863: The Messengers

by Vol Tryst and Keiran O'Sullivan
90503.19

-=/\=-Captain's log, Stardate 90503.22-=/\=-

After two days travel time at highest possible warp, we've almost reached the Zenith's last reported location.

As we come ever closer to the mysterious sector of space known merely as the "Mixing Pot'. We can no longer put off the performance of a duty that I had hoped would not prove necessary.

I had so hoped we'd hear something. Anything. Some sign or signal that the Zenith and her crew had reappeared. That some random anomaly or cause of interference with scanners was all that had taken them temporarily out of communications range. But no word has come, no sign of the ship or her crew.

This being the case, there is one member of our crew of Junior Officers who must be informed of the stakes of our mission.

The only person who wished, more than myself, to avoid performance of the duty of delivering this news is Commander O'Sullivan. I will offer once again to convey the message myself, but should he still wish to do so, given his closeness to the Lassiter family and his former position as Ensign Lassiter's CO aboard the Perseids, I will respect his wishes and allow it.

It's on nights such as this one that I really hate my job.

-=/\=- End log. -=/\=-

The O'Sullivans' ride in the lift was a silent one; with Keiran diverting his bright blue eyes toward the panel in the ceiling, as he ever did, when lost deep in thought.

Liis observed him, with not only the concerned eyes of a Captain but the aching heart of someone who loved him- someone who knew that what lay ahead for him was going to cause him pain she could not prevent.

The lift hummed to a halt at last, but before the doors could open she whirled around, stepping in front of him and blocking his path.

"Are you absolutely certain about this?"

"No." He answered. His voice was cold, and flat; his normally warm and rumbling tone hollowed out and emptied by an honesty as sad as it was complete. "Am not. But I was her Captain for two years, Liis. I," he stopped.

He didn't have a need, he knew, to explain how close he and Gira become in those two years of non-linear time they'd served on the Perseids, but more than that Keiran had known the young woman most of her life through her parents.

The fact that those parents were Admirals didn't change the fact that he knew that Gira felt more bonded to him in many ways than to either of her biological parents.

He also knew her well enough to know that she worshipped the ground that her older brother walked upon, even though, to Keiran's mind, Nicholas had never quite earned that level of affection by his actions toward his sister. She always gave him the benefit of the doubt. Most, it seemed, when Nicholas had deserved it least.

"I'll go with you then. With you and Vol."

"Liis," he exhaled slowly through tightened lips. "I feel bad enough taking the Counsel'r to her quarters at this hour when we've basically nothin' much to tell the girl other than we don't know an'a'thin'. If I take you in there too, she'll think the absolute worst the moment the doors open. We'll scare the girl to death."

While Liis' first instinct was to object that Lassiter would think it odd that her CO was not the one to tell her such news, she rebuked herself; knowing full well that she really persisted in arguing with him because she wanted to be there for Keiran's sake, not to follow any form of Starfleet protocol or procedure.

"All right. It's your call. Just, be sure you tell her that I'm doing all I can to help to find that ship and her brother."

"I will. So ya'd best get back to doin' just that." Keiran responded gently.

The halls of the ship outside the now open turbolift doors were deserted, and so he allowed himself the comfort of hugging her close for a moment and holding her there.

She gently reached up and caressed the soft stubble on his cheek with the back of her hand. Keiran closed his eyes a moment, gathering his strength. At last he gave her a nod and she finally stepped aside, allowing him to exit.

"I'll be on the bridge." She informed, and he understood it to mean that she wanted to be told afterward how Gira had taken the news.

"I'll find you there." he promised.

The doors slid shut again, and with a heart heavier than it had even been before, Zanh spoke to the computer. "Bridge."

-=/\=-

Pacing the hall just outside of Lassiter's quarters was Counselor Tryst.

He looked up only after Keiran had said his name twice. Softly the first time and then the second in an steady, normal tone, which, given the silence of the hall seemed almost a shout by comparison.

"Are ya feelin' all right, Counsel'r?" Keiran eyed the Betazoid warily. "You're lookin' a bit pale, no?"

"You startled me," Vol thought of a quick response. "'Tis all."

"Really." Clearly O'Sullivan wasn't entirely convinced. The Counselor sighed,

"All I wanted was some tea, is that so much to ask?"

It took a moment before Keiran finally developed a hypothesis, and a diagnosis to go along with it.

"Replicator on the fritz?"

"Both in my quarters and the office." Vol hung his head down and let out an exaggerated whine.

"And you, are you still functioning?"

"Of course commander." Vol got serious now, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Without another moment, Keiran rang Lassiter's door chime.

"Just a second," came a weary voice from the other side, clearly that of someone who, like Vol, had either been sleeping or wished they had.

Then came another small, unfamiliar sound and Vol tilted his head to the side in curiosity as he heard the tiny, but insistent yap.

"Shhh! You'll wake the whole deck!" Gira whispered loudly as she tied the belt of her bathrobe. The doors parted and the little white Highland Terrier puppy at her feet ran excited circles around her ankles.

Gira bent down and scooped the dog up, giving her an affectionate kiss on the top of the head before cradling it close in her arms as one would a human baby.

Her eyes brightened immediately upon seeing it was Keiran who'd come to call.

"Captain O'Sullivan! This is a surprise, I didn't expect anyone to come for our little friend here until morning."

"Gira," Keiran began slowly, ignoring for the moment her continued insistence on using his old rank. He doubted at this point she'd ever be willing to give the habit up, and anyway, protocol was the very last thing on his mind. "Can we come in fer a moment?"

Gira missed the 'we' as she began to quickly explain what she was sure he was there to object to.

"Of course you can, but Sir, before you get mad at Dane for asking me to share puppy-sitting duty, you should know that this little darling chewed through every pair of socks he owns. Some of them while they were still on his feet. He needed a break, and I . . . love . . . " Her words slowed, her expression changing as she noticed for the first time that O'Sullivan had not come alone. ". . . dogs," she concluded.

Suddenly, she turned and moved toward the couch. Something about the shadows in Keiran's eyes told her that she might want to sit down, and everything about the Counselor's stance, even though she didn't know the man well yet, affirmed that assumption.

She incrementally lowered herself to the cushions and continued to stroke the soft, white fur of the puppy as it curled up and began to run its tiny pink tongue over her hand in thanks.

"I've . . . no' come for the dog, Littlest." Keiran sighed, bringing his hand to the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes a second as Vol moved to sit beside Gira on the couch.

Tryst didn't want to sit too close, still being that he and Lassiter were essentially strangers to one another and all, but he also knew that sitting across from her might make this seem like an some sort of affront. Sitting by her side made it appear more as a appeal to move forward together.

"Oh?" Gira tried to maintain her calm, but again, she knew O'Sullivan well enough to know when the man was troubled.

Tonight, he was most definitely troubled.

"Captain Zanh, she, she wanted to come and talk to you herself, but," Keiran sighed and slowly moved to sit in the empty space left beside Gira. The puppy scampered down and away, and Keiran reached out and wrapped both of his massive hands around one of Gira's slight ones. "I asked her to let me be the one to tell you this."

"Tell me what?"

"Is . . . no' been an accident that you've been assigned to work on flight drills on the holodeck the past two days time."

Gira simply tilted her head, listening, uncertain where this was going.

"The Captain, she wanted to wait until we were nearly at our destination before tellin' you what we know. Because the truth is, Gira, we don't really know a lot. But we do know that the Zenith has stopped answering hails, three days since. And that we've been sent to find out why."

The color in Gira's face washed away, her rosy cheeks turning to chalk before their very eyes. As expected, her emotions and thoughts also shifted. Vol inhaled deeply, as he anticipated to woman's first question:

"Nick?" She asked, inhaling sharply.

"We just don' know,"” responded Keiran, “But we're comin' up on their last reported location, and Zanh Liis and the science staff are doin' ev'ra'thin' they can do ta try to find the ship, and her crew. We're goin' to find them, Gira. If an'a'one can."

Keiran had expected her to dissolve into tears. She was, after all, one of the most tender hearted people he'd ever known. She was the one that the crew of the Perseids had called 'Pollyanna' for her naive and innocent belief that they would all get home, and back to their proper place in time, eventually.

None had noticed that through the course of the events that occurred in the interim and even more so due to the paradox events she so clearly remembered, that Gira Lassiter was Pollyanna no more. Her eyes were clear, and focused as she directed them straight into his own.

"Away teams?" she asked evenly.

"As soon as we find the ship, if we cannot raise them over subspace. Yes." Keiran nodded.

"Take me with you, Sir. Please." Gira looked straight into her former Captain's eyes. As if to dare him to refuse her.

Looking away from him gave Vol the opportunity to tilt his head so that Keiran could possibly understand the meaning he was trying to convey facialy. It wasn't an approval nor a dismissal, but an urging to keep Gira talking.

"Gira, am not certain that-"

"Wait, before you say anything." She pulled her hand away from him and stood up, pacing several steps away before continuing. "You, Sir, are like a father to me. You know that." She looked down and away. "The father mine could never be." She drew in a breath and crossed her arms before continuing. "I know you want to protect me. To keep me from seeing something that you think I shouldn't see."

Keiran's right hand gravitated toward his left and he began twisting his wedding ring as he listened intently-the only indication he gave that he was having a hard time holding his own emotions back in the moment.

"What I'm not sure you understand is that I've already seen, since we've had a chance to really talk, a lot of things I shouldn't have seen."

Vol read very clearly the anguish she'd felt, as she remembered whatever it was she was remembering. She didn't leave them wondering long exactly what events she was referring to.

"We buried you, Captain." She looked down at her hands, holding them out in front of her and half expecting them to be covered in thick, ropey scars from the burns she'd suffered in the same explosion that had killed O'Sullivan in the alternate branch of space-time.

She shook her head. "I held the shovel in my hands." She looked up at him with mournful, haunted eyes. "I threw dirt into the-"

"Ensign," Vol kindly interrupted, though he remained seated, seeing no benefit to her if they allowed her mind to wander too far from the situation at hand. She had enough to deal with in the present without bringing in the sorrow of a past she seemed unable to leave behind into the moment. "You know that those events are only memories here."

"Maybe. But they did happen, and my point is that I didn't break. Everyone expected me to. And it was..." She turned back to Keiran. For the first time since they'd arrived, her eyes threatened tears. "It was a nightmare. Living those events changed me, and remembering them continues to change me. I am not who you knew me to be, Captain O'Sullivan. Not entirely."

Keiran thought about how much the paradox experiences had changed all who remembered them; himself included, and nodded, considering her words carefully.

"Let me go with you. If anything has happened to incapacitate any of their crew you may need me at the helm. I can fly the Zenith, you know that. I can fly anything."

Keiran sighed with great worry and shifted his eyes slowly to Vol.

Vol's eye turned to meet Keiran's gaze. The man jutted his chin toward the door, to indicate that he wanted to speak to the Commander in a more private setting.

Finally, Keiran rose from the couch, Vol imitating the act, and approached the youngest member of the Lassiter family, taking her by the shoulders. "I can't promise you an'a'thin'. You know that. The decision has to be entirely that of Captain Zanh. 'Tis..." he felt the lump rising in his throat as her eyes implored him to make her case to the best of his ability. "'Tis her ship, not mine. Her call."

"I know that. Whatever she decides after you speak to her, I won't question it, Sir. Or I'll talk to her myself, if she wants me to. I'm . . . " Gira squared her shoulders and looked at each man directly in turn. "I'm not afraid."

Vol nodded respectfully, “We'll keep you informed Ensign, thank you.”

"Don't mention this to an'a'one for now, right? Need to know." Keiran stressed the last three words. Gira understood them better, as a former TI officer, than most. She nodded.

With that, both men exited.

"Where ya off ta in such a hurry, Counsel'r?”

Indeed, Vol had begun walking with a quickened pace seemingly without his own notice. The Betazoid paused and looked over his shoulder to the Irishman, waiting just a second for him to catch up in a few long strides before the two began to walk towards the lift that would take them to the bridge, and Zanh Liis.

"Apologies Sir, I'm just,” Vol sighed. “I practiced more restraint in that room than I am normally accustomed to. It goes against my upbringing to not speak my mind, but this is a delicate situation and I would not want to allow some Betazoid normalcies to compromise this mission further.”

The two men entered the turbolift.

"Well, I just came out'a the same room as you did, I never thought I'd be sayin' this but I think the girl should-”

"Join the Away Team?” Vol finished for him, as he sideglanced the Commander into his view.

"Yeah.”

"I could not disagree with you more.” Vol answered plainly.

Keiran inhaled and exhaled, employing extreme, controlled restraint. "Bridge." He instructed the lift, before folding his arms, leaning against the wall and propping the toe of one booted foot across the other.

"Had a feelin' ya might. I know my reasons for thinkin' she should go. Care to tell me why you think she shouldn't?"

Vol gradually turned to look at the Irishman through almost slitted eyes. Vol pondered a moment, before looking away again, ahead towards the closed doors.

"Forgive me Commander, but I think I may only say so once we meet with the Captain." Vol sensed a piqued curiosity and mild surprise from his turbo-lift-mate.

"Seems to me, Counsel'r, like you've no problem keeping secrets aft'r'll."

Vol's retort was cut off by the sound of the doors opening to reveal the bridge, and furthermore Zanh Liis.

She was currently seated at the helm with her hands balled into fists.

O'Sullivan winced slightly before continuing. "Really, in the end no matter what you or I think, there's only one person on this ship who's gonna have final say."

"Goddamn it!" Zanh shouted, smacking one of those fists against the panel. "Why can't we get any readings yet? We're almost on top of their last reported position! I should be able to read Jennings Grey's wrinkles by now like a map of the bloody quadrant!"

"I . . . don't know Captain." Micah Samson reported regretfully, gulping hard.

"Well the next person I see wearing a blue shirt had better have good news for me or I swear, I can't be responsible for my actions."

Vol now looked down at the color of his tunic and sighed. "And there she is." he said softly, finishing O'Sullivan's earlier comment.

"If ya like, I'd be happy to remind the good Captain that yer with Medical, not Science."

"Splendid, because we all know how much she loves us Medics."

"You have a report for me, gentlemen?" Zanh interrupted their whispering, indicating with the wiggle of a curled index finger that they should step closer.

For just a moment, Tryst was reluctant to get within grabbing distance, given her clearly readable mood . . .

"Aye, Sir." Keiran replied quickly. "If we could speak privately a moment."

"Sure. Why the hell not? Nothing to see here." Zanh scowled, turning in the general direction of the science console. Samson seemed to shrink by several inches as he returned to the readouts before him.


Liis led the way and the two men followed. She spun on them the instant the doors closed.

"How did she take it?"

"Better than I expected, to be truthful." Keiran replied quickly. "In fact, she's requestin' to go along on any Away Team we may send to the Zen when we find her."

"Um, okay. My immediate and unequivocal answer to that would be no. Counselor?"

"Agreed." Vol said, without adding further comment. He'd learned that if the rare occasion came about that he and Zanh immediately came to the same conclusion, he shouldn't muddy the water by adding too much to the exchange and risk her changing her mind.

"Captain, if I might-" Keiran's expression implored her, and Vol felt a momentary internal struggle as he wondered how long he should allow the Captain to let her husband object when she had made, what he felt to be, the right decision already.

"O'Sullivan, wait just a second. Before you say anything. Counselor, I'd like to hear your impressions. In your opinion, how did Gira handle the news?"

"Permission to speak freely Captain?"

"Of all the things that I do not have the time, nor the patience for right now Tryst. " Zanh had intended the words to be threatening, so that they could skip the formalities of 'free speech' and get on with it, already. Vol didn't budge, though. It was clear he needed the 'go ahead' he sought in order to give Zanh what she wanted.

This was annoying as hell to her in the moment, but Zanh couldn't help but feel like this might become interesting. Not only that, but she didn't remember the Counselor ever asking this of her before.

"Granted. Now talk!"

Vol looked from Zanh, to Keiran, and back and forth once more. He bit his lower lip before finally adressing Zanh.

"Captain, I acknowledge that you allowed Commander O'Sullivan to tell Gira of the situation with the best of intentions. Had you asked me for my opinion an hour ago I would have agreed with you whole-heartedly. However . . . "

"Oh, come off it, Tryst!" Keiran was not going to stand by as he was indirectly told he should not have been the one to tell Gira about recent events."

"Commander," Vol turned to face Keiran now. "Your relationship with the Ensign is a very special bond. As she said, she views you as being closer to her than her own biological father. That was very difficult for her to admit to you, and it is exactly that relationship which is clouding your judgment now. You're much too close to her to be reasonably expected to make a sound decision on her place during this mission."

"You don' think she can take it do ya? Don't think she's strong enough?" Keiran was daring Vol to agree with him.

"I know she lied when she said she wasn't afraid, and nobody could fault her for it. I know she was also trying to prove to you that she is strong enough. Honestly, though, do you believe it in your heart, Sir?"

Keiran hesitated. Only for an instant, but long enough to prove Vol's point that he did have his doubts.

"Pardon me, boys, remember me? I am still in the room!" Zanh snorted. Evidently, Vol misunderstood her intent.

"She still refers to him as Captain." Vol continued.

"That's just an old habit, slow to change. Means nothin'. An empty word."

"As empty as when you call her 'Littlest?'" Vol couldn't help but glare. "The same term of endearment you use for your youngest sister, if memory serves."

Keiran felt his blood begin to boil, his shoulders squarely facing the Counselor.

"Now, hang on a second." Liis knew the look in Keiran's eye and she deftly positioned herself between her him and the Counselor. "Vol, I'd like you to explain to me the exact rationale behind why you think I should deny her request."

"Captain,” Vol's attention seemed to wander momentarily, and he seemed to suddenly be struggling to decide what he actually did think best.

“Normally I would use the following analogy: to allow Gira Lassiter on the away missions would be like expecting her to behave as rationally as a mother who had to choose between saving her child and the entire Alpha Quadrant. Obviously, I can't use such an example, because these Lassiters have confused me to the point where I am nearly convinced it's time for me to obtain yet another PhD, this time in Abnormal Psychology.”

Zanh and O'Sullivan exchanged a quick glance, and Liis brought her fingers to the wrinkles at the bridge of her nose and pinched down. "Look, Vol, I hate to break it you, but you've completely lost me. Do you or do you not think that she should go on the Away Team?” Zanh was confused by his sudden ambiguity and had no trouble showing it.

“Truth is, Captain, I don't know. It is generally an indisputeable fact that family should never cross over into duty. I suppose the Commander does know the Ensign much better than I do, but I believe he may be too close to the Ensign to make an impartial assessment. However, he seems convinced that Gira can keep herself together as well as her mother has ..."

Vol's voice lowered, almost as if he were speaking only to himself as an afterthought, "...although I'm still waiting for the Admiral to crack any second now..." He seemed to shake his head as if trying to clear it then looked up again. "Then there's really no reason Gira can't be a helpful member of the Away team.”

Zanh threw her hands into the air in frustration. "Thank you. That was very helpful." She turned, sighed, and looked back at both men over her shoulder. "Keiran, yes or no?"

"Yes."

"Vol?"

"I concur." The words seemed almost painful to the Betazoid as he spoke them.

"Good. Now all we have to do is find a ship out there to send an Away team to."

--------------------

Lieutenant Vol Tryst
Ship's Counselor
USS Serendipity NCC-2012

and

Commander Keiran O'Sullivan
Security Liaison to The Alchemy Project
USS Serendipity NCC-2012