How it went…
Chapter 3: “How it went…”
08:15am the next morning.
“Oh you have absolutely GOT to be kidding me…”.
Raffi breathed out in exasperation and her arms fell to her sides as she looked down in near disbelief at the deck of La Sirena.
The first clue as to something being not quite right was waking at 03:00 when she woke to find herself alone in bed.
Not a huge big deal Raffi had thought at the time, after all she knew it was going to be a late one for Seven and Rios although maybe not this late and with a sigh of disappointment she had rolled over and fallen back into a deep sleep.
She slept through the loud crash, the couple of thuds and the smash of glass that had occurred at 04:57, 04:58 and 05:01.
Hours later the sound of her alarm had woken her at 08:00 and this time the lack of any sign of Seven having returned had given her sudden cause for alarm as both the Ranger and Rios had left the ship thirteen hours earlier.
When no response had come after having tried to comm Seven she had felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
When no reply came from Rios either the feeling of dread only grew.
What if, she wondered, something had happened?
Could Rios have found himself in the money and suddenly in hot water?
She recalled that Seven had gone to the planet armed and knew from old that Rios was always quick with his fists when trouble broke out. Could something have happened to them? Had they got into a situation, been hurt or even arrested?
Raffi was now seriously worried.
Having leapt hurriedly out of bed and thrown on some jeans and a black tank Raffi had rushed from her quarters to investigate further, to try and scan for their comm badges and if necessary call the authorities on the planet below to report them missing.
And that’s when she had found the scene she now stood observing.
She looked up to find Agnes who was almost certainly following up exactly the same sinking feeling hurriedly approaching.
The second clue for both Raffi and Agnes was the trail of debris that led from the transporter pad.
Two plastic pint glasses lay on the deck, crushed from having been stepped on, along with the remnants of a now smashed bottle of Romulan ale, a cigar, paper streamers and patches of glitter - so much glitter!
The trail of glitter and streamers led to a dropped currency pouch which had split and spilled a trail of Latium slips, gold coins and gemstones that somebody had clearly attempted to pick up off the deck before giving up and dropping yet more currency as they stumbled further along.
The third and most conclusive of clues was the two unconscious forms the trail led to which both Raffi and Agnes now stood looking down upon open mouthed.
Without a single word Raffi and Agnes looked to each other, shook their heads, and looked back down again.
Seven lay slumped against a bulkhead, her head resting against a protruding part of the ships structural features.
Glitter of many colours and the remnants of paper streamers had become mixed into her hair which currently lacked its customary neatness with blonde locks having fallen forwards to obscure half of her sleeping face.
Finally Raffi noted the flowery garland draped around Seven’s neck and yet more glitter sparkling from the Rangers clothing as her chest rose and fell with each unconscious breath.
Raffi then turned her attention to Rios.
He too lay slumped by the bulkhead, atleast partially. Resting against Seven it was clear that he had slid all the way down the bulkhead and now lay with his head resting partly against Seven’s hip and partly against her gun containing holster.
Like Seven the sparkle of glitter sprinkles shone from his hair with some having mingled into his beard and lots more having blended itself into the material of his suit. Both his flowery garland and undone tie lay draped over his chest where he lay half against Seven and half laying on the deck on his back.
“So…just to recap so that I’m clear...”, Jurati pointed downwards to the silently sleeping pair, “this is Seven being the responsible adult, right?”.
Raffi opened her mouth to speak and then stopped.
It wasn’t often that Raffi Musiker was rendered speechless but in truth she didn’t even know where to begin or what the hell to say about this particular development.
“What the Hell happened down there?”, Raffi’s voice was a somewhat louder than she intended, “she was supposed to keep him safe”.
Agnes paused in thought as she looked at the situation and then to the surrounding debris field of glitter, coins and gemstones that led back to the the transporter.
“Kinda seems that she did… I mean she brought him back safe and it certainly seems he’s in the money, maybe you just need to add a no drinking clause next time”.
The cyberneticist shrugged.
Raffi took a step forward, bent down closely before Seven and shook the Ranger gently by her shoulder.
When no response came she made another attempt at rousing the xB by patting her firmly on the cheek several times.
After several attempts a small movement finally came from the Ranger. Her head moved slightly in response to Raffi’s voice, an indistinct and barely audible vocal sound was heard and for a moment her only visible eye seemed as if it were attempting to open.
“Hey? Seven? Seven Honey?“, Raffi spoke firmly but encouragingly, “Seven? ...Can you even count to seven right now Babe?”.
“I don’t think she can count to one right now”, Jurati observed.
A moment later all movement ceased as Seven drifted back into her deep sleep and became still once more.
“Goddamnit”, Raffi gave up. This had not been her plan and ‘Drunk Seven’ had certainly not been on her bingo card for today.
She sighed. It was obvious that she was getting nowhere with Seven so she moved over slightly to focus her attention instead on Rios.
“Rios? Rios!”, she tried shaking him too before stopping abruptly upon noting the proximity of his head to Seven’s holstered gun.
Raffi carefully leant over the sleeping pair and delicately removed the weapon from its holster. She was amazed that Rios had somehow managed to not shoot either himself or Seven by falling asleep with his head half resting on the lethal weapon.
“Damn idiot”, she commented.
“Confiscated, good idea, very good idea”, Agnes approved as she too bent down beside Rios.
Raffi stuffed the Ranger’s confiscated gun into the waistband of her jeans and stood back up to consider what to do about this unforeseen problem.
Meanwhile Agnes gave Rios one more nudge.
“Cris I hate to break it to you but you can’t sleep on Seven all day”, Agnes called to him with raised voice and this time nudged him repeatedly, “she’s not a pillow and I’m pretty sure Raffi wants her Ranger back”
When only a slurred sound came in response Agnes joined Raffi in getting back to her feet and giving up.
“Absolutely wasted”, the cyberneticist concluded.
Raffi rubbed her tired eyes. She really didn’t need this just ten minutes after waking up and she hadn’t even had breakfast yet or even so much as a coffee.
“Okay…”, Raffi exhaled and took stock of the situation, “well they can’t stay here all day so we’re just gonna have to shift their drunk asses”.
Raffi stepped back, gave her forehead a rub and decided on a course of action.
“Computer activate EMH and ETH”.
A mere second passed and both Emil and Emmet flickered into existence.
“Backup’s good!”, Agnes felt somewhat relieved to see that help had arrived.
“What seems to be the nature of the… Oh…that’s rather unexpected”, Emil stopped as he saw the glitter filled scene before him, “have we collided with a disco?”.
“They’ve collided with something but I think it was more of a liquid substance”, Raffi nodded.
She watched as Emil leaned forward and observed his two potential patients.
“Well the smell of alcohol is clear that’s for sure, but what’s with the glitter and paper streamers. And a garland? I’m really not so sure that’s Captain Rios colour”, Emil scratched his head with some confusion.
A laugh prevented anyone commenting any further as Emmet stood, arms folded over his tactical vest and looking at the scene before him.
“Jefe, hermana, la noche ha sido buena eh?”, the holo laughed deeply, clearly impressed by the sight before him.
“I can make a hypospray for use when they wake and…”.
Raffi stepped forward, she needed to take control of this now and get things moving.
“That’s great Doc”, she began, “but what we need right now is help lifting and shifting some baggage”.
“Baggage?”, Emil looked around expectedly. He saw no baggage.
Agnes stepped forward and once more pointed to the sleeping heap of Rios and Seven.
“She means we need to put these two to bed”.
“No hay problema”, Emmet stepped forward.
He flexed his arm muscles as if warming up (which was probably just for show) and then bent to stand over his real life likeness.
Reaching out he took hold of Rios under his arms and dragged him sideways away from the both Seven and the bulkhead before hauling the limp body of the captain into a sitting position.
He then moved behind him and took hold of Rios under both his arms and looked up to Agnes.
“Piernas!”, he nodded to her and then towards Rios legs.
“Oh umm… yeah”, she suddenly understood.
The cyberneticist scurried forward and reached down take one of Rios’ legs under each arm.
Clumsily the pair managed to lift the unconscious freighter Captain up from the deck.
“Well I guess this is goodnight…morning…or whatever, forget it”, Agnes struggled to keep a hold of the limp limbs and then and nodded towards Seven and then back to Raffi, “good luck with yours Raffi”.
With Emmet taking up most of the weight they began to step awkwardly away into the direction of Rios quarters.
“One down, one to go”, Raffi turned her attention now back to Seven.
She again lowered herself down next to the Ranger and made one last attempt to shake her awake by the shoulder. Once again there was no success and carrying Seven back to their shared quarters was clearly now the only remaining option.
“Alright then sweetie…”.
With care she pushed her hand under Seven’s right arm and wound it around her back. Emil now also placing himself the other side of Seven did the same from his side.
Raffi pulled Seven’s arm up over her own shoulder and made sure she had a firm hold of her as Emil mirrored the same until they were both ready to lift.
“Alright sweetie we’re just gonna get up nice and slow now”, Raffi explained, “nice and slow…”.
With Seven as a dead weight it took a few moments of awkward stumbling for both Raffi and Emil to pull the paralytic Ranger to her feet.
Slowly they began to take a few steps, Seven’s boots mostly dragging along the deck as she made barely any attempt to walk by herself.
“Doing great Honey”, Raffi reassured, “just a few more steps then you can sleep it off”.
Slowly they fell into a slow but steady rhythm of steps as they carried Seven between them.
It took a few short minutes to make the journey and just a few steps short of their quarters Seven made a slight sound, something vocal but unclear.
“Almost there Seven…”, Raffi continued.
“Rffff…”, was the closest approximation Seven’s barely audible voice could get to Raffi’s name.
They stopped at the door to their quarters and after awkwardly reaching to press the access button the door opened.
“You hangin’ in there Honey?”, Raffi checked. She tried to look closer at Seven as she supported half her weight, wanting to read her face but unable to as her head and long blonde hair drooped downwards.
“Rffff”, the Ranger slurred once more and her body jerked with a hiccup.
There followed another hiccup.
“Think…. I’m…. gonna…. be….si”.
‘Oh please Seven no-no-no!’ thought Raffi!
A moment later Raffi’s day got a whole lot worse.