You!

Posted on Mon Nov 19th, 2018 @ 5:57am by Stephen Spires & Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci

Mission: S0E0: What Came Before
Location: Starbase 72
Timeline: T-Minus 2 days from launch

If there was one thing both Mara and Ravioli loved, it was going for a walk and people watching. When she had first gotten Ravioli, the dog had been unruly and impossible to control when other people were around- she believed they all wanted to play with her if only Mara would let them- but after intensive training, the Jack Russell Terrier no longer attempted to jump on anyone or pull on her leash when Mara walked with her. Unless of course, someone they knew was within smelling distance.

And this is how Mara knew that somebody the dog knew was nearby. "Ravioli!" she scolded. "Calm down!" She peered around at the crowd, attempting to see someone familiar nearby.

"Holy merciful shit!" Stephen Spires dropped his duffel at his feet and gaped his mouth in surprise. He quickly recovered, grasping his bag in hopes of a swift egress. But then they made eye contact. Stephen Spires would rather eat shit and die than turn yellow and show a beautiful woman his back. "Mara!" he said with a smile that never touched his eyes. "Mara Ricci, well, I'll be damned if I expected to see you here."

Returning his cold smile with one of her own, Mara attempted to control Ravioli, who was jumping at Spires and licking at his hands, whining in excitement. "Spires," she replied. "Never expected to see you again in my entire life." When she'd gotten his ridiculous letter, she'd been a bit concerned that he'd believed they were in a real relationship and those fears returned now, but only fleetingly; he was just playing the game, she was sure. "How have you been?"

"Busy." This time his grin was sincere. "No thanks to you, a' course. Landed myself a very prestigious assignment. One might even call it a pioneering work. How about yourself? Slummin' it around starbases after all that time on the shiny new Vesta, or was it just that a fella' did you wrong and you needed a fresh start?" His grin slid into a taunting smirk.

She gave him a withering look. "If you must know," she said, "I've also been chosen for a very prestigious assignment. I'm going to be overseeing the assembly of the first starbase outside of our galaxy," she added smugly. There. Put the whole universe between them.

Stephen's eyes shot wide. "You... you! No!" He clutched the sides of his head, "Oh, goddamn, no!" Seizing a crumb of rationality, Stephen calmed down enough to ask her a single question. "Wait. Do the words 'Long Jump Project' mean anything to you? Tell me they don't."

She just stared at him for a moment, her face growing more and more stony the longer she stood there. "Cazzo!" she cursed in Italian. "Figlio di troia! No! You are not going on this- Ravioli! Sit down!" But, Ravioli was far too excited to see an old friend and it was pointless to try to order her to calm down. "Will you say hello to her already so she stops trying to climb you?" she added irritably.

"Hi, poochie," Stephen said with a pat to the dog's head, then cracked a smile as she licked it. "At least I'll have one friend out in Messier." He spared a hostile glance at Mara before turning his affections back to Ravioli. "Man's best friend, that's what you are. Never knew a dog who betrayed anyone. Too good for us, aren't ya? Yes, you are!" He scratched between her ears. "Humans could learn a thing or two from you, couldn't we?"

Rolling her eyes, Mara gave Ravioli's leash a light tug and the dog obediently returned to her side and sat down, panting happily. "Are you trying to accuse me of something?" she demanded. That was the second time he mentioned betrayal. He seemed to be almost begging her to ask.

After squatting down to put Ravioli back on four legs, Stephen stood up and fixed Mara with a hard stare. "You know what you did. And I don't much care for it. If you want another hard-fuck out in No Man's Land, then give me a call sometime. Otherwise..." The corners of his mouth ticked up in a mirthless smile. "Stay out of my way."

In fact, she had a pretty decent idea of what he was speaking, but she wasn't about to let him know that. "Me stay out of your way?" she replied incredulously. "I don't recall ever sneaking into restricted areas to spy on people!"

"I don't recall any complaints after I started pounding your 'restricted area'!" People started looking. Stephen shook his head. "That's it. I'm gone." He shouldered his duffel and brushed past her. "Give the dog my regrets."

"I'll believe that when I see it!" she yelled after his retreating form.

As if to back up her mistress, Ravioli gave a single loud bark, then looked up at Mara happily, tail wagging. Mara replied with a single nod of approval. "What are you looking at?" she asked a man who was staring unusually hard at her. "Haven't you ever seen an ex-lovers' spat before?"