The bar on Deck 2 did not have a name, which Cormus thought was either honest or lazy depending on your mood. It was bigger than he expected the first time he found it, a proper room rather than a converted closet, with a long counter running along the near wall and a row of stools pushed up against it. Eight tables filled the rest of the space, most of them empty at this hour, a few with chairs still turned up from the last time someone had mopped. The back counter held a modest row of bottles lined up with the kind of care that said whoever stocked it knew what they were doing, and the shelving above ran the full width, solid metal, bolted in to stay. The lighting was low and amber and the whole room had the easy logic of a space that had figured out what it was and stopped trying to be anything else.

Cormus had found it on his second day aboard, the way he found most things, by following the sound of something that was not machinery.

He came in off the corridor still in his flight jacket, one sleeve pushed up from where he had been running diagnostics on the secondary helm panel for the better part of the last two hours. There was a faint trace of conduit grease along the edge of one palm that he had not bothered with yet. He pulled out a stool near the middle of the counter, settled onto it, and looked at the bottles behind the bar with the focused but unhurried attention of a man who had made worse decisions and was not in a rush to make another one.

Ress was behind the counter as if they had always belonged there, with the settled air of someone who knew the drinks on the menu and the debts of half the regulars. They were not tall, not broad, not built to dominate a room by force, but they had the sort of presence that made the room account for them anyway. Pale skin, sharp cheekbones, black hair shaved close on one side and falling to their jaw on the other, with a rough fringe that almost softened the narrow amusement of their face. Almost. Their left eye caught the low amber light differently from the right, the cybernetic iris glowing a muted purple beneath the dark metal around the socket. They wore black and deep purple in layered pieces, a dark shirt beneath a fitted waistcoat, heavy trousers tucked into sturdy boots, sleeves rolled just enough to show henna curling over their hands and forearms. One of those hands reached for a glass without hurry as their eyes moved over Cormus, taking in the flight jacket, the grease along his palm, the pushed-up sleeve, and the way he considered the bottles.

"Don't worry," Ress said, their voice warm and playful as they turned the glass between their fingers and reached for a bottle from the back shelf. "The bottles don't bite." They glanced up at him then, mouth curving with quiet mischief while their hands kept working, selecting, measuring, beginning to build him something without asking first. "The clientele might, though."

The young man let out a chuckle in response "Biting doesn't worry me, at least not if it's anything other than alcohol. I don't want anything rough to drink at the moment. How about some old sctoch, blended preferably. Got any of that?"

He took note of the bartender, looking to be as much of a character as any of the rest of the crew. Some of the labor hands and mechanics Zedd had hired were rough looking to say the least. Ress was actually a respite from all of that. If anything, they reminded him of some of the pilots he'd worked with in the past. Rough around the edges at times but could more than hold their own, and pull their craft through nearly impossible situations. So he was curious as to what the story of Ress was. And how they ended up here.

"Sure, I’ve got a blended one somewhere," Ress said, their fingers passing over the shelf with lazy precision. "But if you feel brave, I can make you something that scratches the same itch...Something mixed, if you’d like. Smooth, warm, not rough. The sort of drink that behaves itself right up until it doesn’t." They stopped, glancing back at him with a small smile. "Or blended Scotch as ordered, because not everyone wants alchemy before dinner."

The kid shrugged "Sure why not? What good is a bartender if you can't trust them with your drinks?" He was in the mood enough to be surprised and a conversation. "So alchemy is your game then huh? I can't imagine what it took to consider being a bartender on a ship like this. Hopefully the pay is decent for it, Zedd can be a tough negotiator. How long have you been on board?" Cormus was certainly curious and did enjoy meeting new members of the crew when he could.

"About two shakes of a targ's tail," Ress said, looking at him before they tilted their head, as if deciding which version of the answer was likely to cause the least trouble. They gathered what they needed from the shelves with easy familiarity: Mars mezcal, Bajoran honey nectar, Andorian bitters, and a strip of peel from a fruit local to an M-class planet not far from here, one they had discovered carried an almost oak-cask aftertaste if cut thin enough.

They measured by eye, the movement all lazy precision, then glanced back at him. "I'm Ress. And the Captain and I...came up with something that worked for both of us." Their mouth curved as they stirred. "Zedd negotiates like a man who knows the price of everything except peace and quiet, but he was fair enough."

"That is absolutely true. He does talk a lot at times. I wonder if it's just part of his background, or having to deal with the Ferengi and everything down on the planet below. It's good to meet you Ress."

He waitied until the drink was placed before him and looked at it for a moment. He picked it up and raised it "Cheers". Taking a sip, Cormus allowed it to linger a moment before swallowing. It was smooth for sure, with undertones of a sweet woodiness, it tasted great. "I'll take seven more" he said, half serious. "I'm not a fan of synthetic stuff so as long as these keep coming, I keep paying."

Ress smiled as they watched him, giving a small nod as they wiped the counter. "I also have a few bottles of blended Scotch, for when you just want to...nurse it," they volunteered, setting the cloth aside as their mouth curved. "Though I’m not offended if you keep paying me to show off." Their eyes moved over him again, taking in the jacket, the grease, the hands, the easy way he had tested the drink before committing to liking it. Young, yes, but not careless from what they could see. They approved. "You're Fletcher," they said, not making it a question. "The pilot." There was no trick to it, not really. Some information was easy to come by, and Ress considered knowing who flew the ship less a curiosity than basic survival.

"Lead for the Shuttle Bay and support craft, yes. I spent a few days on the helm and practicing but the ship is just too much for me at the time. Lindsy Vaelor is our helmsman for the time being. She deserves it though, I've never seen someone map routes like her. But when it comes to smaller craft, I'm all over it." He took another sip of his drink and continued to appreciate it. "You do any piloting in your time so far?"

They chuckled, shaking their head as they looked at him. "Briefly, badly. I prefer having an actual expert get me from A to B," they said openly, considering him for a moment as they committed what Fletcher had said to memory. Vaelor’s name was useful, but the praise was better. People told you a great deal by the way they spoke about competence. Ress reached for the cloth again, wiping a small ring of condensation from the counter. "So is it the control in a smaller vessel you like, or the...responsiveness?" they asked, voice warm with mischief rather than mockery.

"A bit of both to be honest. Let me tell you, there's nothing like coming in red hot, slamming the brakes and landing, watching a combat squad disperse, and then punch it to get away. Done a number of those myself, hot drops are always a rush. And working for private contractors it's alot more fun that working for Star Fleet." He took another sip and thought for a moment about his past assignments and the experience he had gotten over the last year or so. Plus the latinum was a good motivator, but he was looking at the potential for his largest scores ever with Zedd.

"So aside from bartending, what else do you run on the side?" The young man knew everyone had their own game and hustles in their own right.

"Ah..." Ress gave a small nod, fixing their eyes on him for a moment before their mouth curved. "Information, mostly. Finding it, carrying it, knowing who wants it badly enough to pay before they ask too loudly." They reached for a clean glass and filled it with water rather than anything stronger, taking a sip as if this were all perfectly ordinary bar conversation. "And before you worry, shipboard information is not inventory. I work here now. That makes a difference." Their fingers turned the glass slowly against the counter. "But if there is something you need found, or someone you need checked, I can usually make a few quiet enquiries. For a price, obviously. Alchemy is charming, but it does not pay docking fees." They glanced toward the room rather than the door, the smile still there but thinner at the edges. "Being on a ship suits me. Stations stay still too long. Ships move. That is healthier for everyone involved. Sometimes I carry information caches between brokers, but that has to be done in person. We are a private bunch, and most of us are allergic to trust."

Cormus turned the glass slowly in his hand and looked at it rather than at Ress for a moment, the way he sometimes looked at an instrument panel when he wanted to think without looking like he was thinking.

"Information broker," he said, not with judgment, just letting it sit in the air between them. He took a sip. "I've worked with a few of those. Mostly on the contractor side, guys who knew which landing pads had eyes on them and which ones didn't, who was buying cargo without asking questions, that kind of thing." He set the glass down and looked at Ress then, easy and direct. "Good ones were worth every strip of latinum. Bad ones got people killed, but that's true of most professions if you're bad enough at them."

He leaned back slightly on the stool, crossing his arms loosely without closing off. It was more habit than anything, the posture of someone who had spent a lot of time in jump seats and cockpit harnesses and had learned to get comfortable in small spaces.

"Allergic to trust," he repeated. "Yeah, that tracks for this line of work. I've found the trick is figuring out who has the right incentives to stay honest with you. Doesn't always hold, but it narrows the field." He looked at Ress for a moment and then picked up his drink again. "I'll keep that in mind. The quiet enquiries thing. I tend to land in places where knowing things ahead of time is the difference between a clean extraction and a very bad afternoon."

He finished the last of the glass and set it down with a quiet click, nudging it forward a few centimeters in Ress's direction.

"And I'll take another one of those while you're at it."

Ress smiled at that, taking the empty glass and setting it aside before they reached for a fresh one. "Sure," they said, and began building the second drink with the same lazy precision as the first, though this time they showed off a little with a couple of neat bottle tosses. "Bad information is worse than no information. No information makes people careful, makes them read the signs a bit...Bad information makes them confident, and confident people are beautifully easy to kill." Their mouth curved as they twisted the strip of peel over the glass, letting the oil catch the light before dropping it in. They slid the drink back toward him with two fingers. "If I ever sell you an answer, Fletcher, I’ll tell you what I know, what I think, and what I’m guessing...so you know where you stand."

Cormus picked up the second drink and watched the peel settle to the bottom of the glass before he looked back at Ress.

"That's the most useful thing anyone's said to me since I came aboard," he said, and meant it. He had worked with people who blurred those three things together on purpose and people who blurred them together because they did not know the difference, and both had cost him in different ways. Knowing which category you were dealing with ahead of time was most of the job.

He took a sip and set the glass down without moving it far, keeping it close the way he did when he intended to stay a while.

"I'll hold you to that," he said. "And I'll return the favor where I can. I don't deal in information the way you do but I know airspace and I know approaches, and sometimes that's the same thing with different terminology." He turned the glass slightly on the counter. "Landing zones people think are clean. Routes that look exposed but aren't. The kind of thing that only matters when it suddenly matters a lot."

He glanced around the room for a moment, taking in the empty tables, the low light, the particular quiet of a bar before the shift change brought people in looking for somewhere to put the day down.

"You picked a good spot for it, by the way," he said, nodding toward the room in general. "Bar's the one place on a ship where people talk without thinking about what they're saying. Whoever put you here either knew that or got very lucky."

He looked at Ress with a slight tilt of his head, not quite a question but close enough to one that it functioned the same way.

Ress gave a soft laugh at that, more breath than sound, and rested one hand against the counter. "Oh, I have a strict...no spying clause in my bartending," they said as they looked at Fletcher, raising an eyebrow and tilting their head. Their cybernetic eye caught the amber light as they studied him as if he was a starmap, taking their time over whatever routes and warning signs they thought they could see. Then they reached for their glass of water, taking a small sip before giving a shrug. "I like the job. The...rest, that is for outside the ship. You don't release snakes in your sleeping quarters."

"Snakes in the sleeping quarters," he said. "I'll remember that one." He took a sip and set the glass down, turning it once on the counter. He appreciated the distinction more than he let on. A lot of people in Ress's line of work did not bother making one, and the ones who did were usually either very principled or very smart about long term survival. He was willing to believe Ress was both.

He pushed back from the counter just enough to signal he was wrapping up rather than leaving in a hurry, the way you did when you had somewhere else to be but were not in a rush to get there. "Good drink, good conversation, and a bartender who doesn't bite," he said, reaching into his jacket for a few strips of latinum and setting them on the counter without making a production of it. "I'll be back. Probably sooner than is strictly responsible."

Ress gave a genuine smile at that, leaning slightly over the counter as they looked at him, one henna-marked hand reaching for the strips. They counted them with a neat flick of their fingers, then took one and offered it back to him, holding his eyes for a beat longer than necessary. "First one was on the house...same crew, after all," they said, their mouth curving. "Unless you want it to stay behind the bar in case the next assignment goes poorly. Some people like credit. Some people like insurance."

Cormus looked at the strip for a moment, then took it back and tucked it into his jacket without argument.

"I'll take the latinum," he said. "If the next assignment goes poorly enough that I need a bar tab waiting for me, I've got bigger problems than paying for drinks." He stood up from the stool and straightened his jacket, rolling his sleeve back down out of habit. "But I appreciate the thought."

He picked up his glass and finished the last half swallow standing, the way he did most things when he was ready to move, and set it down one final time with a quiet click. He looked at Ress for a moment with the easy, open assessment of someone who had just decided they liked a person and was not bothered about them knowing it. "Same crew," he agreed, and pushed the stool back in neatly before heading for the door, hands in his pockets, already thinking about whatever was waiting for him in the shuttlebay.

Ress watched him go, head tilted slightly to one side until the doors closed behind him, then reached for the empty glass he had left behind. They turned it once in their hand, catching the smudged fingerprints and the faint mark where his mouth had been, ordinary traces from a man who had already become a little less unknown. A small chuckle left them, soft and private. "Good," they breathed, before setting the glass aside to be washed.

End?