Circling the Wagons

Posted on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 @ 2:16am by Lieutenant JG Drew O'Connell & Lieutenant Commander Eliza McAdams & Lieutenant JG Ryan Warner

1,912 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Balowlli System
Location: Chief Security/Tactical Officer's Office
Timeline: Prior to Personnel Transfer (Part Two)

Drew stepped up to the new Chief of Security and Tactical's office. He and Kathryn Martin had already met during his first days on the Archimedes. He thought they had got on well, at least when compared to his relationship with Ador Shran. With a brief smile, Drew decided he wouldn't press Martin's buttons the way he had pressed Shran's. Depresseing the announcement chime, Drew waited for Martin to invite him in.

Each of the PADDs spread out on Kate's desk represented a job she had to do. The fact that there were over a dozen of them would have daunted her had she not been used to it. She'd done this job before, after all, on a Sovereign-class no less, and she was accustomed to the fact that the list was never empty. She had prioritised them earlier as best she could but it was going to be difficult to attend to most of them whilst they were in the throes of mission preparation since it tended to steal a fair bit of priority away from more mundane issues like crew rosters.

She really had to appoint an Assistant.

As the chime rang, she didn't look up, leaning back instead to grab a fresh PADD from the stockpile resting atop the console behind her. "Come in."

Drew stepped inside and nodded at the new Chief Security and Tactical Officer. "Been a while since we last talked, Lieutenant. Glad to see you've gotten the job vacancy left by Shran. Congratulations on that," Drew said as he approached her PaDD laden desk. He was glad that his department worked in memorization more than any other department and he wasn't equally as innundated with PaDDs.

Kate hadn't glanced up until her visitor spoke and then her gaze moved quickly, slight surprise registering on her features as the staff member she was clearly expecting turned out to be a representative from another department, and a senior officer at that. So much for assumptions. Blinking a few times as she processed what he'd said, Kate then offered O'Donnell a faint smile and sat back in her chair. "Thank you."

It was all she could say really and the brunette realised that as soon as the words had been spoken. A familiar, uncomfortable silenced followed before her mind managed to rush out an acceptable follow-up remark. "What can I do for you?" It wasn't much but it was a start. Her first meeting with the Intel Chief had gone relatively smoothly, as it had happened, but that had something to do with her playing peacemaker for Shran who had needed a tactful interpreter at times. In those sorts of situations, Kate tended to lose her self-consciousness because the focus, or at least it seemed to her, wasn't on her. That was the trouble with seniority; nobody to hide behind.

Drew walked into the room and took a seat across from the new department head. He crossed his ankle over his knee and folded his hands in his lap before starting. "I've just come from a mission brief with Lieutenant LaFaal. I thought it prudent to discuss tactics for keeping the ship hidden during the duration of this mission. There's an especially dangerous species in this region which would be better served not knowing that alien species exist outside their world."

Producing a PaDD from inside his jacket, Drew continued, "The Kal'Tashnar are a pre-warp civilization of reptiloid bipeds with hostility issues. I think we could use several tactics to avoid detection by the Kal'Tashnar, but I'd prefer to wait until Lieutenant Warner arrives so that I don't have to repeat myself." Drew smiled and leaned back in his chair, waiting for the chief flight controller to arrive. He'd only just settled when the doors gave their static hiss and parted to reveal a rather agitated looking Warner.

"This better be bloody good. The ship is at high warp on it's way to a vastly unexplored sector and I already have my hands full with astrometrics data." That placid, unamused Australian accent flooded the office as the helmsman stepped in.

"I think you'll find this worth your while, Lieutenant," Drew replied easily as he handed the PaDD over to Ryan Warner. "As I was just telling Lieutenant Martin, Lieutenant LaFaal has incovered some information regarding the species inhabiting the Balowlli system which is tactically important. I think you should be consulted about this information as well as how to best avoid detection while in the system."

If the PADDs on her desk had been important before they appeared to increase in significance as soon as the door opened and the altogether too familiar voice of Kate's "better half" permeated the fragile sanctuary of her new office. It stood to reason, being par for the course in terms of her life currently, that Ryan had managed to wind up in the room when Kate had almost convinced herself that he would really never have much cause to bother her at work, at least not in this section of the ship. As her gaze swept across assembly of information at her disposal, her eyes taking considerable care not to drift upwards even briefly, Kate spoke with the focused distraction of one who was putting everything she had into appearing nonchalant.

"If we're considering them a significant threat, Lieutenant, I take it they are space-faring?" She glanced quickly towards O'Connell and almost drilled holes into his iris' as her gaze remained unflinchingly locked with his. "What sort of range are we talking about?" Pre-warp was rather a generic term that covered everything from neanderthal semi-sentience to those who simply had no interest despite being capable. From the sounds of things, this particular race wasn't likely to be missing opportunities for expansion, which likely meant they were progressing technologically as fast as their society would allow it.

"Think early twenty-first century Terran. Orbital shuttles and spacestations of small size. They've barely made it out of their own atmosphere, however we had nearly the same level of technology when the Vulcans initiated First Contact with us." It was a reminder none of the officers in the room particularly needed, but the comment was made just the same.

"There are two intermediate hiding places in this system, two that I know won't directly comprimise the vessel." Warner glanced up from the PaDD and began scratching lightly at the stubble on his chin. His eyes wandered to Kate's before they returned to O'Connell's. She was a figure he could trust, no matter how he felt about her. The intelligence officer was, however, a figure he had not yet come to understand. Beyond a quiet drink in the ship's bar he hadn't spent much time with the man. "A class four nebula cluster nearby, known as the Ohrini, or the rings surrounding the sixth planet in alignment. The nebula coud potentially grant us a safe berth but it's largely unexplored and pretty vast. We'd need to see what impact it'll have on our systems. As for the planetary rings? Well you're looking at heavy doses of a naturally recurring radioactive surface. That could potentially interfere with the results we obtain." The pilot sighed and handed the PaDD back to Drew. "I think we're going to have balance on the edge of the razor for this and just hope that we're not spotted by external satellites or exploratory probes."

Nodding as he took the PaDD, Drew returned his attention to Martin. "There is a third option for hiding the ship. We could induce a solar flare with an electromagnetic pulse large enough to knock out their electronic capacities. The satellites won't be able to detect us if they have no power. This option would appear natural to the Kal'Tashnar while providing us the maneuvering room we need. It would have to be done very carefully, of course."

"Something of an understatement," Kate observed dryly. If there was any part of her job that was innately harder than the rest, at least for Kate herself, it was security on a ship-wide scale. Personnel she could deal with but the ship herself was such a vast entity, even one as relatively tiny as a Nova, and the security officer would have been lying had she tried to claim it wasn't an area she still needed a fair bit of experience in. Even the Daedalus, Sovereign-class though she'd been, had not really provided ample opportunity for Kate to feel like she really had a grasp on the intricacies of situations like this. As for tactics...

Sighing, she reached up to rub the pad of her index finger against the bridge of her nose, a sure sign that a headache was brewing though she gave no other indication. "Before we commit to anything, let me just verify that we do believe this race is observant enough to notice us, right? Not only observant enough but intelligent enough to see us as something uniquely out of place?"

Drew considered the question and the classified information he had just read a few minutes before entering this briefing. Without divulging too much of it, Drew pressed forward with his responses. "One, theKal'Tashnar have technology equivalent to Earth's own early twenty-first century technology. If we could have seen deep into our own solar system and beyond, I'm assuming they can as well. Even though we know they aren't a threat to Starfleet, they do pose a significant threat to the other species in their own solar system. If a Starfleet presence is detected, we can therefore assume that their militaristic and expansionistic regime will see it as a challenge to their empire, which will likely force them to expand their space programs, advancing them significantly and prematurely. Perhaps even before thier neighbors, the Malgor, have a chance to develop a defense against them. Essentially, as Starfleet, we would have broken the Prime Directive and forced the early expansion of a junior race with ill intentions. Potentially, we could also cause a slave race to be developed should the Kal'Tashnar choose to do so to their neighbors. Two, the Prime Directive itself should prevent us from making any contact with either species.

"Well then, I think that does it for me." Drew slapped his thighs before he stood from his seat. "I'll be around to offer ideas and suggestions, if you need anything. You know where to find me." Drew turned to leave the security office, deciding he hadn't quite gotten the peace of mind he was seeking. Being Drew, his sense of paranoia and control issues surfaced instantly. In that moment, Drew decided to see the Captain with a second plan he'd already had in mind.

Left behind, Kate's intent stare, directed at the surface of her desk, was so inwardly focused that it at least appeared that she hadn't properly processed the fact that she'd just been left alone in a room with a man she preferred to minimise her contact with. So distracted was she, in fact, not just by the added complications they'd just discussed but the renewed pressure of job expectations she didn't feel quite prepared for, that Kate actually consented to sigh and lifted her green eyes to meet the pilot's with a frankness that wasn't often exchanged between the pair. "One of these days," she observed suddenly, her tone subdued and unusually gentle, "we'll get a mission that doesn't complicate itself before we've even started."

 

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