Movie Night

Posted on Sun May 17, 2015 @ 7:28am by Lieutenant Penelope Naroot

2,545 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: All this has happened before...
Location: Deck 6, Chief Barnes' Quarters

Tom's training session had lasted only twenty minutes, far shorter than the forty-five minutes he had planned. The trainee was one of the most promising learners on board, and he was hopeful to start putting him in the rotation for transporter operators soon. Tom had secretly wanted some more free time for a while now. His duties as Chief of the Boat were starting to take more time than he'd thought, and in spite of all of his issues from days ago, the job was becoming enjoyable again.

Armed now with some extra free time, Tom returned to his quarters and began to prepare for his guest. He'd promised a movie night, and he planned to deliver. Using his resources, Tom secured a large monitor to watch the movie and had it hooked up in place of his smaller monitor. He then made quick work of cleaning his quarters, which didn't take long since it was mostly laundry. That was shoved into the bin in his closet. With one clean uniform left, it was about time to take care of that.

He'd worry about that tomorrow.

Looking around the room, he wished he had a piece of furniture other than his bed and two metal chairs to sit on. If only he could get a couch... The bed was too forward in terms of inviting her to sit on it, right? After Blue Horizon, they were no stranger to each other, and the friendliness they'd exhibited to each other since meant that it could become a habit.

The metal chairs were too simple. Maybe he could put in a request for something fancier if he was intent on entertaining the opposite sex more often. Though this wasn't the first time he had a woman in his quarters. Every week, he hosted a poker game for the senior enlisteds on board, and the senior lab technician was an Betazoid female. Even for all of her empathy, she lost quite often.

But this would be the first time he'd have a singular guest that was actually a guest, not someone coming by to talk or air a grievance. He wanted it to be as perfect as could be. For now, he'd use the chairs. He moved them from the desk to the center of the room. He moved his nightstand in between the two chairs and set a bucket of popcorn covered in what the replicator called "movie theater butter" with a couple of empty glasses beside it. He had a personal stock of drinks he kept in his quarters, and he'd let Penny select the poison of choice for tonight.

The last thing to do would be select the movie for tonight. He'd narrowed it down to two: Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Oh, which to choose...?

Penny's arm was outstretched and her finger rang the chime to his quarters before the rest of her had caught up. When the door opened she bounced on her toes. "Hi!" she said. "I'm ready!"

She was dressed in a pink tank top and white undershorts, not quite standard Starfleet-issue, and was carrying two large, rolled up items in her arms.

"Hey you!" Tom said playfully, looking over at her instead of making the final adjustments to the monitor. Then he saw what she was carrying. "What'd you bring?"

"Well," Penny said, "in my research into movie nights, I found that the most important thing was a comfortable place from which to watch the movie. So I brought something we can stretch out on." She dropped one of the rolls and kicked it, sending it unrolling into a large foam pad. She then shook out the other one and draped it over, covering the pad in a soft blanket and lying down on top of it. "There we go," she said, grinning.

"Hmm..." Tom said, wondering why he didn't think of that himself. He moved the chairs back to the table and set the popcorn beside the mat. "Check the closet if you're thirsty, or would like it for later." Moving back to the monitor to make his final selection, he asked, "So you've never been to a movie night before?" He tapped the poster for "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and prepared it for viewing.

"Back on the Castel, the entertainment of choice was Rigellian Hold 'Em," Penny said. "Quarters on a Defiant-class ship were too small to have movie parties, same with the holosuites, and we hadn't really set up the mess hall for it."

She popped a kernel of corn in her mouth, grinning. "The junk food was good though."

"Computer, dim the lights," Tom asked as he sat down on the mat next to Penny. "Really?" he asked Penny. "Nothing beats a good bucket of popcorn though." He'd thought about laying beside her, but he'd shift positions soon enough anyway. Laying down now might lead to other things...

"Play movie." The poster on the screen disappeared into blackness. A second later, the screen came to life with a bold fanfare and a logo declaring this was a 20th Century Fox motion picture. Tom reached for the bucket of popcorn, hoping to get himself a proper handful.

Penny flipped over onto her stomach and propped her chin in her palms, elbows on the mat. "Clearly," she said, "you have not heard of the miracle substance known as 'chocolate.'" She watched the logo appear and muttered, "funny they have to announce the time period. I wonder what the significance of the animal is."

"It's not just the time period," Tom commented, glancing down at her backside with a smirk. "It's the name of the studio that made the film." The logo disappeared and the credits began, blazing the title "The Day The Earth Stood Still" on the screen. "Hope you like it. It's one of my favorites."

Penny's research had also shown that when someone said "this is my favorite _______" it was pretty rude to laugh at it. Still, she couldn't help but giggle at the sight of the 'flying saucer' and the 'huge' robot that walked out. When the 'alien' named Klaatu came out and was shot though, she let out a shriek. "They shot him! He said he was coming in peace!" She frowned and looked at the men on the screen. "Humans then were horrible judges of character," she said.

Tom, who just picked up the bucket of popcorn a moment ago, nearly lost it at the sound of the shriek. He quickly shifted the bucket around enough to catch all of the popcorn before it got everywhere on the mattress. "We've come a long way since then," Tom replied, watching as Klaatu began to plead for a meeting with the leaders of the world. "We had a great curiosity, but a big fear." Deciding it was time for a change, Tom set the popcorn on the floor beside Penny and laid on his stomach.

Rather than pay attention to the movie, he looked over at Penny, who seemed to be absorbing every frame. Her expressions tonight, both in the holodeck and now here were almost childlike. That youthful energy was enough to energize him, but he was also having a hard time of his own comprehending some of the things she'd said over the time they'd known each other. Like Klaatu, or Mr. Carpenter as he was now going by, she was hiding something. He didn't know if he should press the issue, but maybe after the movie he'd have the opportunity.

Penny watched as the "alien" (who, to her keen powers of observation was about as human as everyone else in the move) snuck into a professor's house. She gave a little sound of surprise, seeing the equations on the professor's blackboard. "They transposed two variables," she said to herself, spot-checking the work. Given the time period, she didn't expect the movie to be particularly chock-full of accurate science, but she was impressed they'd gone to such detail.

She watched the movie unfold and the overall theme seemed to be, fear. The humans were all afraid of the "monster" without even knowing why. They were afraid of each other, they were afraid of being afraid. And yet, the alien visitor did finally make a threat of sorts. Penny had to wonder though, if that was a response to the animosity that every human seemed to display.

Well, almost every human. The "leading lady" of the story seemed a decent sort. Penny was glad she modeled after the female of the species. It seemed they were a bit more sensible than the males.

She glanced at Tom and smiled slightly. Still, they had their virtues. She hooked her arm around his and leaned her head against his shoulder.

And this is why Tom didn't like lying down. Though the interlocked arms were nice, he knew what was about to happen. Klaatu was about to teach Helen three of the most revered words in science fiction, and then meet his fate. Had they been sitting, Tom would have surely drawn her in close in preparation. Instead, he did his best to scoot closer to her on the mat. This would have to do.

Penny appreciated him snuggling up. His body heat was rising. *I guess I wore the correct outfit after all,* she thought. A diagnostic in the back of her mind reminded her that the systemic anomaly she hadn't been able to quantify was affecting 22% of her capacity, but she was ignoring it, having decided to quantify and label it--"Klaatu barada nikto." All other thoughts were wiped from her brain, however, when the alien in the movie uttered that phrase. Penny gasped in shock. How could he know those words?

The Admiral in charge of her previous ship had used them. They were a trigger phrase meaning imminent threat and protection required. Penny's mind began to go into defense mode and she had to consciously override it, reminding herself that she was not in immediate danger there.

She glanced over at Tom who was looking at her curiously again. "I'm sorry," she said, "that took me by surprise." She sat up, bringing her legs under her.

He'd seen the movie countless times, so he didn't mind watching her sit up. These days, science fiction itself had faded into obscurity. Unless you were an aficionado for things of the past, it was hard to appreciate anything that didn't have a significant amount of cheese. Even so, those three words were not so common anymore, and it was evident she'd heard them once before. Most people, he'd assume, would react like Oh, that's where that comes from!

Maybe that's why he was so fascinated by Penny. Nothing about her was normal or typical.

As Helen and Gort were now inside the saucer, Tom decided to sit up next to Penny. Crossing his legs, he sat close and slipped an arm around her waist. He purposely didn't pull her closer, choosing to let her absorb the last few minutes of the movie.

Penny felt his arm around her and put her head on his shoulder. When he didn't pull her closer, she wondered if he didn't want to spoil the ending by getting distracted, but the closer the climax came, the more she was inching towards him. By the time Klaatu had been shot, Helen had repeated those words that had surprised Penny so much and Klaatu was making his final grand speech at long last, Penny was practically sitting in Tom's lap, staring intently at the monitor.

Klaatu warned Earth about making peace, and how violence into space would not be tolerated. *If only they knew how complicated it was,* she thought.

As the flying saucer lifted into the sky, Penny sighed and put her head on Tom's shoulder, her legs already across his lap. "My parents should see this. They're always interested in old religious movies."

Tom wrapped his arms around her, enjoying the moment. "I could send it to them," he offered, kissing the top of her blonde head. Even as the words "The End" flashed on the screen, he tightened his hold, unwilling to move her. He thought of Blue Horizon and the close proximity they enjoyed on that rock. Had he now been able to rest his back on a bulkhead, Tom would be content to remain here all night. "What'd you think?" he asked her.

Penny sighed. "The Admiral I used to serve told me about a man he knew named Gary," she said. "He was an alien visiting Earth in the 1960s. He was always working to avoid being found out, even though he looked just like everyone else and was there specifically to help the human race. I hear about him and see that and I wonder how much humanity really progressed in two thousand years."

She looked at him. "I mean, I get the connection: Klaatu is a metaphor for the ancient carpenter Christians refer to as Jesus Christ. I mean, that's why they used the name John Carpenter, right? But it just shows a disturbing trend. Humans are willing to nail one of their own to a wooden post for promoting peace and love, hang each other for witchcraft to seize land, persecute each other for ideologies to gain political power, and when they realized they weren't alone in the universe, they turned that on other species. So on the one hand, you have to ask how far they've really come. On the other hand, they've produced some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring creations in the universe. See? Like I said, full of contradictions. Humans are just plain weird." She put her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring down the mood. That's actually an amazing theatrical experience. I learned a lot, thank you." She kissed his neck gently, snuggling closer.

Tom hadn't expected such a strong reaction from Penny. He'd thought about a rebuttal, but the kiss on the neck prompted a different reaction. Turning his head towards her, he was able to kiss her forehead, but not much more. "I stopped trying to make sense of it all a long time ago," he told her, thinking of his own experiences during the Dominion War. For such a civilized culture, the Federation displayed quite a bit of its barbaric side. "But as long as there are people like Helen who are willing to protest the status quo, humanity has hope. At least that's what I believe."

Before it could turn into a full on discussion, however, he began gently stroking one of her arms while still holding her with the other. "So you rap with historical figures. I like three hundred year old films. We're an odd couple of human beings, aren't we?"

Penny smiled. "I can think of no higher compliment," she said, sitting up and kissing him.

Tom returned the kiss. Unlike their previous encounter, he displayed no instance of hesitation or discomfort. Though the room was lit only by the final frame of the film from the monitor, Tom swore her blue eyes shone brighter than ever.


JP

Thomas Barnes
Transporter Specialist

Penny Naroot
Helmswoman

 

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