Searching for Rebecca Lange, Part 3 The Truth, Eirly

Posted on Tue Jul 30th, 2024 @ 1:32pm by Captain Remy Johansen & Lieutenant Eirly Andersen

1,561 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Helping Brunel
Location: Earth, The Himalayas
Timeline: MD 14, Concurrent with Part 2

When Eirly was brought into the facility she was taken up several floors. Almost the entirety of the facility was hidden inside of the mountain, but there were several places where windows overlooked the mountain's edges, masked to outsiders by forcefields camouflaging the windows behind a perfect replica of the mountain side. Eirly was taken to one of these rooms, the only furniture being a long bench placed in front of the window.

Eirly was escorted to the bench, while a tall male with dark hair and black eyes stood near the door. "Make yourself comfortable, Ms. Andersen. I believe you'll find the view, breathtaking." He spoke Federation Standard with an accent, an Earth dialect, maybe a Betazed one?

Although they were nowhere near the summit, one look out of the window showed that it was a long way to the valley below. Other snowcapped mountains were visible not so far in the distance.

The sight of the snowcapped mountains was enough for a small tear to leak from Eirly's eye as she took it all in. It made her miss home and her own slightly disembodied words in reply echoed the man's, "It is breathtaking. You're right." She missed the cold, the snow, the fresh and crisp air. "I miss this. How did you know?"

"Well, I must admit your presence was a bit of a surprise. I don't know nearly as much about you as I would like. Where you are from, that you were recently promoted to Chief of Security of the USS Astrea. That Starfleet is a bit of second career for you," the man responded, taking a few steps forward.

"But really, any warm-blooded person would appreciate the wonders of a view like this. If you cooperate, you might even get a chance to go outside and take in the fresh air," he added. "Now, shall we get down to business? There is some information I am to collect from you."

"I feel sick." A wave of nausea came over Eirly and she held back the feeling of wanting to be sick as she looked down at the ground. Her normally light-tanned skin was looking slightly more pale and her eyes were slightly glassy too; it was a feeling she never liked but being able to go outside would help for sure.

After a few moments of waiting for the nausea to pass, Eirly looked up and her brain registered that he'd said her presence was a surprise, but who was he? "You know about me but I don't even know who you are. Tell me that and I can answer questions." She should've been more aware of her surroundings and the potential danger she was in, but she had to focus on one thing at a time.

"You can call me Brandon, but that's about all you are going to get for now. I hate to say it, Ms. Andersen, you seem like a perfectly pleasant person. Sharp. However, you aren't really in a position to bargain here. I'll get the information one way or another," the man said.

"You are traveling with your Captain and another Starfleet Officer assigned to your ship, who is also a member of the Yohee Clan in the Quath'Mar. I'm tasked with finding out why. A bit of a motley crew of travel companions the three of you make, don't you think?"

"Thank you, Brandon. I'm fine with knowing that much about you, it makes this interrogation a bit less formal now. And I do pride myself on being pleasant, so I'll take that as a compliment." Eirly half smiled and made sure it wasn't too bright. "But you're right, we do make a bit of a motley crew." She nodded in agreement.

"I simply got paid a visit from the Captain asking if I wanted to go with her and I said yes, even though she told me I didn't have to come if I didn't want to and it wouldn't reflect badly on myself either." Eirly continued on as she kept watching him, "I trust her and I also trust our other companion. They've been nothing but good to me, so why wouldn't I choose to go?"

"So it is official Starfleet business then?" Brandon asked. He clasped his hands behind his back as he leaned in for an answer. "Just in Lhasa for a visit? We can have you back in San Francisco by morning."

Eirly stood up, more to stretch her legs than anything, and walked closer to the window and looked out before turning back to him, sizing him up and knowing full well her could take her down if she tried anything, "You obviously know that my first career was a baker, but you wouldn't know that my specialty was pastries and sweet treats, right? Well, I did what I do best and baked some sweet goods, gave it to one of the families on board and their adopted son had a life-threatening reaction to it that our current technology and medicine couldn't help with."

"I wouldn't be going as far as saying this is official Starfleet business though," Eirly admitted.

"A food reaction seems simple enough to treat by Starfleet standards. Is the boy here for treatment?" Brandon asked.

"He's still on the ship and his vitals were steady, last I heard." She felt a small wave of nausea come rolling back through her stomach and mind so she sat back down again, "His genetic makeup isn't known to our systems so the medicine is ineffective, hence why we're down here to look for some help. By any chance, am I able to at least get a glass of water, please?"

Brandon looked up at the camera in the room and waved and made a quick gesture with his head.

"Of course, no reason not to let you have some water. Now tell me. The boy, Johansen. What are you doing in Lhasa? What sort of help do you think is here?" Brandon asked. "Why an unannounced visit? Why is a newly commissioned Captain leaving her ship?"

Such a barrage of questions to answer, "First off, thank you. Secondly, I didn't get told the full details of why we were coming down here, but it was to visit an old friend of the Captains and hopefully she'd be able to help us find a cure to help the boy. I don't know what is going through her mind, but I do know that she wouldn't have left the ship if she didn't believe she could trust her XO to run it while she was gone. And anyway, isn't Lhasa a free country? Aren't people allowed to come and go without needing to have a reason for visiting?" She raised an eyebrow in response.

The door opened and a young female in white brought in a glass of water. Brandon took it and dismissed her. "You have quite a lot of questions, Ms. Anderson," he stated as he crossed the room to hand her the water. "When one answers questions with questions the truth is usually hidden. And it is painfully obvious that the one answering is trying to hide something."

"If I recall correctly, I've only asked five questions and three of them were more rhetorical than anything." Eirly retorted as she took the glass and held it in her hands for a moment, feeling the cold cooling down her hands, "Otherwise, I believe I've been answering the questions you've been asking me. To the best of my knowledge, mind you."

"You'll forgive me if I don't think that that last statement of yours was completely honest," Brandon stated, his dark, almost black eyes looking back at her. "We know a bit why Captain Johansen and Commander Razka might have come here. You can say we might have expected the Captain, and the Commander is a known associate of his. Perhaps I should backtrack."

"If this isn't Starfleet business, how did you and the Captain get to be so close then?" Brandon asked. He watched for her to take a drink - the water should have been dosed with a small amount of truth serum.

Eirly turned her grey eyes to his dark eyes and realized with a split second of panic shooting down her spine that he was Betazoid and that he would be able to read her thoughts or at the very least, her emotions. That could be dangerous. She gave another half smile and then looked down to a small drink from the glass in her hands. It tasted a bit funny but that could've just been what normal water tasted here in Lhasa. "We're not close, not like her and the Lounge Manager, or her and the XO. I've only been on the Astrea for the last three or so weeks and I'm taking all this as an opportunity to show she can trust me and what I can do, if i'm being honest."

"Is what you plan to help the Captain with legal?" Brandon asked. "We noticed you weren't wearing uniforms, and your communicators had no identifying information." He saw that she had only taken a small sip and hoped it would be enough. He had a hypospray in his inside jacket pocket, but he didn't want to use it.

~TBC~

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