"That's a very good question, McClane." And, clearly, one that's on Jim's mind. There's been no hint that he's found anything to be worthy of closer inspection so far, but maybe it's not surprising that he's considering such an uncharitable angle so soon - he has dealt with more Starfleet corruption than possibly any other captain in history.
There's a post up ahead informing them of how far away their destination is, but Kirk stops short before walking back a meter or so. He crouches down. Huh. There's an awful lot of shrubbery over here, but it looks like it's covering a footpath; only slightly worn-in, but still. He glances over his shoulder. "Don't mind a detour, do you?"
There's a moment of sudden clarity where the simple idea of having a commanding officer that doesn't dismiss any misgivings she has as ludicrous or shut her down is kind of astounding. But it makes sense, in this case. It's still nice to be on the same page as someone for once. This time when she feels like there's some tension leaving her, she hadn't even realized it was there.
But Lucy pauses when he does, watching him and immediately noticing what he has. She stays close, and by the time Kirk's looking back at her, she shrugs and shakes her head. "Can't say I'm the type to mind a detour, Captain." Of course she's not. She'll still be deferring to his lead, obviously, but she's clearly just as intent as he is to find out what's actually going on.
Hopefully nothing too absurd, but she's not sure either of them have that kind of luck.
What's the point of even having a crew if you don't listen to their opinions? More often than not, Jim doesn't personally have the answer to a problem. It's his willingness to aggressively think-tank, listen, and put things into motion that gets shit done; qualities most other captains seem to lack. Maybe it's that they don't have the balls to push non-typical solutions, maybe it's about misplaced pride. My crew is why I don't believe in no-win scenarios, he'd told an omnipotent entity bent on messing with his head, once. And it's true.
Investigation into the covered path reveals well-arranged uprooted shrubs, obviously put there deliberately to try and obscure the side route. Jim takes off, making sure Lucy's in step with him. There's no immediately apparent reason to be on guard, but he's still alert-- this could easily be the trail to the science crew's equivalent of Makeout Point, but it could also, you know, not be. Best to stay aware.
Really, his way is better. It brings a crew more tightly-knit and feeds into trusting the captain more - the fact it works is just proof positive. This isn't the time to focus on it, though; she can think about how James Kirk isn't a typical dictator of a captain later, when they're not on an active mission. For now, she focuses on keeping in step with him and looking out for something - anything - of interest that isn't, in fact, science crew making out in the middle of nowhere. Or potentially going to kill them. Best to think about all possibilities.
As they move down the path and it's no longer visible from the main one it begins to get a little less meticulously covered. It also widens out but not much, and it's still too faint to have been used for too long. Eventually there's an actual clearing ahead and her brow furrows a little, just slightly. From here it doesn't look like much, but that doesn't mean anything. At the edge she pauses but it's only briefly, crouching with her elbows on her knees to eye the border between path and clearing and scrutinize it at about ankle height. If there's anything hidden it won't help, but it's better than barging in without even looking first. It's like she's looking for strange edges, seams. Anything strange.
Jim waits when Lucy crouches down-- he's been on enough insane adventures that he's not skittish, but he's also been on enough insane adventures to know not to second-guess a security's offer's caution, no matter her rank or percentage of green-ness. Not that he thinks Lucy is inexperienced: the opposite, he thinks she should probably be a rank higher than she is, given mileage, but that's probably the cost of being bounced around between commands.
"It's really even," he murmurs after a while. The circumference of the clearing.
Lucy's not skittish either, but there is a healthy sense of skepticism about her when she straightens, nodding in agreement to his observation. She points to a couple of spots along the borders of the clearing as she speaks. "The edges are too clean. It's not natural, it's been cut out by someone pretending it is."
Like the path had been put back together so carefully, but not quite good enough. Whoever did it tried very hard. "It's a lot of effort for something that's been hidden from the main path. I don't trust it, but I also don't see anything immediately dangerous either. There's just no reason for any of it. I doubt anyone's been making creepy secretive circles in the forest just to go have a picnic."
Jim's got his scanner out, taking a peek for nearby signs of life, but it's minimal and ordinary - native birds, bugs, the occasional lizard. Nothing that wasn't with the data they received about the planet. But. There's a heat signature that suggests someone else has been through recently, headed in the same direction they should be going. Jim makes a 'huh' noise and shows Lucy.
"Guess we'll have to ask about it," he muses, "since we got lost and all."
Lucy's about to get out her own scanner when Jim does it for her and she waits for his judgement on it, brows furrowing when he shows her the heat signature. It makes her huff out a frustrated breath but not at him - she just hates being jerked around.
She dusts her hands off like she'd been down in the dirt instead of just crouching there. "They really should have marked the path better. I'm surprised we didn't get more lost than we did." After that confirmation, she looks back up the path they'd just come down, like she almost wonders if it wouldn't be better to find another way back. "I'm sure they'll be able to sufficiently explain."
"I don't think we're dealing with criminal masterminds," he says, almost a drawl as they head back. "Or any masterminds, probably. Maybe this is just their picnic spot." And hey! Maybe it is. Still a little weird to hide something, no matter what it is. Shouldn't everyone here know just how nosy these Starfleet exploration teams are? Seeing as they're also a Starfleet exploration team.
Anyway: off they go. Jim winds them around off the path again once, but only to get a side-view of the little lookout house they're heading to, and to scan the nearby area again. They find a frog.
"You're right. Could be." She seems at least partway satisfied by now, nodding. Heading back isn't so difficult at all, and Lucy keeps a look out. Not much is out of the ordinary, and by the time they find the frog (at least it's cute), her hackles aren't quite as unnecessarily raised.
Once they're actually approaching the lookout house proper she's got a keen eye on the surroundings and takes one last scan. Nothing out of the ordinary. With nothing in particular to worry about checking on while they're still outside, she defers to his lead with actually getting to their destination. Captains first.
"Hi there!" The cheeriest possible greeting as they enter the remote building. Jim breezes in, hands clasped behind his back, taking a good look around-- cluttered, a lab space split between someone doing actual work and someone living here. Man, he really must be an asshole.
Speak of the devil. A middle-aged man in civilian dress springs out from the back room, looking harried. "How'd you get in here?" He demands, then double-takes at the uniforms. "--Hello," he chokes out.
"The door. Yes, Hi. Captain James T Kirk, this is my security officer Lucy McClane. Just here checking out the facility, Doctor-- I assume you are the Doctor?" Jim smiles serenely. "I see it's laundry day."
There's a moment - a long moment - where Lucy covers her mouth with her hand because she's smirking in response to the doctor's clear alarm. By the time she drops her arm though, she's smiling instead.
Man, what a shitty stationing, though. She feels luckier than she has in a while. She waits though, eyes scanning the entirety of the lab space while he gets himself together. What a mess.
"If you don't mind Doctor, after you've given us a rundown of the facility I have a few questions about the areas surrounding. Nothing too groundbreaking, just some run of the mill curiosity about some readings."
It's the most pleasant she's looked or sounded this entire time, and if he'd seemed harried and nervous before, now the man is practically sweating. He stammers out some kind of response, but Lucy's already tilted her head a little in a disarming fashion. Still smiling.
Balking at the name ('Kirk' was not unknown throughout the Federation even before the antics of this one), the Doctor in question ends up stuffing himself into a uniform top as he begins a tour of the small area. Looking back over his shoulder, Jim points at the covered specimens, mouthing 'scan those' at her before returning his full attention to the mini-tour.
"That's a hell of a distillery output," he says, pulling a bottle out from under a discarded lab coat. "Huh. Don't recognize the label. That's not Dirnellian writing, is it? That's part of the Klingon Empire. I'm impressed. How'd you get the hookup for this?"
Lucy nods imperceptibly at the command, listening to the tour as she makes sure to scan everything in sight, quickly cataloging each different scan as they complete. Some things are the usual, but anything of note is quietly flagged, as is the fact that Kirk appears to have found something even more interesting.
She glances over her shoulder as he speaks, mouth twisting just a little. Once her main scanning is done, she sidles over to eye the bottle of interest. She wonders, idly, how the Doctor will explain it since there's not really an opportunity for 'it isn't mine.' He seems to be giving it the old Academy try, though.
Don't mind her, she'll just be scanning this sample as well. All smiles.
It is An Interesting Conversation, because this is the kind of hooch one can only buy, and for those following along at home: the Federation does not use money. Sure, any given ship out on an exploratory mission will be loaded up with petty cash in credit form (usually compatible with the Klingon Empire or the vagueness of the Neutral Zone), but nobody has personal money because nobody in the Federation makes money. It's an ancient, barbaric practice that does nothing but corrupt.
Still. Some people really do get the itch. "Why don't you show me how you're getting it," Jim says, slapping the guy on the shoulder in a resigned manner. "Jig's up and we all know it. You going to tell me what McClane's going find in your equipment or let her break it to me?"
"It'd be better if you go ahead and tell him," she says with a hum, though her back is turned again because now she's examining the equipment itself. It's clear she's meticulous and that she'll be getting Every Detail. So really, coming clean easily will look better than her glowing report will.
There's a pregnant pause before he seems to deflate a little and start to explain because what else can he do? But then Lucy stops moving a second as he speaks, looking at them out the corners of her eyes.
"This is what that clearing is for? Well, that's more interesting than picnics, I guess."
Jim has to really rein in the desire to put his hands on his hips and ask Are you peddling narcotics? in a dramatic preschool teacher voice because, honestly, this is ridiculous. It's going to end up being serious, though - this man is definitely going to be dishonorably discharged after he's aggressively debriefed about his dealings with non-Federation entities.
"What a thing to kill your career over," he sighs eventually, towards the tail end of guilty, frantic ramblings as the good doctor coughs up all the details.
"That really doesn't look like anything benign." The space weed, he means. The few little plants are lurid, shifting between pale violet and dark purple, and when he gets close enough they smell like dead bodies. Even in his (cough) heyday, Jim would have given pause. "Who made the pickup last? A smuggler?"
It really is a shame. Lucy can't decide if it's her curse that nothing can go right on a mission she's on, or if it'll look good that it was on a mission she was on they caught him - but all the same, she can't find it in herself to feel pleased about that, even if he's brought it on himself.
At benign Lucy waits until Jim has a moment and shows him the reading from the plants, their classification and composition. No, they. Really are not that benign at all. The doctor is still frantic though, and he appears to be torn between diming out whoever he has smuggle this shit out and being too worried to do it, but also like the tiniest push will tip him in either direction.
Eventually, the guy coughs it up. Jim flips open his communicator and instructs the crew back at the main base to hold the rest of the research team outside under watch while they take the place apart looking for illegally traded contraband, despite the doctor insisting they won't find any. It's procedure, at this point, and honestly-- this isn't a mission going wrong. Wrong at this stage would have been them missing it, and Jim explains that very thing as they head back down the hill.
"You did good work," he says, the doctor sullenly keeping pace ahead of them. It's not every day Jim exercises his right to arrest people on behalf of the Federation, but here we are.
She spends the entire rest of the exchange waiting for something to definitely actually go wrong, but it never comes. They just... do their jobs. It's a foreign feeling, and she keeps pace with Jim as they head out. Something in her unfurls, slowly. She still gets so tense even on regular missions. Even as they walk, she's keeping an eye out for anything else.
It's clear that Lucy isn't used to that kind of praise either in the way her shoulders lift in the face of it: she always does good work but any praises are always grudging. She breathes out and it almost stutters like she wants to laugh but she reins it in just in time. "Thank you, captain. I try to keep my work up to standards."
Jim makes a mental note to talk about this with Lucy once they're back up on the ship - not the Enterprise, of course, but a Miranda-class science vessel Kirk's taken interim command of, the Tereshkova. He has a few thoughts on the matter.
"Chekov!" he greets when they rejoin the rest of the away team. The young Russian is the only member of his preexisting bridge crew to come along on this assignment, the rest having their own lives to attend to in the downtime. "What's the situation?"
So far so good; they've dug up one bottle of Romulan ale, but that's pretty standard as far as contraband goes. Most of the so-called Romulan booze out there wasn't made anywhere near the Star Empire. The LT explains it was given to her by the doctor they're arresting, a trade for not giving him a demerit over a minor infraction. Not the most becoming behavior of a Starfleet officer, but nothing nefarious either.
"All your data needs to be transferred to the database on the Tereshkova," he instructs, "wrap everything up like this is the end of your run." Supervising begins when he gets an odd call from his communications officer on the bridge, alerting him to a strange frequency they've intercepted.
There's a slight change in Lucy's demeanor when they get back to the rest of the team. She's still working diligently, comparing notes with a couple others and making sure everything is done properly. She's sharp but fair, and the change lies in the smoothness and comfort with which she does it.
A change so small may not be noticed by most people, but then again she's not around most people right now. It's probably unsurprising that she'd flourish in this environment, anyway. Amazing what actually being treated like her hard work is worth something can do.
She's finishing up on her end when that call comes in and she doesn't try to eavesdrop but she glances toward Kirk attentively and feels like the other shoe is dropping somehow. She's probably just being paranoid. Still, her brow furrows before she goes back to quickly completing everything and then she waits to see if it's something he's going to feel the need to share.
In what's possibly an odd contrast, Jim seems intrigued by the idea of a Strange Thing. He's able to take a look at it remotely on screen in the lab, letting the away team all contemplate what it might be. Communication? Probe? It doesn't look like anything he's come across before, but there's something in the base code that suggests it's been deliberately crafted, and isn't organic.
(He wishes Uhura were here.)
"Do you think it's safe to beam up?" he asks, and when they get the A-OK, Jim has the away team return to the ship, leaving the suspect officers on the planet awaiting a Federation investigation. He has Chekov, Lucy, and a science officer accompany him to the bridge (which is not all that far from the transporter room on this vessel), intent on figuring out what's going on.
It's not even that Lucy is incapable of being interested, it's more that nothing ever stays just interesting. She'll get used to it eventually. Maybe. She is intrigued enough to pore over the code with the others, picking through it visually to see if anything stands out to her. It's not familiar to her either unfortunately, but she feels like she'd like to pick it apart later even though she's not Communications.
Once they're safely back on the ship she's back to that calm, accompanying Jim to the bridge easily. She wants to know too, but it doesn't seem like anything is actually forthcoming. Nothing satisfying, anyway.
It's there and they can't actually trace its origin, then it's gone and they can't trace that either. It's frustrating, ultimately, but it seems oddly like there isn't that much they can even do about it. The lack of resolution makes her feel a little peevish.
Jim ends up pacing the length of the bridge for a while, clearly annoyed at how this feels like trying to catch water in his fingers - something was snooping around, and it wasn't related to the smuggling nonsense happening down on the planet. Smugglers this deep into charted space wouldn't have such oddball tech, and besides, they wouldn't bother with a probe; they'd take one look at a Federation vessel and bail.
He logs the incident and has the communications officer bring up more staff to the bridge to keep an ear out for anything else. Weird.
It's another little while before he gets a chance, but he does eventually call Lucy into his office. Seated behind the desk, he smiles up at her and gestures for her to sit in one of the chairs on the other side. "McClane," he greets.
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There's a post up ahead informing them of how far away their destination is, but Kirk stops short before walking back a meter or so. He crouches down. Huh. There's an awful lot of shrubbery over here, but it looks like it's covering a footpath; only slightly worn-in, but still. He glances over his shoulder. "Don't mind a detour, do you?"
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But Lucy pauses when he does, watching him and immediately noticing what he has. She stays close, and by the time Kirk's looking back at her, she shrugs and shakes her head. "Can't say I'm the type to mind a detour, Captain." Of course she's not. She'll still be deferring to his lead, obviously, but she's clearly just as intent as he is to find out what's actually going on.
Hopefully nothing too absurd, but she's not sure either of them have that kind of luck.
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Investigation into the covered path reveals well-arranged uprooted shrubs, obviously put there deliberately to try and obscure the side route. Jim takes off, making sure Lucy's in step with him. There's no immediately apparent reason to be on guard, but he's still alert-- this could easily be the trail to the science crew's equivalent of Makeout Point, but it could also, you know, not be. Best to stay aware.
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As they move down the path and it's no longer visible from the main one it begins to get a little less meticulously covered. It also widens out but not much, and it's still too faint to have been used for too long. Eventually there's an actual clearing ahead and her brow furrows a little, just slightly. From here it doesn't look like much, but that doesn't mean anything. At the edge she pauses but it's only briefly, crouching with her elbows on her knees to eye the border between path and clearing and scrutinize it at about ankle height. If there's anything hidden it won't help, but it's better than barging in without even looking first. It's like she's looking for strange edges, seams. Anything strange.
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"It's really even," he murmurs after a while. The circumference of the clearing.
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Like the path had been put back together so carefully, but not quite good enough. Whoever did it tried very hard. "It's a lot of effort for something that's been hidden from the main path. I don't trust it, but I also don't see anything immediately dangerous either. There's just no reason for any of it. I doubt anyone's been making creepy secretive circles in the forest just to go have a picnic."
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"Guess we'll have to ask about it," he muses, "since we got lost and all."
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She dusts her hands off like she'd been down in the dirt instead of just crouching there. "They really should have marked the path better. I'm surprised we didn't get more lost than we did." After that confirmation, she looks back up the path they'd just come down, like she almost wonders if it wouldn't be better to find another way back. "I'm sure they'll be able to sufficiently explain."
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Anyway: off they go. Jim winds them around off the path again once, but only to get a side-view of the little lookout house they're heading to, and to scan the nearby area again. They find a frog.
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Once they're actually approaching the lookout house proper she's got a keen eye on the surroundings and takes one last scan. Nothing out of the ordinary. With nothing in particular to worry about checking on while they're still outside, she defers to his lead with actually getting to their destination. Captains first.
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Speak of the devil. A middle-aged man in civilian dress springs out from the back room, looking harried. "How'd you get in here?" He demands, then double-takes at the uniforms. "--Hello," he chokes out.
"The door. Yes, Hi. Captain James T Kirk, this is my security officer Lucy McClane. Just here checking out the facility, Doctor-- I assume you are the Doctor?" Jim smiles serenely. "I see it's laundry day."
Cue scrambling for science blues.
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Man, what a shitty stationing, though. She feels luckier than she has in a while. She waits though, eyes scanning the entirety of the lab space while he gets himself together. What a mess.
"If you don't mind Doctor, after you've given us a rundown of the facility I have a few questions about the areas surrounding. Nothing too groundbreaking, just some run of the mill curiosity about some readings."
It's the most pleasant she's looked or sounded this entire time, and if he'd seemed harried and nervous before, now the man is practically sweating. He stammers out some kind of response, but Lucy's already tilted her head a little in a disarming fashion. Still smiling.
Iiiinteresting.
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"That's a hell of a distillery output," he says, pulling a bottle out from under a discarded lab coat. "Huh. Don't recognize the label. That's not Dirnellian writing, is it? That's part of the Klingon Empire. I'm impressed. How'd you get the hookup for this?"
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She glances over her shoulder as he speaks, mouth twisting just a little. Once her main scanning is done, she sidles over to eye the bottle of interest. She wonders, idly, how the Doctor will explain it since there's not really an opportunity for 'it isn't mine.' He seems to be giving it the old Academy try, though.
Don't mind her, she'll just be scanning this sample as well. All smiles.
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Still. Some people really do get the itch. "Why don't you show me how you're getting it," Jim says, slapping the guy on the shoulder in a resigned manner. "Jig's up and we all know it. You going to tell me what McClane's going find in your equipment or let her break it to me?"
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There's a pregnant pause before he seems to deflate a little and start to explain because what else can he do? But then Lucy stops moving a second as he speaks, looking at them out the corners of her eyes.
"This is what that clearing is for? Well, that's more interesting than picnics, I guess."
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"What a thing to kill your career over," he sighs eventually, towards the tail end of guilty, frantic ramblings as the good doctor coughs up all the details.
"That really doesn't look like anything benign." The space weed, he means. The few little plants are lurid, shifting between pale violet and dark purple, and when he gets close enough they smell like dead bodies. Even in his (cough) heyday, Jim would have given pause. "Who made the pickup last? A smuggler?"
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At benign Lucy waits until Jim has a moment and shows him the reading from the plants, their classification and composition. No, they. Really are not that benign at all. The doctor is still frantic though, and he appears to be torn between diming out whoever he has smuggle this shit out and being too worried to do it, but also like the tiniest push will tip him in either direction.
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"You did good work," he says, the doctor sullenly keeping pace ahead of them. It's not every day Jim exercises his right to arrest people on behalf of the Federation, but here we are.
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It's clear that Lucy isn't used to that kind of praise either in the way her shoulders lift in the face of it: she always does good work but any praises are always grudging. She breathes out and it almost stutters like she wants to laugh but she reins it in just in time. "Thank you, captain. I try to keep my work up to standards."
It's absolutely genuine.
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"Chekov!" he greets when they rejoin the rest of the away team. The young Russian is the only member of his preexisting bridge crew to come along on this assignment, the rest having their own lives to attend to in the downtime. "What's the situation?"
So far so good; they've dug up one bottle of Romulan ale, but that's pretty standard as far as contraband goes. Most of the so-called Romulan booze out there wasn't made anywhere near the Star Empire. The LT explains it was given to her by the doctor they're arresting, a trade for not giving him a demerit over a minor infraction. Not the most becoming behavior of a Starfleet officer, but nothing nefarious either.
"All your data needs to be transferred to the database on the Tereshkova," he instructs, "wrap everything up like this is the end of your run." Supervising begins when he gets an odd call from his communications officer on the bridge, alerting him to a strange frequency they've intercepted.
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A change so small may not be noticed by most people, but then again she's not around most people right now. It's probably unsurprising that she'd flourish in this environment, anyway. Amazing what actually being treated like her hard work is worth something can do.
She's finishing up on her end when that call comes in and she doesn't try to eavesdrop but she glances toward Kirk attentively and feels like the other shoe is dropping somehow. She's probably just being paranoid. Still, her brow furrows before she goes back to quickly completing everything and then she waits to see if it's something he's going to feel the need to share.
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(He wishes Uhura were here.)
"Do you think it's safe to beam up?" he asks, and when they get the A-OK, Jim has the away team return to the ship, leaving the suspect officers on the planet awaiting a Federation investigation. He has Chekov, Lucy, and a science officer accompany him to the bridge (which is not all that far from the transporter room on this vessel), intent on figuring out what's going on.
"Any change?" Nope, not really, it turns out.
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Once they're safely back on the ship she's back to that calm, accompanying Jim to the bridge easily. She wants to know too, but it doesn't seem like anything is actually forthcoming. Nothing satisfying, anyway.
It's there and they can't actually trace its origin, then it's gone and they can't trace that either. It's frustrating, ultimately, but it seems oddly like there isn't that much they can even do about it. The lack of resolution makes her feel a little peevish.
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He logs the incident and has the communications officer bring up more staff to the bridge to keep an ear out for anything else. Weird.
It's another little while before he gets a chance, but he does eventually call Lucy into his office. Seated behind the desk, he smiles up at her and gestures for her to sit in one of the chairs on the other side. "McClane," he greets.
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