| Gladia
"I beg your pardon," I say firmly and loudly, "Now is a perfect time! Everyone then pauses, looking directly at me. I can't help but notice that some people are very tense here. It's thick enough to cut with a knife for them... For half a second I pause. That is, for only a half second. Even before meeting with my new friends I was very adept at handling balky art promoters, even if by Solarian custom that business was done by long distance (strange how.....alien that custom all seems to me now). While I'm polite, he's not able to stop me and my friends going up to see this "Sisko" fellow. I can tell that this pajama clad fellow is NOT nearly in the same class as some of the people I've dealt with on Solaria (and that's saying much....considering the man I'd only recently divorced)! The man in question is leaning over the shoulder of one woman with.....spots on her face (?). "The Sisko" (as Betty laughingly called him in passing on the way up here) turns, annoyed, when I gently clear my voice to get his attention. That annoyed look on his face disappears just as quickly as it had appeared and as he blinks I have to wonder just why he chose to shave his head. Does not do a thing for him, really, in my opinion... "You're still here?" Sisko blurts out, obviously surprised at seeing the Doctor and the rest of us still aboard. Apparently, I gather, his attention had been more on the failed attempt at preventing a "beam out" as well as that odd white spaceship on the large screen at the front of this bridge than on any possibility of us having been dragged along. The Doctor "I fear so," I say gravely, "We had not departed before Darvin had somehow apparently escaped your security's custody after being apprehended by them because of Betty's warning about him being after the Orb of Time, and to leave now while we could perhaps provide a leg up? Unconscious able." "Still all the same you won't have to worry about a visit from those Temporal Investigators Dulmur and Lucsly," Betty says, trying to at least allay some of the worry she sees on the bridge crew. Dulmur and Lucsly had, according to Mulder and Scully, had paid a visit
to Terra Prime trying to investigate Doctor What for some reason. No real
reason but to just try to....get a feel of what kind of threat the Timelord
would pose to the Department of Temporal Investigations demesne (i.e. a
threat to the integrity of time itself). Utterly ridiculous considering
the great pains Timelords pay in maintaining time's integrity, but those
two bureaucrats had come anyway. The meeting had been tense and unproductive
to say the least and Mulder (muttering about the scrambled similarity of
names between he and his partner and them) had especially been annoyed
by the unwelcome guests.
Rumor, I had been told by B'Elanna, was that there was talks of the Federation abolishing this department and replacing it with a organization that would, by all accounts, be much more efficient and effect in protecting time. That being the case, I have a suspicion that the D of TI people were trying a stunt that would justify their continued existence..... Baley "Oh, and why do you say that?" A young stressed ensign says, sounding a bit annoyed, still trying to extrapolate some data from his scanners to find out if they'd gone back in time or not. Still trying to find out what was going on. "Watch it Ensign!" Chief O'Brien snaps at the young man, annoyed at the show of rather bad manners. "Punk." I hear the elf known as Elrondir mutter under his breath. Part of me observes that and for some reason places it somewhere under the rather ambivalent relationship the Military (which Elrondir told me he'd been in before....being....er...reincarnated as an elf) and the Federation. Something along the lines which Ragan expressed as the Federation being grateful for the timely rescue from the Enemy (nasty folks those reptilian creatures had been, I'm told) but see the Military a bit like throwbacks who've somehow stumbled upon high technology....and managed not to blow themselves to blazes. The Military in turn seemed to look forward to the stabilizing effect that the Federation could bring into their social environment (somewhat of a shambles right now in the civilian side of things), but at the same time can be ivory tower types....perhaps even a bit elitist in their attitudes. Only part of me makes this observation. The rest of me is bristling at this young snot's attitude problem. So bristling, I am, that I interrupt whatever Sisko (who's looking a bit angry himself) is about to add to the mix. "Oh, what of the fact that my now magical partner is still alive?"I snap, "Magic being needed for him to live is a kind of good indicator that you aren't in your own past....since magic wasn't in that 'then' and like it it is not there in your 'now'. Don't need any freakishly advanced computers smaller than I've ever heard of to figure that out, I add mentally to myself, satisfied with the blink I get from the ensign (as well as a few others), They may be more advanced in some areas, but I bet I can trounce them in deductive reasoning. I am a "detective" when you get down to it, after all. "He's right," O'brien says, pointing to some incomprehensible on his control panel.
After making sure that cloaking device was in place and operating (i.e. the Enterprise hadn't spotted the Defiant) and saying softly to the rude Ensign that he'll speak with him alone, later, Sisko ushers Betty and the others into the awaiting Ready Room. "Sorry for that display," the Admiral sighs, "Some of the crew are just straight out of the Academy and are....still green." He winces, knowing how rushed things were now-a-day to replenish depleted manpower due to so many having died in that Enemy/Alliance war.... Some, familiar with those facts, are kind enough to not make any snide comments.... Sisko vowed to himself when he got back he'd fix this problem before it got any worse..... "Betty, you told me of some of the danger I tried to prevent," Sisko begins, turning back to the taks at hand, "Could you now tell me what I was trying to prevent, as it were. It is probable that Darven, being unaware of the slight detour into a universe which is almost like where he'd go....but actually having mystical energies about." A bit later after that briefing.... Ragan and Betty look at each other.....though it was simplel logic.... Go Back |
