Remember Me?

Posted on Thu Jun 29th, 2017 @ 3:29pm by Captain Tim Williams

Episode: Conference on Berengaria
Location: Berengaria

"Recent studies have shown that..."

"The most effective managerial style has been..."

"Diplomatic protocol states that..."

The first two days of Tim's experience at the conferences on Berengaria had been filled with such dull phrases, and he'd tuned out most of them, listening just enough to get the general gist of whatever it was the speaker had been saying. He'd signed himself up to the few engineering-centric talks, but none of those were due to start until day 3 of the conference, and as a captain, Starfleet had a mandated list of talks that he had to attend. The rooms were quite often filled with older men and women in identical uniforms (Tim had tried to ignore the notion that 'older' also encompassed his own age now), and he could read a room as well as anyone; they were not the type of crowd that would enjoy a prank or two.

Thankfully, the resort that Starfleet had booked out for the conferences still had all of the usual tourist-centric things one would expect, including buffet meals and an open bar to encourage the conference-goers to mingle and "network". While Tim had always shunned the typical networking that was expected (it usually tended to involve drumming up an excuse to go and start a conversation with as many Admirals as one could see), he decided that it was a good opportunity to see if he could find any of his old acquantainces from a decades-long career in the room, and so after his latest boring talk session, grabbed a drink and started making his way around the room.

Most of the faces he didn't recognise, but the way they all clustered into groups helped him scan their faces for anyone he did. Day one he had struck out, and hadn't recognised anybody there aside from his own counselor who had dragged him here on the promise of dragons, but today was a different story. Counselor Taylor was still in one of her psychobabble talks, and Tim had just caught sight of an old friend from his days on the Athena.

"Hey, Gable!" he called out as he approached. "I didn't know you were stationed up in this neck of the woods. Hasn't Starfleet chained you to a desk yet."

Gable had been of the same rank as Tim when they served together, but when Tim took some time away from the service to help his father out, Gable had continued on his career path and been promoted to Captain in time to serve in the final battles of the Dominion War. The two had communicated infrequently since, seeing each other only at other captains events, which is the reason Tim attributed to Gable's response. "Ah, no, they've still got me out in space," he answered, clearly trying to avoid the fact that he had no memory of the man addressing him. "I've still got a few good years out there, I reckon."

"Tim. Tim Williams? We served on the Athena?" Tim prompted, recognising the hesitancy in Gable's answers.

"Ah, yes the Athena," Gable answered, sounding more confident. "We were in.. operations together?"

"I was in engineering, but you know, at least you remembered the division colour. Where have they got you assigned these days? Still captaining the Hong Kong?"

"Yes, we've been keeping an eye on the Ferengi out here, making sure that their new societal shift isn't part of some big scam," Gabled responded, confident on sure footing with more recent events it seemed. "It's not exactly thrilling work, but it keeps me nice and close to Sol and home. If you'll excuse me." Gable handed his empty glass to a server before making his way over to another officer who had beckoned him over from the other side of the room.

Shrugging the slightly odd encounter off, Tim returned to scanning the room for other people he knew here. He ended up having two more conversations with old acquaintances from the path, both of whom also struggled to remember details of how they had met him, or pranks they had pulled on superior officers. While he could shrug off not being remembered by one or two people, he thought he had been memorable enough to not be forgotten by everyone he talked to. Thankfully his fourth conversation partner - an old friend from the engineering room on the Pathmaker - remembered him just fine, and they shared a few laughs over the pranks that they had attempted to play on Tim's Vulcan friend Sath.

However, that last conversation wasn't enough to shake off the strange feeling from his earlier conversations, so Tim decided to eavesdrop on a few of the conversations around him, and he noticed a few other people having to remind others of how they were acquainted. Wondering if there was some kind of anmesiatic flu going around, he decided to head back to his room to query the computer, but as he left the main hall, caught sight of two shadows around the next corner. The tone of their conversation was enough for him to pause and listen in.

"I want you to go for the security chief of Starbase 614 next. He's here alone, and doesn't mingle. He should be an easy enough target."

"Understood. 614 is a minor station, but having the head of security there means we could make use of the station covertly."

"His final scheduled talk is at sixteen hundred hours. If he follows his pattern, he'll return to his room after that."

Tim made sure he was out of sight when the two left, though that unfortunately meant that he couldn't see their faces as they walked away. Something strange was definitely going on here, though he'd have to do some digging to find out what, and who might be involved. Thankfully, he just happend to have arrived with an expert obeserver of behaviour...