JDL | Com. Ivanova, PO3 duPont - "Denial Isn't Just A River In Egypt"

Posted on Thu Jan 15th, 2015 @ 12:41am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova

1,559 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: A Spot To Kill

The time was upon them... Nearly. Sitting in her Ready Room, Rochelle was close to coming out of her skin as anticipation mixed with the anxious gnawing of impatience. Waiting those last few minutes to take to the bridge and leave were always the worst — especially now when there were memories to try and hide from and new adventures to use as a buffer against the stresses of personal life. New adventure, as a whole, seemed a fair promise and trade for the relative serenity of Earth. She'd miss it, but not as much as she'd miss the stars if and when she finally hung up her commission.

Some paper pusher at Utopia Planitia had decided to be extra diligent and sent back some of the paperwork that Cecil and Ivanova had carefully prepared for departure. All he could figure was people were nervous because the paparazzi parasites had made it sound like Hark crashing the Christmas party meant that the Vindicator was his special project. Cecil had tried to touch base with the XO's father, as he seemed to be the source of the willowy woman's attitude to just get things done... And while he hated to admit it, having an Admiral (even just a rear Admiral) on your side fixes problems with people who are diligent to the point of hindrance. However the Admiral Waterhouse wasn't available... So this last hurdle would have to be handled by bothering Ivanova.

Cecil rang the chime for the ready room.

"Enter." Rochelle called, looking from from a myriad of last minute reports that had hit her desk. Each one with a manifest of some sort, supply lists from each department and the odd complaint here or there that something hadn't arrived on time or something had arrived injured. It was the usual melodrama, the stuff best handled by a yeoman or an XO, but Rochelle demanded to do it herself.

"Are you being plagued by Ensign Ernest too?" Cecil asked with a sigh as he walked towards her desk. He held out the offending PADD he had, and his eyes drifted over the others on the desk.

She sighed and nodded, taking the PADD and motioned for the man to sit. "You'd think someone like him would learn to stop squawking after all this time." Rochelle didn't need to look at the contents, she already knew what would be found within. After Atlantis Prime, the young Commodore had every intention of having the petulant Ensign transferred to Cold Station Theta. If he thought Rochelle was insufferable, she couldn't wait until he got a load of Admiral Red.

Cecil's eyes lingered on the inside of Ivanova's wrist a long moment, as she took the PADD from him, before he sat down as she'd indicated. He considered a moment before he spoke.

"Is there something wrong with your birthmark?" He nodded to her wrist.

"It isn't a birthmark." The Commodore replied, her voice dropping as a clear indication that Cecil had tread onto thin ice with his question, "Why do you ask?"

"It's just a little further up your wrist than it usually is," he said, a frown on his face. "Forget I asked, it's just that if it'd been a birthmark, it moving like that could have been a sign of something wrong."

She sighed, heavily. Ever since she'd spent the night with Landon, the blue mark of pairbonding had chosen to migrate. The Trill had found its new home behind her left ear, and though it had changed in location, shape and color, its purpose remained the same. She was bonded. This time to Landon Neyes, a fact she'd never dreamed possible and one that set her heart afire, but also brought with it the anxiety of having to cover her steps to hide it from those who knew that the blue mark had signified. Marker had become her friend, but it seemed she was doomed to having to re-doodle the design after every shower or bath. She'd never be able to keep it perfectly located, and she knew if Cecil had noticed, Almar and Amelia would too. "No, I assure you it isn't a birthmark. It's..." Her head shook, and the little Commodore struggled to come up with an explanation before simply shrugging. "You're right. It's too high."

Cecil looked at his commanding officer silently, pondering what was said and what wasn't. He could tell this was a delicate subject, very delicate, though he hadn't the slightest clue where to start to try and decipher it. It was honestly probably better left encrypted, but he couldn't help wanting to do something to assist.

"Please forgive me if I'm over stepping, but I would guess that you're trying to hide from prying eyes that this original mark is gone...? Given the interest you've attracted while we've been on earth, I can certainly understand why." He smiled encouragingly. "If I can be so bold, may I see it?"

She eyed him sidelong with a mixture of irritation and interest. If there was one thing to be said about him, it was that Cecil duPont would never do anything that would put her in a bad light or jeopardize his position at her side. He lived to serve and to ride her coat tails for reasons she would likely never understand. "Consider it forgiven." She replied and hesitantly lay the arm down on the cool top of her desk and exposed the inside of her wrist to his prying eyes.

"What are you using, a marker? I think there's a device we can use instead. Might even be a pattern in the replicator for it, and it won't wash off."

"Guilty. Sharpie made one in the correct color... Blot it a few times before its fully dry and it looks spot on." Rochelle shrugged and looked towards the replicator and back at her yeoman, "Is there really?"

"A friend of mine at boarding school was dating a girl for a while, and he convinced her he was in a motocycle gang," he insisted with a head shake as he stood to walk to the replicator. "She wouldn't believe him until he showed her a tattoo, but if he showed up to classes with it, he'd get a ruler to the back of his hand. I got really good at putting it on and taking it off again." He laughed as he started searching through the replicator patterns. "Also, my mother usually hid her tattoo for the fancy gallery and museum openings my Father took her to. She got tired of fielding questions about runes just because she has one tattooed right here." He touched behind his ear and just below the hairline. "Ah, here we go." With a grin and a flourish, he pressed the button and a small silver cylinder materialized in the replicator.

"Clever." The Commodore grinned, perking up as she watched him produce the necessary item. It had never dawned on her that such a device would ever have existed. It seemed as if it had only been created for purposes of deceit, and that alone was probably why it had escaped her notice. Archer, she thought, would have likely known all about it. Amelia too. "How does it work?" She asked.

"To hide something, you just press this button," he explained, holding the device out for her and pointing out the blue button on the side. "Then you trigger it with the black button at the end of the device. To put something on the skin, you press the red one instead. You first need to load the design into it. which can either be done by long pressing the red button to scan something, or you can interface the device with a PADD to load patterns in or adjust settings." He offered the device for Ivanova to take.

Rochelle's nose twitched and wrinkled slightly as she considered the information given to her and gingerly accepted the cylinder from her yeoman. "Long press to scan?" She asked, briefly looking back up to him before doing just that, long holding the red and working over the blue design.

"It should only need one pass, just keep it steady," Cecil said, even as he saw she was doing just that. "When you're ready to place it, just start at the center and make sure you don't turn it in your hand as you move it around. It may take a couple tries to get it right, but who knows."

"You seem to know better than I do where it needs to be." Rochelle mused out loud and offered him the device in an unvoiced question and invitation.

He inclined his head slightly as he accepted the device and waited for her extend her wrist to him again. "It's going to tickle a little, some people brace themselves to make sure they don't accidentally move."

Rochelle nodded and offered him her bared wrist. "Thanks for the warning." She nodded to him, chewing her lip as she watched him work. Deceit was wrong on so many levels, but what choice did she have if she wanted to maintain balance? The answer was, as she feared, none.

=/\= End Log =/\=

Commodore Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR, NCC 78213-E

Petty Officer 3rd Class Cecil duPont
Commodore's Yeoman
USS Vindicator, NCC-78213

 

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