Riko Reflects

Posted on Sun Sep 17th, 2023 @ 12:54am by Commander Riko McCord & Captain Isabella Perry & Verrana Nemis

1,584 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Rescue
Location: WV Nomad, Bridge
Timeline: MD, 6, 12:10

Riko McCord recalled how Isabella had brought her anger down to a simmer. Her boss was beginning to read her very well. Even better today when the captain had glanced at her as she checked on her crew's emotional states. Riko wondered if she were wishing for an empathic counselor, or someone at a station on the bridge who had some psychic abilities and could advise her. McCord had certainly wished for such a person on occasion!

Remembering the rest of what Perry had said put a smile on her own face, as she scanned the crew and saw that everyone was present in the proper places. No smile on the Romulan's face. No surprise there.

Perry had defended her quite nicely and deflected the Romulan. "Riko, Verrana can arrange for her own bags to make it to her quarters. Now, let us go somewhere private and talk."

McCord had nodded, and figuratively soothed her ruffled feathers. "There's probably nowhere more private than the ship. Podkayne is the only one there, and she won't come in. She's running flight simulations to become comfortable with piloting the larger ship."

Verrana had given Isabella a deadpan look and said something Riko considered very inappropriate, friend or not ... wife or not. "Well, still looks like you live with a stick up your butt." Looking at Riko, she had added, "How do you deal with her? She is no fun sometimes!"

"Oh, I don't know," Riko had thoughtfully replied and then gotten in a small dig of her own. "She has her moments ... and I trust her. I've served with her brother, and I trust him. Maybe I'll learn to trust you, too ... someday."

Riko had known when she said it that the likelihood was low. She didn't trust easily, and there had been something about the woman who had wormed her way back into Isabella's good graces that made her want to hit things. Or people who annoyed her. She was absolutely going to need meditation before she went to bed. She remembered the smart-aleck tone Nemis had used on her, and it disturbed her, even in memory.

McCord recalled to mind the conversation that had gone on around her at that point.

"Oh I can be very trustworthy, but what about you Commander McCord? Are you trustworthy?"

Before anyone could respond to Verrana's last comment, she quickly changed the subject. "What's this ship you speak of, huh? What are you not telling me, loving wife?"

"Oh believe me, there is a lot you don't know, but this is your chance to be a part of something, something bigger than you." Isabella had put her arm around Verrana. "Don't forget, I know who you truly are, underneath that rough and crude and mean Romulan exterior. I know who you are and what you are made of."

McCord remembered those words now; now that they were getting ready to depart on their mission. Why hadn't she thought about that earlier? Who was Verrana underneath that exterior? Was it all an act ... the gruffness, the attitude, the challenge evident in her every movement? She'd have had to work hard to get all that, if it were acquired behavior. But what if it weren't? That's what Riko had a hard time imagining. Was Nemis a talented actress, in addition to being whatever technically advanced person Isabella thought her to be?

Looking back on how Verrana had listened to Isabella and instantly looked uncomfortable, Riko wondered if Isabella was right. The Romulan looked as if Perry's words cut deep to her core, but she couldn't let anyone know. Her next words came after her brow cleared and her sarcasm came back.

"The only thing I want to be a part of is making Latinum. A girl's got to eat you know. And I mean eat well."

Unable to let that implied criticism of Isabella pass unchallenged, Riko had promised, "You'll eat well with us. The rest, Isabella will tell you."

The first officer had looked around the dock area and seen some roustabouts who were looking for work. Motioning one over, she had told Nemis, "Here's the someone you need for your bags. You tell them where they are, and I'll even pay him for you." It came out of ship's expenses anyway, and it was a compromise brought on by being ordered around by Nemis and encouraged by Perry to be the better person. She could do that ... easily.

Within a few minutes, they had been walking toward Nomad's berthing, followed by a man guiding an anti-grav unit with more bags than Riko had expected. She remembered thinking, This woman has to be a clothes princess?

Now, she wondered if, instead, she carried everything she owned everywhere she went. It had amused Riko to mentally compare her to a large Galápagos tortoise, such as they had brought with them to Broken Drive. They were originally embryos, of course, but now there were quite a few of them housed happily in some of the habitats, of which her home, growing up, had been one. Lots of sunlight, a few mud holes, a small lake, and plenty of grasses, fruits, and vines kept them happy and well. Still, there was that whole carry-your-house-on-your-back thing. She had smiled slightly as she mentally dubbed Verrana 'the tortoise'.

Taking a moment to think of her loved ones at home, she was hoping they didn't think too badly of her when they heard the news of her disgrace and being booted from Starfleet. They knew how much it had meant to her. =^=For the greater good,=^= she snorted now, with her own sarcasm showing. Briefly, she wondered if she didn't dislike Nemis because they were too much alike. She immediately discarded the idea that she could share any traits with a woman she had learned to despise. Elvis was the difference between them. As she gazed at Verrana, she wondered if Elvis could do anything for her.

As they approached Nomad's berth, Isabella had looked at her XO and said, "Give the porter the location of Verrana's quarters, and then let's head inside. Verrana, what you are about to hear is classified information, hence the NDA forms you will have to fill out. And, to help sweeten the pot, I am going to give you a consulting fee for showing up for this meeting. The fee is yours no matter your decision. How's that sound to you?"

Verrana's pointed ears had perked higher when the words "consulting fee" came out of Isabella's mouth. =^=She sure knows how to tempt a Romulan,=^= Riko thought to herself as the airlock door to Nomad opened and the women entered.

Noting the perking of Verrana's most prominent feature that gave away her identity immediately, McCord had reverted to thinking of Nemis as a con-artist at best, a faithless spy for pay at worst.

Thinking the Romulan defector had appeared shocked at the interior of the starship, Riko was NOT surprised. It was hard to walk the balance between being believably wealthy to visiting pirate and criminal representatives and being ejected from Starfleet. Some pirates might wonder if it were worth stealing the entire cargo ... or the whole ship. Riko knew that in such a case, stranding on a barely livable and abandoned planet would be the best they could hope to get ... and she didn't want to think about the worst, even in reflection.

As she walked across the threshold of the vessel, Nemis had taken in everything in and appeared to be making mental notes to herself. Immediately, that rubbed Riko the wrong way, as she seemed to recognize that there were four different alien technologies running through the first part of the vessel she had entered. "You certainly know how to make a hodgepodge of things, don't you?"

At the time, Riko had jumped in to defend Isabella again. Maybe that was her mistake? Maybe Verrana thought there was more going on with Isabella and Riko than normally struck an observer ...especially someone who had her own interest in one of them,

"Not us," Riko had denied. "Some was the last owner, and the rest was ... someone we know." She hadn't been sure if Verrana knew Henry, or if Isabella wanted her to know anything concrete. Who knew what the woman could turn to her advantage? She had been a spy for ... decades?

Isabella had promptly cleared up part of McCord's doubts. First she chuckled at Verrana's comment ... or was she laughing at McCord for her needless defense ... and it had been clumsy, too. Looking back, she could clearly see how clumsy that defense had been, not as smoothly done as Perry's sharp defense of her.

Isabella chuckled under her breath. "Trust me, you may think it looks like a hodgepodge, but my brother put this together for us. Meaning, it works better than some of the Federation ships in the fleet. Let's go up to the bridge and talk."

Well, that answers that, Riko had thought, as she followed the other two to the bridge. And now here they all still were ... getting ready to embark on a mission she had doubted, and still did ... unless they achieved unity. Wasn't that one of the Savior's sayings, too? She couldn't remember the hymn, but didn't it say something about, "If ye have contention, ye are not mine?"

This was going to require a lot of thought and examination of her memories.

 

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