The Voice of Intel

Posted on Fri Jul 12th, 2019 @ 4:27pm by Captain Abigail Laurens & Lieutenant Aleksander Voroshilov

Abigail had been sitting in her ready room, reviewing the documentation that had come through for this assignment. It seemed straight forward, but the security officer in her knew that things like these had a way of coming back to torment them in the most spectacular of ways, which is why she had requested Lieutenant Voroshilov join her so she could speak with him before she briefed the crew. She wanted to be as prepared as she possibly could.

Aleksi was a bit surprised that him and the boss would be meeting one-on-one so soon, that was until he remembered they were underway with no mission having been briefed. Grabbing a small PaDD, something full of notes and resources he had gathered in his relatively short career, he made his way to Commander Laurens’ office with no small amount of curiosity. It likely wasn’t a major force engagement she was concerned about, otherwise she would’ve requested a brief to the crew. Nor was this some read ahead, she could have sent the documentation his way earlier. This was likely something she had a suspicion and hoped they could bounce around ideas to make the concern go away. Unfortunately, with her background, he suspected it would only confirm the problem. Resisting the urge to barge in, he chimed the Captain’s door.

Reading through the PaDD in her hand, Abigail had been sitting at her desk for far too many hours, not realising how long she had been sitting still until she moved at the sound of the door chime, the stiffness in her neck and upper back making it clear she should have been taking more regular breaks, or at least, been in a more comfortable position. "Enter," she called, watching as the doors parted and Aleksi walked in. "Lieutenant," she said with a smile, motioning for him to take a seat. "I'm glad you could make it, especially at such short notice. Can I get you a coffee or something?"

"Coffee please, black," Aleksi took the offered seat, his curiosity ever growing. The fact she was happy to see him, or at least appeared to, was a good sign something fun was about to happen, "What's on your mind ma'am?"

Replicating the coffee he requested as well as her own chai latte, she carried the two mugs back to the desk, handing his across to him. "Trion 8, what do you know about it?" she asked quietly. "Prizio Vilagrassa and his political party came aboard before we departed the Starbase. Thankfully we only have them, it seems Starfleet decided that they couldn't be in the same ship together so Mateu Alos and his insurgents are on the Zendaya. We're both tasked with returning both parties to Trion 8. It's supposed to be a simple stop and drop."

"And I take it that you think it won't be so simple," Taking the coffee mug he sipped it quietly for a moment, absorbing what she just said, "As for Trion 8 I only know the basics, nasty civil war that the Federation is trying to orchestrate a peace treaty to end," Setting the mug down he recalled just how ruthless both sides had been, "I can tell you that taking on trained insurgents will not lead to pleasant outcomes, not unless they're being escorted by a marine counter-terrorism team."

"Which is why they're on the Zendaya," Abigail replied. "We only have Vilagrassa and his people to contend with. They seem to be peaceful enough, but I don't know, I just have this feeling." She shrugged slightly, wrapping her hands around the mug. "I spent most of my career running security. Nothing is ever that simple, especially not in a situation like this. I want to know what we're getting ourselves in for before we get in over our heads."

"Peaceful, minus violently suppressing their citizens," Aleksi had grabbed the PaDD with the background information. At a few moments he cringed, the rebels having done a good number to the government forces, "Though it looks like the Government's methods weren't groundless. I didn't think men were capable of this brutality."

Setting the PaDD down he looked at Abigail, "If you want my opinion, this is a potential powder keg. It can go swimmingly, after all we have the civilized group, but considering the last thing either of these factions want is to compromise. Well, I'd make sure that the engineers give the Astraea a good checkup and have security verify that everyone on board should be on board."

Abigail sighed softly. "I guess I should have known you've give me that kind of answer," she said with a shake of her head, tightening her hands around her mug. "So aside from engineering and security, where else are our vulnerabilities going to lie?"

"An unhealthy sense of skepticism has kept me alive this long," Aleksi nodded, his characteristic grin wasn't there. His goal now was to keep the crew alive, "Those will have to be routine scans. There's also the threat of biochem weapons, the Government forces have flat out denied they used them, but they're terrible at lying. At least the rebels are honest enough to claim they poisoned the watering hole. Medical and Science should be useful to prevent that."

Leaning forward a bit, "And there's the intelligence collection threat. You'd be surprised how much information you can extract from your normal Starfleet officer. Given enough time, charm, booze and blackmail, you can get the manifest of every classified program and a meeting with the Federation President. I can handle preparing the crew for that."

"I don't want to alarm the crew too much, the last thing I want is to be putting the fear of this into them and having them all hyper paranoid for nothing. Paranoia can bring it's own set of flaws, least of which is mistakes. Perhaps meeting with the senior staff, having them be made a little more aware, and we can increase security patrols through the ship for the duration. Lieutenant Matashi can reasonably determine what information she feels is necessary to pass onto her staff." Abigail paused for a moment.

"This is not something I would ever recommend or suggest," she said quietly. "But is intelligence collection something we should have on our radar, given that they're on our ship? I believe this is your field of expertise, yes?"

Leaning back, the smirk returned. By her tone he recognized the hesitance common to those who were uncomfortable with subversive actions, “Could I do it? Yes. Should I do that? It depends, how much deniability do you want?”

"Honestly, I'm not a fan of sneaking around or subterfuge, but I'm also not a fan of being caught in the middle of someone else's war. I think for the moment we're likely fine to continue at status quo, but it may be beneficial to put some thought into the finer points in case further action is required at any point," Abigail said quietly as she watched him.

"I will worry about the details, it's best if you don't ask. I can promise that no one will be the wiser," Aleksi took her comment as a green light, but also a need to protect the boss, "I'll provide any important updates as necessary, the rest I'll put into the after action report."

"That will be fine," Abigail said quietly. "Is there anything else you can think of that may need consideration before we get any further into this?"

"One last thing, we need to find out how to track the Zendaya. If I was a betting man, which I certainly am, the odds are better than even something is going to happen and they may not be able to transmit," He almost felt bad about bringing nothing but gloom, but that was his job and he would feel a lot worse if he painted too rosy a picture that would get people needlessly killed.

"That should be easy enough. I can retrieve their planned flight path from the system and get Lieutenant Rogers to track them, their warp signatures would make it easy enough to follow both their ship and see if anyone else interacts with them along the way." Abigail paused for a moment, setting her mug on the desk and leaning back in her seat. "I feel like we're over thinking this far too much, but at the same time I feel like we're not prepared enough for anything that might go wrong."

Aleksi smiled, "You're feeling that way because most Fleet Captains would see this as a simple transfer mission with blinders on, but from what I can tell you're smarter than that. On the other hand I don't think you should worry too much about it, beyond being a gracious hostess. You have your team to worry about it for you, they should let you know when to start worrying."

Leaning forward a little, the smile slowly dissipating. There was a hint of sincerity to the voice, "Leave the paranoia to me. It's not a good look on you."

"Your flattery isn't going to work on me Lieutenant," Abigail cautioned with a smile. "Though I appreciate your commitment. Just... let me know if you find anything out, okay?"

"You're too moral for me," He smirked back, "Let's hope that I won't have anything to report. We wouldn't want this cruise to be anything but pleasant."

"Yes, well, how about you get out of here, do your job and keep it that way?" Abigail shot back with a raised eyebrow.

Aleksi stood up, wondering when the Commander Laurens he had met before would come back, "I'll do my best ma'am. If you need anything else, you know where to find me," While he sincerely hoped this mission would go smoothly, his only role to play being to smooth talk some high officials and place bugs, there was a small part of him expecting chaos.

=/\=

Commander Abigail Laurens
Commanding Officer
USS Astraea

&

Lieutenant Aleksander Voroshilov
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Astraea