Grudges

Posted on Wed Oct 20th, 2010 @ 9:33pm by Charlotte Ashcroft & Jan Valentine

815 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Session 4: The Humans are Dead...
Location: Kyle's (former) quarters

Feeling both ticked off and hyped from the hunt and death of Kyle Lottie's mood lengthened her stride as she strode through the charred corridors of the Warden. Kyle had betrayed them, he deserved to have a round put into his sniveling face, but that didn't help her. She wanted to know why.

So she returned back the the dead mans quarters, pushing the door open with little effort since they forced it earlier. The room was as they left - chaos, as if struck by a mini tornado. Clothes, trinkets, the odd machine part and glint of latinum littered the floor all vacant of the thin layer of dust from the Warden's recent terror that lined everything else.
Apparent he wanted to leave in a hurry. With a bit of luck he would have been sloppy in his haste, giving Lottie some clues to understand what converted him, and who.

Rummaging through Kyle's personal items with little respect, tossing the wildly around the untidy room she found faded photographs of a faceless woman clutching a small boy by the hand while juggling a tool kit in the other, other depicted other women and strangers Kyle must have befriended in the course of time.

A noise from the doorway made her turn, her body tensing despite the fingers of weariness starting to penetrate through the kinks in her amour.

"If you're here to apologize you're a bit late," she said to Jan whom occupied the doorway.

"No, I don't do that." Jan said, leaning against the door frame. Kyle's betrayal, his new found blindness, and Lottie's attitude put Jan in a somber mood.

"Did you find his computer? It's bound to contain something..." Jan said, adjusting the cloth strip covering his eye.

"No, not yet," she turned to face him. "That was my next port of call."

"Alright, I'll help you find it." Jan said, stepping into the room.

Lottie remained seated as Jan moved around the room. She felt a pang of guilt at his wounded face. "The Doc couldn't fix you eye?" she guessed. "You okay?"

"I'll live, I'm just blind in this eye a little earlier than I expected." Jan said.

Jan roughly flipped the mattress on the bed, revealing a gash in the underside, with something metallic inside.

"Think I found it." Jan said, grabbing the beat-up compact computer.

Moving over Lottie knelt beside him as Jan adjusted the settings on the computer to power up and reveal its secrets. "Still can't believe he could do such a thing."

"I never trusted the guy myself. Something about him seemed wrong to me." Jan said, watching the computer boot up and enter a password screen.

"Let's see....which program will work?" Jan said, pulling out a beat-up tricorder and several programmed chips.

Lottie's mouth twitched as Jan worked, mulling over the trust she had unbeknown bestowed on the crew of Warden. They were in, whatever mess cake about together. Surely people came and went, but that was the same with any job no matter what the dangers or the pay.

"Alright, I think I've cracked it." Jan said, the computer booting up.

She looked up from the momentarily relapse inching closer. "That was fast,"

"Pretty simple operating system, I think we can find what we're looking for in a few minutes." Jan said, looking through files.

"Remind me to call you the next time we need a computer wizz."

"I wouldn't call myself a computer wizz, I learned to do stuff like this when I was a kid. Some kids played sports, I hacked computers." Jan said.

Jan came across a message stored in the computer, hidden under a layer of security. Taking less than a minute to crack the code, the message appeared, in a strange language.

"Hmm, you recognize this language?" Jan asked.

Lottie moved to sit beside Jan the bed to look at the document. Slowly she shook her head: "No, I don't recognize it."

"I'll translate it." Jan said.

A few commands later, the message switched over to Federation.

"Oh, damn. You remember that Gorn hunk of shit space station we blew up awhile ago?" Jan said, seeing the name and language the message had been written in.

"Yeah.." she said recalling the event.

"Looks like they were right pissed after that little incident..." Jan said.

A smile tugged at her lips: "Wouldn't you be? How does this involve Kyle?"

"Looks like the Gorn made a pretty damn enticing offer. If this translated right, Kyle was offered command of some sort of battle cruiser." Jan said.

"Nice, though I doubt Kyle would be any good at it," Lottie replied.

"Yeah but you know pilots, they're full of themselves." Jan said.

"We'd better inform Jones in case this grudge doesn't end with Kyle."

"I agree, I can't keep putting this ship back together again forever." Jan said, visibly tired.

 

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