JDL | Lt Cmdr Rinehart & Lt Kerenal - "And I'll Rise Like The Break of Dawn" pt. I/II

Posted on 241502.27 @ 4:20am by Commander Tierney Rinehart

Mission: Holy Cow

The bridge seemed an uncanny and improper place for the Starling to perch -- at least in the position her rank had dictated she be in while Karim and the new XO walked planetside. It was wrong. It was... Wrong. She knew that Karim should have come away, that he should never have set foot on the planet to begin with, but ultimately Tierney also knew that she was powerless to control anyone or anything. Aside from ranking high, she was nothing more than the Enterprise's pet spy, after all.

Sitting in the command chair, the little creature crossed her legs and allowed her fingers to drum along the sides of the arms as the only give away to her raging discomfort. Nanee had said she'd likely hurt for awhile and to be thankful for the blessings of modern medicine or else she'd likely be curled into a ball and miserable in bed. Duty kept her mind at bay, and for that she was ever thankful. Just as she was going to try and sink deeper into the big leather chair to relax, the sound of a console going ballistic caught her ears. She could hear what sounded like the successive chirps of a mechanical bird threatening to end her sensitive ears.

"Commander, sensors are picking up heavy fire at the edge of the system. It's lit up like Christmas on the displays!" The Ensign at Ops shouted and added further to the cacophony of annoyances all being hurled at her. She winced and shook her head.

"Can we identify the vessels? Class? Origin?" She asked, motioning for the commotion to be tossed up on the main view screen and stood to view the magnification. It was quiet out there aside from one ship fleeing and leaving behind a critically damaged lone craft that made her narrow her eyes and rock her weight from one hip to the other as she considered it.

The Ensign looked up quickly to acknowledge the Commander and then, licking his upper lip, excitedly went back to the sensor readings. "Ma'am one of the ships has just been destroyed by a series of internal explosions, sensors detect no weapons fire from the opposing craft that could have caused it, the remaining ship has been caught in the shockwave and is drifting."

"I want readings on the remaining vessel." Tierney replied sharply and the Ensign nodded.

"One life sign but it won't be there long. Systems are failing, including life support. It looks like a refit--"

"Chaffee..." The Starling interrupted, studying the lines of the thing and the strange tail that had been tacked on. It looked like and old-world torpedo, and something she'd never seen before. "The survivor... Have them brought to sickbay and bring that vessel aboard. I want it looked at and studied." She'd only ever seen one like it before, and that had been many years ago and far from being used to engage in fire fights out in the middle of nowhere. A craft like this was a mystery, and burned her curiosity.

"But Commander, we don't kno..."

"Do it NOW, Ensign." She barked, and pivoted sharply on her heel. "Helm, you have the Con. I'm headed to sickbay to find out what we're dealing with."

Not being left with any other choice, the Ensign at Ops did as he was ordered, called down to medical, and watched the lavender haired woman disappear into the turbo lift.

---

Medical was unusually active. Buzzing really. It hadn't taken long for her to reach it, but the marvels of modern science had seen to it that the survivor from the refit Chaffee pod had beaten her there. The com channels all whistled about the strange vessel being drug in to an empty cargo bay, grounded, and waiting for her next set of orders. Karim was next on her list, a call down to him would be made and an official report would be written, but right now she needed to know exactly what they were dealing with. Friend or foe and, if the latter, did they tie int the explosion on the planet.

"What do we know?" Tierney asked a close by medic, knowing Nanee would be off duty at the time.

The woman looked up and offered the Commander the PADD she'd been adding notes to. "Male, appears to be El-Aurian." She began. "No major injuries, but as you can see he has plenty of boo boos to go around and a slight concussion. We haven't woken him yet." She drawled.

"El-Aurian?" The Starling parroted in surprise, what little color in her cheeks quickly draining as two and two rapidly added up to four. "The Chaffee... El-Aurian..." She mused aloud, motioning with her hands as she did the mental math and brushed past the medic to reach the bio bed containing the man. "El-Aurian." Tierney repeated again, nodding as she rested her hands on the mat beside his forearm.

"Commander?" The Medic's brow furrowed and she approached the wide eyed Starling, "Do you... Know him?"

Tierney nodded, swallowing hard as she studied the familiar face and soft sun-bronzed skin of a man she never thought she'd see again. "I do." She replied and handed the PADD back to the other woman, "His name is Kerenal. I served with him aboard the USS Crazy Horse. He's a Federation officer, look him up and have his records transferred."

The Medic nodded slowly and took the PADD, doing as the Commander ordered. "Seeing as he's stable, I can wake him up while you're here. It may be good for him to see a familiar face."

The Starling cast her eyes to the woman briefly, "Please." She nodded and stepped back as the woman approached with a hypospray in hand, touching it to Kerenal's neck. A hiss later and she took her leave, moving a short distance off to observe the patient and the Commander.

Light...

It burnt as his eyes began to flicker open, his head was throbbing, likely from the console coming up to greet his face as they ended up riding the shockwave, the Exodus...

"Exodus! Status..." he called out as he blindly reached out and grasped around for anything that felt familiar, but all he found was the bed beneath him and as his eyes adjusted to the light he saw the ceiling of what was an obvious Starfleet vessel. His gaze drifted around for a few moments before settling on the woman next to him, his hand reached up towards her gently and moved to caress her cheek, the calloused hands of a craftsman against her smooth skin, "I must be dead..." he breathed before coughing a few times, "Only in my dreams have I seen this face... Tierney..."

His eyes closed and he fell back to the bed as if going to sleep, his hand still on her cheek, softly tracing the line of her jaw with his little finger, "Am I truly dead Tierney?" he asked with a slight sigh.

"No." She replied, covering his hand with her much smaller one, cupping it to her cheek. "You're very much alive, Kerenal." His name tasted foreign and sweet, one she'd left for the darkest of her nights as nothing more than a whisper used to rekindle a memory. Time had been kind to him, he hadn't aged a day -- the blessing of being an El-Aurian, she supposed. The Starling's eyes closed as she absorbed and basked in the sensation of his touch. The way his finger skimmed along the dainty line of her jaw until it curled into her chin and left a wake of shivers and tingles behind it left her feeling breathless and invigorated all at the same time.

In a life now filled with rogue Romulans, wayward Cardassians, and Bovine terrorists, Tierney had begun to feel the draw and pull of the unknown -- Vokar had played heavy on her mind since she'd encountered him and released the Figaro, and her crew, to the relative safety only he could provide. Her eyes had been opened that day and left that way with the sudden death of the ship's former Captain... And the realization that she hadn't truly loved him.

Mark had been a cheap imitation, a faux fur and pleather covered place holder for the real thing. Him. Kerenal. The man laying there on the biobed in front of her years after a sudden and unexpected disappearance on her part. Intelligence had called, they hadn't even given her a chance to pack her bags, and she'd vanished into thin air without being able to say three words that had plagued, haunted, and eluded her ever since.

Calling it puppy love had been a dim and gross attempt at a cover up. He'd been the one since he'd gently and carefully coaxed from her the truth; the first to admonish the beauty that was her star spangled self. He hadn't flinched, hadn't hidden -- he'd simply smiled and reached to caress her much like he was now. He'd won her soul that night, and her heart soon went tumbling after. "Welcome aboard the USS Enterprise." She managed to whisper, her slender fingers leaving the back of his hand to trail lightly down his wrist and forearm.

The name burnt into his mind like no other, the Enterprise had been a name that shone through the years and he'd witnessed the goings on from afar, it tugged at his ego to know that he'd had the chance to set foot on the prestigious flagship of the Federation.

"Tierney, it's been over two years... how in the hell did we run into each other out here on the ragged edge?" He asked as he slid himself up the bed and laced his fingers with hers.

She let him capture her hand, his fingers twining hers to his and the flat of her palm pressed to his. Time seemed to have gone past so much more slowly, each day having felt like it's own small year, and still hearing him speak it burnt like hot cinders against her sharpened senses. "The better question is what the Hell were you doing out here on, as you put it, the ragged edge?" The Starling queried, watching his lanky body slide across the biobed and rise into a sitting position.

Kerenal cleared his throat as a slight smile crossed his face, "After you disappeared I took the Exodus and resigned my commission, I've been working freelance since then, have spent some time as a consultant for the Vanguard."

With widened eyes, she clapped her free hand over the El-Aurian's mouth and quickly looked around to see who may have heard what he had to say. Luck, it seemed, was on their side in more than one way and the medical team had vacated the near by area to give the spook some space with the strange man they'd rescued. "Don't tell anyone else what you just told me, Kerenal. You were just out looking for some fabled species of hardwood for your workings that Ferengi traders had told you about in exchange for a slip or two of latinum." Tierney instructed, "Vokar is a wanted man on this ship after a couple security officer's turned up dead and two other officers..." Her nose twitched as she thought of a proper word, "vanished..." She knew that Scarlet and her Andorian lover simply kicked up their heels and disappeared into the obfuscating hold of the Vanguard's protection after Mark had turned on them like a shark in a pool of blood. "Promise me... You won't mention it again."

"Oh I know all about what happened at Bimi," the El-Aurian replied with a slight chuckle as he cocked his head to the side, his mouth being freed from her hand by the action, "He was quite forthcoming with that and they are quite comfortable, he was also forthcoming about the Vanguard's actions against Federation First and that has given them somewhat of a unique position in the galaxy, Starfleet will not act against them, the Vanguard have the backing of the Vulcan government."

Tierney arched a brow and eyed him sidelong. "Then you're bringing me news other than the chatter I've been hearing." She replied and allowed her hand to fall away, "Just be careful. The Vanguard doesn't have many friends regardless of what they've done for Starfleet. You know it goes and how prone people are to biting the hands that feed them." She frowned at the thought. Vokar, while not without his flaws, was a genuinely good man. She owed him a debt of gratitude and a debt of life, but that story would be for a different time.

"Perhaps, but when you've been living for as long as I have, you get a generally good read on situations," the El-Aurian replied with a slight sigh before his face softened, the brightness returned to his eyes and a smile spread across his lips, "What about you? What happened to you?"

"Fair enough." She conceded to him, allowing him to take the small win for the moment. She'd come to realize long ago that there were just things she'd never surpass him on. His years of experience lorded over her with a gentle and succinct grace she simply couldn't parallel... And didn't want to. "Me?" Tierney asked and wrinkled her nose with a shrug. A lot had happened. She'd been indoctrinated into the league of shadows otherwise known as Starfleet intelligence, assigned to the Enterprise, used her innate knowledge to nearly blow up an intercepting Fed First ship, had a fling with a Captain, electrocuted Vokar -- an act that oddly enough had landed her with friendly respect and not death, and now was standing there in front of someone she'd left behind and never thought she'd see again. "Not a lot, really. I took the chance of a lifetime and a field demotion to come play on the Enterprise." What she wanted to say was 'sorry'. Sorry would have to wait. It had a time and a place and this... This wasn't it.

--- to be continued in pt II/II ---

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

Lieutenant Kerenal
retired