Stop Breaking My Things!

Posted on Sun Feb 26th, 2023 @ 8:12pm by Lieutenant JG Stanislav Finch & Lieutenant Commander Aarix Teral

1,520 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: The Icarus Files
Location: Holodeck
Timeline: After Saved to the Clowder

Aarix wasn't happy. He got word that Myn was acting strange, only to find that he had contracted some aggressive virus in his systems. It took Aarix nearly a day to fix the problem, and after Myn told him what had happened, the engineer stormed out of engineering. "Computer, where the hell is Lieutenant Finch??" He demanded.

"Lieutenant Stanislav Finch is currently located 'in your ass'," replied the computer's monotone voice.

An annoyed sigh escaped the engineer's lips as he turned to a nearby wall console and manually searched for him. It was one thing to mess with his own designs, but messing with the ship? With how long it took him to get rid of the virus from the FELINEs, he imagined that this virus would take longer to fix.

The LCARS display pinpointed Finch's location as Holodeck Two.

A handful of choice words grumbled out of Aarix's mouth as he made his way to the holodeck. He didn't want to have to chase down this man, but this was a conversation to be done in person. Myn had conveyed caution from other FELINES about Finch, namely about how reason wouldn't work with him, but he was too annoyed to care. Finch was getting a piece of the engineer's mind, regardless.

The turbolift he had sulked in for a moment opened, and Aarix walked purposefully to the large doors that stood as the almost fortifying entrance into the holodeck. Reading the name on the door, he then tapped on the console. "Lieutenant Finch, your presence is requested," he said into the holodeck comms.

As if on cue, the holodeck doors opened. Sounds of dotars, setars, changs, nays, and tonbaks greeted Aarix. Scantily clad women in little more than veils and sheer gowns sauntered throughout the lavish palace projected within.

Finch was seated on a raised platform dotted with purple cushions and lounge sofas. He was naked from head to toe with naught but a heart-shaped leaf nestled over his nethers.

"Come hither," he purred at Aarix. "If you dare."

An annoyed sigh escaped Aarix's lips as he tried to find a place to look that wasn't at the barely dressed women. Not wanting a poor passerby to see this sight, he stepped just far enough inside the holodeck to let the doors shut behind him, almost wishing he disabled the program instead. He ended up settling for eye contact with the man he was looking for, refusing to let his eyes wander anywhere. Finch was naked from what Aarix could tell, and the engineer didn't want to confirm that knowledge by daring to look down. "I need you to stop changing the programming of ship functions," he said. "Putting a virus in your FELINE and the computer speaking profanity is unacceptable."

"Virus?" Finch scoffed and placed an offended hand against his sweaty naked chest. Such a gesture put his draped leaf in a precarious position. "Such an awful word. I would never infect a computer so marvelously designed as the one in this ship." He gave Aarix a sideways stare that was usually reserved for flirtation. "Yes, yes, the computer's voice sounds the same, but it's really just a cover, a middle-man interface for the real mamma jamma. The Quantum Artificial Intelligences who run this place are way too smart for me to brute-force." He waggled his eyebrows. "Unless this accusation of me doing something impossible is your ham-handed way of calling me your ubermensch, then I just might have to blush."

The leaf moved. Aarix knew there was a leaf because the movement caught his eye. For a very brief moment, the movement forced his attention from Finch's eyes to the source, a heart-shaped leaf that was delicately balancing in the man's lap. Dear god, he was completely naked. Aarix wasn't necessarily uncomfortable around naked men, but he only ever saw them in locker rooms. Not in weird holodeck fantasies. As quickly as he had mistakenly looked down, he looked back up at the man's face. "If you're going to give me bullshit, at least make it more interesting than 'the computer is too smart for me to brute force.' Computers don't program themselves to hide the true location of the intelligence chief. What if there was an emergency that needed your expertise?"

Finch raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Really? You seemed to locate me just fine. Are you secretly a shitty engineer? Maybe you'd make a better detective. You sure seem interested in my leaf here." He gave the leaf a flick. "Maybe you just wanna' see the other side. Either way, I need you to stop looking at my undercarriage unless you're planning on giving me a funky munch."

The motion of the leaf forced Aarix's attention downward again before he quickly looked away, trying to find literally anything with more modesty to look at. Which was hard to find in this god-forsaken simulation. "I'm not- no, I don't care about the leaf- I'm not trying to- just... stop messing with it," he stammered, settling on a nice plain section of wall to stare at. He was half tempted to raise his hand to intentionally block Finch's lower half. "I found you because I happen to know my way around my ship and how to bypass corrupt subroutines. I can only fathom you're doing this for attention, but I still want to know what gave you the idea to put corrupt subroutines into the ship and into your assigned FELINE."

"Oh, the cyberpussy?" Finch let out a chipmunk giggle. "You can't tell me I was the first one to think of that. I know those R&D types get fuckin' weird after dark."

One of the holographic attendants made her way over to Finch with a tray of grape clusters and began to feed him one finger-licking grape at a time.

"You look stressed out," Finch said. "Grab a cushion and take a load off." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "These fine ladies are quite adept at taking loads."

Aarix shut his eyes for a moment, partly to manage how goddamn annoyed he was getting, and partly to avoid looking at anything else. "I would be less stressed if you stopped breaking my things," he said through clenched teeth. His eyes opened again, and the engineer took a surprised step back when one of the female holograms ended up right in front of him, trying to ensnare him with her big, pleading eyes and her slightly pursed lips. "I have enough work as it is, I don't want 'cleaning up after the intelligence chief' added to that list."

"Do you always complain this much?" Finch let out a groan. "No wonder someone wrote about how much of a whiny bitch you are on the mess hall lavatory door." He giggled mischievously. "Okay, I admit it. The FELINE I hacked wouldn't shut the fuck up about your protocols, so I made it write a limerick about you where all the lower deckers could see it. The little pussy has a surprising command of poetic meter."

Aarix took in a slow breath through his nose as he silently counted to ten. When that didn't ease his annoyance, he counted to twenty. Then he imagined throwing a tricorder at the man's leaf-covered- no, stop thinking about that. Throw the imaginary tricorder at his head, the one on his shoulders. Aarix breathed a gentle, yet strained, sigh, sidestepping to avoid the hologram trying to woo him. "Look, I can see the humor in certain pranks, but breaking things while we have limited access to resources doesn't fit that category. It's also- fuck's sake. Computer, pause program."

The holographic woman trying to wrap her satin-covered arms around Aarix's own arm froze, allowing the man to escape the unwanted attention. "It's also unbecoming of a department head, especially chief of intelligence, to pointlessly break things or... write graffiti," the word was stressed through gritted teeth. "It's the shit an Ensign fresh out of the Academy would do. I'm asking you nicely to stop, or at the very least to stop damaging the ship."

"I haven't damaged the ship and I never went to the Academy, you absolute fucking mong. Too smart for that." Finch rolled his eyes in irritation and let out a loud groan. "If you're not going to join in the festivities, then how do I get rid of you? You're killing my boner."

In all honesty, there wasn't much else for Aarix to say that wasn't repeating what was already said. The man already wasted enough of his time. "I won't keep you from your... festivities. I asked you to stop, and I won't be nice about it next time. Computer, arch." As the engineer turned to leave the abysmal excuse of a holodeck program, he muttered some things under his breath that involved the use of "childish" and "immature." Given how much the man argued, he had no doubt this would happen again, he just had to prepare for it somehow. But first, he needed to find this damn graffiti.

 

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