Depth Charges Away"
By: Craig Witmore, Engineer, [RNPC]

Stardate: 58206.28 2000

= QT Engineering department=

Being on the station brought a sense of restlessness to Craig Witmore. Tackling periods of inactivity were not his strong point. Patience is a virtue, they say, but it doesn’t apply to him. He started looking for new challenges quickly. He had already brought some semblance of order to the stations engineering department and the current chief was apparently glad to have him spent his time there.

Before inventing a new project to busy himself, he checked the console for any new messages. To his astonishment there was a single message from his parents. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The management of the forced labour camp allowing any kind of correspondence leaving the darned place? Eagerly he grabbed a chair, sat down in front of the console and began browsing through the text.

His initial joy evaporated quickly and turned in a steadily growing anger. Apparently, the Federation government got the splendid idea of rounding up most members of Craig’ direct family that were still wandering freely. They were incarcerated on accusation of treasonable acts against the Federation council. No further details were provided. In front of a tribunal where several documents and tapes were produced linking them with communication with the Maqui or attempts thereto, they were found guilty unanimously in an amazing short time and convicted to long prison sentences.

The evidence presented was in all probability fabricated. Was this information allowed ‘to leak’ to Craig to put pressure on him? Well, apparently yes so. The note ended with the cynical offer that his family would get a reduction on their prison terms if Craig were to surrender himself on his own free will at the nearest Federation outpost. The paranoia of the Federation government apparently knew no bounds… What damage could an innocent individual – which he truly was – do to the great Federation cause? In his anger he knocked both his fists most vehemently on the console. His favourite mug, of course filled with some aromatic tasting coffee, balanced dangerously close at the edge of the console, but in the end was not able to resist the pull of the stations artificial gravity and shattered in a thousand shards upon contact with the floor. The barely touched coffee spread in an extending pool over the floor of the engineeringdepartment. (Of course, now he would have some additional cleaning to do...). He was glad that it didn’t happen on the Zion, Silvio would surely have commented on it and would probably have made him scrub the floor with a micro inducer.

After slipping over the spilled coffee, he hurried out of stations engineering and headed straight away for the Quarks bar. He decided to drown his feelings in the strongest possible manner. He almost jumped one of the stools near the bar and had to refrain from toppling over. Craig called the bartender and ordered: “ A depth charge, if you please”.

The bartender looked at him quizzically and inquired: “Are you feeling all right? I have never seen you consuming such strong stuff.

Craig insisted: “A depth charge, please”, rising his voice a trifle.

“Okay, okay, no reason to get upset”, was the reply and soon Craig sat facing a pint of dark Guinness-like beer, a small glass containing strong whisky and two wooden chopsticks.

He placed both chopsticks on the rim of the pint and positioned the glass of whisky on top of it. In a repeat of the effect the poor console in the science lab suffered, he hit the top surface of the bar with all muscle power his right fist could yield. The resulting mini-barquake subjected the beer glass to strong vibrations and after a few wobbly dancing acts of the whisky glass upon the chopsticks, they parted and the whisky glass sank to the bottom of the beer glass. In one large gulp Craig downed the wicked mixture and ordered another one. Worrying, the bartender noticed the foul mood Craig was in and politely refused the order. Craig opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it, swallowed his angry reaction and grumbling left the bar, fumbling with his uniform jacket covered under beer spots.

Life was not really going his way these days. Maybe he was about to enter the psychological state of a real depression.