[240103.09 Ancient ch`Rihan]
t`Bahyk, having seen the pair enter Rylan's tent, stomped off from the rest of the camp a moment to think things over. Why was he still with her? What was it about that stupid little barmaid, anyway? They couldn't possibly have anything in common!
And after a long time with fuming about this, and at the fact that Rylan didn't seem to be emerging from his tent after quite a while had passed, Bahyk believes that she came up with a plan. Just get him alone...talk to him...then he'll see. So, as she made up her social-climbing little mind, she headed into the ship on the pretense of needing help with a repair. Tapping open her com, she calls to Rylan, "Rylan...I need ninte help with something."
The sound of the beeping followed closely by t`Bahyk's rather loud voice woke him from the light sleep he had fallen into. Quickly searching the ground for his own com, he taps back and asks grumpily "What?!" then continues in a quieter tone so as not to wake Katara, "Right now?"
"Oh...I'm na bothering au am I?" she feigns ignorance of his location, clearing her throat a little as she waited for his answer.
Frowning, Rylan taps back as he glances at Katara's still sleeping face, "Ie! What is it au need?" then grumbles an angry "Fvadt..." to himself as he stands and gets dressed anyway, not wanting to wake Katara with all the com-talk.
"I'm sorry..." t`Bahyk answered through the com with a small triumphant smile, "But I need ninte help with this. I need to get into an access tunnel in engineering, and there's a big piece of machinery in front, blocking it." nodding to herself with that excuse, Bahyk walked a little faster towards the engineering section.
"Fine, fine, fine.." he grumbles back, "On my way..." As he stepped out of his tent and headed towards the ship, the tapped back to her again and asked annoyed, "What the Areinnye are au doing in there, anyway?"
[Morrhae`Vnu....]
Pausing a distance from the guard at the entrance to engineering so he couldn't hear, Bahyk answered "Oh..um...just wanted to check up on something... power-supply wise..." she resumes her course towards the guards, hoping that would be enough to satisfy Rylan's curiosity for now.
tr`Beck stands with his back against the wall by the door, tapping his foot to music remembered in his head. He sees the erie`Arrain approach closer, and straightens his uniform jacket a bit, "Jolan`tru..." he nods to her.
"Jolan`tru..." she nods curtly, stepping past the guard, not caring about him at this point.
Rylan's voice chose that moment to answer her back through the com, "Ie...I'm entering the ship now..."
tr`Beck looks oddly at t`Bahyk as she walks by him, "Was that the RS?" then holds out a firm arm in her way as she neared the door. "Where do au think au`rh going?"
"Ie, it was." she said with an exasperated sigh as she was stopped. Turning her angry eyes to the guard she explained moodily, "I have to go check out an access tunnel in engineering." then adds slyly, "By orders of the RS, he's on his way here."
Pulling out an isd with his the hand that wasn't blocking her way, tr`Beck pulled out an isd and looks it over, then taps Rylan, "Rekkhai, are au meeting t`Bahyk in engineering?" he asks slightly confused. t`Bahyk, who hadn't thought that the guards would check up on that, shifted a bit awkwardly.
"Ie..." Rylan's voice answers through his com, sounding more then a little peeved by this point. "That I am..."
"Hann`yyo, rekkhai." tr`Beck closes the line and moves his arm to let the erie`Arrain pass, "My apologies, security's orders." he nods to her.
"Au should be sorry!" she pushes past him angrily.
"Ninte subordinance has been noted." tr`Beck grins maliciously, as he makes a note on his isd.
Giving him a dirty look as the doors to engineering open, t`Bahyk points her elbow at him, the Rihan equivalent of 'flipping someone off'.
A few minutes later, Rylan finally reaches his destination with a sour expression on his face. Seeing the Eredh guarding the door, he nods to him and walks beyond. tr`Beck returns the nod from the RS, and when the doors to Engineering close once more, leaving the Eredh alone in the hall, he sits down on the floor, listening in on the bug he had placed on Bahyk without her knowing about it.
Rylan stops just inside the door, seeing t`Bahyk standing in the middle of the room. Looking around a moment, he doesn't see any of the access tunnels entrances blocked. Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he raises a skeptical brow, "So...where's this big thing that needs to be moved? And why na just ask the guard outside?" he asked, suspecting now that he was here, that she had made the whole thing up.
"I got it by myself." she smiled as she stepped closer, "But, now that we are here, I needed to talk to au..."
"For element's sake..." he sighed, stepping further into the room "Au couldn't have just talked to me? Au had to bring me *here*?"
"I couldn't talk to au with...her..around." t`Bahyk shrugs, "I had to get au alone."
Baffled by that, Ry shrugs, "Why? Whatever au have to say to me, Katara could hear it too." he pauses a moment, then adds, "Unless its military secrets..."
t`Bahyk laughs at this, "Oh, au are so funny!" she takes another step closer, "Na! I just wanted to talk."
Leaning up against a console, Ry shrugs, still with his arms crossed, "So talk, now that au went to all that trouble to trick me into coming here." he frowns at her, "What is it au want?"
Knowing that this wasn't working out the way she had planned it, Bahyk just blurted her reason for wanting to talk out abruptly, "When are au going to dump that....." she paused ever so slightly, "Katara?"
"I'm na." Rylan looked at the girl as if she went suddenly nuts, "What makes au think I am?"
"Because she's..." t`Bahyk pouts, and settles on, "dumb!"
"She is na!" Rylan takes a severely angry step forward, "She has more going for her in the brains department than *au* do!" he pauses to very obviously 'check t`Bahyk out' then adds with a mean-spirited smirk, "And a lot more going for her in other departments as well."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" she asks insulted. Growing furious at the smirk on Rylan's face, she reared back and suddenly slapped him.
Though Rylan's head doesn't move from the impact, an angry hand print appeared on his face. t`Bahyk hesitates, seeing his eyes narrow and his hands clenching themselves into fists. The two stare at each other a moment before Rylan's cold and eerily quiet voice finally breaks the silence, "Don't hit me again. Ever." he warns her, then turns to head towards the door.
"Hey! Come back here!" she grabs him by the shoulder to stop him.
Forcing himself not to react to that, counting to ten as the Khensia suggested, his still quiet but menacing voice warns her, "Bahyk...I strongly suggest au na touch me right now."
"Or what? Au will hit me?" she angrily hissed back, "I'll hit au right back, au wort!"
"Na, if I were to hit au, I doubt au would get back up again." Rylan shakes his head, and continues on before she could anger him further, "Stay away from Katara too!" he warns her, still heading for the door, "I hear of au making things rough for her, I'll bust au down the ranks so bad it'll take au fifty years to climb back up to Erien!"
"Don't au talk to me like that!" t`Bahyk yells at him, enraged.
A coughing sound is heard from outside when tr`Beck opened the doors. As t`Bahyk yells her last at the Arrain, tr`Beck calls back to Rylan, "Umm, rekkhai? A word with au?"
But the RS did not seem to hear him. Turning back to face t`Bahyk, he continues the argument, "What did au expect then?! Au trick me to come in here, au insult my girlfriend, and then strike me - a *superior* officer and ninte Daise *as well as* the RS!! By all rights, I could demand to have au executed for that alone!" the Eredh's previous words finally clicked on that part of Rylan's brain made for hearing, and he turned a glare in tr`Beck's direction, "WHAT?!"
"I'm na done talking to him yet!" t`Bahyk screeches at the poor Eredh, before pointing an angry finger against Rylan's chest, "And au will na have me executed!" tr`Beck is stifled by that, then walks away from the door for a moment.
Still trying to keep his temper, Rylan sighs, "Na, I won't. But I'm na going to let au play the total susse-thrai with me either!"
Insulted to the point of not knowing what to say to that, Bahyk shakes her head, and throws up her hands, "Oh, forget this!!" she storms past, knocking into Rylan on her way, an indignant pout on her face. The angry girl is met just inside the door by the front of a disruptor pistol pointed directly towards her face. "What are au going to do? Shoot me?!" she asks the as yet unseen gun bearer.
Rylan, thinking incorrectly that she spoke to him, sighs and tries to apologize, "Bahyk..." then leans against a console instead, "Forget it..."
The unseen gun bearer warns the girl low, "Au have...3...seconds to explain why au are in a restricted area."
"I was let in by a security guard!" she declares angrily, "Who the Areinnye are au? And I'm with the imirrhlhhse-asi RS!!"
Rubbing a hand over his tired eyes, Rylan mumbles "I just don't believe this day...." then heads over to the doors, thinking to himself, *Way to keep the peace around here....wonder what the Leih would say about my capabilities now...*
A hand suddenly silences t`Bahyk's throat, still holding the gun to her face, Vyynd slides into the room, now carrying the wildly kicking girl slightly above the ground. The Daise`Dehno is followed in by tr`Beck. Looking to Rylan - who tried to keep that part of his face still showing a handprint in the shadows - Vyynd asks with a raised brow, "Rekkhai...this time of night...this place...?"
Not bothering to answer that question just yet, Rylan shakes his head, "Vyynd...could au please put her down? She's upset and angry...just let her go cool off. She didn't mean any harm."
Vyynd looks - eyes wide and sleep ridden - at Rylan, then sighs and releases the girl...the gun still held in air. "We have a *killer* on the loose..." Vyynd still stares at Rylan as if he's never seen him before, "And au two are having social conversations in the *crime scene*... I hope au both are aware..."
"Oh, shut up!" the girl yells at him as she pushes past to run off down the corridor before he had time to react to it.
"tr`Beck..." Vyynd addresses the Eredh behind him, "follow her, please. Make sure she causes na more problems? Hann`yyo."
Not wanting to explain the whole thing, and not sure he could anyway, Rylan only nods wearily. "Ie...sorry Vyynd. We didn't go into the back room..." Not seeing anything else to say, Rylan once more tries to walk towards the door, being sure to keep his face lowered, the hand print away from tr`Khaine's view.
"Ie." Vyynd nods towards the guard, standing in the shadows unseen at the entrance to the back room, "The back room is sealed off." Seeing Rylan shake his head at that, as he hadn't known there had been a witness to the drama that t`Bahyk had put on, Vyynd added "And I understand ninte situation... Ry..."
"Nanana..." Rylan shakes his head and shoots Vyynd a look, "It's na what au think! She called *me* in here...na the other way around."
"Don't let her get to au..." Vyynd finally puts his pistol away, "Ie, I know. tr`Beck is a great officer...he reported all of it."
Not exactly thrilled by that bit of news, Rylan nods, "Ie...well, if au don't mind then..." he resumes walking towards the doors, "Since I'm up...I have things I should be doing." he walks out without waiting for Vyynd at all.
"I had...*hoped* the weapon of an edgy Tal`Shiar agent would be able to... reach her?" Vyynd laughs and follows Rylan out the door, disappearing after tr`Beck and the woman.
Rylan doesn't answer this at all, just stomps off, quickly catching up with tr`Beck, and 'accidentally' bumping the boy into a wall on his way by. "Wah?!" tr`Beck suddenly let's out as he crashes into the wall.
Vyynd, sweeps up behind the boy and assists him up by the back of his shirt. "Lose her?"
"Ie, rekkhai..." tr`Beck answers before heading off once more, "Na entirely though..." he keeps his eyes to his scanner, trying to pick up signs of her.
[A few minutes later...]
After spending the day worrying it over, tr`Ahan who'd been guarding the back room of engineering, suddenly gets a case of the guilts, and he taps his com to Vyynd. "Rekkhai, I needed to speak with au. It's...some what urgent."
Vyynd who had just cleared the hull of the ship, turns and looks back, dramatically, at the ship then sprints back to engineering. Walking into the main room, he calls to the still hidden guard in the shadows, "Ie... tr`Ahan... what is it?"
tr`Ahan bows a bit, "Rekkhai...I needed to discuss something with au...about the night of the killing.
"Ie?" Vyynd looks around the room a moment, "We're alone....?"
"Well rekkhai..umm...I seem to be the only io willing to tell au this... but on the night of the murder, me and tr`Beck were supposed to be watching the ship. To make sure the villagers didn't sneak inside. But... we found out about this place in the villager's camp...a um...well, brothel. And we were there when we got notice of the murder from the RS."
Looking at the officer wide eyed, Vyynd repeats, "Au went....to the villager's encampment.... to a brothel....?" he paused a moment, then asked "Are au feeling okay?"
"Ie, rekkhai...I'm feeling fine." tr`Ahan answers, surprised that the Daise wasn't angrier about the whole admission. Vyynd turns his back to the officer, and paces a few steps away. "Umm...rekkhai...?" tr`Ahan asks quietly, "We did have alibis, so I thought I should tell au...even if we did get into trouble."
"Okay..." Vyynd rubs his head a moment, "Tell me again...why au two were scheduled to be watching the ship?"
"Because..the RS ordered us too. Wanted to make sure the natives didn't sneak in here."
"Then report this to the RS. All it is to me is more of a headache, and an excuse for au two being alive at the moment." Vyynd answered, "Mind au, if au do anything of the sort under *my* orders...I will remove any part of au that may find any use in going to a brothel..." he fades out through the doorway.
As Vyynd once more steps a few short steps out of the ship, he falls onto his back in the grass and looks up at the darkening sky. After a few moments, he gets up and heads back into his tent.
|