A Snake In The Grass?

Posted on Mon Sep 1st, 2014 @ 12:21am by Staff Warrant Officer Nexi & Commander Angelica Fairchild

The more Angelica thought about it, the less she trusted Nexi. Considering she'd started with zero trust at all, that was saying something. Still, she couldn't help but find the woman intriguing. Databases and newsfeed searches turned up nothing, so soon she resigned herself to actually socializing with the woman and went to track her down.

Nexi was sitting on the loading ramp of her ship cleaning parts to be refurbished for repairs. More than that, she was guarding the entrance to her home, not really trusting the Engineers coming and going to keep their noses out of her business. Enalia had been kind enough to offer repairs for the Wandering Star, and Nexi wasn't going to pass that up! But that didn't mean she had to like that strangers were invading her home.

"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" Nexi asked as she noticed the officer in Operations yellow. At first glance, one could assume she was just another Engineer, but there was intent in the woman's stride that hadn't gone unnoticed by Nexi, nor had she missed the unease in her stance, details that set her apart from the other officers in yellow. Clearly, this woman didn't trust her. Fair enough, Nexi didn't trust any of them either.

"You can start by explaining why you came to this ship." Angelica crossed her arms, adopting a more steely posture.

"Just business," Nexi said dismissively. "If my target hadn't been such an ass, I could have apprehended him without tripping any alarms, you wouldn't have even known either of us were here. You can ask him why he decided to stow away on this boat, I wouldn't care to know."

"I'm not interested in him. I'm interested in you."

"You know what, you don't like the answer, then don't ask the question," Nexi shot back. "I really was just on the job. I followed my mark here, that's why I came here. Why I'm staying is a different matter, but that's not what you asked."

"One could assume that would be the natural progression to the next question." This right here was why Angelica didn't much care for 'normal' Intelligence types. Their love of answering questions in half-riddles was too damned infuriating. "So why are you still here? And don't say it's because the captain wants you to. We both know that's a load of crap."

"The Captain did ask me to stay," Nexi replied with a grin, know this small bit of honesty was going to irritate the Security Officer to no end. Nexi may have agreed to this venture for personal reasons, but she had been genuinely intrigued by the Captain's offer and that was why she had stayed initially. "She got me curious, it amused me," she continued as she leaned back against the hull of her little ship as she worked on the parts in hand.

Hearing Nexi's answer, Angelica couldn't help smiling just a little. "All right then. I can believe that." And at least there's one person here looking forward to this. "Let's get one thing straight though... this crew is mine to protect. Step out of line and I will shoot you to keep them safe. No second chances like the one you got from the skipper."

The amused smile quickly faded from Nexi's face to be replaced by a glare of lethal seriousness as she paused in her cleaning. "You're not the only one with something worth protecting," Nexi said coldly. "And just 'cause I ain't one of you hoity-toity 'Fleeters don't mean I ain't got standards on how I do things. In my line of work, 'stepping out of line' don't just get you a slap on the wrist, it gets you dead, and since I rather like breathing I don't do stupid shit like that. Maybe some other crews can get away with back-stabbing, but that ain't the way I operate."

Nexi's features relaxed fractionally as she resumed polishing her ship parts. "I'm contracted to do as your Captain commands. Questioning my motives past that won't amount to anything."

"Just making sure we're on the same page." Satisfied with Nexi's response, Angelica smirked a little, pulling a combadge from her pocket and tossing it into Nexi's work area. "Seems we speak the same language. Let's keep it that way."

Nexi caught the commbadge and turned it over in her hand a few times as she watched Angelica. "And what about you?" Nexi said suspiciously. The Security officer seemed to fold rather easily to Nexi logic... Well, maybe not, but Nexi didn't get to where she was by trusting everyone who crossed her path, so maybe it was perfectly normal paranoia poking the back of her mind. "How do I know you and yours won't sell me up the river once the job is done?" she asked.

"You don't." Angelica didn't expect Nexi to trust her, not now or ever. "But I'll have you know that while you're here you'll get the same protection as the crew, so long as you keep to your word about not doing anything stupid."

"Then we are on the same page..." Nexi said with a wicked grin. She affixed the commbadge to her leather jacket and resumed her work on her ship parts. "Although we might have to have a discussion about what we both define as stupid. Sometimes I'm willing to take risks you 'Fleeters might call stupid."

"I'm security. 'Risky' means 'fun' to us." Angelica smirked a little. "Long as there's a logical reason, risks are fine."

"Sounds good to me," Nexi said with an amused smile. Maybe she would get along with these people after all!