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Topic: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far... (Read 1043 times) previous topic - next topic
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Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...

[Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Chief Diplomatic Officer's Office | Deck 08 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @rae  @pertinent writers

Enyd had three PADDs open on her desk and a fourth balanced on her knee, which was not how she'd intended to spend the early hours of the morning, but heavy was the crown. By now, Faye would already be well on their way to leading a team to Qo’Nos to address the K'Temak situation. Which meant she needed to build a team to work on the D'ravsai Coalition situation.

Senator Vkruvux had the Reman backing and Romulan acceptance and Senator Belas had the Romulan institutional credibility to keep the more conservative elements from dismissing it outright. The provisional transit corridors had been authorized and already working. The request for a Federation merchant-based envoy had come through official channels, which meant someone on the Coalition side had done the political work of making it look like their idea rather than a concession, which was exactly the right instinct and boded reasonably well for their long-term competence.

The Federation's response, pending Council ratification, was a single envoy. One. To Romulus. In the immediate aftermath of the most significant shift in Romulan governance since Shinzon.

Enyd set down the PADD she was holding and looked at the ceiling. One envoy. As if they were sending a letter. She understood the reasoning. Send too many, and the Coalition reads it as annexation pressure. Send the wrong person, and the Tal'Shiar remnants have a target. Send someone too senior, and it becomes a Federation statement rather than a soft diplomatic contact, which would hand K'Temak exactly the narrative he was already trying to build — that the D'ravsai was a Federation construction wearing a Romulan face. The constraints were real and that didn't make one envoy feel like enough.

The envoy needed specific qualities. Fluency in the culture — not just the language, but the subtext. Enough personal credibility to be received as a genuine contact rather than a surveillance mission in diplomatic clothing. Enough flexibility to operate without real-time support from the Theurgy, because communications through the provisional corridors were going to be monitored by everyone simultaneously and therefore useful to no one. Enough composure to function inside a government that was, by any honest assessment, still deciding whether it wanted to exist.

The team Theurgy was sending was acting as escort and liaison between the contact they already had within the Coalition and the new envoy. Enyd looked at the PADD of information regarding the envoy and was trying to decide how she felt about them when her door chimed, and Nysari walked in, ready to take up the baton of the mission.

After their briefing, and Nysari continued on her way, Enyd tried to smother the inner hope that a certain frustrating Romulan presently on board the ship might choose to remain on Romulus instead of returning.

Re: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...

Reply #1 –
[ Chief Petty Officer Dominic Lau | Outside Chief Diplomatic Officer's Office | Deck 08 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy] @rae @Ellen Fitz

Chief Petty Officer Dominic Lau had a fairly solid idea why he'd been chosen for his current destination and he wasn't entirely convinced.  It made a lot of sense since he also had a background in security, so he could handle the protection detail.  Especially with security stretched thin as it was, so the need for an experienced team leader for a diplomatically sensitive operation was called for.  That wasn't was upsetting though.  No.  It was the fact the team was being split up.  It had been hard to figure out who had to go with whom, but the rules of too many competing priorities was coming into play.  Bessir was accompanying a junior attache to Qo’Nos as security, Knox was going off to who knows where while himself and Cheung would accompany the diplomat.  Thus leading to their first change where the team Chief and the Bajoran-Cardassian were in security yellow instead of their normally required intel red shirts.

A quartet security crewman accompanied the re-purposed infiltration team.  "It should be straight forward assignment."  Chief Lau started.  "We're mainly there to make sure the assigned diplomat is kept safe and alive.  We'll patrol in pairs with myself staying close to the VIP."  He took a moment to check at the Asian women following as she carried her PADD, but set up as a portable terminal with additional privacy features. "Klaudia.  You're our ace in the hole."  He pulled an earbud out of his pocket and passed it to the resident tech expert who put it in her ear without question. "I'm going to keep an eye on the other parties to watch how the opposition reacts and pass on those observations to you while you do the same thing."  He paused for a moment.  "You'll have the best chance to pick out additional data points to pass on to the diplomat.  In the mean time, we're going to get a background brief and find out what rules we're operating under.  Klaudia, you're going to act as the diplomat's aide, take her notes and what not."  This explanation was not for Cheung who knew her job very well, but for the quartet of security who didn't know her at all.  It also gave a plausible cover for whatever Cheung would decide to do on the job.

The team Chief saw a tall slim Andorian enter the office ahead of his group.  She certainly was a graceful member he noted from the way she carried herself and how her hair was arranged.  It didn't take long for the group to follow and he pressed the admittance chime, then entered when summoned.  He recognized the woman sitting at the Chief Diplomat's desk.  A very rapid promotion under the circumstances and he nodded respectfully to the officers as he brought his procession in. "Lieutenant Madsen, Lieutenant zh’Eziarath.  Chief Dominic Lau. I'll be leading the security detachment. Lieutenant zh’Eziarath, this is PO2 Klaudia Cheung.  She's been selected as an aide for this mission."  With introductions complete, he waited for his introduction to sink in and for what ever information would be forthcoming.

Re: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...

Reply #2 –
[ Specialist Hirek tr'Aimne | Shuttlebay 2 | Deck 15 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] @rae @RyeTanker @Pierce

He had arrived first. His bag sat against the shuttle's landing strut. There was so much of the ship under repair, or soon to be under repair, that it frankly amazed him that there was even a bay stable enough for them to launch from.

Nysari had been direct with him. She had listed the reasons he should come. He had listened to each one, sorted them into accurate and not-quite-accurate, and agreed because the accurate ones were enough without the others. The Senator's response was owed in person. His family's last message had been too careful — his cousin Uhria using the old Uuluma construction that their grandmother had preferred, the house is well, which in her dialect meant we are watched, ask nothing directly. He had read it four times. Then he had stopped reading it and started packing.

What he had not told Nysari: he was not certain he was coming back.

Tal'aura was dead. Donatra was dead. The D'ravsai Coalition was hours old and already requiring two peoples who had spent centuries in structured antagonism to govern each other. He could not decide if that was optimism or carelessness, and the fact that he could not decide bothered him less than the fact that he was on a Federation ship while it was happening.

The islands would not stay the islands. Mainland politics moved the way tides moved. Not suddenly. Just eventually, and then there was no going back to what the shallows had been. Not that his islands had ever experienced true peace from mainland politics and the civil war, but at least he'd known what to expect from the previous government. This one had more unknown.

Then there was the Infested.

He had not meant to find them interesting. The mechanism was the thing — the integration, the use of an existing neurological architecture as a substrate for something that was not its original occupant. Biologically, it was among the more elegant forms of horror he had encountered, and he had a longer list than most. Whether the host's own systems could be turned against the parasite. Whether there were signatures that preceded the observable behavioral changes. Whether the detection problem was tractable at all, or whether the only reliable method remained autopsy.

His mind had kept returning to it the way it returned to problems that had no current solution. It was a twisted kind of pleasure that he took in these types of problems, challenges to occupy the whole of his being.

If he stayed on Romulus, he was present for the thing he had worked toward his entire adult life, in the specific place where it would be decided.

If he stayed on the Theurgy, he was at the only active investigation into a category of threat that operated identically to the Tal'Shiar and could make the D'ravsai Coalition irrelevant before it finished its first session.

He had not resolved this, which he wanted to pursue. He was going to Romulus to help in that decision.

The shuttlebay held its quiet. Recycled air, the faint charge-smell of systems idling, deck plates that would have been cold through different shoes. Footsteps at the far end of the bay. He did not turn. He straightened slightly, which was the only acknowledgment the situation required.

Re: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...

Reply #3 –
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit, Wolf-04 | Holding pattern near SB 234] Attn: @rae  @Ellen Fitz  @RyeTanker  @Pierce @ob2lander961 & anyone else
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She’d been re-tasked almost immediately upon returning from the Cayaga mission, given enough time to eat and sleep, refit and rearm, then launched again; it wasn’t unusual, given the Wolves limited numbers of pilots and ships, but Talia couldn’t help but wonder about the logic of pairing her and DixieBee together. There was nothing personal about it; Via had proven herself a perfectly capable pilot – Talia studied her fellow Wolf’s helm footage from both the Hobus scrap and the Triangle battle. Capability wasn’t the issue. Experience, however? Perhaps that was the point, she reckoned; this’ll certainly be a prime opportunity to learn a few things.

Not like it was a big deal, or anything. It’s just a day trip to Romulus. What could possibly go wrong, Shadow snorted.“Come on DB, what the hell’s taking so long,” she sighed to herself, head craning to port and behind, looking for Via’s ship. The Valravyn was right behind her on the flight-line when Shadow launched; they should have rendezvoused five minutes ago to hold station for the shuttle. Instead, Talia had been forced into a slow, lazy orbital circuit (because TC refused to let her sit still and had already shifted her assigned lane three times for no reason other than his own amusement).

“Wolf 4, Traffic Control,” a masculine voice grated inside her helm.

Speak of the devil, Talia sighed. “Wolf 4, send it Control.”

“Wolf 4, alter lane z + twenty kilometers, heading 035.8. Station keeping at outbound lane epsilon.”

“Zeta plus twenty, 035.8, holding at epsilon,” Talia repeated rapidly, managing to keep the irritation out of her tone, if only just; the adjustments were inputted manually, but she let Anahi execute the minor course change.

As the Valkyrie creeped ever so slowly off to port, Shadow’s helm exploded with noise in a wash of what might have been called music – to Via. The bass was a heavy, droning rhythm, punctuated by high percussive snares; throughout it all, someone – or something – was mumbling words so fast it sounded like gibberish. Talia screwed her eyes shut against the acoustic onslaught with a groaned string of Arabic curses usually reserved to describe something worthy of utter and complete damnation from the beginning of creation itself, then searched for the source.

Sure enough, Via’s bird soared into the void, spiraling out at nearly full impulse.

Talia heard Traffic Control screaming over the music, barely audible. Shadow joined her voice to the cacophany, trying to get Via to turn her music off – because she obviously didn’t realize she was broadcasting wide open – to no effect.

“Fuck sakes, Via,” Shadow laughed, powering up her thrusters with a shake of her head. Via was coming in hot, deaf and oblivious. It was only a matter of time until TC locked her ass down with a tractor, at best. Control was having a conniption now that both fighters were breaking maximum thrust regulations, but was easily ignored over the pounding music. Talia felt herself nodding along to the beat, even though the words were almost impossible to decipher; she banked hard, climbing up to roll over Via’s ship close enough to get her attention. Another few seconds and they were inverted, canopy to canopy; she looked up, watching Via’s hands and arms jerking about – while Beachhead waved up enthusiastically behind her.

Talia motioned to her ear then drew a hand across her throat after typing out a coded message: MUSIC OVER OPEN NET - TURN OFF, NOW!


[Meanwhile… LT Vanya | Shuttle Bay 2 | Deck 15 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy]
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Vanya padded across the deck barefoot, a pair of polished black heels in one hand, PADD in the other; she had no need for any other personal belongings – nothing that couldn’t be replicated en route or upon arrival later, at any rate. The assignment itself – a diplomatic mission to Romulus – had taken her by surprise; being who and what she was, there was a high probability that her presence would pose unquantifiable degrees of complications, but there were too many variables at play to cause Vanya to feel overly concerned. After all, for all intents and purposes, it was highly likely that the Tal Shiar considered her a neutralized threat; that afforded an opportunity for Vanya, should they choose to act rashly.

Those calculations continued to run in the background of her positronic network, however; there were more immediate tasks at hand.

Dr. Frost had personally briefed the android concerning her specific role for the mission; insofar as it concerned Vanya, she was to represent the scientific department with utmost curtesy, providing technical assistance to the newly minted Romulan-Reman coalition as well as aiding LT Nysarisiza zh’Eziarath in any capacity deemed appropriate. While that settled easily enough, Vanya couldn’t help but smile inwardly at the amount of ‘wiggle-room’ inherent in such vagueness; there were a great many options available in such a tasking.

A solitary figure stood before the shuttle assigned to them; Vanya’s optical and olfactory senses studied as she approached: male, Romulan, relaxed but alert posture – lightly scented with unique oils and scents of medical ointments and the barest hint of blood - handsomely lean, healthy middle-age. Whoever he was, he had recently spent a great deal of time either wounded, or tending to the same. Curious, Vanya’s lips twitched down in a frown, unable to recall interacting with him before.

Another anomalous memory gap in her short-term databanks, thanks to the virus no doubt.

She passed him without breaking stride, clad in a skirted uniform with the addition of a white lab coat that billowed slightly in her wake. The PADD shifted to under the arm holding her footwear before she keyed in the access code to open the shuttle’s ramp, then spun to face the older Romulan with a pleasant smile, the drape of her dark hair loose about her shoulders. Her body language was relaxed and open, a hand twirling in the air in his direction like a curb-side magician’s slight-of-hand tell. Vanya deliberately chose to engage him in Rihan versus Federation standard, out of respect and neutrality – introducing herself first as only Vanya, then asking what name he wished to be called in turn; Romulans were quite fond of multiple names, after all.

Except Vanya herself, of course; he’d soon discover she was quite un-Romulan, for better or worse.

“Aren't you dashing. Forgive my curiosity dear,” Vanya continued with a friendly smile in Rihan, utilizing the standard northern dialect, “I simply must know; what to do you?”

Re: Day 02 [ 945 hrs ] Everything's Fine, So Far...

Reply #4 –
[ Ens. Via "DixeBee" Wix | Cockpit, Wolf-04 | FAB| USS Theurgy ]
[Show/Hide]

"Nope...Nada...Nope...". Via casually flipped through her digital album, music blaring for a microsecond before being passed for another track, never quite able to settle on anything.

"NopeNopeNope..." She was completely in her own world, going through the motions of the pre-flight checklist as she did hundreds of times before, completely missing the fact she was next in the launch rotation. "Nopenopenope- Oh shit" Suddenly, a fast electric beat undertoned by a flurry of drums which filled the cockpit. Via started moving with the beat, slowy feeling the catchy tune as it progressed. "Okay" she said with an aura of enthisasum. As the music blared a very subtle dull knocking eired under her hearing. Still focused on powering up her Valravn Via ignored the oddity until it became more insistant. It prompted her to withdraw her attention on her prodecures to look for where it was coming from and quickly she saw one of the maintainers knocking her cockpit window with a "what the hell" type of look all over his face. "

"Are you good?!" the muffled andorian voice barely made it through the glass only to get further distorted by the loud music which was still playing.

"Air is good?!" Via yelled and gave a thumbs up

"No, are you good?!" the maintainer responed with a thumbs up in an attempt to clarify his previous question realizing Via couldn't hear him clearly. "Tower has been calling you! Turn down the music!"

"What?!" The young pilot still couldn't hear. "Tower says I am good?!"

"No! Turn. Down. The Music!" The Andorian reaffirmed pointing to her cockpit in the general area of her joystick.

"Oh! I am clear to take off?"

"No! TURN DOW-"

"Alright! See y'alls asses later" Via gave a curt salute to the Andorian as she engaged the engine and started to take off, jamming to her music as the craft lifted off the ground.

Luckily the flight deck was clear, Via was able to move into position and quickly launch out of the FAB diving straight into the deep black of space with full afterburners haphazardly.

[Holding pattern near SB 234]

Via's mouthed the words of the song as she speed to the rally point. All things considered she was in a good mood. Considering the last couple days she enjoyed the respite of having a simple escort mission with one of her best friends Shadow distincing herself from all the death, destruction, and pain that still was in the air on the Theurgy.

Not paying attention to the time, she overshot the rally point she was supposed to hold at buzzing right over Wolf 4. The young pilot was utterly sucked into the music. It took Talia going inverted and meeting her cockpit to cockpit to again her attention.

"Shitballs!" Looking up she jumped at the sudden sight of the Valkyire. Her instinctive response was to flip Shadow off, especially after recieving both the visual and coded message to turn down her music. "Bitchass..." she resigned. The young pilot fixed her comms and turn down her music to a dull drone, before communicating to her wingman. "Y'all's asses ain't got any taste and now y'all are hatin'." she looked back to her RIO "and..ain't no one likes a hater. I already gotta deal with Beachhead." the lack of a quipy response from him made Via curious. "Hey, why your ass silent?"

The RIO mouthed a response but nothing audible came out. It looked like he said "I've been talking this entire time, or I really want some wine. Via couldn't tell."

"Whatever..." Via dismissed the oddity. "Anyway, Shadow?" She redirected her attention back to her "Girl, you ass overshot the rally point. Now we got to bring our asses all the way back. Did you not pay attention to the briefin'?" She said playfully and completely oblivious to her actions.

Via turned off her afterburners and slowed down to cruising speed, heading back to where Shadow was previously in a holding pattern. "Whose' ass are we meetin' here again? We should start chargin' latinum for these kind of missions...."
 
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