Now, all that being said, what's wrong with your eyes? Are you having trouble focusing them?" Gary's tone going from calm and even slightly miffed to mildly annoyed.

Garo blinked. A long, owlish blink, as though his ocular system had been summoned to account for its actions.

"No sir," he said slowly, attempting to keep his voice from cracking under the weight of some heavy diplomatic backpedaling. "Nothing wrong with the eyes. Standard-issue Armenian peepers. Twenty-twenty according to last physical with Doctor Mora-Heath." He paused. "Though I suppose they may have sustained minor trauma from prolonged exposure to flickering LEDs, hostile turbolift confinement, and close-quarter Bolian gastrointestinal tracts."

He tried to breathe a little but found it was more difficult than usual.

"Also," he added after a beat, "general existential disorientation that followed fourteen hours of malfunctioning technology and a vaguely implied moustache curse." Garo finally dared a glance upward--brief, sincere and very apologetic. He held it steadily if a little sheepishly. "I assure you, sir, I'm fully capable of restoring your milkshake and your light fixture to proper working order. Possibly even your faith in junior officers." His expression twitched faintly at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile but more the facial equivalent of an exhausted shrug.

"With your permission, Captain, I'll begin repairs--and also pretend this conversation never happened."

Gary listened in silence as Garo gave him a list of reasons that one stated there was nothing wrong with his eyes and a second list that gave reasons for what could possibly be wrong with said eyes. He shook his head slowly from side to side and finally replied, "Nothing wrong with my faith in junior officers or their competency Ensign I just question their nativity every now and then." He paused again for a few seconds as if deciding on what he wanted to say. "Start your repairs and I too will pretend this conversation never took place. Oh, there is one thing. You mentioned a moustache course, I'm waiting for an explanation.""

Garo froze. Not in fear, exactly. More in the way a man might freeze upon realizing he'd just stepped on a pressure-triggered mine. He clear his throat gently. "Ah. Yes. That." He scratched the back of his head again, buying time. "That was... curse, sir. Moustache curse. Not course. As in... folk superstition. Not Starfleet elective."

The silence deepened and Garo swore the blinking light above them had grown more smug.

"Ahem. I suspect it started as joke. Or a dare. Or perhaps elaborate misunderstanding involving synthehol and excessive free time in operations office. Either way, there is tiny persistent theory among my colleagues that your moustache contains... how do I say... latent disciplinary energy."

He pressed his lips together, considering how best to phrase the next part without being shot our of a torpedo tube toward a gas giant. Garo realized any utterance on his part would only inflame the situation. He'd been had by his peers and he'd been had good.

"A curse?" Gary repeated slowly, so slowly you could almost hear the individual letters coming out one one at a time. He wasn't exactly angry more like perplexed at the nonsense Garo was spouting. "I see." He finally replied after what seemed an eternity but was only a few awkward seconds. "Whatever you wish to call it Ensign was a bad idea with no thought given to it and no thought on the consequences of this 'joke' as you want to call it. Furthermore as you can plainly see, I have no moustache therefore no curse." Gary then smiled at Garo, "You've played Garo. Your friends set you up and you swallowed it all, bait, line and sinker." He paused for a moment and then added, "Question now is where do you go from here? Do you wish to turn the joke back on them or just let it alone?"

For the better part of a minute, Garo was almost certain the Executive Officer was going to come over the desk--possibly with disciplinary intent, possibly just to throttle the awkwardness out of him. But then he saw the man's expression shift to one of contemplation. The tension in Garo's limbs began to drain. Warmth returned to his extremities. At the mention of payback, Garo brightened. "Sir," said with sudden interest. "Are you offering to help me get revenge?"

"Oh, revenge is such an ugly word Ensign though in this case I think it is the perfect word." Gary said with a smile and a glint of determination in his eyes. "As you know these pranksters best I will let you decide how best to work your payback."

"Understood, sir. I believe I have just the thing."

He turned to the offending light fixture with the posture of a man ready to confront an old nemesis. From his compact belt toolkit, he drew a slim, wand-like device. He waved it in a slow arc beneath the blinking light panel. Slowly, the defiant blink settled into a steady, uninterrupted glow. He sighed like a man who had just defused a diplomatic incident with a soup spoon.

Garo turned to Gary and smiled. "As for the replicator," he added, crouching beside the wall panel. He popped off the cover and examined the guts inside. "I'll bypass the fail-safe relay and reroute the subprocessor so it has own memory stack. It should stop the milkshake trouble." He glanced back over his shoulder to the XO. "One small request, though, Captain--if I may?"

Without waiting for Gary's approval, he continued deadpan, "Would you consider growing a moustache?"

Gary was silent for a heartbeat, two before replying, "I'll take it under advisement." He replied with the hint of a smile playing across his face.