[JP] Marshall, Sienelis & Josett - That's When You Need to Put Yourself to the Test (Part III)
Jo Marshall
((That Night: Lena's Room, Shared Passenger Suite))
O. Marshall: I don't think we're going to pull this off.
::Words said partially muffled into the back of Lena's shoulder as he lay behind her, Bear looked into the middle distance between the bed and the door, eyes entirely unfocused on anything. Frenetic energy consumed, breath climbing down from heavy, skin still flushed and warm, days of overthinking details ran rampant through a brain that had not been thinking of much at all only a short while ago.::
O. Marshall: Do you think we'll pull this off?
::Lena shifted at that, sheets rustling as she turned over to lie on her back, curls spilling over the pillow when she looked toward him. She brushed the back of her fingers along his jawline, the stubble scratching against her skin in a not-unpleasant manner.::
Josett: Yes. ::She smiled, the expression soft, gentler than her usual nuclear fusion of a grin.:: What's brought this on?
::Moving with her fingers, he shifted the elbow he leaned on, and flattened his hand on her stomach. While the thoughts inside his head made sense, articulating them in the space between them was another hill to climb, and it took a not inconsiderable amount of willpower to speak rather than run his hands over her curves, negating the need for language altogether.::
O. Marshall: Plans, details, all of it. It's dangerous, Lena. There's no escape from this if it goes wrong. For me, for Valesha— ::He blinked away the unfocus of his gaze and found amber eyes instead.:: —for you.
::She met his gaze and watched him for a short while, as though trying to see through those blue eyes and straight into his thoughts.::
Josett: It's not the first dangerous thing you've done.
O. Marshall: But the first outside of Starfleet. Without their intelligence. ::He exhaled, tonguing his cheek, threading his fingers through his hair.:: The first that could get someone killed by the Syndicate.
::Lena nodded, small and slow, and there was something that looked a lot like understanding in the depths of her eyes.::
Josett: Why *are* you doing this?
::Wasn't that the question? He debated lying — vulnerability had never truly settled in his soul properly — but nights of trusting the woman beside him unravelled it. As bared in spirit as he was in skin. Seconds trickled by in the silence, spinning with unspoken thoughts, until he broke it with a sighed exhalation of surrender.::
O. Marshall: It'd be a short life spent looking over my shoulder, waiting for the Syndicate to catch up. And I don't believe she's capable of what she's accused of. ::His gaze flickered to the door briefly, before returning to honeyed eyes.:: You never did tell me why you are.
Josett: And lose some of my mystery?
::That encouraged a mute grin from him as he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, drawing a quiet chuckle from her throat.::
O. Marshall: I doubt you ever could.
((Two Days Ago: Outside the Courier's Quarters))
::Valesha resisted the urge to poke and prod at the prosthetics Lena had applied to her forehead and face. After several minutes of concerted and disconcerting staring to decide exactly how to disguise her, the hybrid had announced that Antaren would be the perfect camouflage for the Romulan, since she could only add, rather than take away features.
::And so her hairline had been shifting back to the middle of her scalp, her forehead ridges extended further up and painted with freckle-like markings along their length. A pronounced prosthetic brow hid her eyebrows, her nose subsumed by another. Contact lenses disguised her striking green eyes in shades of muddy, unremarkable brown, her pointed ears carefully buried beneath thick, mousey hair pulled back in an untidy bun. To finish the effect, Lena had used yet another prosthetic to change the shape of her chin and jaw, and used make-up to give her skin a weathered look foreign to the pale, dewy-skinned woman.
::Completing the disguise was a pair of mucky overalls and a battered, bulky engineer's kit. She shifted as they waited for an answer from inside the quarters, the boots on her feet a size too small and pinching just enough to be irritating. Finally the door swept open, a grizzled human scowling out from the doorway.::
Woods: You here to fix the replicator?
Sienelis: What do I look like, a catalogue salesman? What else would I be here to do?
::"Let that sarcasm run free," Lena had said, "they'll expect you to be surly." That was, at least, something Valesha could easily oblige. The human scowled at her, flicking his gaze toward Bear, then jerked his head inside.
::The resplendent suite was something else entirely, looking almost separate to the ship in its design. Mimicking the layout of the Passenger Suite — only twice as large — artwork on every inch, statues and figurines stood in the wall space between doorways. In the open space, a large dining table sat, cream and gold, upholstered in light blue fabric. Bear looked up above it, catching something swaying in the periphery of his vision. Looking over his shoulder for the grizzled human, he pointed upward.::
O. Marshall: Who has chandeliers on a starship?
Woods: Your captain. ::Pointed a stubby finger toward one of the walls, he grunted.:: Replicator's over there.
::Admittance granted, the man peeled off back toward the table, where some kind of card and dice game was ongoing. He dropped himself into the empty chair, and the four men continued playing. Valesha glanced at Bear, a touch jealous that he was much easier to disguise than she had been, and sauntered over to the "malfunctioning" device on the opposite side of the room. Hunkering down next to it, she cracked open her kit, tapping her thumb against the control for the sensor device hidden in the casing.
::From one of the adjoining rooms, an Eska man strolled out. Crowned with a luxurious head of silken auburn hair, he glanced toward the two "engineers" with curious violet eyes, then toward the men gambling at the table.::
Woods: Finally sent someone to fix the replicator. ::And then lower, under his breath,:: VIP suite, my ass.
Ordena: Tired of trekking halfway across the ship to the mess hall, Woods?
Woods: You could say that, boss.
::While the Eska chuckled, Valesha flicked a glance at Bear, unfastening the panels underneath the replicator alcove to access its innards. That was the Courier identified, now they just had to see if they could figure out where in the gigantic quarters he had his cargo hidden.
::Bear leaned a hand on the side of the wall beside the replicator, clearly fine with letting Valesha complete the actual work they were there to do. Inside his mouth, he chewed on his tongue, eyeing the table of games in the periphery of his vision; looking as much as not looking, keeping up the appearance of being a thoroughly disinterested shadow.
::Dipping his hand into Valesha's toolbox, he drew out a tricorder — or what passed for one in the Syndicate array of equipment — and started a deliberately slow walk backwards from the disguised Romulan. Frowning at an intersection of the flooring, he adjusted the tricorder in hand and walked a few steps left, then forward, then back again. With a furrowed brow, he looked up between the two corners of the large room, then sighed loudly.::
O. Marshall: We're on a direct path here for the power outage, should be good to go. I'll let Engineering know to knock it out. ::He glanced to the table, with the same disinterested look.:: Shouldn't take more than a few minutes, sirs.
TBC...
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Orson Marshall
Fugitive
G239304JM0
&
Fugitive
T238401QR0
&
Scallywag
Orion Syndicate