JPL - CIntel & CHelm - LtCmdr Rinehart & Lt sh'Thrass - "London Bridge"

Posted on 241412.12 @ 8:52pm by Lieutenant Zhyalla sh'Thrass & Commander Tierney Rinehart

Mission: Holy Cow

"What's a blue girl gotta do to not be bored to tears on this ship?" Zhyalla asked as she spotted Lieutenant Commander Tierney Rinehart down the corridor. Zhyalla had every intent of making this seem like chance, even had an excuse at the ready for why she was all the way down on deck 27 where little of interest existed outside of the intelligence offices, but the reality of it was she'd heard that the chief intelligence officer didn't spend much time out of briefings, her office, and her quarters. So Zhyalla found herself practicing her favorite skill she'd learned from humans: little white lies.

As engrossed as she'd been in the PADD she was reading, Tierney hadn't heard the Andorian's approach. She should have, would have if she wasn't spending the time and every ounce of her energy pouring over the reports that concerned Captain Rhodes' death. Nothing seemed to add up. Everything pointed, like he'd said in his final recording, to sabotage stemming from the Enterprise. If that damned security officer had still been aboard, fingers would have been pointed straight for her — but of course... Unless she had a plant, the woman was off the hook. The Starling sighed heavily and settled her nerves, though her heart still raced from the sudden appearance and voice in her office. "Read a book?" She offered in candid retort, bringing a hand back down to her otherwise barren desk from where it had instinctively lifted to protect her chest and throat.

"It's not cold enough for book reading," Zhyalla insisted with a polite smile. "I'm more of a drinks and spirited conversation sort."

"Then there's a bar or lounge or something. The crew have made passing mention on and off, but I haven't checked it out." Tierney shrugged and studied the blue woman and her smile, "Not my kind of scene, personally."

"Ah, but you can learn so much, watching people in environments like that," Zhyalla pointed out, "We could go people watch together, I'll buy the drinks. Learn things about our shipmates together."

For a moment she actually considered shoving off the offer for sake of some excuse about reports and needing to compile the evidence and maybe even hinting at an investigation, but she knew — somehow — that anything less than an 'alright' would have sent the Andorian's antennae whirling about her head in irritation. "Fine. Your tab." She answered. For the most part, while more jovial and controlled, the species were like blue ice Klingons. This she had decided long ago during those dark and dreary years the little glow bug spent being beat practically senseless for her own unidentifiable differences.

"Good, good. Where's the officer's lounge on this ship?" She grinned, resisting the urge to ask the computer, and instead awaiting the guidance of Tierney. Hopefully the two of them wouldn't be the only senior staff in the lounge, she did want to get to know the rest of them too... but the chief intelligence officer was by far the most interesting of the group.

"Christ..." Tierney sighed as she got up. It had been part of the ship she steered clear from, but she knew the location well enough. Anyone who had spent even half a day aboard the vessel did. Another suspicious strike against the Andorian, then again creatures sent in by brass weren't party girls. "You have a lot to learn, young padawan." She admonished as she motioned for the woman to follow and lay in a course that would ultimately deposit them at Shakers.

"Pad-a-what?" Zhyalla repeated almost silently to herself, antennae quirking in confusion as she followed the red-head. Even though the chances of having to get there from the depths of the intel offices again were probably slim, as she hoped to convince Tierney to meet her halfway in future outings like this, she still paid careful attention to the route the other woman guided them on.

Looking over her shoulder as Zhyalla slowly caught up, Tierney shook her head. "Don't worry too much about it, some old Earth science fiction reference." She replied with a flippant wave of her wrist. The rest of the trip was spent in relative silence until the sights and sounds of Shakers came to engulf them. There were more than enough people there to keep people watchers entertained, a constant cycle of which fed the need of the civilians tending the bars. Tierney felt ill at ease as she made her way to a stool and hopped up into it, a friendly face was there almost instantly and expectantly looked between the two of them for their first order. "This is your show, Blue."

"Risa sunrise for both of us," Zhyalla ordered, settling herself on the stool next to Tierney. She then turned her back on the bar to look out at all the people gathered. She skimmed the crowd, hoping to spot someone else from the senior staff meeting. The idea of ordering Romulan Ale had flitted through her mind for a moment after the red-head's quip about her skin color, but there was no way this bar would actually have any of it. "So, just by looking... what can you tell me about her?" the Andorian asked, leaning close to her companion, and nodded towards a blond human sitting across the table from a Bolian man.

The drinks hit the bar top and Tierney sighed, palming her glass and tipping her attention in favor of where the Andorian directed it. The blond was buxom, giggling incessantly, but a glass of wine sat half empty beside her. Downing the liquor in her hand, Tierney shuddered and swallowed a cough and wheeze as it burnt down the entire length of her esophagus. "Enlisted," she wheezed, her too-large eyes watering, "She's just looking to latch onto an officer and be set for life."

"That explains the choice to ditch the uniform," Zhyalla agreed. "I think she already had a try at it before, see the indent on her ring finger?" The blue woman took a small sip of her drink after making the observation.

"Maybe... Or maybe that was pre-enlistment and now she's determined to live the cushy life? Trying to escape the recent divorce?" The alcohol made things warm, that sharp burn quickly subsiding into a tingling that danced along the edges of Tierney's delicate nervous system in ways that would have made good ol' grandpa Riker shake his head with a sigh. She obviously hadn't been gifted the degree of "Riker Lush" that seemed to bubble and boil in even her own father's veins, the line perhaps too diluted. Or was it her mother's unknown genetic profile that was hyper-sensitive to the drink? Someday she'd care, right now it was about fitting in and coasting under the radar. Slamming back a drink that was made to be sipped, however, wasn't the brightest way to do that. Lacking the social grace surrounding the art of drinking, however, Tierney hadn't any way of knowing that small tiny detail.

"Yeah, but I don't think she's going to have much luck with that one," Zhyalla chuckled softly. The Bolian's body language was closed off, drawn back, and for such a friendly culture, and one that was known for their multiple partners in their marriage, it was usual. "I'd almost be tempted to step in and save him, but I suspect she'd latch onto me instead." She turned her attention back to her companion, and noticed the empty glass. "That was quick, do you want another?" Another sip of her own drink punctuated this question.

Tierney looked up at the question and nodded with a furrowed brow as if the question was the oddest thing she'd ever heard, "Absolutely. It's still your show." She managed to grin, "And I'd recommend leaving the bar flies to their own level. Strange things happen with they're desperate and this ship has had enough drama for awhile."

"What sort of drama?" Zhyalla leaned back against the bar, turning her head to catch the eye of the bartender that'd served them originally. She waved just one finger at him, and he nodded. It didn't take long for him to place a replacement next to Tierney, and remove her empty glass.

This time Tierney was far more careful and chose to sip the sharp drink. "Captains taken by the bad guys, Captains killed while responding to sudden orders. A Security officer that was too big for her britches, that sort of drama." She sighed in response and set her glass back down long enough to double check that her hair was up off her collar. It was starting to get warm.

"You mean the security officer that Commander Dhej found out was leaving at the briefing? Was was it, Lt Lucas?" This was what Zhyalla was really looking for. What she'd heard and read about this crew before being dispatched had been colorful, and she needed to confirm if the rumors were even remotely true. "It seems odd she'd have left without anyone telling the current commanding officer of the ship."

"That'd be the one." The redhead shifted her weight on the stool as she pursed her lips around the glass and took another sip of the sunrise. "Good for nothing but stirring the pot, downright hateful," She said and pointed a finger down, tapping the bar top with her nail in a serious and clacks to emphasize her point "and I do mean hateful. That woman could seriously frak up a one car funeral, too. Started her crap with one of our other officers, tried to frame her for an attack meant to kill me. Such a mess. Wouldn't listen to anyone but her own fool self." Tierney snorted disdainfully, brushing her bangs from her face as the alcohol loosened her lips and began to send her heart racing in her chest.

"Oh wow. How do you figure she still has her commission if she's that bad off?" Zhyalla half turned towards the bar, resting against it with an elbow. She held her glass near her lips, but didn't drink. She watched Tierney closely, thinking the drink had gone to her head pretty quickly, even for the rookie mistake of emptying the first glass in one gulp.

Another snort, this time emphasized with a smirk and the tilt of a pretty head, "Friends somewhere? That's my guess. She's out of our hair now and that's what matters most."

"Matters for us, at least," Zhyalla returned with a shrug, raising her glass. "Shall we drink in sympathy to her new crewmates?"

Drinking would have suddenly seemed like a bad idea if the young Starling hadn't been so far gone, the drink quickly poisoning her bizarre endocrine and nervous system as it quickly spilled through her veins. "We shall indeed. To headaches lost and woes to headaches gained." She all but slurred as she lifted her glass in toast and killed what was left of it much to the chagrin of her liver and her pancreas as it struggled to pump heavier amounts of insulin into her bloodstream.

Zhyalla turned and looked for the bar tender as she drank. The intelligence officer was an absolute fly weight, and the Andorian didn't think it would benefit anyone for the red head to come out of this hung over. She mouthed the word 'water' when she made eye contact with the bar tender.

"What happened to the last commanding officer?" Zhyalla prompted, handing Tierney the glass of water.

"He's dead." Tierney responded, taking up the glass of water and putting it to her lips. The cold, crisp, plain taste of it was a welcomed reprieve to her system as she downed it. "He was rendezvousing with another ship, legitimate orders, but never made it. Someone sabotaged the run about, he was sure of it and said as much in his last recorded message." Tierney sniffed at the thought, pinpricks of discomfort and sadness tried their damnedest to override the heat and woozy, swaying feeling of the alcohol.

"Sabotage? Oh my," came the blue woman's reaction. Given everything else that had happened on the ship, she really wasn't surprised something like that would happen, but she wasn't going to admit that. "You and he weren't close, were you?" Of course she'd already heard the rumors, but why not hear it from the source?

The PADD Tierney had carried with her clattered carelessly to the floor, momentarily forgotten as she looked for some point of the lounge to focus on as everything spun as the blood slowly drained from her face. "We..." She paused to collect herself a bit, convinced she was going to be sick or black out, "We were an item. Taboo and all, we were definitely a... Thing. Couple. Yeah... A couple." She half hummed. In the back of her mind she was panicking over the sudden loss of control, but the sirens were nothing more than a whimper as everything else continued on it's horrendous downward spiral.

Zhyalla knew that look that had just washed over Tierney's face. She'd seen it many times, usually after hours of drinking with someone who tried to keep up with her cold fueled drinking experience — after all, alcohol has a lower freezing point than water and winter nights can be long and have little else to do to entertain. She set her glass down on the bar, dipped down to collect the dropped PADD, and came up with her shoulders under the petite intel officer's arm.

"I don't think the drink agrees with you, let's get you to sickbay," she suggested as her eyes instinctively fell on the PADD she'd picked up. It'd turned on when its side had hit the deck, and Zhyalla's gaze picked out the name of the man they'd just been speaking about, Mark Rhodes.

Fire. It felt like fire was in her veins again, burning viciously through every artery and capillary until it once again reached her savagely beating heart and she swore she couldn't breathe unless she remembered to. It skipped. It thundered. It bucked in her chest until Tierney was certain it was about to explode and then... It slowed. It was as if someone hit the brakes on a semi, a deep shuttering slowing that came with as much damage as such a feat implied. The Starling's bloodpressure dropped, a combination of her pancreas producing entirely way too much insulin to combat the pseudo-sugars produced by the alcohol acting as yet another stone wall that sent the young officer down into shock. She couldn't respond to Zhyalla's movements, instead she simply felt herself drop off a proverbial cliff into darkness as things began to shut down in her brain and her body went rag doll limp, practically tumbling down the slope of the Andorian's arm and onto the floor as her knees gave way.

Caught completely off guard, and having not got her arm around the drunk officer quick enough because the PADD had caught her eye, it was all Zhyalla could do to keep Tierney from hitting her head in the way down.

"sh'Thrass to sickbay, incoming," she said with a quick tap to her combadge. Then she threw the limp body over her shoulders in what her Academy instructors had called a Fireman carry. It would take almost the same time to authorize a site to site as it would to run the four decks, especially since the computer would track the com call and have a turbolift waiting for her. A fleeting moment of eye contact told her the bar tender knew she'd be back to square her tab after Tierney was seen to.

=/\= End Log =/\=

Lieutenant Commander Tierney Rinehart
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS ENTERPRISE, NCC 1701-F

Lieutenant Zhyalla sh'Thrass
Chief Helm Officer
USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-F