[psl] Tex & Connie Espionage AU

[a_shadow]

Timeline • Tex finds Connie's dog tags in her locker • Scrapyard mission • Connie approaches Wash

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[a_shadow]

"Perfect," Tex says.

The hatch opens the rest of the way then and Tex takes off. There's still a straggling Pelican behind the ship and Tex takes to the radio to signal it.

"Pilot of 256er," Tex calls through the radio. "Two to board. Drop your hatch."

[liesdontfindyou]

Taking off into open space is disorienting, with her head in the state it’s in, but Connie knows that if she doesn’t focus and stay on course then the cover story will become a reality.

So she launches after Texas and follows her lead towards the ship, sticking as close as is safe. It keeps up the appearance of her needing assistance, at least.

Connie’s never been quite so relieved to get her feet back on the solid surface of a Pelican’s blood tray.

[a_shadow]

Tex doesn't strap in after boarding. She approaches the door of the cockpit, watches the progress of the Pelican through the viewport for a moment, then sits in the copilot's seat. She takes the seat with enough ease that it should be obvious this is where she's used to sitting.

Soon enough the ship has alighted in the freighter and the hatch is dropped. Pelican 479er is right behind them and it lands with a screech as a bomb lights the reaches of space behind them.

Tex gets out of the copilot's seat and gestures to Connie quietly. Let's book it before the Alpha Squad manages to get off their ship, she is implying. She wants to get this debriefing over with.

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie spends the ride strapped into one of the harnesses, not trusting herself to stay upright, but she understands the gesture easily enough and nods, releasing herself.

She’s steadier on her feet now they’re back in a more stable artificial gravity and atmosphere, she can keep pace with Texas. Still, she can’t help but cast a glance back at the other Pelican as they go.

[determinist]

The Director is standing very erect in the briefing room when they enter, hands clasped behind his back. Neither of them had broadcasted much about their positions or what they were doing, which displeases him greatly. It also bugs him that Texas and Connecticut arrive separately from the rest of the team—Connecticut had deployed with the team, and Texas had never been deployed at all.

He glares at the two of them until the rest of the team clomps in, lining up around the projection table. Maybe he should have had the rest of the team blocked from entering until he'd debriefed Texas and Connecticut alone, but it's too late now.

"The number one question on my agenda," he begins with some anger in his tone, "is what happened to Agent Connecticut during this mission."

Connecticut had been considered the misfit for a little while, and this feeling had only grown in him with the failure of her last mission. How is she going to explain this one?

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie stands perfectly at attention, back straight, head tilted slightly up, her breathing made even. She's lied her way out of problems before, this is nothing new to her, but with every lie the foundations of her position in the Project have crumbled a little more.

"My jetpack malfunctioned and I was thrown off course, sir. I was worried that if I tried to correct my course or make my way back alone, I'd only drift further out," she says.

She shudders internally. It had happened before. Poor Georgia. She can't even imagine.

[determinist]

"Malfunctioned?" he asks with some sarcasm. "Indeed. And how did you come to arrive with Agent Texas?" he continues, looking at the agent in question now.

[a_shadow]

"She used her signal light because she was too close to the main hangar to use her radio," Tex explains. "I saw her signal and came to her aid."

[liesdontfindyou]

"The others were occupied inside the hangar," Connie says. "They hadn't noticed I'd gone missing yet. Once Agent Texas found me we were able to make our way back to a Pelican safely."

She can feel some of the other agents side-eyeing her, but she's used to that too. She's always drawn attention in briefings with her questions, mistakes or disobedience.

[determinist]

"Hmph," he mutters, then speaks more loudly: "Unfortunately, Agent Connecticut, your jetpack 'malfunction' will cause your scores to drop."

Meaning her place on the leaderboard will slide one or two points. He signals to the Counselor to take this into account; the leaderboard briefly shows the positions from 9-16, and Connecticut's name slides two places down, placing her beneath Florida and Montana. Neither of which have even been on any missions so far.

"Now, Agent Carolina," he says, turning to the mission leader. He proceeds with the briefing as usual, and Carolina reports the difficulties they had with various aspects of the mission. The scores of the agents on this mission besides Connecticut don't change significantly enough to shuffle the top 8 positions on the leaderboard, it turns out. After everyone's assured of their positions he dismisses the squad and he turns around to look at the viewscreen on the wall.

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie bites her tongue and stands a little straighter, through the rest of the debriefing, almost uncomfortably so. Her actual numbers haven't mattered to her for a long time; the board is a system of manipulation like anything else in the Project, she knows her worth isn't in the numbers.

Yet this time, the sting is sharper than usual. What does that mean for her future among the team?

When they're dismissed, she freezes in the hall outside for a second, looking a little lost.

[howkickassiam]

"Hey, there, CT," York says when he sees her. She looks dejected and out of sorts. He understands; he'd been blasted into space himself on this mission. "Want to go to the mess and have some chocolate pudding? My treat." Meaning—he can get into the supplies that are locked already for the night.

[liesdontfindyou]

She instinctively looks around for Tex, there's a lot to talk about, that she knows, but she also knows there's no talking to her during active hours.

It almost seems to take Connie a moment to register his voice, but when she does she looks up at him and says, "Hey, York. That... that sounds pretty good right about now, actually."

[howkickassiam]

York grins and nods toward the locker room.

"Last one out of the shower is a rotten egg?"

[liesdontfindyou]

That pries out a genuine, if exhausted, smile and she nods, "Hope you're prepared to be the rotten egg."

It's actually tough to make herself take a more utilitarian shower, when all she wants to do is stand under the water until her skin is slightly numb, but in that sense the motivation to do so is a good thing. And, short or not, she does feel a little better after, anyway.

[howkickassiam]

York has shorter hair than Connie, but only just, and he uses a lot more product. So her prediction comes true, it turns out.

And besides, maybe he didn't mind letting it happen that way. Connie obviously needs some cheering.

"All right, champ," he says encouragingly, wrapping an arm around her shoulder after they're both dressed. "A pudding delight extravaganza awaits."

He says it quietly enough for Wash not to hear. Wash isn't a tattle-tale, but he would probably protest if he realized what York is planning.

[liesdontfindyou]

"You're really hyping up this pudding," Connie says with the faintest of laughs, gently bumping him in the side with the shoulder closest to him.

She'd be lying if she said York's energy wasn't a little infectious.

[howkickassiam]

"Hey, everyone knows chocolate is a magic elixir for bad moods," he says. "It's not my fault, it's just the way it is."

He smiles and removes his arm from her shoulders so they can start walking down to the mess—or, actually, to the storage room that opens onto the hallway two doors down from the mess.

[liesdontfindyou]

"I'll take your word on that," she jokes in return as she follows him.

When they come to their actual destination, Connie folds her arms and raises a brow at him. "Dare I even ask?" she asks, though she's hardly surprised.

[howkickassiam]

"Hey, regular locks I have no trouble with."

He doesn't need his stereo vision to finagle one of these locks open—he just needs to be able to feel what his lockpicks are doing inside the opening.

"They've caught me doing this before," he admits as he works the lock. "I told them then they need to keep the mess open later at night. They didn't do anything about anything so I keep on doing this." He shrugs as the door swings open.

[liesdontfindyou]

"Well, that's totally on them then," Connie agrees easily. "We arrive back from missions at all hours."

It's not like she could judge him anyway. She pokes her nose into places much less innocent than the mess hall storage.

[howkickassiam]

"That's the way I see it," he says. "And if I hoarded stuff at lunch instead of taking it after hours it would sit in my room and maybe make me sick, you know?"

He ambles into the room, guiding himself by the emergency floodlight.

"All right," he says, opening the large stainless steel fridge. There, the array of pudding flavors sits before them. "Regular chocolate, devil's food, triple-layered chocolate mousse, or vanilla?"

It probably would not go beyond Connie's notice that the devil's food and triple-layered chocolate mousse had never been served in the mess. That and the fact there were far fewer containers of them.

[liesdontfindyou]

"Triple-layered sounds good," she says, eyeing the options. "They've been holding out on us. Thank god for having a nosy lock pick around, huh?" she then teases.

[howkickassiam]

He grins and hands her a package of the mousse. "You're damn right," he says. "Gourmet options are probably why I'd keep doing this even if they did keep the mess open late," he adds. He selects a package of the devil's food for himself and pulls the top off. There's a container of spoons next to the fridge and he grabs one to begin enjoying the pudding.

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie takes the cue and snatches up a spoon of her own, quickly digging into her own mousse. "Oh, that is good stuff. Definitely what I needed after all..."

She gestures vaguely with her spoon.