Holding Down the Fort

[Rochelle Riker 0]

Holding Down the Fort

SD 10304.23

 

Rochelle watched her father's away team dissolve on the transporter padd before turning and striding out of the transporter room. Her father's rebuke about Ziggy's behavior still rankled her. Damn him--both of them, come to that--for making her look like a fool. Clearly she would need to take Ziggy much more firmly in hand, if she was to keep him--.

 

A slow smile began to spread across her face. Perhaps the way to teach him a lesson about such undesirable behavior was to show him that it made him undesirable.

 

Her cat-like smile stayed with her all the way to the bridge. "Contact Mr. Cabazon on the compound for me, and put it through to the Ready-Room," she ordered.

 

"Uh, ma'am, the away team has already started to transmit from the Arcadia," a hulking man with a broad, innocent face pointed out.

 

An expectant silence fell over the bridge. Rochelle looked in the direction of the voice; the man who had spoken felt himself shrink under her gaze.

 

She gave him a disarming smile, moving smoothly across the bridge until she was nearly toe-to-toe with him. "How embarrassing," she laughed flirtatiously. "I know we've been introduced, but your name has simply flown out of my head."

 

The giant swallowed. "Bizz... it's Bizz, ma'am," he stammered.

 

"Of course," Rochelle purred. "Bizz. Well, Bizz, perhaps you can share with me the insight you possess which led you to conclude that the away team's mission and my comm call cannot take place simultaneously."

 

"Um... I, uh, don't know. Ma'am," he added hastily, a flush rising up his face from his neck.

 

Rochelle mimicked wide-eyed fear. "Well, Bizz, if you don't know, who does?"

 

The blush on Bizz's face darkened. "Um. You, ma'am?"

 

"I don't know, Bizz. Do you suppose that's a safe assumption?"

 

"Ye-yes, ma'am," he blushed. "I'm sorry."

 

She smiled demurely. "It's alright, Bizz. Everyone is entitled to make a mistake. And now you've made yours." She turned on her heel, raising her voice to say, "I look forward to your improved performance moing forward. Someone get me to Cabazon, and send that engineer my father procured to me. Shar, Khar, Sar--"

 

"Zar Alces, ma'am," Bizz prompted helpfully.

 

"Zar. Yes. You see, Bizz, your performance has improved already." She winked at him, and then the ready-room door slid shut between them.

 

The screen on her father's desk beeped for her attention while she was in the middle of a delicious stretch; she flung out a hand and smacked the button to initiate the conversation. "Yes?" she called from somewhere near the floor.

 

Cabazon cleared his throat quietly. "My lady Rochelle? I await your pleasure."

 

Rochelle rolled deliberately out of her stretch, coming up one vertebrae at a time, before turning around to face Cabazon on the screen. "I need you to come up here and collect someone. As now is a phenomenally inconvenient time, you'd better transport up. Bring three security guards; this guest tends towards particularly ill manners."

 

"And your instructions for this guest, my lady?"

 

"Keep him in-house, on the compound, but see that he's put to work as soon as possible. And under no circumstances is he to be within 10 kilometers of our little Princess."

 

"I'm sorry, my lady, our...?"

 

"Cabazon." Rochelle frowned. "You disappoint me."

 

"Ah," understanding swept his face, "I beg your pardon, my lady. Of course, you refer to our particular young lady."

 

"Of course. Mr. StarDust, whom you are coming to collect, is not to hear, see or even smell the idea of her. I'm sure you can facilitate that arrangement." The ready-room door chimed. "Come," she called to it, then turned back to Cabazon. "Beam directly to transporter room 2; our guest will be patiently awaiting you in the storage closet."

 

She caught just the beginning of Cabazon's amused smile as she clicked off the screen, then switched her focus to the person of Zar Alces, standing halfway between the door and the desk. "Please, come all the way in, Mr. Alces," Rochelle gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk.

 

"Yes, I definitely would have noticed you."

 

"I beg your pardon?"

 

Zar shook his head, as if clearing his vision. "Nothing. Sorry, just thinking about a conversation I had with your father."

 

Rochelle smiled sweetly. "Daddy was very impressed with your work, Mr. Alces. He thinks you're quite possibly the most brilliant engineer he's ever met."

 

"Scientist."

 

"Whatever. Tell me, how if your work progressing?"

 

"Oh. Well," Alces paused briefly, as if organizing his thoughts, and then plunged in, "clearly the first thing I had to do was to isolate more precise readings. Five decimal places may be sufficient for theoretical experimentation, at least during the preliminary stages, but--"

 

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Alces," Rochelle sat forward, her hands folded primly on the desk, "let me simplify my question. When will you be ready to run your first trial?"

 

"My first--"

 

"On the stabilization of the gateway. Surely my father discussed the details of the project with you."

 

"Well, yes, but he told me that--"

 

"So when do we start?"

 

"When do we--" This time Alces cut himself off. "Young woman, if you were given the impression that this was a, what is it called?, a Wham-Bam kind of job, you were grievously misinformed. The number of variables to be calculated is astronomical. I use the word in its original sense, meaning extremely large, or vast, although that particular term lost much of its impact with the broad dissemination of warp capacity to even private Federation citizens who--"

 

"Miss Rochelle," a voice on the comm broke into Zar's monologue. That was the moment Rochelle realized she was grinning at Alces. "Go ahead," she said, her eyes remaining fastened on the engineer. (Scientist. Whatever.)

 

"The Captain has ordered that his comm channel be patched through to you. He said to tell you to prepare for company."

 

Rochelle's smile soured, then turned apologetic. "I'm so sorry to have to interrupt you, Mr. Alces," she stood and moved around the desk to him, "but as you can hear, other duties call me. I certainly hope we can speak further about your work, very soon. I have the greatest respect for," she leaned toward him, one hand on his arm, "scientists."

 

"Sci-thank you." Standing, Zar tried to back subtly away from Rochelle's obviously-flirtatious advance.

 

"If there is anything I can do to make your time with us more, pleasant, please--call me immediately. I would never forgive myself if you suffered the least inconvenience."

 

"I... thank you. I think I need to go."

 

When the door had shut behind Zar Alces, Rochelle laughed aloud. Oh, that was fun! "Put the Captain's team through on my personal unit," Rochelle said aloud in the empty office; her order was received, though, and in only seconds her comm transceiver began to speak.

 

"Your crew is unconscious. You have no shields. I can start harvesting them at any moment," her father's voice boomed into the room. Rochelle listened carefully, noting names, potential uses, and logistics on a padd.

 

"Eject your core and come with me willingly," her father's voice said. Rochelle took her cue, sending orders to Engineering to stand by on the tractor beam, and to initiate locks on the Blue Note crew and the Arcadians identified by name, as she made her way to the transporter room to greet the group.

 

As they shimmered into life before her, Rochelle smiled graciously. "Welcome aboard the Blue Note, Captain Moose, Commander Dacotah..." she hesitated before finishing, "and you must be, Doctor Ren. A pleasure to meet one of Father's friends. Captain," she turned to Moose, "I must apologize for my deception the last time we met, and introduce myself properly this time. It's a pleasure to meet you--I'm Rochelle Riker."

 

 

Rochelle Riker

Second-in-Command

on the independent vessel Blue Note