Ensign Darius Shane

[dinghead]

Character's Name: Ensign Darius Shane
Position: U.S.S. Arabella, Security

Stats

Age: 36
Place Of Birth: Cargo ship "Distant Horizon"
Gender: Male
Species Of Origin: Human
Hair:  Reddish brown
Eyes:  Hazel
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 220 lbs.
Skin Tone: Pale from constant residence aboard starships.
Telepathic and Empathic Status: While not possessing such traits, Darius HAS been trained in probe detection and defense. (see history)
Body: Muscular, but lean. Darius is in the upper 3% of species-appropriate fitness
Face :  Nondescript (no distinguishing marks)
Marital Stats: Single
Children: None
Habits:  Darius Shane is only as respectful of people as the chain of command dictates, until you have earned his respect.
Quarters: Sparse. Used to traveling light, Darius tends to think of his quarters as a bunk and duffel bag.
Likes: Spicy food, Darius tends to cook for himself whenever possible. He even has a special holodeck program he constructed of an ideal kitchen. He also enjoys a cold beer. (NOTE: This means BEER, not synthahol).
Dislikes: Synthahol, replicator-prepared food (regardless of the dish), enclosed spaces and Pirates (see history)
Ambitions and Goals: "If a man is not the best, he's one of the rest." Darius is extremely driven and competitive. While he has no firm long-range goals (you don't make those in his line of work), he's always trying to better himself either through training or study.
Temperament:  Darius Shane is a very complex man.  He respects the chain of command, but not necessarily those in it. A former C.O. remarked "Darius is the sort of man I would want at my back in a fight. He may be an arrogant, combative and downright sarcastic snot at times, but he's never failed to be the first in and last out when the time comes."
Hobbies: Cooking, studying starship schematics and a near-obsession with physical exercise and keeping his skills sharp. Only recently, he has discovered the joys of poker... but he tends to lose more often than not.

Family
Mother:  Cassandra Shane (deceased)
Father:  Louis Shane (deceased)
Siblings:  Arabella Shane (elder sister, whereabouts unknown)

Character History

Born aboard his family's cargo ship, the "Distant Horizon", Darius did not have what one would call a 'normal' childhood. He and his sister, Arabella, were drug through the galaxy on one long cargo run after another. Darius knew more ways to coax performance from broken down components than any kid has a right to know.

This lasted until the age of sixteen, when their ship was hit by Pirates. Darius and his sister hid in a maintenance space barely big enough for one person, let alone two. It is from this incident that Darius' loathing of enclosed spaces arises. He isn't claustrophobic in the normal sense. He doesn't get scared, he gets angry.  During the raid, Darius' mother was killed by the Pirates, and his father was injured.

The loss of the cargo, the injuries, and the damage to the Distant Horizon was the end of his family's business. Their ship was impounded and sold for unpaid debts and shortly after that, Darius' father passed away.  His sister once remarked "it was like being planet-bound was too much for him, his heart just gave out."

Arabella managed to find jobs and once he was of age, Darius entered Starfleet, figuring that even if he couldn't swing the Academy proper, he could probably make it as an engineering mate or some such. It became clear, however, that his aptitude was not in the engine room, but in the field.

Starfleet may be an organization built around exploration and understanding, but it is also both the police and military force of the Federation. Darius displayed a gift for battlefield tactics and small-scale operations, he was quickly assigned to a special-operations task force within Starfleet Security. There, he was given specialized training in anti-piracy and small-unit tactics under the watchful eye of a Bajoran instructor, Chief Andu. Andu's slogan of "if a man is not the best, he's one of the rest" quickly became cadet Shane's credo as well.

A veritable sponge for knowledge, Darius was always trying to learn as much as he could during any free time he had during training. He became a certified field medic during his initial training cycle, and while not not officially qualified, he learned to handle every small craft in the Federation fleet before his final cycle was complete. Upon graduation, Darius was assigned to several short-term postings in numerous small conflicts and was responsible for the disruption and arrest of no less than three pirate or smuggling rings. From there, he entered longterm assignment under Admiral Raner, but that period of his service record is classified.

During this time, Darius' performance evaluations began to decline slowly.  It was decided that a quieter, regular posting to a Starship might help return him to previous levels, sort of a working vacation, as it were.

Despite his new role aboard ship, Darius feels something like a failure, as if he's been put out to pasture. More and more, he's been plagued by nightmares and moments of hesitation. A sense of dread that things are slipping quickly from his control and he's powerless to stop them.

[dinghead]

((THis is a bit of off the cuff fiction to help get the character, and his updates more firmly in mind. ))

"Humming. Hey, Humming! Wake up!" Vargan snarled. The Romulan pirate kicked at his chair.

"WHa? Oh... I'm awake boss."

"Go check on Lorsha and Darno. Make sure they haven't killed anybody out of boredom," the gnarled old monster said. Then he grumbled under his breath "useless bloody hoomahn."

'Humming' was another insulting slang word for Human, but then Humming didn't want the Romulan privateers knowing he wasn't as dumb as he seemed.

The big human got to his feet and slumped off down the corridor. Lorsha and Darno had the couple hundred passengers on this liner under guard in the nearby cargo bay. Vargan and Humming had gone to relay their demands to the starship waiting nearby.

"Five hundred thousand bars of Latnium, not a strip less and no identifying tags or other nonsense," Vargan had demanded. "My men have the hostages at gunpoint. Drop your shields to beam them to your ship, and our vessel will open fire on you. Ever seen what a brace of quantum torps does to a ship your size?"

Humming sighed. He always got the fun jobs.

He called out before rounding the corner into the docking bay. There was Lorsha, in his EVA suit, with his hand on the emergency vent control. The bay door was open to space, with only the blue atmosphere shield keeping air in the bay. Darno had his rifle trained on the crowd, and was also suited.

Humming nodded. Course clear now.

"Hey, Darno..." Humming drawled.  "Vargan wanted me to get ya."

"For what Humming?" The big Romulan heavy weapons expert sneered.

"Dunno. Didn't ask."

"You're bloody useless Humming. Dunno what Vargan sees in you."

"My table manners are exquisite. Now, you gonna keep him waiting?"

Darno growled, handed his anti-starship cannon of a rifle over to Lorsha and began to stomp towards the door. He only stopped when he heard the distinctive sound of an energy weapon.

Lorsha was burning to nothing and Humming whirled towards him.

The puny little human was faster than the suit-encumbered ex-military brute. The nasty looking pistol he held, all too familiar. A Romulan XJ-5 Disruptor.

"Don't try it Darno." Humming said, all traces of his dopey exterior were gone.

"Who the furnace ARE you?!" Darno demanded, inching his hand towards his own holstered disruptor.

"My name is Darius Shane. And officially, I don't exist." The XJ sang again, and Darno fell, stunned.

Running forward to subdue and secure the Romulan pirate, Darius hissed to the now shocked crowd of hostages, "Starfleet security! Now sit down and shut up before their boss wises up!"

Darno was down and out. Darius took the big man's weapons belt, and secured him with a spare set of stun cuffs, triggering them once just to make sure Darno wasn't getting back up.

"All right then..." Darius checked the corridor, and started back the way he'd come.

Two steps later, and Vargan had rounded the corner, a pistol of his own trained on Darius, who dropped into firing stance at first sign of movement.

Standoff.

"Surrender Vargan," Darius said firmly. "No way else out of this for you."

Vargan laughed. "I should have known you were Starfleet, Humming. Who else is that STUPID? You forgot two things about my crew..."

"That you're lousy singers and none of you can cook?"

The Romulan let the joke pass. "That we're all former shock troops, and we have anti-stun capacitors surgically implanted. Use the stun setting? Hwiiy veruul."

Suddenly, the sound of metal jouncing across the docking bay reached Darius' ears. On instinct, he glanced down at Darno's weapons belt, still in his left hand. One grenade was missing.

After an instant that felt like an eon, Darius heard an oddly stifled boom, and felt a fierce, brutal wind.

Wind, in a controlled environment like a starship meant exactly one thing...

***

"...and it is the judgment of this Inquiry that while Mr. Shane's actions contributed to the disaster, the outcome was inevitable. Given his stellar service record and the investment in his training, we recommend he be given light duty schedule for a period of not less than six months and encouraged to recoup the edge he has allowed himself to lose." Admiral Rahner looked across the desk at him. " Do you have anything to add, Shane?"

Standing in the center of the room, arms clasped behind his back and spine ramrod straight, Darius was silent.

"Very well, so ordered. The personnel officer will expect you at 1600. That will be all."

***

The fat, balding man sat behind an immaculate desk. Datapads perfectly positioned to hand, not a single isolated element of chaos allowed in the regimented order of his own, private universe. Least of all the freefalling fireball now standing before him.

"I have given your assignment careful consideration..." the man's voice was high and nasal. Yee gods and little fishes, everything about the pudgy bureaucrat annoyed Darius. "...and I do believe I have located the perfect place for you."

Bully for him.

"You'll be dispatched from here to a new ship, just off the yards. The Arabella."

The what?

A voice from decades previous echoed "I really think it's best Dar. With all Mom and Dad taught you, you could be a chief engineer by year two.

"But what about you `Bella?"

"Oh, don't worry. I've got prospects. Besides, this ain't goodbye. I expect you to write, REGULARLY."

And that had been that.

"You'll be assigned to Security aboard of course. Check in with... Joseph D'Callan upon arrival. And it'll be noted in your file to make and keep appointments with the ship's Counselor as well.  Oh, one last thing..." the man looked positively smug.

Darius braced himself.

"As your unit was, ahem, outside the ranks... You've never been officially entered into the command structure. I think you'll find that 'Mr.' is not a command level in most of Starfleet. Here," he handed over a small case. "Dismissed."

Darius turned to go.

"It's customary to salute superiors, ENSIGN."

"Yeah," he replied without turning "but ONLY superiors."

***

[dinghead]

((with apologies to Meds...))

***

In his quarters, Darius Shane stared at the open, and empty duffel bag upon his bed.

"I have given your assignment careful consideration," he said in a mocking sing-song imitation of the personnel officer.  This wasn't reassignment, it was retirement.

The door chime sounded. The last thing he wanted right now was a visitor, but it wasn't like what HE wanted mattered. "Enter," he bit off.

The door opened and a man nearly Darius's own age entered. He was a bit older, a bit creakier, but even so Darius knew he wouldn't last two seconds if this man wanted him down, or worse. He had a lot of respect for this man, whom he knew only as...

"Boss?"

"Shane," Boss's eyes went to the duffel. "I heard."

Boss wasn't one to waste energy on little things like words.

"Yeah," Darius replied. "I ship out tonight. Gotta hotfoot it out before my new..." it felt so wrong to say this "...ship leaves without me."

"Arabella," Boss said succinctly. "She's new, but her people are good."

"So I hear."

Boss's eyes suddenly jogged to the left, as if he didn't want to hold eye contact. "It, uh... It wasn't easy to get you aboard her."

"What was that?" Darius blinked.

"I pulled a few strings. Place will do you some good."

"You didn't have to do that for me," Darius said. Nothing drove Boss crazier than what he casually referred to as 'office politics.'

"Shane." Boss said firmly, and gestured at the chair next to the bed. "Sit."

Darius' posterior was in the seat before he even knew it. Old habits...

"Look, you know me, I don't DO crap like this, but I'm gonna give it to you straight before you get that solid skull of yours full of wrong ideas. You need this. More than anyone in this outfit, you've pushed yourself..."

"Man's not the best..." Darius began.

"...he's one of the rest. I know, I know. Now shut it and listen" Boss retorted. "In this line of work, you can go too far, you can hold on too tight. Shane... Darius, right now if I gave you a chunk of coal to hold, I'd have a diamond inside of ten minutes. You HAVE to decompress, if you don't, you're gonna get yourself killed, and others with you."

Really? Thanks for the update. "Boss, you decompress on Risa. THIS is not decompressing, it's...."

"It's downtime. Nothing more, nothing less. Listen, Chief of Security on Arabella's a guy named Joe D'Callan. He's a good man, served with him for a bit. He's tough, but fair. Do a good job on Arabella, and I'll see to it that you'll be back here soon, all right?"

Darius muttered something about lack of choice in the arrangement.

"And if I hear you've given Joe, or anyone else, one hint of trouble I'll come out there just to kick your backside up between your ears."

No one did pep talks like the Boss.

"Well, on the bright side," Darius mused aloud, "a stint aboard an envoy ship in whatever's left of Romy space'll let me catch up on my needlepoint."

Boss rolled his eyes. "You need a hand with this?"

Darius rose and started shoving things into the duffel. "Naw, I got it. Shuttle leaves in two hours."

"Well, then I'll see you when you get back." Boss gave him a nod, and left.

Darius emptied the contents of his footlocker into the bag, then he went over to the improvised cooler unit and removed a few bottles of his home brew. One he drank while storing the rest in a spill-proof insulated container within the bag. After, he added a few other odds and ends, including his duty harness, with it's decidedly non-standard equipment content. Then he tossed the empty beer bottle into the room's replicator for reclamation.

As he moved his hand to close the duffel, His eye fell on the sealed container of beer bottles.

It was his first, and most sacred rule. ONE. No less, but no more. ONE a day.

Cracking open another, he flopped back into the chair to consider the retirement that everyone insisted was not permanent.

***