Fare Thee Well

Posted on Mon Sep 10th, 2018 @ 11:20pm by Lieutenant Delilah Dauntless
Edited on on Mon Sep 10th, 2018 @ 11:21pm

Mission: Holographic Horrors
Location: Office of the CEO, Floor 927, Dauntless Dynamics HQ Building
Timeline: 2395, Skyward Level of Soroban City, Mercari IV, ALPHA QUADRANT

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"An operations officer..."

David Dauntless' raspy voice reverberated across the vastness of his executive office, and echoed up into its two story-high vaulted ceiling. His tone remained neutral. The expression upon his wizened umber features betrayed nothing. His ice-blue stare was as cold and calculating as always.

Lieutenant Delilah Dauntless resisted the urge to stiffen, to try and sit up even straighter, at her grandfather's observation. The newly-commissioned Starfleet officer had presented herself for the appraisal (though never the approval) of her family's patriarch. Immaculate in her white dress uniform, she slightly lifted her delicate features to proudly meet the old man's eyes with her own glacial gaze.

"Chief Operations Officer," Delilah challenged in her child-like voice, "with the rank of Lieutenant. It's an impressive achievement, actually... Practically unheard of-"

"What is practically unheard of," interrupted the 90 year-old mogul, his tone accusatory, impatient, "is a young woman of your breeding and brilliance settling for-"

"It is not settling," countered the 20 year-old officer, her voice chilly with contempt, "it is strategy-"

"Strategy?" her grandfather sneered with contempt. "To squander your genius?"

Delilah's elfin features darkened for only a fraction of a second, before she steeled her gaze in response to his goading. Her voice never wavered, her expression betrayed nothing. Her poise and posture remained confident, controlled.

"To apply my genius," Delilah corrected. "After one year's time, I will have fulfilled the requirements necessary for acceptance to the ShiKahr Academy's exclusive Interdisciplinary Doctorate Program-"

"...THIS again," David grumbled, his graveled voice groaning from fatigue.

"-A full four years ahead of schedule," Delilah continued, her icy stare flashing in defiance. "And once I complete THAT program, Grandfather... it will make me the single highest qualified candidate for Chief Technical Officer that Dauntless Dynamics' Board of Directors has ever seen." Something feral threatened to snarl the corner of her scapel-thin smile as she added, "Including you."

A strained silence fell over the CEO's office as its massive stone double-doors slid laboriously open, to admit the slender and statuesque figure of the old man's robotic executive assistant. The gynoid's stiletto-heeled footsteps clicked a steady rhythm across the polished Izarian marble floor, as she approached the expansive kybernite desk that separated the grandfather and granddaughter.

The two, brown-skinned Humans sat in silence as the fembot placed crystalware consisting of tall glasses, ice-cube trays and decanters filled with transparent liquids of various colors. Delilah locked eyes with her grandfather, refusing even to blink as the slim gynoid served each person their evening libations. The 20 year-old woman remained prim and proper, her posture impeccable, determined not to flinch or falter in the slightest. The sounds of pouring liquid & clinking crystal briefly filled the office's immense interior, until at last, the robot's service was completed. The rhythmic clicking of the fembot's footsteps announced her departure from the Dauntless' taciturn staring contest. As the sepulchral stone doors slid finally closed, the 90 year-old man broke their silent war of wills by being the first to partake of the refreshments laid before him.

"There is something to be said for the direct approach," David Dauntless said at last, after a sip of his crisp clear drink. "At your age, I had already made my first billion ingots. I didn't achieve that by taking the long way around. I didn't build all of this," the 90 year-old Mercari taikun waived at the towering city skyline that glittered outside the office's lofty floor-to-ceiling windows, "by waiting to prove to some board, that I had what it took to succeed." The elderly magnate managed to turn up his nose as he picked up one of the decanters, and poured its contents into his half-full glass. Clear fluid mixed with clear fluid, only suddenly turn a citrus, chartreuse color.

Delilah narrowed her ice-blue eyes as she slowly, deliberately, stood up out of her seat. "What you call 'the long way around'," countered the 20 year-old in her cool, childish voice, "I call determination and diligence. You think I'm waiting?" Delilah slowly shook her head. "No, Grandfather. I am coming,

"I am coming, to take what is mine... by right , and by resolve. I will not falter. I will not fail. My success... my succession... as the future head of this family and its corporation, is inevitable."

David steeled his gaze in response as the young woman in the dress-white uniform turned her back to the elderly entrepreneur, and marched away through the office's ponderous stone doors.



* * * * *

kybernite = kyberna (steer, pilot, govern) + ite (a mineral)
aithrite = aithrios (clear, cloudless, fair) + ite (a mineral)
leptanium = leptos (thin, frail, skinny) + anium (an elemental metal)