JPL ~ CIntel + CHelm ~ LtCmdr Rinehart + Lt sh'Thrass ~ "But The Most Special Are The Most Lonely"

Posted on 241501.06 @ 8:16pm by Commander Tierney Rinehart & Lieutenant Zhyalla sh'Thrass

Mission: Holy Cow

It had taken time and careful research. It hadn't been easy, and it probably ate up more of her free time than it should have, but eventually she'd hunted it down. Subspace messages, the changing of hands — metaphoric — of gold pressed latinum, and finally she had the replicator pattern she needed: Andorian silk. The pattern was good, real good; it was practically indistinguishable from the real thing, and significantly cheaper to cover her quarters with. Also, much more forgiving of spilled food than the real thing — which given Zhyalla's affection for Belgium Waffles drenched in syrup that had developed at Starfleet Academy, was probably a good thing for something that would be covering the couch, chair, and throw pillows.

The pillows sat stacked on the coffee table, each folded within a large square of the silk — two each of pink, yellow, and orange ­— and knotted in place. Slate grey silk draped over the chair and couch, and Zhyalla knelt on the couch tugging, tucking, and adjusting the fabric to where she wanted it when her door chimed at her.

"Enter," she called, not looking up from her efforts.

Stepping away from the Romulan had been more than a paltry task. It had taken every bit of energy the young Starling could muster to bring herself to walk down a hallway with him at her back. He mystified her, set her blood running at a fever pitch, and chilled her to the bone all at the very same time. A simple gesture, the flick of his wrist, and any number of little barbed weapons could have been plucked her way and lodged in the most tender of places to fell her without so much as misplacing a single hair on his beautiful head. Tierney knew it and knew it well. It had sent cold shivers down her spine with every step she'd taken.

It wasn't entirely without surprise that she'd simply followed her feet to the nearest source of comfort, and that comfort had taken form of the Andorian woman. "I thought I saw a Romulan." She practically panted, wild eyed as she came through the door. "What the Hell am I saying, I DID see a Gods damned Romulan!" It was only then that she paused, her eyes adjusting to the dramatic colors of the blue woman's once bland quarters. "You weren't kidding about decorating... but Zhyalla! There's a bloody Romulan aboard this ship, several of them actually and for the love of the prophets, one of them is our damned Chief of Security!"

"Romulan chief of security," Zhyalla repeated. Her antennae twitched as this idea bounced around her head and she tried to pretend the thought of it didn't send a chill up her spine. She stood up from the couch, looking at it as if she were crafting her master piece, then bent over again to tuck the silk in at the arm just a little bit more. "That will certainly make things interesting."

"Interesting?!" The Starling nearly shrilled, crab stepping to come around the Andorian with her eyes wide and arms out and opened. "It's suicide!" Stating the obvious wouldn't make it go away, that much was evident — but what wasn't evident was why Zhyalla seemed more intent on preening her couch and silks than in the aspect of the dark-prince being a living, breathing issue. He'd been there, a breath away from her, with his heart continuing to beat green blood through his veins and she... She'd been thunderstruck. Not enough to keep her mouth shut, but enough to allow him to guide the course of her thoughts and steer her attentions away from finding Mark's killer just long enough for for him to work his way in as a permanent facet of her life. She should have ignored him, should have just kept on walking — but no... The masterpiece that was the hobgoblin, ill temper and all, had held her captive in the palm of her hand as if she were but a bird. He could have crushed her, could have killed her — but instead they'd danced some ridiculous routine where each had a shake at displaying dominance. Neither had won. Neither had lost.

It wasn't until five minutes or so of active babbling later that Tierney realized she'd been verbalizing the entire encounter and pacing across the floor. Her Navajo inspired throw fluttered in her wake as she went back and forth, to and fro with her hands emphasizing points as if she were some great conductor and the rant was a symphony. "What's worse is I'm almost certain he's of the Praetor's own bloodline." She finally sighed and collapsed onto the couch with her head in her hands.

"I suppose that means we can't just oops him out the airlock then," Zhyalla said simply, crossing her arms and eying the couch and silk in light of Tierney's stress testing of the straps and tucking that was intended to keep the silk in place. A small shake of her head, and she plucked a pillow off the coffee table. "The fact that he's arriving now means the chances of him being involved in Rhodes' death, or any of the other suspicious stuff that has been plaguing this ship recently, is very small. That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep an eye on him though." She tossed the pink pillow at Tierney.

Startled by the sudden unidentified flying pink object, Tierney snapped a hand out to catch it mid-flight and brought it back in for her to study the offending thing. It was a pillow. She brought it to her lap and leaned her elbows against it, hunching over to place her delicate jaw in her hands. "No... I suppose you're right." She agreed, "He couldn't have been involved in Rhodes' death." But her mind startled whirling and churning, if the Romulan, and his consorts, were able to get into the ship unannounced and unnoticed, than perhaps they'd done the same previously. Maybe the shadow-prince was just there to see to it that their will had been done. She looked to the oddly calm Andorian with her head tilted. "What's wrong?"

"I wouldn't say couldn't about a Romulan, that's like saying a Terran ocean liner's unblinkable. It's only unlikely, though as your Sherlock Bones said — Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth," Zhyalla insisted, and turned her attention to the chair. "One of us can request files on the hobgoblin. It probably should be me, because my channels aren't open... though he might be suspicious if you don't. They'll probably send me more info though, because they'll expect him to notice when you request and possibly even snoop and they won't want him to know exactly how deep their information is." Zhyalla's antennae twitched as she spoke, bobbing about as if to follow the meandering of her thoughts. She knelt down in front of the chair and started tucking and folding the silk around it. "I could put in my request now, and mention you'll be following up with a request of your own, and tell them to send you the decoy file. You'll just know to ignore it beyond making a show for hobgoblin."

For a long moment, Tierney was hung up on the words 'unblinkable' and 'sherlock bones'. Almost to the point that she lost her sense of urgency surrounding the Romulan and fell into a fit of giggles. The giggles wouldn't come, they weren't allowed and she simply refused their request for landing. What she did allow, however, was the knowledge that she'd have to figure out how to properly correct Zhyalla's parse errors in a way that wouldn't offend her. That would come in due course and with familiarity beyond the fact that they were two spooks with a secret both stuck on the Enterprise. She watched the blue woman's hands work with the raw silk, and listened to everything she had to say. "Do it." She replied, "He'll be watching and waiting, I'd be concerned and surprised if he wasn't." Part of her worried if he was ranting and raving to his servants the same way she'd run to Zhyalla. Had she left the same impression on him that he had on her? She couldn't help but wonder.

"Zhyalla... I've..." She shrugged and fell backwards against the back cushions of the couch, her braided bun popping a pin and allowing the braided bit to fall and unravel against her shoulder. It was impossibly long, coiled like a snake ready to strike. "I've never seen one like him. They're usually so boorish and drab."

The tone that surrounded Tierney's last statement set off some innate sense for Zhyalla, and she paused her fussing over the silk for a moment. She considered the words that had come from her new friend's mouth, and finally she turned to look at the little red-head. "That is dangerous territory you're wandering into. If he has any ulterior motives at all, he will eat you alive."

The star-child froze and quickly shook her head, "No... Zyhalla... It's not like that." She tried to explain, but knew it was a losing battle. "I know better than to touch fire." Tierney finally conceded and reached to recoil her bun, twisting it in on itself and finding the pin that had come lose. "There's no harm in looking, right? He's so... Different." And he was. The graceful slant of his eyes, the strength of his jaw. Even the long tapered locks of his hair that fell against the sides of his face and shoulders instead of that dreadful bowl cut all defied the logic she'd long since applied to the Romulans. She hated them. Knew that the only good Romulan was a dead one and the whole nine yards. It had been bred into her and what her father feared had been lost in breeding, was re-taught through racist repetition. If she'd stopped to think about it, she looked upon Romulans like the other school children had looked upon her; like an insect meant to be studied and destroyed. Maybe the shadow-prince had been sent to teach her a lesson.

"You say the words, but I am not entirely convinced you mean them," Zhyalla said gently, sitting next to her friend. "Perhaps you should give him a space until we learn more about him?"

"I plan on giving him a lot of space." Tierney replied in earnest. "People like dissect people like me. Just having him on the ship is inviting enough trouble, and I practically welcomed him in by insulting his integrity right there in the open." She sighed, casting a glance at the Andorian.

"He'll hopefully dismiss it as racism, his people certainly draw enough ire from other species that they have to be used to it," Zhyalla dismissed, though she frowned. "You truly had no warning he was coming though?"

The redhead cringed and shrunk away in part at hearing such a word and in part knowing he didn't consider it as such. "He smiled." She said most sheepishly, not one of those 'you vex me and I'm going to kill you in your sleep smiles' either... And then he peacocked off as if he were the Praetor himself." Tierney sighed with a shake of her head. "Not even a whisper, not even from Commander Dhej."

"Curious. I don't see this as something any CO would dare not inform his intel department of. And Dhej doesn't hit me as incompetent, so I doubt it's that," Zhyalla mused. "We really need to get his intel file, Romulans are already concerning, but one coming on a ship without intel or the command team getting warning is worrying."

"I couldn't agree more." The little one nodded, plucking at her throw as if it had been tainted by the hobgoblin. Everything had. Life wasn't going to be the same with him lurking freely through the ship, especially as the head of ship's security. "I plan to speak with Dhej about it as soon as I leave here."

"Good. And I shall send my request for information out at the same time, but it'll need another signal to piggyback on, so you might want to come up with an excuse for waiting a day before you send yours." Zhyalla plucked an orange pillow off the coffee table as she spoke, and stuck it behind her. "You said there's more than one of them... Mr. Hot-Goblin, chief of security, and how many others?"

"Hobgoblin, Zhyalla." Tierney chuckled, unable to contain herself any longer. Her eyes glittered in good humor as she shook her head, "not Hot-Goblin." She grinned, glad for the interruption to her thoughts by yet another parse error. This one, at least to her, took the cake. "I'll come up with something, research on the ship, making sure internal sensors are working correctly and tracking down communications with Ops to see how the Hell they came aboard yadda yadda."

"I don't know, with the sparks in your eyes, are you sure I wasn't right the first time?" Zhyalla winked, her antennae bobbing in amusement. "But truly, how many Romulans do we have aboard now?"

"Hobgoblin." Tierney asserted, her shoulders squaring and her little head tipping high in pugnacious defiance. Zhyalla's amusement didn't seem to trickle, it only served to leave Tierney ready and willing to protest further in an attempt to chase those so called sparks from her eyes and drown the green skinned bastard like a bad dream. Bury him. Leave him behind. Forget him. Gods how she wished she could. "There were at least three that I counted. Two seem to be serving him. He's a damned Arrain!" She all but spat and then shook her head, "A Lieutenant equivalent, and yet... He comes with pets."

"Pets, huh?" Zhyalla perked at the mention and a grin bloomed across her face. "Like servant class or something? You did say he's related to the Praetor, he would have enough clout to have minions like that. If we're lucky, he'll let them wander unsupervised. That could be useful."

"He certainly acts like it." Tierney huffed in response to the question of the Arrain's blood ties to the Praetor. "We'll do what we can. If you see one? Have at it. We'll figure out our next moves after that file comes in on him."

"Of course." Zhyalla nodded, pulling a yellow pillow into her lap. "I suppose the sooner we start, the sooner we can figure out what we're doing. Is Commander Dhej going to be available now?"

Twitching her nose, Tierney nodded absent mindedly before blinking her thoughts away and nodding again. "He will be." She replied, getting up and setting the pillow down, "I'll take care of what needs to be handled up on the bridge end and we'll compare notes later?"

"Indeed. I may even be finished with redecorating by then," Zhyalla answered with a smirk. She eyed the walls. "Starfleet chooses such drab colors, don't they?" The Andorian woman shook her head slowly.

Drab... Drab like Romulans... Tierney thought and nodded quickly, giving the Andorian a thumbs up as she took her leave back to the bridge.

---

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

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