So Long And Thanks For All the Fish!

Posted on Thu Apr 4th, 2019 @ 12:52am by Lieutenant Commander Leonora Wolf MD & Lieutenant Karna Zsan

Mission: Mission 0: Everybody Has A Story
Location: Delphi HQ, Stratholme, Driaan IV
Timeline: January 2389

"Oh, Leonorrrrrrra!" Karna trotted into the Unit Commander's office in the subbasement of the civilian Stratholme Medical Facility. Both a cover for Starfleet Intelligence's operations and a handy triage ward for injured or otherwise waylaid operatives, the facility had been Karna's home for some months now. After being left for dead in a Romulan interment camp and being rescued by a remnant faction of the Obsidian Order, Karna had turned from a lowly undercover informant into a clandestine maestro in the shadowy ways of Cardassian espionage. After a falling out, Karna had turned himself in to SFI, into Leonora's very custody. The year of psychological batteries ended with him being placed under her command, in her very intel unit.

It only seemed poetically just for her to bless his first foray back into independent field work.

"I know what you did, Leonora." Karna was purely elated as he looked around her office like a boy at play. "And I wanted to thank you!"

Leah rolled her eyes visibly, leaning back in her seat. She'd been expecting some kind of a reaction from him, but Karna being Karna, you never really knew. Unless you looked long and hard.

"You do? Pray tell?" She decided to play the innocent for a moment, wanting more of a reaction.

"Oh, Leonora, you and your dispassionately coy demeanor are always a treat." Karna grinned from ear to ear. "But I will play along because I am just that happy: I am being transferred!" His hands went up like a busker in the street. "Oversight finally trusts me with real field work. Not offense to Delphi, but we both know my true talents were going to waste."

Talents of such nature that they were often unmentioned in most field reports. "Well? How could I ever thank you for approving it?"

Leonora chuckled, "It's called rehab, and without my reports, you wouldn't have gotten so much as a lick from Oversight. So, you're welcome and don't fuck it up. I don't know if they'd let me pull you out of the cold again. Likely not if I failed to get you back the first time...well second time. So, where are you off to, do you know?"

"Cardassian space, I expect," Karna said. "I have... useful experience there. But the sky is the limit, really. I'll be assigned as a mission adviser to a new test bed vessel, so nobody will even know about... well, you know." His grin twisted as he tapped the side of his head.

Leah nodded, "just treat it as an under cover op and people should be none the wiser to the true state of your..." she tapped the side of her head for emphasis.

"Yes, yes, that's old hat," Karna said with a sigh of boredom. "I did manage to schmooze everybody from the Academy to the Diplomatic Corps, after all. Until I surrendered myself to Starfleet Intelligence a year and a half ago, nobody knew the real me, except you. I suppose that makes you special." He stared at her for a moment. "Please give Commander Cutteridge my regards. I imagine John will make good on that restraining order the moment I'm transferred."

"It's been sitting in his outbox for a while." Wolf smirked, "Driaan is his baby, even if ours carries a different number. I can't fault him for that."

She observed him for a moment and was surprised by the sudden, unbidden thought. Leonora Wolf would miss the crazy betazoid. In a strange, twisted way, he was a friend. She supposed it spoke somewhat of her own mental damage. Her own darkness. Regardless, she was fond of the twisted creature, though not to the point of it stopping her from doing her own job.

"Don't worry," Karna said. "I'll miss you too." While it was a longstanding Betazoid tradition not to read the minds of others, Karna was far from a traditional Betazoid. "In another life, maybe we would even..." The thought tickled him such that his sentence broke off into raucous laughter. "Oh, my. I kill me."

Leah didn't need to be a mind reader to know what he meant. "Now now, let's not flatter one self. We both know I can only stomach so much of you." At this she grinned at him, "you take care out there, alright? Don't make me come after you."

"My dear Leonora, perish the thought." He thrust out his hand for a parting handshake, though he added with a wink, "What you don't know won't hurt you."

Leah stood up, grasping his hand firmly, "well that makes it a problem, considering our line of work, doesn't it?" She said with a grin, "fare well, Karna Zsan."

"And you, Leonora." Karna dipped his head and then made his final egress.

Leonora watched after the man as he left, her face setting into her usual, icy demeanour. "Gods help you, Karna."