Mistaken Loyalty, ... Loyalty, Loyalty... Only to Me

Posted on Fri May 7th, 2021 @ 6:06pm by Lieutenant Timmoz
Edited on on Fri May 7th, 2021 @ 6:11pm

Mission: The Place of Skulls
Location: Sojourner; Bridge, Turbolift, Corridors
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0500

"Excuse me sir?"

"Excuse me! Sir?!"

"Excuse me!" Pale copper fingers spread out across lean green torso, bringing the body to a stop. She had done an end-run around the tall whip of a man to halt him. "Excuse me, this is not a ship open to civilian merchants. You'll need to leave. Immediately." The woman with black hair, braided into two neat pigtails, and an interesting linear tattoo above her eyebrow glared at the tall man in a black utility vest and overly conforming to contour black pants. It was the flash of burnished copper armbands and the thin dagger on his thigh that had troubled Ensign Hashtlishnii. Now her sharp and rounded Navajo features bore down on the man and she gestured with an open hand, an invitation for him to leave the ship.

Timmoz raised an eyebrow. "Bunjeezu, are you taking your cue from the Vulcans now?" He muttered, memories of a similar encounter on the Vulcan freighter that took him to the wormhole from Qualor were eerily similar- but far more disciplined on the Vulcans' part. Timmoz reached into his pocket, gathering his hair back into a bunch with a hair tie. Hashtlishnii's eyes flitted with controlled irritability that this verdant stranger who clearly had no business on this nice, clean Federation ship failed to comply.

"Hashtlishnii to Security. We have an intruder on Deck Three." At that, Timmoz actually popped his eyebrows, face breaking into a genuinely bemused smile. Hashtlishnii put a hand on her phaser to emphasize her authority. It too much reminded the Orion of how Nico had had a phaser with him that night that it all seemingly ended.

"On our way," a gruff Andorian voice stated over the comm. Timmoz blinked, folding his arms over the spot on his bare chest the woman had halted him from.

"Sir do you have business on this ship? Yes or no?" Hashtlishnii pressed.

Timmoz's wide smile grew, bearing his top sets of double canines, "I thought I'd get a look at the Bridge. And where you fly this thing. Maybe take it for a quick trip around the solar system. Is that a problem?" He took a step to round the Security Officer. When she swayed around him again, she had her phaser drawn. Timmoz chuckled, dark eyes falling on the black nozzle of the emitter array. "Are you going to shoot me?" Timmoz's lanky arms moved up and he placed his hands in a surrender notion atop his head. Hashtlishnii pressed the phaser into his gut and then gestured with a swipe as if to tell him to turn around.

Timmoz did- as two Security officers logged up. One was Andorian, the other was Human. It was the Human who halted more suddenly than the Andorian. Timmoz grinned broadly at the Human who grimaced recognition across his face. "Oh, are you kidding me?" The Human said. The Andorian Vulcaned a snowy eyebrow, having moved to start securing Timmoz's arms.

"Stand down. Both of you," the Human said with a head shake, exasperated. The Andorian, hesitantly, lowered his hands, leaving half a securing cuff on Timmoz's slightly-smug, beaming countenance.

"What's going on?" The Andorian said in his resonant multi-tone, immediately suspicious as was the Andorian nature. He went to take Timmoz's chukaree off his thigh. Verdant green fingers snatched at the blue wrist, with that Cluros smile suddenly turning far more menacing.

"Do not touch that." Timmoz said as the Andorian easily snapped free of Timmoz's grasp and moved to secure Timmoz's hand by the wrist. A throbbing pain ebbed up into Timmoz's arm and flared at his elbow.

"I said stand down," the security man said. He sighed tersely. "This is a prank." Timmoz grinned around the ebbing throb in his limb. Hastlishnii and the Andorian raised their brows almost in unison. The Security man gestured with a roll of his eyes. "Hashtlishnii, Smesh. Meet Lieutenant Timmoz."

"Lieutenant Timmoz," Hashtlishnii said with a suspicious note, eyes flashing to his attire: bare chest, vest, tight pants, boots, jewelry. Disbelief was melting until a rictus of embarrassment.

"Right, Lieutenant Timmoz. The Chief Flight Control Officer." The man shook his head and sighed. Timmoz chuckled and pulled out of his vest pocket his pips and commbadge. He fastened the badge, at least, to the breast of his vest.

"Better?" Timmoz asked. "Can I go to the Bridge now?"

Hashtlishnii put her phaser away with a grumble while her Andorian counterpart stepped back, releasing the officer- though the blue one proffered no apology for the pressure lock. Timmoz rubbed his wrist, trying to rid himself of the last of the tense throb. "Apologies sir, I didn't know," Hashtlishnii said while the Andorian stepped close enough to just take away the half-cuff that he'd put around the Orion's arm.

"Very funny, Lieutenant," the head Security man said with a squint to one eye.

Timmoz grinned widely, toothily, again, "I thought so too."

"Get out of here," the man sarcasm'ed, thumbing Timmoz to continue his way, "Stop tormenting the new crewmen." Timmoz blinked impish bemusement and rounded the three again, shouldering his small black bag and proceeding into the turbolift.

Once the doors closed, Timmoz studied the band of latinum-lookalike satin metal that ringed the lift pod. He tapped it with a thumb, feeling it ring like metal- but certainly not sing like latinum. He sighed, assessing its cost on the black market was probably negligible. "Bridge. Direct." With a higher hum than the Adelphi's ancient lifts, more featherlight acceleration, the pod went into upward motion.

"Ow," Timmoz finally winced in private, rubbing his elbow and wrist. He sighed, lips pursing to the elusive, dark tune that had been on his mind. It was from childhood. As awareness arose of what it was, he mumbled a few of the words his mother had sung to him as a boy. "Hush child the darkness will rise from the deep and carry you down into sleep..." Fingers air-tapped the droning beat of the song, the airy swish of the doors opening carried him out into the idle hum and darkness. He eyed the condition gray icon flashing in the console corners but bade it no mind.

He could sense, after a moment, his earworm song judging his footfalls. He didn't sing the words but they ran through his mind like a ghost, in Vaina's honeyed voice. He could almost feel the memory of how she would rub-down the bone of his nose and eyebrows, young body drifting into drunken caudifaree sleep: Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty... only to me. Timmoz sighed, his eyes scanning. His gaze saw highlights that Humans did not- deep violets and blues. But those that were reds were obscured to him- Orions did not see red light as fully and richly as Humans.

It was, again, such a painfully Federation design. No soul. So... scientifically manufactured. Precise. Nothing of value. Nothing of worth or status, in this, the command center, the capital of this diminutive sloop. Timmoz's mouth tilted with the less-than-fully filling breath of disappointment. "Another cage..." he mumbled to the cool air. He moved to the Flight Control console. He tapped keys to release his console's lockout. It brightened and cast like webs the three-dimensional interface. Timmoz rolled his eyes. "What do these V'draysh have against a control stick?" He murmured, logging off and letting it again go dark. Soulless.

"Guileless son, each day you grow older... each moment I'm watching my vengeance unfold... for the child of my body, the flesh of my soul, will die in returning the birthright they stole..." Timmoz's brow rose, "Hmm... loyalty, loyalty..." He looked around the arc of the Bridge dome. "Tu xoquaan booska, Vaina... get out of my head." The Orion sniffed and decided to take his leave of this place. He decided to go find his quarters. "Hush child the darkness will rise from the deep... and... carry you off into...."

A Post By:

Lieutenant Timmoz
Chief Helmsman

OOC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny7NZPfl0l4 (Mordred's Lullaby)