Of Press Passes
Posted on 04 Feb 2025 @ 10:33pm by Commander Calliope Zahn
Edited on on 19 Feb 2025 @ 5:48pm
Mission:
M4 - Falling Out
Location: OC- Guest Quarters
Timeline: MD27
1285 words - 2.6 OF Standard Post Measure
“El,” Otath called out, the Andorian’s antennae piqued with excitement as he barged into the hotel room. Otath always called her El. It was shorter than Eloise, and shorter still than Eloise Khadra-Vogel. She preferred it to ‘boss’ which made her sound like some kind of mobster. Years ago her mentor, Kell Linders, had told her to pick her name before someone did for her. That’s the way it was in the business. She didn’t want a bunch of cliquish branding though and had tried to keep a complete name sign off: This is Eloise Khadra-Vogel for the Federation News Service, signing off. Once the roll had cut, her camera crew wasn’t sensitive about that sort of thing, however, and with the kind of time crunches that the day to day news cycle spanning the length, breadth, and depth of Federation space demanded of them, screaming for content and brevity all at once, she could hardly begrudge her team an economy of syllables, and appreciated getting to the point as much as any of the camera jockeys.
“Go.”
“Got the passes.”
“To?” Eloise prompted Otath for clarification, rapidly blinking. There were multiple possibilities. Since she’d arrived and failed to get exclusives with Xeri and Wallace, she’d had to turn her sour citrus into sugary drinks and cast around for other newsworthy items to film and transmit to her node of the FNS, holding out until she could get what she actually came for. But at every turn she was run off by one of Xeri’s minders. That Ferengi who Xeri had employed as an agent for her art work (His hologram kept auto refusing credit denominated access fees and his bouncer had turned her away at the door!) and that shrink, Agaia Adima, who acted as though she were the president’s armed guard, cutting Eloise off at every pass when she had carefully plotted an ‘incidental’ run in, cameras at the ready.
“You know, the passes.” Otath’s antenna fell slightly.
“We’ve already secured the Engineering Conference press pass,” Eloise said, her brow scrunched as she disliked being made to guess what Otath was on about. They had her junior reporter shadow, Sebastian Joyner, in the conference hall taking precipitous notes, questioning presenters, scoping the exhibit hall, and trying to earn his keep. “You mean Loki III port access?” She’d been working on an itinerary to go surface-side. There was always interesting political turmoil on Loki III and only last year there had been word of some kind of fracas over people’s rights and oppressive regimes rearing their heads literally from underground caves… the FNS had been negligent in sending a correspondent in person, trusting locals to answer queries in exchange for measly credit payouts, the result of which amounted to little more than something to populate the news tickers with, barely a blurb under the shadow of the core world headlines.
“Yes, we’ve got landing rights. But that’s not what–”
Brenna burst into the room, a hover camera trailing through the door before it snapped shut, but only just getting through by a hair (doors didn’t trigger as well for equipment). Brenna had lost more cameras that way… Eloise thought as she watched the narrow miss.
“You get them, ‘Tath??” Brenna asked, her voice pitched high enough to make Eloise grit her teeth.
Otath nodded enthusiastically to his filming partner. “You would not believe the wait time–”
“I had to bribe someone else to get their booking appointment!”
“He insisted everyone had to go through the desk! With that painfully polite holo hostess!”
“--And then when I get to the desk to talk to her, I find out you were already there! You owe me fifty cred.” Brenna held out her hand.
“Put it in our expense claims!”
They both chortled while docking the hover cams and pulling links to their editing stations set up in the stay over room they had booked to serve as a working studio.
“It’s getting cramped in here, El,” Otath complained to the boss, reaching around the famous reporter to get to his accessory film kit like she was in the way in his kitchen. “If we’re going to be in town much longer, maybe we should rent some studio space on the Promenade, you think?”
“We can put that on the expense claims too.”
“What passes?!” Eloise shouted with exasperation.
Brenna had just put three sticks of gum in her mouth as her raw content was loading onto the clipping application. “Mrg meh!” She said.
“Timeless Treasures early access press passes to record the Xeri Gallery show before the place fills up. Plus a special preview reading of the artist statement, and interview with the gallery owner, Brek.”
“What.” Steam practically came out of Eloise's ears.
“The gallery show. Xeri’s art. We made it top priority to get the preview pass!” Otath said proudly. They were here to cover the recovered castaways story of the previously famous Science Crewman. Since being rebuffed on their first approach with the emaciated Betazoid weeks ago, they’d been floundering. No more! He’d gotten them in.
“You got tickets—
“Yeah!”
“ —To… a… show!?” Eloise pushed a crate of film gear off an unmade bed and onto the floor where a dozen lighting orbs tumbled and rolled away with resounding clatter. “I wanted exclusives!” She boxed at the air helplessly, weeks of pent up frustration pouring out of her. “We’re getting slice-of-life stories, puff pieces, dry-eye technical briefs— and now we’re expected to eat at the trough like some common net diva snorting lypra fumes for culture and fashionista hyper-votes! For the love of— What should we do next? Dog-walker interviews in the park? Issue a restaurant guide? Are we going to be covering discount sale announcements on the ass end of this station’s promenade? Aughhhh! ”
With that, the worlds’ renowned reporter Eloise Khadra-Vogel stomped into the hall.
Meanwhile, the last of the capsized lighting orbs finished a slow, circuitous roll until hitting Otath in the foot. He bent to pick it up, sighing. He'd really thought El would be glad. The show was specifically about Xeri's experience on Korix and the art and the artist's statement would have held a lot of the same stuff Xeri might have said. It was like El was on some kind of vendetta to get this shy, scrawny Betazoid on camera. What was the big deal? Why not just buy her book of art reproductions and do a review?
Righting the storage crate, Otath sighed as he deposited the orb back in it's foam cradle. “I guess we’ll have to pull Sebastian to stand in front of the camera at the Gallery for her.”
Brenna blew a bubble and pulled up a secondary viewer, having tuned out El’s tirade. The Boss was popping a vein twice a day of late. “‘Tath,” She said after sucking the gum back and giving it a hearty chaw. “What about this studio rental? It’s a sublet by some commercial offices on the upper level of the Promenade…”
He gave it a cursory glance. “Sure, yeah, let's reserve that.”
“El will sign for it?”
“I’ll sign for El. She owes us that much.” Not that she would notice if they rented out the Taj Mahal, or whatever passed for it in the Loki System. There was only one thing she cared about right now; Otath knew Eloise Khadra-Vogel needed a big scoop or she was going to make more than lighting orbs roll…
