Comebacks And Intrigues

Posted on Feb 11, 2017 @ 6:14pm by Ambassador Xana Bonviva
Edited on on Feb 11, 2017 @ 6:15pm

Mission: Aftermath

“Comebacks and Intrigues”



=/\=

Location: YRIDIA

Scene: Longbar R

TI: Sometime after “The Lights of Hyperion”

STARDATE: [2.17] 0211.0109

There were no windows here; that was the first thing he noticed; there was was one way in and one way out.

The Tellarite stepped into the bar, and looked around the large room which was sparsely decorated. Clearly Yridians did not spare much on decor, he thought to himself. There was a brick wall that had been barely covered up with some kind of concrete in patches, bare lighting that hanging down and lighting in the most minimal sense of the word. There was a long black bar on the eastern side of the wall with stools and….a few bottles and glasses that maybe had been cleaned this century. Tossed around the room were chairs and tables; the number of chairs per table varied as did the state of chairs or shape of wear and tear.

Still the weary traveler straightened out his jacket and wandered over to the bar. “Brandy,” he said to the bartender. He shivered slightly, waiting for his body to adjust to this room; one of the many infernal problems with his position is that he had to continually travel to lesser places that insisted on keeping their temperature too low.

As the brandy slid across the bar, he picked it up while looking around. There was not exactly a plethora of people here and supposedly he was supposed to meet his contact here. Then he saw her; in retrospect she wasn’t hard to pick out. She was the only Human here with...some kind of item sticking out of her mouth. Perhaps he wasn’t hard to pick out either as he was the only Tellarite in so much as he could tell.

Smoothing out his beard, in a subconscious effort to make up for his receding hairline, he wandered over to her and sat at the chair opposite of her. “You’re the...?”

“Yeah,” she replied pulling out her treat. Waving around the ridiculously pink treat she waved it to the chair across from her. “You’re the one here about a job.”

The Tellarite sat across from her. Lowering his voice he said, “There’s no need to be so loud.”

The Human woman shrugged at that. “Sorry about that,” she said not at all sounding contrite. “I-ah-had an accident,” she frowned, as if she was trying to place it. Shaking her dark hair she continued on, “Body parts all work but ya know not all cylinders fire right. Then again I don’t know that my mother would have said they did.”

Then she stuck the candy back in her mouth as she glared at him.

The Tellarite gave a look then passed over a PADD. “Here you go.”

The woman leaned back and read it, leaning back in her chair, propping up her two legs that had on black combat boots. Even for a Human, he thought she was thin, that or her clothes were too large as they sagged off her frame. The bar was warm for Humans, but not Tellarites like him, so after a moment, she shrugged out of her green military styled jacket throwing it over the table. In doing this she showed that she was wearing nothing more than a black tank top and her arms were covered in various drawings that he had seen on other Humans in his travels.

Looking up she said, “Simple enough. Pick up shit, drop off shit. Fly fast, shoot if they ask questions but find another way if possible.” Shrugging she said, “This isn’t difficult even for a headcase like me.”

The Tellarite gave a glance but reminded himself he wasn’t hiring her for her charm but for the reasons she listed: he wanted a pilot and a good shot. “I will let that slide. Now let’s talk about your experience,” he said as they continued with this rather unusual job interview for Pangeos Pathways. “Now I require your full name and experience.”

“Why?”

“We have our reasons.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “You’re trying to see if I’m Intel?” Giving a mirthless laugh the Human woman pulled out her lollipop. “Yeah go run Evangeline Montoya through your little ah-ah,” she stuttered tripping over what should have been a simple word. Banging her fist on the table she tapped her lollipop in a series of taps until she murmured, “I trained in the SFA, I don’t remember when I know I did. I served in the Second Dominion War but I don’t know where. Someone effed me up but I don’t know when, or why, or who. No I’m not ‘Fleet, in any color. Now I’m your best shot at getting your little shit across the stars. Just let me have my lollipop, beer, and shuttle and we’ll be fine.”

“Why are you on YRIDIA looking for a job?” the Tellarite asked.

Montoya grabbed a beer and thought about that. She knew she had been on ship. Then there was….something. A woman? A man? No the person (woman or man) was first then the ship. Frowning she tipped back the beer letting the lukewarm beverage coat her throat. Inhaling she thought about it. Nope, nothing came back to her. There was lots of fogginess, like that city she used to be in. “Th-th-th-there’s not a lot of people here are there?” she asked. “I think you’re stuck with me.”

“Why are you?”

Slamming down the beer on the table she said. “If you don’t want me to ask questions then you-eh ya know,” she fumbled while waving her hands around while looking for another lollipop.

“Don’t ask any questions I don’t want to answer myself,” the Tellarite said.

Montoya gave a thumbs up at that with her left hand as she found her root beer lollipop. Feeling marginally better she settled in for the rest of this interview.

=/\=

Location: VULCAN

Scene: Private Hangar

TI: Now

Montoya sat inside her shuttle, the doors propped opened and waited for the engineer to come by. This was the highlight of her trip every three months. “And there he is,” she said as he came by.

“Excuse me?” T’Kem said.

The Human woman smiled as the engineer bypassed all niceties and boarded the shuttle. They were both employees of Pangeos Pathways, as was everyone in this secluded hangar. It seemed no matter where she landed for once a quarter wipe, there he was. There was a litany of things she wanted to say but thanks to the brains like gagh she had to focus on what she wanted to say which was difficult because she just simply never had that level of focus. “Hello. Have you come to manipulate my thermal phase network?”

A small puff of air escaped from the lips of T’Kem, which was a victory for Evangeline. “Please I just need to update FOX.”

“If I wanted to get my FOX updated I’d be talking to someone with more experience,” Evangeline replied as she tipped back her beer, never moving from the pilot’s seat, attempting to interject something to the otherwise boring as frack conversation.

The Vulcan/Human kept moving around the pilot as he inspected the controls and paneling. “I know you know this but FOX, or Flight Operating eXchange, is the operating system that Pangeos Pathways installed in your shuttle and it needs to be updated once per quarter.”

“Once per quarter? I need a new memory stick way more than once a quarter,” she winked which was totally missed as T’Kem was totally focused on her dashboard.

T’Kem straightened up as much as he could. “That’s it.” Giving her a stern look he said, “I would walk you through the hard restart but I’m really afraid you’d focus on all the wrong words in that sentence.”

The pilot waved at him as she did the hard restart herself. “I’m waiting,” she mentioned off handed pointing to her empty cargo space.

T’Kem picked up a PADD that he laid down at the door. “You’re going to get some break bulk cargo for the inbound route.”

“You’re a sweet talker,” Montoya sighed, thinking about her load. Break bulk cargo meant that it was cargo brought together for shipment going into somewhere but it could be any combination of goods. “Lotsa stops?”

“Straight shot?” T’Kem asked. Flipping through the PADD he scanned through and confirmed, “Yes, all one planet.”

The Human woman raised an eyebrow at that; that sounded too easy. A newbie pilot could do that, nevermind that she had been a Federation trained pilot. The evil overlords, as Montoya thought of them, usually like to give her hazard runs. Like the run from ROMULUS to NAUSICA to FERENIGAR to TELLAR PRIME. “Catch?”

T’Kem kept reading through the Bill of Lading (or BOL) which outlined everything for the traders. “It’s ACAMAR III.”

“Gimme,” Montoya snarled. Reading through the BOL she scanned the list herself. “You shits have me-me-me,” she stuttered. Slapping the console she struggled to find the words that had disappeared from her mind. She knew this was a problem but as she looked at T’Kem she knew he didn’t understand. “It’s Federation,” she heaved finally.

T’Kem did that head tilt thing that always reminded Montoya of a confused discombobulated Horta and totally ruined her little fantasies. “But there are Federation people here on VULCAN.”

Suddenly Montoya’s anger dissipated. She knew she was a few fries short of a kid’s meal but T’Kem was clueless. Patting his hand she sighed, “Our evil overlords payoff people here. They don’t do that everywhere.” Looking through the BOL she said, “And I’m flying in with illegal this and expired that.”

“What’s this and that?” T’Kem asked taking the words literally.

Montoya closed her chocolate eyes. Her brain, which was filled with holes that couldn’t fill in the words, “I-I-I’m fu-fu-ack-a-doodle. Ok? Just go with that.”

Still doing his best confused Horta impression T’Kem asked, “So why do you do this then?”

Evangeline shook her head as she tried to stop her shaking. “That’s my problem, not yours. I’ll leave in 30.” As T’Kem left she called out, “What’s my return?”

The Vulcan/Human sighed as he went through the PADD. “Something called bramatine.” When Montoya looked blankly at him he continued on, “It’s classified on here as a sedimentary rock.”

The Human pilot smoothed back her black hair, put down her beer, to only then lean forward resting her elbows on her knees. She tried to remember how to count to 100 by 10s. Then finally she felt comfortable to get out, “I have to go in past Federation in what is my very lucrative but very dubiously questionable job as I drop this all off to pick up A BU-BUNCH-OF ROCKS?”

“Yes,” T’Kem nodded. With that he pivoted and disembarked from the shuttle.

“I’m gonna need more lollipops,” she sighed to no one in particular.

=/\=

Scene: Shi’Has ShiKahr

“I need to be out there,” Hussein Karimi declared from his hospital bed. They had FedComm on in the background showing the latest Coffee with Kiki.

The Senior Staff were taking turns visiting Karimi while he recovered from his shooting. Today was Leitas’ day; and she had hopes to go over the latest polling and legislative agenda. The problem was, as the Andorian realized, either the topic (or worse yet) or she put Karimi to sleep. So often he careened off onto other topics like watching whatever was on FedComm. “It’s better for you to come out recovered, as I believe Gideon explained yesterday,” she said referring to their Press Secretary. “Now if we can focus on the--”

“Wait what is Xana saying?” Karimi barked as he went to adjust the volume.

“Right,” the Andorian woman sighed as she settled into watch the watch the interview.

=/\=

Scene: FedComm Studios

Xana Bonviva was sitting in a comfortable chair with her Coffee with Kiki mug turned towards the cameras.

“Good Morning and welcome to Coffee with KiKi!” the bubbly host from FedComm host from the 2nd most popular morning show stated after a station identification break. “And we’re back and if you’re just joining us, we’re lucky to be here this morning with one of the Chief of Staff for EARTH’s Councilman Hussein Karimi, Xana Bonviva. Xana, it’s good to have you.”

“Good to be here,” Xana smiled.

“So what can you tell us about Councilman Karimi’s condition?” Kiki asked.

“He’s recovering well. As has been stated by by the excellent medical staff of Shi’Has ShiKahr and by our office, Councilman Karimi’s is spending this time recovering in Shi’Has SkiKahr. However, when not focusing on physical therapy, he is still being briefed on the business of Earth and the Federation,” she answered as took a sip of her iced coffee.

“Of course,” Kiki smiled as she figuratively batted away that throwaway question. Leaning in she asked, “Let’s talk about this bill that Councilman Karimi proposed when he was an Assemblyman.”

“I’d love to talk about Ensuring Inalienable Rights are Extended to All Bill,” Xana smiled as she placed down her mug on the nearby table.

Kiki turned and said, “Don’t you think that there are those in Starfleet who would say that this is unenforceable?”

“Well, as the former Secretary of Starfleet, I can tell you that this is not about Starfleet’s mission which is the advancement of Federation knowledge about the galaxy to its inhabitants, furthering science and technology, defense and diplomacy,” she explained ticking off Starfleet’s mission on her fingers. “This is bill is for the Federation advocating and recognizing rights of all people, not just Federation members. This is about the liberties of all sentient members, no matter their homeworld. In short, to borrow an old Terran expression, it’s about civil rights, which is under the purview of the government,” Xana explained.

Kiki leaned in, placing her own mug down. “People were very despondent and may I say, still are very despondent, after what happened with EARTH’s very own Admiral Edgerton and what he and many in his name were able to do. Are you saying that a *bill* is going to make it better?”

Xana shook her head. “No.” Leaning in she said her voice thick, “Look, let’s be honest. It was painful, incredibly painful. Edgerton’s entire campaign was one attack after another; there was no discrimination on who or where this began or ended. That means there had to be a good, hard long look in the Federation and EARTH in particular. And what that means is that Edgerton brought a kind of hatred to the fore that wasn’t seen ever before, or at least not for a very long time.”

The Bolian/Human woman paused and took a sip from her mug. “But if you want to know what we’re going to do about this? There’s a lot we have to do. But EARTH needs to take a stand and say “Never again”. EARTH needs to be firm and clear and say, “We will not back down, we will fight you on this. On treating every sentient being with dignity we will fight back because we have seen what happens when that doesn’t happen.” That is why this bill is so important and that is how we begin, slowly, to make sense.”

=/\=

Scene: Shi’Has ShiKahr

Hussein Karimi scowled at the monitor. “She’s still pushing this bill.”

Leitas gave a look at the Councilman. “Sir...it’s *your* bill.”

“People don’t like it,” he said with that air of authority and hand dismissal that would have been more convincing if he wasn’t wearing a paper gown.

The Andorian polling/legislative aide gave a glare. “What people? Sir this bill is polling exceptionally well. This bill is probably what got you your seat. We can use this bill to do almost anything. This bill can transform--”

The Councilman from EARTH grumbled at that, cutting off Leitas, as he adjusted the blankets that were covering his legs. “I have physical therapy soon so if you don’t have anything else,” he said dismissively.

Sighing the Andorian left her briefing notes and walked out of hospital room. Finding a secluded alcove she contacted the office.

[[Martine here,]] came the crisp French woman’s voice.

“Shhhh,” the Andorian woman hushed. “I just came from you know who’s room. We watched Xana’s interview.”

[[It’s still on. She’s now talking about the future of EARTH, BOLARUS...I swear she’s becoming a talking head for FedComm at this rate,]] Martine joked. [[Then I can follow her to that job.]]

“He checked out after the bill,” Leitas whispered. “He was going on that people didn’t like the bill. But this is polling incredibly well and I told him that.”

=/\=

Scene: Councilman from EARTH’s office -- Martine’s office

Marie-Claire sat at her desk looking out the window. She still had FedComm on and was half watching Xana wrap up. Karimi was becoming increasingly focused on the bill, but in a negative way.

[[Marie-Claire? Are you still there?]]

“Leitas, go to the nurses’ desk. They know you’re from the campaign. Say you want the visitor rolls, make up some excuse that you need to thank you notes. Bring it back directly here. Martine out,” Martine said. Leaning back in her chair she idly watched FedComm and wondered who was getting to Karimi when they weren’t there. “Merde,” she sighed.

=/\=

NRPG: Apologies for the long overdue post. Couple of things going on here

Evangeline Montoya is back! After an attempted mind-fry she’s back -- now she’s got even more fries short of a Happy Meal :) She will be our eyes through the trade of Pangeos Pathways (the dubious trading company) and our non ACAMAR eyes on the ground (hopefully next set of political posts)

Alix/Jerome/Shawn: Thank you for talking me through this -- it’s much appreciated!

For the “traditional” political side of things Xana gave an interview (which I excerpted) pushing the rights for all bill (on behalf of EARTH/Karimi). Karimi is still in the hospital recovering but indicated privately he’s not as “pro” bill as Xana is saying he is. Martine will begin a private investigation as to who else may have visited Karimi to see who has put pressure on him.

This has been your channel for intrigue - we now return you your regularly scheduled broadcast which may be in progress

=/\=

Sarah Albertini-Bond

~writing for~

Xana Bonviva


“And I’m stubborn, if you want absolute obedience, get a Labrador.”

― Suzanne Wright, Feral Sins