Order and Chaos
Posted on 16 Oct 2021 @ 7:17pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*)
Mission:
M2 - Sanctuary
Location: Quinn & Zahn Quarters
Timeline: MD014? Evening?
1288 words - 2.6 OF Standard Post Measure
It was only a long weekend. Even if they extended their stay, there were only so many outfits she could wear. And the resort had replicators, and the city had clothing for sale. Still, Calliope had picked twice as many as she knew she would need. Now she unpacked them back to the bed and committed to a this-or-that game she generally used when she had to move lighter.
Pausing, she looked up to Lance's packing and found herself observing with curiosity. They'd often met, but with their packing already completed.
Born and raised in a family of deep tradition and social standing, Lance had been educated in a very particular way. That combined with a need for structure meant that he needed to process things efficiently. He'd calculated the approximate storage capacity of the small suitcase Calliope had provided, and created a mental shortlist of key items. All that was required was ten minutes to tick things off that list.
"Those shirts are all the same," Calliope observed. "You're going to pack four of the same shirt? For dinner and cave exploring?"
"If we are to make use of the time we have most effectively, I would rather not come up short were another required," he explained. After a pause, he lifted one back into the air. "Do you not like this one?"
"I mean, it's a very versatile shirt. But if you don't have anything nicer packed, maybe I should put my dinner gown back?" Calliope picked out the silver toned gown with the draped back and moved it to the closet.
Lance frowned as she did so. He wasn't expecting them to require something so formal. Unless he'd missed something off the list; which was possible, if unlikely. It was more likely that she was on one of her little flights of fancy and getting excited about the possibilities of their trip.
"You're probably right. Less is more. I'll just..." She swapped it for a more day-tripping kind of dress that could double for dining. "Take this one."
Calliope's comm chirruped a few times. The sound settings indicated a long distance return call and, lighting up with an eager expression, Calliope dropped the other clothing and dove on her belly across the bed to clamber over the pillows and grab it from the side table.
"Calliope Zahn here, is this Foreman Lio?"
"Not Foreman anymore, I'm afraid! I retired." The language leaned into vowels and clipped the endings shy, indicating a man with some kind of Asian Pacific roots. "But your message was forwarded on to me from a colleague."
"You got my message?"
"Yes, about the Cardassian Bot. Can't believe you came across one of my old units. I'm sending you the file specs and the firmware for factory reset. I wouldn't be surprised if you get it running again. Those things are like tanks."
Calliope snickered darkly. "More like tanks than you'd think, Lio. Someone used this one as part of an attack."
"Oh." Lio's voice cracked with some regret. "Oh that couldn't have been good. I'm sorry to hear it. One of mine as a weapon?"
"I'm afraid so. It's been fully disengaged now. Can you tell me who bought them?"
"We had a Ferengi purchase agent. He seemed to be a go between for someone else. Dismantled everything. As far as I knew he sold off all the equipment, including the bots."
"I'd love to see everything you have on the sale and the purchaser."
"Ahhh. Maybe if I can speak to Taylor Dean. She hasn't talked to any of us in a few years."
"Why's she so quiet? She seemed pretty personable when I met her."
"She's sore about the forced sell of the mine."
"What forced her to sell?"
"Your guess as good as mine. She was in a bunch of meetings for a couple weeks, and she laid us off and said something forced her. We assumed she meant financially."
"Do you still have Ms. Dean's contacts?"
"I can send them for you. Good luck getting her to answer."
"Thanks Lio, this is all very helpful. I'll owe you one."
"I have a stack of favors you owe me at least five high."
"You never do call them in."
"I like saving everything up for the rainiest days. Tell Doctor Dan Hello for me."
"I will. Bye Lio."
Calliope shut off the comm and impulsively rolled up like a burrito in all of the clothes she had been choosing from, forming a proper victory mess. "Do you know what this means?" She asked Lance, while her head was turned upside down off the side of the bed, her necklace with the loops dangling in front of her nose.
"I do not," he sighed.
"It means I'm closer to an answer. Starfleet Security department won't unseal anything from the arrests for me which I'm guessing means someone is blocking my external security clearance," Calliope stopped just short of a direct gripe about Zayne. It didn't matter that some of her other hunches were proving true. He was still being a mule about it. "So I have to put my own separate puzzle pieces together. If I can find a buyer, I might get a link to the kind of people that invest their dark money in attacks on starbases."
"If you are requiring an active security clearance, why don't you just use mine?" he asked, straight faced. "That would be far quicker."
Calliope sobered a little. She sat up and sifted all her mixed clothing to one side. "I... I had considered asking you but I'm on a few people's shit lists right now. If I start doing analysis reports with your security clearance, I mean... aren't you worried Zayne will call you out on it?"
"And what if he does? What's he going to do? Captain de Havilland knows our situation, she wanted both of us on this posting. If they reprimand me, too, then she'll end up losing us both and I calculate the chances of her allowing that to happen are minimal." In his own mind it seemed fairly logical, as the Vulcans would put it. Besides, Calliope was on medical leave, so her clearance was only temporarily suspended. He wasn't entirely sure why that was necessary in the first place.
Calliope smiled one of her melancholy broken smiles that seemed to be common for her since she'd begun her recovery. "She wanted you at least— 'that brilliant mind of his'." Calliope quoted from memory of that first fateful contact. The more recent recollection of how tightly knit Corvus and Thaddeus had seemed while communicating by eye line, stung her heart freshly. "She's probably well over any notion of working with me again." She occupied her hands with folding something. "I'm replaceable."
"To Starfleet, perhaps," he retorted with a mild eyeroll as he retrieved a few more articles of clothing and folded them neatly into the carryall. As if to emphasise the point he lifted two matching socks in front of her. "We come as a pair."
Calliope's heart felt salved by knowing he meant to stick together no matter what happened with their careers. With his little demonstration, she was reassured that Lance wasn't keeping options open or going to want to fall back to their distanced lifestyle. Her self-pity assuaged, she smirked. Snatching one of his socks, Calliope pulled it over her hand and, with an over-acted smooching sound, 'kissed' his cheek with the sock puppet.
Stopping his packing and letting his shoulders sag a moment, he made a show of looking directly at the sock puppet with an exasperated expression before seemingly addressing it. "Do you mind? I'm trying to pack."
