Work This Out… Please… Now

Posted on Sat Mar 12th, 2022 @ 6:53am by Captain Reuben Gregnol (Mirror) & Evanna Belyaev

Mission: Mirror Mirror
Location: ISS Fenrir
Timeline: 2396
3300 words - 6.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Gregnol was grumpy, the words from the rebels were still going around and around in his head and being held practically hostage at the imperial palace was doing him no good, especially with the Empress changing his ship. He did not like the approach she had taken making Ford collar Agrax and Fenruse at all. He liked the fear that the pair brought, it was good for them both the inquisitors and the crew but he was not going to deny the Empress, he would punish Ford another time.

The captain was like a caged animal as he stalked into Science and spotted the woman, he had given the job to after their time together. He needed some answers from around the rebel ships, he knew it was being checked over by science for how truthful the information was around the Cardassian and the location of their new homeworld and more importantly who had survived the fall of Betazed. “The rebel ship data? How are things going with it?”

Grumpy didn't cut it in Evanna's books; her Captain was in the kind of dangerous mood that emptied the main foyer within seconds to leave her standing, alone and unphased, to bear the brunt of his impatience. As much as she would eventually have to cure the cowardice within her ranks, the abandonment was actually fortuitous in this instance as it gave ample scope for her to nod him towards the door, that would open into a hallway, that would lead past several barely utilised meeting spaces to twist and turn all the way back to the space she'd claimed as her own. It wasn't the Chief's office; that was an officious nightmare and she resided there with limited tolerance only when absolutely imperative. Rather, it was the little niche she'd carved out for herself when her superior officer had done her the service of underestimating her and opted to treat her as a glorified secretary instead of delving deeper into what she was actually capable of.

Gregnol wasn't so foolish.

She lead the way down the corridor in silence. Evanna knew that he probing, testing, jabbing a finger into the grey areas of her service record and those neat and tidy aspects of her timeline that were just far too mundane to be as simple as they appeared. It had been a while since the scientist had come under the scrutiny of anyone with an ounce of sense to read between the lines and, in many ways, Evanna welcomed the intrusion. Life over the past few months had threatened to become tedious and if there was one consistent truth to her entire existence thus-far, it was that nothing good ever came out of Evanna being bored. From a certain point of view, at least. It depended which side of the fence you were on and whether she'd opted to join you or not.

The doors to her workspace hissed open and Evanna stepped inside, moving to take a seat at the work station with a gesture for him to take the one opposite, if he could bring himself to stop pacing for any length of time. So far, they'd said very little about the task he'd set her, which ought not have been one immediately attributed to the Head of Sciences when Communications fell more under the jurisdiction of Operations. The look in his eye as he had handed her the data PADD, that hungry sense of knowing and his confidence that he was selecting the right person rather than the correct department, had been a warning sign of sorts but also swiftly became a source of private pleasure. Evanna might have made a career out of fooling the ignorant but there was something downright attractive about the handful of people who refused to take her at face value. Several taps keyed in a sequence that dimmed the lights for a second, saw the motion sensor near the door rotate through several symbols before settling on the bright red of restricted access and then a flicker from an independently adapted and installed relay of generators flared blue to indicate the activation of a forcefield that then settled to a transparent shimmer.

Her blue eyes met his. Yes, she had made modifications. No, they were not a secret from him because she'd just shown him. Whether she'd made the installations specifically to provide them with a space to talk that couldn't be easily monitored or if she'd had them prior to his sudden awareness of her existence was not information Evanna shared. Instead, she tapped several more keys and brought up the encryption sequence she'd been working on.

"Whoever they have securing their systems, they have some skill." This was high praise and probably, therefore, an understatement. "So far, I have partial crew records, stocktake and inventory cycles, and I've isolated their communication archive and pulled some scattered information from their flight recorder. Our scans retrieved a considerable amount of information but I feel their encryption sequences will have prohibited complete extraction. I can extrapolate," she reassured. "But it will take time."

A slender finger tapped another key.

"The information you specifically referenced, regarding protected interests." It was a cold way to reference apocalypse survivors but neither of them had the stomach for nostalgia. "Their security files are locked behind something else entirely. I have several programs currently building me a profile but to avoid tripping any of the embedded self-deletion protocols, I will have to design something specifically to breach the firewall."

Her eyes met his again. An admission without confession. Tiny little etchings to add detail to all that grey in her dossier. Confirmation, in the tiniest increments, that his hunch was correct.

"With your permission, of course."

The man did not sit down but instead just leaned against the back of the chair resting his weight on it as he waited to see what she had been up to and what she had achieved so far. Pacing curved his normal restraints in wanting to crush something under his hands or kick something to dust, it was moments like that where the violent tendencies that had served him so far came to the forefront of his mind. He raised an eyebrow at her request for permission and indicated for her to continue. "You find what I am looking for, Lieutenant. I need answers." He said in Russian, it sounded softer than the harsh standard words he had said in the Science foyer.

Her cool stare regarded him for a split second longer before an inclination of Evanna's head served as her acquiescence. Her hesitation was not so much a moral dilemma; Gregnol would not have been very surprised to discover his Science Chief did not often suffer from many of those. Nor was it an unwillingness to delve into the blurred legalities of digital subterfuge, which had been her bread and butter most of her life, but more specifically since roughly the age of 12. This was more a sense of reservation that stemmed from his personal investment in the information and whether it was in his particular interest to stir a hornet's nest whilst the Empress seemed so invested in unsettling things. It was none of Evanna's business, of course, but that didn't excuse her from considering all the potential risks before she sent them both down a rabbit hole that might likely annoy a number of influential people.

She pulled up the work she'd started already, the simultaneous programs delicately manipulating the encrypted files to create a digital imprint for her to work with. Something like this would take hours of dedicated coding, which wasn't going to please the caged lion in front of her. Her gaze lifted from the screen to regard him for a moment and then Evanna reached behind her for a PADD, which she slid across for his perusal.

"The passenger manifest for the past few months might mean more to you than it does to me. What I could pull of the crew's records are there too. This will take me a while," she added quietly and not without her own brand of tenderness, swinging her head towards the monitor. "But I will work through the night. If there is a record of a hidden settlement anywhere, I'll find it."

"Do not spend the whole night doing it. It is a side project for now." He said with only a hint of regard for her well being as he took the PADD to read it knowing full well he was being distracted. He moved off from where she was working to sit at one of the other consoles. "It does mean a lot more to me." He said thoughtfully as he started to look through the names not sure what he was looking for yet. Something familiar maybe? Something hinting to Jeassaho?

Even hints at consideration for her well-being struck Evanna as unusual given the circumstances. She was not, which was possibly why Gregnol had allowed it in the first place, the kind of woman who believed sex was a gateway to any sort of special consideration. Presumption served no useful purpose other than to lower one's guard with artificial confidence and Evanna was no more ready to trust that she was out of his firing line than he was likely ready to trust that she could be relied upon without him having to maintain total control. Trust, such an alien concept to both of them, did not form between the bedsheets. This task, however; she found it not outside the scope of possibility that she was willing to extend herself for his benefit. As things currently stood, Evanna found Gregnol's trajectory the most appealing of her options and proving her worth to the man, beyond the bedroom, wasn't a distasteful prospect.

She smiled faintly to herself as the glow from her screen rendered her features a soft blue.

And saw no point in arguing with him. She required very little sleep and tended to structure her schedule in a rather regimented way to ensure optimal use of her time. The hours she would dedicate to this would eat into the time she usually spent on personal projects, not health and safety practises that would compromise her capacity. That was not a detail he needed to know, however, nor did Evanna really think he would be particularly interested in the intricacies of her personal time management. Instead, she focused on some of the preliminary readings from her scans and allowed him the space to brood. Her Sanctum protocols; the ones that allowed her work space to be an isolated security grid of its own, with a neutrino field to boot to block out telepathic intrusion. invariably created a sense of calm that could be unusual for someone very used to the constant background noise that formed part of life on Imperial starships. Allowing Gregnol to benefit from it was risky; no leader enjoyed discovering that their subordinates had a way of dodging security protocols, but it was an olive branch that at least suggested Evanna was serious about assisting him. Trust started out with moments like this; leaps of faith into the darkness.

The man frowned when she did not answer but he was so intent on looking at something that he nearly missed the ten or so Betazoid looking names. They were all familiar, they had been in the senate room as it had burned. It was becoming more and more apparent that the likelihood was there as one of them another Engineer that he had sent with Jeassaho. "This person... Nael Jezium.... he was on the Fenrir when I cleansed Betazed. He is declared killed in action." He spat barely able to contain his anger.

"The information in the passenger manifest is as accurate as possible given the slight degradation of the data." Evanna spoke now because, unlike earlier, there seemed a need for her input. The woman's nuances could be complex but overwhelmingly, she appeared to know how to hold her tongue and wasn't so overly fond of the sound of her own voice that she couldn't allow a brooding silence to fester in an attempt to resolve itself. Barely looking up from her work, she continued. "It would place the dates of their last presence aboard within several days of what I've projected at worst." She was being conservative; Evanna had a great deal more confidence in her ability than a margin of error that size but arrogance had to be earned. "Several of them appear to have been present at the same time," she pointed out, glancing across at him again. "And their time on board correlates with information from the flight recorder."

A potential heading. Perhaps not the actual hideout but a link in the chain that would at least give him something to investigate whilst she worked. Evanna had already had suspicions but she'd required Gregnol's confirmation of names and their significance before committing.

The Captain nodded and just slammed the PADD down his anger evident as he saw one of the final names on the list - It was her and he could not believe it at all, she was dead. He destroyed her just like he had billions of other lives. He tried to formulate what was changing with the universe and what he knew had happened. He stayed still knowing he could not blow up there, he needed to be alone to do it. No one else needed to know, they could think they knew or guess what they wanted but only he, for now, would know what he was searching for. "Thank you." He finally said as the red mist disappeared as he just stared at the blonde.

It was, of course, another benefit of her sanctum. In here, the only people aware of his outburst were two people unlikely to ever speak of it again. Certainly, Evanna didn't flinch, nor did she give any real indication that she understood the significance of the information he'd uncovered. Did she have a hunch? It was fair to say the blonde always had a hunch. Was she inclined to involve herself in actively guessing? It wasn't her business until he chose to involve her further, and that attitude did not stem from disinterest so much as Evanna's own unique brand of respect. If his thanks surprised her, which it certainly had the capacity to, she was gracious enough not to let that show either. All she did was pause what she was doing long enough to meet his gaze and incline her head in acknowledgement.

Then, gracefully stepping down from her seat, she approached and held out her hand for the PADD. Several key taps and Evanna then motioned for his hand, lingering perhaps a little in the way that she arranged his fingers to meet up with the scan points. It was understated, the gentle pressure of her hand atop his, a conveyance of something beyond the merely functional but not enough to stray into idle sentiment. The display beneath his fingertips lit up green and Evanna retreated, at least far enough to remove herself from physical contact.

"That is the only decrypted copy," she assured him quietly. "And now even I would struggle to access it." The information was his, right down to her forethought in storing it on a device now encrypted to his personal use only.

"Good." He said looking at the PADD and the name no longer displayed on it that he had not seen for a long time. It was like time was stood still as he thought about it all and where she was in the universe. Why had she not got word to him? Did she blame him for her situation? He could not blame her if she did but he had not known. "This goes no further than us." He said simply. "We both know I have alternative motives whilst the crew gossips about it."

Stood with her hands behind her back, Evanna's posture was everything an obedient subordinate should display, and yet there was a glint to her expression, and the faint curve of an almost-smile, that betrayed the tiniest amount of intimate understanding. The concept of using scuttlebutt as a distraction was not lost on the scientist; should there ever become a time where anyone would be foolish enough to note the completely-off-the-grid disappearance of the Captain and his Science Chief, there was a lot to be said for the damage control that came from a simple assumption that the privacy was more a tryst than official business. And she was not so crass as to directly fuel the flames but she likewise wouldn't correct those who chose to believe their consultation took place with her bent face-down over a console. Gossip, if cultivated correctly, was better than any security measures she could personally design.

Evanna inclined her head again, cooperation intended.

"I will have further information for you in the morning," she replied, in direct opposition to his earlier request but delivered with enough respect to reassure that it was no imposition. "I would prefer to extract what I can from this immediately, we may be dealing with time limits that I've yet to uncover."

"I said..." He started before he remembered what he had to do that evening and the way she had said it. If she burnt herself out so be it, it could be an 'I told you so' moment. "Do not be late for the meeting tomorrow morning then." He decided to go with that. "I have to deal with the regent of Andoria and getting us out of this Palace some time soon." He announced not at all looking forward to the prospect when he was in mood for games thanks to the knowledge he now had.

"I'll be there."

Three words presented as solid, irrefutable fact. Reassurance, in a world slowly crumbling to reveal a pervasive lack of certainty. He had some personal experience with Evanna's stamina by now, there was certainly no immediate need to assume she was compromising anything. Having trusted her protocols thus far, the blonde regarded him for a moment before an intentional slide into the native tongue that separated them from most of the crew created an intimacy that was not, clearly, as much of a security requirement as it could sometimes be. "Ya naydu otvety. Yest' li chto-nibud' yeshche, chto vam nuzhno?"

"I guess I have everything I need for tonight. Do you?" He decided finally as he saw her regarding him. It would be so easy to avoid the regent and stay there but he knew how to cultivate relationships and handle politics better than most.

"V nastoyashcheye vremya."

And there was the line, toes right up against it, between flirting and simply being succinct. Nothing had changed, other than the satiation of their own curiosity, and perhaps...an expansion of personal consideration. Evanna had certainly not slammed the door shut, which might be considered exceptional given her track record but was perhaps less surprising given who it was she was dealing with. There was prudence, however, and dignity and propriety and priorities. She had a job to do.

Turning, the Science Chief stepped back up to her work station and hit the sequence of keys that allowed for the deactivation of her security measures. "I'll be here if you need me," she murmured, her gaze already averted once more to the analysis of information as it unravelled.