Two Roosters And A Hen

Posted on Fri Nov 9th, 2012 @ 9:55pm by Captain Li Hawke & Suresh & Admiral Ricky Wegener

Mission: Sections of the Delta Quadrant
Location: Alternate Dimension SB900

"Well, this doesn't look good," Rick said as they entered the dark Command & Control center. Like what they'd seen so far, nothing appeared to be working other than the life support systems. "We'll probably have to check each of the consoles just to make sure."

It had taken them another ten minutes to get through the rubble, fallen beams and such as well as checking the dead bodies along the way. Once Rick and Li had forced the doors open, the outlook was grim.

"Suresh," Rick said as he stopped at the first station, "you may not have any luck accessing the computer, but even it telling you that you don't have the appropriate clearance would be welcome right now. At least it'd be something."

“Certainly. I’ll see what I can do. Li, toss one of those lights, will you?” He caught the light as she threw it, then took a seat in a chair before one of the consoles and set to work.

Li directed the beam of her light, playing it across the expanse of C&C. “Creepy,” she commented. Still, she hadn’t lived with Sakkath, and his home terminal, without absorbing something now and again. “Admiral?”

Rick hadn't had any luck with the two consoles he'd checked. "Yes?" he asked as he walked to where she sat.

She looked back over at Suresh, barely visible in the glow from his light, then back to Ricky.

I don’t want to say this aloud. But the emergency set of codes, in case something takes it down and it needs restarting. You have part of it, I have part of it. The Chief of Ops has the last part.

He hadn't expected her words to come into his head, but he replied in kind. It's a long shot that our codes would be the same here, but we could try it. How would we get the last set, though?

You forget who I live with? She smiled for a moment. He’s always in my head. Except now. The connection’s off and it feels empty. A sigh escaped Li and it caught Suresh’s attention but she waved and he went back to work.

He put a hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her. It may just work. Assuming he's the Chief Ops on this station like he is on ours. But there have been enough similarities that it's definitely worth trying.

He began punching in his code, but the console remained dark. It wasn't looking good, but they had to go through with the whole thing first. Li added her part, and then with some good wishes, added the last part that would have been Sakkath’s. The thoughts of him made her wonder if her alternate version and his were connected in this timeline. And since she was apparently dead, whether he was too, or still alive.

It seemed almost a miracle when the console lit up and began a self-diagnostic. No others in the room did so, only the one where Li sat, but Rick almost jumped for joy when it began checking the systems.

"Ho-lee shit," he said aloud.

Li’s smile brightened considerably. “Once this thing finishes it’s check, we should be able to fire up the rest. Suresh, I’ll give you the steps as soon as it’s ready.”

“Got it.” He turned his chair to look in their direction. “And well done. It seems the Admiral’s confidence in you is well-placed.”

Rick didn't bother replying. The less he spoke to the man the fewer times Suresh would get his ass handed to him. He took a chair beside Li and waited for the computer to do it's thing while he shone the light around C&C.

"Pretty much intact in here," he said to her. "Not nearly as damaged as the corridor was. That may explain why the computer just needed a reboot instead of being completely disconnected from the mainframe."

“I’m hoping that once it’s up, we can get an idea of what happened. We know that our counterparts here are dead, but what about Suresh? If the one here is still alive, it would be better that we not run into him.” Li glanced over to Suresh as she spoke.

That possibility was something Suresh hadn’t considered and he uttered a soft curse. “Would that screw up anything if we did?”

"One asshole is my limit right now," Rick said, not caring if Suresh heard him or not. "And, no, I don't think it would mess with the space-time continuum. As long as you two don't start holding hands or rubbing up against each other." The look Suresh gave him almost made Rick laugh. "If there is another you here, it's best that you avoid contact. There is the possibility of you two coming together and causing a massive backlash," he put up his fingers in air quotes to say, "think explosion, that could destroy most everything in this sector. Having two of the exact same thing in the same place is not the way the universe was created and could be catastrophic."

Suresh appeared to be thinking rather hard on the topic. "Don't worry," Rick added, "if it comes to that I'll be happy to dispose of both of you."

“I’m sure you will. I'd be happy to do you the same favor if I wasn’t convinced we need you to get home,” Suresh growled.

A stream of curses the likes of which neither man had ever heard come from Li’s mouth poured forth from her. She stood, took her light and the phaser she’d picked up and stomped off towards the door they had wedged open. “I’ve had enough. I’ll be back. Maybe. Play nice.” she stepped forward and vanished in the darkness.

“Now you’ve done it,” Suresh commented.

“Suresh!!” Her voice carried back to him, an obvious verbal slap. He smiled and shrugged at Ricky.

Rick dismissed Suresh as if he were an insignificant bug. He wasn't about to call out after Li, but he tried yelling for her in his mind. Li! What is it?

Nothing. She was blocking him, ignoring him...or both. He moved over to the console where she'd been and looked down. "What the hell set her off?" he wondered aloud.

“You and your petty comments most likely. Think about it Jayne. Or do you prefer Ricky?” Suresh spun around in his chair, then spoke again. “And knowing her as well as I do, I suspect she would say something about the two of us acting like two roosters circling a hen. You get the idea.”

Rick thought about what Suresh had said. He did have a point. Almost everything that he and Suresh talked about was posturing over the protection of Li. Of course, Rick had his own beef with Suresh because of the shuttle incident, which Rick was sure to have been ordered by Suresh, as well as the fact that the man tried to kill him in his office which caused this whole mess in the first place. Rick truly did want the man dead, gone, skewered, roasted over an open fire...whatever. But, for the sake of Li, he would curb his words.

"I told you before, and this is the last time that I will repeat it," he said, standing fully erect to let Suresh know that he wasn't playing around. "You can call me Admiral Wegener or just Wegener. Anything else out of your mouth will get you punched." He exhaled sharply, knowing that he had to offer some sort of olive branch now. "That being said, and because I respect that woman more than any breath you'll ever breathe, I will refrain from calling you anything other than Suresh. I am willing to be civil, but don't think that the bad cess between us will disappear in the event that all three of us make it back to our own station." He stepped closer and looked him directly in the eyes. "Agreed?"

“Agreed.” Suresh stood and offered his hand. “And as much as I hate to admit it, I think it will take all of us to get out of this. And if it makes you feel any better, I don’t intend to harm a single hair on her head.”

Reluctantly, Rick took the hand and shook it. He was surprised that Suresh didn't try to squeeze his hand like a vice-grip.

"Good," he replied. "I watched her grow up and have been in her life since she was born. She is much more than just my Executive Officer and means the universe to me." He released his hand. "Just remember that when you think on whatever it is that you desire to happen with her. And I don't think that her husband would be very excited to hear that you had any plans whatsoever with her, either."

That last comment seemed to stun Suresh. He stood there a moment, almost frozen. Rick wondered if the man had even considered that Li may have had a life beside the one he knew as Isha.

Eyas Rick thought, as loud as he could--if that even helped, trying to get Li's attention. It was his nickname for her since she had been a little girl. It's a word for a nestling hawk or falcon, which Rick thought was appropriate for her. Suresh and I have reached an accord to be on our best behavior. He waited a moment and added, I'm sorry for acting so poorly. I'll do my best to not do it again.

Something grabbed his attention as he and Suresh stood there. It was the computer. It had finished its reboot.

“You two better stick to it, too.” Li’s voice can from just outside the door. Then she stepped in. “Yes, I was listening.” She crossed back to the terminal as the standard codes flashed across the screen.

Suresh hadn’t spoken since Rick’s revelation that Li had a husband. He watched her as she leaned over, watching the screen, and wondered if that husband was a husband here too, and living. If so, he may not be for long. He smiled casually and kept his silence.

Rick tried his hand at accessing the database. Oddly enough, he and the Rick from this station must have been almost exactly the same, other than the bare-bones office decorations. His code worked and they had full access to the system. He made sure not to get into anything that Suresh shouldn't see, but he immediately pulled up the last few week's worth of information. As it flashed up on the screen he felt a chill run through his body.

"Damn," he whispered. All seemed to be wine and roses until about a week ago when a seemingly unexplained explosion occurred near one of the cargo bays. It was the type and size of explosion that would attract quite a bit of attention as it had damaged quite a few decks and had weakened the structural integrity of that part of the station's bulkheads. Two hours later, while most of the station had been focused on that, the Archadians struck en masse.

What appeared to be a transport for the Prime Minister turned out to be a cargo ship carrying Archadian military forces who had duped the station's computer into thinking it was a different type of vessel. They immediately began cutting down the crew in the hangar bay while five more ships arrive and dropped off troops. At the same time, elsewhere in the station, more explosions occurred knocking out the shields, communications and exposing some of those sections to the outside, effectively sucking anyone unlucky enough to be in the area out into the space.

Li sucked in a breath as she read it and reached up to rub the back of her neck. The tension was winding up there. “But why? Why would a protectorate attack the very thing keeping them safe?”

She pulled her hand back down to tap the panel, switching from the news feed to diplomacy. There were unrelated notes of conferences and such but finally she found what she was looking for. “Here, the last records of talks with the Archadians. Prime Minister....” She sucked in a breath. “Aegina. Wanting to revise the accord.” She stepped aside to let Ricky read and as she stood, a hand touched her neck, kneading the tight muscle she’d been working on. She spun around, the move all reflex and the hand was bent at an unnatural angle in her own. Suresh flinched. She let go with a warning glance, then turned back to Rick.

"Almost makes me wonder if the little coup we'd averted actually took place and..." he paused, not wanting to say the words Section 31 aloud with Suresh in the room, but knew that Li would pick up on it, "...those people succeeded in their endeavors." He wanted to slam his fist on the panel but with it having just been inoperable, he didn't want to take any chances. "I can't believe that they would allow this to happen. Not to their own people."

He looked up his name to find out what had happened to his opposite number here. "Admiral--huh, full Admiral here," he said then continued, "Wegener killed in action on deck 117, flight deck, holding off invading Archadian military."

Swallowing hard he sighed and his shoulders sank. "So, he died within forty minutes of them landing."

“They would have come for you first, of course. Standard tactic,” Suresh stated. “Take out the head first. Then....it’s second.” He glanced at Li. “Who’s after you?”

“Sakkath, Chief of Ops.” Li’s voice was tense as she said it.

Suresh raised an eyebrow, noting the change. He suspected he knew the reason. “What happened to Li and this Sakkath here, Admiral?”

Rick looked at Li, wondering if she really wanted to know. She gave a short nod and he pulled up the information on the screen.

"Your counterpart was on deck 360 where the original explosion occurred," he read. "She was helping the medical teams with casualties when the rest of their military arrived. She helped seal off parts of the medical center on deck 361 to keep troops from entering there. She and several others held them off for about two hours before being overrun. No survivors."

He moved on to finding Sakkath. "Sakkath was in Command & Control trying to direct their response to the attack. The area had been sealed off by marine and security personnel to keep C&C going. For some reason he did a site-to-site transport to the intelligence offices." He scrolled down a bit trying to read ahead. "There's no indication as to what he was doing. He returned twenty minutes later to C&C. It was secure for three days until they finally breached the doors and made entry." He stopped. "The log ends there. No other indications of what occurred on the station after that point are here."

He turned to look at the pair beside him. "My guess is that they shut down the computer to keep it from being accessed. And they'd killed the only two people with the ability to bring it back up."

“As Jackson would say, they cut off the nose to spite the face...or something like that.” Li began tapping in another code to try and access Intel.

“I think the expression is ‘shot themselves in the foot’,” Suresh commented. “How many are left alive here? And can you spot any Archadians?”

Now that one console was up and running it shouldn't have been an issue to get another one up. He slid over, letting Li continue what she was doing on the main console, and opened up another. He did a scan of the station.

"Well," he started, then shook his head, "it appears that they did quite a number on us--er, them. Due to the damage they caused many of the sensors are offline. I am able to detect our lifesigns here," he said as he pointed to a schematic of the base, "and it appears there are a few personnel scattered throughout, most likely on their way out." He pulled the diagram of the station out to its full image and then found a cluster of life signs. "Decks 212 through 214 appear to have about thirty lifesigns--makes sense,” he added. “That’s hydroponics. They could get some food there. But I’m not picking up any Archadians. That doesn't mean much, though, since we're unable to scan almost 68% of the station."

“Which means we either do it the old-fashioned way, or say screw it and try to get down to Science if we want to get home.” Li frowned a moment, then the screen before her changed and the frown turned to a smile. “I should have known. He was clearing classified information. It’s what my Sakkath would have done too.”

Behind her, Suresh tensed, but forced himself not to react outwardly.

Rick nodded. "Good thinking on his part." He turned back to the schematic. "Looks like there are a few people not far from here." He pointed at the blips on the screen. "Do we want to go check on them, try to get to deck 212 with that large group or just go straight to the science section?”

He was torn between helping them and getting to sciences. Their presence there may cause more issues than they want, but they may need the help of some of the people in the group. It was a big decision and he wanted to hear Li's thoughts on it.

“We can pass by this smaller group on the way, though given the reaction we got earlier, I don’t expect it to go much better. Can you check on Suresh in this time?”

He said nothing as he turned back to the console and entered the information. He held back a smirk as the information populated the screen. "Looks like the Suresh here came aboard almost a full year ago. He shows up in several security reports," he said, leaving out the intelligence investigations listed, "as being suspected of several crimes but no substantial evidence to convict." He paused to comment, but decided he'd better not. "Looks like he was murdered by an unidentified suspect five months ago. He'd been tied to a bed and mutilated. Security believes the suspect to have been a prostitute of some sort."

“The tales of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Suresh quoted, then laughed. “Admiral if, when I finally do leave this life, if it’s not at the hands of a prostitute, it will be a miracle.” The mention of lack of evidence amused him. He also had no intentions of departing his life at the hands of a prostitute. A lot had changed in the past twenty four hours and the only hands he wanted on anything of his right now belonged to the woman beside him.

"Huh, listen to this," Rick said as he studied the information. “The list of possible suspects in the murder is short. The names are Saraya, Vanessa and--wow," he said and turned to Li, "Isha."

“Isha?” Both Suresh and Li spoke the name at the same time, both looking more than a little creeped out. Li turned back to the intel interface and searched but even digging into classified information, there was no record of any of them going undercover. There were some notes regarding her association with Suresh, and speculation on the murder, but that was it. She accessed a file with the woman’s pertinent information, place of origin, medical records, and a picture that made her more than a little dizzy.

“In this time, it seems she was a real person. And...look.” She showed the picture to the two men, and a very familiar redhead looked back at them.

Suresh was silent as he looked at the photo, then at Li, then back. “I have no words.”

"Same here," Rick said, dumbfounded. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that was you. But you can even see from her information that she's a real person, not some planted operative."

The group fell silent as they all wondered just how in the hell this could have occurred. Isha had been a construct of Li's mind, a completely made up persona for spying on Suresh. But here, in this dimension, she was a flesh and blood being.

Li closed the file and turned to the two men. “We should get going. The longer we wait, the less likely our chance of going home is. If the rift is still there it won’t be forever.”

Rick stood and adjusted his uniform. "Agreed," he said as he picked up a PADD and ensured that it was linked to the computer. "Let's move out and deal with whatever we come across when we get there."

Li and Rick both started toward the corridor, but the latter turned to see Suresh unable to take his eyes from the now blank screen.

************

Vice Admiral Ricky Wegener

Commander Li Hawke

Suresh