Seeds Of Doubt

Posted on Nov 12, 2015 @ 10:49am by Selyara Chen & Brigadier General Alexander Towers
Edited on on Nov 12, 2015 @ 10:49am

Mission: Civil War

"Seeds of doubt"

(Cont. "Shadow of the Gun")

* * * =/\= * * *


Location: USS DEMETER

Stardate: 2.15.1111.2100

Scene: Observation Room


Selyara paced the observation room, her anxiety hitting a new peak. She knew the stench of scheming when she smelled it and by now she knew instinctively when she was being used, heaven knows that had happened often enough in her short lifetime. The thing was she just couldn’t figure out why, for what? For someone that wanted her cooperation and expertise, P’trell seemed to be unwittingly doing everything he could to alienate her. She felt trapped, and there was a clawing urge to escape rising in the back of her mind.

“Miss Chen.” She’d been so caught up in the ouroboros of her own thoughts that she hadn’t even noticed the dour Marine enter the room. He stood at the door, his features alert, but his expression rather severe and humorless. “I’ve been ordered to escort you to the brig.”

“I beg your pardon?” Selyara stared at him with shock. “Under what grounds?”

“The President believes that you’re a security risk. Given your history, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

“That’s ridiculous, I’ve been helping you.” Selyara’s eyes narrowed as she tried to take the measure of the man in front of her. She needed an angle to get him to listen, she needed a fingerhold so she could turn this situation around.“The President requested my presence here; he could just as easily have gotten the information from me over the comms if he was that concerned, and now he wants to lock me up? I demand to speak with him. At the very least he’s an idiot if he doesn’t allow me to continue to look for information on the Neo-Essentialists.”

Unless that was the point. She thought about it and then rejected the idea. She couldn’t possibly have missed someone as important as P’Trell during her sleepless nights of singlemindedly going after the Neo-essentialists, could she? It seemed unlikely that anyone could have been recruited in the scant weeks that she’d been out of the loop.

“The president will see you when he sees you. The Neo-Essentialist fleet has given us a surrender ultimatum, and he has just finished a meeting with-” Towers didn’t seem particularly interested in her words. Change of tactic.

“Was Captain Kane there? Is he still here? I need to talk to him, I could go back to the Phoenix with him-” Selyara didn’t have to fake the desperation in her voice. The idea of being in a cell again made her want to scream. I made her feel like letting go of the cloak of sanity she so carefully wrapped around her and unleashing the full power of untamed mayhem she was capable of.

“The Captain is gone, Miss Chen.” Tower’s voice was disinterested. The ‘damsel in distress’ act was clearly not going to work on him. Time to try again.

“Did he ask about me?” Selyara couldn’t help herself.

“No. Miss Chen, I am taking you down to the brig. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The President did say you might be difficult about this.” The Marine shifted his weight subtly, indicating to Selyara that he was quite ready and willing to use force if she didn’t comply.

“I think I prefer the easy way.” Selyara sauntered past him, then paused. Time to strike. She turned around and reached out towards him to make sure she had his full attention. That ended up being a mistake. The man became a blur of motion and she found herself swiftly slammed into the bulkhead, one arm twisted behind her. She let out a squawk of protest.

“He also said I shouldn’t let you touch me.” said Towers. Selyara glared backwards at him.

“I was just trying to attract you attention,” this was proving to be far more difficult than she had thought it would be, and she found herself longing for the simplicity of Raxl Dreyton. Men were much easier to play when you could get them thinking with something other than their brains. “I can’t do anything unless I touch your skin, and I’m wearing gloves.”

Gloves? Speaking the word triggered a memory. P’trell had been wearing gloves satin gloves. That was odd. Most likely he was worried about her trying to control him, but maybe he had something to hide. Alex Towers’ grip loosened on her slightly, just enough to allow her to peel herself away from the cold metal of the walls and squirm her arm in front of her. He did not, however, release her arm. She was not a short woman, but he had almost half a foot on her, and he used it to good advantage. He held her arm slightly up and away from her body, just enough to put her off balance and prevent her from attacking him again.

“You have my attention now. Make it good.”

“You don’t think this is all a bit strange?” Selyara said in her most reasonable tone.

“The Federation has been gutted by a military junta,” Towers said. “Strange is every day, now.”

Selyara frowned. She needed to convince the man that the President was behaving erratically, call into question why she was being sent to the brig in the first place, make him think second guess his orders. Easier said than done, though. Marines were, by and large, an uncreative bunch. Sure, they had leaders of men, but they very seldom could figure out somewhere to lead them TO without orders from someone who outranked them. “I just handed over a list of all the high ranking Neo-Essentialists in Starfleet, and now I’m being put in the brig? I’ve been under Captain Kane’s custody, but P’trell makes no attempt to return me to his care when he has the chance? Not to mention that little outburst on the bridge.”

“You are a known traitor and criminal,” Towers said. “Kane dragged you here to ID the Neo-Essentialists, but they did us the favor of showing up in person. Now I’m not sure what you’re here for, but I know I’ll feel better with you tucked away somewhere.”

“You’re telling me nothing about P’trell has you worried?”

“I serve at his pleasure,” Towers said, and he seemed content to leave it there. In fact, Towers hadn’t once looked at her as they spoke. He just dragged her - not quite roughly, but hardly gently either - through the corridor towards the turbolift. Selyara felt his grip, like iron, on her upper arm. It hadn’t loosened, not even a little bit.

“Typical marine,” Selyara scowled, her tone mocking. “Keeping your head down.”

“Might get shot off otherwise,” Towers said simply.

“Yes, I’m sure your battlefield acumen is *very* impressive,” Selyara said. “But I think the reason you’re not asking questions is because you know you won’t like the answers.”

“Interesting theory,” Towers said. His grip remained firm. They rounded a bend. The turbolift loomed at the end of the corridor with distracting finality. Towers didn’t slow down; they started towards the lift.

“Does P’trell have a death wish?” Selyara asked. “Every one of his advisors is telling him to get out of here. So why isn’t he?”

“The President is confident there is a third option,” Towers said. It was subtle, so subtle that most people wouldn’t have noticed it, but Selyara did: a slight hitch in the Colonel’s throat as he said it. That moment’s hesitation was Selyara’s opportunity. Now to slip in like a blade and widen the opening a little.

“An opinion he no doubt gleaned from his years of military experience,” Selyara lilted. “Or maybe he thinks he’ll talk Edgerton down, convince him this whole thing was a mistake.”

Towers didn’t say anything, but he didn’t slow down. They had traversed half the distance to the turbolift door. Selyara decided she had to press harder, if she was to have any hope of budging a man like Alex Towers.

“Think!” she said. “Why isn’t P’trell withdrawing while he has the chance? He’s putting what’s left of the Federation at risk, and for what? He’s up to something, or he’s insane. Either way, are you really going to let all these people suffer for it?”

Towers hadn’t spared her a glance. They’d reached the turbolift. For a moment, Selyara thought Towers meant to keep going, to smash his way through the turbolift doors. But the colonel slowed, and with his free hand he summoned the lift. He kept his eyes forward, staring at the uninteresting off-beige color of the turbolift doors, and rather pointedly *not* looking at Selyara.

Selyara decided it was time to take a shot in the dark. She reasoned it couldn’t hurt her chances any.

“He wants the chronoton artifact,” she said. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to make sense as she said it.

It got Towers’ attention. She felt his grip on her arm slacken ever so slightly. Slowly, he cut his eyes toward her, and though his gaze was still cold and difficult to read, Selyara got everything she needed from the way he hesitated before asking his next question.

“How do you know that?”

Selyara grinned inwardly. **There’s the hook,** she thought.

“Because I know how to use my head,” said Selyara. “Unlike you.”

“You were monitoring the meeting somehow,” Towers said. “You heard him order Aspinall to turn over the artifact.”

“Interesting theory,” Selyara raised her eyebrows. Apparently news of her talents were being exaggerated, or her past accomplishments were developing a mythos of their own.

“What do you know about it?” Towers asked.

“Not enough,” Selyara said, doing her best to make her expression and tone seem grave, as though she knew far more than what she did, which was approximately zero, with a side of nil. “That’s why I need to talk to Kane. And that’s why P’trell is trying to keep that from happening.”

Towers’ eyes narrowed. “What’s Captain Kane going to tell you?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to talk to him,” Selyara said, rolling her eyes. “But I know he must be suspicious of P’trell too.”

“This could be a trick,” Towers said. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”

“I certainly am,” Selyara purred. She almost batted her eyelashes at him, but decided the gesture would be wasted on Towers. “And yet, knowing that doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?”

Towers stared at her for a moment. Then: “No. It doesn’t.”

“That’s because you know I have a point,” Selyara said. “Congratulations, Colonel Towers. That pounding feeling behind your eyes is what’s known as an original thought. The first few are the worst, eventually you get used to them always popping in and out like that.”

Towers ignored her insults. “Say I let you talk to Kane. You can’t be thinking we overthrow P’trell, not with the Neo-Essentialist fleet waiting outside our windows. All they’d have to do is mop up whoever’s left.”

“The point is we have to do something,” Selyara said. “Best case scenario, P’trell’s about to get every one of us killed for the sake of a grand gesture. And the possibilities get worse from there.”

Slowly, Towers eased his grip on her arm. A moment later, he had released her altogether. The turbolift doors parted with a whisper, but the big marine didn’t even spare them a glance. His cool gaze remained fixed on Selyara. A moment later, the doors whispered shut again.

“Keep talking,” Towers said.

“He could be planning to martyr us for the sake of the cause, provide a rallying point for the rest of the Federation… Or he could be with the Neo-Essentialists.” This part was going to be a stretch. Towers fixed her with a skeptical look and she could tell she was about to lose him, she had to reel him back in. She threw a wild stab in the dark. Things had happened so quickly since she delivered her information to P’Trell she calculated a very high probability that he hadn’t had time to disseminate the list to the rest of the fleet. Roll the dice, assume he hadn’t done it yet, and that fact could be used to make P’Trell look shady as all hell. “Oh come on, Mister Marine. Remember when I said I’d given him the list of all the Neo-Essentialists officers in the fleet? I bet you he hasn’t given them to you yet.” Towers was silent, but the tightening of his jaw told her that she’d hit the nail on the head, so she continued. “Sure, it could just be because of the chaos regarding the arrival of the Neo-Essentialists, but doesn’t this development really make it all the more important that you make sure your house is clean? This is why I have to talk to Michael. He needs that list and a way to access all my information just in case, and since we only have what, 22 hours left on that ultimatum, I suggest sooner would be better than later.”

“Fine. We go to the brig, I give you one call to Captain Kane, you tell him what you need to, and then you are going into a cell where you’re supposed to be, and I will decide what to do with this information.” Towers said, his voice betraying neither enthusiasm nor any other sort of emotion. Selyara gritted her teeth, this still was going to end with her imprisoned, but at least she’d started the wheels turning in the grim Marine’s brain.

“Good, and when you go to the Pendragon to remove the chronoton artifact, you should look at their set-up, talk to Peter Aspinall, and really think about why you’re being told to do what you’re doing. I would say that you should think about the possible ramifications of the timeline paradox you might create, but I find myself doubting that you’d be capable of doing that without your brain overheating.” Selyara said, and pressed the button to open the turbolift doors again. “Let’s make that call made and me tucked away before it begins to look suspicious, hm?”

* * *=/\=* * *


A post!


By:

Shawn Putnam

As

Alexander Towers

High Poobah of Marines, and Selyara's new project


and

Alix Fowler

As

Selyara Chen

A woman with better PR than results, trying to crack a tough nut.