Spaceships in the Night

The bar was busy tonight, thought Reston as he cleaned a few used glasses. Though he was facing away from the customers, his eyeballs rotated on their stalks and allowed him to easily see what was going on behind him. It didn't look like there was going to be any trouble tonight, he thought. Just a bunch of people (some who were species he'd never seen before) who were getting together for a drink. Nights like tonight were nights when he was most happy with his bar, Light Matter. He'd made an environment where any citizen of the universe was welcome.

Snapping out of his sentimental trail of thought, he noticed he had a couple of new customers sitting at the bar and waiting to be served. A man and a woman - from the look of their uniforms, the man was with Star Fleet and the woman was with the Space Security Service. An unusual pair. He turned his body around to face the new customers, placing the hands at the end of his tentacles welcomingly upon the bar.

"What can I get the pair of you?" he said, smiling.

"We are not together," the woman replied curtly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Reston, embarrassed at having made an assumption.

The man grinned, "Would it really be so bad if we were?" he asked.

The woman said nothing, but he carried on.

"Where are my manners?" he said. "Commander Will Riker," he held out his hand to shake, "pleased to meet you."

The woman looked at him and narrowed her eyes.

"Can I at least get a name?" he asked.

She blew air through her nose before saying, "Sara. Sara Kingdom."

"Nice to meet you, Sara Kingdom," he said, withdrawing his hand as he realised he wasn't getting a handshake.

"Do either of you folks know what you want to drink?" asked Reston, trying to defuse what he sensed was an increasingly awkward situation.

"What have you got, barkeep?" asked Riker. "I want something strong. I've not had a shore leave that didn't go wrong in a long time."

"We've got just about everything. Hypervodka, Klingon Bloodwine, Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, Romulan Ale… I could go on."

"Just make it a Romulan Ale for me," said Riker.

"A Hypervodka ought to do it," said Sara.

"I see you're a woman who can handle her drink," said Riker.

"It can help to take the edge off," she said, not really looking at him.

Reston was getting an odd sort of satisfaction from the conversation between these two humans. They were a funny species.

Once he'd served the two their drinks, Sara took her shot instantly and quivered for a second as it went down. Riker, meanwhile nursed his drink more slowly and, after taking a sip, paused and looked into the air.

"You know," he said, "as much as I love a good Romulan Ale, there's one alcoholic beverage that, for me, will never be surpassed. It's been passed down my family for generations and is a type of whiskey that they just call 'The Recipe'."

Sara frowned at that. "That's quite unusual. In my family, we also have a drink we call 'The Recipe'."

Riker raised a single eyebrow in an almost Vulcan-like expression. "That's odd. It's actually been in my family for centuries. I'm descended from a family called the Longworths and the legend goes that 'The Recipe' was invented by a couple of old sisters sometime back in the twentieth century. Technically, they were breaking the law, but they didn't have the slightest clue. They didn't even know it was alcohol and practically lived off the stuff. Supposed to have lived to be about a hundred and twenty in the end too. I can't for the life of me remember their names though…"

"Not… the Baldwin sisters?" ventured Sara.

"That's incredible," exclaimed Riker, "how on Earth did you know that?"

"I am a direct descendant of the Baldwin bloodline," she said. "I had no idea that the "Recipe" recipe had ever been shared outside of the family."

"Well, as I understand it," Riker said, "there was always a very special relationship between the Baldwin and the Longworth family."

"It really is remarkable," said Sara, loosening up a little. "What are the chances that we two should end up in the same place?"

"I can't even begin to calculate," said Riker.

"You'd be surprised," said Reston, cutting in, "as much as the universe is so infinitely big that nobody could ever truly comprehend the full extent of its size or the things it contains, it's also a very small universe sometimes. In all my years in this bar, I've seen lots of miraculous coincidences like these. Everything is connected and that's beautiful."