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Mundai Colony - A need to get away

Posted Oct. 13, 2020, 6:28 a.m. by Lieutenant Commander Max Wynter (Chief Engineer / 2nd Officer) (David Shotton)

Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in Mundai Colony - A need to get away

Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in Mundai Colony - A need to get away

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Max Wynter (Chief Engineer / 2nd Officer) in Mundai Colony - A need to get away
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Snip

Ella let the man knock as long as she could. She hated these community evaluations as it was termed. At first the idea was to supplement the local law officers. Then it became a partnership. Now these chats no longer dealt with helping out domestic issues or someone in trouble but to seek out people that did not walk lock step with the moral majority as the Devout liked to claim publicly.

Opening the door the man held his fist up ready to move from a knock to a pounding. “Officiant,” she let the word roll off her tongue waiting for him to supply the detail past his honorific. The title Officiant was meant not to instill fear but respect. It was so close to official but also revealed they had the power to do something more than just show up at your door. His uniform was a bizarre mix of what was reminiscent of a clergy’s black robes and an officer of some military organization. The emblem of the Authority was twisted in a was around the symbol of the devout to make a grotesque image of something conjoined that could never be separated. If you fell in step with the blather spilling from the lips of the high priest and priestess you would see this emblem as revered. If not you were someone the Authority and Devout liked to talk to

Darienqueyuel,” he responded crisply and took a step forward into the door not caring that she was in the way nor that she hadn’t invited him in. “You may get me a refreshment,” he moved into the room looking around. As he scanned the room slowly, he began to remove the leather gloves that clad his hands. “Make it something warm. There is a nip to the air,” he pulled back her curtain watching a group of people the Authority officers were leading out of the building and into the waiting vehicle.

Ella tried to remain calm. She would give the Officiant anything he wanted as long as it kept him from searching her small apartment. “I have covine and te,” she offered. “Do you have a preference?” Turning to face him with a cup in her hand Ella held her breath slightly as she watched the man open her hall closet and peer inside.

“That people would no longer participate in activities that keep me from a warm bed,” he breathed the words letting his eyes trace Ella from her face down to her bare feet. A long pause filled the air between them before he replied, “covine…please. There is no reason to hurry this.” Taking a seat in one of her chairs, he let his eyes drop to the couch. “Do you have company,” he asked Ella staring at her as she brought the coffee to him. People always had tells when they were lying. Averting their eyes when speaking, clasping their hands, covering their chest with crossed arms: Some people did all three.

Why Darienqueyuel was asking this made Ella pause. She struggled not to look at the bedroom as Ella handed the officiant a cup of covine. “Why do you ask,” she tugged at the ends of her robe’s belt-tightening it against her body. It was silly but suddenly, Ella felt a wash of coldness flood her body as the man stared at her from across the room sipping her coffee.

“Your couch pillows are not where they should be,” he gestured with the cup. As her eyes darted to the couch, the throw pillows all women seemed to collect like shoes, lay skewed on the cushions. It was a simple act, moving a pillow out from behind you when you sat down, like when Max has sat down. The pillows on the other end were on the floor, where Ella dropped them when she sat next to Max and explained life here on Mundai. Ella’s heart raced along with her thoughts. How was she to help Max if the Authority found him cowering in a closet? There was no other place in her bedroom. The apartment was sparse with few places to store things away.

Ella opened her mouth a few times trying to find the words that were escaping her. Swallowing hard, she could almost hear the pounding of her heartbeat in her own ears. If she doubted for a second that the Authority has a role in his missing wife, it had ended with the man now sitting on her couch.

Ella

The man watched Ella, her body language and the way her face twitched like she was trying to say something and couldn’t quite get the right words out. The woman was hiding something, he knew it. He had seen too many people act this way, too many people make an excuse when there was no other logical answer than yes, I have company. Pursing his lips in disappointment that he had found yet another citizen in need of re-education, he tapped his knee with his fingers and stood up.

“There is no point making excuses,” he told her and placed the cup she had given him on the table. That same hand reached into his belt and drew out a stick about a foot long. The end glowed with a sinister blue light that everybody on Mundai knew. That stick would render a person stunned but compliant with an Officiants orders. It was used to move those they took from their homes to their cars and camps without fuss or noise and was almost more feared than the Officiant themselves. “I will see this person, now.”

He took the few steps towards the door of her bedroom as if he knew every inch of her room, and in truth, he did. On Mundai the apartments were all built to the same design. This meant that the Officiants needed waste no time searching rooms and closets they had to find. Every apartment was the same design, every house made to the same pattern. The only people allowed a choice between designs were the proven Devout. All the rest lived in the same apartment or house. It made the work of an Officiant so much easier.

Pausing at the door, he looked at Ella. The pause seemed to be for dramatic effect, or maybe a silent warning that he was ready in case she wanted to cause trouble or warn the person inside the room. His thumb pushed the switch on the shaft and the blue light suddenly flared, ready to be simply pushed against the unbeliever she was hiding. His other hand touched the control and the door slid open, what he saw made him pause again but this time it was in surprise. Once again he looked at Ella, but now his eyebrow was raised in a silent question.

Ella struggled to keep her expression neutral and not an abject shock as she took in the room with Max in it. Luckily the blush rising to her cheeks fit her being embarrassed with the officiant at seeing her guest in this manner and how much she was enjoying seeing her guest in this manner. Max’s slightly disheveled hair gave him a roguish look and as compared to the perfectly coiffed officiant, and supported the idea of what extracurricular activities had just been occurring. It was hard to not take in however Max’s perfectly toned chest. Her eyes traveled slowly, ever so slowly up from the crisp white linen sheet that cut across his lower body. Ella’s mind wandered for a split second to what was below that sheet causing the slight pink to turn more crimson.

“Hey, you never said you were bringing a friend,” Max said from Ella’s bed. Rolling over he pushed himself up on one elbow, his hand under the pillow like he had been sleeping, or maybe waiting. The single sheet that was left on the bed only covered him up to his waist, his chest was bare and very clear that he was well toned and trim, but that his physique was gained through honest work and not in any gym. The sheet clung to his lower half, making it very clear that the man in Ella’s bed was not wearing pants, in fact those were half hanging off the end of her bed along with most of his other clothes and a pillow discarded half way across the room. Max’s grey green eyes searched the man in the doorway for a moment and then moved back to Ella. “He’s not your boyfriend is he, you didn’t say anything about a boyfriend.”

“No Geron,” Ella tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “As I stated during dinner I am single but…hope to not be by morning.” Flirting with Max was easy. Too easy in fact with the words in her mind spilling from her lips like water over the lip of a damn. She had an ease with the stranger lying in her bed that spoke of years together and not hours.

Despite the man standing in the doorway, a slow but very intentional smile spread across Max’s lips as his eyes locked onto Ella. His chin rose so that his head was high, clearly he had nothing to hide. Not that he could, he was naked and covered by only a light sheet anyway but that small action made the man in Ella’s bed seem far more confident and in control than a naked man in front of an officiant should have ever been if they had the slightest hint of guilt about them.

His eyes travelled obviously over Ella’s curves under her robe and he slowly let his teeth run over his bottom lip. “Good, we got off to such a good start, dinner was amazing and I have a really good feeling about the rest of the night,” he flirted back with her and sat up, leaning back so that his arms supported his weight, his knee moving wider to one side and allowing the sheet to fall between his legs further, outlining his hidden weapon beneath it. It was a shameless and brazen move on his part, drawing attention to himself far more than anyone trying to hide would.

“So you had dinner and ....dessert,” the officiant’s eyes took in every aspect of the room scanning it with an eerie proficiency. He was trained to memorize everything he saw to use as possible evidence in any proceeding that may arise.

“First course of dessert,” Max bantered lightly. “When you have a woman like Ella you savour every bite, nothing, goes to waste.”

Max looked down beside him where a pair of Ella’s underwear rested, his hand moved and picked up the delicate piece of fabric, shoving it under the sheet as if he was protecting her modesty. The hint, of course, was that under Ella’s robe there was not a pair of delicate underwear that there might have been, and that their activities prior to the man’s arrival had been of a different kind of supplication.

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE

“Yes, Sir,” Ella pulled at the edges of her robe to enclose her body a bit more snuggly. The girlish daydream fantasy was fading with each second as the officiant stood in her bedroom.

“His name was Gerone,” the man’s voice trailed off waiting for the young woman to fill in the blank.

“Is, Gerone,” Max answered, “Officiant.”

“Summerline. Gerone Summerline,” Ella filled in without an ounce of hesitation. “He is from Otalanth. He arrived to the welcome center at about quarter to five…just before the incident. Luckily I was getting off work and left before the traitors attacked. I was so shaken at almost being killed an hour before, Gerone offered to get a drink with me. We went to Bolotto’s. I have the receipt. Do you need it?” Ella’s story was seamless. If Max hadn’t spent the night with her, he would have no reason to doubt what she said.

“No, I can make proper inquiries. I shall leave you both to finish up. I can let myself out but,” he gestured to the bed. “How about I get the light for you? I have disturbed you both long enough.”

Max’s smile grew wider as the man spoke about getting the light for them, but it was all for show. As Ella passed in front of the Officiant, his eyes flashed with wariness and uncertainty, for just a moment. It was meant only for Ella to see, and was gone before she could blink. He didn’t understand why the man didn’t just leave, but in only a few heartbeats after Ella began to move towards the bed he understood. The Officiant was playing a game of chicken with them, seeing who would flinch first. In Max’s world he would have thrown the man out on his ass a long time before this, but this wasn’t Max’s world and he had to follow Ella’s lead. In Max’s world he would of never had to play this card in this charade in the first place and he wondered what the hell Jasmine had really gotten herself into.

Like some weird consummation ceremony, Ella knew this was just a test. Slowly moving to the side of the bed, her fingers nervously worked at the knot on her robe. This man was married. What if he didn’t play along. What if he suddenly decided that this was too much? Max Wynter had already shown he was not only headstrong but also unafraid of what could happen to him here. If he understood what real life was like on Mundai, he would not have ventured out or did whatever it was to bring the Officiant to her door in the middle of the night. Dropping the robe, she was now exposed to both men wearing nothing but her long silk nightgown which clung to her curves like a second skin. Her skin dimpled in gooseflesh from nerves but this was easily covered by the chill in the room. Slowly she reached for the covers half on and off of Max.

Lt. Jasmine Wynter MO

Max looked to the man at the doorway as Ella leaned in, and his eyes moved to the light switch, a smirk and eyebrow raise indicating a thanks that Max never really felt to the man. His hand gripped the thin sheet and threw it to one side, exposing him fully in the bed but at the same time his other hand reached up to Ella, taking her outstretched hand and pulling her towards him. He pulled her so that she fell over top of him but he turned her so that she landed on her back beside him. In the same movement, Max flung the sheet over their waists to hide anything of Ella’s the man might see, and rolled so that Max was leaning over her with his hand brushing the mess of hair over her face from the movement, away so that he could look into her eyes.

Max’s fingers brushed the last strand of her hair away and his breathing was deep, but steady. He wasn’t looking back but knew the man had not yet closed the door and obviously, not turned the light off. His eyes searched Ella’s, looking for a hint that she needed him to stop or that he was going too far with the man behind them. Max had no fear about himself, if they took him he would deal with it. If they took Ella because of him, Max wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

The time seemed to move into slow motion as he looked down at her, seeming to lose himself in her eyes as she looked back at him. Still the light didn’t turn off. Max let his fingers slide lightly from her cheek to the strap of her nightgown at her shoulder, a thin strap of material which slid smoothly between his fingers, and he slid it to one side off her shoulder at the same time as he let his head drop and his lips brushed Ella’s.

The light turned off. Max heard the door close behind them but he didn’t pull his lips away from hers. Her lips were soft, gentle but he felt her breathe escaping between them and his hand moved down her side to her thigh, under her knee and he lifted her leg so that it covered his waist as he let his lips slip down her jaw to her shoulder. He couldn’t explain why he did it, but something inside him told him not to stop.

The door behind them opened once more, the man was back. Now Max did lift his head after a moment, letting the man at the door see they had not stopped their activity after the door had been closed and the lights gone out, and he looked back at the Officiant with a clear question on his face. The man was studying them, his eyes looking for details that things should not be as they seemed. “I am going to leave my card on your table,” the Officiant told them finally. “I may have more questions tomorrow, about the attack, and about your movements and people you saw tonight. I will lock the door behind me.” The door clicked shut again, and Max looked down at Ella in the half light thrown by the window and night sky outside. Sweat had formed between them where they touched, his heart was beating hard and she was warm and soft against him.

His hand gently brushed her cheek, and he lowered himself so that his head was beside hers but they could look at each other. He made no move to separate himself from her, he didn’t trust that the man had truly gone and if he was honest with himself, the contact with her was something of a release of the tension and stress he felt of the last few days.

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE

Somewhere in Mundai

Jasmine stood at the sink letting the water slip through her fingers. It was as if she were a statue. Time seemed to slow and drag almost to a standstill. Her body might still be locked away in the recesses of a laboratory deep underground but her mind was somewhere else.

Images of Max and the sound of his voice was the only thing she could hold onto here. Nothing was familiar or friendly. “You are going to get out of this. Stay safe. I’m coming for you,” Max said as his hands slipped through her hair pulling her face to his. The kiss was long and deep letting Jasmine focus on him ignoring all her surroundings. Everything she had done was for mine purpose: to find him and return to the life she created in the Manhattan that was safe and secure.

How long had it been since she had spoken to him. Days? Weeks? It could not have been a month. That time span she would know. A loud bang pulled her from her day dream. Opening her eyes she realized she had imagined it all. His voice and touch were just wisps of an active imagination. Turning off the water, Jasmine wiped the back of her hands on her pants. The action did not dry them but simply pulled the large drips of water from the surface.

Moving to her small cot, she slipped beneath the covers not even undressing. There was no point. Operations occurred when they were needed. There was no rhyme or reason. She had no choice. Do them or the patient died. Rag only cared about the bottom line. She was too expensive to harm but people were expendable. Closing her eyes as she laid her head in the pillow her lashes began to grow wet. This wasn’t the first night nor would it be the last where she woke to wet cheeks and damp hair from crying herself to sleep.

Rag had threatened her a few days back that there would be consequences if she tried to ruin his enterprise. Jasmine foolishly thought it was a bluff. What more could he do to her? She had seen the cloned form of her body. It did not take a genius to know that a few cells from her cheek created the husk the galaxy would accept as her body in whatever form Rag delivered to it. What was unexpected was how Rag retaliated when Jasmine refused to perform another organ harvest.

Pressing the heels of her palms hard into her eye sockets to ebb the flow of her tears did not however wipe the memory from her mind. Even with her eyes tightly closed, she still witnessed in her mind the consequences of her actions.

Taking a shaky breath, Jasmine forced herself to calm down. Falling into hysterics here would only cost more loved. Removing her hands from her face, Jasmine saw a single drop of blood she had missed when she tried to wipe away the evidence of the night. She had never killed someone before yet the quote rang true that the needs of the me at out weighed the needs of the few… or the one.

As she closed her eyes and tried to focus on Max and any part of him she could find in her mind, the events of the past hour fought for prominence. The plan had been simple. She would ask to check in the patients sprawled out in the main floor of the gym like space below the illicit surgical center. That part had been easy. Any viral threat could wipe out all of the Ferengis investments.

As she was escorted to the main floor by the pair of guards assigned to her a fight broke out. It was then she realized the guard still standing after attacking his partner was her contact. Hesitantly she followed her new founds friend advice on the ride in the turbo. The guard did not stop on the level she needed but one higher. As the doors of the turbo slid back, Jasmine saw a small room which after being married to the CE she really recognized as a communications office

The comm off was small and very sparsely decorated but jasmine was not here for a renovation. She was here to get a message out to Mac.

Lt jasmine Wynter. Cmo

It was morning, and Max stood at the window of Ella’s apartment looking out through the half pulled curtains of the days early light. Wearing only his trousers, the day was already warm and the slightly opened window allowed for the gentle breeze to goosebump his skin as he sat and watched the street, coffee in hand. Ella was still sleeping in her room, but Max had made enough of the coffee type drink, or what seemed to pass for it here, so that when she woke she would have a fresh cup waiting for her.

Mundai was becoming complicated, things Max had never accounted for were raising their head and creating obstacles to his finding Jasmine. He was frustrated, absolutely but largely he was feeling helpless. He had learned enough of what was happening on Mundai by now to make an educated guess that somehow, Jasmine was being held and put to work for whatever skills they needed from her. Why it was Jasmine, and not a doctor that was local and willing Max couldn’t guess. The thought that Jasmine might herself be a willing participant had gone through his mind, but he pushed it aside. Thinking about it too much was only going to create bitterness that wouldn’t help Max find her.

There was a trail and Max was going to break it down and find her, before these Mundai authorities found out what he was trying to do. He was no super spy, no secret agent. This wasn’t going to be a fairytale story of gadgets, secret rooms and suave one liners, but Max could set any number of Mundai power stations and transmitters to self destruct if things didn’t go his way. He would make Mundai burn if they hurt a hair on Jasmines head, the words Wynter is Coming would go down as a phrase that would strike fear into the heart of any Mundainian for generations if they kept him from her much longer.

Sipping his drink, he let the breeze drift over him and let the smell of the planet soak into him. Turning his head slightly, he looked over the console that Ella had in her home, and his eyes moved back to her bedroom door. She would be stirring soon, and Max was going to have to decide on his next steps.

Lt Cmdr Wynter, CE


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