Daddy's Little Girl

[Rochelle Riker 0]

Daddy's Little Girl

SD 10304.23

 

NB: this log takes place at the end of the sim two weeks ago, before the Arcadians took over the Blue Note

 

"Only one life you're focused on, eh, Daddy?" Rochelle turned to face her father as soon as they'd materialized on the planet's surface. Tom looked at her blankly. "You were talking to that doctor from the Arcadia. They never cut your comm link to me. So which life were you referring to, Daddy--yours, or mine?"

 

Tom automatically glanced around, pleased to see that their only audience was the guard who had been sent to escort them to their compound manager's location. "You *are* my life, sweetheart," Tom said smoothly, taking hold of Rochelle's arm and propelling her in the direction of the guard. "Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, the child of my body."

 

Rochelle swore, an oath so blue that the guard leading them turned and shot a startled glance at her before he could stop himself; quickly, he turned his eyes forward again.

 

"Watch how you speak to your father, young lady," Tom Riker chuckled through a broad, unrepentant grin.

 

"See what happens when you miss your child's formative years?"

 

"I know. She starts swearing like a Klingon; then, speaking to the hired help, she makes her father look like a liar." Tom's grip tightened uncomfortably on Rochelle's arm. Her face revealed nothing, but the young woman felt a warning thrill through her, could feel the veiled anger in her father's gesture. "It's no wonder," he continued genially, "that a man might start to question just what else his little girl isn't being completely honest about with him."

 

"Well, Daddy," Rochelle picked up smoothly, "perhaps after we see Mr. Cabazon, it would be a good idea for you and I to discuss a few--"

 

"Oh, we're going to talk, sweetheart. I think it's time that you and I had a very serious discussion, about a number of things," Tom said, pitching his voice for her ears alone. "This is what is known as being 'called on the carpet,' Rochelle," he hissed. "It's high time you and I came clean with each other."

 

There was something in her father's voice that made Rochelle bite back her instinctive response. Her time, she realized, was now. She couldn't afford to play the devoted daughter any longer--Tom Riker's day in the sun was reaching its sunset, and now he would have to choose: support his daughter, or be eliminated from the competition.

 

An unfamiliar pang squeezed her heart. Damn it, what was it about him? It wasn't that his blood ran in her veins. She had belonged equally to her mother, but that hadn't prevented Rochelle from looking Deandra directly in the eye as she pressed the button on the phaser and ended her mother's life.

 

No, there was something else about Tom. Maybe it was his earnestly clumsy attempts at belonging in her world, a world of double-meanings and life-or-death relationships--a life which kept him always at war somehow with the morals of the world in which he had been born. She had often sensed that something held Tom back from the final commitment, the final willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of his own survival. There had even been times when she had believed that he would have done anything to ensure that his daughter's safety. Rochelle's feelings for her father complicated, and were the closest she had ever come to feeling love.

 

That word, that useless, empty word, 'love,' threatened to fill Rochelle's eyes with tears. She bit them back harshly, tasting the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. She had spent her lifetime's supply of tears years ago, and so many of them had been shed for her father. She refused to believe that she was cheating him of them now.

 

They were within feet of Cabazon's door when both Tom and Rochelle's communicators both began to beep frantically. "Riker," the elder answered.

 

"Captain, we have a problem up here," the monotone of the bridge security captain intoned.

 

"Now what?" Rochelle snapped.

 

"Apparently we have--wait a minute, now it's saying tha--" The guard's voice cut off abruptly, too abruptly. Rochelle and her father exchanged a glance, and in that moment all their uncertainties about each other were forgotten, they were united in their single cause.

 

"Moose's people," Tom growled. "Damn it. I'm going back up to the ship."

 

"Evacuation plan Riker-Omega?" Rochelle was already running the plan in her mind.

 

Tom nodded. "We'll reassemble at the rendezvous point, go from there." He hesitated for only a moment, then put his hand back on her arm, more gently this time. "I know you've been doing this for a long time," he said with a half-smile, "but be careful, baby, okay?" He kissed her quickly on the forehead, then turned on his heel and left, already barking orders into his communicator.

 

Rochelle stood frozen for five seconds that felt like an hour, watched him as he gathered a handful of guards to his side and ordered a beam-up to the ship. As his corporeal form faded away, she shook herself. She would have time to wax nostalgic about his farewell later. Right now, she had a major evacuation plan to initiate--and she had one very special 'guest' that she was going to take care of, personally.

 

 

Rochelle Riker

Second-in-Command

on the planet beneath the orbit of the independent vessel Blue Note