Finnegan Begin Again

Posted on Oct 13, 2014 @ 8:40pm by Lieutenant Eve Dalziel
Edited on on Oct 13, 2014 @ 8:41pm

Mission: Absolute Power

“Finnegan Begin Again”

(Continued from “Not on My Watch”)

=/\=

Trying to make some sense of it all,

But I can see it makes no sense at all

Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor?

'Cause I don't think that I can take anymore

Clowns to left of me, jokers to the right,

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you

-Stealers Wheel, “Stuck in the Middle With You.”

=/\=

Location: USS PHOENIX

SD: 2.141004.1430

Scene: Outside Sickbay

Aerdan needed a shower, a clean uniform, a meal and a good night’s sleep. Not necessarily in that order. And he’d be a lucky bastard to even get the first two. However, the push of protocol still interceded any further movement in that direction. He raised his hand to his badge. “Jos to Secretary Martine.”

It felt like extra time passed as the connection was made. Perhaps the signal had to be authenticated. Or perhaps it was just an illusion that everything was moving in slow motion.

[[This is Martine,]] the woman answered flatly.

“Sorry to disturb you, Madam Secretary,” Lieutenant Commander Jos stated formally. There was no easy way to wake someone, but the issue was too urgent.

There was an audible sigh. [[You aren’t disturbing anything… it’s been one long night.]] It was another sign of vulnerability from someone who normally didn’t display any. Aerdan had lost count of the many examples he had witnessed of this honesty.

“I apologize for adding to it. I regret to report that Lieutenant Phia has been gravely injured,.” Aerdan didn’t catch the unintentional pun until several seconds later, and even then, it didn’t have an effect on him. Too damn much had happened tonight.

Martine took a short, pained breath. All the decisions that had been made were coming to a sick fruition. There was no turning back. [[Is she-]]

His antennae moved thoughtfully. “She’s alive, but in a semi-vegetative state. I have hope that she’ll recover, but it will be a long, slow process. She won’t be fit for active duty for the foreseeable future.”

[[Understood. The departure of the PHOENIX cannot be diverted. I will arrange for a replacement.]]

“If you can’t find one, we will be leaving on schedule.” It was a question delivered as a statement. He knew even more now that nothing could delay the plan.

[[Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander.]]

“Thank you. That’s all I have,” he said apologetically. Surely that was enough.

[[Martine out.]]


=/\=

Location: San Francisco, SFI HQ

Scene: Holodeck 15

Time Index: about 2 hours later

The tall Bajoran woman crouched as low as she could behind a set of packing crates. She tossed the mane of wavy brown hair out of her face for the millionth time. It was too poofy. “Target?” she whispered to her partner, a more diminutive Bajoran male.

“Male. Light brown hair. Hazel eyes. Bajoran. Mid to late thirties.”

“That is the crappiest description I have ever heard,” she hissed due to the whispering. “That’s like half the planet. Clothing? Tattoos? Any discriminating marks at all?”

Her partner was listening on a tiny device in his ear. “Green shirt, brown vest with orange embroidery. Wearing an earring with the symbol for the merchant D’jarra.”

“Better,” she said, looking through the wooden slats of the crates, pausing to push her bangs out of her eyes. She uttered a Bajoran curse.

“I don’t think you get bonus points for that,” Ward said with amusement.

“I’m totally method,” she quipped back, still looking for their contact. An artificially blue eye widened as its gaze through the slat found their mark. “Bingo. He’s at one o’clock.”

“We need to ask the merchant if he carries ultaberries. That will trigger the handoff.”

“Okay, so here’s how it will go down. You’re a better shot than me so I think you should hang back here while I make contact with the mark. You can cover me. Deal?”

“Works for me,” Ward said, readying the modified weapon he carried. “Just don’t beat everyone up before I have a chance to test this baby out.”

“I won’t make any promises,” she replied with a smirk, but as she prepared to make contact, the room dissolved into familiar and boring gridlines without warning. That left the Bajoran couple and their two proctors.

“What happened?” The woman asked, standing up. “We weren’t finished.”

Commander Smythe approached them, and examined his PADD. “We were shut down by someone with a lot higher authority than us.”

“But who would-” Eve Dalziel was rattled out of the exercise further by the loudest noise she’d ever heard come from her comm badge. It was louder than a ‘Ryllis concert. She batted at the metallic device in irritation. “Lieutenant Dalziel here,” she grunted.

[[Lieutenant, your presence is required as the office of the Secretary of Starfleet, immediately.]]

“Do you have any idea why?”

[[It’s classified.]]

Her mouth twitched in an almost smile. She looked at the rest of the training team as she responded to the message. “Is this a joke?” They looked as confused as she was, but it was just the sort of thing that someone might have tried to liven up a scheduled drill.

There was a bit of a sputtering noise on the other end. Obviously they weren’t used to hecklers. [[You are being reassigned! Report to Secretary Martine post haste…*Lieutenant*.]] Then the transmission cut off.

“This wasn’t planned, Eve,” Smythe responded, equally irritated, as some sort of confirmation of the interruption’s validity appeared on the device he had been using to score their demonstration. “But you’d better get moving. This is not a test.”

“Congratulations?” Lieutenant JG Ward Pearsaul tentatively said to his partner.

Eve scratched her head, pushing at the hairdo. The damn wig was itchy to boot. “I don’t know yet,” as she turned to leave. ”But it’s the middle of the night there. It can’t be good.”


=/\=

Location: Paris

Scene: Secretary Martine’s Office

TI: 25 minutes later

“Lieutenant Dalziel, thank you for your cooperation.”

Eve nodded respectfully. “I would have arrived sooner, but we were in the middle of a routine training exercise.” The Lieutenant cut a poised but stoic figure as she crossed the room to where Martine was seated. She was tall and lithe, except for her broad shoulders, broader than most human females. Her complexion was milky, almost glowing with paleness. Her features were angular, with cheekbones so chiseled that they looked as if they could cut glass. Her large eyes were almost silvery in the soft light of the office, and her full lips were pressed together disapprovingly. A curtain of silken hair, nearly as black as her uniform, was held in a shiny ponytail by a simple stainless steel clip. The black jumpsuit, which had become ‘de rigeur’ for Intel Headquarters, fit her body like a second skin.

“I’m here regarding reassignment?” She asked the Secretary, noticing that a short glass of alcohol sat on the desk, utterly untouched. There had been ice in it at one time, but it had long since melted, leaving traces of condensation on the blotter and a layer of water on top of the amber whiskey.

“This is unorthodox, Lieutenant, but welcome to the crew of the USS PHOENIX. An unexpected medical emergency has left them short-handed, and its launch cannot be delayed. Therefore I was tasked to find a suitable replacement.”

Eve smiled as much as she could for having no fracking idea what was going on, then perused the PADD the Secretary of Starfleet handed off to her. She scanned the information for a few seconds until the subject of her position stood out conspicuously, well at least to her anyway. “Just as Counsellor- nothing else?”

MC sighed, but her eyes were alight with a private humor. If Dalziel had the full bios on the assembled crew, she’d realize it wasn’t an empty position in the slightest. “You sound disappointed.”

“Listen- I’m good at helping people. I know that. But I refuse to be left to waste away in a dusty office for my entire career. That’s why I took the post at SFI to begin with.”

“They have dusty offices there too, or haven’t you noticed?” Martine glared at the junior officer, then continued. “Your report was practically buried under a mountain of information. It took someone with a particular need at a particular time to find it. Don’t expect that to come along every day.”

Eve ignored the bait, momentarily. “What report?”

“Your report on personnel movements over the last 12 months.” Martine and the rest of her staff had been scouring bios looking for someone who was not only qualified, but someone they could trust to *not* be a Neo-Essentialist. It would have been unlikely that one of them would report on something that could show a larger picture of their machinations, even though it was buried under layers of other information and passed off as unremarkable by Eve’s immediate superiors.

The younger woman allowed herself to gloat. “So there was something to all that?”

“There was enough to determine you’re the type of officer we need.”

Eve leaned back in the chair, part of her ponytail flicked over one shoulder. “Am I allowed to refuse the position?” she asked coolly. “This feels somewhat forced.”

Martine was prepared for that eventuality. She had a list in her top desk drawer. But the next candidate was distant from Dalziel in terms of skill set. So she tried to play persuasive. “I can assure you, you were hand picked.”

“I was hand picked, at the eleventh hour, as someone’s back up plan. I was the second choice.”

“You were chosen by the Secretary of Starfleet.”

Eve thought hard. She wanted this, but wasn’t willing to go without as much information as she could gather. “And exactly why does the ship have to depart in such a hurry? I mean, I’m honored, but even you can see how desperate this looks. What’s the threat? Who’s the enemy?”

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” Martine said softly as she looked out the window. Dawn was hours away from breaking, but the sky seemed like it was a touch more blue and less black. Morning could not be held back forever.

Eve snorted. “Permission to speak freely?”

The blue eyed woman turned away from the window. “Of course.”

“This isn’t vigilance. This is full blown panic. The Phoenix project wasn’t even supposed to be launched yet.”

MC huffed. She had forgotten Lieutenant Dalziel’s Intel clearance was fairly respectable.

Eve continued, not even letting the Canadienne respond. “Don’t try to feed me platitudes. It has to be *something*. Rommies still pissed about that whole cloaking thing? Were the Borg spotted off the coast of Jorus Island on RISA?”

“The enemy comes from within. Even now it may be too late to prevent a civil war.”

“The Neo-Essentialists?”

Martine was silent. But that silence spoke volumes.

“Are we chasing them, or running away from them?”

Marie-Claire took a deep breath, sidestepping the issue. “You keep saying you don’t want to be stuck in the background. Well, here’s your shot to move up.”

“Move up to what?”

“The ship is state of the art. I probably don’t need to tell you that. The crew is unique. They’ve already experienced a taste of what the Neo-Essentialists have to offer, and I’d be willing to bet they’ve not worked completely through that yet. Your training as a Counsellor is what they need.”

Eve rolled her eyes as she uttered the recitation, it rolling off her tongue just as easily. “‘Training is like a muscle. If you do not use it, it atrophies.’”

“Wise words- who said them?”

“My first handler- then Commander Zakel. I think he’s an Admiral now.”

Marie-Claire nodded in agreement. He was. “I’ll be sure to send my regards.”

Eve stared at the older woman through placid gray eyes. She’d been carefully observing her during the entire meeting. Retired Admiral Martine projected a constant state of take-charge practicality. But her demeanor could not completely conceal the the urgency and pathos within her. There was definitely a change in her since the press conference regarding the arrival of the CENTURY, a ship long believed lost. A certain level of personal control had been eaten away by this uncovered threat.

Even though they didn’t know each other, the mutual trust between them was palpable. And, when push came to shove, that was all Eve really had that was concrete. Her gut and the feeling that Martine was telling the truth. “Post traumatic stress? At the hands of their own people… our own people?”

“Among other things, and some more than others. To leave them without a Counsellor would be a disservice.”

She folded her arms. “I’ll be going on away missions too… right?”

“I’m sure you can discuss that with Captain Kane.”

“I don’t do groveling particularly well.”

Martine laughed in spite of the situation. “He doesn’t strike me as one that likes listening to groveling. So you might be fine.”

“I’ll need to report to the medical staff upon my arrival… so they can be apprised of my ‘situation’.” Although she had chosen to look as human as possible over a decade earlier, you couldn’t trump genetics. Besides, honesty was definitely the best policy, especially if she expected these people to come to her with their mental and emotional problems.

“Most of them have the necessary permissions to see it on your files. But I can see where a friendly visit might put them more at ease.”

“Telling your crewmates you’re Cardassian is about as easing as a vacation on the Breen homeworld wearing a metal bikini. But I’ll manage.” She stood and shook the shorter woman’s hand. “It won’t be the first time.”

“Good luck, Lieutenant.”

“May the Prophets guide you,” Eve said warmly, thinking of her adoptive mother.


=/\=

NRPG: Surprise! Well probably not a surprise if you keep up with group chat, but for those that don’t- aren’t you just shocked to pieces right now? Bio needs to be posted still… that’s next on my list of things to do.

Susan Ledbetter



Lieutenant Eve Dalziel

Counsellor

USS PHOENIX

Marie-Claire Martine

Secretary of Starfleet

Captain Siobhan Reardon

Currently Unassigned

"I savored those stories; I read them slowly, one each day. And when I was done, I wished I hadn't read them at all. So I could read them again... like it was the first time."
-Melanie to Old Jake, DS9, "The Visitor”