Two Truths and a Truth

Posted on Tue Apr 15th, 2025 @ 2:19am by Lieutenant Didrea Zade & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Xavier Leiko

Mission: Character Development
Location: Suleur
Timeline: Backpost
4075 words - 8.2 OF Standard Post Measure

The description Zade had offered the day before was drastically oversimplified. The planet, Suleur, appeared gradually out of the nebula, a vibrant green planet in an expanse of blues and purples. As the shuttle began its entry approach, the green became lush tropical forests, extending as far as the eye could see. After about a minute of descent, a small clearing came into view, clearly done on purpose to create a simple, grassy landing area for shuttles. Once the shuttle door opened, the group was hit with dense, humid air and a comfortably warm breeze. In the distance, some chittering and whistles hinted to the native wildlife. All around them, trees towered up into the sky, filtering the nebula's light through the leaves and creating miniature light shows in the haze that covered the ground. A couple of the shorter plants had fruit growing from them of various colors and sizes.

Zade exited first, partly as the security chief and partly as the resident expert on the planet, and took in a deep breath, the mist near the ground gently swirling with her steps. The humid air carried an earthly, mossy scent with a floral undertone, and the warmth felt like it put gentle pressure on her chest. The air was denser than the standard atmosphere on the Athena, which she had warned Finn and Xavier about, and while they had hyposprays to make breathing easier, they were going to go up in elevation, where the atmosphere was closer to what they were used to. On her back was a standard hiking pack, which held her food and water supply, as well as some emergency items in case their stay lasted longer than expected.

"Man, this planet feels fantastic. A little humid for my taste, but I love that warm air. It's always a tad too cold back on the ship, you know?" Finn took in a deep breath, closing her eyes as she absorbed the atmosphere around her. "It could only be better if we had landed next to an ocean."

A quiet hum from Zade was the immediate response. It was the right amount of humidity for her, and the last time she was here, the humidity did wonders for her curls. "Unfortunately, this is the only landing spot on the planet, and it's only lakes and forest. It is nice being warm for once, though."

After securing the shuttle, Xavier stepped out and was immediately hit by the warm air. He had spent most of his life on starships and starbases so unlike Finn, he was perfectly comfortable with the ship's temperature and humidity. "Oh boy," he said as he itched his arm where the hyprospray had been injected. "We're definitely not on the holodeck anymore," he added as he drew in a deep breath.

Turning back toward the ship, Zade addressed the two, pulling out her tricorder to calibrate it for use as a compass. "The waterfall is about a two hour hike from here. Most of the plant life is safe to consume, so help yourselves, just watch out for anything purple because I hear they give you a nasty stomach ache."

The three headed off on their excursion towards the waterfall. The terrain wasn't too difficult to traverse, but it was filled with beautiful plants. About an hour in, Finn started to feel a rumbling in her stomach. "You said anything not purple right?" She eyed a vibrant orange colored fruit hanging from a nearby tree. It seemed both familiar and alien, as if an orange from Earth had produced a hybrid offspring with a pear and a plum. Without waiting for a response, she plucked three of them from the branch. "I don't know about you guys, but I think it's snack time. Shall we?" She offered them each one of the interesting pieces of fruit.

"A planet full of edible foliage? Henry would be in his element," Xavier said as he took one of the fruits from Finn. He rubbed it on his shirt and took a big bite. It was sweet and slightly tangy, it reminded him of a quanto fruit from Betazed, but this was juicier. "Good find," he said as he wiped a trickle of juice running down his chin with the back of his hand. "Let's grab some more in case this is the only batch of them."

Nodding confirmation to Finn, Zade accepted the offering and inspected it before taking a bite, leaning forward slightly as a lot of juice squeezed out and threatened to land on her shirt. "Oh wow," she exclaimed, after swallowing the bite. "These are good. I can't believe I walked past them last time. I have room for some." Removing her backpack, the Trill opened the top to allow her companions to add some fruit to it so they didn't have to carry it.

Another fifteen minutes or so passed in the hike with relative silence as the three marveled over the beautiful and lush landscape. As beautiful as it was however, the hike was getting somewhat boring. "Let's play a game," Finn said. "The scenery is gorgeous, but my mind is dying for some activity. Besides, you two are slow." That last bit slipped out unexpectedly. In fact, she swore she had only thought those words yet she could also swear she verbally heard them leave her own lips. She quickly let out a half laugh hoping the comment would be taken sarcastically.

"We're literally almost there," Zade said with a smile, dismissing the last bit Finn said as a sign of impatience. Faintly, in the distance, the sound of running water could start to be heard, a sign that the Trill wasn't just saying it for reassurance. "Besides, I think you're just looking for a comeback after Xavier and I wiped the shuttle floor with you in Uno."

"Well, it's a lot harder to win when two people gang up on you solely to keep you from winning...I didn't know you two cared about Uno so much or I would've just let you win," she shrugged.

"Ganged up on," Xavier repeated with a roll of his eyes. "You'd think that someone who had their fingers cut off in the line of duty should really have thicker skin." Xavier stopped midstride, did he say those words or had he just thought it? Where the hell had that come from? "I..." he started to say but stopped, not know how he would finish that sentence.

Finn stopped for just a second, the abruptness of the statement having caught her off guard. It still bothered her to think of that particular period of her life, but she had at least accepted it. "If my skin was thicker maybe he wouldn't have been able to cut them off," she gave a somewhat awkward chuckle.

Xavier tried to smile back but he was too bothered with that comment and how it had come out of his mouth without his permission. "I don't know where that came from," he mumbled, somewhat apologetically.

Zade looked between the two of them with a confused expression. That didn't sound or feel like banter, it felt like something else, and the whole air around them grew tense as a result. "Whoa, guys, we're here to have a good time, not fight," she said, raising her hands in an effort to diffuse the situation.

"Sorry Lieutenant, we wouldn't want you to break our arms too," Xavier spat. Once again the words rolled out of his mouth before he had a chance to even think them. Damn, two for two!

"What the hell is wrong with you Xav?! Double raktajino 'don't ask' and now you're being rude as hell. Clearly something is going on," the words came out of Finn's mouth like bullets and though part of her was glad it had been said another part wondered why it had come out that way. She had meant to be somewhat diplomatic about it. Oh well, it was out now.

"If I had known that the two of you were going to act like children, I wouldn't have invited you." The words were immediately followed by Zade covering her mouth. That was secretly what the Trill was thinking while watching the bickering, but it wasn't what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell them to knock it off, but the words didn't come out that way. "That's..." Maybe it was the nerves of dealing with this, but suddenly she felt... like the onset of a headache? In any case, it felt like she had to fight to get the words out. "I did... didn't... mean that. What the hell?"

"Maybe something is going on and maybe it has something to do with..." Xavier stopped himself, his brain only now registering the hidden meaning behind their words, his own included. "...This place," he finished, quieter than he had spoken before. "Something is wrong with this place. You wanted to be more tactful but weren't" he said pointing at Finn. "And you wanted to use a different phrase but couldn't," he turned to Zade. "Something is making us say the inside thoughts out loud. Where the hell have you brought us to Zade?" He asked, getting louder again.

"As if being friends with a telepath wasn't enough, now I have to just say my thoughts out loud?" Finn waved an exasperated hand in the air. "I thought this trip was supposed to be a fun get away? I'm so done with feelings and talking, it's like it never ends! I'm going back to shuttle. Screw this. I should've known better than to trust your opinion of a good shore leave," Finn gave a nasty side eye to Zade before promptly turning around to head back.

Something was clearly wrong. With a roll of her eyes, Zade pulled out her tricorder, hoping to actually find the problem instead of complain about it. "Hope you're happy with yourself. Only a coward would run away from a problem," she grumbled back to Finn, typing into the tricorder with more force than necessary. Unlike someone, the Trill wanted to figure out what was going on, because this didn't happen last time.

Finn whirled around like a tornado, eyes blazing with anger. "A coward?!" She closed the distance between them faster than she thought humanly possible. "That's RICH coming from you. You arrested your own friend! You can't even stand up for those closest to you, and you call me a coward?! No wonder no one wants to hang out with you!" Every fiber of Finn's control was bent on just keeping her fists to herself. She had worked so hard to overcome the fiery depths of emotion following the mission on Rondac, yet in an instant it seemed as though every ounce of anger had bubbled to the surface and wanted to lash out at whatever was closest.

"Zade's kinda right," Xavier butted in before the Trill had a chance to reply to Finn. Shut up, shut up, shut up! He screamed internally to himself, though the warning went unheard. "You did run back to mummy and daddy the second things got a bit tough!" Idiot!

Meanwhile, Zade fought the urge to throw the tricorder at Finn. "You don't know what you're talking about, Finn! I didn't arrest Nayisa just because, I arrested her for multiple violations of protocol and int-" Remembering that she, Zora, and Nayisa had specifically chosen to keep the real reason behind the arrest under wraps, Zade suddenly shut up, taking an angry breath or two before the sound of 'high detection' beeps from the tricorder reached her ears.

Looking at the tricorder, Zade's expression turned slightly confused, her brow furrowing. "Whoa." The tricorder in this instance happened to be pointed to Finn. "You've got abnormally high levels of kyridone." In turn, she scanned Xavier, then herself, the confusion on her face only becoming more pronounced. "All of us are reading the same thing. That can't be right..."

Xavier rolled his eyes. "I'm an engineer, not a doctor," he said rather bluntly. "Stop trying to be the smartest person in the room and tell us exactly what that is."

"If I knew, I would tell you," Zade shot back, being generous with the look she gave him. "Whatever it is, it seems to be responsible for the agitation." A familiar name in the tricorder readings further confused Zade. How the hell did laxolin get into their systems?? The kyridone she didn't recognize, though the tricorder evidently had, but she did recognize the one of many compounds used to make someone more suggestible. There certainly wasn't any laxolin in the atmosphere, which meant that it had to come from somewhere else...

Shrugging off her backpack, Zade opened it and pulled out one of the orange fruits that they had stashed for later, scanning it. "You've got to be kidding me..." she muttered. Standing back up, fruit in one hand and tricorder in the other, Zade looked between the two. "The tricorder says that kyridone is some pheromone that interacts with our hormones, and it so happens that the one fruit someone had to go pick contains that pheromone. It doesn't look like it's dangerous, but it's causing some feedback loop that increases agitation."

"Well if someone hadn't brought us to this shit planet and told us that it was safe to eat the fruit then maybe this wouldn't have happened! As for you," Finn turned to look right at Xav, "a bit tough?! Screw you. If I didn't love you, I'd deck you." Wait, did I just say love? Finn immediately covered her mouth. Where the hell did that come from?!

Xavier had taken Finn's words to mean in a platonic sense and wouldn't have given it any more thought, except her inner monologue seemed disturbed by the revelation. Was she scared of her words because it meant being vulnerable, something that she hated being? Or was it because she meant more than friends? "Since when do you love me?" He asked, all anger forgotten.

"I didn't mean that...," suddenly she felt a headache oncoming, "obviously." Finn stumbled as the space around her seemed to swirl. Luckily they were surrounded by trees so she quickly grasped the trunk of one for stability and righted herself, trying to not seem too obviously ill. "Do you guys feel weird? I think this fruit which was supposedly safe to consume," she shot a sideways glance at Zade, "might not be so safe." She shook her head, hoping that by some miracle it would clear the dizziness.

Seeing Finn stumble, Zade quickly approached to offer support in case she fell, and at t same time the tricorder beeping intensified, confirming Zade's suspicions. This was definitely the effects of laxolin, though it wasn't presenting exactly the same. "It looks like something in the fruit, when digested, produces laxolin, which is... a sort of truth serum. It doesn't force you to do anything, it just makes you suggestible." She scanned herself and Xavier again to be sure, giving Finn a sideways glance to make sure she was alright. "Resisting it... well, as you just learned, isn't fun. I don't think anyone's discovered this here." Or if they had, they didn't update the planet's information, she added in her head. "It certainly won't kill you, if that's what you're concerned about."

"So what you're saying is we're just going to reel off the truth until this fruit is out of our systems?" Xavier asked, as he placed his hands on his hips. "And if we lie, we're gonna feel like crap?" Great!! Just what I need. What the hell have I dragged myself into? "Hold up..." He said again with surprising loudness. "You lied!" He pointed a finger at Finn. "Do you love me or not?"

"Of course I do," Finn went to cover her mouth, but stopped. Suddenly she not only felt better, but good. Like a small amount of euphoria overcame her senses for just a moment. After a short pause, she continued. "I love you like a brother Xav. I'll admit I had a bit of a crush on you early on, sure. I mean look at you," she waived at his well maintained physique, "plus we make a damn good team. It would be hard not to, but things didn't work out that way and now I look at you as family. You're my best friend, Xav. So of course I love you. Also," she held up a finger as if analyzing the words that had just spewed out of her mouth. "I simultaneously hated that and loved it at the same time. I feel great! And very emotionally vulnerable...why am I saying this? If either of you breathes a word about what happened on this planet back on the ship I swear I will hit you so hard you'll lose your memory." The lack of unpleasant side effects indicating that Finn was not lying.

"Are you kidding me, I'm going to wear a "Finn loves me" t-shirt the minute we get back," Xavier lied. He knew that if he made light of the words she just said then that would ease some of the tension, even if it did cause him to have an instant headache. He rolled his eyes and knew that if there was one thing he had learned today was that the truth was better than a lie. If for nothing else it might make the headache go away. "I love you too Finn. Don't tell Tey but you're my best friend too." Ah, relief!

"Huh, that weirdly felt pretty good. While we're at it.." Finn shrugged and turned towards Zade. "I hate that you brought us to this planet. Did you know this would happen? Also you should have more confidence, you're really great at what you do and but it seems like sometimes you're not sure. Which I understand, I've been there myself a lot recently, but you're a great department head." She ended her statement with a grin followed by a look of slight confusion. She had meant to say some of that but not all of it. Then again it felt so good to let the words out so freely that she didn't even attempt to back track anything this time.

The confusion that made up Zade's nonverbal response made it clear that this was not the Finn she was used to. "Who are you and what have you done with Finn?" she asked, the moment of teasing only brief as it was evident that Finn only said it because of the laxolin. "No, I didn't know that this would happen." The lack of side effects indicated that she was likely telling the truth. The compliment was something the Trill didn't really know what to do with. The truth was that she felt like she wasn't living up to Zora's expectations and that she had to push herself to do better. There weren't many options to respond: be truthful, which meant being vulnerable in a way she hated; lie and try to express self-confidence, and risk the laxolin giving her away; or just don't respond.

In any case, it was uncomfortable.

"Thanks," Zade awkwardly settled with. It was simple and gave nothing away. In an attempt to divert the attention away from the couple seconds of pause that followed Finn's compliment, the Trill turned to Xavier and gave a little smile. "Maybe we should take some of this fruit back with us if it keeps Finn this nice," she joked.

"Mix it into a rum-based cocktail, then we'll get drunk truth mixed with fruit truth," Xavier replied with a smile. He went to speak some more then seemed to doubt himself and stopped. "I don't think you should worry too much about Zora," he eventually said. "You've made mistakes but Zora was young once, a long, long, long, time ago... she understands that this role, like all roles, it's a learning curve, y'know? And what Finn said was right, you're good at your role. You haven't killed us, yet."

A slight flush in Zade's cheeks betrayed the discomfort she felt from the praise. Even if it was deserved, accepting compliments was something she struggled with. "Well, I guess not killing you is as good a compliment as I’ll ever get. Glad we’ve set the bar so low," Zade responded, managing a dry smirk.

"I like the idea of rum mixed with this fruit..." Finn commented and then looked straight into Xavier's eyes as if challenging him. "Maybe that will get you to admit whatever it is you're up to? I can't say I know what's going on. Clearly I'm at a disadvantage since I can't read minds, but you haven't been one hundred percent yourself."

Xavier stared back. He recognised that defiant look in Finn's eyes and whatever she was hinting at, and he had a very good idea what that was, she wasn't going to let it go until she heard an answer she was happy with. "None of us are one hundred per cent ourselves," he answered, his tone even. "We've been poisoned with truth fruit." He shot a sidewards glance at the Trill.

"Oh no," Finn replied. "You can't bullshit your way out of this one. 'None of us are one hundred percent ourselves," she rolled her eyes. "That's a politicians answer if I've ever heard one."

"What do you want from me, Keating?" Xavier asked, clearly getting frustrated with this game now. "If you don't want a politician's answer then stop speaking in riddles."

"'You haven't been one hundred percent yourself' doesn't seem like much of a riddle, but suit yourself," she shrugged. "I know it's annoying for people to try to dig for you to talk about what's going on so I guess I'm not sure why I'm asking. I just hope you're truly fine. Anyway, I don't think this shore leave is really going the way any of us intended. Should we just head back? There's enough time left to spend a day on another planet, or the holodeck and get in some sort of relaxing before we have to report back to duty."

Xavier wanted to reply; he wanted to explain himself and unburden himself. He figured it would feel cathartic even if the consequences wouldn't. But he couldn't risk it, not even with Finn. At the very least, he couldn't put her in that position; he loved her too much for that. She was just reckless enough to want to help him, risk her position and career for him, and he could say with a level of certainty that he was not worth it. So he said nothing. Instead, he gave a vague shrug and started moving back the way they had come.

Well, the mood was certainly ruined. As much as Zade wanted to try and refocus the group toward the whole point of their visit --something meant to be relaxing-- it was clearly having the opposite effect. "As much as I want to convince you both to drop this and just enjoy the damn planet," she began, before a short pause followed. "If you two want to leave, then we can go." She decided to leave out the fact that she wouldn't be happy with the decision, but it was better to preserve whatever was left of the friendships.

"Zade, if you want to stay just say you want to stay," Xavier bit angrily. "It's your shoreleave too."

"I do, but not with the two of you in this state." The biting tone didn't help the situation. With a sigh, Zade reached into her bag and dumped the fruit they had collected onto the ground. "When you two decide to act like adults, you can either join me at the waterfall or go back to the shuttle." With that, she turned and left, actively ignoring any responses. It wasn't the way she wanted a simple shore leave to go, but those two needed to sort their crap out.