EXETERRPG: (1 - 0510) Empress Lana Wakeman

[Mark Howard]

NRPG: The Peter Principle - that people have a tendency to be promoted to
the level of their optimum incompetence.

RPG:



Mission: Andromeda's Chain



Day: 1



Stardate: 2446.01.03







(USS Exeter – Bridge - Empress Lana Wakeman – 0510)







“Lieutenant Frost, keep to the plotted vector, keep us at the optimum
distance between the two shuttles.”



“Yes Empress. We’re due a course correction in 2 minutes, Comms is spotty
though, tactical isn’t doing their job, we’re losing signal off an on.”
Trinity purred happily.



“Understood. Tactical, We need constant communication with the shuttles,
you don’t want to fail us.”



(Reply any at tactical iyw)



The Empress sat back on her throne, mistress of all she surveyed, hooking a
leg over the arm of the chair she felt the power and influence around her.
The Exeter was all but hers, the centre chair all hers.



All hers? ~No. Lana fumed. A cadre of resistance held out, uncaptured and
uncontrolled, an outlier in her line of best fit. It was something that
should be pruned and eradicated as soon as possible.



There was a problem though. As the Empress regarded the arm console, the
one that should have granted her access in its entirety to the ships
systems on a Command level, she had nothing, she tapped a command that
should at least have shown some base level diagnostics.



Nothing.



~What did you do what did you do what did you do?~ She was almost unable to
admit it, but she had badly miscalculated the Commanders resourcefulness,
she had appeared on all fronts as a half interested coaster, a legacy that
had assumed her Peter Principle early in her career. That had been before
she had looked into Ailynn’s eyes, looked deep into them, as few before had
done, and she indeed had seen a playful fool.



It hadn't, however, been the pleasant kind of playful; it was the look of a
female tiger who had wounded a young deer for her cubs to tear apart. It
was the look of an orca that saw a wounded seal that it would now play with
before consuming nontialently. The Empress had seen the depths of the
Commander's indomitable will as she had looked into her eyes. For the
minutest instant had seen the true being in front of her, and it had wrong
footed the Empress completely; this was a true vergence, a genuine
wildcard. Something flickered, deep in her, but she had long forgotten so
much, she only saw her goal, and her destined domination.



~The Fool was the only one who may legitimately strike a King~



~What game...what game?” Empress wondered. ~What are you up
to?...Nevermind, my influence is all that there is.~



She regarded the console one last time, dismissing it as inconsequential,
just like all the many things that didn’t fit her pattern. It would,
unbeknownst to her, be her first major mistake, as the events of an hour
hence would prove.



~It will be an interesting game~ she pondered as she shifted her pose on
her throne. The Ailynn in her home universe had been killed at the hands of
the cult of the Pah Wraith, so The Empress herself had actually never met
Ailynn in the full Command of all of her immeasurable ability, never come
under the full devilsnare of that awful gaze. Silently, she cursed Veronica
for making this come to pass. She’d managed to change so much this time.



Femtoseconds passed, leaving only thought, and beyond that, only to herself
a solitary thought flickered; a quote of Moriarty to Holmes.



~If you are clever enough to bring destruction on me, rest assured that I
will do as much to you.~



“Billy.” She spoke, breaking the silence. “I desire my guests at my side.”



She snapped her full, awful attention to him, “BRING THEM.”

(Reply Billy)

(Posted by Mark)
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