The Other Battle

Lucas Taline stared at the ceiling of his quarters. Thousands of Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians had lost their lives already and the Leviathan-A had "barely scuffed the paint job". Lucas sighed as he began thinking *What to do ? What to do ?*

His old "girlfriend" had "dumped" him because of his lack of attentiveness to her needs. She only needed enough time for a decent conversation. But, because of his extreme "bond" to his work, he couldn't give enough time for talk, let alone a date. He got up and left his quarters, he proceeded to the only place on the ship where he knew he could get self-confidence and satisfaction.

He turned the corner and stood in the hallway that led to his safe haven. The doors opened as he smiled and entered the 'room'. In the 'room' that lay before him, Taline breathed a deep, cleansing breath and immediately sat at a console. He began running scans and diagnostics of the ship.

An officer walked by, noticed him, and stopped. "Your duty shift doesn't start for another hour, Lieutenant." He said politely.

"I thought I'd get started early today." Taline responded happily.

"All right then..." The officer left.

Taline worked to the end of his duty shift, but didn't stop. The same officer walked by and noticed Lucas still at work.

"Umm Lieutenant Taline, your duty shift has been over for ten minutes."

"Huh ? Oh... I sometimes get caught up in..," He stopped short and chuckled realising the officer couldn't careless. "Thank you."

Taline finally left Engineering and headed for his quarters. The officer looked at the console. The screen was littered with over fifty windows containing results of scans and system diagnostics and even some for the programming lines of the systems computer. The results all showed the ship had passed the tests perfectly. The officer deduced that Taline was actually checking to see if the ship's program command lines are... accurate...

"Weird.... just weird." The officer said as he looked towards the direction where Taline had left. He went back to the console and closed all of the windows. He left the console and proceeded along his way.

Halfway to his quarters, Taline spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen (at least, in his opinion). He followed her, trying to see if he could remember her name. He reached his quarters and the doors opened. Taline had no luck remembering. He walked past his quarters and followed the woman to the mess hall.

He stopped and whispered.

[Computer... who is in front of me ?]

The computer seemed to shout unnecessarily loud, [There are many officers in the mess hall at the present time, please rephrase the question.]

Taline decided not to and found a table behind the woman. She had a large drink, some spicy dish and a PADD in front of her.

*What's on the PADD ?* Taline wondered.

He leaned over, but still couldn't see it. He got an idea. He took off his combadge and tossed it under her table. He stood up and walked over to her table.

"Excuse me." He said politely as he quickly glanced at the PADD before bending over to pick up his combadge. As he stood up and reattached his combadge he smiled widely at the woman and quickly exited the mess hall. He rushed to his quarters and jumped on his bed. He vowed to himself he wouldn't lose this battle, like the last one.

He laid down and spoke quickly.

[Computer. Who on the ship would want to read specific, extensive information about a "SLIPSTREAM DRIVE" ?]

Taline stared up at the ceiling, anxiously awaiting the response that would reveal the identity of his new "date".