Posted by Captain Calvin Marius (Captain) in How to Make a Counselor Mad as Hell

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) in How to Make a Counselor Mad as Hell

Posted by Captain Calvin Marius (Captain) in How to Make a Counselor Mad as Hell
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Vanessa looking irritated was not a common site but also not an uncommon one, especially when on her personal communicator. Usually, the person on the other end of the line causing her to wrinkle up her nose paired with a huff or eye roll was named Slade. The occasional nod of her head and smile to those watching her as they passed her in the halls was the only thing that melted her expression into the more familiar optimistic expression she tended to show. Vanessa was on her way to the mess hall for her lunch date but stopped just before entering to speak to the other person on the line. Turning to face the wall of the corridor, however, the tone of her voice was anything but perky. “Listen to me you,” she erupted into a flurry of expletives that seemed to center largely on their intelligence or apparent lack of it. It was clear whoever was on the other end was not someone Vanessa was pleased to be talking to. “I will make it my personal mission to hunt you down and destroy you. Not just destroy but completely annihilate every scrape of self-worth you possess.” The fire and anger in her voice were mirrored by the redness in her cheeks and death glare shooting out of her eyes.

“Oh oh oh you don’t think I can handle you. I swear to God,” she belted out raising her voice from an icy whisper to a much more audible threat. “There is no place you can hide from me.”

Vanessa Slade CNS

“Is there a problem Lieutenant,” Calvin stated in a controlled tone reaching the door to the mess hall and seeing what possibly was the exact image of what his adoptive mother termed a conniption fit.

Instead of replying, she held up a finger as if Calvin was a small child interrupting a comm call. “I am warning you. Stop calling or I will show up on your doorstep. Remember you can’t hide,” she growled before snapping off the call and directing her attention at Calvin forcing a smile. “Nope. No problem at all,” she said trying to make it seem as if everything was normal.

Calvin was briefly taken aback. No one gave the Captain the finger, but it only took a moment to figure out that she was on some sort of call, either on the ship or more likely to her family at home.

“There are few places to hide on a star-ship…” Well actually there were many, but few that the ship internal sensors couldn’t penetrate.

Calvin Marius

“Yes and even fewer places on a starship to eat so,” she gestured at the door, “shall we.” Vanessa did not wait for Calvin to reply. Trying to explain to him what was going on would be a disaster. She just needed to get through the lunch and then she could deal with it. Stepping through the pneumatic doors, she immediately moved to the replicator, replicated a bacon cheeseburger, and took a seat waiting for Calvin to sit down.

“I guess,” there was no evidence to suggest that he was hungry and he was a little surprised the counselor would imply she could schedule parts of his day. He tilted his head. He would see what was going on then decided what he was going to do about her business.

“Are you coming,” she asked seeing Calvin standing there looking slightly baffled.

“Life might get easier when we get further from Earth. If they can’t talk in real time and have to send video packages to communicate the arguments decrease significantly.

“Oh that is not going to make life easier,” she rolled her eyes clearly still frustrated. “I mean how am I going to sell communication failures between Earth and Vulcan with any plausibility and telling my family I am on a starship is not something I am prepared to do. I live in a comfy but sparce apartment on Vulcan remember?” Vanessa led the way to the table and sat down.

As soon as Calvin’s butt hit the seat across from her, Vanessa started and so did her personal communicator. “So Ensign,” she began only to have her phone start to chirp as an endless stream of messages beeped like a metronome to her words. “Ensign Palole,” she talked over the chirp, “is fine and I think ready for duty.” The chirp was so annoying, Vanessa casually moved the comm from the table to her uniform pocket. This only dulled the sound and did not stop it.

“Oh, its actual ship work. I thought it was your family.” Calvin glanced at her over the screen.

“Why would you think it was about my family,” she looked at him with an expression only the naive and distracted could muster. While Vanessa’s hair was as dark as coal, there were times people might wonder if it was just a wig disguising a blonde underneath. “Of course it is ship work. I was gone for a week at that training,” she reminded him. “I know you all were doing refueling and recalibration but I was stuck in a human relations conference for seven days and nights. Mind numbingly boring,” she let out a half laugh knowing she had had to convince Calvin to send her to the conference and then complained about it once she got there.

The rules about naming names was different on a ship. He was a captain and had to know if he could rely on his crew, but he didn’t need to know the ins and outs of each session. Although there was no proof that a session was going on so it was all a presumption.

“Lt. Sertoa,” she raised her voice as if trying to talk over the myriad of incoming messages before she scowled at Calvin clearly irritated. “One second,” she raised her finger and pulled out her personal communicator. “I am just gonna turn that thing offffffff,” her words trailed as her mouth dropped open as she scanned the messages on her personal communicator. Her face showed pure shock and irritation. “Ughhh look at this. Look at this,” she suddenly lost control and spun the communicator towards him however instead of holding it still she waved it about clearly furious at what she saw.

“I can’t read it with you shaking in fury.” He muttered as he grabbed at her wrist. “Would you stop it.”

As mad as Vanessa was about the contents of the comm call, she did find a modicum of humor seeing Calvin minorly flustered. It was of course with her but the man on duty was a man of few words and normally they were more clipped commands than casual banter like he was now.

When Calvin stabilized the comm in her hand, he would see a series of images depicting a loser, chicken, idiot, and moron. The images however were almost adolescent in nature with a few of them waggling a bum, fireworks around the words, and young sexy adults putting an L to their forehead. If they were in middle school, it would be crystal clear someone was bullying Vanessa but they were not in middle school but Starfleet officers.

Vanessa Slade

“I’m afraid I don’t understand emoto cons. Or whatever that jibberish is.” Calvin said honestly.

Marius

“Okay so this,” Vanessa pointed to one, “is the equivalent of being called a loser. This,” she scrolled to the next image of someone raising a single digit, “is self-explanatory and the last one is a snarky comment about my ability to command my elite team of tactical warriors.”

“I took tactics 101,” she let out a laugh before waving off the comment knowing how absurd it sounded sitting across from a battle-hardened combat marine.

“Anyway, I am the Captian of a competitive paintball team. We meet via the IFEA F-Box to link into the same game and play together. Our team is Balls of Duty and we are playing our rival Blood Splatter this weekend. The text is the other team heckling us. We are down a player and without Bruiser there is a chance we are going to get crushed. Ever played,” she asked Calvin as she began to type out a message replying to the slew of images that had caused her personal communicator to act like a red alert klaxon instead of just a communicator.

Vanessa Slade CNS