Vice Admiral Quinn Reynolds - Upsetting the Apple Cart
Quinn Reynolds
((Vortex, Neon Heights, Nassau))
Quinn stood in what had been the leisure district, back when the Syndicate had ruled the asteroid. Hotels, bars, restaurants, clubs, gambling dens, and other establishments of illicit entertainment had lined the winding streets. Nassau’s new inhabitants had repurposed though many of those buildings—turned them into housing, storage, workshops and such—they had made no effort to change the storefronts.
As such, the area was still bathed in the glaring sunset colours of the original signage and advertisements, earning it a new nickname among the asteroid’s residents: Neon Heights. As far as she’d seen, the survivors found the situation darkly humorous, and even took pride in the strange juxtapositions. Grim amusement in things like their clinic operating out of Ugami’s (formerly a restaurant of good food and dubious clientele, even for Nassau), a school inside the Jackpot Palace (a former gambling den of particularly ill repute), and a workshop based in Rock, Paper, Strippers (once a... well, she didn’t need to spell it out),
And the seat of power hosted in what had been one of the largest and seediest nightclubs: Vortex.
No one had ever accused Quinn Reynolds of being a party-hard clubgoer, not least because they made her desperately uncomfortable. Too much sensation; the press of bodies, the roar of music, the strobing lights, the smell of sweat and perfume and alcohol.
Vortex made her just as uncomfortable, but for a very different reason. The nightclub felt wrong; without its music, lights, and crowds, it seemed like a memorial to a way of life long since lost. And this memorial had its very own ghost; Kael Tam, a man who’d died nearly a decade ago, and yet haunting her still.
She watched him across the room, engaged in a conversation—or perhaps argument was a more accurate description—with an Andorian who’d been unremittingly hostile since he’d laid eyes on them. Concerned, it seemed, that the Gorkon would be the thing which finally drew the Borg to venture inside Ma No Umi. She couldn’t blame him for the concern.
Then again, it wasn’t as though the Gorkon had shouldered its way into their territory without invitation.
Reynolds: Looks like our arrival has upset the apple cart.
Neathler / Marshall: Response
They were sat at the bar, but its stocks were only empty bottles. Probably a good thing, all told; if ever there was a time she was tempted to have a drink, it was now. The initial shock had worn off, and she was left with a tangle of feelings she hadn’t the faintest idea of how to unpick. And when Quinn Reynolds felt like that, her first instinct had all too often been to simply submerge that tangle in enough alcohol she couldn’t feel it anymore.
Reynolds: I wonder how many others feel like he does. ::She glanced at her first and second officers.:: We might need to put out a warning for the rest of the crew to mind themselves.
Neathler / Marshall: Response
Commanding Officer
USS Gorkon
T238401QR0