USS PATRIOT: Mess * EARTH: Toronto Park ("Goodbye")

From: Nai Lara (nai_lara_at_internode.on.net)
Date: Sat Mar 15 2008 - 04:52:52 PDT


“Goodbye”
Con’t from Rahul’s “Now is the Winter of our Discontent”

Location: PATRIOT
Stardate: 2422 [2.7] 1503.2251
Scene: Mess



“This doesn’t make for light reading.” Tam muttered under her breath as 
she tried to battle her way through dozens of pages on the society and 
politics of the planet in question.

Maverick sat down and handed her a cup of coffee while he nursed his 
own. “I think we’ve got the abbreviated version.” He shook his head. “Ah 
hell, I was never good at this stuff. Give me a fair fight any day.” He 
wasn’t too thrilled at all of this cloak and dagger routine. It was 
overly complicated.

“Get this.” Tam began as she read through the information. “Forty years 
ago they discovered plasma propulsion and began space travel.”

“Plasma?” Maverick snorted. Philistines. Plasma was incredibly unstable, 
not to mention dangerous and almost impossible to control. “How many 
ships got blown up?” He asked as he drunk from his cup.

“A huge amount, but they didn’t care. They’re convinced that they need 
to explore space.” Tam replied.

Bret shook his head and gave a bark of laughter. “Forty years ago they 
head into space for the first time. And now they want to invade another 
planet.”

“A lot can change in forty years, Colonel. Even the best of intentions 
can change.” Ben stated solemnly as he joined the small team. It was 
early morning, in the middle of the night shift, and there were 
debriefing and reading notes about their upcoming assignment in the 
mess. Tam and Mav were there, discussing things, and hadn’t realised 
when Kenta and Tanith joined them.

“Captain, didn’t expect to see you here.” Maverick grunted softly.

“I needed a coffee.” Kenta smiled warily as he headed to wards the 
replicator.


Tanith sat down at the table, while Tam glanced over as Kenta had two 
cups of coffee appear in the replicator. “Sir, when are we getting our 
undercover designations?” She asked as Ben turned with the coffee in 
hand and headed back to the table.

“I’ve not received any information to that fact.” The commanding officer 
said as he slid into his seat. He didn’t normally interact with his crew 
on such as casual level, but they needed to learn this material and 
learn it fast. Only way to do that was to do it together.

“They can’t expect us to go in without a story?” Maverick raised an 
eyebrow.

“As Commander Sterling said – their agent on that planet was killed. It 
would be pretty hard for them to concoct a story and planet it if they 
had no one on the surface to do the work.” Kenta shrugged. “Having said 
that, they may just pull it off. Just be prepared for both eventualities.”

“Grithir strikes me as quite xenophobic.” Tam offered up her learned 
opinion.

Maverick’s mouth twisted into a faint grimace. “That’s why he wants to 
blow the colony up.”

“You think he’s the Changeling?” Tanith asked.

“Not necessarily. He could just be that way.” Maverick glanced up and 
smirked. “Ah Misses Clarkson, nice for you to join us.” He said as 
Catherine walked into the mess and shot daggers at the marine. If he 
didn’t stop calling her that soon, she was going to get cranky.

=/\=
Location: Earth
Scene: Toronto park
=/\=

It was dark out, but Gorman enjoyed it. The night air was brisk, heavy 
with the scent of falling leaves. Autumn was well and truly alive. In 
his mind, autumn was bettered only by winter.

“Jeff.” He turned as he heard his name mentioned and smiled as he saw a 
shadow moving slowly with a particular gait.

Gorman smiled as he saw his original ship mate slowly walking up the 
bridge. “Tene, what are you doing here?” He asked, having recognised the 
voice and the limp, even though he hadn’t seen neither for a couple of 
years.

“I suspected you’ll end down to Earth one last time before you shipped 
out.” Danara began as she stepped into the soft illumination of the moon.

The smile on Jeff’s face faltered. “Tene…”

The woman chuckled ruefully as she touched her weathered cheek. “Yeah, I 
know. The grey hair and wrinkles are a little scary, aren’t they?” They 
were almost the same age, yet she looked well over double that.

“What happened to you?” Gorman asked.

“T’Jal’s interdimensional device. I didn’t realise it had side effects 
until…well…lets just say, that I got an awful lot of mileage out of it.” 
Danara shrugged. It wasn’t too steep a price to pay for the work she had 
done. Especially now.

Jeff shook his head, a little at a loss for words. He had used the 
device four times in his life with no ill effects. How many times did 
she use it to look like that? “I didn’t realise…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Danara leaned on the bridge railing. “Anyway, I’ve 
come to say goodbye and good luck. I won’t see you for a while.”

“You make that sound final.” Gorman was worried, he had too many red 
flags pop up in his mind. Too many things to digest and understand. She 
wasn’t giving him the time to do it, deliberately keeping him off balance.

“In this business, it could be.” Teneill glanced at him with her intense 
green eyes. “Stay well Jeff. If you need anything, Archer will help.” 
She said confidently.

“Where are you going?”

The woman laughed as she straightened up. “Tell you that, I’ll have to 
kill you, and that’ll really mess up my plans. And since everything has 
been in the works for years, I’m going to get pretty annoyed.” She moved 
her weight on her feet to keep off her bad knee.

Jeff was at a loss for words. He missed her company, and her sense of 
humour. But she wasn’t the bright, fresh-faced ensign he had once known. 
Something in her was darker and older. This wasn’t the Teneill that he 
went on his first mission with. And he missed that.

The executive officer smiled slightly. “Well, in that case, good luck.”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NRPG: Kick off



Naomi Lara

Lt. J.G. Catherine Sterling-Jade
Intelligence Operative
USS PATRIOT

And

Commodore Teneill Danara-Bennow
Deputy Chief of Starfleet Intelligence

From HyperNews_at_youth.net 


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