#91 Shocking surprise

Posted on Wed Oct 23rd, 2024 @ 3:37pm by Commander Jordan Haines & Major Charlotte Thrace
Edited on on Wed Oct 23rd, 2024 @ 3:37pm

1,639 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Obsidian

"Computer locate Commander Haines." Charlotte said as she finished slipping her civvies on, with the replicators being down on the Arcadia she hadn't been able to replicate a uniform yet, and the Yi Sun-sin's weren't programmed for that, for obvious reasons.

"Commander Haines is on Deck 17 of Starbase Eleven." the computer answered, Charlotte smiled if he was on the base he was doing his rounds and wasn't in his office, perfect, just perfect she thought. The trip up to what was Jordan's office was relatively quick and uneventful. Getting in was a little interesting, Charlotte was glad Hannah had shown her a little bit of computer hacking trickery to bypass locks like this, it was a little close to the wind but in this instance harmless, once inside the office she took a seat in Jordan's chair and put her feet up on his desk, making sure not to knock the stacks of PADD's onto the floor, he had more paperwork than Pontmercy by the looks of it. Taking a breath, she settled down to wait, it took a while but she smiled when he walked in.

"Seriously you do paperwork now?" Charlotte said sticking her tongue out in a childish manner for the merest moment "I was expecting to find you topless in the lounge or locked up in the brig, who the heck are you and what have you done with Jordan Haines?" she giggled "Miss me?"

Jordan stood frozen in the doorway, his eyes widening in disbelief as he took in the scene before him. His normally composed and confident demeanor shattered in an instant. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. The mug he held in his hand fell to the floor, coffee spilling and yet Jordan didn’t move, he was frozen in shock.

His office had been invaded by Charlotte, someone he never expected to see here. She had effortlessly bypassed the security locks and made herself comfortable in his chair, even putting her feet up on his desk.

As Charlotte taunted him playfully, sticking her tongue out like a mischievous child, Jordan struggled to find words. He was afraid his mind was playing tricks on him.

A mix of shock, confusion, and a hint of amusement played across Jordan's face. He couldn't help but crack a smile, unable to contain the surprise and happiness that had taken hold of him. Deep down, he had missed her, had hoped to find a way I get around Starfleet and their stupid rules. They needed her.

"Charlotte," he finally managed to say, his voice tinged with a mixture of astonishment and affection. "You always have a way of surprising me. I never thought I'd see you here, let alone like this. It’s dam time you showed up, your marines need you.” And so did he but he wasn’t going to say it, he didn’t have to, Charlotte was good at reading between the lines.

There was that look Charlotte had been waiting for, the coffee spill was an added bonus, she now had a very good look at Jordan, he looked a little ragged, likely down to the circumstances but if Marius hadn't slept a solid eight hours in a while she was more than willing to bet that Jordan hadn't either. Having looked at the manifest she knew Joel was more than capable of doing the job, after all she'd taught him well, it wasn't marine command that had made her say yes to Marius, it was knowing that she couldn't let them go down this rabbit hole without their 'conscience and level head' to quote what Marty had once described her as.

"Oh come here you big softie." Charlotte said sliding her feet off of his desk before practically skipping over to Jordan and giving him a hug.

Jordan hugged her back and grinned. He wasn’t one for hugging. Showing emotion was something he had been taught was a sign of weakness but Charlotte was one of a handful of people who he trusted to see the Jordan he was deep down. “Now hell did you get them to bring you back. I’ve been harassing them forever and they just kept saying no.”

"Pure luck." Charlotte said just letting him hold her "Your Chief Intelligence Officer put in a request for an expert opinion on something, turns out Hannah's still on all the nerd lists so she gets the call, next thing I know we've pulled in here on our two hundred year old antique, she's put Yujas on the deck and I'm in Marius's office. Right place right time I guess."

Jordan let go of her and backed up a step. “I can’t wait to see the look on Joel’s face when he sees you are back.” Joel and Charlotte made a great marine team. Never in his wildest dreams would Joel imagine she might be back.

"Knowing Joel it'll be the most relieved look possible." Charlotte said "He's probably been checking the com bulletins daily for news on a department head. And no poaching him off of me this time." she smiled and backed up perching herself precisely on the edge of Jordan's desk "So what else did I miss?"

“I have no plans on taking Joel away.” Jordan said with a nod. “That was an error in judgement, the two of you work well together.” He took a deep breath. “It’s the same crap with Starfleet, they out us here, make up a bullshit story and here we are trying to figure out what to do about it. We have a couple people working on theories. One is to move the station but right now, we are putting our energy into our defenses.”

Charlotte half smiled, she'd often wondered precisely what kept Jordan in Starfleet considering that this sort of thing had a fairly likely chance of happening around them, she'd personally never forgiven Starfleet for putting them through that holographic psych experiment on Ghost. "Castle warfare." she said looking at Jordan "Is something that broadly speaking hasn't changed over the minimum of four thousand years its been around, it's the same balance of factors now in the 25th century that it was in ancient Troy. Back then it was location, walls, archers and spears, and resources." she took a breath, she didn't like to go at a rate of knots around Jordan "These days it's star system, weapons, shields and personnel, and power systems. Short term shields are a good thing, but beyond that our defenses are going to need to come out of a different playbook than they did at Ghost. Different board, different rules, different moves."

“I agree.” Jordan nodded. He smiled then. “You have a new Haines to meet. Jude is Josiah’s son and he is really smart when it comes to defenses. I think it should be a team effort to get us a really excellent system.”

"That'll account for at least some of the equation." Charlotte said "But we're somewhat hamstrung until a decision on moving the base is made and if it is to be moved where we're moving it to. I'm not about to tell you or Marius how to do your jobs but from a tactical standpoint if we're building a castle, we need to know where we're building it."

“That makes sense.” Jordan nodded. “The captain doesn’t want to move it until we have shields and power for sure.”

"And provided the components all work, power gets you shields." Charlotte said nodding "The hard thing will be resources, food and drink for starters. I know you'll say replicators but in a siege they're the first things to be taken offline. And just between us, though not much of a secret I've never really liked replicated stuff doesn't quite taste right, I had to get Stokes to program my personal recipe for hot chocolate into the Ghost replicators just so it was passable."

“I thought about a chef.” Jordan admitted. “But most crew go to the restaurants on the promenade and we already have inquiries into a couple.” He grinned. “I feel what your saying I despise replicated food.”

"You should probably look into getting some botanists and see if anyone likes gardening or if anyone comes from farming roots." Charlotte said "Take a couple of decks on the base, grow our own fruit, vegetables and other plants, maybe even some medicinal herbs. Self sufficiency is going to be the name of the game here."

“I will speak with the captain.” Jordan nodded. “That is a good idea.” He was already thinking of contacting someone. “I am sure he will be totally on board with it as well.”

"All right guess I'd better go and see what mess awaits me." Charlotte said she slid off of the desk and walked towards the door, as she walked past Jordan she gave him a kiss on the cheek "That's platonic don't get any ideas." she said as she walked to the door before stopping and glancing around at Jordan "Just because we're fighting Romulan and Cardassian factions doesn't mean we're fighting every single Romulan and every single Cardassian." she took a breath "And Jordan don't shut me out, you know what happens when you do... I break in." she stuck her tongue out at him again before walking out of the office, the message quite clear she was back and by the looks of it he was happy.

Jordan watched her leave and shook his head, a smile crossing his face. He had changed and wasn’t as blood thirsty. It then, he had changed her as well. They worked well together now, there was no opposing sides.

**************

Commander Jordan Haines
Executive Officer
Starbase Obsidian

First Lieutenant Charlotte Thrace
Marine CO
Starbase Obsidian

 

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