A Diplomatic Meeting

Posted on Sun Dec 24, 2017 @ 7:04pm by Lieutenant Liam Reynolds & Lieutenant Alanna Wells

1,422 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Rumours
Location: Diplomatic offices

ON

It would take Alanna a while to get accustomed to being on a station. Especially one like DS5. It was a challenge, and she liked challenges.

She walked into the Diplomatic office to see if Lieutenant Reynolds was available.

"Ma'am, can I help you?" A tubby brown haired human asked. "Ensign Chapman, I'm the senior aid to Lieutenant Reynolds." He introduced himself. No further people were just walking in to Liam's office on his watch!

"Hi. I'm Alanna Wells. I'm the new head of science and I'd like to meet Lieutenant Reynolds, if he's got a few minutes," she said.

"He's no meetings at present," Chapman checked his bosses schedule. "I'm sure he will be happy to meet the new science chief, isn't it Ma'am?" He knew with the change of CO and loss of XO that new staff were going to be popping up, so had been keeping an eye out on announcements.

"It is," she said. "Thank you." She gave him a half-bow and wnet to ring the chime on the Chief Diplomat's door.

"Come," Liam said as the chime went on his door. He already sensed a fellow Betazoid before the door opened to reveal a petite blond woman. As with every Betazoid he met, he worried for a moment that she would recognise him of being part of one of the higher houses. Hopefully if she did she wouldn't say anything in front of Chapman. He had managed to keep this information out of his Starfleet file and make his career so far clearly on his own merits.

Standing up he bowed slightly in respect to the female. Higher house or not, women were the superior among his people and that always had to be addressed. "May I help you Ma'am?" he asked.

Alanna gave him a polite half-bow. "I'm Alanna Wells. I just arrived on the station." "And it's a pleasure to meet another telepath."

Liam grinned. It was nice for some telepathic contact for a change. "It certainly is. Please take a seat. Can I get you a drink?" he thought back.

"Pomegranate lemonade would be nice. Thanks." She returned, sitting down.

Liam chuckled. He had never heard of pairing pomegranate with lemonade. He imagined it was rather sweet. He stood up and ordered the drink from the replicator in the room and then ordered an Uttaberry juice for himself before setting his drink on his desk and handing hers to her.

Taking his own seat, he thought back, So Alanna Wells. What can I do for you?

Alanna took a sip of her drink before responding. "I'm new to the station, so I'm getting to know some of the people I'll be working with."

"Welcome aboard," Liam thought back with a smile. "Are you settling in well? And coping with the sheer onslaught of thousands and thousands of emotions out there? It took me a long why to adjust mentally. Sometimes I still get overwhelmed he admitted.

"Getting there, but I do have my quarters and office buffered so I have some peace until I get used to it," she admitted. "The huge amount of information I need to learn is more daunting."

"I considered getting my office buffered but I find all the ambassadors come ambush me elsewhere. It was fruitless really in getting my work done. Hopefully you will have more luck."

He took a sip of his juice and then asked, "Do you hail from the homeland or elsewhere? he asked with interest. Although it wasn't any issue interbreeding in his species, he rarely ran into other half human ones like himself. It was nice to have someone on the senior staff who faced the same gifts as him.

"I grew up on a small Betazoid colony." She sent several images of her home. "The colony is small and there are a lot of trees. I left to study on Earth."

Liam accepted the telepathic images enjoying seeing them in his mind "Its very peaceful" he projected back. "I grew up on Earth until age 12 " He projected images of his grandmothers farm and estate. "Then we moved to Betazed and I lived on one of the islands off the coast of Lilang Bay." He returned the favour projecting again the beautiful turquoise waters and amazing sunsets.

"Obviously I returned to Earth to join the academy. What did you study?" he asked.

"Science. Specifically, history, archaeology, and anthropology."

"Where did you get to do your 2nd year archaeology field trip?" Liam asked curiously.

"There's a very interesting little site on Tiberius V. I spent my summer there. As I'd done other field work before, I got to do more, which was fun. Why did you choose Diplomacy?"

"I didn't. I specialised and graduated in counselling. Lets just say things got a little complicated a year or so back. Diplomacy was a logical step sideways to give me a break for a while. I won't say I'll never return to counselling though."

"No reason why you can't go back and forth if the opportunity presents itself," Alanna communicated. "It's nice you had the opportunity to take a lateral move."

Liam was unable to stop the link as several flashes of the torture he endured in the mirror universe invaded his mind. "I'm sorry about that. Like I said things got a little complicated. I would appreciate it if you would keep that to yourself." he thought sadly.

"Of course," Alanna sent back, along with waves of empathy. "I'm sorry you had to endure that."

"Me too. I'm not a nice man in the mirror universe. And the other me has "different" abilities. They were experimenting on me to try figure out where they came from. It seemed we went different paths at a fork in the road. I bet you understand the science of all that better than I ever could, Liam mused.

"Yes. It makes perfect sense. Each of us makes choices that determine our path. It would be interesting to find out where the two of you diverged. But not interesting enough to risk your safety," she added. "So we'll leave that as an academic question only."

"I suspect I know where we diverged," Liam mused. But it probably safer for everyone else not to get a hold of that knowledge

"Lets talk about something else shall we? Tell me more about Tiberius V. A whole summer. You must have some interesting stories."

She shared a series of images from the dig. Mostly it was carefully removing top soil and sectioning off areas for digging. Then slowly removing dirt and sand to see what was hidden underneath. There was the ancient temple and the remarkably well-preserved altar, and the time a group of rebels attacked the camp. "Not much," she added with a grin. "It's mostly a lot of tedious work with a few bright spots of discover, or in our case, protest."

Liam cocked an eyebrow. "Shame about the temple. I bet you could have stumbled across the find of the century if you had managed to have a proper look at things. Did they manage to ever get those rebels or will the mystery of that place haunt your forever?"

"The thing about ancient sites is that they will be around long after we are. So someone will eventually get back there." She shrugged. "Or they already have. I haven't kept up as much as I should." She would have to check some archaeological sites to see what was going on now. "Well, I have kept you quite long enough. I still have a lot of people to meet and a lot of work to do before I feel like I fit in here."

"No problem. It's nice to meet you,"Liam thought back with a smile.

"Nice to meet you, too. I don't have many opportunities to chat with another Betazoid," Alanna communicated. "See you later."

____
OFF

Lieutenant JG Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
Deep Space Five

Lieutenant Liam Reynolds
Chief Diplomatic Officer
Deep Space Five

 

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