Post 448: Citizens of Troy, Beware

Stardate:70921.1230
Title: Citizens of Troy, Beware
Authors: TC Blane and Zanh Liis
Scene: Quarters of Zanh Liis
Time: Following "Gaps in Coverage" and "When You Knew Better"
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"Computer, locate Zanh Liis."

The computer responded by informing him that Zanh Liis was currently in her quarters.

Blane hesitated a moment. He'd been informed hours earlier that she had been given the rest of the night off by the ship's supervising physician, Dr. McKenna. He hated the thought of waking her. But then, if she was the woman he thought she was, she was not sleeping.

Not with a situation like Corbinsky looming so large on their horizon.

He rang the chime on her door and at first, it seemed Zanh ignored it. He rang again. Then a third time. Finally, the doors parted and he stepped through.

He found her kneeling down, inspecting the floor carefully. He didn't know it but she was making sure she'd cleaned up all the broken glass from her little display of emotion earlier.

"Lose something?" TC asked, observing her motions curiously.

"Only my temper." Liis continued searching the deck with her eyes.

She avoided looking him in the face at first- though in the passing glance he caught he still noticed that her eyes were red, and puffy. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought that maybe she'd been crying.

"Or maybe what little was left of my mind. Wait," she picked up something small and shining from the deck. "There it is. I found it." she was mumbling, and he wasn't sure he'd quite made out the words properly.

She held the shimmering object up to the light, then tossed it into the replicator for disposal as she rose to her full height.

"Sir?"

She squared her shoulders and appeared to return to her 'all business' demeanor. She dusted her hands off on her pant legs and then looked him in the eyes.

"What can I do for you Mr. Blane?"

"I have the reports you requested, Captain. Sensor data regarding your visit from the good doctor."

"So far, I don't think there's anything good about him." Zanh began scrolling through the data. She appeared clearly distracted and after a moment she handed the PADD back to him with a dismissive wave. "Can you give me the bullet? I'm not firing on all thrusters tonight."

She approached to the replicator and asked for a cup of strong coffee, black.

It wasn't the one shot of alcohol she'd consumed earlier which had dulled her senses, though. It was the memory of the disappointment in Jariel's eyes when she'd pushed him away- again. She'd have to make it up to him, somehow.

TC took the PADD back but did not look at it.

"Certainly. The skinny is this. Somehow, Corbinsky is able to cloak himself and an unknown amount of space around him from the ship's internal sensors. Exactly how, we do not know. But the ships computer believes that the sensor in the particular area where he sets up shop is faulty and simply ignores the lack of data coming from it."

The puzzled look on Liis' face prompted TC to explain further. "He stays less then five minutes, which is within normal parameters so no alarms are set off."

She placed her free hand on her hip and saluted him with her mug.

"Excellent. So we change the parameters and then the next time he shows himself we can try to snag him. Or at least track his movements."

TC thought for a moment. His lack of an immediate and enthusiastic response caught her attention. "What?"

He looked at her. "He obviously knows our policies and procedures. I have to ask what other information he has." He put the PADD down. "I don't know all I need to know about this guy, Captain. You probably do, considering your past history."

He motioned toward a chair to indicate he wanted to sit down. Zanh nodded her approval and listened as he continued on. "If he has access to the future, everything that we do here and now he will know about from historical logs of these events. I am going on the assumption of course that he will have access to that type of information." TC watched to see if the captain was following where he was going.

She bewildered him once again by replying with a sentence that seemed completely random and totally un related to the discussion at hand.

"Beware of geeks bearing gifts." She spoke the words softly. She moved across the room, picked up what appeared to be a stack of old-fashioned envelopes in her hands, and stared at them nervously.

"Isn't that Greeks, Sir?"

Zanh smiled. "You're the history buff after all, aren't you Mr. Blane?"

"Yes," TC wasn't sure where she was going.

"So, what do they say about history?"

"They say a lot of things."

"True."

She set the pile of envelopes back down and walked a few paces back and forth before finally sitting down in the chair opposite him.

"They say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Well, from my experiences in my previous line of work, I can tell you for a fact that this is true. We can learn from history- but the future is always changing. So even if Corbinsky does have knowledge from a future version of our universe, there is no way to know if it'll be altered between now and when we actually get to where he is."

She paused a moment, her expression pensive as she stared at some point past TC off into the distance. She came back from wherever she'd been, and continued."This is why TI sends its Jumpers one way- back into their past. Because you can't fix the future in the future. You can only influence it in the past, or the present."

She waited a moment to see if her words made sense to him, it was a hard thing to explain to someone who had never jumped the linear time line before.

"My point is, even though we don't know what future information he has on us, he also cannot be entirely certain that whatever data he has obtained in our future is still correct. Because anything we do between now and then could change the outcome. Do you understand?"

Blane nodded. "So, while we may be flying blind, likely so is he."

"Exactly. Which leaves us to question his motivation." She couldn't sit still, and she stood up, rocking from her heels to her toes as she thought aloud. "What event is he trying to influence? What is he trying to insure will happen, or prevent from happening?"

She paced some more. "I've never met Corbinsky in person before today," she confided. "I'd heard rumors, talk of him here and there on the old job. But he and I had never crossed paths. So it surprised me when he told me,"She stopped, looking troubled once more. Again she sat. She just couldn't decide, it seemed, if she was coming or going.

"What did he say to you, Captain?" TC prodded gently.

"That he was here to help me. That he was here to teach me something. That's why I said beware of geniuses offering help from a future vantage point. Because no matter how handsome the saddle is on the beast they ride up on, that horse is likely wooden. And full of people who are ready to kill you with sharp, pointy objects the very first chance they get."

TC nodded, understanding the captain's point of view and also silently worried for her. He had never seen her quiet this. . . unnerved.

"Well then maybe we need to sit this Corbinsky guy down for a chat about exactly what he wants." TC stated flatly.

Zanh Liis looked up at her chief of operations. "Exactly how would you suggest we go about that?"

TC smiled. "Well, I think we should start by changing the time out setting for the sensors to say, sixty seconds. Set a silent alarm and get security on a quiet standby. I'm sure N'Dura can have a team ready."

Zanh blinked. "You think it will be that easy?"

TC leaned back in the chair. "Possibly. But I think it has to be handled with care." He leaned forward again and almost whispered. "I understand what you were saying about linear time, but let's assume for a minute that Corbinsky has access to accurate historical logs of all that is happening here in our time."

Zanh nodded and gestured with her coffee cup for TC to continue.

"Assuming that fact, we need to make the changes to the sensors a quietly as possible. Right now only you," He pointed to her. "and I," he thumbed towards himself, "know about this idea. In my humble, and often misguided, opinion we need to keep it that way for this to work."

He grinned. "A secret between us that we can nevershare with anyone else for fear of it being documented somewhere and thus being read in the future by the good doctor."

He held up his hands. "What do you think?"

"I think," Zanh replied, looking up at him over her coffee cup as she took another sip, "That my faith in you has been well placed all along. Go."

TC knew that "Go" was the only reply Zanh was in the habit of giving as her endorsement of someones plan or ideas. It meant "get to work," or "engage," or "perform a miracle," depending on the context in which she uttered the deceptively simple, one syllable command.

"You can move about and accomplish the task with a lot less fanfare than if I try it," she added.

"Understood." He stood and walked toward the door. "Is there," he paused, unable to shake the impression that she needed something more of him.

"Anything I, or anyone else, can do for you?"

"I'm fine, Thomas." Liis replied softly, looking down. She began swirling the liquid in her cup and watched it spin. "Just fine."

"No, Liis," he lowered his voice, following her across the bridge she'd just built between them by calling him by his first name. Somehow, it didn't bother him now the way that it had when she'd tried it once before, awhile back. "You're not."

"Okay, so maybe not fine," she conceded. "But I'll be all right."
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Lt. TC Blane
Chief of Operations
USS Independence NCC-90791

~AND~

=/\= Zanh Liis
Acting Captain
USS Independence NCC-90791