From One Captain to Another

Posted on Thu Mar 26th, 2009 @ 3:31pm by Captain Elsie Halliwell

1,087 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: In The Dark
Location: Lane's Ready Room
Timeline: Current

{ON}

Commander Lane padded his way through the snaking corridors of his compact, 8-decked ship with the mission still playing heavily on his mind. Commander Arkham had just checked-in with him, and the feeling of unease seemed to permeate the air around him even more so. The slight system failure that had occurred earlier that day only seemed to agitate the Trill further, and with his Number One of the surface, he had few to confide in onboard. His priority was to compartmentalise his anxiety and not allow it to seep out to his crew. As commanding officer, he knew that he had to remain defiant and in control.

Boarding the turbolift, he commanded "Deck One" as the pod propelled upwards to his circular kingdom. As the doors sighed open, the bustle of activity revealed was unusually boisterous considering that the ship were holding orbit above the planet. A quietened hush descended on the crew as Lane nodded in greeting. Turning to his Chief of Operations Officer, Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Sam Jackson he fractured into a ghost of a smile.

"Mr. Jackson, I'll be in my Ready Room should you need me," he said as he strode into his office.

Planting himself heavily into his chair, he shifted the console in front of him to face him squarely and tapped at the buttons.

"Computer, hail Captain Jonas Sheppard of the USS Nagasaki, please."

The voice of the computer responded after a tonal beep with "Channel open."

The image of Jonas Sheppard replaced the Federation seal.

"Ah, Captain, I hope I find you well. How are operations going your end of the sector?" he asked with a smile.

Jonas smiled to his fellow Captain, "They're going well. We've had a small run in with some pirates. Non confrontational at this point, but it could easily turn. We've also apprehended our saboteur, a former crew member who turned rouge. We haven't yet identified if she's working alone."

"Well, that's a development I did not anticipate, Captain," Lane replied, flicking his right eyebrow up in gesture. "Well, I assumed that your CIC and diplomatic party has informed your people already, but my First Officer and her team has just rendezvoused with them."

Jonas nodded his head, "They have. I doubt there will be any problems in the command transition down there."

"I agree, although, I have to admit, Captain… This isn't just a mission-update call. I would like to use you as a sounding board if I may. I am unsure whether just being sat up in orbit has frayed my nerves slightly, or whether paranoia has truly set in, but I can't help to feel a slight… unease about all this. And my First Officer concurs with the sentiment. It's quite difficult to explain to you, but I just get this dreaded notion that something just isn't right with this."

"I had the same feeling where we first arrived, and I hate to say it but it was proven correct when my Marine CO was murdered and our landing parties were ambushed." Jonas paused, realizing this probably wasn't what he wanted to hear, but Lane was a Starfleet captain, and was capably of handling the hard facts. "The planet is more secure now then it was when we first arrived, but there are still risks and people who are out to make us fail."

"Back on Trill we have this expression… It roughly translates to 'Eyes of the Shadow'. It's that extra-sensory feeling of awareness that you sometimes posses but cannot quantify." He played with his bottom lip with his extended forefinger and gently closed his eyes for a moment.

"Our ship suffered a system-wide failure earlier, Captain. Just like a power-blip that shut down everything but with no logical explanation. I have my Chief Ops running a diagnostic on the computer to determine what it was... However, I can't shake of this feeling. Also, further to this, our journey here was uneventful. Eerily so, though. The pirate raiders and factions of non-allegiance mercenaries that were detailed in your dossier were not even ghosts on our sensors. It's like our path to Citadel Prime was purposely cleared for us."

Jonas raised his eyebrow, "Interesting. There is a lot more going on here then we know about. A lot of parties are involved, and I fear the big players haven't yet revealed themselves."

The Trill merely sighed and fixed his blue eyes on Sheppard's. "Somehow, Captain, justifying my paranoia has done little to alleviate it." He laughed a little at his own joke, but then his face dropped.

"We're a small crew, Jonas, in an even smaller vessel. Half my senior staff are on an away mission down on the planet's surface and the rest are still settling into their daily routines." He lifted his hand up to play with his combadge, and then dragged the pads of his fingers over its sharp, metallic points. "I'm not, for one moment, suggesting that whoever your saboteur has allied themselves with is crawling around in the bowels of my ship - I've got Security Teams looking just as a precaution - but you’re right. And when this darkness does envelop our efforts, and it will, I want to be ready. I'm contacting Command and requesting an escort for the Arch. I don't want to be firing my last torpedo as we're torn apart."

Jonas nodded and sighed, "I agree. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you. The Nagasaki will be out on the rim for the next few weeks. Hopefully, we'll be able to solve our little mystery before we return. As much as I like having a large fleet, I'm concerned that putting all the ships in the same place makes it a much easier target."

"And with that, Jonas, we are in agreement." Lane smiled to himself a little before he continued, as if a memory of old, something dear to him, touched his heart as he spoke. "My sweetheart Nanna used to say to me when I was a child, 'don't put all your eggs in one basket,' and it looks to me that the old dear knew a thing or two." He chuckled to himself, and a sparkle flickered in his eye. "I'll contact you in the following few days, Captain, and apprise you of our progress here. Is there anything else, do you think?"

Jonas shook his head, "That's all Captain. Thank you, and good luck."

{OFF}

 

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