Tall Dark Stilts arrive at Little White Hilt

Posted on Fri Dec 4th, 2020 @ 11:29pm by Federation Diplomat Briya Valriya
Edited on on Sat Dec 5th, 2020 @ 2:11am

Mission: The Gauntlet
Location: RSX Lady's Grace (en route to Carnwennan Station)
Timeline: Current

ON

Travel to the Inconnu Expanse was not exactly prevalent or routine, but arrangements for transport on a Starfleet ship would have required Briya to cut her long shore leave short by over a week in order to make the rendezvous. So she’d made the most of that extra week spent with family and friends on Risa before chartering passage to Carnwennan Station. Well, her aide, Haylay Bralay, did the actual chartering of the passage and she did it for two - where Briya went, Bralay followed. The principal stretch of their travel had been on board a civilian vessel, RSX Criterion, the same vessel on which Briya had been born, though it had been renovated, reconditioned and refitted so many times since then that Briya scarcely recognized it. It was good to catch up with the few crew she’d known who were still employed by the luxury liner and the fresh faces that she did not know seemed to enjoy hearing anecdotal accounts of the off duty personal lives of those crew who were now serving as their higher-ups. These stories were all in good fun and contained as many truths as lies, but Risians were generally good natured people and any sort of hierarchical lines were easily disregarded for the purpose of camaraderie; assuming it was safe to do so. And those lines tended to be blurred a bit more on board luxury cruisers such as the Criterion where everyone was meant to be more or less accessible for merrymaking and regalement. But there were many passengers on board the Criterion and most found it disagreeable to pass so close to the Inconnu Expanse - a worrisome region best avoided. In fact, the Criterion had a tendency to avoid any region of space that may be dangerous. As you’d imagine, this required them to take the long route around entire regions of space. Where others traveled at speed, the Criterion traveled with style - or so it said on the brochures. So Briya and Bralay were now being ferried the final stretch of the journey via one of its smaller auxiliary craft. Even with more comforts, it was scarcely larger than a Starfleet shuttlecraft and Briya was already feeling confined by the abutting bulkheads.

A voice piped in over the comm, “We will be arriving at Carnwennan soon, Councillor. Did I pronounce that properly? Carnwennan?” It was the voice of Lieutenant Langley, the pilot. He was a friendly young man from Briya’s past who she’d not seen in almost nine years - a mostly professional cohort with whom she had shared, among other things, a pleasant weekend picnic all those years ago. She’d also helped him avoid some small embarrassment resulting from an entirely separate and doubtless wholesome dalliance involving another woman. It was an insignificant favor he’d all but forgotten until the matter was casually exhumed towards the end of an unexpected conversation he’d shared with Briya over subspace when from out of the black she reached out to him six days ago. It seemed Briya Valriya had a penchant for fulfilling favors; a generosity matched only by her well-timed recall when requesting settlement of those outstanding charities. In those discourses there were never undisguised threats or harsh words, but there was an understood requisition and perception that even noncommercial debts left on the books overlong tended to draw interest. And as luck - or planning - would have it, these days Langley was working aboard the Criterion as one of her helmsmen. Though currently he was piloting one of her small scale yachts and squaring off accounts with a woman from his past.

Despite Langley’s address, Briya Valriya wasn’t a Councillor, at least not in the way he meant it. He alluded to the career ambitions Briya had disclosed to him, though they were not particularly secret. She was a Federation Diplomat with aspirations to serve as the Risian Representative and Councilmember to the Federation of Planets, but the world of politics was complex and ingress to that honored and esteemed governmental province did not come easily - especially while Councilmember Emelyse Amaerie still maintained that office. This was not to say there was any animosity or begrudging between Valriya & Amaerie; quite the opposite. The two maintained a close friendship that was nearly twenty years in the making and Valriya may very well have owed her admittance into the Federation Diplomatic Corp to Amaerie who had taken the young Risian under her wing and become something of a mentor; a role she still occasionally performed to this day. No, Valriya was too young to assume such an office and Amaerie was too young to step down. And there were like as not many steps along the way that Valriya must tread before she would make a worthy candidate to the Federation Council. Which was how Valriya now found herself being shuttled to the unknown territories of the Inconnu Expanse to recommence her post as Diplomatic Officer; this time assigned to the USS Pandora as her Chief Diplomatic Officer. It was an elevation in position or function, but it came with no promotion or rank, as Briya was neither an enlisted crewman or commissioned officer within Starfleet’s chain of command.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Briya acknowledged from the quiet of the small compartment set aside for sleeping. This last leg of the trip wasn’t really long enough to require such accommodations, but it had offered her some welcomed isolation from the man at the helm. Lieutenant Langley was a talker and liked to keep her informed of every little maneuver. Or he liked the sound of his own voice. He wasn’t a bad guy; he was actually quite friendly and that was a quality Briya ordinarily would gravitate towards; one which had clearly attracted her to the man in the past. She tended to be a people person; enjoyed being around others and making them happy - perhaps it was in her DNA - but she wasn’t exactly thrilled about her posting to the USS Pandora so she’d been a bit ill-humoured. She hoped she’d done a good job of keeping those feelings to herself, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up the quiet of the crew cabin. Despite the enormity of the cosmos, Briya Valriya rarely found herself in a position to savor any solitude, not that she often yearned for it.

“Dropping to one quarter impulse,” came the oh so helpful voice from the man at the helm - again.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Briya responded absently, briefly shutting her eyes tightly. She was perhaps a bit cheerless in her comeback and in her movements as she went through her luggage and re-folded a few of the articles of clothing that she felt required additional attention. The truth was, it wasn’t necessary. The twenty-fourth century had finally done away with the need for such domestic care regarding one’s wardrobe. Her ensembles looked fancy and pressed, but they were low maintenance; designed to maintain their comely creases, proud pleats and off-the-shoulders necklines. And at any rate her aide Haylay Bralay had already ‘inspected’ the luggage two hours ago and nothing had changed in the intervening time. Except perhaps that Briya had unwittingly loosened a few of those crisp folds. And of course her delicate fingers dawdled over the straps on several pairs of heels. Those always brought a smile to her face. She didn’t need them in order to tower over most of her colleagues, but ten more centimeters never hurt. Yes, there were those who were ill-suited to heels, hobbling along laboriously without a touch of grace, and it may have been old fashioned, but the very impracticality of high heels, and the traditional feminine ‘vulnerability’ they suggested still had a lingering lure for Briya. But no matter how she felt about the aesthetics, a quality dermal regenerator was a must. Heels were, after all, brutal footwear even in the twenty-fourth century.

Her hands hovered over the remainder of her garments which she’d had tailored on Earth rather than replicated. If you trusted to the technology, simple scans and a replicator were able to produce a more precisely conforming article of clothing - allegedly. And Briya was not one to avoid technology out of principle or fear of the tech itself, but when it came to clothing, she was convinced nothing quite shaped up to a cut-to-fit suit. She stared down at the rather utilitarian coordinated outfit - it sounded better in her head when she thought of it that way - not that such attention to detail was likely to be noticed or enjoyed by anyone else when it was regarding a sensible service uniform. But Briya was being petty and trite; the clothing she wore should be of no importance. She knew this and immediately felt shame.

When she’d lingered as long as she could justify, Briya snapped shut the latch on each of her matching trunks and slid them one by one (not without some small effort) to rest neatly by the hatch. A check of the compartment showed that she’d left nothing behind, but as she hadn’t been long in the room, it was no surprise. Out of habit, though perhaps without cause, Briya ducked her head beneath the aperture as she joined Lieutenant Langley at the front of the yacht. Returning Haylay’s smile who was seated at a communications terminal, Briya folded her long, jagged frame into the navigator’s seat. Langley gave her a quick glance. Briya was a young woman, easily passable as Terran, but for either species she was uncommonly tall and exceptionally thin, and dressed like no diplomat Langley had ever seen in his time. But he supposed Federation diplomats must have more freedom when it came to that sort of thing. Behind them, Haylay looked quite similar, being a few inches shorter than Briya and fuller in figure, but otherwise passable as a sister.

“Will you be wanting to beam over to the station?” Langley asked with another quick glance over to Briya.

“If it’s not trouble, I’d prefer internal docking and to disembark onsite.” She had a pleasant voice that immediately reminded the helmsman of a vacation he’d spent on Risa where he’d enjoyed the company and comfort of the indigenous people far too much.

“No trouble, Ma’am. I just thought you might want to avoid the crowds and long lines at the Customs checkpoints. I could have the transporter send you directly to your rooms. Plenty of time later for strutting your long…” Langley faltered, took up a sudden notice of the console before him, and the decisive mashing of his fingers began emitting extra loud beeps.

Briya smiled and rescued the Lieutenant, sparing him the need to finish that sentence or suffer in its wake. “Under other circumstances I may choose the transporter; I’m not phobic of them, but the easy come easy go of beaming in might give the wrong impression. I’m not merely visiting the colony, I could find myself established here for a considerable length of time, if Starfleet’s vessel is delayed or rerouted.”

“As you wish, Ma’am, but I doubt anyone will take offense to the use of transporter technology. And it’s a station, yeah, not a colony?”

“When you’re this far out and encounter the unknown everyday, you’re a colony no matter what you may call the facility on which you reside,” Briya said to the pilot and that seemed to quell his line of questioning.

A few silent moments went between them until the Inconnu Expanse began to swell on the viewscreen. Given its relative size and the quickness they came upon it, Briya suspected the helmsman had intentionally obscured their view until the last moment, or taken a lateral approach to maximize the impact of the reveal. Briya didn’t mind, it wasn’t as if she herself hadn’t done similar maneuvering while seated at tense negotiating tables.

“It’s a beautiful nebula,” Langley offered, somewhat tempered.

“It’s not a nebula,” Haylay chimed in, “but yes, very beautiful.”

“It is certainly colorful.” Briya looked down at the display to make a note of the readings, though she wasn’t really sure what she was looking at. “And chaotic as well. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be complaining. It's just - quite a change from Risa.”

“You were stationed in Paris though, on Earth? They have white winters, right?” Langley had a bit more pep in his voice. You couldn’t keep him down for long.

Haylay was not about to let one of Langley’s errors go unnoticed. “Starfleet officers are stationed; Diplomats are dispatched; civilians are appointed or employed…” She was cut off by Briya who had casually raised her right hand.

“...but yes,” Briya picked up, “I spent a few years in Paris. However, the Federation Council was rarely in session for the winter equinox so I was thankfully able to visit home during those months. I prefer the sandy powder of our beaches to the snowy powder of French winters.”

“Ah yes, the beautiful, warm beaches of Risa. I met the most charming… well we don’t need to get into that.” Langley had the look of a man who wished he’d gone AWOL and never returned to his duties following that soundly savored shore leave.

“It is quite alright, Lieutenant. I have heard similar stories my entire life. After all, Risian women are reputed to be quite amiable. Or do you disagree?” Briya gave him a measured frown and Haylay spun her seat around again, prepared to glare if needed.

Langley looked ready to bolt for the escape pod. “Oh no no it’s not that. I completely agree; Risian women are enchanting, especially when there’s a Horga'hn involved. It’s just… she wasn’t Risian.”

“Well now, I am intrigued. Let me guess - she was green?”

“As a matter of fact she was blue, but I do like the green ones, too.”

“Lieutenant! You certainly are a well traveled young man.”

“I’m a pilot, Ma’am. That means I’m led by the stick…”

Briya cut him off. “Okay, Mister - I think we’ll just leave the remainder of this conversation unspoken.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. Local time down on the ‘colony’ is ten hundred hours, but if you can spare the time, I’d like to take an alternate approach to give you ladies a shot of the sunrise. It’s really something else.”

Haylay was quick to chime in again. “I believe it’s only a sunrise when viewed from a planet’s atmosphere.”

“And from the planet’s orbit,” Briya offered.

Langley considered that then offered, “Starburst?”

“Acceptable,” Haylay agreed.

“So yeah?” Langley asked.

Briya leaned forward in anticipation of the view. “Time is a never-ending explosion, Lieutenant. I think we can spare a moment for another starburst.”

“You never know when it may be your last,” Langley stated sagely.

“Let us keep things chipper, Lieutenant. If you deliver me to my last starburst on this trek, I will haunt you.”

“I can think of worse fates,” Langley backcapped.

“I said chipper, not cheeky.” But Briya was smiling and did not appear to be bothered.

It did not go unnoticed by the helmsman. “I’m just glad you’re in a better disposition, Ma’am. You shouldn’t start your colony experience with a case of the sours.”

“And you shouldn’t call me Ma’am. That’s for women in a position of authority or advancing years.” Briya’s eyes were scanning left and right in search of the area of the view screen with the most activity. “Does it matter which horizon I am looking at, Lieutenant?”

Langley pointed to the field’s right side. “Consul, then? Consul Briya Valriya? Consul Briya Valriya.” He sounded like he was testing it out for viability. “I don’t know, sounds sort of stuffy, don’t you think?”

“I most certainly do not,” Briya retorted with a look of distaste on her face. Privately she thoroughly agreed with Langley’s assessment, though she wasn’t going to admit it.

“Of course, Consul. Forgive me. If the Consul will direct her attention to the afore-referenced horizon...”

In their playful squabbling, the final approach had snuck up on Briya and she hadn’t even realized the exact moment when the vessel entered the immediate proximity of the expanse. Now, as she focused her eyes ahead, she could see the darkness give way as the cosmic starlight vanished the boundary between shroud and aurora. All became a burnished hue of delicate pastel; a vibrant blanket of pink and blue and green draped beneath a lilac sky. With her elbows on the console and chin cradled on the back of her palms, Briya beheld the infinite sunrise and murmured to herself, “I see you, Inconnu.”

After some time, when the enthrallment of the immense vista had shifted to beauty and the spectacle downgraded to swirling ion storms behind layers of gas clouds, Briya sat back and sighed. “Thank you, Lieutenant. That was magnificent.”

Langley looked entirely too proud of himself. “I’m just glad I…”

“Briya,” Haylay cut him off, “you want to hear this.” The aide routed the signal she’d been monitoring at her station to the main audio.

There was static interference for a few seconds. Then came a deep, computerised voice. "Stop the Pandora," it said.

The clip looped around again. The silence. The static. The voice. "Stop the Pandora."

Silence. Static. Voice. "Stop the Pandora."

“I’ll get you to the station right away, Ma’am,” Langley said as he laid in a course and spun the craft around.

Haylay was picking up additional chatter on subspace, though most of it was on secure channels. From there events moved quickly and they arrived at Carnwennan Station in what felt like moments. There was increased activity in and around the station with ships docking and taking up synchronous orbit. Where Briya had expected to find an edge of the frontier harbor, instead turned out to be a bustling staging ground for...unknown purposes. But something was up and something was going down.

“With that kind of traffic out there, docking ports may be hard to come by,” Langley advised.

“Transporter it is,” Briya responded as she disentangled herself from the navigator’s seat. She bent down and brushed her lips against the helmsman’s cheek then quickly followed Haylay’s lead as they moved towards the transporter pad.

OFF