Fic: Not in Kansas Anymore (10/23)
Title: Not in Kansas Anymore (10/23)
Fandom: Stargate/Star Wars
Rating: M
Genres: crossover, romance
Summary: When Laura Cadman and Evan Lorne woke up in a storage room, they never thought it would be in a galaxy far, far away. And now they need to find a way back home, past Special Operations agents and stormtroopers, between the fronts in a war they thought they knew (from television, mind you). But no one ever said it would be easy.
A/N: See, sometimes, I can hold a promise. I am determined to finish posting this, before the year is out. Yes, the year is still long. But you know how it is, guys... Also, am still promoting yappichick's fanart!
( Not in Kansas Anymore 1/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 2/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 3/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 4/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 5/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 6/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 7/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 8/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 9/23 )
Ten
Fuck, she thinks, she’s actually starting to miss her commanding officer. It came to her unbidden, and totally out of left field when she was sitting down to have an actual formal debriefing with the commandos she came here with instead of an interrogation. She was reminded of debriefings in Atlantis when she would sit down in the briefing room, Sheppard and Weir waiting for her to deliver her report… and Lorne being there, too, mostly silent, letting her talk, only interrupting with a one liner question now and then. Or at least when a mission went well. When it went badly… he’d do some of the yelling, too and it was usually deserved.
And damn, she wishes he were here now, too, instead of one human and two ali… non-humans staring at her with varying expressions in their faces - and weird fur ripplings in the case of a another canine non-human they introduced to her as Major Konah Y'lic, the team’s Mission Group leader, whatever that means - that are probably just species specific versions of “What the hell is she trying to sell us?”
Actually, she would too, if someone would try to sell her the story she’s trying to sell them but at least they haven’t locked her up again yet. She resists a sigh and gets to the next part of her report, “Among my possessions was a small cylindrical object. That was the counterpart to the artefact that brought Major Lorne and I into your galaxy. Wherever it is now, we’re going to need it back if we want to go home ever again.” So yeah, that was kind of bold but they really do need that back so what’s the news in being diplomatic?
“Can you prove your claims, Lieutenant?” The Major again and she starts to loathe the way he pronounces her rank. As if he has a hard time believing she’s really wearing it.
But… she’s gonna have Major Lorne back at some point and she wants him to be proud of her so she attempts to stay professional. Instead of simply biting that guy’s head off, she states, “Yes, sir. My dog tags and those of Major Lorne mark us as members of regular military, deployed through two galaxies in combat and scientific missions. They state our name, rank, blood type, origin and religious denomination. As for how we got here, I’d need the object I brought with me to explain it to you.”
Which is kind of a lie because she can’t really explain it but there’s enough of Rodney’s alleged genius still left in her brain that she can grasp the basics at least. Big bang theory are just more of her specialty than big multiverse theory. “Your personal effects are currently not available to you,” the canine Major says and she can’t help frowning at that.
She does register the slight raising of her jowls from Dog… Boss and the other human in the room - she thinks they introduced her as Lieutenant Tarrere or something - shows her a frown of her own. What, she wants to ask, how would you feel stranded so far from home you don’t even have measurements for it, separated from the only guy in the entire galaxy you know and trust and then being told that “your personal effects are currently not available to you”?
But what she does say is, in the end, “Then how do you expect me to prove my claims?” Mh… that wasn’t even marginally better than what she just thought… so she decides to add, “sir.”
It… wasn’t of much use, though, because the Major’s eyes just turned into slits and she’s pretty sure if he actually were a dog, he’d have probably growled at her, his fangs bared. He’s about to say - or probably rather snarl - something when suddenly… the Lieutenant speaks up, “I think she’s telling the truth, sir.”
Oh. Huh. What? She blinks and looks at the Lieutenant again. Right from the beginning it had struck her as odd that such a young woman - she’s pretty sure the Lieutenant isn’t older than Darkkin, with her fresh faced looks and the two braids coiled into snakes in her neck, making her look rather like a farm girl than a Lieutenant in Special Operations - would be present at such a meeting. She’d been introduced as the team’s case officer but until now she hadn’t really paid her much mind. Apparently, that was a mistake.
Because the Major… doesn’t simply shut the Lieutenant up with a bark - figurative one, not actual one - but regards her with a look that’s accompanied by a different kind of rippling and might probably count as thoughtful. Then he says, “Are you sure, Lieutenant?”
Tarrere nods. “Yes, sir. She really is from a galaxy very far away and probably not even in the same universe, the man she called Major Lorne is her superior and the only thing she wants to do is go home.”
What the hell? She didn’t say that last bit! Okay, so she might have hinted at it but she never actually said it out loud. Seriously, she didn’t! How… oh. Right. Right. “So we’re supposed to believe her?”
Yes, you stupid tyke, she wants to say, you are goddamned supposed to believe me but there’s a warning glance from Boss and somehow that has the amazing effect on her of making her keep her mouth shut and let the Major and Lieutenant hash it out.
“Exactly that, sir. Lieutenant Cadman’s story is genuine.” Why, thank you, she wants to say but… is aware of the fact that it’s still not a good idea to do so. So she tries to listen to her inner Major Lorne and forces herself to keep her goddamn trap shut.
And it actually pays off. “Alright, fine. But I want her to be confined to the Special Ops deck. And I want a cover story. We don’t need people running around being freaked by interdimensional travel or whatever happened here in the middle of a fucking civil war.”
She’s just this close to asking if she’s supposed to make up her cover story or if she gets a handler who’ll keep her leash and walk her around but she wisely refrains from saying that. Even though it’s starting to become mighty difficult to refrain from saying anything. So… she’s even kind of glad when Boss opens her mouth for the first time, “I’m gonna have an eye on her, sir. Lieutenant Tarrere helped assigning her quarters and we’ve got a rough draft of a cover story. It’s been submitted to your padd, sir.”
Wow. Who would have thought that there’s actually someone Boss defers… no, she didn’t. Defer to the Major, that is. Actually Boss just steamrolled him and for some reason she’s starting to find that highly amusing. Even excruciatingly funny… which is why she can’t help but utter a very low snort.
However, it was still loud enough to get everyone’s attention on her again. Oops. “You have something to say… Lieutenant?”
Goddammed, yes, she has? Alright, alright, professional. Be professional, Cadman. “No, sir.” Or maybe… “Actually, yes, I do have something to say, sir. What about finding and extracting my superior, Major Lorne?”
Because they damn well owe that to her and most of all him because he saved their goddamn asses. And… Boss seems to have listened when she told her after her little visit to the infirmary because she says, “Lieutenant’s right, sir. We can’t leave him in the hands of the Imps. Plus we still need to fulfil our original mission objective.” Which she still has no idea what it actually was but she still kind of hopes someone might think it feasible to tell her at some point. Preferably right now.
“About that mission objective, Captain…” It’s still weird, she thinks, to see the big Shistavanen female be officially addressed by her rank.
“Captain Sandwalker is still alive and uncompromised, sir. An encrypted transmission from two hours ago confirmed that.” And apparently, it doesn’t serve its purpose, anyway because she just chose to interrupt a superior officer. She’s not sure how Major Lorne would have taken it if she’d done that to him and goddammit, she misses him and can that stop please?
This Major… well, he definitely doesn’t take it well, judging from the furious rippling of his fur and the slit eyes again. That doesn’t really surprise her actually… but what does is him saying, “A second extraction attempt is not a go currently, Captain. I want this mess sorted out before.”
“Actually, sir… we might not have that much time. I read the transmission and it seems that Captain Sandwalker has encountered Lieutenant Cadman’s superior and is not very confident that he can keep up his cover for much longer.” That was Tarrere again and she starts to get an inkling of how she got to be Boss’s case officer, despite being younger and being outranked by her and everything.
And apparently, her word seems to have some weight at least - or maybe it’s just the concerted power of logic assaulting the Major - because after another moment of apparently weighing his options, he growls, “Fine. Have the Folly and Krayt team on standby but monitor signals only and concentrate on getting the situation under control here.”
It looks as if both women want to say something - and she’d like to add that the “situation” isn’t nearly as grave that it needs to get under control again before setting out to rescue her Major - but the Fur Monster seems to be fed up with all three of them because he just adds, “You’re dismissed. Get out.”
Alright, it’s probably a good idea not to argue with him, seeing as both Boss and the Lieutenant are doing their best not to actually scramble out of the room. She just follows, wondering what will be next in store for her… “Can I kill her now, Boss?”
What the… what, is all she can think at suddenly hearing a barely restrained female voice directly after exiting the briefing room. It belongs to one the pilots she’d briefly seen before being hauled off the shuttle they came with, a dark-skinned woman, probably in her mid-thirties, her black hair pulled back in a simple, kind of austere bun in a dark blue uniform wearing just another kind of rank insignia she can’t construe. She swears, if looks could kill, she’d be deader than dead now.
“No, you can’t, Vir. And you won’t,” Boss simply says, though but that doesn’t really do anything to keep that woman from shooting her dagger looks.
She throws Tarrere a short look and is met with a cautioning glance. What the hell is going on here? “She fucked up the mission, Boss.”
Oh, and that’s enough to want to kill someone? Okay, so she’d entertained that notion once or twice, too, usually when some idiot, military or scientist alike, caused her to end up in the infirmary nursing some more or less inconvenient injury. But… “I certainly didn’t fuck it up on purpose. And who the hell are you? Do you like walking around and throwing death threats at other people?”
Fuck, she’s doing it again. She’s letting her tiredness and her underlying panic and her general annoyance get the better of her. But currently, the fear that something will happen to Lorne and leave her stranded behind here, in a strange galaxy and in the middle of a war that isn’t hers, is starting to seriously get at her and she wishes she had at least some means to communicate with Lorne. What wouldn’t she give to hear him reassure her that everything will be alright in the end and how embarrassing is it to actually need that reassurance?
She’s almost about to grit her teeth and apologize to the woman who seems to have a hard time of keeping up a restraint façade when Boss speaks up again, “Lieutenant Commander Virina Moren, this is Lieutenant Laura Cadman. Be nice to each other, you’re both gonna be stuck here for an unspecified amount of time.”
Oops. She somehow managed to piss of someone who’s outranking her and apparently some kind of naval officer. Well, she thinks, Marines kind of live to do that so everything’s alright. “She fucked it up, Boss. That was a perfect chance to extract Delv and she fucked it up. She and that idiot who’s probably some kind of Imp spook and…”
Alright, that’s enough. “That idiot saved your guys’ asses, okay? He’s out there, risking his life in a galaxy that’s not his own for people he doesn’t even know and I need to get him back. We need to get out of here, and we need to do it together and we did not fuck up your goddamn mission because we found it a pretty neat idea, ma’am. We…”
“Enough, Lieutenant.” She swallows. Until a moment ago she was on a roll and she’d probably have read a Lieutenant Commander the riot act in the middle of a ship’s corridor with two other officers present… but then Boss stepped in again, her voice a low growl.
But she’s had it and… “Vir, tell Dargon to have the Folly prepped for immediate take off. As soon as we have cleared up a couple of things regarding Lieutenant Cadman here, we’re going to get back and complete the mission.”
For a moment, it looks as if Moren is going to argue again but something in Boss’s voice or maybe her look must have been convincing enough that she seems to get a grip on herself. After another murderous look. She simply says, “I’ll see to it.” And then, in her direction, “This isn’t over by a long shot, Lieutenant.”
With that, Moren stalks off, probably to the hangar and she turns back at the two other officers, incomprehension probably written all over her face. “Anyone want to explain what the hell that was about?”
After a moment of looking at each other, it’s Tarrere who answers instead of Boss, “Captain Delvin Sandwalker, our extraction target, was a fellow student of Commander Moren’s at the Imperial Academy on Carida. They stayed in touch even after she changed sides and he informed us of his defection through her.” Oh. Well. Alright. “Your appearance through a hydrospanner in the works so it’s…”
“Understandable that she’s pissed off, yes,” she finds herself saying because… well, if they still stayed in touch after she went from the dark side to the light… even she’s smart enough to realize that there’s probably more to them than just fellow students. “But she is aware of the fact that we did none of this on purpose, right?”
Tarrere sighs. “Yes, I think she is. I know she is.” There it is again, that weird frown and then a calm and confident confirmation of something. So… can Tarrere read minds? “No, I can’t Lieutenant. I have some empathetic abilities but I’m not a telepath.” What the hell? “You’re easy to read.”
“I am not...” Okay. She probably is. She sighs. “Okay, I guess I am. So… anyway… what now?”
“Now…” Boss says and pulls up her jowls again, “now we’re gonna find you a place to crash and then we’re gonna introduce you to everyone as our new explosives specialist.”
Huh. Alright. “Sounds… like a plan. Especially the explosives thing.”
“After what you told us about yourself… we decided to stick as close to the truth as we could. We figured it was the best course of action,” Tarrere adds and for the first time, a little infectious smile grazes her face and she can’t help joining in. Yeah, that really does sound like a plan. So… maybe… everything will be alright in the end.
~*~TBC in Chapter Eleven.
Fandom: Stargate/Star Wars
Rating: M
Genres: crossover, romance
Summary: When Laura Cadman and Evan Lorne woke up in a storage room, they never thought it would be in a galaxy far, far away. And now they need to find a way back home, past Special Operations agents and stormtroopers, between the fronts in a war they thought they knew (from television, mind you). But no one ever said it would be easy.
A/N: See, sometimes, I can hold a promise. I am determined to finish posting this, before the year is out. Yes, the year is still long. But you know how it is, guys... Also, am still promoting yappichick's fanart!
( Not in Kansas Anymore 1/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 2/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 3/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 4/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 5/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 6/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 7/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 8/23 )
( Not in Kansas Anymore 9/23 )
Ten
Fuck, she thinks, she’s actually starting to miss her commanding officer. It came to her unbidden, and totally out of left field when she was sitting down to have an actual formal debriefing with the commandos she came here with instead of an interrogation. She was reminded of debriefings in Atlantis when she would sit down in the briefing room, Sheppard and Weir waiting for her to deliver her report… and Lorne being there, too, mostly silent, letting her talk, only interrupting with a one liner question now and then. Or at least when a mission went well. When it went badly… he’d do some of the yelling, too and it was usually deserved.
And damn, she wishes he were here now, too, instead of one human and two ali… non-humans staring at her with varying expressions in their faces - and weird fur ripplings in the case of a another canine non-human they introduced to her as Major Konah Y'lic, the team’s Mission Group leader, whatever that means - that are probably just species specific versions of “What the hell is she trying to sell us?”
Actually, she would too, if someone would try to sell her the story she’s trying to sell them but at least they haven’t locked her up again yet. She resists a sigh and gets to the next part of her report, “Among my possessions was a small cylindrical object. That was the counterpart to the artefact that brought Major Lorne and I into your galaxy. Wherever it is now, we’re going to need it back if we want to go home ever again.” So yeah, that was kind of bold but they really do need that back so what’s the news in being diplomatic?
“Can you prove your claims, Lieutenant?” The Major again and she starts to loathe the way he pronounces her rank. As if he has a hard time believing she’s really wearing it.
But… she’s gonna have Major Lorne back at some point and she wants him to be proud of her so she attempts to stay professional. Instead of simply biting that guy’s head off, she states, “Yes, sir. My dog tags and those of Major Lorne mark us as members of regular military, deployed through two galaxies in combat and scientific missions. They state our name, rank, blood type, origin and religious denomination. As for how we got here, I’d need the object I brought with me to explain it to you.”
Which is kind of a lie because she can’t really explain it but there’s enough of Rodney’s alleged genius still left in her brain that she can grasp the basics at least. Big bang theory are just more of her specialty than big multiverse theory. “Your personal effects are currently not available to you,” the canine Major says and she can’t help frowning at that.
She does register the slight raising of her jowls from Dog… Boss and the other human in the room - she thinks they introduced her as Lieutenant Tarrere or something - shows her a frown of her own. What, she wants to ask, how would you feel stranded so far from home you don’t even have measurements for it, separated from the only guy in the entire galaxy you know and trust and then being told that “your personal effects are currently not available to you”?
But what she does say is, in the end, “Then how do you expect me to prove my claims?” Mh… that wasn’t even marginally better than what she just thought… so she decides to add, “sir.”
It… wasn’t of much use, though, because the Major’s eyes just turned into slits and she’s pretty sure if he actually were a dog, he’d have probably growled at her, his fangs bared. He’s about to say - or probably rather snarl - something when suddenly… the Lieutenant speaks up, “I think she’s telling the truth, sir.”
Oh. Huh. What? She blinks and looks at the Lieutenant again. Right from the beginning it had struck her as odd that such a young woman - she’s pretty sure the Lieutenant isn’t older than Darkkin, with her fresh faced looks and the two braids coiled into snakes in her neck, making her look rather like a farm girl than a Lieutenant in Special Operations - would be present at such a meeting. She’d been introduced as the team’s case officer but until now she hadn’t really paid her much mind. Apparently, that was a mistake.
Because the Major… doesn’t simply shut the Lieutenant up with a bark - figurative one, not actual one - but regards her with a look that’s accompanied by a different kind of rippling and might probably count as thoughtful. Then he says, “Are you sure, Lieutenant?”
Tarrere nods. “Yes, sir. She really is from a galaxy very far away and probably not even in the same universe, the man she called Major Lorne is her superior and the only thing she wants to do is go home.”
What the hell? She didn’t say that last bit! Okay, so she might have hinted at it but she never actually said it out loud. Seriously, she didn’t! How… oh. Right. Right. “So we’re supposed to believe her?”
Yes, you stupid tyke, she wants to say, you are goddamned supposed to believe me but there’s a warning glance from Boss and somehow that has the amazing effect on her of making her keep her mouth shut and let the Major and Lieutenant hash it out.
“Exactly that, sir. Lieutenant Cadman’s story is genuine.” Why, thank you, she wants to say but… is aware of the fact that it’s still not a good idea to do so. So she tries to listen to her inner Major Lorne and forces herself to keep her goddamn trap shut.
And it actually pays off. “Alright, fine. But I want her to be confined to the Special Ops deck. And I want a cover story. We don’t need people running around being freaked by interdimensional travel or whatever happened here in the middle of a fucking civil war.”
She’s just this close to asking if she’s supposed to make up her cover story or if she gets a handler who’ll keep her leash and walk her around but she wisely refrains from saying that. Even though it’s starting to become mighty difficult to refrain from saying anything. So… she’s even kind of glad when Boss opens her mouth for the first time, “I’m gonna have an eye on her, sir. Lieutenant Tarrere helped assigning her quarters and we’ve got a rough draft of a cover story. It’s been submitted to your padd, sir.”
Wow. Who would have thought that there’s actually someone Boss defers… no, she didn’t. Defer to the Major, that is. Actually Boss just steamrolled him and for some reason she’s starting to find that highly amusing. Even excruciatingly funny… which is why she can’t help but utter a very low snort.
However, it was still loud enough to get everyone’s attention on her again. Oops. “You have something to say… Lieutenant?”
Goddammed, yes, she has? Alright, alright, professional. Be professional, Cadman. “No, sir.” Or maybe… “Actually, yes, I do have something to say, sir. What about finding and extracting my superior, Major Lorne?”
Because they damn well owe that to her and most of all him because he saved their goddamn asses. And… Boss seems to have listened when she told her after her little visit to the infirmary because she says, “Lieutenant’s right, sir. We can’t leave him in the hands of the Imps. Plus we still need to fulfil our original mission objective.” Which she still has no idea what it actually was but she still kind of hopes someone might think it feasible to tell her at some point. Preferably right now.
“About that mission objective, Captain…” It’s still weird, she thinks, to see the big Shistavanen female be officially addressed by her rank.
“Captain Sandwalker is still alive and uncompromised, sir. An encrypted transmission from two hours ago confirmed that.” And apparently, it doesn’t serve its purpose, anyway because she just chose to interrupt a superior officer. She’s not sure how Major Lorne would have taken it if she’d done that to him and goddammit, she misses him and can that stop please?
This Major… well, he definitely doesn’t take it well, judging from the furious rippling of his fur and the slit eyes again. That doesn’t really surprise her actually… but what does is him saying, “A second extraction attempt is not a go currently, Captain. I want this mess sorted out before.”
“Actually, sir… we might not have that much time. I read the transmission and it seems that Captain Sandwalker has encountered Lieutenant Cadman’s superior and is not very confident that he can keep up his cover for much longer.” That was Tarrere again and she starts to get an inkling of how she got to be Boss’s case officer, despite being younger and being outranked by her and everything.
And apparently, her word seems to have some weight at least - or maybe it’s just the concerted power of logic assaulting the Major - because after another moment of apparently weighing his options, he growls, “Fine. Have the Folly and Krayt team on standby but monitor signals only and concentrate on getting the situation under control here.”
It looks as if both women want to say something - and she’d like to add that the “situation” isn’t nearly as grave that it needs to get under control again before setting out to rescue her Major - but the Fur Monster seems to be fed up with all three of them because he just adds, “You’re dismissed. Get out.”
Alright, it’s probably a good idea not to argue with him, seeing as both Boss and the Lieutenant are doing their best not to actually scramble out of the room. She just follows, wondering what will be next in store for her… “Can I kill her now, Boss?”
What the… what, is all she can think at suddenly hearing a barely restrained female voice directly after exiting the briefing room. It belongs to one the pilots she’d briefly seen before being hauled off the shuttle they came with, a dark-skinned woman, probably in her mid-thirties, her black hair pulled back in a simple, kind of austere bun in a dark blue uniform wearing just another kind of rank insignia she can’t construe. She swears, if looks could kill, she’d be deader than dead now.
“No, you can’t, Vir. And you won’t,” Boss simply says, though but that doesn’t really do anything to keep that woman from shooting her dagger looks.
She throws Tarrere a short look and is met with a cautioning glance. What the hell is going on here? “She fucked up the mission, Boss.”
Oh, and that’s enough to want to kill someone? Okay, so she’d entertained that notion once or twice, too, usually when some idiot, military or scientist alike, caused her to end up in the infirmary nursing some more or less inconvenient injury. But… “I certainly didn’t fuck it up on purpose. And who the hell are you? Do you like walking around and throwing death threats at other people?”
Fuck, she’s doing it again. She’s letting her tiredness and her underlying panic and her general annoyance get the better of her. But currently, the fear that something will happen to Lorne and leave her stranded behind here, in a strange galaxy and in the middle of a war that isn’t hers, is starting to seriously get at her and she wishes she had at least some means to communicate with Lorne. What wouldn’t she give to hear him reassure her that everything will be alright in the end and how embarrassing is it to actually need that reassurance?
She’s almost about to grit her teeth and apologize to the woman who seems to have a hard time of keeping up a restraint façade when Boss speaks up again, “Lieutenant Commander Virina Moren, this is Lieutenant Laura Cadman. Be nice to each other, you’re both gonna be stuck here for an unspecified amount of time.”
Oops. She somehow managed to piss of someone who’s outranking her and apparently some kind of naval officer. Well, she thinks, Marines kind of live to do that so everything’s alright. “She fucked it up, Boss. That was a perfect chance to extract Delv and she fucked it up. She and that idiot who’s probably some kind of Imp spook and…”
Alright, that’s enough. “That idiot saved your guys’ asses, okay? He’s out there, risking his life in a galaxy that’s not his own for people he doesn’t even know and I need to get him back. We need to get out of here, and we need to do it together and we did not fuck up your goddamn mission because we found it a pretty neat idea, ma’am. We…”
“Enough, Lieutenant.” She swallows. Until a moment ago she was on a roll and she’d probably have read a Lieutenant Commander the riot act in the middle of a ship’s corridor with two other officers present… but then Boss stepped in again, her voice a low growl.
But she’s had it and… “Vir, tell Dargon to have the Folly prepped for immediate take off. As soon as we have cleared up a couple of things regarding Lieutenant Cadman here, we’re going to get back and complete the mission.”
For a moment, it looks as if Moren is going to argue again but something in Boss’s voice or maybe her look must have been convincing enough that she seems to get a grip on herself. After another murderous look. She simply says, “I’ll see to it.” And then, in her direction, “This isn’t over by a long shot, Lieutenant.”
With that, Moren stalks off, probably to the hangar and she turns back at the two other officers, incomprehension probably written all over her face. “Anyone want to explain what the hell that was about?”
After a moment of looking at each other, it’s Tarrere who answers instead of Boss, “Captain Delvin Sandwalker, our extraction target, was a fellow student of Commander Moren’s at the Imperial Academy on Carida. They stayed in touch even after she changed sides and he informed us of his defection through her.” Oh. Well. Alright. “Your appearance through a hydrospanner in the works so it’s…”
“Understandable that she’s pissed off, yes,” she finds herself saying because… well, if they still stayed in touch after she went from the dark side to the light… even she’s smart enough to realize that there’s probably more to them than just fellow students. “But she is aware of the fact that we did none of this on purpose, right?”
Tarrere sighs. “Yes, I think she is. I know she is.” There it is again, that weird frown and then a calm and confident confirmation of something. So… can Tarrere read minds? “No, I can’t Lieutenant. I have some empathetic abilities but I’m not a telepath.” What the hell? “You’re easy to read.”
“I am not...” Okay. She probably is. She sighs. “Okay, I guess I am. So… anyway… what now?”
“Now…” Boss says and pulls up her jowls again, “now we’re gonna find you a place to crash and then we’re gonna introduce you to everyone as our new explosives specialist.”
Huh. Alright. “Sounds… like a plan. Especially the explosives thing.”
“After what you told us about yourself… we decided to stick as close to the truth as we could. We figured it was the best course of action,” Tarrere adds and for the first time, a little infectious smile grazes her face and she can’t help joining in. Yeah, that really does sound like a plan. So… maybe… everything will be alright in the end.
~*~TBC in Chapter Eleven.