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Just the once, though. And I haven't finished it, since I'm not sure that it could find a home anywhere but in a place like a STRANGE NEW WORLDS collection...and those seem to be a thing of the past.
Here's the beginning. Does it make you want to read more?
(All of my formatting seems to have disappeared, for some reason. That pisses me off.)
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Far, Far (But Only One Word) Away
by
Frank L. Sisko [ahem]
Julian Bashir looked up from his root beer as the crowd at
the dabo table cheered Morn’s fifth straight victory of the night. The
young doctor smiled and raised his glass in the general direction of the celebratory noise.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” came a familiar voice from behind the bar. “Morn is winning at dabo. I think that’s one of the signs of the galactic apocalypse.”
Bashir turned to face Quark, who was pouring out an unfinished synthale and shaking his head in disgust. “Oh, come now, Quark,” the doctor said gamely. “The happy consumer stays late, drinks heavily, and spends recklessly.”
If Quark had possessed eyebrows, they would have risen significantly. Instead, his eyes widened in mock awe. “Well, Doctor,” he said, “quoting Rule of Acquisition #239 off the cuff like that would be an impressive accomplishment for a human” -- he pronounced the word HEW-mahn -- “if said human weren’t blessed with a genetically-enhanced intellect.”
Bashir snickered. “I suppose that’s a fair point,” he said.
The Ferengi bartender examined the station’s chief medical officer more closely. “You’re rather jovial tonight, Doctor,” he said. “With Chief O’Brien off with his mate and litter on Bajor all week, I figured you’d be holed up in the infirmary, conducting some dreary medical research project or other well into the wee hours.”
“Oh, no,” Bashir said. “Not tonight.” He drained the last of his root beer. “You see, right about” -- he glanced at the chronometer behind Quark -- “now, the Enterprise crew is being dismissed for twenty-four hours of leave.”
Quark shrugged. “Common knowledge. They’ve been sitting at Docking Pylon 2 all afternoon conducting repairs.” He took Bashir’s empty mug and dropped it into the wash basin behind the bar. “Personally, I’m hoping that the flagship is just popping in to reclaim that walking frown you people call a Chief Tactical Officer.”
“Actually,” Bashir said, “Commander Worf has been assisting his former crewmates since they arrived.”
“Yes, I know. His absence is the only thing that’s kept me in as good a mood as I’ve been in today.”
Bashir rolled his eyes before continuing. “Well, I’m sorry to inform you that Mister Worf will be walking through your door within the next three minutes, and he’ll have with him several Enterprise crewmen.”
“Oh, grand,” Quark said, out of one corner of his mouth. “And you know this how, Doctor?”
Bashir stood up, beamed, and straightened his uniform. “We’ve been planning this for weeks. Worf would never be late for a holosuite appointment.” Without another word, the lithe physician turned on his heel and headed out onto the Promenade.
Quark scoffed in the doctor’s wake, but curiosity got the best of him within seconds. He pulled his master padd from his belt and ran the reservation schedule for the evening. Sure enough, Holosuite 2 was reserved for a three-hour block under the name BASHIR, J., CMO, DS9. Quark tabbed over to the “program” column to see what kind of adventure the good doctor had reserved for his guests, but there was no designated holo-program listed as part of the reservation. That meant that either no program was to be utilized in the suite -- unlikely, given Bashir’s proclivity toward holographic derring-do -- or that a program was being brought in, probably by someone from the Enterprise. And Bashir’s excitement suggested that the program in question most likely involved jumping, running, fighting, swinging, and other pointless activities.
Why can’t these Starfleet people just fornicate with holographic Orion slave girls like everyone else? Quark thought.
* * * * * * * *
Lieutenant Commander Data stepped onto the Promenade and wondered if he would ever grow fully accustomed to the sensation he experienced in the pico-second it took for his emotion chip to engage completely. He likened it to the sudden barrage of information he received when one of his relational senses was brought back online after a thorough diagnostic, even though that analogy was less than precise. Restoring his sight, for example, bombarded his positronic array with billions of individual micro-fragments of data simultaneously…but that process was nowhere near as overwhelming as the indescribable cascade that washed over the android every time he activated what he considered to be his most valued component. Each time he enabled the emotion chip, the last gift his father had been able to give him, all information gathered since its last deactivation was immediately re-evaluated and, almost invariably, more thoroughly understood in a context that only made sense when filtered through his emotional sub-routines. Jokes at once became funny. Poignant moments were given their full weight. Frustration at stressors was more pointedly realized -- but all well after the fact. The contrast between what seemed more and more to be Data’s two separate states of existence was beginning, of late, to make him wonder why he ever bothered to disengage the chip at all.
The second officer’s reverie was interrupted by the voice of the friend walking beside him.
“I assume,” Will Riker said, “that you remembered to bring the holo-program?”
Data turned to face the Enterprise’s bearded executive officer without breaking stride. “Of course, Commander,” he said, enjoying the smirk he felt on his own face. “After all of the work that Doctor Bashir and I have been putting into its translation and restoration, it would hardly be satisfactory for me to leave the program aboard the ship.” To prove his point, Data pulled the custom isolinear chip from his sleeve and held it out in front of Riker.
“Very good,” said the taller man, clapping a hand onto the shoulder of the Klingon next to him. “So, Worf,” he said, a knowing smile on his handsome face, “Will a certain Trill scientist I’ve been hearing about be joining us in the holosuite tonight?”
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There's more, of course, but I'm still futzing around with it.
I guess I'm asking what you guys think about the characters' voices more than anything else. I'm not used to writing dialogue for people whom I did not create myself.
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