Tracking Party: Background Check
Posted on 30 May 2021 @ 5:43pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Theodore Winslow
Mission:
M2 - Sanctuary
Location: Freecloud, Stardust City
Timeline: BACKSTORY ~four months before the recovery of OC Immediately Following Tracking Party: The Vault
1675 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure
The bass line that permeated her head and chest dulled as Calliope came to the main entrance. Most of the people in this funnel shaped gap were coming and not going, the night still being young. She had to wait a turn as they surrendered their devices. In the case of one man with a cybernetic implant, he allowed himself to be fitted with a dampening bracelet, and then acclimated as he left the line with his dulled senses. It was the price of entry. It came to Calliope’s turn, and she provided her claim numbers. The little Yridian man at the lockers touched a series of virtual keys in the air. Calliope could see people underestimating him. But something about the way he moved told her that the attendant knew how to handle a threat. A drawer in the wall slipped open, and Calliope collected her jacket and a small handbag complete with her communicator, tricorder, cricket phaser, credit chips, room key, and makeup bag.
The walk back to her hotel was made shorter by some underground shuttle tubes. Calliope had been a little unsure how to navigate them when they first arrived, but she’d quickly adapted. Each car fit about fifty people, but they were far from full this time of night. Just a young man listening to his music, and a big lady very grumpily scrubbing graffiti off the ceiling.
From the exit of the underground system, Calliope wrapped her jacket around her. The little dress that had seemed appropriate for a nightclub felt a little too exposed on the street. Feeling her heart jump at a shadow that moved under the passing lights of a hover car, Calliope wondered for a moment if she should have brought Bear with her. The pedestrian paths were well lit and busier with passers by at night than most streets on her home colony were in the middle of the day. When she took a moment to let her guard down, she just absorbed the atmosphere. The chill of crisp night air on the lungs, the various trilling and whirring of traffic, bicycles, atmospheric control compressors in alley ways, laughing coming from a distant corner, about five different languages, each with their own music within earshot. A street musician playing some kind of lyre. A woman leaning out of her window and yelling at another woman on the street, not to come back anywhere near here ever again, or she’d have her face “redone, professionally.” The one on the street screamed back “Still wouldn’t be as ugly as yours.” Calliope was sorely tempted on the one hand to slow down and capture more of the drama, but on the other, needed not to get caught up in some strange affair. She came back to the hotel and let herself into the lobby. Inside the atmosphere was far more tamed by lounge music on a hidden speaker system and the sounds of softly moving water in a series of fountains throughout the span of the place. It was some kind of zen magic intended to allow the matters of the outside world to sort of slough off.
The elevator up to the twenty third floor had an option for one way glass to the outside, and she selected it, allowing her to watch as she rose above the streets of Stardust City. She crossed her arms as she absorbed the lights of the skyline through her own reflection. Lance might have hated this city if they had visited together. Too much noise, too many cheep distractions, too much clutter and uncleanliness. But he would have at least appreciated the view with her. They would do their usual give-and-take of itinerary choices, where Lance would outline what he expected to do and when, and then Calliope would derail it as inspiration and opportunity presented itself, just enough to be forgivable. She could gauge him in those moments, when he was willing to be pulled off course or maybe negotiated with; but when it was going too far for him, she knew to reign it in and appreciate the peace he needed. Presently, she imagined him in the empty half of the reflection beside her as she often did. As the lift chimed its arrival on her floor she told herself they were overdue to make some travel plans. She couldn’t care where.
Finding her way back to the hotel room and latching the door behind her, Calliope first drew the curtains, then unloaded her communications gear and ran the start up and security protocols, setting her combadge into the holo unit’s confirmation key dock. The device performed a local scan for life signs or active signs of listening devices and chimed an all clear. Calliope sat on the bed and engaged the call to the task group commander. She checked her teeth in the camera lens, suddenly concerned there might be a leaf of something from her earlier meal. Surely, if there had been, Ryder would have told her…
Ledeya was still in her medical scrubs from working on Starbase 718 when she had woken to the sound of communication relaying a secure communication through to her. She sat up from the couch blinking heavily at the information of who it was and sighed to herself. This was either good news or bad news and Ledeya could really use some good news after the bombing of 718 and the events that had happened since then.
“Commander?” She greeted just catching the woman checking herself out. Maybe she should have done that herself but time was limited in this type of circumstances especially when she had been sleeping when the communication had first come in. If only she could get more sleep but the current situation was not allowing for that in the slightest.
Calliope snapped out of her check and cleared her throat. It wasn’t everyday you picked your teeth in front of the brass while wearing your cocktail dress. Calliope relaxed again as she recognized Commodore Ehestri didn’t exactly have her collar pressed either. Had she been sleeping in scrubs? It was probably a long day for her. “Sorry to interrupt you, ma’am. I can keep this brief and to the point, but I wanted to give you an update on our assignment and make a bit of a special request.”
“You are fine Commander.” Ledeya quickly assured with a shake of her hand. The bombing was well known now across the quadrant so there was no need to explain her look or position. “I am just relieved I am on the Cosmos instead of the base so you have been able to reach me with ease. A special request sounds ominous but yes an update is much needed.” The Betazoid sighed. It had already been risky sending a team but a special request could now blow the whole operation and cause trouble for all involved.
“Crewman Messier’s trail has petered out. We exhausted all the leads we started with and a few besides. I’m grasping hard enough for straws that I’ve got a translator working on a lounge singer’s esoteric lyrics. Long story there, but the short version is, that hasn’t broken either.”
Ledeya winced at the fact everything was petering out and they were running out of straws. The straws had not exactly been strong in the first place. “I see.” Ledeya commented leaning back in her chair taking a moment to think of options to assist the group if she could despite her current predicament of assisting with an act of terrorism.
“I’ve come across one of the Watchdog’s people here casually, a ‘Ms. Indigo’. Entering her credential code now for clearance checking.” Calliope had the ident pictured in her memory and keyed it in for Ehestri’s reference. “I haven’t given her any details, but I’d like to find out if she may have some local knowledge that could put us back on Messier’s scent.”
Ledeya grabbed a PADD to look at the information properly with tired eyes and worn out heart. She sat up straighter as she looked at the image and the information that had been revealed.
“She is young and after her required period but still active in the Freecloud Defense Network. She would have already had at least a decade of training and experience.” It was risky to involve anyone else but no more risky than getting a translator involved already. “Go for it if she is willing to help you Commander but be mindful of other motivations. The Freecloud Defense Network does not normally get involved in anything like this.” The Watchdog were not without their own motives in keeping the peace on Freecloud and they had no issues dissing out there own punishment for crimes.
“Understood. I hope to get this search back on track and find him before the Syndicate does. And before Captain Winters misses us too awfully much.”
Ledeya hoped for everyone involved the search was completed and the crewman found before anything untoward happened to Messier. “I cannot help you with the syndicate I am afraid from this distance but I can keep Captain Winters from missing you too much I promise.” Ledeya assured.
“Thank you, Ma’am. I’ll get back to the club and inform the others. Hopefully I’ll have good news for our next update.”
Ledeya nodded. “Good news would be most welcome Commander.” Ledeya said with a nod, cutting the connection and leaving herself in a silence room again all by herself. It was becoming a common theme in her life the silence but she would take that over the chaos that her un medicated had caused just recently. She really hoped that they found Messier soon. There was soon going to be no way that people further up or Intelligence or Security services being involved and making more problems for the area of space or Messier himself.
