915: The Wrath of Zanh

by Landry Steele
90706.10
Following Gone

-=USS Serendipity=-

Landry tugged at the ends of her long auburn ponytail, pulling it tightly against the elastic band holding it taut against the back of her head.

Realizing she still had a rather large piece of chewing gum in her mouth, she remembered this time to take it out and recycle it before the Captain arrived.

She paced slowly up and down in Zanh Liis' Ready Room, where she'd been told to wait.

She eyed the books of poetry on the shelf against the wall with skeptical curiosity, unsure she could believe anyone like Zanh had ever actually cracked the binding and read the words.

Walking on, she reached out she touched the corner of one of the many shadowboxes suspended from the walls. This one contained various pieces of rope tied to display different varieties of sailor's knots.

It was crooked.

Attempting to straighten it, she knocked it free from the wall. She shrieked as she caught it just before it clattered to the deck.

She was grateful, in the moment, that Zanh's office was intentionally soundproof.

Looking over her shoulder automatically to be sure no one had seen even though she knew she was in the room alone, she sighed. Cautiously she placed it back upon its mounting, relieved that no one would be the wiser. She was suddenly also grateful she'd spit out her gum. If she hadn't, she might have inhaled it and choked to death on the spot.

She jumped and spun around as she heard the door open behind her, and was surprised to find not Captain Zanh, but Keiran O'Sullivan instead.

"Oh, hello Sir." Landry greeted him casually as she could, a slightly nervous frown appearing on her lips. She had geared herself up for the wrath of Zanh, not another exchange of more civilized words with the Jolly Green Giant.

Tonight, though, he certainly didn't look as jolly as she usually saw him. Not even close. "If I may ask...Sir...what are you doing here?"

"I'm here ta save yer neck." Keiran replied. "I'm also here because I'm the Security Liaison to The Alchemy Project and am also the one who discovered yer little secret and believe me, if ya wan'ta get out of this room alive, you want me here when you tell Captain Zanh you're here under false pretenses."

"O...kay." Landry smiled just as nervously as she'd frowned. "Thank you, Sir..."

The door opened again and this time, it was a very tired and irritated looking Zanh Liis who walked through it.

She was still trying to get straight answers from Command as to what she was meant to do next to handle damage control for the Domox situation, and fighting to keep her own emotions at bay every time she thought about the loss of the Zenith's crew.

"Steele, this had better be really, really important because I..." Liis stopped as she looked up and saw Keiran was also in the room. "Hello there."

Keiran simply nodded to her in the way she knew very well. It was a look that she'd seen many times in many places, a look that told her to be on her toes, because things were about to get more complicated.

"My time and attention come at a particularly high premium right now, Ensign. So if you'd be so kind as to tell me why you had to speak to me right...a...way..."

Zanh's eyes grew round with surprise as Landry held a small, and all too familiar device out in her hand.

"Captain Zanh, I am here under the authority of the Temporal Emergency Management Agency."

Liis felt her stomach lurch. She was so sick of those people.

"I see." Zanh turned away, trying to control the frustration and anger rising in her. I should've known... She thought.Dumb rookie Intern my ass...

Afraid of all it could mean, a question formed in Liis' mind. "You're not on a Jump are you?"

"Is the first thing I asked her mehself." Keiran said, pacing across the room and sitting down on the couch by the windows.

"You knew about this?" Zanh suddenly was more interested in talking to him than to her, and Landry took the moment to gather her courage.

"Only just found out. The shakin' on the Zenith rattled the compass right off her belt. I found it." Keiran replied honestly. "Since then we've...been a bit busy."

Satisfied with his explanation of why he hadn't mentioned this yet, Zanh turned back to Steele. "So, I take it the compass is dark then."

"Yes, Sir."

As afraid as she was of the process of healing that faced her crew and as sad as she was over the loss of so many lives, Liis was relieved, because she knew if they went back and tried again, things could turn out so much worse for so many more. "I take it that you have instructions for me then."

"You're not going to...demand that I verify my..."

"Look, I'm not stupid, all right?" Zanh slumped down into the chair behind her desk. "I know TI when I see it. You did a good acting job, sure, but something about you always bothered me. Now I know what it was. Since I did a job for them very much like you do, I can hardly hate you for it. Don't worry, I will be verifying every order you give me after I hear it though, because as I said before I am not stupid."

Keiran was amazed, frankly that Liis was keeping her composure as good as she was over this.

"First order is that Rada Dengar has to be resequenced. The moment we get back to Earth. Until then no one is to speak to him. His work must be destroyed by you, Captain Zanh. If you need assistance the only one they will allow to help you is..." She looked over at Keiran. "O'Sullivan. But that is only provided that he doesn't look at anything too closely that you have to dispose of."

"I know what I'm doin’." Keiran assured her. He watched as Liis' expression began to change...and he could hear in his head, as clear as day, the sound of someone pulling back a taut metal spring. Any second now, she was going to...

"RESEQUENCED!" Zanh shouted, jumping out of her chair. She charged around the desk, and Steele backed up several paces. "How can they do that to him? He's not TI! He never agreed to..."

"Captain he may not be TI but he is Starfleet." Landry argued, her voice wavering slightly as she tried to hold Zanh's withering stare. "He accepted, the moment he put on that uniform that at some point in his career the decision might be made by his superiors that he required medical treatment that-"

"We're not talking about regenerating a phaser burn here Landry, we are talking about wiping his memory. He's never been tested as to how he'd respond to it like we were. He could lose a lot more than just whatever the hell he put into blowing up that star."

Zanh continued to shout, making Landry grateful once again that the room was soundproof. "There could be nothing left of him."

"To put it bluntly, Captain, is there anything left of him now?"

Zanh winced. The woman had a point.

"He's babbling incoherently. He doesn't know who he is, he's referring to himself in the third person."

"How do you know that?" Zanh demanded. She'd only just gotten a brief update from Hartcort moments ago indicating that Rada was still doing those things.

"It's my job to know."

"Your job." Zanh said, folding her arms tightly. "That reminds me. What the hell exactly is your job aboard my ship, Ensign? Or is it really Admiral and you're holding out on us there too?" She glared at Landry anew. "Your job certainly isn't to be here to answer the comm."

"No. It's not." Landry glanced at Keiran, desperate for some sort of morale-boosting support. He gave her a gentle nod, just the thing she needed. "My job is...to learn as much as I can from you, and O'Sullivan. My job is to watch, and keep an eye on things, and people..."

"So you're a spy."

"No!" Landry stomped her foot in frustration. "It's not that-"

"Just tell me this." Liis said very slowly. "Who authorized your placement aboard this ship under cover?"

"It wasn't William Lindsay if that’s what you’re asking." Steele said quickly, knowing what Zanh was after. "He has no idea I'm not what I am supposed to be."

"He's Director of the goddamn agency! If he doesn't know,"

"TEMA overruled in this case. Actually, not the whole Agency just Admiral Lassiter. She chose me for the job before she resigned her position at TEMA to head up The Alchemy Project." Landry sighed. "Captain, I am here to help you. I'm really here most of all to keep an eye on Ashton Ledbetter but that is a discussion for another day.

“For today, all I can tell you is that I have a clear plan for you to follow between now and when we get back to Earth. You can talk to my higher ups, clear it all with them. God help me when Lindsay finds out about this he's not going to be amused."

"No, he’s not." Keiran commented.

"But please, believe me when I tell you that I consider myself, well, I would consider myself lucky to be a real, and helpful part of your crew. I may not seem to but..." Landry bit her lip. "I care about the people here. I've never seen people so…loyal to each other."

"Yeah, well they don't come along every day." Zanh muttered. She and Keiran exchanged a glance, and she sighed. "Orders?"

Landry pulled an isolinear chip from her sleeve. "It's all here, Sir."

"Dismissed."

"Captain Zanh?"

Zanh gestured for her to go on.

"No one can know, what my real job here is. I have to be just another intern. There is some truth in it all, if it makes you feel any better."

"Oh?" Zanh asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Yes. You see if it all works out, Dane is supposed to become my Jump partner." Landry paused just before releasing the door, and smiled gently. "Unless he kills me before he finishes the rest of his training." She left without saying another word, and Liis sighed slowly.

Keiran rose from the couch and approached.

"What do you think of her?" Liis asked.

"I think, she's pretty damn brave to do what she just did. Goin' head to head with you like that."

"Yeah." Zanh said, rotating the chip in her fingers. "She is."

Ensign Landry Steele
Temporal Investigations Intern
USS Serendipity NCC-2012