696: The Consequence

by Keiran O'Sullivan
81209.18
Twenty-six hours after The Imperfect Evening

-=Aboard the Temporal Investigations ship USS Consequence=-

"This is the twenty-seventh attempt the Admiral has made to contact us." Ashton Ledbetter swung slowly from side to side in his chair.

His eyes were set upon the ceiling; an expression of profound boredom displayed upon his finely-featured face. "Just how long do you think you can put her off?"

"Long enough." Keiran O'Sullivan's sky blue irides were locked on the panel before him, scanning incoming data as quickly as the screen would scroll.

"I wouldn't wait much longer," Ledbetter warned. "Otherwise she might have a nice little welcome wagon awaiting you when we get where we're going. If they haul you off in handcuffs, you'll miss all the fun."

"Fun?" Keiran shot daggers at the slight, blond man beside him. "It's been a long time since I considered any of this 'fun'."

"That's what marriage will do to you," Ledbetter sighed. "Sucks the fun out of everything like the very vacuum of space."

Keiran ignored him and his observation, as well as the continued beeping of the com and tried to continue his work. The truth was that his eyes were nearly crossing, he was so exhausted and he didn't know how much longer he could fight to stay awake if Ashton kept blathering on about how unfair Alimony law codes were on Earth these days as the engines of the ship droned their steady hum in the background.

"Well, I don't care what you say, I'm answering her. You may have just about abducted me and absconded with my ship at gunpoint-"

"I did no such thing."

"Well...at the point of a fate worse than death."

"You've no idea," Keiran looked up at him in a way that made Ledbetter shudder, "what fates there are worse than death. I'm goin' to lie down. Be back in an hour."

Moments later Keiran slowly lowered himself down onto the slim, unforgiving bunk in what passed for crew quarters aboard Ledbetter's tiny ship. The metallic frame squealed in protest, his bones creaked, and he could still feel an aching soreness in his chest from Will's tackle back at home.

"O'Sullivan, you're gettin' too damned old for this sort of thing," he sighed, laying back on the bunk and closing his eyes. As his hands came together to rest behind his head and his fingers laced together, they brushed over his wedding ring, and he felt the size of the lump in his throat increase, ten times over.

He immediately swung his legs back over the side and with the last of his will he abandoned any thought of rest and lowered himself to his knees on the deck.

He bowed his head.

As he began to pray, the door behind him slid open.

He ignored the interruption and continued.

"She wants to talk to you. Now."

"...Thy will be done; on Earth as it is in Heaven," Keiran intoned aloud. Ashton should know as well as anyone who had ever worked with him how O'Sullivan felt about anyone interrupting his prayers.

"Look, O'Sullivan, if you don't get out there and talk to Lassiter right now, not even the Almighty Himself will be able to save you from her wrath. I'm telling you."

Keiran's lips moved though he uttered no sound, until finally he crossed himself, rose incrementally, and stared through Ledbetter with a fiery glower that would have caused most sensible men to turn and run as fast as they could in the opposite direction.

Ashton Ledbetter wasn't the least bit sensible, and far more fearful of what Gemini Lassiter would do to him when he got home than what Keiran O'Sullivan might do to him now.

"For the love of all that is good and holy, man, listen to the voice of sanity! For one time in your life, undig the heels of those monstrosities you call feet and do what you're asked! Otherwise she is going to have both of our heads mounted on shiny plaques like prized game for display in the lobby at headquarters above the entrance to the clock room!"

The more urgent Ledbetter's tone, the slower Keiran was to respond. "I know what she's goin' to say so what's the point of it?"

"The point of it is that she's our boss and she wants to scream at you! So you'd best let her if you intend to keep your job."

Keiran, at last, relented. "Fine. But you stay here. I don't need an audience for this."

"My ship...he's giving me orders on my ship..." Ledbetter kicked his foot forward in a sullen spat of rage and then immediately winced in pain as he smashed the tip of his boot into the frame of the bunks. "Ow...ow...ow..." he withered down onto the thin, insufficient padding that they dared to call a 'mattress'. "I think I broke a toe."

Keiran charged forward, sat down in the pilot's seat and spun the chair round to face the screen in one quick motion. "Admiral."

[Commander.] By using the term, Lassiter made short work of reminding him about his recent, voluntary reduction in rank in order to try to intimidate him. She spoke in a strangled, irritated tone through tightly clenched teeth. "What the hell have you done? You are directly interfering in a Temporal operation. Lindsay was supposed to tell you explicitly-"

"He did. He's got nothin' to do with my bein' here, and truth be told Ledbetter had very little control over it, either. But I'm not interferin' in an'a'thing, Sir. I'm just tryin' to get home."

"I thought home was back in the rolling hills." Her words dripped with irritation.

"That's just a house." Keiran replied softly. "Wherever Liis is, that's home. I'm just tryin' to get to the Sera."

"With Ledbetter? Aboard one of the Department's ships?" She tilted her head and her expression changed to one that told him he should know better; she was many things but she was not a fool. "If this is what you call bending the rules, O'Sullivan I expect to hear a deafening snap at any moment." She folded her arms over her chest. "I should have your commission for this."

"Have it, if ya like."

He was not bluffing when he spoke. His career meant nothing to him at this point if having it meant he had to try, ever again, to live alone. "I'll hand my badge, my sidearm, all of it, over to Ledbetter the second we get to the Serendipity and surrender to Security if you demand it. Then when I'm cleared of all charges, and I will be, Gem; because I am only doing what must be done...after all that I'll be perfectly content to stay aboard ship as a civilian. As nothin' more than the Captain's husband."

"You would be," Lassiter's anger started to lighten just a shade, and she sighed sadly as she looked into eyes she knew so well, and for which she had such a weakness. "Wouldn't you."

He stared at her a long moment, then he propped his elbow up on the console before him and allowed his forehead to fall forward against his open palm. "I can't do it again, Gem. I- I won't. If only one of us is meant to live in this time, then by God it's going to be her."

She stared at him sadly from across subspace. "We'll discuss your future in Starfleet, if you have one, after this is over." She folded her hands atop her desk, clasping her fingers together tightly. "Be careful, Keiran."

The channel closed.

He sat for a moment in the silent darkness of the cockpit before the stillness was breached by the sound of an alarm, declaring that another ship had been spotted by the long-range sensor net.

He had no compass to go by this time. Ledbetter, assigned to another span of space-time with his own usual 'route' as it were, had one that would do them no good in this situation.

So Keiran had been forced to do something he dearly hated- to make an educated guess.

He'd had to choose a heading and finally a location where they might find the Serendipity in relation to Lethus if the ship had taken off on a pursuit course after the Romulans.

Taking into account that the Taris would be trying to get Lair Arie back over the border and into Romulan space as quickly as possible, there were only so many routes of likely travel; and so Keiran had done his best detective work, and then chosen the one he felt was most likely.

Now, a ship was appearing on long range sensors, but it was much smaller than he had expected. Further analysis determined that it also had a Federation Warp signature.

"Ledbetter!" He called, and a moment later Ash poked his head out the door like a rabbit out of a hole. "Look a'this."

Ashton approached and looked. "Definitely one of ours, here, let's clean that signal up a bit." He began to fiddle with the configuration on the sensors and frowned. "This is like trying to stop a bull with a flyswatter..." he mumbled.

"She's really haulin'," Keiran whispered, wondering who, or what it could be. "It can't be Lindsay and Liis, it's not a..." Keiran stopped. "Wait, didya see that? I'll be damned."

"What?"

"Look, there." He adjusted the sensors again himself, and the information suddenly made sense. "It's the Sera's aerowing, Polaris. I would bet you a case of Guinness there's a Vulcan at the helm."

"Guinness? Who drinks that swill?" Ashton winced. "I'd ordinarily say, a case of Pinot Noir and you're on. But seeing how the child that is missing is the child of the Vulcan you have in mind, it'd be a fool's bet." He blinked rapidly several times in quick succession, and then his thin, bony hand raced upward and grasped hold of O'Sullivan's rock-like bicep. "Wait. Did you say Polaris?" His memory flashed immediately back to years of non-linear time spent imprisoned aboard a ship bearing that very same name, with that woman, Zanh Liis. "Good grief. I think I'm going to be sick."

"Hail them," Keiran instructed, finding a new sense of strength and urgency now that he'd managed to find Salvek. Adrenaline had taken control of his senses. His heart was racing and suddenly, he felt wide awake. "Ask 'em if they'd like another hand aboard."

"I have a very bad feeling about this." Ledbetter whispered to himself, as he did as asked and opened the channel.

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Commander Keiran O'Sullivan
Security Liaison for
The Alchemy Project
Currently aboard the
USS Consequence