Lunch and Introductions
Posted on 03 Sep 2022 @ 11:06am by Commander Calliope Zahn & Chief Deputy Marshal: Ridge Steiner - FMS
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: USS Pathfinder Officers Mess
Timeline: MD 06 1230hrs
1950 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure
After spending the morning training on the holodeck Steiner had sent the Security teams off for lunch. They would be working on moving some of the containers of rock samples into position this afternoon and he was reviewing the placements on a deck plan schematic on his PaDD.
He was halfway through his lunch, a tuna, mayo and sweetcorn sandwich, a glass of milk, with a side of potato chips, or at least what passed for those from the mess replicator, when a shadow fell across the table, looking up he found Zahn's freckly green face.
"Commander" he started to rise
"Not necessary," Calliope waved, motioning for him to relax. "Would you mind if I join you?"
"Of course, please do" he waved to a vacant chair and sat back down, glad he'd got his prescription filled and was up to date on his dose.
Calliope put down her salad and a glass that looked like it was full of sludge. As she was getting comfortable she exhaled and picked up her fork to stir up the mixed greens and bits of fruits and chicken in the dressing. "It's good to see you sitting still a minute," she commented. "Sorry we didn't get the chance to meet under calmer circumstances."
Steiner chuckled "In my business it tends to be long hours of not much going on, interspersed with periods of craziness. So keeping busy is kind of refreshing"
He took a drink of his milk and nodded at her glass. "That's an interesting beverage..."
She snorted in agreement. "Isn't it? Protein supplements. I have to choke down three of these every day, plus a row of little shot cups of nutrient supplements. But its helping, so." Calliope lifted the cup to her lips and took a hearty chug of the nearly Newtonian liquid.
"Yeah... I prefer my protein to come medium rare" he grinned
"Can't blame you. So, how did you get into your kind of business? Why the Marshals?"
"Followed half the family trade I guess" Steiner replied. "Both my parents were Starfleet, dad was a biologist, mom was JAG, it was my Grandfather who was a Marshal. I was never very good at science and didn't fancy being a lawyer.
Did almost join up myself though, my parents died during the Dominion War. Day after were found out, my brother, Rod, and I stole grandpa's shuttle and tried to enlist. We were sixteen and seventeen, they busted us within two hours and handed us back to Gramdpa." He smiled at the memory
"He was pretty cool about it, arranged for us to join the planetary defense militia instead. After the war was over, I took a law and criminology degree and decided to follow him into the Marshals Service.
Rod stayed with the plan and went to Starfleet Academy, he's a Lieutenant Commander, Chief of Security on the Indefatigable
He'd find it highly amusing I'm filling his shoes here"
"Rod Steiner is your brother? I had a special assignment with him, just last year, chasing down a missing transport that was late rendezvousing with the Paracelsus. I didn't think of it, Steiner seemed like a common name. But I see the resemblance now."
"Huh, yeah I'm the better looking one, although he always got all the girls, well he did, until he got married" Steiner grinned "Small galaxy..."
She nodded. "It tends to be. Everyone knows someone." She'd grown a lot of her career on those connections and maintaining them over the years. "You're lucky. I haven't got any siblings."
"How about you, Starfleet command track..."
"Pretty typical. My mom served an enlistment. She settled down on Norvex Colony when she found out she was expecting me and became a recruiter and a single mom. I grew up planning on being in the fleet. She would have enlisted me but I wanted to go through officer training. Me and my big britches." Calliope smiled remembering her mother ribbing her about it even while she'd been proud of her. "I came up through Operations track."
"Operations and married to an Engineer, do you guys have fights over who gets to fix things around the house?"
She shook her head and finished chewing on some salad before she explained. "We never really shared a place to bicker over until recently. Lance spent his career with Daystrom, working on theoretical propulsion. We were always a long distance couple."
"Ok, that's got to be rough on the relationship" Steiner observed, taking a bite of his sandwich. "Lots of couples don't survive the strains of law enforcement careers, must be worse when you're both in the fleet"
She shrugged. "It didn't seem like it. It seemed like a vacation, mostly. We traveled together any time we could. It was mostly reliant on my assignments. But our marriage was just made up of a string of travel plans. I think everyone in the service has to make some sort of concessions to have committed relationships. My mom gave up a lot just to raise me. Lots of married couples have to give up some part of their career. For a long time, neither of us was really able to ask the other one to slow down in our profession so..." She stirred the sludge. "We put up with the separation instead. Now we're trying it the other way."
Steiner nodded.
"Ever tried it?" Calliope raised an eyebrow in mock salaciousness, "Mixing your Enforcement career with a connection?"
"Sure, it works for a while. Then the long hours, missed dates, cases you can't discuss, taking off at all hours because you got that lead you were waiting for call and not knowing if the person they said goodbye to that morning will come home in the evening starts to take its toll... Kind of like being in Starfleet, I suppose, same commitment to duty before family. Takes a special type of person to deal with that , not found one yet... And a couple of years undercover didn't help." he smiled ruefully.
That earned a chuckle. "I never would have picked you out as an undercover guy. You don't seem like the double agent type. But I guess that must have run in your favor.
Steiner grinned, "There's a type?"
"Yeah, you know, from the holofeatures— chiseled and broody."
"Damn I never knew." Steiner stuck his chin out and hooded his eyes for a moment.
At his impersonation, Calliope smirked. "A couple of years is deep. Did you get the convictions you were after?"
His look changed. "Yes and no.... got plenty of the low level bad guys, couldn't nail the leadership though. Although, this mission might reveal more evidence. Some stuff that matches Pyrryx weapons technology was turning up in illegal arms shipments"
Calliope was going to say something between chews and then looked like she thought better of it, taking another bite to keep herself from speaking too soon.
"You were going to say...?"
"No, no. It's just that... I was trying to do some digging into the organizers of the attack on OC. There's a lot of shadow money and contacts. I think it's multiple parties. That many pirates and marauders and criminals never form up naturally. I know the Fleet has got Intel working on it though, so. I guess maybe my work will turn out redundant. I was just trying to do something to stay busy from medical ward."
He had been given a short briefing on the assault during his induction,
although he had not read any of the files in depth. "I would tend to agree that such events are, thankfully, rare and it takes a special type of leadership to organize that sort of operation involving so many disparate groups. Most of whom are just as busy fighting and backstabbing each other as they are preying on the innocent. " he replied. "That requires a certain level of power, and power in those circles comes from a combination of instilling fear, getting results, turning a profit and demanding the respect from the rest. No disrespect, but I'm not sure an Intelligence driven investigation would necessarily get the right results. Did you come up with anything?"
"Everything I turn up just leads to another web of potential suspects and other leads. Very little can be verified or disproven from my quarters. I need to go investigate the leads. I tried one operation by proxy, using a holo-projector of myself, but the data I was after are now being held hostage from me by a hacker who hasn't gotten her wisdom teeth in yet." Calliope rolled her eyes but smiled. "No love for 'Lolly'," she muttered. "But something always goes sideways like that, it seems. If I had the authority to, I'd multiply my effort and assign away teams to follow up.
"Huh, I'd be happy to look over your initial results if you'd like" he offered. "Although the hacker would need to be dealt with. What can you tell me about that?"
"Flaxian kid. Her name is Margot Elshimari. She's an orphan from a border colony. Her world was attacked by a designer virus. Paracelsus' Security suspected it originated from a Romulan agency, but we couldn't make out if the release was intentional or not. Margot recovered on the Paracelsus and I sponsored her into a gifted program. Which she got herself kicked out of a couple of years later. She's a rascal and a genius."
"And now holding your data for ransom? Some rascal..." He grinned "Sounds like some intervention is needed"
"If it were money she wanted, I'd have found it. But what she's asking for I can't give her, and if I could, I wouldn't."
Steiner gave a questioning look.
Calliope continued,"She's sequenced her antibodies and has a model of the virus. Now she wants the security files from the Paracel's investigation. It doesn't take much to guess she thinks she's gonna get retribution for losing her Dad."
"Smart kid and starting to sound dangerously smart. Plenty there for a probable cause arrest, which can be arranged" he offered
Calliope chuckled. "I arranged a privateering writ for everyone I brought in on the job. She's immune."
"Nobody's immune from everything" he gave a slight smile "But your call and depending on what we run into out here, might all be a moot point anyway..." He was not fatalistic, but he was highly pragmatic and was well aware they were going to be in extreme danger if, or rather when, they encountered the Pyrryx
As much as she was trying to drive the point home with the Ensigns under her purview, she wasn't a fan of dwelling on the risks herself. Her mind wandered momentarily to HaiRoa and all of the risky missions they had been on together— and yet his wife and child were lost to him on vacation. "Nothing's a given, Mr. Steiner," She said quietly, letting that hang between them for a long moment, like the unknown which was yet to unfurl. Finally her somber expression bloomed darkly. "...but I've a feeling my young friend will still be looking for comeuppance when we get back. Maybe we can devise a way to encourage her to do the right thing."
"I've been known to be persuasive." he replied cryptically but then grinned and nodded at her drink "Although I think just the threat of that goop might be all the motivation a youngster needs to do the right thing"
Calliope's head tilted as she lifted the glass again in a mock salute. "Hey, it might have set me straight a lot sooner..."
