Hook, Line, and Sinker ((NPC Log))

[C.T. Caine 0]

Chief Petty Officer Tyla Mattingly eyed the whiskey being poured into the glass of the man next to her, with the casual, appraising eye of someone watching something they've seen done better. Something'll have to be done about this one. He won't last.

 

The new bartender in the crew lounge was a half-blind old humanoid of indeterminate mixed race; clearly he was lucky to even have the sort of position he held, but it didn't leave him free from the virulent curse that erupted from his customer as he splashed a little whiskey over the man's uniform jacket.

 

"Stupid jacktah, can't even aim a drink into a glass proper. Bet it's a right sight when you use the john, ain't it?"

 

Mattingly chuckled. "Easy, Spencer," she murmured, leaning herself on the bar and eyeing the young security ensign sideways. "Not like you don't smell enough like drink anyhow."

 

"Hey, shut up, half-breed," Spencer growled, rounding on Mattingly and glaring at her. "No one asked your opinion."

 

"If I had to wait to be asked my opinion, I wouldn't say much," Mattingly said easily. "And no need to take it out on the barkeep that your girl's looser than a small rock in a landslide." Her lip curled a little as she saw Spencer's color rise, and she knew she had guessed right. "Hell, if you wait your turn, maybe she'll come back around to you again."

 

Spencer snarled and raised his fist as if to strike her, but a set of string fingers closed around his arm from behind before he could deliver the blow.

 

"I wouldn't do that, you know, Jacob," Farragut muttered in his ear. "I've told you before...if you're going to brawl, do it where the blood won't spoil appetites."

 

Spencer wrenched his hand free from Farragut's grasp and gave the older man a murderous look, but he knew better than than to make a stand when the odds were two on one and he was drunk. Backpedaling slightly, he muttered an electrifyingly racist oath under his breath and disappeared out the door of the lounge.

 

Farragut took his seat as if nothing had happened, picking up the undrunk glass of whiskey and sniffing it. Apparently satisfied, he took a sip and hissed a breath out through his teeth before looking over at Mattingly. "Made yourself a new friend, there...Chief."

 

"What can I say? I'm a people person," Mattingly said with a blithe shrug, picking up her own drink and tossing back a large gulp. "Something you wanted, Ensign?"

 

"Just preserving public order, of course," Farragut said, flashing a sly grin at her. "And I must admit I'm curious about you." His eyes hardened a bit. "Saw you talking with the Cait a few days back. And now here you are with a brand new pip on your collar. What's it about, then...cutting deals?" The words slid from his mouth with such practiced casualness that it was hard to ignore the seriousness of the underlying accusation.

 

Mattingly didn't need much of her intelligence to fend off the jab; as a matter of fact, she'd prepared for it. Been hoping for it, really. It was an opening, as she had more plans yet in the works. She knew Farragut, and she knew any dealings with him had to be made to seem like his idea, or they would go nowhere. "That's what it's all about, of course, Ensign. I...did someone a favor. But not the Cait." She paused, and then added deliberately, with another swig of ale, "She's not my type."

 

That got his attention, as she'd known it would. Farragut, for all his confidence, was more or less a busybody -- and more to the point, he hated hearing that some other man had gotten something he hadn't yet. Even a xeno like her. The fact that she was lying would not even occur to him now.

 

"Who, then?"

 

She shrugged noncommittally, and she could hear the wheels turning in his head, his suspicion diverted to a lascivious curiosity. Who else might Tyla have...made contact with, who might have had the authority to give her that promotion? Had one of the other security men managed to bypass his seniority? Had she moved outside the department, or gone over to one of the men still loyal to JoNs? Or had she somehow climbed even further up the food chain, and did Harper or even Caine somehow have tastes he would not have suspected?

 

Clearly she had made some kind of liaison which went over his head, and that was a potentially dangerous situation for him. She was an unknown quantity and Farragut was smart enough not to like those. He had seen the chaos which even the bottom-rung alien crewmen could wreak if allowed to take any particular control.

 

Clearly this was something that would bear further investigating. There were numerous ways, of course, to investigate a fellow officer's contact network. There was the snooping around undercover. There was the outright accusations, the threats behind closed doors and in Jeffries tubes and dark alcoves. And then there was the method Farragut liked, and even with a woman like her, it could be worthwhile, at least until something better came along.

 

"What're you drinking?" he asked casually. "Buy you another?"

 

Tyla smiled slyly. Caught -- hook, line, and sinker. She now had her ticket to ride with JoNs for at least a few months; men could be as careful as they wanted in the light of day, but when faced with a warm body at night that they could view as their own, as under their control, their tongues tended to loosen.

 

"Oh, I don't know," she said, with a carefully practiced uncaring air, flicking her eyes sideways at him. "Maybe I've had enough for now."

 

His face widened in a smooth grin and he gestured at the bartender. "No...I think you can have plenty more tonight."