Yesterday, 03:50 AM
== Cargo Bay ==
As Rubicon rejoined the rest of the team, the Chief of Security was in the midst of hacking into the mysterious door. Whatever was behind this door had been enough for a Klingon to actually hide and not face their enemies head on, so it must have been pretty important to them. Either that or they weren’t your average Klingons. She would ere on the side of caution; not that she wouldn’t, but in Security just as in Medical you couldn’t take things at face value. Rubicon took a steadying breath as she took up position with her back against the bulkhead that Calleja was working at, so that she could keep an eye on their six again.
Calleja removed the casing from the lock she had been working on. Her brow furrowed slightly, though Rubicon hadn’t served with the woman long enough to be able to interpret it. Had they hit a road block? Calleja sighed and said, “OK, any of you got lockpicks on you?”
“Lockpicks, ma’am?” Rubicon asked as if she hadn’t heard right. “Like… physical ones?” Breaking and entering wasn’t in Rubicon’s wheelhouse; she was only barely proficient at using the hacking apps that came as default on a security tricorder. Asking for a physical lockpick would be like asking her OR nurses for a physical scapel. Way old fashioned. In fact, Rubicon realized she was probably making the same face that one of the OR nurses would have made if she'd asked them that.
As Calleja ordered the others to start scrounging around for possible keys to the door, Rubicon briefly wondered if it was the type of lock they could just hit with their phasers. Or could we even kick it off? But then she concluded that if either of those were an option, the Chief of Security would have already thought about it.
“So I caught that look earlier, when I asked you to check over the two on the ground,” Calleja’s words drew Rubicon’s dark brown eyes to glance at the other woman. It was only a brief look, as if Rubicon didn’t want to look. “There a story behind that? You not keen on keepin’ up with the doctorin’ work?”
“Oh.” It was all that Rubicon could offer at first. She readjusted the grip on her phaser, feeling the weight of the question as if Calleja had pointed a loaded weapon at her. Rubicon knew she would come face-to-face with these kinds of questions—had come face-to-face to those questions in the course of her Academy training, once she'd been found out—but standing in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation was not really the when she had expected them.
“I saw your background on your file. That kinda trainin’ stands out. I understand if you don’t wanna talk about it but it’s good for me to know not to call on you to do that again, if somethin’ did happen.”
“No… “ Rubicon fidgeted. Would this require the easy answer or the hard one? The Chief looked near-ish to Rubicon’s age, so she might understand some the trickyness of her situation. Some things just came with age and experience. Then again, this was really the first time they had spent any time together beyond Rubicon’s initial reporting in to the Artemis.
“No, it’s not that I can’t, or won’t. I keep my em-dee license up to date and all that,” a ghost of a look passed over Rubicon’s face as she remembered. Remembered the year from hell. Remembered the survival it took to make it out alive. Remembered how hard it had been to pick up the pieces of herself and put them back together in a new version of Rubicon. It was just too much to be thinking about right now; Rubicon scolded herself for getting distracted.
A breath later her expression changed as she pulled her professionalism back on like a cloak. Rubicon looked Calleja right in the eyes then, “Stress just does terrible things to a person, y’know?”
She looked away again, shaking off the remainder of the feeling. "I can get my hands dirty if you need it. Let's just hope you don't need to ask me to."
== Tag Calleja ==
As Rubicon rejoined the rest of the team, the Chief of Security was in the midst of hacking into the mysterious door. Whatever was behind this door had been enough for a Klingon to actually hide and not face their enemies head on, so it must have been pretty important to them. Either that or they weren’t your average Klingons. She would ere on the side of caution; not that she wouldn’t, but in Security just as in Medical you couldn’t take things at face value. Rubicon took a steadying breath as she took up position with her back against the bulkhead that Calleja was working at, so that she could keep an eye on their six again.
Calleja removed the casing from the lock she had been working on. Her brow furrowed slightly, though Rubicon hadn’t served with the woman long enough to be able to interpret it. Had they hit a road block? Calleja sighed and said, “OK, any of you got lockpicks on you?”
“Lockpicks, ma’am?” Rubicon asked as if she hadn’t heard right. “Like… physical ones?” Breaking and entering wasn’t in Rubicon’s wheelhouse; she was only barely proficient at using the hacking apps that came as default on a security tricorder. Asking for a physical lockpick would be like asking her OR nurses for a physical scapel. Way old fashioned. In fact, Rubicon realized she was probably making the same face that one of the OR nurses would have made if she'd asked them that.
As Calleja ordered the others to start scrounging around for possible keys to the door, Rubicon briefly wondered if it was the type of lock they could just hit with their phasers. Or could we even kick it off? But then she concluded that if either of those were an option, the Chief of Security would have already thought about it.
“So I caught that look earlier, when I asked you to check over the two on the ground,” Calleja’s words drew Rubicon’s dark brown eyes to glance at the other woman. It was only a brief look, as if Rubicon didn’t want to look. “There a story behind that? You not keen on keepin’ up with the doctorin’ work?”
“Oh.” It was all that Rubicon could offer at first. She readjusted the grip on her phaser, feeling the weight of the question as if Calleja had pointed a loaded weapon at her. Rubicon knew she would come face-to-face with these kinds of questions—had come face-to-face to those questions in the course of her Academy training, once she'd been found out—but standing in the middle of a potentially dangerous situation was not really the when she had expected them.
“I saw your background on your file. That kinda trainin’ stands out. I understand if you don’t wanna talk about it but it’s good for me to know not to call on you to do that again, if somethin’ did happen.”
“No… “ Rubicon fidgeted. Would this require the easy answer or the hard one? The Chief looked near-ish to Rubicon’s age, so she might understand some the trickyness of her situation. Some things just came with age and experience. Then again, this was really the first time they had spent any time together beyond Rubicon’s initial reporting in to the Artemis.
“No, it’s not that I can’t, or won’t. I keep my em-dee license up to date and all that,” a ghost of a look passed over Rubicon’s face as she remembered. Remembered the year from hell. Remembered the survival it took to make it out alive. Remembered how hard it had been to pick up the pieces of herself and put them back together in a new version of Rubicon. It was just too much to be thinking about right now; Rubicon scolded herself for getting distracted.
A breath later her expression changed as she pulled her professionalism back on like a cloak. Rubicon looked Calleja right in the eyes then, “Stress just does terrible things to a person, y’know?”
She looked away again, shaking off the remainder of the feeling. "I can get my hands dirty if you need it. Let's just hope you don't need to ask me to."
== Tag Calleja ==