Chapter Text
Captain's Personal Log-
We've arrived at the Betazed science post to receive delegates for the conference in Andoria. I still don't get why the fuck they want us to get the delegates considering we're just a science vessel. This is a job for a galaxy class ship! Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.
At this point, there's not much for all of us to do except wait for the arrangements to be made. Daithi and Brian are still keeping in contact with Starfleet HQ for news on the Potemkin, Sean is still shaken from our previous kidnapping and almost being eaten, and Kevin is weirdly quieter than usual. I think it's time everyone takes a break. It's been a very long few months for the entire crew and I think everyone deserves a little break. Not shore leave, per se, just a short break for a day or two. I'm sure the ship could take two days without being looked after, right?
And that was how Daniel ended up just outside Holodeck 2 with the rest of the senior crew except Anna who's decided that working on her aft cannons were more important than playing Minecraft with the rest of them. It probably was
"With a bunch of important delegates on the ship, we have to be extra careful! Nothing wrong with a little bit more fire power!" That was how she worded it but really Dan had a sneaking suspicion that Kevin had something to do with her absence
"Alright, lads! You know the drill! No abusing mod privilege, no creative mode, and certainly no giving Kevin flint and steel" The others seemed to share annoyed looks pointed towards Kevin's 'innocent' stare
"Awww but why? I didn't do anything!"
"Uh, yeah sure, tell that to the houses outside the border from our last Minecraft session!" Sean rolled his eyes as he recalled back to his, Dan, and Kevin's last Minecraft session. Oh those poor bastards' houses will never be recovered
"In my defense, they were fine. Besides, it's my moral obligation as an Irish man to cleanse the Irish territory!"
"No Kevin, we're still not giving you flint and steel" Kevin huffed at the response
"And what's stopping me from making one on my own?"
"The fact that you're too lazy to go out and get flint by yourself? Yeah I doubt you'll be making one" Kevin hated the fact that Brian has a point
The four of them were waiting for Daithi to finish installing the game chip into the holodeck's port. It wasn't a hard task but it sure as hell was hard enough without Kevin trying to argue why he deserved a chance at flint and steel
"Will all of you shut up?! We only have 3 hours of holodeck time and you're wasting time arguing!"
"Well hurry the fuck up then, Nogla!" And of course, Brian had to provoke Daithi for no reason other than reaction. Oh Daithi could feel his hands itching to strangle that cyborg motherfucker he once called a crewmate, but again with Brian, he had to choose his fights. Especially after what happened on the Potemkin
It didn't take long for the chip to be in place and the computer to say "Holo-game program 'Minecraft' successfully installed and running. Enter when ready". And in an instant, the lads barged through the holodeck door as excited as 12 year olds whenever they hear the chime of an ice cream truck
It was going to be a good day, Dan thought. 3 hours dedicated to them and them alone. No aliens, no diplomatic missions, no empty ships. Just a mundane and very slice-of-life date with the lads. And no one will fucking ruin that. The next person who did he'd personally reprimand.
Until then, they have a server to run
Not 5 minutes into the game they all decided an underground house would be the way to go
"FEED ME!"
"Oh my god! KEVIN SHUT THE FUCK UP!" It didn't take long for their promised mundane pastime to turn into chaos. It was all going so well and here they were, stuck with a 20-something year old Vulcan begging to be fed and Sean encouraging said behaviour even more
God what did he do to deserve this eternal torment
"Guys I made a bed" Seeing they were too busy arguing, Dan decided he was the only one of them who actually wanted to play the game. He was quickly proven wrong when the moment he placed his bed and tried to lie down to save spawn area, Kevin immediately hit him out of the bed
"The feck are you doing asleep?! Get up!" The others were also turning their attention to their captain and decided ganging up on him was more fun. A single shove and he was trapped in a stone hole of his own making and the lads claimed the bed as theirs. If there's one thing Dan hated when playing games in the holodeck was that even with friendly fire enabled, he could feel the stinging pain of being hit by a Vulcan. Whoever said playing holo-games as themselves was fun had never played a holo-game with a very emotional Vulcan who shows affection by hitting people
Oh why did he pick Minecraft?
Because it's the only one they had?
Oh right.
Fuck.
If someone were to tell Dan that you can never go wrong with making a base underground on Minecraft, he would simply reprimand them for lying because all chaos and hell broke loose when they all stepped into the underground base. Somehow, someone planted a tree in their already cramped up underground cavern
So far, the only progress they made was mining a few cobblestones. Kevin, Sean, and Brian were mining for their dear lives and it was good. Until Dan realized the three of them were mining on the same tunnel instead of branching off
Lord have mercy on his soul
Then he heard Brian and Daithi start fighting for absolutely no reason
"STOP TAKING MY IRON!"
"THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! THAT'S MY IRON! GET YOUR OWN TUNNEL!"
It was a back and forth which echoed through the holo cave and it absolutely did not help with Dan's headache. All he wanted to do was smelt iron and make pork chops, he did not sign up for this. Is it justifiable for him to file a mutiny accusation for this? Maybe no but who could prove him wrong, right?
Surprisingly, his First Officer and Second Officer were calm and silent. It either meant one of them died or they're plotting something, and the death prompt hadn't appeared so he assumed they're probably plotting something
"Jack!" A whispered growl could be heard from one of the tunnel entrance and Dan glanced to see Kevin and Sean peeking from the platform below. Dan raised an eyebrow as the two of them looked and sounded like they were plotting to murder him
"Ohohoho! You see that lad, Kevin?" Dan could practically hear Sean rubbing his hands together. They really were planning to kill him
This would be the perfect moment to file a mutiny charge towards the two
"Yeah?"
"He looks like he has bones"
"BONES!"
"BONES!" They yelled in unison as they emerged from their crouch and went to chase after their captain. All Dan could do was run for his dear life. Fortunately, hologames meant he retained his real life stats and he was faster than Sean so he took care of the Security Officer, and was way more agile than his Vulcan Science Officer.
"No! No! NO! GUYS!" And he started running, or as fast as his lungs could take before failing and leaving him a wheezing mess. Speed and agility may be his best stats but his lungs were his own achilles heel. Dan stumbled forward and the two of them physically bodied him to the ground which, considering they were a well built security officer and vulcan duo, was a miracle that he didn't break any of his bones
"GIVE US YOUR BONES, DAN!"
"WE DEMAND BONES!"
It was going to be a very long break
It took them awhile but they finally, finally, took the time to build a base above ground. Lord knew Daniel needed to see the sun even if it's just an artificial block sun in a holo-game. Surely it couldn't get worst than what happened down there-
Someone poured lava on the tree and everything was burning
"KEVIN!"
"Ah fuck Kevin, what did you do?!" Both Dan and Sean turned around to see the vulcan holding an empty bucket of lava while laughing and Dan could've sworn Kevin's laugh sounded like something straight up from a horror movie
"Chaos!" Was all he had to say before running off with the damn bucket, about to fill it with MORE lava to ruin MORE trees
Dan knew it was him who made the rule of not allowing Kevin near flint and steel, but at this point he'd much prefer Kevin using perishable flint and steel than buckets of fucking lava that they can't extinguish as quickly
Lord, why did he even hang out with them?! More specifically, why did he hang out with Kevin?
"This is your new home" In the brink of insanity, Dan found peace and solace in the form of a random chicken. They were above ground trying to collect food and while the other lads fucked off doing God Knows What, Dan was finally given peace without the ever impending threat of literally any of them
He held the seeds close to him as the chicken continued to follow like a curious child. Something in Dan's heart fluttered at the sight of the block chicken following him
"Come on, Mr. Cluckles" He cooed as he felt the door to his very small makeshift cabin behind him and opened it before closing with the chicken in it to prevent it from escaping. He will not kill this one.
Moment passed and he had collected about four chickens and affectionately dubbed them after his senior officers who are somewhere doing god knows what. It was strange to be left in complete proximity silence since he was so used to their loud and boisterous personalities that he found he missed them. Dan had occasionally tried to dismiss the question of whether he likes working with his officers or not but in truth, he found he's very fond of them and life would be a lot more empty without their energy.
Dan smiled at the thought of his friends. The Lads and Anna are good officers and no matter how dumb they seem sometimes, they knew what they were doing. They bring out the energy of everyone with their own energy, especially Jack being the loudest out of them. He may complain sometimes about how their behaviours are unbecoming of a Starfleet officer, but he had to admit, life on the starship would've been so much more dull without them
Daniel was so lost in thought that he didn't realize the loud chattering of his crew coming back in within his proximity
"DAN!" Daniel was snapped out of his wanderings by the sound of someone banging his door
"HE HAS CHICKENS IN THERE!" Sean's voice snapped and Daniel could vaguely hear the start of a riot
"FEED US DAN!"
"FOOD!"
"KILL THEM!" Out of his fight-or-flight instinct, Daniel immediately dug a hole down and frantically hid his chicken family below before opening the door to greet his officers
"What chickens? There's no chickens" He knew the nervous laugh in his quivering voice was already noticeable as the lads eyed him suspiciously. It was dead silent for a few seconds
Cluck
"HE'S LYING!" Immediately, the four shoved him aside and made their way into his small wooden cabin. Dan could only watch in horror as the default sound of Minecraft chickens dying started appearing. It was only in a matter of minutes that there's no longer a trace left but a sign Kevin left saying 'We're all bones inside'
Daniel wasn't the type to be needlessly angry about pointless stuff, especially hologames. He knew there's actually no substance to hologames in real life and that it affects nothing in his real life. It was pointless to be angry over a game. But the moment he picked up a single feather dropped by Mr. Cluckles, for the first time he felt the need to break something, and so he did. While the lads were off somewhere after brutally slaughtering his flock, Daniel had opened the Holodeck's command controls. He could see Kevin and Sean on a cruise in their makeshift land-boat and Daithi and Brian were building a farm. Well, two can play at that game
He decided to do what any game moderator would; /gamemode creative and kill everyone on sight. And it was done
"WHAT?!" Daithi's voice was the first he could hear, he'd probably received the death notification
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"
"WH-"
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" The chorus of curses and whines and complaints could be heard across the server and for the first time since the game started, he burst out in laughter. It wasn't a long wait for Daithi and Brian to come up to him while Sean and Kevin respawned and stayed happily in their boat together
"AND YOU GUYS BLAME ME FOR ABUSING MOD PRIVILEGE?!" Daithi went on and on with his complaints and it sounded like music to his ears
"That's what you get for killing the Cluckles family!"
"THEY'RE HOLOGRAPHIC CHICKENS?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" A yelling match between the Ops manager and captain ensue, meanwhile Sean and Kevin had just arrived on their land boat and Brian decided to join them
"Should we do something about them?" Sean's expression was one of concern as the three watched Dan and Daithi pull out wooden swords and tried to beat each other up. Both Kevin and Brian hummed for a second
"No"
"Fair enough" And the two continued their boat ride, Brian stayed to watch, and Daithi and Daniel were still beating each other's asses up. No sign of a group photo anytime soon. Brian wondered for a second why every hologame session they have always resulted in either arguments or Kevin blowing shit up. Oh well, they did do it to blow off some steam so it worked in some ways
30 seconds left of their holodeck appointment, Daniel and Daithi finally called truce and the group photo happened
The five men left the holodeck chattering and laughing, recounting the things they just did. Dan and Daithi seemed to completely made up as they laughed all the way to the Transporter room to greet the delegates of Betazed, Brian marched back to Sickbay, Kevin was pulled by Anna to help her with installing the new phase cannons that just arrived, and Sean followed both Dan and Daithi to the Transporter room along with 2 of his crew
It was a good game