To the Letter

Posted on Tue Dec 20th, 2011 @ 3:39am by Lieutenant Cedric Shepherd

1,504 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Fishing
Location: USS Ranger, Deck 9, Security Office
Timeline: A few minutes after Police Station

"Computer, seal this room, authorization Shepherd Beta Two."

Lieutenants Fletcher and LaFontaine looked at each other skeptically, but waited for Shepherd to explain.

"I know you two have work to do prepping the department for a possible ocean voyage, but I needed to make sure you're both informed. This information is strictly confidential--just the three of us, and it stays that way unless I tell you directly. Directly. Not on the comm, not on a screen, not in a PADD message. Directly and in person. Clear?"

"Yes, sir," came the semi-unison response.

"Okay, here's the situation," Shepherd was right to the point. "Captain Kendrick has overstayed her welcome with Captain Halliwell, and we've been ordered to get involved."

"There's a lot of talk about what she's doing here," drawled LaFontaine. "A lot of guessing, but the consensus is that she's after Cap'n Halliwell somehow."

"She confirmed that to me a few minutes ago," Shepherd nodded. "There's a probe being conducted, which Kendrick says won't have a happy ending. Either way, Halliwell's had enough, and so we're to involve ourselves. I know," he looked at Fletcher, holding up a hand to forestall the man's incredulous interjection, "we can't interfere in an official inquiry. But there's no regulation that says we have to make it easy."

"What's the problem with Halliwell?" asked LaFontaine with a shrug. "Why this probe in the first place?"

"I don't know," Shepherd replied, settling back in his chair. The other two sat as he expanded the thought. "Kendrick flatly refused to explain her assignment to me beyond what I just told you, and intimated that if I pushed it I could find myself on the receiving end. I'm pushing it, as I have nothing to hide: I'll be transmitting the first formal information request after we finish this meeting. It probably won't be the last. She claims to answer to no-one on board, but she sure as hell answers to someone, and I want to know who."

"That's a recipe for getting in that ice-queen's crosshairs," opined Fletcher.

"That's where we're supposed to be, Fletcher," said Shepherd. "It's our job to keep the ship and it's compliment safe." Fletcher looked uncertain, but said nothing further, so Shepherd went on. "Frankly, I'm concerned that Kendrick's getting in Halliwell's head. If her mysterious goal is to stage an investigation that rattles Halliwell, thus compromising her command ..."

"--then it's not an investigation at all," finished LaFontaine. "It's a witch hunt. You pressure people until they make a mistake, and then you roast 'em for making a mistake."

"That's the fear," Shepherd nodded his agreement. "And I think we can all agree that now's not the time for Halliwell to let herself get rattled. But she's got a lot on her plate, so it falls to us to shield her as best we can."

"But how do we do that?" asked Fletcher. "There are regulations on what we can do, and Kendrick's got rank."

"The rank doesn't immediately matter," said Shepherd. "It's not command rank. It's courtesy rank, so that she can sit down with ship captains and not be at a disadvantage. She's got no command-line authority on board--her Security Clearance is Alpha Two. That's where we're going to start. We're modifying her clearance."

LaFontaine gave a low whistle. "That'll rile her up."

"It will," Shepherd shrugged. "but Clearance is at a CO's sole discretion, and Halliwell wants Kendrick restricted. So that's the beginning. We'll cut her Security Clearance down to Delta Two, with no command functions."

"Duty-related functions only," mused Fletcher. "How do we know what her duty-related functions are?"

"She's going to have to explain them to me," said Shepherd, his tone dark. "Frankly, she's got no shipboard position. We've been treating her as an Intel head, but in the absence of an explanation of her function, a downgrade is warranted. And it's Halliwell's orders."

Fletcher sighed a nervous sigh, liking this less and less, but returned to thought.

"Second, without an explanation of Kendrick's function on board, she's got no legal expectation of privacy. So we're going to monitor her activity on board. And that means everything. We're going to track her wherever she goes on board, we're going to keep all her computer activity on file; I want to know everything she replicates, and I want to know how much mass she's recycling down the head. We're going to use the ship's communication system to record her every spoken word on board--we'll have her every move and then some, down to the second. Archiving records of Kendrick's activity will be part of the shift change procedure that the three of us will add to the regular list, and we'll store the records in the computer as well as a backup copy on PADDs, which we'll keep secured in the Brig's locker. No other security personnel need to be involved in this activity, and any questions, especially from Acklin in the Brig, get referred directly to me."

"And if she demands these records?" asked LaFontaine, fully aware of disclosure rules and working things out in his head.

"We give her copies with a smile and a 'glad to help out'," said Shepherd. "She should have involved us from the beginning, but Kendrick's apparently not one who asks for help. We'll help if she asks, and we'll do it cheerfully and efficiently, but we're not going to sit idly by while she turns Ranger into her personal verbal abuse firing range. Remember always that if this turns openly adversarial, we're done. She'll call in whoever's pulling her strings and get us all run off on a rail. This isn't about creating obstacles for the sake of obstacles. This is about enforcing regulation to the absolute letter, and making sure we properly discharge our own duties regarding the care of a passenger with no confirmed function. If Kendrick won't give us information, we have to treat her the same way we treat our little passenger Anaia, and make sure they stay safe on board."

"We're not recording every one of the child's utterances," Fletcher put in.

"The child isn't making open threats regarding the Captain's career, either," retorted Shepherd. "Besides, Kendrick's recording us,"

There was a moment of silence, followed by Fletcher sputtering "beg pardon?"

"Kendrick's replicated five data transceivers," he picked up the sample from his desktop and showed it to the other two, "which we must assume are placed in areas where data transmission and sensitive conversation are happening," said Shepherd. "Don't worry, there's not one here. I've swept for it, and re-swept after Kendrick left. And I'll sweep daily to make sure Deck 9 stays clean. I want the rest found. So I'll be adding an internal device-sweep task to the regular duty schedule for the whole department. We'll blame the Romulans--they've got everybody in a twist anyway, and they make great boogeymen for something like this. Any questions get referred straight to me. Don't even try and answer. Just point people to me."

"Straight away," Fletcher nodded, indignant at the idea of listening devices on board.

"Once we find them, however," Shepherd was quick to add, before the other two tore off on a bug hunt, "we're leaving them in place. I don't want them removed. Just spoofed."

LaFontaine smiled a mischievous smile. "You want us to spray her storage?"

"Yes I do," Shepherd smiled back. "We'll set a data router in the room with each bug, and have it transfer random encyclopedia data highspeed-nonstop to and from the computer. It'll lard over Kendrick's data files and make the bugs useless. Since they're legal in and of themselves, I don't want to get involved in property seizure. But that doesn't mean we can't render them ineffectual."

"I like it," LaFontaine grinned.

"I must say, so do I," Fletcher added, his disdain for others' eavesdropping overcoming his discomfort at dishing it out himself.

"Good," Shepherd regarded the two for a moment. "I'll make the clearance changes, duty roster adjustments, and set up the monitoring. We'll find the bugs next shift. Questions?"

LaFontaine frowned. "How will we track Kendrick? By combadge? She could just 'forget' to wear it once she knows we're watching."

"Good question," Shepherd replied. "We'll track her by combadge, but maintain a backup trace by biosign. She's the only Emarryn on board. Hell, she's probably the only Emarryn in the sector."

"She's not human?" LaFontaine was surprised.

"Don't you read, man?" Fletcher was incredulous.

"I didn't feel like I wanted to know anything about the evil queen of Intel," chuckled LaFontaine. "I've never even heard of Emarryns."

"Her basic jacket's on file, and Emarryns are in the science database. You should read up," Shepherd said flatly, "it'll give you nightmares."

"Great," LaFontaine rolled his eyes.

"Any other questions?"

LaFontaine shook his head, and Fletcher did likewise after a moment.

"Good," Shepherd nodded, satisfied for now. "You two get back to your prepwork, and stay alert for the shift change details. Dismissed."

 

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