Sowing the Seeds

Posted on Sat Oct 27th, 2012 @ 2:26pm by Captain Alexsa Kendrick

632 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Sowing the Seeds
Location: Personal Quarters, USS Dubai
Timeline: Mission Day 3, 2100 hrs

Petty Officer Second Class Mason sat down on the sofa lining the large window of his shared quarters, then stood, and once again sat on one of the chairs by what passed as the dining table. He was agitated, one could probably say nervous, or even stretch to paranoid. He sent the message to Lieutenant Rinn over an hour ago, stating very clearly in bold letters 'Urgent'. It was as if Rinn was putting him off because he was just a crewman, an enlisted crewman six months out of the Academy and this was his first tour aboard a Federation starship. Of all their previous talks however, Lieutenant Rinn had never been late before.

The chime attached to the door made him jump, yanking him back from his own thoughts to reality. "Who is it?"

"Mason, it's Rinn, open up." Lieutenant Rinn replied coarsely over the comm. "What the hell's the matter?" Rinn more exclaimed than asked when the doors parted and he walked through them. "What's so urgent?"

"It's the ship, the other ship, the Ranger..." Mason stammered. "I think they know."

"Get a grip Mason and calm down. Start at the beginning." Rinn insisted sternly, he didn't really have time for this.

"I was on the bridge delivering my final exobiology report to the Exec on the last sector, and I heard them talking... to the Captain."

"Mason, you're babbling. Get to the point please?"

Petty Officer Mason took a breath and sat down on the couch again. "It was with that Intelligence Captain from the Ranger, you know the one with the scars, she was insisting to speak with the Captain on private ground, in his ready room or quarters, and was getting really confrontational about it, as if she knew something the rest of us didn't but couldn't let the rest of us hear. Even Commander S'Von looked nervous."

"Did it occur to you that it was just command talk? They are the same rank after all. She's assigned the Ranger temporarily as the Mission Advisor."

"Perhaps, but her inquiries seemed unusually pressing."

"Much like your feelings toward this conversation," Rinn cut in absent-mindedly. "Listen to me, they don't know anything. If they did, we wouldn't be here, believe me."

"But what if they do?" Mason pleaded for more concrete answers.

Rinn sighed audibly. "Communications have been patchy at best since we arrived out here, and when they've cleaned up, I saw to it that they were unreliable. Daniel, you worry too much, way too much sometimes. Relax, everything's going to be fine."

"But," Mason started before being shushed again.

Rinn smiled, not because he was amused but because he was trying to get his young companion to calm down as much as possible for the task at hand. "Whatever happens from here on out, the Ranger is to know nothing, suspect nothing about what has been going on here. Because of the incompetence of some of our personnel, not naming any names, that damage might already be done, but there's not a lot we can do about that. Now listen carefully, I'm going to be counting on you for this."

Mason listened on, as Lieutenant Rinn laid it all out in meticulous detail, the plan, the execution of it, timings, who to involve, and who most certainly not to. "Okay? I'm counting on you, but remember don't tell anyone, what you are doing, or why, or most importantly who told you. If they knew what we were doing, we'd be shot out an airlock quicker than you could protest Hey, where's my EV suit?"

"Okay." Daniel Mason nodded quickly as he attempted to assimilate all the information.

"Good. Because they should be moving on with their part of the survey soon."

 

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