80830.21
Hours after Confessions of Trust
-=Crew Quarters, Rixx Rewards=-
Dane Cristiane was already awake when Zanh Liis entered the room.
She'd finally been shooed off of the bridge by TC Blane, who had insisted she try to sleep at least a little now that their journey was nearly at an end.
Cristiane rose from the bunk, nodding to her respectfully as he prepared to leave.
"Dane, wait." Zanh gestured for him to keep his spot. "Sit. We need to talk."
She stood before him with her hands clasped behind her back, unsure what to do with them since she was not currently wearing an earring.
"I have just one question for you. Was Keiran's faith in you as misplaced as mine apparently was?"
Dane winced, and she continued without giving him a chance to reply.
"Because that man saw something in you. He trusted that the good in you would win out over all of the hard knocks you'd had in life, and your natural preference for taking the easy way out of any situation." She surveyed him, and somehow Dane felt she had the ability to see through him and take stock of his very soul; finding it lacking.
"I need to know. If I look away or turn my back on you, will I regret it? Unless you can tell me without hesitation that you have learned from your mistake and that I can trust you enough to do just that, I can't take you down to the surface."
"I have learned, Zanh Liis. I swear I have,"
"I know you want a chance to redeem yourself." Liis interrupted. "But so much more than that is riding on the outcome of this mission. So very much more than that. So tell me, Dane Cristiane, should I be trying to still see you through O'Sullivan's eyes, or are my own the ones I should be trusting?"
"If you try one more time to see me through his eyes," Dane's jaw set resolutely, "I promise you, Zanh Liis, you will see in me what he saw."
Zanh considered his words a long moment, and then she nodded. "Get back to the bridge. Have someone come and get me when we're almost there, if nothing comes up between now and then."
Dane stood and opened his mouth to speak, but no words could be found to explain to her how badly he felt about what he had done. He closed it again and went on his way, determined that the only way to prove it was to show her.
TC turned to look back at Dane from his position overlooking Landry Steele, who was seated at the helm.
He pointed to Dane and then to the ops console. “Take the position.” He ordered.
Dane nodded then sat down, glancing at a very unhappy looking Ensign Steele. Blane had not moved from his spot behind her since her return to the bridge, until now.
He now stepped to stand between Dane and Steele and folded his arms across his chest. He glanced at each of the ensigns in turn.
“Boy I don’t know if I am lucky or cursed,” he commented after a moment.
He moved again to stand behind Dane.
“Here I am, alone, with the two people, well one for sure, that stabbed their captain…” He suddenly clapped Dane on both of his shoulders, causing him to jump. “…my captain, in the back.”
He strolled slowly back into position between them both. “I’m all a twitter.” The sarcasm was palpable as was a very distinct, brewing anger.
He finally sat down in the command chair. “Now what should I do about this?” He asked.
"Whoa, now, wait just a darn, I mean, hey," Landry stuttered, slamming her fist down onto the helm and accidentally taking them off course momentarily.
Blane growled and corrected the settings.
"Sorry about that. But you do mean he did something to the Captain, right? 'Cause I haven't done anything but whatever job I've been given by you all since the day I left my cushy, if annoying desk job back at TI and came to join the happy little party you run here."
TC scoffed.
"Yeah, he means me, Steele, but come on. Don't tell me that Vox didn't send you here to snoop around," Dane looked at Blane suddenly, silently seeking permission to continue his line of questioning.
TC made no move to stop Dane. In fact, everything was working out better then he had hoped. It was a test of not only Dane's resolve to prove that he was a changed man but also of Steele, to see if she was the other spy.
"I don't know what you mean." Landry huffed. She thought back to the day that Vox had cursed her by sending her here. The words he'd spoken, in fact, had been "Eyes and ears, Ensign. I need eyes and ears upon Zanh Liis and you're going to help me with that."
Thing was, he had yet to tell her exactly what she was supposed to be watching Zanh Liis for. Furthermore, Landry had had no time to watch the woman at all.
She'd been in hiding the whole way to Betazed, then she'd been on the planet, then Landry had been roped into babysitting the XO's kid for a day and now they were on the way to die what she was certain was to be a very drawn out and unpleasant death on an alien world and she had managed somehow to piss off TC Blane simply by existing.
“So Vox didn’t send you to gather information on the captain?” TC asked point blank.
"Um, well...he," Landry knew that lying was only going to get her into deeper water than she was already doggy-paddling through to stay afloat. And the truth was, with Vox currently under TEMA investigation and the fact that they were all probably going to die soon, there was no point in trying to dodge the issue.
"Commander Blane, I am a junior officer in my first year out of the Academy," she began. "I was, until just a few days ago, just a secretary. To a very powerful man."
"Too powerful," Dane mumbled.
"Yeah. Well, he is my boss, and if I read the flow chart right he's your boss too. He's Zanh Liis' boss. He runs the whole frigging Alchemy Project. So please, tell me what is a first year Ensign supposed to do when she's sent to the ship at the forefront of said Project and told to keep her eyes and ears open but she doesn't even know for what? I'll tell you what she does."
Landry wagged a finger at Blane, and he made no attempt to stop her confession.
"She just does what she's told while she tries to figure things out. In this case, doing what I was told has included taking Trouble over there to the University of Betazed to research a paper on the Articles of the Federation and playing far too many games of Kadis-kot with the XO's kid. So." She shrugged.
"If I've done something wrong, please tell me what it is other than just following orders, 'cause I thought that following the Admiral's orders was the thing you were supposed to do when you are lowest on the food chain."
"You did exactly what you were supposed to do, Ensign."
Another voice spoke up, and Blane was surprised to see Zanh Liis poking her head in the doorway. "I came back to see why we veered off course and I got tossed out of my bunk. I'm glad I did. Otherwise I would've missed the show."
"Captain Zanh," Landry stuttered, "I apologize, I just,"
"No no, Ensign. You did what you were told because you don't know me, so you didn't know better." She glanced at Dane quickly, then away. "Others do know me and did know better."
Dane scowled in silence, knowing better than to try to justify what he'd done. She was right.
"If neither of you told Vox about the Captain's memories then who did?" TC still wanted to know.
Dane and Landry looked at each other then back at Blane, shrugging helplessly.
"I did, Thomas," Zanh admitted. She remembered how he'd told her not to be 'foolish' down on Betazed, and hoped he wouldn't think less of her for having gone ahead with her plan despite his advice. "He had his suspicions, but he had no proof until I told him."
"Why...did you DO that?" Dane sputtered.
"Because, Dane," Zanh leaned against the door frame and stared past the crew, at the view screen. "A person can only keep the truth of what they are secret for so long. I decided to tell him on my terms, so he can't ever hold the past over my head again."
She stood tall once more and looked around, seeming satisfied all here was in order. "Since it appears we're not going to be careening to our deaths before we even get to Klaestron, I guess I'll go back to bed."
She looked back over her shoulder at Steele and Cristiane. "If we're heading into anything like I imagine we are, you two are going to be the bait for our hooks," she warned. "So prepare yourselves. Thomas, wake me up when the time comes."
"Aye, Captain.” TC replied.
She left and TC turned back to watch the forward view screen.
A silence fell over the bridge until out of the blue TC started to sing in a quiet voice.
“Farewell and ado my fair Spanish ladies, farewell and ado fair ladies of Spain.” TC smiled at the stunned expressions on the two ensigns faces.
Apparently they had never seen the old 20th century movie called Jaws.
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Ensign Landry Steele
Shark bait
USS Serendipity NCC-2012