Let's Make a Deal

Posted on Sun May 29, 2016 @ 10:40pm by Lieutenant AJ Taggart & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson

1,260 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Fall
Timeline: Main Brig

ON:

************************** Sickbay ************************

Nicole was bent over a scanner, examining a blood sample when she sensed someone standing next to her. "Maggie?" she said, without looking up.

"Doctor..." Maggie said slowly, "I heard a bit of gossip you should probably be privy to."

"Maggie," Nicole said patiently, "what have I told you about gossiping on the job?"

"That it had better be something worth sharing?" Maggie said.

"Correct," Nicole said, sitting up and stretching a bit and smiling.

"You know that security guy I kinda had a run in with?" Maggie said, her voice getting hushed, but excited.

"The one who had a run-in with your fist," Nicole said.

"Right," Maggie blushed hard. "Anyway, I just ran into him in the mess hall on my break and he said that Lieutenant Taggart went off on the Captain. Apparently called her a ton of bad things and insulted her every way he could. She threw him in the brig!"

"Maggie, I know you aren't a fan of his, but could you sound less excited?" Nicole sighed, rubbing her eyes. She stood up and grabbed her doctor's bag, shaking her head. "Well, time to make a house call. Send for me if anything happens."

"Yes, Doctor," Maggie said, sounding only somewhat contrite.

Nicole stalked out of Sickbay, her previous dread returning. *Rule eleven, every damn time,* she thought.

************************** Brig ************************

AJ was pacing in his incredibly spartan cell. At this point, he had determined that it only took him five steps to fully travese the length of his new cage. In the previous 12 hours, he had alternated between doing pull ups on a ledge and shadowboxing in order to maintain a somewhat sensible frame of mind. Stopping for a moment to think, AJ let out an animalistic growl before he flopped down on the bunk in the corner and stared wordlessly at the sterile grey ceiling. Thoughts were racing through his head at a million miles a second, some about what he would do next and others about what he had done.

Though he hadn't heard the doors open to his cell block, the captains voice broke through his inner dialogue. "Comfortable?"


AJ smirked. "Incredibly, Captain. Although the room service is quite lacking if I do say so myself and the decor could use a little work."


Nicole walked in and stopped short, seeing the Captain standing in front of the cell. "Captain," she said slowly."

The Captain turned to glance back over her shoulder at the new arrival, and then in the same tone as the doctor, answered, "Doctor."

"I'm here to attend to Mister Taggart's injuries," Nicole said.

That got the Captain's attention, though not in a good way. "Oh?" She retorted while turning first to fix the Doctor with a stare, then shifting her body to turn that hard glare on the officer in the cell. "Have you suffered a mishap Lieutenant?"

"Not yet, he hasn't, but I'm here now," Nicole said, evenly.

Kennit didn't answer, not yet at least.

"Mister Taggart is suffering from extreme overwork and stress, and consequently has come down with a case of 'Mouthing-off-itis." Nicole said, putting her bag down on the security console. "I recommend some rest, and repeated slaps over the head by a trained professional until his situation improves."

She folded her arms and stood in front of AJ, her usual professional scowl on her face. Her usual dry humor notwithstanding, she wasn't amused, and it showed in her eyes. "Of course, privacy would help, and I'm sure you have other duties to attend to. I wouldn't wish to keep you," Nicole said, looking sideways at the captain. "Unless of course, Mister Taggart was about to apologize for his attitude and I accidentally interrupted." She looked pointedly at AJ.

AJ let out a throaty, sardonic laugh. "I don't intend to apologize but I would like to make a deal. Obviously you're going to need someone to interpret the sheer amounts of data that are currently flowing in and the technicians can only do so much. So let me out of here during my duty shift, under guard if necessary and I'll report back here every night."

Nicole put a hand over her mouth and tried to stifle a groan. She briefly thought of volunteering Penny for the job, just to teach AJ a lesson, but that wasn't her call. Instead she turned her back on the conversation and walked back over to the security console, picking up her bag and putting on a forced smile for the security officer.

The Captain heard the doctors groan, and turned. "Are you ill Doctor?"

"I should be so lucky," Nicole grumbled, turning to watch and folding her arms over her chest.

With a shrug of her shoulder, the Captain turns her focus back to Lt. Taggart. "Under circumstances, you are of far more use on duty than you are loitering about here. Until the mast is held, you are granted leave to stand your duty watch, after being relieved you will return to this cell."

AJ nodded. "Very well then, Captain-" he stopped to check his watch. "You'll want to release me, I seem to be late."

The Captain did not answer right away. Instead she just gazed at him for a long moment, her expression bland but her eyes were ice cold, dark and unforgiving. Then, she simply turned away and headed towards the exit. With a nod at the security guard, indication that Taggart should be released, she was gone.

Nicole had gone into the situation with some witty remarks and scathing criticism, but now she was just dumbstruck. Her brain couldn't grasp what she'd just seen, or the casual way AJ was treating it. *Is anyone on the same team here?* she thought.

She was often a malcontent, a complainer, and she took some pride in that. Frequently everyone had gripes about something, and she said them outright, giving herself a way to vent her over-broiled emotions, and giving everyone else a proxy for their unspoken feelings. But despite all that, one thing never changed: she was always loyal to her captain. She'd had the good fortune to serve under three great ones, and she while she hadn't given this one a final rating yet, she wasn't about to undermine the captain outright, no matter if they disagreed or not. She would argue, she would howl against the wind, but until the crew was clearly being put in harms way needlessly, she would obey. A surgeon followed orders or the patient would die; a starship ran along similar principles.

All this ran through her mind as she stared at AJ, and she hoped the disappointment wasn't showing too harshly on her face as she bowed her head and walked out of the brig without saying a word.

AJ pulled on his shirt and jacket, sans commbadge as he watched the two officers walk away. If there was one thing that he had consistently failed to understand, it was women. Their moods shifted like a Tymerian tropical breeze that had a tendency to turn into a raging tempest at the slightest change in environment. But a hurricane could be beautiful, even when it left nothing in its wake. Leaving his jacket partially unzipped, he strolled out of the brig, flipping the Master At Arms stationed there a small golden coin.


:OFF

This has been a Joint Post between:

Captain Rhea Katrijn Kennit
USS Victory, Commanding

Lieutenant Nicole Anderson
Chief Medical Officer, USS Victory

and

Lieutenant AJ Taggart
Chief Intelligence Officer, USS Victory

 

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