"Off the Boat"

[OdileCondacin 0]

It was good to be looking at the ship, instead of being on the ship. Being away from the bloody, scorched mess of her secondary lab was especially good. It gave O'd'yl less visual reason to fume, for one thing. For a second... well, it was good just to have breathing room.

 

This was, for certain, not exactly the kind of therapeutic R&R that gave her time for zen meditation and yoga. Most of the time, just as now, the Xenexian was pacing, glaring at Agincourt through the viewport and past her at the abyss beyond. Pacing kept her busy. Pacing kept her from ranting at the Gorgon. Pacing kept her from launching a grand, vendetta-drive raid on Station Security to commit vengeance against the grozing bastard who blew up her Lab. Pacing therefore kept O'd'yl out of the Brig, out of trouble, and still sane.

 

Would that have done anything to soothe her bruised sense of justice? Hell. No. Really, at this point, she wasn't sure that even ripping out... what was his name? Murderer-with-a-face-like-an-ape? The Butcher? Oh, right -- Chase. Even if she ripped out Chase's heart and roasted it in the secondary lab along with other sacrifices, it wouldn't make her feel any better, which was distressing. And why not? Hell if she knew. Even the prospect of beating the little dissident to a pulp didn't bring her any joy. It made no sense -- then again, none of this did.

 

It wasn't as if she'd never lost men before. It was something she came to accept years before, and while she was -- what had someone once accused her of being? A mother hen? -- she still knew that one couldn't launch grand "clan warfare" just because someone went down. She wasn't a fool. So again, why was this bothering her so much?

 

If anything, she was tempted to believe it was almost a "straw breaking the Xenexian-camel's back" sort of thing. Earth going boom, Agincourt generally going the route of Hell in a handbasket, general malaise in the Federation... adding internal terrorists did nothing for her already sparkling, peppy personality.

 

Luckily, even if a blood and gore sacrifice of assorted Midshipman "I Deserve to be Quartered" Chase body parts wouldn't make her feel better (and was slightly impossible), O'd'yl still knew something that would.

 

She was going to need whiskey for this. Strong. Barrels. Of. Whiskey. Many strong barrels of whiskey. Whiskey galore. More whiskey in her veins than blood. Then, then maybe O'd'yl would find peace.

 

And so, the Xenexian tore herself away from the viewport, and made her way to the station's bar.