Filing a Report
Posted on Thu May 4, 2017 @ 12:23pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit
2,348 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Silence
Location: USS Victory
USS Victory
Captain's Ready Room
Having left Summers, or Karee.or whoever the woman really was, once more securely locked in a cell within the Victory's Brig, the Captain decided it was time to send a report detailing the Romulan aboard her ship back to whatever it was that now passed for Starfleet Command, cut off as they were in the Delta Quadrant.
The first thing she had to do was revise the header information on the report, as yet another change in command had recently taken place.
Re-addressing the report to Vice Admiral Mitchell Hansen, Rhea couldn't help the vague sense of the absurd at just how many officers of high rank had been trapped here along with the surviving ships of Task Force 38.
Quickly she scanned the report, making certain that the events were properly laid out.
The Victory had received orders to investigate and conduct a survey of a Class M planet detected by an automated survey drone sent to search for habitable worlds which could provide shelter, food, raw materials, perhaps worlds inhabited by possible allies. Per her normal procedure, the Captain had called a briefing for the senior staff to go over their orders and set preparations for fulfilling their assigned task into motion.
Briefly describing their incident aboard the derelict Borg ship to explain why the XO had led the briefing, the report continued. Starfleet had ordered that the Victory first travel to Station Theta 7, there to pick up additional crew. After which, the ship was to
proceed to the Algira Qornor system and conduct a survey of the Class M world which the survey drone data indicated was present in the system.
Discussion had begun to plan for separate teams focused on specifics tasks. One team to focus on geological information, and conduct a survey to determine if there are any resources here which can be utilized to assist in the rebuilding of Federation assets here in the Delta Quadrant. A second to conduct a survey of potential food sources. While a third was to assess the planet for possible future colonization.
It was at this point where Senior Chief Samantha Summers had revealed herself to be a Romulan spy, surgically altered to appear human. She had announced herself to be Tal Shiar, and spoke with a mixture of Romulan and Federation Standard at which point the Captain had ordered security to place Summers into custody.
Summer had shouted an order to the ship's computer at that point, clearly expecting the ship's systems to..as the spy had put it.."go to sleep".
Unfortunately for the Romulan, she had not taken the Captain's deep rooted caution developed from long years working as part of Section 31, the moment Kennit had ordered the Senior Chief placed under arrest, all access to the ship's computer for Summers had been locked out. Therefore, when Chief Summers shouted "Computer, initiate program 'Stillness!'", other than a low tone indicating an auto-rejection of the order issued, nothing else happened.
Captain Kennit had personally subdued the spy at this point, knocking the Romulan female unconscious with a well placed blow to the face, breaking Summers' nose in the process revealing not the red, iron-rich blood of a human, but the green blood of a Romulan.
Subsequent interrogation had gotten no where. The Romulan was as with all of her kind, an infuriating liar.
Currently, Summers or..Karee as she claimed her true name to had stated that she had acted as she did to make Kennit "reveal herself" as the agent responsible for a successful assault on a Romulan general named T'var Koral.
Who knew what she would claim next?
The report was as complete as it was going to get under current circumstances, The Captain added a brief note that the Victory had made a detour from their planned route to the Algira Qornor system to investigate a possible distress beacon picked up coming from a moon orbiting a gas giant in another system, as such they were duty bound to investigate.
Signing the report, she sent it on its way... certain a response would not be too long in arriving.
Starbase Solaria
Kartelan Star System
Starbase Solaria had not long been established and was still undergoing a massive refit of Starfleet technology in order to make it fully operational, but so far the process was going relatively smoothly and the Kartelan scientists who had been assigned to assist were of great help. For Admiral Hanson, the new commander of Project Outreach, the assignment was proving to be anything but quiet. Every day, every hour, seemed to bring something new for him. He was in what had been designated as his own private ready room when the comm array burst to life.
"Admiral Hanson; please report to Ops. Repeat, Admiral Hanson; please report to Ops."
Luckily for the Admiral, the Operations Center of the new station was just on the opposite side of the door to his office and within seconds he strode out to find both the Station Commander and the Starfleet Operations Liaison standing near the massive bay windows that allowed a beautiful panoramic view of the moons surface and the space beyond. Both seemed to be deep in conversation as he approached. "Come on then. What's got you two buzzing?" he queried.
Captain Thalek th'Zorati, the Station Commander, handed a data PADD to the Admiral for his review. As his closest advisors, the Admiral had cleared all operations to go through them and that included any transmissions for him that were not marked as Priority One.
"It's from Captain Kennit of the Victory," the woman in the group spoke quietly. Commodore Kathryn Walsh folded her arms across her chest as she watched the Admiral read the contents of the data PADD. "You're going to want to speak to her," she spoke when he finally looked up.
"Damn straight..." he looked at th'Zorati and pointed with the PADD, "get me the Victory on subspace. I don't care what miracle your engineers have to perform, but I want to talk with Captain Kennit," he ordered before heading back towards his office before adding, rather loudly, "face to face!"
USS Victory
Captains Ready Room
Once she'd returned to the ship, the Captain took a moment to change into a clean uniform after having spent several hours in the jungle below, and then retreated to her Ready Room. It took some work to compensate for interference from the gas giant which hosted the moon but finally, the transmission went through.
A slightly bored looking Lieutenant was visible on the screen at her desk. "Star base Solaria."
"Was that supposed to be a greeting?" Kennit asked. "Captain Rhea Kennit, commanding officer of the USS Victory. I was told that Vice Admiral Hanson wished to speak with me."
"I'll transfer you Captain. Please hold," the man spoke, looking rather sheepish after his faux par with the commanding officer of the Prometheus class vessel.
Nodding without speaking, Kennit waited while the Lieutenant set about transferring the comm request. Part of her half expected the comm signal to drop before Vice Admiral Hanson came online.
Wouldn't that be fun?
It wasn't to be though as the screen quickly changed to show the image of an aging Terran in a command uniform with Vice Admiral insignia. "Captain! A please to speak with you in person at last," Hanson smiled.
It wasn't to be though as the screen quickly changed to show the image of an aging Terran in a command uniform with Vice Admiral insignia. "Captain! A please to speak with you in person at last," Hanson smiled.
From his perspective, Captain Kennit presented a striking appearance. Her El-Aurian heritage blended with her human genetics to make it quite impossible to guess what her actual age might be just by observation. Dark auburn hair framed her features, and her eyes, dark with a light fierce intelligence behind her gaze immediately met his through the subspace comm, assessing him thoroughly as if she saw past the outer mask all beings build around themselves straight into the dark nooks and crannies of his most inner self.
Indeed studying the older officer, his features still possessed of the ruggedly handsome aura nature granted to some as time progressed, after another brief moment she answered. The Captain's voice was soft, yet clear and strong with the confidence and authority of a starship Captain. A slight undefinable accent added an exotic rhythm to her words as she returned his smile and said "Admiral Hanson. My apologies for the delay in responding to your message. I was away from the ship leading an away team. I left my First Officer in charge and returned to the Victory as quickly as was possible. I would ask what brings you to requesting this discussion but I suspect your interest lies in the guest currently enjoying the excellent facilities and hospitality of my Brig."
"Indeed it does Captain," the Admiral smiled on the screen ad he lent forward a little. "Let's put it this way Captain. In all of my records and intelligence files, we have no documented information of any Romulan interest in the Quadrant. What can you tell me?" He'd read her report, but he was hoping that by letting her tell him herself he would perhaps gain a better understanding of what had transpired, which would allow him to plan a course of action.
"My report has the details." Kennit answered. "Chief Petty Officer Summers came aboard during our resupply. At first she seemed to be a solid officer, if perhaps a little bit odd at times but we had no real issues with her performance. It was during the mission briefing for our current undertaking that she seemed to loose it. As the report states, she began to speak in a mixture of Romulan and Standard language. Upon recognizing that she'd been found out, she attempted to initialize a computer program which she had installed into the Victory's primary computer banks which would have locked the entire ship's crew out of the system and shut everything down, including life support if I wasn't as.. paranoid.. as my Chief Medical Officer would put it. The moment I ordered her to be detained, all of her access privileges were revoked so the system rejected her command. She was..." here the Captain paused. "She wasn't too happy shall we say?"
With a slight shake of her head, Kennit said "Rather than give her time to cause further mischief, I opted to use necessary force and subdued her, at which point she was taken into custody and remanded to the Brig where she has remained."
"And since then?" Hanson queried, clearly intrigued by the developing situation.
The Captain shook her head, "Summers .. or Karee.. or whatever her true identity may be.. is a Romulan, and apparently Tal Shiar to boot. Nothing she says can be taken at face value. At first she was quite belligerent and her responses to interrogation were rather, futile. After a bit of strong encouragement to rethink her attitude, she has now claimed that she came here deliberately seeking me out, on her own to.. "flush me out" as she put it. She wants me to believe that she came here out of some sort of twisted Romulan sense of honor because of a past encounter with a Romulan General named T'var Koral. That particular part of my past is some years gone now. She is rather young I feel to be what she claims. Though I am sure Koral remains active within the ranks of the Tal Shiar as he was not too much older than I am and likely harbors considerable animosity towards me." A smug look flashed in the Captain's eyes then, amusement at the memory perhaps..
"Now if T'var Koral himself had come here.. that could be an issue." Kennit said. "It could be that he is indeed behind her presence aboard the Victory, and that the subconscious mental programming which has her such a confusing and annoying mess is the product of his handiwork." The prospect of an old adversary lurking about didn't seem to bother the Captain too much as she spoke, she was simply giving him what information she had.
Hanson rubbed his chin for a moment as he mused over what she had revealed. Something wouldn't escape the forefront of his mind and he had to ask. "Captain, in your opinion, is there any chance that she could be the start of something bigger? A Romulan presence in the Quadrant that we know nothing about perhaps?"
"The fact that she mentioned T'var Koral is enough to make me believe she is not alone out here." Kennit replied.
"Find out what you can from the Romulan. Use any ethical method you can think of. If there is so much as a slim chance that the Romulan's have a presence here, we need to know," the Admiral ordered sternly. It was the last thing that he or his people needed. Romulan's were tricky at the best of times, but cut off from the Alpha Quadrant? They would be even worse than usual.
When he told her to use 'any ethical method available' Captain Kennit blinked, the only outward reaction to his statement.
She was thinking it likely that the latest Admiral in the succession of officers to hold the position had no idea exactly what her background was and where her career path had taken her.
Slowly, she said "Interrogation of a member of the Tal Shiar and the phrase."ethical method" do not play well with one another, Admiral."
Hanson contemplated for a minute and nodded in the woman's direction and leaned towards the screen. "What I don't know wont hurt me, or the Federation," he spoke quietly. He then sat back as if going back to his normal demeanor. "Keep me updated Captain. Hanson out."
The screen went dark, leaving the Captain to consider just how to go about finding some of the answers to Admiral Hanson's concerns.
~*~
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