And Hating It Even More

Posted on Mon Sep 30th, 2024 @ 5:48pm by Lieutenant Commander Nyx Valentine & Commander Sirona Varshaan

Mission: Mission 5: Lost, Stolen, or Missing?
Location: Transport Brig

ON

Nyx had been there for forty-five minutes and counting, if she were correct, but had no intention of moving off of the floor where she'd plopped herself, despite it just adding to the discomfort of her situation. No cloth had been forthcoming and a good portion of her time had been spent scratching idly where the rough fabric was irritating her. The one thing that had come from this whole situation was that she'd been given time to THINK and go over the conversation that the Romulan Commander had with her and the results of those thoughts wasn't necessarily one that she relished.

Her ship was going to come after her, that was a given, if ONLY for Captain Harding to murder Nyx herself rather than give some Romulan asshole the opportunity to do it instead. She'd grown sad for Gigi, who was no doubt having a field day in Nyx's quarters tearing them to shreds, but Max or Jasmine would eventually go settle that out and likely have to have Gigi transported back to Drussel to live in the wild if she didn't return. But Nyx did wonder what this memory core was and started going over what she'd need to do, IF the Romulan did as she was instructed.

The doors opened, and a Romulan male walked into the Brig. He was dressed in a mucher darker version of the Romulan uniform, with a gold version of rank insignia on his collar, which stood in stark contrast to the dark material. "We will be arriving soon." He regarded the woman on the floor with an eerily blank expression.

Nyx glanced at him, then his hands and finally back at him again, “And where’s my dress?” She asked imperiously, trying to act as much like her grandmother as she could, “I am Lady Nyx Valentine of the Thirteenth House of Betazed, Wielder of the Bow of Razha. I certainly can’t go out wearing rags like these! They aren’t comfortable and they are certainly not elegant! If your Commander wants me to do what she needs me to do, I have to look at least SOMETHING like decent.”

The corners of the man's mouth twitched upward in the faintest of smiles. "I did tell the Commander that Betazoids each have an ego the size of their planet." He raised his hand and pressed the communication device on his wrist. "Send Gaheric."

It was a wait of a few minutes, then the doors to the Brig opened, and a Cardassian was being roughly pulled in by the arm. He held a storage box under the other, and looked thoroughly put out. "Now, really! How can I be expected to complete my work-" his eyes fell on Nyx in the cell, and took in what she was wearing. "Oh, my poor dear. I see now why my services were needed."

He presented the storage box, and lifted the lid, showing Nyx the contents: a midnight blue dress. "It is nothing fancy, I was told your basic measurements, and had to make something that would be both comfortable, and practical. I assume this meets with your temporary approval? I am working on something much more my usual fare."

Nyx got to her feet as was proper when the Cardassian entered and upon seeing the dress, her eyes lit up. It wasn’t a Ventrey, one of the high end Betazoid fashion house names, but it was a damned sight better than what she had on. She reached out to touch the deep blue fabric and it was smooth, clearly done in a bit of a rush. She leaned over and gave Gaheric a kiss on the cheek, “You are an absolute doll!” She took the garment out of the box before holding it out in front of her, “If you gentlemen would give me a moment?”

As a Betazoid, she’d attended enough traditional weddings and just general events that nudity wasn’t taboo to her, but for the sake of her erstwhile ‘companions’, she turned away from them before stripping off the prison uniform. Anyways it had stood to reason that SOMEONE had already seen her underneath the cloth because she sure hadn’t been wearing that when she’d arrived. Under a minute later she was in the dress which fit… Passably. It was by no means a perfect fit, but for someone who hadn’t been able to attend a fitting? Definitely passable. She turned back to Garrick, “You didn’t happen to have a set of heels for this? Or perhaps a Number umm… 18 Fehral palette kit with number 11 lipstick?”

Gaheric shook his head with a resigned expression. "Alas not. I was rather short on time.'

“Oh well, I’ll ask the Commander for them, then.” Nyx turned to the Romulan still present and gave him a bright smile, “Now that I feel more like myself, let’s go see what the Commander has for me?”

The Romulan officer raised his wrist again. 'Nerek to Bridge. Ready for transport."

"Very well, Major. We are approaching transport range."

It was a minute or so, then the deep wine of a Romulan transporter beam filled the room.

==========

The K-class station showed its age. Built over a hundred years prior, it hadn't been seen to for some time. Yet, main power was evident - lights, life support, and artificial gravity were all operating. They had all beamed into a large, communal area of some kind. Though it's original purpose had been stripped away.

Around the room, a dozen Romulans were arrayed, plasma rifles in hand. In the center, a large table sat. In the middle of the table, about large enough to be picked up in both hands, the memory core sat. It was connected to a computer terminal, with a chair to sit in.

"I trust you are ready to work?"

The voice of Commander Varshaan sounded as she stepped forward.

"I'm ready to take a look at this thing for an initial evaluation, yes." Nyx gave her a skeptical look as she glanced at the memory core where it sat, then moving forward without asking for permission to get a closer look. The first thing she looked over were the connections to the core, not reaching out to touch them for various reasons, but also at the core itself, "Where did you say you got this from? I need you to be as specific as possible, because I don't think this is from one of our normal patrol ships." The Betazoid pointed at two of the six connections, "'Standard' memory cores only have four connectors. We've got enhanced security here."

It was Major Nerek who answered her. "I can say it was recovered from the wreck of a Nebula-class starship." An entirely truthful answer, if not forthcoming in details.

"A Nebula-class starship, how helpful." Nyx rolled her eyes at the Major as she used a sarcastic tone of voice, but looked to Varshaan instead, "As I said, I need specifics. As I'm sure the Tal Shiar knows, data security gets more and more 'fun' as the data information becomes more and more sensitive. 'Standard' memory cores have a fair bit, but if you fail to provide credentials three times, they just need a security override to reset the attempts. 'Secure' memory cores will lock down after three attempts, with high-level security overrides to reset, typically by a Captain or Flag Officer, or specifically Chief of Security registered to the ship in question." Those she stated with an effectively sing-song voice, that dropped to a more serious tone, "Intelligence is where it gets interesting. Depending on what's in those, it ranges from a complete Core lockdown, with password and biometric access as initial gateways, failure on two attempts will lock the core until at least TWO Intelligence officers can provide proper authorization to reactivate, or if it's much more sensitive information, it can either 'Brick' the core so that no one can access it, have a localized meltdown to destroy the core, or cause a destruct sequence to not only completely destroy the core, but also the idiots right around it."

The Engineer took a look around the relevant officers, "So, where did this one come from? I need specifics, please, because this is not, I repeat, NOT one from 'ye-olde-standard-starship.'" Now her voice was that of a mother interrogating children.

Nerek and Varshaan shared a long, hard look. It was clear something in Nyx's words had sparked a long-held argument between the two Romulans. "I told you so", and "Not this again" were phrases that could almost be heard in the silence.

Finally, Nerek almost seemed to shrug, without so much as move a muscle. "Six months ago, the USS Cheltenham was conducting what was claimed to be deep-space cartography' on the edge of Romulan Imperial space-" the fact the Romulan Empire didn't exist anymore was somewhat irrelevant. "-the ship detonated on our borders, and we were able to effect salvage, and came away with that core."

"Ah." Nyx stated simply, understanding the unstated fact that 'deep-space cartography' was purely what Starfleet used to justify covert Intelligence operations based off of a starship that was trying to glean anything they could while on the border. The Cheltenham was one of the more recent flights of the venerable Nebula-class design, completed less than four years before, which meant better initial sensors built in along with a better acceptance of upgrades. OF course, the information was just general, but that's how Intelligence people liked it, not standing out. Of course, that just intrigued her even more, "Right, thank you."

Now the engineer walked over to the computer, which was active and made a 'Tch' sound as she tapped a couple of keys and shook her head slowly, "This is not going to work." This time the look she gave the Major and the Commander was of genuine concern, "If this is an Intelligence memory core, I need more screens, more of a fluidity in how I can work. I need a Class Four holographic terminal to work with, or at LEAST something better than this antique and um... five Type-Two holoprojectors or whatever your equivalent is." She glanced over at the Major, "Are you taking notes? I also need a Fehral Number 18 kit or equivalent with a Number 11 Accessory kit, the last two put a rush on, because they are SUPER critical to this operation."

"We will get you what you need." Varshaan announced, ignoring the look she was getting from Major Narek.

“And in the meantime I’m going to re-work all of the connections I see here… Nyx had turned again to look at the memory core, “No sense in blowing up a perfectly good dress.”

OFF

[sign off]

Lieutenant Commander Nyx Valentine
Chief Engineer, USS Endurance

Commander Sirona Varshaan
Romulan Military
-- NPC'd by Temperance Harding

Major Narek
Romulan Tal Shiar
-- NPC'd by Temperance Harding

Gaheric
A plain, simple tailor
-- NPC'd by Temperance Harding