917: Broad Strokes

by Zanh Liis and Rada Dengar
90704.00
A day after Patients, One and All

-=USS Serendipity=-

-=/\=-Captain's Personal Log, Supplemental-=/\=-

We're on our way back to Earth for necessary repairs.

The Alchemy, which Reece begged me to let him take to retrieve the rest of our crew, sits still and silent in her bay because I am under strict orders to let no one near her until we reach the planet.

The poor man is so desperate to get to his wife that I'd have given him the aerowing to take if we had one- but we're still waiting for the replacement for the last Polaris so that's not an option. Even in our current battered condition we'll get there faster than a shuttle would so for now, he just has to wait.

He hates waiting.

He's not alone. The rest of crew aboard ship with family members we have yet to reunite with are also having to face the fact they're going to have to wait a bit longer. I can only hope that knowing at least that their families are safe is some small consolation.

Gem Lassiter is still with us, but remains in our Sickbay.

The Zenith is limping alongside us, and the Gauntlet is also considered dangerous by Starfleet at this point because of the information its sensors picked up on all those Varion particles.

All four ships are to be carefully handled until the brass decide just how big a cover up they are going to try to get the general populace to believe.

I don't like the way this is shaping up.

It looks like the truth of what happened will only be told to those who must know in order to contain the situation- so called damage control teams which now, somehow, include the Temporal Emergency Management Agency.

I am so sick of those people.

While I had hated the idea of having to testify before a board of inquiry, the thing I hate more is the idea that a handful of men in a darkened room are going to keep the truth of what happened here from ever coming to light. My fear in this, of course, is that if the Domox are still out there, that we will be ill prepared to face them when they come back looking for revenge.

My officers are all uneasy and worried. My Chief Engineer seems utterly beyond help except for one option that I hate to even think about for it's the 'devil I know' and my ship's counselor has informed me by way of freaking out yesterday that he himself needs counseling.

We're meeting up en route with a special Emergency Response Team from Starfleet Medical, who will beam aboard to try to help my crew deal with the massive loss of life aboard the Zenith, to assess their mental health overall and to counsel the Counselor.

Myself, I'm not in any hurry to talk about any of this, to anyone.

I have work to do and I'm hoping that keeping my hands busy will help keep my heart from feeling as heavy as it has been ever since I watched that pinpoint of light fade out, signifying the end of so many bright, promising lives.

At this point the most I can hope for is that Rada Dengar's was not one of them.

End log.

-=/\=-Main Engineering=-

Standing outside the door of the Office of the Chief Engineer, Zanh Liis sighed.

In her right hand, a container of paint the same color the walls were. Or had been, before Rada Dengar began redecorating. In her left, a large roller with which to apply it.

She drew a breath to brace herself for anything she might find on the other side of the door, and just before she was about to move forward a gentle voice addressed her.

"Something I can do for you Captain?" A softly smiling Josiah Barlow asked Zanh as he examined her attire with a quizzical expression on his face.

She was wearing, not her uniform, but a well worn pair of denim overalls with a plain white t-shirt beneath and white canvas tennis shoes.

"Thanks, Jo, but there isn't. This is something that only I can do." She nodded to him, and with a glance she asked the two security guards at the door to step aside.

"Only one person is to be allowed to join me here," she instructed. "That would be Commander O'Sullivan. Anyone else will have to wait until I'm finished. Understand?"

They acknowledged her order, and attempting again to take in a deep breath, Liis punched in the security override for the door and entered the room.

Stepping inside, stacks of papers discarded by Dengar in his haze crumpled softly beneath the soles of her feet. They crunched and crackled with each move she made; as if attempting to whisper their secrets to her. They seemed like dying, scattered Autumn leaves, fallen to ground from the trees that had previously held them but unwilling to go quietly.

There was no point in stepping lightly or trying to avoid them. After she finished her first task, her second would be gathering up those papers and making certain that they were destroyed by her own hand so no one else ever knew they'd existed.

She finally called for the lights and saw that after she'd left him here, Dengar had used literally every inch of wall space as a blackboard upon which to try to work out his equations.

It was a remarkably chilling sight. Standing at the centre of this small world of arcane symbols and barely coherent speculation was like entering into Rada's madness.

In the absence of a straight edge the symbols would violently rise and fall as he wrote, a true sign of just of how off balance he'd been. Size and structure of his work changed drastically by the moment.

When he was manic the words were rushed in bold strokes, when his hands would shake the symbols shook with them and when he'd been angry entire sections of wall were harshly struck out. Yet there was no clear pattern of where they would change, his mood was not a progression over time, rather it would change in an instant of hope and revert back just as quickly as all hope was again torn away.

One thing she was sure of, nowhere on these walls would she find the design for a weapon.

She wouldn't even tempt Fate by looking for too long or in any great detail at the scribbles herself. Her eyes focused instead only on the swath of fresh paint left by the roller as she quickly began to slather it upon the walls.

[Briggs to Zanh.]

Paxton was handling this shift at Tactical and Liis reached up, smudging paint upon her badge as she tapped it. She looked down and suddenly realized that she'd already gotten it on her clothing as well. She frowned.

"Go ahead."

[We're being hailed by the USS Charcot. The Starfleet Emergency Medical Response Team will soon be within transporter range and Lt. Commander Hood is ready to bring her team aboard.]

"Acknowledged. Bring them over. Be sure to bring them up to speed on the necessary security protocols, and remember, no one goes near our Chief Engineer." Zanh emphasized, as she went back painting over Dengar's handiwork while deeply wishing his real madness was just as easy to be rid of. "Tell Hood I'd appreciate it if she'd start with Counselor Tryst."

[Understood.]

A thought suddenly occurred to Zanh as she spoke the woman's name and her eyes widened. "Wait. Paxton, did you say her name was Hood?"

[Aye Sir.]

"Do you have a first name?"

[Just a moment.] Paxton searched and found the answer she requested. [According to the records here, her first name is Jaine, Sir.]

Things were about to get interesting, Zanh thought. She knew this woman.

Jaine Hood, counseling Vol Tryst? Definitely interesting.

Then, Zanh remembered something else about Hood and frowned much more deeply. "Pax is Reece still on duty?"

[No, Sir. To be honest, he was driving everyone insane up here going on about his wife and the Alchemy being under lock and key so I sent him home.]

"A wise decision. Thank you. Zanh out." She closed the channel, sighed and then tapped her badge again, splattering more paint across her overalls in the process. "Damn that's not going to come out." She said to herself, before taking another breath and hailing her Chief of Sciences. "Zanh to Reece."

[Finally! Did you come to your senses or slap the Admiral around until she decided to let us take out the Alchemy? Time's a wastin' Liisy! Tick Tock!]

"Nooo." Zanh drew the word out, exaggerating it intentionally. "Dabin, listen to me. We're soon going to have guests aboard ship."

[Fun. Yay us.] He pouted and Liis could've sworn she actually heard him huffing and folding his arms in disgust. [Forgive me if I don't want to throw any more parties at The Adventurer's Club until my wife and unborn child are home safe and-]

"Dabin!" Liis interrupted sharply, really not having time for this now. "The team from Starfleet Medical has just arrived and it's being led by Jaine Hood."

There was a long moment of silent reflection on Reece's part before he finally offered two simple and indelicate words in response.

[Holy shit.]

-=/\=-Transporter Room One=-

Materializing on the transporter pad, Lt. Commander Jaine Hood blinked her eyes as she took in the view all around her.

For all the rumors circulating about this secretive ship Serendipity, to Hood this looked like just another transporter room aboard just another Starfleet ship.

She was having a lot harder time getting used to this all over again than she thought she would.

After almost a year spent on sabbatical, helping people that she really felt she could help in the community setting of a small colony, going back to work like this was like being hit with a bucket of cold water.

It was difficult to go back to trying to help people who, even if you did succeed, would likely only be worse off in three months time after another disastrous mission.

Still for some reason, when the call came asking her to take over leading this elite rapid response team, Hood just couldn't say no.

Days like today, however she truly wished that she had.

-=/\=-Main Engineering=-

The chime to Dengar's office door sounded.

"Come in." Liis answered, knowing there was only one person that would be allowed to ring that chime and he was a person she was anxious to see.

The door automatically opened and Keiran O'Sullivan's huge frame stepped slowly through, Dressed casually in jeans and an old, faded t-shirt he came bearing equipment of his own to assist Liis in eradicating the recipe for disaster that surrounded them.

His long strides seemed somehow shorter, and slower, than usual. The look in his eyes was contemplative and melancholy in the way only a wife could see.

Liis turned to him to find him staring at the walls, at what parts of them Liis still hadn't covered over with paint. His eyes fell gracefully to hers and they both knew that nothing needed to be said; their thoughts were the same.

Placing the bucket down on the ground Keiran began applying paint to an area Liis hadn't gotten to yet and soon she resumed as well. For a time they both just painted in silence, quietly grasping just what had taken place in the room. It was Keiran who spoke first.

"Talked to Gira." He softly observed as he refreshed his roller by dipping it back in the paint.

"How's she coping?" Liis asked.

Though there were times when she felt like she knew Gira from when Keiran spoke so fondly of her, she'd not had the chance to know her well personally and so not well enough to be sure how she'd deal with something like this; not that there was any way of dealing that could make it any easier to cope with.

"About as well as one could hope." O'Sullivan answered after a moment of consideration.

They never stopped their work as their conversation continued.

"Liis, she's asked for permission ta return to the Zenith."

Liis stopped momentarily, considering the prospect, then swapping out her roller for the small trim brush she'd tucked into her pocket she resumed brushing along the wall.

Rada's equations continued all the way to the trim.

"What did you tell her?" She inquired softly.

"Only that I'd see what I could do." Keiran answered, wanting to make sure Liis knew she'd not be breaking any promises if she decided not to allow it.

"Do you really think it's wise? To send her over there, so soon?" Liis asked with more worry in her voice than was intended.

"Maybe not," Keiran mused. "But I think she needs to do it."

"You think she's ready?" Liis asked, deciding she'd trust Keiran's ruling if he could honestly say he thought she was.

"I can't tell ya that." He replied, honestly as always. "But then I can't say that I think an'a'one would ever truly be ready to do such a thing." He glanced at her sideways as he continued to paint, and she understood. They'd both had more experience than either of them wanted to think about when it came to trying to grieve and let go.

"Wha' I can say though, is that it'll not be long before the Zenith is stripped down. If she doesn't go now then she'll not get another chance ta say goodbye."

Liis was silent for several moments and he let her be, knowing that she was weighing the decision carefully.

With the broad strokes of his roller and the strength of the arm propelling it, he made short work of covering over the rest of the remaining marks on the walls while he waited for her to make up her mind.

"Well, I guess we'd best let her go, then." She decided, only realizing now upon looking up that Keiran had quickly finished painting.

Her eyes glanced back toward where she'd begun and she found, to her frustration, that the ink of Dengar's pen was proving more stubborn and persistent than she'd realized.

It was going to take another layer of paint to be certain that the images he'd drawn did not bleed through.

"Looks like it's going to need a second coat." She declared, sounding defeated. She glanced over at Keiran and saw a fleeing look of relief cross his face as he finally reacted to her decision.

"Thank ya, Liis. Truly, I."

"Don't mention it." She set her brush down for a moment on the lid to her paint container so she could take up the roller again but paused; tilting her head toward him curiously as he continued to stare at her. "What is it?"

"You were." He began, finding himself suddenly emotional. "You were...wearin' this very same thing that day, don'cha know. In the arboretum. When I first got here. Before."

She felt her heart beat out of time for an instant. Her breath caught in her chest and as she thought back, she wondered how there ever could have been a time when she wasn't able to remember him. When she was able to look at him without knowing...

...without knowing.

"I remember, I- I forgot my shoes. They were." She smiled at him, one corner of her mouth turning up just slightly as was her way at moments such as this. It was her first genuine smile in days, and he was grateful to see it. "They were muddy so I took them off. You cleaned them up and left them outside my door later." She shook her head with gentle, sentimental disbelief. "Even then you were already spoiling me."

"You've been through a lot." he whispered, repeating what he'd said to her that day which seemed a lifetime ago. "You could do with a wee bit o' spoilin'."

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

-=/\=- Zanh Liis O'Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012

and

Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012