04-20-2026, 04:41 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-20-2026, 04:56 PM by Peter Jensen.)
Peter headed to the Bridge to be in his place once the fecal matter impacted the ceiling-based cooling contraption.
When he sat down in his chair, his mind was racing. Trying to quell the impulse inside him who "just wanted to get it overwith".
Once shooting began, it would not over quickly. He knew this. Objectively speaking, he knew that if a war could be avoided without simply giving the Cardassians time to prepare for something worse down the line, it should. People on both sides would die by the thousands or tens of thousands.
On the other hand, that same thought that had haunted him again and again kept coming back to him.
A line must be drawn in the sand. This far, and no further.
Speaking of lines...he couldn't believe what he was seeing unfolding in front of him. T'Varen had helped Chertstone narrow down his search. Very efficient. Peter approved.
What he did not, however, approve of, was the latter's decision to use this exact moment to try to ask the Ensign on a date.
It seemed almost as inappropriate as when one of his class mates during a class trip to a former death camp on Earth dating back all the way to Earth's World War 2, had urged him to ask his crush out then and there.
He had been young, yes. But even then he had had a sense of propriety that had told him that this idea was completely and atrociously wrong.
And this same sense of propriety kicked in now.
"If you could kindly wait until your shift is over before trying to flirt with an officer, Mr. Chertstone, I would be much obliged", he said with ice as cold as the glaciers of Greenland in his voice. The sheer unprofessionalism of this got on his last nerve.
He was still tense as results began to come in...and one, in particular, froze the blood solid in his veins.
Whether or not this had happened on the right or wrong side of the border was...well, yes, of course important. One was decidedly worse than the other. But when all things were said and done, the blood of Federation citizens had been spilled. And not even brass could possibly let that go...could they?
"Mr. Chertstone", he began, his voice as close to neutral as he could make it. Right now it wasn't the impropriety of the moment before that was on his voice, but the implications of what was about to be found out.
"Can it be determined whether or not the attack on the Damsel took place on our side of the border or theirs?".
The answer to that question seemed to him to be the difference between whether this could still be talked down or not.
When he sat down in his chair, his mind was racing. Trying to quell the impulse inside him who "just wanted to get it overwith".
Once shooting began, it would not over quickly. He knew this. Objectively speaking, he knew that if a war could be avoided without simply giving the Cardassians time to prepare for something worse down the line, it should. People on both sides would die by the thousands or tens of thousands.
On the other hand, that same thought that had haunted him again and again kept coming back to him.
A line must be drawn in the sand. This far, and no further.
Speaking of lines...he couldn't believe what he was seeing unfolding in front of him. T'Varen had helped Chertstone narrow down his search. Very efficient. Peter approved.
What he did not, however, approve of, was the latter's decision to use this exact moment to try to ask the Ensign on a date.
It seemed almost as inappropriate as when one of his class mates during a class trip to a former death camp on Earth dating back all the way to Earth's World War 2, had urged him to ask his crush out then and there.
He had been young, yes. But even then he had had a sense of propriety that had told him that this idea was completely and atrociously wrong.
And this same sense of propriety kicked in now.
"If you could kindly wait until your shift is over before trying to flirt with an officer, Mr. Chertstone, I would be much obliged", he said with ice as cold as the glaciers of Greenland in his voice. The sheer unprofessionalism of this got on his last nerve.
He was still tense as results began to come in...and one, in particular, froze the blood solid in his veins.
Whether or not this had happened on the right or wrong side of the border was...well, yes, of course important. One was decidedly worse than the other. But when all things were said and done, the blood of Federation citizens had been spilled. And not even brass could possibly let that go...could they?
"Mr. Chertstone", he began, his voice as close to neutral as he could make it. Right now it wasn't the impropriety of the moment before that was on his voice, but the implications of what was about to be found out.
"Can it be determined whether or not the attack on the Damsel took place on our side of the border or theirs?".
The answer to that question seemed to him to be the difference between whether this could still be talked down or not.