High Noon for Legal Nuance

Posted on Mon Aug 10th, 2026 @ 6:49am by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Legate Andrinn Orin
Edited on on Mon Aug 10th, 2026 @ 6:50am

Mission: Season 6: Episode 7: Crossroads of Destiny
Location: XO Captain Gary Taylor's Office & the Steak 'N Stein
Timeline: Concurrently with the planning JP and after "Legal Nuance"
2278 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

XO Captain Gary Taylor's Office

The rescue planning op was making progress. A lot of the success right now was dependent upon the infiltration team and the sensor sweeps that the Elysium was running. Marine captain Samuel Woolheater almost missed the comm call on his PaDD. He reached for the PaDD and it was Legate Andrinn Orin calling. Sam excused himself a moment,

"Excuse me Captain Taylor, I need to take this call" he said and stepped away from the holotable. Andy rarely called him when he knew he was working. And immediately Sam was concerned something happened to him.

=/\= This is Woolheater. Legate? Is everything alright sir?" =/\=

=/\=Yeah, I thought that since you've been working twice as hard since the Colonel was captured, you deserved a break. Wanna meet me for lunch?=/\= Andrinn said over the comms channel, knowing that Sam was going to be in Captain Taylor's office.

Sam glanced back toward the holotable.

Lunch?

For a moment, he said nothing. Andrinn knew perfectly well where he was and what he was doing. More importantly, Andrinn knew Samuel well enough to know that once an operation reached this stage, getting him away from a tactical display required considerably more than the promise of a sandwich.

Andrinn sounded OK. But this was new. That made the invitation itself a message.

=/\= Lunch. =/\= Sam repeated, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked down at the PaDD.

There was a pause. Andrinn stayed focused on the video feed. His handsome face gave no tell. He wasn't under duress and yet there was something...different.

The longer he looked, the more he read on that handsome face. It was his eyes, they were focused and direct...Samuel's expression changed. Not alarm. Understanding.

=/\= Yes, sir. I think I could probably use a break. =/\=

Sam glanced once more toward Gary and Kyle before lowering his voice.

=/\= Where would you like to meet? =/\=

=/\ Wanna meet somewhere down there on one of the Promenade levels? There's that new Klingon place or we could go for something Bajoran. Heck, there's even that one place that was inspired by some of the species we've met around here. Your pick though, =/\= Andrinn said as thought about how he could get the message across to Sam without being overly obvious.

Sam considered the suggestions. They weren't random. People often got struck by how good looking Andrinn was - and he was good looking - but that wasn't all there was. He was wicked smart and he always played everything he did for effect. Sam picked up on this in the suggestions Andrinn was making. He noted Public places. Busy places. Andrinn wasn't looking for somewhere they wouldn't be noticed.

He wanted somewhere they would.

=/\= Yeah...I am hungry and yeah...How about the place we went last time? =/\= Sam suggested. =/\= We've eaten there before. And I know what I like there and they're fast. We could make this the world's fastest lunch? =/\=

Woolheater joked because that's what he would do. When Andrinn Orin comes calling you say 'yes' when he asks. Sam also would want to keep it short. He let that sit for just a fraction of a second.

=/\= I can be there...Ten minutes? =/\=

He searched Orin's face to see if that would work and if he was getting the message.

Andrinn thought about the place that they had gone recently. However, he was drawing a blank. The last time that he and Sam had done stuff together was when Sam brought him that beautiful bottle of wine to share between them. Maybe, that was the clue? There was a nice steak restaurant that served wine.

=/\=You talking about that nice steak place? Yeah, that sounds perfect. My treat. See you in ten then,=/\= Andrinn said before closing the comms line.

He started down to that steak place and got there in about seven minutes. Andrinn waited outside and tried not pacing after everything he and Serenity found out,. All Andrinn could do was wait for that beautiful man to come and talk to him.

The channel closed.

Sam remained still for a moment, looking at the darkened screen of the PaDD. Andrinn wanted to meet in public. Somewhere familiar. Somewhere the two of them having lunch together wouldn't attract a second glance. The steak place was both public and had some privacy and they had a fast lunch line...perfect.

Whatever this was, the Legate wanted the meeting to be seen. Sam returned to the holotable.

"Captain Taylor?" He waited until Gary looked his way. "Legate Orin has asked to see me. I'm going to step away for a few minutes."

He glanced toward Kyle, then back to Gary.

"I'll be reachable, and I'll come straight back here when we're finished."

With a nod, he excused himself and hurried down to the Promenade.



Steak 'n Stein - It's scary good!

Sam walked into the restaurant. It was busy and Andrinn was easy to find. They gave him a great table for two, right in a busy traffic lane with a modest bit of privacy. It was a prominent seat. Sam grinned at how easily Andrinn was around people. He made everyone just feel...good. It was something he admired about the man.

"Legate, is this seat taken?" he leaned in for a kiss.

Andrinn got up and leaned into the kiss with Sam. It was a tender kiss and once their lips parted, Andrinn offered up the seat across from him. He pulled out a PADD and handed it over to Sam to look over. It was the stuff that Andrinn and Serenity had found out about the legal system for the Lonians.

"Serenity and I were looking through some of the legal system's stuff on the Lonian homeworld, as a way to see what we could LEGALLy do to help out people. But, as you'll see, there's not much that we found out," Andrinn said as he waited for Sam to look over everything.

Sam returned the kiss and took the offered seat. The smile remained as Andrinn handed him the PaDD.

"Well, hello to you too," he said lightly. He picked up the PaDD.

At first, Samuel read it the way he read most legal documents: carefully and with the understanding that somebody considerably smarter than him had probably hidden the important part somewhere between seventeen paragraphs of language designed to make his eyes bleed.

But this...this was different. Someone had highlighted exactly what Samuel was to read. This was bad. And the smile gradually disappeared.

Twenty-five years.

Sam scrolled.

Illegal possession. Fifteen years.

His thumb stopped.

Destruction of the asset.

He looked up at Andrinn's face and met his eyes. They were not neutral but intense, only for a moment though.....~keep reading~...was what came across to Sam. He read the passage again.

Then a third time.

He looked up at Andrinn, "What does 'destruction of the asset' mean?"

There wasn't accusation in his voice. There wasn't anger either. Not yet. Sam already suspected the answer. He just wanted to hear the diplomatic officer with decades of experience sitting across from him say it.

Andrinn put his hands together as he watched Sam reading the document and clearly connecting some of the dots together, much as he and Serenity did earlier. "You really wanna know what 'Destruction of the Assest' means? Wanna take a wild goose chase? Means that they're going to kill off Teevs' daughter because she's only half Lonian. The other half is the second race that was an offshoot of the Lonian species. Much like Romuluans and Vulcans. But, apparently, the Lonians don't look favorably on what they consider the 'lesser race' of the two," Andrinn said as he explained some of it more to Sam. He looked at the other man and said, "Yeah, they have the death penalty for basically being...impure I guess?"

Sam's eyes dropped back to the PaDD. For several seconds, he said nothing.

He was trying to put the horror of what was happening to their friends, their crewmates and what would happen to Kerilia and Teevs.

The sounds of the restaurant continued around them. Plates clanked. Glasses clinked. Conversations that flowed easily. Someone laughed at another table. Samuel read the section again.

"Kerilia."

It wasn't a question. His jaw tightened slightly. He set the PaDD down between them, but kept one hand resting on it.

"You gotta be shittin' me...okay." Sam looked across the table at Andrinn. Andrinn's steady gaze back confirmed the worst for the Marine.

"Andy....You're the diplomat. Serenity's the lawyer." His voice had become quieter. "So tell me something, Andy." He tapped the PaDD once with his forefinger. "Is there a legal way out of this?"

A beat.

"Not one you're hoping to find. Not something we might convince them to reconsider." His eyes stayed on Andrinn's. "Based on what you and Serenity found...is there actually a legal mechanism that gets Kerilia and our people out of there?"

Andrinn shook his head no slowly before replying. It took him a few moments to think of the best way to answer Sam, even though it was a simple answer. "No, unfortunately there isn't a way out of it legally. We spent a while trying to go through whatever we could to find the way out of it to the best of our abilities. One that wouldn't cause a diplomatic incident. But, the way that it's going now, we've got no other way out of it. So, the next best thing is......"

He looked at Sam when he said that and pointed to the other man. "I'm not telling you what to do. I know that Captain Taylor and the command team wants to get stuff done. But, I think they know as much as I do that if something happens, there can't be a trace," Andrinn replied.


Sam watched him. Not the pointing finger. Andrinn. The man with whom Sam could let his guard down and just be...human. The man who saw Sam without any armor on. And for a few seconds the PaDD between them might as well not have existed. Samuel understood what the Legate was saying. More importantly, he understood what Andrinn very deliberately was not saying.

There could be no trace.

Sam leaned back in his chair and looked around the restaurant. People were eating. Talking. Laughing. A server moved past their table carrying two plates.

Lunch.

That was all this was. When his eyes returned to Andrinn, his expression had softened. "Andy. I get it. I understand..." Sam reached across the table and gently lowered the hand that had been pointing at him. "You didn't tell me to do anything."

He held Andrinn's gaze, "You asked me to lunch." A beat. "And you showed a friend something you and Serenity found because you thought he should know." Samuel gave the hand beneath his a small squeeze before releasing it. "That's all that happened here. Andrinn..."

He picked up the PaDD again and looked down at the Lonian legal findings. Then his voice changed. Not dramatically. It simply became the voice of the Marine officer who had walked into Captain Taylor's office earlier that morning.

"For what it's worth..." His eyes lifted from the screen. "...Captain Taylor already has us planning contingencies."

Sam let that answer stand on its own. Then, quieter: "Andrinn...look at me."

He waited.

"I know what you're thinking." Another pause. "Don't." Sam's expression was calm. "You didn't put me or anybody else in harm's way. The people who took our crew did that."

Andrinn reached across the table and said, "Who said anything about putting people in harm's way? We were just having a good little lunch, weren't we? I was showing you some stuff about what we found.....including some command codes dug in there.......the ones that the Counsel gave the crew when we were working together."

Andrinn looked down at the held hands for a moment before looking back up at Sam and said, "For what it's worth, I do hope you're always safe. I do worry about you more than you think. That's why I do enjoy the little moments like this. Be safe out there."

Andrinn got up from his seat and leaned across the table, kissing Sam on the top of his head gently. He stepped back and headed back out of the restaurant and back to his duties.

Samuel didn't move. Not immediately. He watched Andrinn disappear into the traffic of the Promenade, then slowly looked down at the PaDD still sitting on the table in front of him.

Command codes.

That was new. Sam drew the PaDD closer. He didn't access them. Not here. Not yet. Instead, he sat for another few seconds in the noise of the restaurant and looked at the chair across from him.

~~ I do worry about you more than you think.~~

Samuel exhaled quietly through his nose. "Yeah," he murmured to the empty chair. "I know." His eyes dropped back to the PaDD.

Kerilia. Twenty-five years. Death.

Command codes.

And somewhere beneath all of it, the simple fact that two of the smartest people Samuel knew had gone looking for a lawful way through this and had come back empty-handed.

Sam stood. If Andrinn had just handed Woolheater the prison and Security system command code authorizations. Then they would only get one shot to use them.

Lunch was over.

[OFF:]

A JP by
Legate Andrinn Orinn
&
Captain Samuel Woolheater