Tracking Party: Get Curly

Posted on Fri Aug 13th, 2021 @ 6:54am by Indigo (*) & Madison Indri

Mission: Elsewhere
Location: Ice Ferry Loading Dock, Stardust City, Freecloud
Timeline: 2396
1691 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Indigo did not care that she had attracted wolf whistles and odd looks as she changed in her car. It would not be the last time and was fast becoming a common occurrence to the woman but she drove nonetheless to the port stopping in the car parking area. She got out grabbing her belt to put her firearm inside her jacket, other weapons were already secured. It was easy to miss and why she loved the jacket style, it made things like this easier and still kept the cold off of her as she leant against the barrier watching the ice ferries.

The trio approached from beaming-in around the block arriving with some intent in their gait now; they were wearing what looked like thicker seasonal clothing, but also covered up body armor, gear, and concealed weapons. On Calliope’s insistence they avoided going in all black and causing a stir, opting for casual looking outerwear. Bear hadn’t had to change his look terribly much, apart from the body armor which made little difference in his profile anyway. He had already strapped weaponry under his jacket. The Doctor looked a little uncomfortable, not being terribly accustomed to security armor or very much in the way of side arms. He carried just a stunner and fidgeted with one hand inside his jacket shoulder with the energy shielding device Bear had slapped on to his shoulder. With a full coat, loose fitting pants, and her combat boots, Calliope appeared to be a different person at first glance. She pushed back her hood to ensure she was getting a full view of the wharf. The city lights beside the frozen over water was picturesque, even if the surrounding buildings were more run down on this end of town. She appreciated the cool air a lot more now that her teeth weren’t chattering. It paid to dress for the weather.

“Catch sight of anything yet?” she asked Indigo as they reconnected.

“Nope but it has not left yet.” The young woman assured as she indicated where the ship was. She was relieved to see they had arrived as she had been wondering to herself how she was going to be able to sort it all out if they had not. “There aren't many passengers around either.” She mused. “Everyone ready?” Indigo was more than ready, she wanted to find Messier, get him safe and the railroad safe again. Whoever Messier’s contact was they needed to be protected and his or her part allowed to continue without being discovered. It was the only way the railroad worked.

“Ha!” Ryder laughed abruptly and pointed at a worn and distressed logo on one of the concrete corners. It was a logo of a Blue Ice Fairy, wings and all, as the symbol of the transport company’s line. “Ice Fairy. See.”

“Would you look at…” Calliope had to chuckle too. “You win this round, Doc.”

“I’m always right. Am I not always right? Tell her, Mr. Baranovski. The doctor is always right.”

“I suppose. Yes. It is wise, listening to Doctor,” Bear said, uncertain what they were on about. “You should always listen to your doctor.”

Calliope scowled. “Why? Why are you taking his side?”

“It’s true.” Dr. Ryder pressed, “You'd do a lot better if you’d just take your doctor's advice, Commander.”

“Are we still talking about plays on words here? Or do you have something else you want to share?” Calliope started a little testily.

Bear looked at Indigo for help. He’d rather be in a knife fight right now than try to guess what his XO and Doctor were suddenly grouchy at each other over. “Maybe we split up, yes? I can walk the perimeter, take scans, make sure there is no sign of a sniper.”

The blue haired woman looked back at the security officer as if to say not my monkeys, not my circus but she did feel a pang of pity for him stuck between and thought to assist at the very least in defusing. “We do not have time for this.” She said quickly hoping the short statement would bring them back to focusing on the task at hand. “I am all for splitting up to cover more ground. Who wants to go with me? I am…” Indigo paused as she spotted people starting toward the ice fairy.

At Indigo’s sudden pause, everyone refocused and traced her eye-line.

“It looks like people are joining the ferry.” Indigo said, trying to see clearly but the snow was starting to fall a little harder. “We could join as passengers and search? Messier would be a passenger.” It was how she did things normally. Join in and people never expected anything from it.

“Yeah,” Calliope agreed, while shooting a last laser eye sidelong at Dr. Ryder. “Let's buy some tickets.” She made a circling gesture with her finger. “Go ahead and take a walk, Bear. We’ll pay your fare, meantime.”

Baranovski was already peeling off, all too glad to put his defensive skills to use securing the area and let the rest of them play detective in the gathering of people.
Taking a more relaxed pose with the intent of blending in, Calliope motioned for Indigo to take point. “We’ll follow your lead.”

Indigo watched Baranovski wander off and almost for a second as they started down to where people were milling around waiting for their chance to get onboard and an awkwardness reigned over the group for a moment. It lasted far too long and Indigo winced, she hated awkwardness especially when she had literally no idea what was going on.

“Well you two aren’t awkward at all.” Indigo whispered to Calliope raising an eyebrow as they took one route through the crowds and the doctor another leaving them alone.

“Ryder’s a doctor. It comes with the ego to match, no matter how nice they are.” Calliope took up a lax pose, leaning against a waist high concrete wall and turning sideways, so she could have a full view ahead and behind them. She was taking stock of the people everywhere and calculating risk to by-standers if something should break. At least it was late enough in the night that there were no kids anywhere.

“Of course.” Indigo was not convinced but she left it there as she started looking around. “Stay there, I will purchase the tickets.” She instructed as she was already moving through the crowds, nearly colliding with a man. She pulled up just in time to stop walking head long into none other than Messier. The shock of literally walking into the person they were looking for just managed to stay off her face thanks to years of practice with a poker face.

“Sorry.” The crewman murmured in standard and Indigo just nodded. When did fate ever line up like that?

“No harm. No foul.” She assured stepping aside to let him carry on walking. She glanced to her left and watched him carry on through the crowd before she ran back to Calliope. “I just saw your man.” She admitted pointing in the general direction of where he had been going.

Seeing the curly head of hair, Calliope had to resist calling him out by name. She pulled out her tricorder under the cover of her coat to try to get a bio-sign lock on him using his Starfleet profile. “There’s signal interference. Someone must have given him a transporter dampener.” So much for a quick and easy extract. She looked up as she tucked the tricorder back into her inner pocket and her eye caught the motion of what was clearly one of the hired security men Wexler had contracted as described and retold to her from the Clerk’s recollection. If there was one, the other two couldn’t be far. “Son of a targ…” Calliope pressed ahead in line, upsetting passengers and earning some colorful exclamations.

All of the disruption caused Messier to hop a chained off exit stair and bolt. A chunk of concrete seemed to self-destruct right behind him. And Calliope instinctively looked up. There was a green figure momentarily visible behind a Raised statue of some revered freedom activist. The statue had been graffitied over with expressions that Calliope had to presume were well intended in support of the ideal, if misguided in their property destructive application. That an assassin was using the figure as cover somehow struck calliope as ironic, though she knew she’d have to muse further on that later.

“Bear!” Calliope called into her comm as she hopped the divider. “Peak of the loading dock, the statue—”

“I’m on it.” Came the reply. But as Calliope glanced back at her shoulder Bear was barreling around the statue and came out on the opposite side, shrugging. The sniper had dematerialized.

“Messier, Stop!” Calliope focused ahead and projected her most commanding tone of voice. It bounced around in the acoustics of the empty underground maintenance tunnels. She was in plain clothes and knew she needed to identify herself. “I’m Commander Calliope Zahn, Starfleet Command sent me. Crewman, stop, that’s an order!” Calliope knew it was futile. Messier was already this desperate and this far down his rabbit hole. There was no way he was going to turn around just on her say so. “You know we can protect you!”

“Starfleet can’t protect me!” Calliope caught him shouting over his shoulder as he dashed into a roped off tunnel entry.

Over her shoulder, she checked to see if Ryder or Indigo were keeping up. But she was on her own, so she put on more speed and lengthened her stride. Messier must have been a track kid, she decided as her legs protested the burn. Even though he had twenty years difference in terms of youth over her, Calliope still trained regularly and couldn’t understand what was making her so winded so quickly. Her lungs stung and she felt like her sides were seizing already as she was pressing into the sprint...