A/N: I use to make it a habit to make a chapter at least 1000 words or more, which I did with this chapter but I'm afraid that if I do that then I won't be happy with the chapter. in this case it added a dimension I believe I was lacking. the further we go on in this story the more the chapters have... like I said I already have up to chapter 15 written out and if I add I'll probably need to restructure the story. so the question is would you rather read shorter chapters going on the path that is already established or would you rather have longer chapters that may go off that path? (I do promise that chapters will be at least 750 words... I hope)
"Space vampires."
A few days had passed and Rose was able to avoid the ships councilor up until now. Rose was walking down towards the labs and now she was getting annoyed with the use of the term 'space vampire. It seemed the counselor was not only talking about the creature but sensed her as well. It was just odd hearing it said to gain her attention.
"Damn." like most, she didn't want to dive into her inner most turmoil. She tried to go back the way she came but was already caught and seen.
"Lieutenant commander!" The counselor always knew when someone was avoiding her and always knew when they tried to get away.
Rose sighed and stopped in her stride, she took a deep breath in and said. "Yes councilor?"
"You've been avoiding me." It was blatantly clear, there was no joke in her tone; it was only straight to the point.
"Yessss?" Rose had hope that she wouldn't need to follow the councilor and have a chat, but that hope was only a hope which she knew would never become true.
"Why may that be?"
"Oh, you know. Don't want to talk, have bad memories of psychologists; etcetera etcetera." Rose was a bit jittery but nothing that was abnormal, at least for her.
She raised an eyebrow, "Shall we continue this in my office."
"I suppose." Rose knew she would not be able to get out of it and quite frankly it would give her a brief break from running around.
Troi smiled, "Good."
Again, as Troi walked with Rose she saw two other crew members locked in eye contact. But there was no fear, crew were rarely this public but it could just be a coincidence. So Deanna just shook it off. "You do not seem nervous." It was true Rose was not nervous; it was more like uneasy… frantic in a sense.
"Really? That's a first, I normally loathe speaking to people." she then muttered. "Maybe because I already know what this is about."
"Oh really?"
"There's been some concerns with the division I am in; Lieutenant Worf seems to keep an eye on me and I am going to be a crew member of the flagship. Sooooo I get it." she shrugged. "Simply security I supposed."
They finally arrived to Deanna's office, "You're not wrong. It is rather unusual to see a command officer with a science division."
Rose remarked, "Yeah, well the whole situation was unusual."
Deinna nodded, tucking that bit of information to the side for now. "Is it alright if I call you by your given name?"
"Whatever makes you comfortable." she plopped down on a sofa. "I'll answer to both, if it's someone who I respect."
"That statement is a question for another day Celestial."
Confirming the thought Rose stated, "Yeah it is." she watched the councilor sit down. "So what do you want to talk about?"
"Your team, when they first arrived, they seemed anxious and you were relieved. And now they are calm and your-" Being interrupted would only prove her point.
"Frantic yeah. I suppose someone would have picked up on that. Since the last day when the captain, commander, doctor and Lieutenant worf beamed down it seems like documentation has gone wrong. There was a transportation command issue, which i still need to address, and now anything I previously documented has seem to slowly gone missing. I was relieved to leave that post. I never had intentions staying there for as long as I did."
"Stuff has gone missing?"
"Yes, or atleast misplaced which is odd. I'm the only one allowed access to the artifacts currently, minus your senior staff. It's all just odd."
"Could you be stressed enough where you unintentionally misplaced them."
"See I thought about that. And one or two or even three pieces would make sense, but now the count is up to seven. I was on my way to check one more unit before I talked to Lieutenant Worf."
"Worf did voice some possible concerns-"
"I understand."
"Mentally, other than your misplaced artifacts, how are you doing?"
Rose took a deep breath in. "Relieved."
"Is that all?"
"Actually, for once yes."
Deinna would allow the young Lieutenant commander to leave for now, but there was currently more information she would have to look into and while she held concern for Rose she knew prying too much early on would only jeopardize what little trust they were currently establishing. So she made a list of questions she would need to eventually ask, and currently the top question was; What happened on her last starship posting?
Rose, well Rose knew more questions would be asked. That they would dive into her 'psyche.' She also knew that the counselor was good at her job and eventually they would need to deal and handle her past. But for now she needed to find the samples.
(~)
In a cargo bay there was a small gathering, it was just a few of the Zunravid team; six out of the fifteen and that included Lieutenant Davix… of course they would be short lieutenant commander Rose, that was a requirement. But the others that were there were only a couple compared to how many these team members knew were on board. These others that stood around them were pale in sorts and they were silent. The two others were there just to listen, it would seem like they weren't there anyways.
The small lieutenant had only gathered the few science officers just to get an understanding of what was occurring and to hopefully see in the transporter discrepancy was fixed.
"The Doctor is starting to examine us."
The lieutenant only raised an eyebrow knowing that the ensign that just spoke was one to startle easily. "Okay? And that is important why?"
"She's just asking all these questions."
"It's not like you remember everything anyways."
"But that makes it harder!"
"Yes and we have witnessed you blurt out unnecessary information before." Davix came up to the young man's shoulders; and in hindsight it was more comical than it should have been because she had to reach up to place her hand onto his shoulders… and it probably wasn't as relieving as she thought it would be. "Its all fine."
The ensign nodded and repeated. "It's all fine."
Davix quickly took her hands off of him, "Good. Now what happened to the transporter mishap. Is the log finally deleted?"
This time another ensign answered. "Uh, yeah, yes I think I found the last copy so there should be no record since the Enterprise hasn't linked up to an outpost yet."
"And you covered the trail."
"Yes, it was actually easier than it should have been."
"Okay good, now just remember to report anything unusual back to me got it." The small sea of green nodded. "Good, now you can all go." None of them waited to be told again, they all just rushed out and Davix just stood there with the other two people thinking of what was next to come.
Thank you for reading, any errors are of my own. let me know what you all think!
