Meeting The Rangers

Posted on Fri Jan 20th, 2023 @ 12:18am by Captain Kaylin Jaal & Captain Rueben Gregnol & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Taev Mirok & Theodore Winslow (*)

Mission: Mission 16: Hysperia
Location: Hysperia
Timeline: Second Day of Festival (MD05)
2979 words - 6 OF Standard Post Measure

Gregnol was not at all sure why Kali wanted to meet the Fenris Rangers properly but who was he to judge her when it could be something as simple as meeting more Romulans? All his senior staff had met the crew of FRS Thrai so it was logical that his chief helmsman got to meet them and they had agreed so he was operating that she was safe. He had set it up for the middle of the day in the middle of the busiest event he had seen so far to cover them and to allow for free talk. Loads of people were packed into the open aired bar and the weather so far was perfect even as he sat there alone nursing his ale.

Kali didn't so much 'sit down' at the table as slide in from seemingly out of nowhere; a skill she only erratically displayed; and probably without conscious thought on it, plunked her drink on the table and settled in the chair opposite the captain that gave her a view over his back and him a view over hers, combining into a decent view on the crowd overall between them.

“I am sure they won’t be long.” Gregnol assured looking around the open bar before looking up at the sun shinning down on them. He was relieved his was wearing some sun glasses as it made his field of vision a lot easier even if no one else really wore them in Hysperia culture. He wanted to see perfectly and not have the sun blinding him.

In fact, Taev had been casually walking around the perimeter of the open air bar for nearly an hour before Gregnol arrived, checking he layout and assessing the festival goers for any signs of spies or a set up. Once Kali had joined Gregnol, he took a few moments to size her up. Or down, as the case may be - she was tiny! even shorter than Kaylin. But he didn't take size a measure; Kaylin was petite for a Romulan, but formidable. There was something in Kali's manner that seemed ...off... but he'd heard form Liha that she had been raised on earth, and certainly she had not made a positive initial impression on her. Time to make a more direct assessment. "Jolan'tru," he said, inclining his head a precise degree - pointedly not the degree of a commoner to a noble. "I understand you wished to meet."

"Jolan'tru." Kali mirrored Taev's precise head incline, pretty much exactly, like one approximate equal to another. "Yeah, I figure if we're all going to be working together going forward..." Her voice trailed off with a simultaneous shoulders-and-eyebrows shrug. Some level of working dynamics was going to probably transfer over when they officially pulled the trigger on the association, as one set of Rangers to another. But if anyone on the Mary Rose was going to get held to a slightly different set of standards by the Thrai crew than everyone else did, Kali knew it would be herself and Liha, and Liha already had the longstanding association that she lacked. There was one way and one way only to go about starting to build anything herself; and since there wasn't exactly a mission to collaborate on at the moment, this would do as well as anything to start things off.

A eyebrow tipped up fractionally at the melding of human and Romulan shrug. He wondered if she truly meant to acknowledge equal standing or was simply mirroring him because she didn't know enough of Romulan society to do otherwise. Either way, she wasn't asserting noble privilege, which was to her favor. What wasn't was the apparently adopted human tendency to trail off mid-sentence even when not making an implied threat or signaling what could not be voiced in public. At least he didn't know of any particular classified mission she might be implying. "I assume the rest of that sentence is something to the effect that an in-person would be beneficial. I was told that you had been raised on earth, so perhaps it would be useful information that those raised in Romulan society would generally not consider such a meeting a basis for increased trust."

Much like most of the time she found herself around both humans and Romulans at once, Kali's mannerisms and instincts warred with themselves inside her head; suppressing the eyeroll she longed to pull off in favor of just taking another sip of her drink instead. "As to the first part; yeah. As to the second...Well, the meeting itself, no; but if we never meet in the first place, we can't exactly get anywhere else later potentially. Everything, and everyone, starts somewhere."

"Liha has decided you are not a threat," he stated, omitting 'reluctantly, after much research', but he was certain that having been raised by scions of a noble House Kali knew enough to understood that subtext. "I consider that a reasonable basis for a working relationship." And with that he took a seat beside Gregnol.

Gregnol had watched the pair amused before the man finally decided to sit down and join them. “Well now we have the alley cat situation out of the way and we are all assured of our partnership where is your… associates?” Associates was the only way he could think to describe the other Fenris Rangers. Were they friends? He truly did not know how they worked really other than Indigo and he was pretty sure she just did what she wanted.

"We are here, Captain." Kaylin appeared almost out of nowhere behind Gregnol, calmly taking a seat next to him. Behind her, Krynn just loomed silently as per his usual MO. The Romulan Captain's eyes narrowed as they landed on Kali across the table. "Taev has good instincts about the people we associate with. If you weren't worth our time he would have known quickly. So...Kalahaeia t'Leiya. K'manatran." She said the word pointedly, in Rihannsu. Outcast; a test, not only to judge her grasp of her own culture, but of her temperament.

Kali's hands and arms tensed slightly, but she met Kaylin's penetrating gaze straight on with intensity of her own in turn, for once taking a moment to consider. 'Sins of the father' (or mother) Klingon-style wasn't a Romulan legal concept; but that didn't mean it wasn't a cultural concept to some degree in some circles, and it was possible the commander meant to hold the actions of her parents 50 years ago against her; or even more likely, her own actions in her younger years of serving the Federation fleet. But there were actually several even worse terms the other woman could have used if she meant it maliciously, and...Well. Being born in exile rather than being cast out or seeking it yourself did not change the fact that you still were.

"Earthling." Kali said back after a moment in the same, equally pointedly, technically neither admitting to nor denying Kaylin's statement with her answer. She had a native speaker's Rihannsu, but with an accent that was ever-so-slightly 'off': Seemingly high-class and with a touch of the capital in it but not quite; the incongruences seeping in subconsciously to any listener from the fact that she had only ever had a small number of people to learn from or speak to in her youngest years; a human might've put Kali's accent - as with many of her mannerisms - as triggering an 'uncanny valley effect'.

Kaylin's eyes rolled lightly. "Some would not know the difference." She glanced at Taev, then back at Kali. "Not many would admit to being associated with that place."

"I am not from Earth so please do not use that tone for us all," Theo said appearing behind the group and sitting down without invitation or any other greeting as was his way. Gregnol smiled at the man as he was gruffer than him at his worse. He felt for the other man, and the way he had been treated by Starfleet made him so angry at the universe. "Indigo is not coming." He added for Kaylin and Taev to know.

"Of course." The response was droll, at least by Romulan standards, and if he'd been human might have included a brief eye roll. But Indigo would no doubt make a point of running into the Romulan 'earthling' at some point on her own. Her loss to miss this meeting, as far as Taev was concerned. He was rather enjoying the chance to watch the interplay. It wasn't every day you got to see the scion of a noble House walking a tightwire between identities.

“Ah no; I’m the one from Earth.” Kali clarified to Theo, swapping languages again to the slight Boston accent her Standard and her English both had and turning her head for a moment to give him a more human-style nod, vs the precise little dip of her head she’d given Taev, or the somewhat deeper one she’d started to give Kaylin as her due as a commander before…well, before they’d gotten onto other topics. That she did it all without taking her eyes off Kaylin was possibly a physical incarnation of the mental balancing act going on inside her head surrounded by both species at once.

"Well in that case." Theo picked up one of the glasses and offered a mock salute to her before downing the shot. It burned the whole way down but it was exactly what he needed after spending several hours with Indigo without anyone else. "So you are the one who wanted to meet everyone hmm? Any reason?" He knew he might have missed everything but he did not have the time or patience for Romulan games.

"The short version?" Kali repeated the shoulder-and-eyebrow-shrug move from earlier and downed more of her own drink. "I haven't worked with any of you before or any of you with me; so since we had to meet sometime, why not now?" The 'longer version' was about getting an initial feel for everyone as best she could before anything more substantial was on the line; and start the rather longer process of building any sort of reciprocal trust; but there was no reason to spell that part out. "I'm Kali; the new flight chief on the Mary Rose."

"I know better than to assume a simple 'introduction' would be your first intention," Kaylin remarked. "Captain Gregnol has shown his worth, and his trust." She glanced at Gregnol. "And I suppose the same could be said for your charming first mate." Her eyes flashed with a mild amusement, before she looked back at Kali. "So...Kalahaeia. Tell me your true purpose."

"You don't know me. I don't know you." Kali laid both her hands on the table near her drink, turned slightly upwards; the move was done slowly and looked casual; but it was more meant as a signal of 'I don't have my hands near where they could go for a hidden weapon'; a risky and deliberate demonstration of trust: Her parents probably had a point when they called her reckless; though in part she was taking the risk at the moment off of trusting that Gregnol's seeming opinion of their new allies was accurate. "You probably have done about as much research on me as I have on you - " Now it was Kali's turn for a mildly amused smirk for a moment " - but that's got it's limitations."

Kali's posture and expression shifted, and now there was nothing amused or lighthearted in in, just solemn. "But based on that, I'll lay on the table that it would seem we've both got enough reasons to be wary of certain parties." The odds that anyone in this crowd would be both close enough, able to hear over the din enough, and in the pay of the Tal'Shiar to notice if she spelled them out blatantly were low, but not zero, so might as well keep it not directly spoken. Everyone who needed to would know what and who she meant anyways. "And of enough others we each served faithfully or alongside in the past proving false or useless, for that matter. And I suspect I'm going to be held to a somewhat different standard, perhaps, than the humans, to a degree." She shot an apologetic look for a moment to Gregnol and Theo, hoping to convey she didn't meant the comment as an insult to either of them, before looking back at Kaylin again. "I know this meeting proves nothing yet, for either of us. But I wanted to meet face to face to get an initial feel for people before anything more substantial was on the line later."

Kaylin didn't answer. She stared hard and cold at Kali for a few moments, making judgements and assessments. Then she looked sideways at Taev.

"You understand the human condition more than I do." It wasn't an admission of weakness, but rather a play to Taev's strengths. Besides, if people felt like she didn't know human custom all that well, then perhaps they would underestimate her in future. "Do you think this one has been..." her eyes flicked back to Kali with almost a sense of amusement. "Contaminated?"

Taev swallowed a laugh. "More like immersed." He cocked a brow at Kali. "Your parents taught you enough niceties to give the Captain proper respect, I'll give you that, but there's a lot of earth, and a solid layer of Starfleet, in your attitudes and assumptions." A wry smile formed on his lips as he cast his gaze back to Kaylin. "But I'll take that over what we'd expect from a noble House brat any day."

Theo raised an eyebrow and looked at Gregnol who shrugged. He as not sure of the back-and-forth nature of the niceties and snipping that was happening between the pair but it was not his place. He was there to introduce them both and to make sure no green blood was shed, he wondered what reason the other former Starfleet officer was there for.

Kali stared back at Kaylin and Taev unblinking, biting back a variety of responses in part because she knew they wouldn't do her any favors here but also in part because she wasn't even sure how she felt about half of what all had just been said about her: Her career might have ended in a trail of blood, shattered bones of admirals, and legal papers; but while SFI still had her loathing, Starfleet overall did not, and certainly not in a historical sense; she still had pride in her service during the war against the Dominion, and the rest of her career before she'd taken her ill-fated detour into intelligence work. So hearing there was a 'solid layer of it' in her...Well. Yeah. There probably was. And the last part...Reconciling her family tree and history with those 'layers of Earth' had always been complicated: There was enough Federation in her to have a firm belief in representative democracy, which made viewing all one's RSE senator ancestors an emotionally complicated exercise regardless when you mixed it in with also enough Romulan in her to have pride in her house and feel the need to protect her kin. The pride and the harsh judgement tended to war in her own head to the point that half of her wanted to agree with Taev's statement and half of her wanted to sock him for it. And the better part of valor in this case was probably to just ignore both impulses and stay silent.

"Nothing wrong with Starfleet in the past." Gregnol finally decided to say aloud instead of stewing on it. It was just getting awkward with the staring back and forth between the two different groups. Theodore snorted into his group surprised it was the other captain who broke the silence as he was not going to, he had been enjoying the fact no one was snarking back and forth. It had been a welcome relief after the adventure with Indigo. "Got a lot of us where we are to allow us to be sat here enjoy some drinks."

"Did we imply that there was something wrong with Starfleet?" Kaylin asked, an amused smirk on her face. "On the contrary, Starfleet is very good at training their people to be...predictable." She turned her gaze back to Kali. "Well, Taev does have a point; you are certainly no Noble brat. I think that we can consider this acquaintance made for the moment. No doubt Captain Gregnol will speak up if things change at any point."

It was probably, Kali concluded, about the best she could hope for at the moment, or could have hoped for, for that matter: Coming off as an alien or a not-quite-right object of curiosity or frustration to both sides of and species at the table probably; but not fatally or irrevocably so in terms of associations going forward. And if their allies continued to prove trustworthy themselves in the future, then hopefully she’d have the chance to demonstrate she was worth such in return as well…for whoever or whatever they considered her to be. No grand gesture bookended the conclusion or statements, just an ever-so-slight tilt of her head at Kaylin, Taev, and Theo, and finally moving the hands she’d laid on the table to pick up her drink again and take another sip of it.