Salir Julio

Salir Julio was still reading about quasars at 2200 when his roommate finally sauntered in from his own duty shift. Ensign Sazar Tamnak smirked to himself as the figure of the lanky, purple-pink haired Julio lay blissfully unawares to his own presence, head buried in a PADD. Grinning, he considered possible courses of action. The tall, bronze skinned, sandy brown human thought for several long moments, just out of perceptual range for the Catuallan before noticing that the clutter of uniforms he'd forgot to pickup from their commons room had disappeared. Well now, how was get to torment such a good roommate? "Hey there," he said, walking into their sleeping area. "Sorry about not picking my stuff up… thanks." Salir looked up with a small grin. "You're welcome Tam." "You ate anything yet?" "Not yet, I've been reading…" Salir looked over to the chrono on the wall and realized he'd completely wasted the evening reading about quasars. "I guess I lost track of time." With a good-natured smirk, Tamnak plopped himself down next to Salir since his bed was still covered with clothing. "You know," he said. "For someone who lived in Las Vegas… you really can be mundane sometimes." Half-pouting, Salir sighed. "You just haven't gone on leave with me yet." A wide grin formed on the humans face. "Oh," he said. "I've heard some stories… all of them good…" "I am sure you have," Salir said, pulling his knees into his chest and placing the PADD down at his side. "I guess you've already ate? I mean didn't your shift end a few hours ago?" "Nope," Tamnak said, his grin becoming impossibly wide. "I've been watching the jarheads clean up the NNC. I tell you what, you missed one hell of a show!" "Huh?" Tamnak's grin went flat and his faced formed what twentieth century humans referred to as a 'deer-in-headlights' look. "You didn't hear?" "Hear what?" "Oh god," Tamnak said grinning and beginning to laugh. "I guess you were off the bridge then, I just assumed… lord…" "What happened?" "Well you know how we have that boat load of marines we're transporting, right?" Salir nodded, remembering taking more than a few extra-glances as they boarded. "Yeah." "Well I guess at some point, one of the jarheads said something to one of the other ones and the whole damn thing broke down into an old fashioned bar-fight!" Salir lifted an eyebrow and started twirling a strand of hair. "Marines, fighting. Shocker." "Oh, I know… but that's not the best part!" "Oh?" "Well, apparently the Kitty was down there briefing some security officers assigned to us when it happened… I guess someone hit her over the head with a something…" Salir failed in his attempt to hold back a laugh. "I hope they have catnip." Tamnak was grinning wider than the Cheshire cat. "Heh, I know… but the best part of the whole thing…I guess Harper showed up at some point…" A cold chill ran up Salir's spine. Wherever this was going, it was going to be awesome and scary and he was mentally placing a wager that someone died. "Oh my…" "I guess someone threw a food tray at her with spaghetti on it, hit her right in the head… heard she looked just the Gorgon herself." Salir burst into laughter at the mental image. "I am assuming that turning them to stone was mild?" "You betcha," he said proudly. "Making the whole lot of them clean the mess up and fix all the stuff they broke… and scrub the entire ship down. Right now they're down in engineering cleaning around the warp core and waste reclamation; best crowd we've had at a social event since Lieutenant Harkomani did that interpretive dance number a few months back…" The Catullan smirked. "Well, let's go grab something to eat then and head down and watch some of it. We're both off tomorrow." "Sounds like a plan!"

Twirling a stand of pink-purple hair, Salir Julio considered the peril he'd just put himself in, and how little thought he'd put into it before opening his mouth and suggesting to the Harper that they go...borrow...the array. Glancing from the fluffy Caitian, to the batty bat, to the incorrigible Murray, he wondered to himself if any of them knew exactly what the innocent looking, pink-purple haired Ensign had just gotten them into. For that matter, he wondered if the Colonel knew what she was getting herself into. It wasn't that the Cardosian Array was on some godforsaken ice world, ball of dust, or murky swamp world infested with green creatures (or even blue ones); far from it really. Cardosia Minor was, as he remembered, a gorgeous world with tropic climates, clear, emerald oceans and dazzling beaches, tucked away in a relatively quiet system, with little more than a small outpost cohabiting. No, it wasn't the environ which Starfleet had chosen for the array, one of the more advanced arrays in a ten sector radius, it was the lead investigator who operated the array who was the problem. Dr. Gavin Insalubus. Federation Scientist of the Year 2367, '73 and '86. Man was somewhat of a legend among those who studied subspace folds. His early research had focused on the relationship between subspace and quasars, while his current research was retooling a study he'd done on warp pollution of subspace. Admittedly, Salir found the man's research amazing. But then there was his reputation of being a manically tyrannical research leader who rarely let anyone but his own teams even into his research facility. Not to mention that whole rumor about...well...better not to cognate that thought. The sound of bruxism that began to emanate from the operations console might have been troubling if any one were paying attention. It had occurred to the young Catullan that this was the first time he'd really had a chance to interact with anyone on the command level at any length, let alone suggest a course of action for the mission, and what had he done? Great gods. He'd suggested, rather earnestly, that they go asking Gavin Insalubus to loan them his array to look for a couple of raiders. Harper, at the very least, would make sure that Odile kept him off the bridge. Or at the worst...he shuddered as he noticed the gorgon like features of the Colonel's hair and shuddered. Career was sooooooo dead.

Agincourt rolled left then right. A stray shot clipped her bow and Salir felt the vibration rock through his console. At the moment, and not before for some reason, he realized that he had absolutely no clue how he'd ended up flying a warship commanded by a Marine who went by the moniker of mythological beast of horrifying dimensions and a giant feline who had a propensity to claw and hiss at things. Of course he knew how he'd come to pilot the giant garden spade, but hadn't he joined Starfleet to be a warp field theorist in engineering? Yeah, he was pretty sure he'd started out near the warp core and on a completely different starship. Bringing the ship around, he sighed to himself, trying to stay focused on the moment. Ever since the Gideon had responded to that distress call, his entire life had been derailed. First there was the whole ship exploding thing and barely being saved only to find out he was on Agincourt and lost in deep space in hostile territory. Then once he'd gotten over the initial shock of being ripped away from people he'd come to appreciate and enjoy and tossed into a completely new power structure, he'd been transferred out of engineering (where he'd been trained to work) and assigned to work in science to try and unravel the mysteries of the alien technology that had flung them half-way across the galaxy. Now working in science wouldn't have been so bad, but the people he had to work with were a giant bat, ectoplasm and a Xenexian with a chip on her shoulder the size of the Black Cluster. They were all more than capable, of course, but dear lord they had the strangest personalities. They had, of course, managed to find their way back through the rabbit hole. That was how all this shooting at each other stuff started. One moment they're sailing home, the next they're watching Earth get trashed. Speaking of that, he wondered exactly how his comrades had made the stunning leap of logic that the ships that were currently engaged with them had anything to do with the Blue Demons . Now, he wasn't, and didn't pretend to be, an expert on such matters, but the lack of any sort of Solton technology and the tale-tale traces they tended to leave behind would leave one to believe that other nefarious forces were at play. If that were the case, which he suspected out of gut-feeling were true, then the whole situation were about to grow a lot worse for people in the Alpha Quadrant. What was it the Colonel had said, "looks like we should just pack the Quadrant back into the handbasket." Swerving to avoid another shot from the flanking Breen cruiser, Salir frowned. He knew that war was a real possibility when he joined up. He was a child of the Dominion War and came to adulthood at the height of the Romulan Civil War, but he'd hoped that the war cycle, deciduous as it was, would be barren during his tenure. Apparently the leaves of conflict weren't ready to fall to the ground and bring a winter's peace just yet.

The punch was... strong. Salir took another drink. He instantly wished he hadn't. It burned. Assuming that it had been, as he imagined, the work of his department head, he wondered what she considered to be a "well-mixed" drink. Judging by the punch, which he thought to be a few percentage points shy of jet-fuel, he could only assume she lacked taste buds, or that Xenexians had a higher tolerance to alcohol than most humanoids. Regardless, he really – really hoped he didn't have an early morning shift coming up. The young marine officer next to him (Was he a Bajoran? Salir couldn't tell at this point.) was well on his way to a night of passing out just outside his quarters in the floor, as was the Bolian doctor to his other side. Both of them had started talking about things Salir didn't really care to hear about – women – and he'd retreated sadly to his Captain Morgan Jet-Fuel Punch. "I tells you," the marine said wrapping a meaty arm around Salir. "That was the best demerit you could ever get..." "I am sure," Salir said subtly removing the arm and placing it back on the Marine's own drink. "Well I am gonna...go...uhm... yeah..." "Hahaha," the Bajoran laughed. "Nice meeting you, Purple..." Salir rolled his eyes – men. "Don't trip over your ego..." "I am perfectly sober..." The purple-blue haired alien Ensign was soon out of site and mind of the Bajoran who went back to drink and womanizing with the Bolian. Speaking of Bolians, Salir nearly walked into the Secretary of State; only a deft move on his part saved the SoS from getting her punch all over. That would have been wonderful for his career... oh yes. "Eermm....sorry....ma'am" he muttered as he moved quickly out of the way before she was able to get his sight ingrained in her memory, or the Harper spotted him. As soon as he was out of the room he took a very long, deep breath and slumped against the wall. Great goddess, that was horrible. It could be worse, he supposed. He could have thrown up on the SoS.... or the Marine could have confused him for a woman. Actually that might not be all that bad. Wait... what? Clearly, liquor was evil. "Computer," he said, trying to distract himself. "What time is my next duty shift..." "Julio, Salir, Ensign... next scheduled duty shift is for 0600 hours..." "I hate you so much Odile... so much..."

The Agincourt cleared the outer rims of the Rigel system at impulse before jumping to warp towards Vulcan, her precious cargo safely secured below decks. For his part, Salir Julio sat happily on the bridge of said starship considering that maybe teal wasn't so bad a uniform color after all and trying his damnedest not to think about the moulder heap of ruin that was Earth. Sadly, that was easier said than done -- especially every time he looked at the data on his console and it referenced sensors logs from the Earth attack. Like just about every other scientist in the quadrant who had any ties to Starfleet, he was working on developing an early warning system to prevent, or at least minimize the damage of another attack, should the Soltans decided to pop in from Perseus Arm again for a bite of lunch, and ruined planet. It was proving problematic. Tay and Shadow had been working from the same data set he had been, and they had some promising ideas, but like everyone else working on the project, there always seemed to be something causing the whole idea to go 'poof.' Every time they thought they found where the ball of string was knotted, five more problems would crop up tangling the mess even worse. Odile had been helpful, though Salir thought she needed sleep. And a massage. And some pampering. Good luck convincing her of that, though. He felt sorry for his department head, she had a lot on her plate right now, well everyone did really. The humans on the ship were the ones he felt the most sorry for though. They'd not even had time to grieve before being whisked away on another mission, and yes, it wasn't exactly as if they were in the line of fire, but there hadn't been any downtime on the ship since, gods, since before they'd been thrown into the middle of this whole thing. Keeping diplomats happy wasn't exactly stressful, but being a moving target sure as hell wasn't a cakewalk on the psyche. A beep disseminated from the console and he turned his attention to it once more. The communications network was finally starting to recover from the effects of losing the major hubs on Earth, and he'd finally been able to start getting data uploads from sensor networks across the grid, including some long range data from the Bedivere array that linked the Gamma and Alpha Quadrant bases. Sullenly, he brought up the information and looked over it again. Just as he'd expected, nothing of note. Five hours of wasted time, wonderful. As a scientist and warp field theorist, he had to admit the Soltan technology was breathtakingly exciting. In theory, it worked on similar principals to Borg Transwarp Conduits and Scorpiad Point-to-Point Fold-space Drives. However, in application it functioned very differently. One of the biggest problems at least he kept running into was that they were still wrapping their brains around how exactly the drives worked and what sort of things to look for in detecting the opening of a subspace tear early enough to provide any useful warning. Closing his eyes and running his fingers through his hair, he took a deep breath. His shift was nearly over, but he was well into transferring the data set onto a PADD to work on this evening in the mess hall. No rest for the weary he supposed. Opening his eyes again he glanced at the time display on the console. With a few easy keystrokes he brought up a second dialog window and pressed another series of codes and hit enter, filing his duty report for his shift. Standing, he logged out and took the PADD laying next to him and headed for the lounge and at least a carafe of strong, black coffee.

Name: Salir Julio Age: 23 (Born 2375) Sex: Male POB: Vulcan Ht: 5'9" Wt: 158 lbs Hair Shoulder Length, Light Purple with Light Blue undertones. Race Catullan Rank: Ensign USS Agincourt Father: Doctor Sullis Julio, Scientist, Avalon Base Mother: Talia Harrek, freighter captain, SS Long River Siblings: Gaeina Julio-Harrek, Federation Justice Department official, Antares (Female) -26 Ensign Ael Julio, USS John Marshall (Male) -23 {Twin} Lakin Julio, Exotic Dancer, Las Vegas (Male) - 19 Kaelson Julio, Massage Therapist/Escort, Las Vegas (Male) – 19 Sullis Julio II, student, Avalon Base – 15 (Half-brother) Daren Micheals-Harrek, student, SS Long River – 14 (Half-Brother) Past History: Salir was born in 2375 during the Dominion War while his father was lecturing at the Vulcan Institute of Science and his mother took time off from commanding a freighter due to the increased dangers caused by the war. Following the cessation of hostilities his mother returned to commanding her freighter, the Long River, and his father took a fellowship with the Norman Institute in the Antares system. The distance strained the marriage, and despite the birth of a second set of twins, the couple agreed to end their marriage. Full custody of the children was awarded to Sullis. Salir has an identical twin brother, Ael. The two of them grew up as close friends and shared many interests, including space travel. Later the two showed an aptitude for 'engineering' as they were often found taking toys apart and reconstructing them...if not always with all the same pieces they began with. Salir's father Sullis is a noted subspace field theorist and spent the better part of his early career working with Starfleet Engineering. When his sons expressed an interest in entering the field, Sullis happily enrolled them in a preparatory program on Earth. Ael and Salir spent their 'high school' careers on Earth at the Linsly School in North America preparing themselves for their Academic careers. Upon completion of their prep schooling, they decided to enroll at Starfleet Academy, against the wishes of their father, whom they became estranged from following their admission. At the Academy the brothers remained close, as well as becoming closer to their younger twin brothers Lakin and Kaelson who came to live with them during their time on Earth. Graduating mid-pack on the engineering track, the brothers had hoped to be assigned to the same ships, however Ael was assigned to the Akira-class, John Marshall and Salir to the Intrepid-class Gideon. Following the destruction of the Gideon, Salir woke aboard the Agincourt, which had found itself in the Perseus Arm. There he aided the Agincourt crew in their science and engineering departments as they made their way back to Earth. In the wake of the attacks on Earth (in which neither of his brothers were injured) Salir was posted to a full-time appointment to the Agincourt in the Science department.

Engineering was humming quietly and peacefully. Despite the drama going on around the rest of the ship, the solitary seclusion and tranquility of Engineering remained intact. The only sign anything was out of the ordinary was the flashing of lights to inform the crew they were still on alert. Salir ran his hands over the master status console, updating the systems reports. He had been filled with a mixture of anxiety, giddiness and anticipation when he’d reported for duty this morning, and it was so far living up to be one the best days of his professional career. Not only had seemed to hit it off well with the Chief, but she’d given him command of Engineering…on his first day on alpha shift! It was, since the Gideon incident, one of the few positive moments he’d had. Everything since that day had been a whirlwind of action. In the briefest of moments, he’d had his entire life swept aside and found himself deposited on a new ship thousands of light years away from home. Now they were caught in the crosswinds of a war they couldn’t even begin to understand. You had the Selshans, the Soltons and the Umbra all staking out a position for themselves and Agincourt caught somewhere in the middle of the triangle of death. Just thinking about that situation made Silar’s head hurt. That’s why he was happy he was only a lowly ensign tucked away in engineering—the only thing he had to worry about was doing his job and making sure the ship held together through the ordeal. Speaking of which, he needed to get back to work and stop day dreaming. He could ill afford the ship blowing up on his first watch.