Star Trek: Theurgy

Star Trek: Theurgy | Season 2 => Episode 01: Advent of War => Topic started by: stardust on July 18, 2020, 10:15:54 PM

Title: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on July 18, 2020, 10:15:54 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 10 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] attn: @Griff @Brutus @Swift
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When Samantha had traveled to the Theurgy, on board the Vor’nak, further and further towards Klingon territory, her apprehension and worry, had grown exponentially. In her already decade long career, in the diplomatic corps, she had not served during a single engagement with the warrior race. As a matter of fact, she had served in at least one negotiation with the Romulans, where she had to assume a counter position to Klingon interests, on behalf of the Federation. Luckily, that was not public knowledge. But the quintessence of the matter was: She had not engaged in any sort of professional interaction with them, not even a hypothetical one, since her classes on Klingon culture, in the academy. A little bit of which, had come back to her easily, being thrust into the customs on her transport to Aldea, and then there was of course also her innate sense for conversation and empathy, her diplomatic talent. But even though all of that was looking up, she did not want to rely on it alone.

So the diplomat had solicited the help of an unlikely friend in Hi’Jak, or Jack, how she was supposed to call him (or Kyle, in his unofficial capacity as her fake-fiancé). A half Klingon himself, the man had been an indispensable source of information on the race, half his lineage came from. Deliberately pushing aside his personal political history with the empire, which was not at all beneficial to any kind of future diplomatic relationship with the chancellor. So she had opted not to inform him, of the intel she had gotten relayed by Commander Fisher, to avoid any conflict of interest. Because as it had turned out, Jack might not have broken Martok’s lineage after all. Monitoring ship wide communication, Fisher had intercepted a message to Chu’vok, from Ja’rod, son of former Klingon fiends Lursa & B’Etor. Claiming that his twin sister Jo’reh had indeed a son, with Drex, Son of Martok, and that they had discovered the location of the child (and mother), somewhere on a ship, hiding in a remote star system.

Of course, Andrew had lobbied for this matter to be approached via diplomatic channels. Potentially hoping Samantha would call in a few favours and resolve the situation in the political arena, as he too shared the common sentiment of it potentially being a trap. As a matter of fact, he had explicitly advised against any direct intervention. Well, knowing all the facts now and having all the background information on what official channels could actually do, the commander had decided to go a different diplomatic route. If there was indeed the chance that Martok’s lineage was not broken, then that would go a long way towards his house’s credibility as strong leaders. And in turn, it would serve the alliance with the Theurgy immensely. The only immediate alternative being, that the blonde offered herself as an incubator for a future Martok spawn, she actually preferred the prospect of flying into a potential trap.

Leaving Foval in charge of the diplomatic detachment, the commander had ordered Ensign Eloi-Danvers to accompany her on this, slightly unusual, diplomatic mission. If this really was a trap, then she wanted to give the enemy as little leverage as possible. So, the logical conclusion had been to bring the lowest ranking available officer of her department – no offense. No pilot, no security, small shuttle. They did still hold a generally agreed upon diplomatic immunity, if they traveled without armed guard. Whether that agreement would be honored, was a different question. The plan, however, was to find the Klingon ship and negotiate a truth. A potential reintegration of the Martok lineage and future for the house, as the rulers of the empire. She was, after all, at liberty to offer Federation asylum consideration … even though that technically meant very little, given the crew’s traitor status. Captain Ives would surely be inclined to offer a similar protective sentiment for the Theurgy.

Making her way from her quarters to the upper level of the shuttle bay, which was on the same deck, Samantha readjusted the shoulder strap of the little Starfleet issue bag, she had brought. Containing a dress uniform, just in case, a standard replacement uniform, grooming kit, a book and a small lucky charm. Meeting Ensign Eloi-Danvers, outside the entrance to the bay, the diplomat gave her a courteous nod. “Glad to have you join me.” the commander smiled encouragingly, beckoning for her to enter first. She had intended to spend some time to talk with the brunette for a while. Having picked up on a few things going on, within the first department meeting they'd had. Some of which she meant to understand, before forming a judgment, about whether it would interfere with her duties or not. All in all, however, her experiences with the Betazoid had been only exemplary.

“How is your Klingon, by the way?” the blonde sparked casual conversation, that still somewhat pertained to the mission, as the two women made their way to the line of Type-9 shuttles on the gallery, overlooking the lower level and large rear doors. She had reserved one of them ahead of time. It was just big enough for two people and a short journey. The least threatening thing you could think of, in terms of Starfleet auxiliary crafts. Because that was, and always had been, her diplomatic approach: The least intimidating one possible. Many species did not react well to someone in a superior position, it put them on the defensive from the get-go. So even if you were, you should always make the opponent believe THEY were. Granted, this was potentially an approach that she should re-evaluate, in dealings with the warrior race, that valued strength and determination above most, only inferior to honour.

“Is our ship ready?” Samantha alerted the deck chief, on the center console, overseeing shuttle bay operations on the floor. The man turned, only to immediately recognise the department head. “Ah yes, Commander Rutherford, we have had a last-minute type change, you’ve now been upgraded to a Type-11 shuttle, ready on the deck below.” he explained, holding out his arm, to guide the women to the side of the platform, where the stairs led down. Furrowing her brows, the blonde followed the man’s guidance. She had never flown a Type-11 herself before, in her mind it was way too big for two people. But she would not admit any of this, to either her subordinate or the deck chief – who might not have let her fly in that case. Ordering the two officers down the stairs with a pleasant nod, the man remained up on his post. Making her way down and around the corner, the diplomat stopped dead in her tracks … what the fresh hell.

“YOU upgraded the shuttle …” the blonde stated, matter-of-factly, shaking her head lightly in a sense of frustration. She should’ve known better than to try and elude the king of evasion: Andrew Fisher. And with him, was another blonde woman, also in red undershirt, to complete the set. Giving the woman, likely the pilot, a courteous nod, the woman focused all her momentary contempt back on the only man in the group. “I suppose it’s no coincidence that the Type-11 has 4 cockpit seats.” she stated, once more not really a question, because she was not in a mood for answers. "Have you even been readmitted to duty yet?" Given that the man had only just been in an explosion the night before. At this point, however, the diplomat had already submitted. It was clearly a fly, or no fly, scenario, that came with a few hard concessions. Taking a deep breath, she made those admissions, with a theatrical heave of her shoulders, before marching on, with steady steps, towards the back hatch of the state-of-the-line shuttle. “It’s going to be classical music, the WHOLE way.” she barked back, her definitive counteroffer, stepping up the ramp, into the belly of the beast.



OOC: Let's get this shit show on the road :-) I would suggest that we establish a posting order with everyone's first reply. If anyone wants to jump in ahead of someone else, down the road, let's talk about it in the Discord group :3 Oh, and have fun!!!
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on July 19, 2020, 02:22:06 AM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 10 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

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For all their differences, there were several common rules in both Starfleet and the Romulan military. For low ranking enlisted pilots, one of those rules was downright sacred: when senior officers got into a pissing contest, the pilot was well advised to quietly ignore them and pretend that everything was normal. It had nothing to do with proper respect for official protocol and everything to do with self-preservation. The pilot in that instance was there to fly, look pretty and keep her mouth firmly shut unless directly talked to, lest she be drawn into profoundly irritating matters.

So, standing besides Fisher outside the shuttle in the face of a rather annoyed lieutenant commander, Lillee did exactly that: she kept her mouth shut, stood straight and regarded a nearby shuttle with far more interest than it deserved. She only knew the three officers by reputation, but nevertheless, it was clear that the upcoming mission would be...interesting.

Assuming those Klingon pigs don't try to kill us again, Lillee mused sullenly, wishing that she'd had time to get her honour-blade from her quarters. Oh Elements, this is just the type of mission where everything goes very, very wrong.

Still, everything seemed to be defused quickly enough as Rutherford strode into the shuttle. The mission was still happening, apparently. Lillee didn't know any of the three officers except by reputation and name, an odd state of affairs before setting out on a dangerous mission, but nevertheless, such was the Starfleet life. Flashing a brief and polite smile of greeting at the other diplomat, Lillee turned and followed Rutherford into the shuttle, heading directly for the pilot's chair and beginning the pre-flight procedure.

Fly, look pretty, shut up. Simple. No, it was a diplomacy mission to the cursed Klingons..okay. Fly like a demented bat, look invisible so that the beasts ignore me, shut up and let the diplomats do their thing. Step 4: get home safe and relate the exhilarating story to Anh-Le over dinner. Keeping that thought in mind, Lillee focused on her work.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on July 19, 2020, 06:40:36 AM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 10 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Swift @stardust @Griff  
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With a small bag tossed over her shoulder containing what gear she thought she might need for the mission ahead, Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers stood at the entrance to the Upper Shuttle Bay in the mid afternoon, awaiting her boss. She'd known Rutherford for around about a week at this point, maybe slightly more, and was still trying to take a measure of the woman. She seemed a reasonably competent boss, and her record was certainly impressive. Years more experience than Faye had, for sure, and a much wider breath of it to boot, given that most of Faye's time was dealing primarily with Klingon's, and a smattering of Romulans. This fact was the main reason behind her assignment to this mission, she was certain. Of all the members of her diplomatic team currently being built upon the Theurgy, Ens. Eloi-Danvers had the most hands on experience with Klingon's. 

Some very hands on experience, she thought to herself with a wry smile, recalling a night not terribly long ago, when Rutherford's quarters had been her quarters. She idly wondered if the blonde had put the tub she'd been assigned with her room to as enjoyable use as Faye had over the month and a half that she had appropriated the dwelling as Acting Chief Diplomat. Neither Riley nor Mickayla had any complaints about that tub, she idly mused, shifting her weight from one foot to the other while trying not to think about the impending dread that the mission ahead offered. So many things could go wrong, and there was a decent chance that if the thing became pear shaped (as her mother liked to say), Faye would not see Nurse Paterson, the woman's she'd formed a rather swift and deep relationship with, or Security Officer MacGregor, a newfound friend, again. She'd half thought about appropriating Mickayla MacGregor for the mission, but felt it might be over stepping her bounds, seeing as she was no longer the head of the department. 

Had she been in charge of the mission she would have hardly hesitated to add her friend, given that she was in fact a Klingon. One raised on Earth, true, but she'd made some heavy inroads into the contingent of Klingon's stationed in the Aldean system. An asset, in Faye's book. But a compromising one as well, given her own growing friendship with the Klingon woman. A conflict of interest. And Lt. Commander Rutherford was the one in charge, wanting to keep the mission team as small and non threatening as possible. Faye was...pretty non-threatening, no matter how you looked at it. 

That fact wasn't terribly reassuring when going into a situation with angry Klingon's.

Pushing that less than pleasing notion down, Faye stood up a bit straighter, adjusting the strap of her bag as the blonde in question approached. "Thank you, Commander," she said by way of acknowledgement, tamping down on some pre-mission nerves with both feet as she drew a mental sampling of the Lt. Commanders emotional state. Nothing there caused Faye any significant worry, and so she let a bit of the tension bleed out of her shoulders, but only a little bit. Time was pressing, and the situation as a whole was...grave. She licked her lips and made her way into the shuttle bay, taking the lead for the moment as indicated by her boss. She could feel the weight of the other woman's gaze, squarely between her shoulder blades, and she tried to remind herself that she was an accomplished diplomat in her own right, thank you very much. She shouldn't be feeling any of the symptoms of impostor syndrome. 

Telling herself that did very little to alleviate the feeling none the less.

Cocking an eyebrow as Samantha fell into step next to her, Faye answered the question in lightly accented Klingon, "tlhIngan Hoch QaQ law' vulqangan, ra'wI'". She had decided to use the officers rank, instead of the epithet that would have most likely followed such a question, had Faye been a Klingon officer being asked such a thing. She flashed a toothy grin at the other woman, but had no time to say anything else. 

What followed after was quite a surprise. First in that their ride had been reassigned. While Faye personally drew a bit of comfort from the old adage that it was better to treat with Klingon's from behind a well placed phaser bank, she had understood her boss' logic when it came to choice of craft. A ship nearly twice as long as the one they'd originally chose was a statement in and of itself, and Faye had to wonder just why the ship had been upgraded to the much larger vessel. The only craft the Theurgy had assigned to it bigger than the type-11's were the Runabouts, the ships Aeroshuttle, and the Captains Yacht, Allegiant which was currently deployed already.

A considerable step up, that was rather shortly explained. Faye felt the anger boiling up in the other woman before she actually saw whatever it was that had caught Rutherford's eye, and ire. Two more red-shirted officers, a human male, with Lt. Commander's pips, like Rutherford's, and a Romulan female with petty officers bars. Faye felt her eyebrows shoot up high. While she was certain the woman would be a more than competent pilot, she rather questioned the notion of bringing a Romulan officer along for a sit down with Klingon's. The latter would not at all be happy to see the former as a general rule. But Faye held her tongue. 

See, she could be diplomatic. 

The exchange between Rutherford and Fisher - it took Faye only a moment to place the ships new Chief of Intelligence - was short and to the point. She thought it might boil over into something nasty, but the blonde officer decided that it would be quicker to take the others along than it would be to raise a fuss, and Faye found herself letting out a short burst of air from between pursed lips that she hand't realized she'd been holding. Crisis averted, I suppose, she thought, picking up faint impressions of amusement and relief from the others. 

The two blondes had already entered the ship, the Romulan falling into step immediately behind Faye's boss, so the brunettes were left out at the loading ramp. With a shrug to the more senior officer, as if to silently say 'what can you do?' Faye followed the pilot up the ramp, letting Lt. Commander Fisher close up the ship. She made her way through the back of the vessel, past the transporter column in and into the cockpit, taking one of the small auxiliary stations behind the Conn chair. She'd tossed her gear in the back compartment. She had no illusions that she would taking up the co-pilot/ops station now that they had an actual pilot along. Whether she'd assumed correctly, or not, remained to be seen. 

Only after she'd found herself in the cockpit, watching over the shoulder of the pilot as the Romulan woman began pre-flight operations, did Faye bother to wonder just which species 'classical' had Rutherford been referring to? 
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on July 21, 2020, 11:47:22 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Personal Quarters (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/images/4/4e/17-DEPARTMENT-HEADS-QUARTERS.png) | Deck 10 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @stardust @Brutus @Griff

Fisher had known he should have turned up every stone during the previous night, when he’d handed over an intel report regarding this previously unknown Grandson of Klingon High Chancellor Martok to the Chief Diplomatic Officer. He’d had a feeling that she’d ignore his recommendations to approach the matter with a more delicate and deliberative approach via diplomatic back channels. But against his better judgement, he’d declined to put forth his own plan of action on the matter and had hoped that his much-needed short rest wouldn’t cause him to lose the initiative. It did. A decision he’d regretted having made, when later after having lay awake in his bed, surrendered to the demons that taunted his consciousness, he’d discovered a logged flight plan put in for a Type-9 shuttle. It’s listed crew as a pair of Diplomatic Officers, one of whom he’d explicitly urged to not engage in such an immediate action.

For a long while, Fisher had cursed his Tal-Shiar friend for having even relayed the report to him, having come via subspace comms buoys. It was a somewhat conciliatory offering, one made in light of what little the Romulan had known in regard to the Paris Bombing. Alarak, like most of his kind, had regarded the Klingon Empire as an immediate and existential threat to the safety and prosperity of the Romulan people, and as such had been keeping a close watchful eye on their Beta-Quadrant neighbors. To a point, that regard had been well warranted. So, it came of little surprise, when after Fisher had been given the promise of a rather intriguing development within the Klingon Empire, that Alarak had indeed come through with a series of intercepted communications. Communications that had sent between General Chu’vok and Ja’rod, son of Torg. The revelation of what was in those communications; that there existed a child born of Drex and Jo’reh, daughter of Torg represented a potential tidal wave of developments within the Empire. If an heir to the House of Martok could be secured, then the alliance between Theurgy and the High Chancellor would greatly improve. Alternatively, if this heir were discovered and subsequently assassinated by Martok’s rivals, it could spell disaster for the Empire, as it would serve to dishonor him in the eyes of many Klingon Warriors, driving them to back Gorka, son of Margon in his attempt to seize power.

Given how precarious of a situation it was, he of course understood how Commander Rutherford had clearly felt it merited a need for expediency.

He’d just hoped that someone else could and would have dealt with the matter. Someone from security maybe, though given the recent loss sustained to that department, the option didn’t make much sense. Maybe even a small task-force of the remaining Lone Wolves. But in that approach was also the possible downfall of future political dealings if things went bad. A flight of Federation warpfighters discovered deep within Klingon Space would be hard to explain, and in fact might tip-off rival elements to enact their own plans to eliminate this heir in a more rapid timetable.

No, a covert effort was indeed the best method for approaching this potential monumental development. And as such, Fisher recognized that he’d needed to play a part in it. Especially since he represented the best and most well-informed aspects of Theurgy’s remaining Intelligence Operatives. Lieutenant Arn had departed aboard the Allegiant on its mission to Breen Space, and Lieutenant Byrne had only recently returned to active Intelligence duties aboard a Starfleet vessel, after having spent nearly a decade among the Aldeans, and there were no guarantees as to how up-to-date on the current Klingon political climate he’d been. So, resigned to the fact that no additional rest would come to him, Fisher had sought out the solace of distracting duty. He’d accessed requisition orders, and had subsequently co-opted Rutherford’s plans, expanding them to account for what he felt were elements that needed to be addressed. It was how the mission had gone from two, to four participants: the two Diplomatic Officers, himself, and arguably the best shuttle pilot aboard Theurgy, a Romulan Petty Officer by the name of Lillee. And in order to accommodate the added bodies, as well as provide a faster travel and durability, Fisher had upgraded the assigned Type-9 shuttle to a Type-11.

There had also been an ounce of personal considerations that had affected his biases toward the mission, which had indeed played a bigger part in his decision to tag along. Though, he’d declined to actively acknowledge said personal consideration, as he knew it potentially represented a compromising factor to his objectivity.

-

Roughly an hour later, as the timetable of the mission loomed, Fisher emerged from the shower in his personal quarters, the skin of his body stinging from the scolding hot water that he’d sought out just a moment earlier. He’d been hoping that the heat of the water on his face and head, spraying against his closed eyelids would relieve some of the stress and tension running through his mind. If not, it would at least serve to ease some of the lingering ache in him from having survived an explosion just 17 or so hours earlier; a fact that was imminently consuming, as though his wounds had been healed rather thoroughly, he could still feel the dull pain of the previously broken leg, and a deep pervading sting within his abdomen, where he’d been pierced through by a piece of stray debris. That remnant pain in the wake of complete healing was something of a mystery to Starfleet Medical still, as it didn’t always seem to persist in everyone, though it was clearly a prominent enough issue that they knew of it. In Fisher’s own experience, given the number of injuries he’d sustained over the course of his career, he himself had rarely if ever experienced it before.

Maybe it was just his lack of consistent rest since coming aboard Theurgy, or perhaps it was something else that had contributed to his somewhat drained energy levels. Or, maybe it was just stress playing mind games on him.

After toweling off, he stepped past the still shattered mirror that hung on the wall of his bathroom and sighed in abject regret. He shook his head and emerged back into the main area of his quarters, retrieving a small electric razor that he could shorn down his rather full beard with. The heat of the explosion, as well as some smaller debris had lacerated parts of his face in addition to singeing away a few parts of his thick facial hair. He figured he could do for a trim up, and gradually worked his relatively untamed stubble down to a more manageable five o’clock shadow. There was a moment that he considered shaving himself smooth but remembered how someone had told him that a little bit of that shadow gave him a more distinctive look, while also prevented him from looking fifteen years younger.

Content with the face that stared back at him in the reflection of a PADD screen, Fisher then slipped into a newly replicated uniform, as his previous had been burned, torn, and cut away. There was always a strange smell to newly replicated fabric, he thought in the moment as he zipped up his duty jacket and attached a new combadge to the left breast. After offering a momentary glance around his quarters, he spotted a smaller PADD laying beside the couch, and smiled ever so slightly before exiting into the hallway.

The upper shuttlebay was just a short walk along a Deck 10 corridor from Fisher’s personal quarters, during which time the Chief of Intelligence considered just how he might handle the fallout awaiting him for having interjected himself, and his own preparations on someone else’s mission. Understandably, he expected to encounter some level of aggravation, and annoyance from Sam and her subordinate.

Ironically enough, he knew how important it’d be for him to be somewhat ‘Diplomatic’ in how he played this.

“Petty Officer t’Jellaieu, glad to have you as pilot for this mission.” He acknowledged the Romulan woman as he approached her, walking along the flight deck toward the shuttle that had been assigned them. Roughly five-meters longer than the Type-9 that Commander Rutherford had originally selected, the Type-11 was faster, more well-armed and armored, and had far better amenities afforded to a larger away team. Those facts, combined with a far better skilled pilot at its helm, would likely play a role in the success or failure of this mission, as well as improve their chances at surviving any potential obstacles awaiting them. “Fair warning, this might be unpleasant.” He warned the Romulan pilot as he saw both Rutherford and Eloi-Danvers descending a flight of stairs, on their way to discovering his alterations to their endeavor.

Shrugging his head, Fisher seemed to regard the blonde diplomat with a somewhat apologetic look. No doubt, it was the kind of charming look he’d employed in past efforts to disarm potentially annoyed colleagues, to varying degrees of success.

“I did.” He admitted, looking back up the loading ramp that lead out of the aft section of the larger shuttlecraft. “It’s a bit more rugged in it’s capabilities, than the Type-9 you’d requested. Better weapons. Better armor. Better sensor suite.” He was trying to sugarcoat the fact that he’d completely re-arranged the plans she’d made, with zero regard for what she might have intended. Indeed, the larger shuttle improved survivability, but it’s size and greater power-output increased the chances of their being detected. It was a balancing act, and he was willing to risk it, given what all was at stake. Though, it wasn’t necessarily his risk to make. He’d just made it, unilaterally. There was a consideration on his part to answer her next question, regarding the number of seats, but he knew it was a rhetorical one, emphasized by how clearly, she didn’t want any further explanation on his part.

She appraised him with a skeptical glance, voicing another concern as to whether or not he’d been cleared for duty, and he realized that he himself actually hadn’t even put any thought into that regard. He’d just assumed, given the circumstances of everything going on, that he’d resume his duties without issue, and deal with the windfall of such a decision later on down the line.

As she shrugged and moved past him up the ramp, followed after by the Petty Officer, Fisher raised an eyebrow in relative surprise of how lightly he’d gotten off in terms of backlash. His green eyes falling back on the Ensign who stood with him a moment longer, before she too offered a shrug, he followed suit and offered one of his own before jumping a little as Rutherford hollered back down the ramp at him; something about classical music.

“Still went better than I thought it would.” He admitted aloud to no one as he was left standing alone on the deck outside the shuttle.

Climbing the ramp, a moment later, Fisher made for the fore compartment of the shuttle, taking note of the Romulan pilot already seated at the CONN, he turned to face the Diplomats as they went about getting situated. “This is still your operation.” He began to explain, indeed conceding operation authority over to the other Commander. “I’m just tagging along. You’re in charge. You say jump, and I’ll ask how high.” He used the old adage, raising both of his hands in a sign of surrender to whatever decisions would be made, though he did begin to move closer to the tactical station, feeling as though he would be best served from that station.

“In fact, you tell me where you want me.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on July 21, 2020, 10:21:42 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 10 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] attn: @Griff @Brutus @Swift
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Turning her pate to Faye, the commander gave her a quizzical look first, that was soon replaced with a delighted one, as she let the Klingon words sink in, jumbling them into a barely coherent line of Federation standard in her head. Giving her beautiful features and mischievous grin a once-over, the woman settled on the humorous meaning, to the Betazoid’s words, that transcended her slight accent. “Lang tlhap.” (“Point taken.”) she replied with a subtle chuckle, oscillating the confident tone of her voice. It was still a little bit hard to read the young woman, which was probably not due to her biological heritage. There was just a lot weighing on her, past experiences and current tribulations alike, that distorted any clear image of character and demeanor one could gleam. Which was perfectly natural, given the situations she’d been in, the dark memories she had to keep at bay. And as she had learned in her career so far, the diplomat took her for exactly that, and just that, giving her room and reason to grow and breathe, within an environment that demanded less of her, than total control and responsibility, beyond her age and experience. At least she was confident, that it was the best approach with her subordinate. Something she had not been able to device for her dealings with the chief intelligence officer yet.

As the time of their acquaintance came up to a week, Samantha was thoroughly starting to contemplate, whether Fisher’s unawareness of her professional ability to read people – including him - was pure underestimation, misguided self-confidence, or whether he was just deluding himself into blissful ignorance. Watching him deploy his virile charm, like a tactical countermeasure, a smoke screen to confuse and disarm his opponents, she appreciated the sheer skill. But as someone who had grown to care for the man on a personal level, all the same, she was once more troubled by the instinctiveness with which it sprung into action. Even in a setting such as peaceful and hazard-free as the shuttle bay of a Federation starship, among fellow Starfleet officers. Though she did not prescribe it any ill-intent or malice. Granted, everyone had their thing, with which they kept people at safe distance. For Petty Officer t'Jellaieu, it was likely her professionalism and focus on the task at hand. For Ensign Eloi-Danvers, it could've been her agreeable coyness, that tricked people into a sense of complacency and ease. As for the chief diplomat herself: her outgoing nature probably left little room for counter-incursions into her own personal realm, deliberately.

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the puffed-up description of the shuttlecraft, the blond failed ever so slightly, as her blue eyes hit the corner of the ceiling in a quiet huff. Not disregarding the man's reaction upon her medical query. Using physical momentum as a perfect ploy, to evade a thorough reading or skilfully crafted comeback, the officer brushed past her intelligence counterpart on her way to the rear of the craft. “Oh good, it’s you as a shuttle.” she retorted dryly, not intentionally attempting a joke, yet potentially coming across slightly bitchier than intended. It was all she could do, aside from causing a scene right there. Knowing fairly well that she did not have the power or leverage to move him, both physically as well as figuratively. Actually, the three of the women together, probably wouldn’t have been. And in a way, though she’d deny it, it lent a sense of safety to the sinister mission. And even if t'Jellaieu and Eloi-Danvers would’ve been able to draw enough reassurance from the plucky blonde, as the commander of the mission, she herself was reluctantly glad, to have some reassurances of her own, if only in the resourcefulness of SIS’ finest. But potentially in a more substantial sense of care, that lingered between the very actions of the man, that constantly got sprung back into her life, like a bad ‘jack-in-the-box’ joke. Though an increasingly welcome one.

Making her way into the back compartment of the Type-11 shuttlecraft, across the ramp, Samantha took quick visual stock of all mission equipment being strapped in, as she passed the ‘social’ area and through the set of doors into the cockpit. “What are the procedures concerning take-off weight? Do we have to declare that ego to the deck chief?” the officer joked, a little bit cuttingly, to the pilot, as she took her seat already, dutifully, preparing the shuttle for departure. Touching the panel on the wall, the diplomat opened the locker on the side of the bridge, behind the consoles, dumping her duffle bag inside, after pulling out a PADD. Ultimately taking her seat at the science station in the back left, behind t'Jellaieu, she beckoned for Faye to take the ops in the front, with a warm smile. So the two younger officers could bond more freely, without having to feel constantly intimidated and monitored by their superiors, duping it out over responsibilities. Also, it left Fisher to sit opposite her at the tactical side-station, where he was undoubtedly served best.

Regarding him with a thoughtful look, belying a sense of agitation as well as relief, the diplomat brushed her plump lips together at his attempt at, well, diplomacy. And even though she did her best, she found it hard to stay mad in light of such skill. Personal ramifications beneath the surface didn’t help, never had, as professional as she wanted to approach the situation. There were certain feelings that were harder to subdue with her Vulcan training than others. And he certainly managed to trigger those relentlessly. “Yeah, there’s not going to be any jumping for you.” she replied, professionally, as her blue eyes dropped to his previously broken leg briefly, as she turned around to face her console, back facing towards the center of the bridge. Still conveying a certain sense of sympathy, albeit well hidden. “I think I made myself pretty clear, where I want you, but tactical will be fine for now.” she prompted, regretting the potentially ambiguous character of her words, while appropriating one of her station’s screens to download the intel data and mission parameters, she had accumulated during lunch. If he’d thought that it had indeed gone better than expected before, then he had underestimated the delayed and staggered payback of a diplomat … and a woman at that.

“Ensign, could you please confirm that Commander Fisher has thought about relaying the five Tachyon probes to the shuttle’s magazines?” she ordered Faye at the Ops station. Another slight jab at the man’s penchant for intervention and inception. No doubt in her mind that he had thought of every eventuality and had unearthed every last shred of her mission plans. It was almost poetic how little he was able to home in on whatever was developing behind the scenes. Surely more a matter of admission, rather than skill. “If everyone’s set, take us out at your leisure, Petty Officer.” Placing her hand on the console in front of her, head turned right to gaze out the large front window, Samantha steadied herself against the slight sway of the shuttle, as its inertia dampening systems calibrated, upon it leaving the immediate influence of the grave plating. Pulling up some more details of Fisher’s intelligence report, she relayed the star chart of their destination to the pilot’s station. “Set a course to the Epsilon Monocerotis system, Warp 6, and drop us as close to the outermost planet as you can.” she instructed t'Jellaieu, turning her chair ninety degrees so she could look at the CONN telemetry, across the woman’s shoulder, holding on to the back of her chair.

The first mission she would be in charge of, in her position as CDO. Well, at least officially. Watching the shuttle slip through the bay doors, and out from between the Theurgy’s top nacelles, the deep darkness of space soon filled the viewport. And as they embarked on this journey, she had every shred of confidence in the team that was with her along the way. Even if half of them had not been part of her original plan. Turning her head slightly, hesitantly, she met Andrew’s sage colored eyes, face a blank canvas in a moment of contemplation a she tried to figure out what of the many emotions she wanted to convey. Ultimately settling on a somber, thankful, tuck of a smile, on lips pressed thin, against more expressive sentiments. Slipping the hand on the back of t'Jellaieu's chair forward onto the woman's shoulder encouragingly.

“Engage.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on July 22, 2020, 12:56:06 AM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04)| Warp Transit ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

[Show/Hide]

At Commander Rutherford's jibe about ego, Lillee had to repress the urge to roll her eyes. Oh yes, this would be a wonderful voyage, even before the Klingons undoubtedly tried to kill them...assuming Rutherford and Fisher didn't kill each other first.

"Oh, don't worry Commander," Lillee commented wryly as she worked her console, waiting for the others to settle themselves. She could hardly ignore a direct question, as much as she might want to avoid it. "Starfleet shuttlecraft are designed to accommodate egos of all shapes and sizes. Regulations dictate that we only occasionally jettison those egos in an emergency."

That said, Lillee glanced at Ensign Eloi-Danvers with a brief smile of mutual suffering, only then noticing the black irises, before shrugging and returning to work. "Shuttlecraft Franklin to Bridge, requesting permission to launch." The affirmative reply only took a few seconds to come, Lillee opening the shuttlebay doors remotely as she waited. She ignored Rutherford's question about the probes, trusting Eloi-Danvers to see them and report for herself. The probes were something, she reasoned, and showed that the diplomats weren't foolish enough to trust the Klingons. The things would be useless against Romulan cloaking technology but Klingon cloaks were far less sophisticated, so there was a chance.

At Rutherford's order to launch, Lillee pulsed the shuttle's thrusters to lift off. "Aye, Epsilon Monocerotis, Warp 6."

The launch was as smooth as could be, Lillee tapping the thrusters and gently guiding the large shuttle out of the Theurgy's aft entry, the four nacelles presenting an impressive sight. Still gentle, Lillee took the shuttle out in a loop and stopped to aft and starboard of the dreadnought, presenting the four of them with an impressive view of the Theurgy. The enormous starship looked impressive, freshly repaired, refitted, and ready to get back into the fight.

Still, the Theurgy had only briefly dropped out of warp to drop off the shuttle. As the crew of the shuttle watched, the nacelles lit a brilliant blue before the starship erupted into warp once more, leaving the relatively miniscule shuttle quite alone in the void. Without comment, Lillee worked the controls, reorientating to their new destination. Rutherford's hand on her shoulder warranted a bemused frown, but she didn't bother commenting. Officers did love to feel commanding when actually in "command"; it was best to let them enjoy the feeling and get on with business.

Rutherford gave the order and Lillee duly engaged the warp drive, flinging the shuttle out into speeds far faster than light. "We'll arrive in just over six hours," she commented, glancing back at the three officers and particularly Fisher. Unpleasant, indeed.  I thought he meant the Klingons, not the diplomats.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on July 23, 2020, 03:41:12 AM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | In the hot seat | [/i Shuttlecraft Franklin[/i] ] Attn: @Swift @stardust @Griff  
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There was a saying about assumptions that seemed to take precedence right then; and another about what you expected and what you got often being at odds with one another. Both were rather applicable as her boss gestured for her to take the ops station opposite of the petty officer. Well. Just because she wore red didn't mean she knew much about flying a shuttle craft. She had the basic training, of course so that accounted for something. Swallowing and nodding she flashed a smile she didn't feel at all and sat down to the left of the Romulan woman, shooting her eyebrows up high on her forehead in a look that screamed Well, didn't expect this, did you?

The rather caustic emotions rolling around the Chief Diplomat in regards to the Chief Spook of the ship added a smidgen of haste to the Betazoid's actions as she sunk into the seat, tapped a few buttons and ran a quick level 5 diagnostic that was done in roughly half a minute. Repressing a snicker at some of Samantha's sharp wit,  Faye watched as the console informed her that it was operating per norm, and she went through what she remembered of the pre-flight check list, which was basically nodding her head and confirming anything from the pilot, whom actually knew what she was doing.  Aloud, she hissed a whisper at the Romulan woman, "Ever have one of those mornings you just wished you'd stayed in bed? That's us, for the next however many hours this takes. Mom and Dad are fighting again."

She jerked a thumb back over her shoulder at Fisher and Rutherford. She was trusting on the fact that the Petty Officer was a Romulan, and her barely audible comments would be easily enough heard by her - and not the two more human members of the crew. A few moments passed in comparable silence, for those in the front of the cockpit while Fisher took another off hand tongue lashing from a woman who was supposed to be Diplomatic (such blissful irony, Faye mused) and then her boss was asking her for a probe update. Punching up a few commands, the junior diplomat reviewed the logs. 

"Well ma'am, Commander Fisher seems to be rather competent in making changes to someone else's mission plans, but yes, the probes are all loaded and accounted for. I's have been dotted and t's crossed, by all accounts." She wasn't really all that upset with Fisher, but she did have to back her boss. Present a united front and all of that. It was so very typically human male of him to rush in and think that he could save the day. Never mind that she actually agreed with the spy, in so far that a bigger ship was better when dealing with Klingon's. They were a warrior race, even down to their farmers and merchants, and lawyers. They respected shows of strength. Now if only those micro-probes had been micro-torpedoes. We wouldn't have to fire them, just have them to get the point across, she silently mused as the ship slowly lifted it self up and off the deck plating.

She was a diplomat, not a soldier. But she wasn't stupid either. She'd made far more progress with Klingon's after flipping one over her shoulder than she had with sweet words and nice feelings.

The nose of the ship dipped slightly as it sped forward, out through the shimmering force field that kept breathable air in but let shuttle craft out of the ship, and into a long, looping arc around the contours of what had been Faye's home for the better part of the last year. She let out a soft sigh, watching the graceful ship fall away around them, her eyes tracing its lines. The nacelles gathered their energy in a blue white glow, and then the behemoth warped away, leaving in its wake a ship that seemed far too small for the emotions of the senior officers it contained. 

Samantha came to stand behind the two seats and Faye pulled her eyes away from the point where the Theurgy had been and back to her console as she tried to remember all the little things needed to be done. Thankfully it wasn't much, and soon enough they were ready to go. "Course confirmed," she echoed after the Pilot laid it in, and she did one more status check. Power distribution from the miniature warp core to the nacelles looked..right. She thought. Pretty sure. No alarms were howling so she flashed a thumbs up. Navigational Deflectors were in place, and the inertial dampners were dialed in (that would have been bad otherwise). 

Six hours, Faye thought to herself and winced. This was going to be painful. "So, who brought the deck of cards?"
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on July 24, 2020, 06:09:29 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @stardust @Brutus @Griff

In truth, Fisher found himself moderately relieved that the Chief Diplomat hadn’t in fact called his bluff, requesting a demonstration of exactly what he’d just promised. It wasn’t that he’d doubted the effectiveness of Nurse Vojona’s healing touch the night before. For that matter, he was relatively certain his injuries had been for the most part, healed, and healed thoroughly. But he couldn’t escape the lingering psycho-somatic effect of those injuries and found himself apprehensive about the prospect of literally jumping to Rutherford’s beck and call. Thankfully, it had seemed she wasn’t in a particularly cruel or vindictive mood, despite him having inserted himself into her mission without so much as the courtesy of even a cursory forewarning. As such, he figured he'd express his appreciation by letting her jab and prod at him with barbed words, and passive aggressive attacks. Though, he kept a running tab in his mind that he would refer to later on, when the situation presented itself.

And for the most part, Fisher kept his mouth shut during flight preparations.

He’d then taken up position in the chair situated before the tactical console, directly opposite of Rutherford. His hands dancing across the console, he logged his security access into the computer, and drew up a wide variety of information contained within reports which had been flagged as vital to the success of the mission by his staff. It was time to put the diligent work of Ravenholm and Anh-Le to good use, as they had performed above and beyond the call of what he’d charged them with. Included in that information were comms relays between Klingon Defense Force outposts that had been intercepted. Those comms contained the movements of several large groups of Klingon warships in and around the Epsilon Monocerotis system, which if accurate, would help to facilitate the stealth aspect of their mission. With a swipe of his hand, he transferred the analysis of those comms relays to the stations before the other three officers. Specifically, Petty Officer t’Jellaieu would find them useful in plotting her course throughout the sector.

Additionally, Fisher began screening the incoming subspace communications that had been re-routed from some rather illicit sources. As a spy, he’d had a wealth of unsavory and untrustworthy types he could call on when the time demanded it, and this situation demanded it. Old assets and other spies that he’d traded favors with over the course of his career began to relay whatever information they had, if any. For the most part, he was certain that most of it would prove useless, irrelevant, or outdated. But there still could’ve been a kernel of usable intel hidden among it. To speed up the process of gleaning through it all, Fisher set the computer to query search and compile results pertaining to several keywords: Tachyons. Martok. Heir. Grandson. Gorka. Ja’Rod. Chu’Vok. Torg. Drex. Jo’Reh. Starfleet. Shuttle. Ambush.

If anything were tagged, it would move to the very top of his queue to review.

Simultaneously, as the Petty Officer began to pitch and veer the Rosalind Franklin out of the shuttle bay, Fisher ran a diagnostic of the craft’s tactical systems. His ears registered the additional verbal jibe of his Diplomatic counterpart, and he decided that he himself would also verify that the probes she’d requisitioned for her Type-9 had been transferred and loaded into one of the micro-torpedo launcher magazines of his Type-11. As the Ensign soon relayed the same confirmation to the other Commander, Fisher smirked a little wryly and spun around in his swivel chair to face Rutherford, who had been looking past him through the viewport. His green eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he followed her gaze to the view beyond the front of the craft. Quite a view it was, he realized as t’Jellaieu had brought the shuttle around for a glimpse of the Theurgy; a truly magnificent and massive vessel, this was the first time he’d managed to see it through his own eyes in complete majesty. A moment later the quad-nacelles began to glow brightly blue until its hull elongated and streaked off into a sudden flash of light.

They were alone now.

“Phasers. Torpedoes. Probes. Shields. All defensive systems are green across the board.” He announced to break the momentary silence, relaying what he considered to be important information to the woman in charge of the mission. “Lateral and Long-range sensors are also operating within normal parameters. Captain.” He added the honorary title after having apprised her of all systems to which he had direct control over.

“Also, if anything, I would’ve figured I was more analogous to that of a Runabout, than a Type-11. A little older. More adaptable. Higher endurance.” He cocked his head a little, as he embraced the amusing recall of Sam’s sarcastic teasing just prior to their launch. “A little bigger too.” He added as he spun back around, looking to his console once more. His hands working at the controls as he opened the first queried report that the computer had compiled for him, this particular one coming from an older asset working aboard a Morassian freighter. The freighter had been dispatched to Klingon space in order to take on a shipment of endangered species that had been purchased, meant to then be ferried back to the Morassian animal preserve. The keyword prompting the query, ‘Heir’ having referred to the ascendance of the Governor of Dayos IV’s son to succeed him in that role. Irrelevant as it was to their current mission, Fisher still filed the report for later, knowing it was still prudent to update the scope of power within the Klingon Empire.

Given their situation however, Fisher was more immediately concerned over cloaked Klingon Warships, as even though the Type-11 could dish out and receive a little more punishment than a Type-9, it was still no match for even the lowliest of Klingon Birds of Prey. Which meant that if they were going to survive this mission, and find success in it, they’d need to remain undetected.

As the Ensign piped up about a game of cards, Fisher raised one of his thick eyebrows inquisitively at the suggestion.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on July 25, 2020, 09:40:11 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] attn: @Griff @Brutus @Swift
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The relationship between a subordinate and a superior was an interesting one, to say the least, only surpassed by the relationship between two superiors. Ironically, everyone had been on either side, at least once, in their career – if they did everything right – yet still, neither side seemed to ever fully appreciate the sensibilities of the other. Having been an Ensign once too, subordinate to a big ego and even bigger vanity, in the form of an Andorian ambassador, Samantha could very well remember the feeling. The sheer defiance of everything thrown her way, always knowing better, feeling misjudged, undervalued. It came with being young, new to the structure, that was the chain of command. When one broke out of the strict hierarchy of a home, into an even stricter one. When the prospect of shaping your own future, standing on your own two feet, crumbled into a mess of duty hours, behavioral guidelines and dress code. And just like they had, against their mothers and fathers, they subtly rebelled, in a way, against their new oppressors, their superiors. But while having been there once, colored the blonde understanding towards the struggle, she also understood now – some odd ten years later – that she had needed the strong guidance, the preparation, the proverbial micromanaging. And she still believed that, albeit all levity and candor, to alleviate the weight of their situation, this very guidance was still the core of her job as a superior.

Not taking into account the reflections on the long windshield, stretching far out to the front across the dashboard of the shuttle, both t'Jellaieu and Eloi-Danvers lulled themselves into a false sense of anonymity, which was perfectly fine. Hell, it amused the diplomat, at this point in time. She’d been there, she’d done it, and it was not any less amusing being on the receiving end of it. But looking over at Fisher, she wondered if he dealt with similar issues, or if people just experienced an innate sense of trust and obeisance through his hulking presence, thick brows and sacrificial work ethic. She had to admit, she did. Though she wasn’t sure if his brows, specifically, played any role in it, for anyone else. Brushing her lips together, the woman averted her gaze once more, letting blue eyes drop to the carpeted deck plating, before being drawn away once more by her commands being confirmed upon execution. A small smile, creasing dimples across her face, the commander took a moment of silence as if not to appear basking in the sentiment of returned banter, on Andrew’s expense. Though, from the way her face glowed for a moment, the suppressed grin, that couldn’t be quite extinguished from her eyes, left a lot on that notion to be desired. “Very well.” she acknowledged Faye. At least drawing pleasure from her mission parameters not having been changed any further.

Fisher soon returned to his duties, to evade the ongoing mockery, or simply out of sheer professionalism, and Samantha caught herself looking over, just as he had turned, and the coast had cleared, for a covert reciprocation of the appraisal. Many a thought running through her head, some more recently conceived than others, some more serious, than other. All the while not taking into account that his large wall of console, had a reflection too. And when his baritone voice rose up once more, even just on the first letter, she felt her heart drop at the prospect of being called out. Only to slip down in her seat an inch at the rather clinical narration of facts, from his station. Which was just the right amount of professionalism to remind her of her own. So, it came to quite the relief, the offering of something to jump on, that didn’t have a personal quarrel underlying its very sentiment, or did it. “I love how you consider phasers and torpedoes ‘defensive systems’.” she sighed dryly, tending her own console to evade a potential staring match, which she would undoubtedly lose. No, in this DEFENSIVE position, she was the great white shark that had jumped on one sign of weakness, by the baby seal, and was now maiming it for what it was worth. But it did also touch on a root sentiment of her as a diplomat, and this having been intended as a diplomatic mission. Now they had the CIO tag along, with his covert trickery and photon torpedoes. Undoubtedly not hesitating to use either, if the situation tipped one degree to the uncomfortable.

Samantha had developed a great deal of respect and admiration for the man and his talents, among other things that had no place in this thought process, but she had also learned a great deal about his dark past and how it influenced his perception of their current situation. Their little bit after the Nicander interrogation springing to mind. Which she didn’t hold in any form of hurt pride anymore, by no means, but which had unearthed a deeper issue between their respective departments and the way they approached certain topics. And even through his grand display of rhetorical relinquishment, she wasn’t convinced that he would be able to contain his inner daemons, to spring to life at the first sign of trouble, triggering him to take control of the situation in whatever way he saw fit. It was certainly a possibility she would have to consider and prepare for. Listening to his subsequent quip, once more trying to make light of the situation, she was now also reminded of the other side about him. The upbeat variant of his inner duality. Something that always resonated with a part deep inside of her, which she couldn’t turn off or ignore. Affection, quite potentially.

“Alright, thank you Mister Fisher, we’ll take turns expressing our own feelings by assigning ourselves appropriate shuttle classes, in a little bit.” she spoke up, a little bit louder, across the confines of the small cockpit, which was now dipped into the subtly varying hues of quickly passing stars and eradiated space dust, from their warp field. Giving Faye a quick look to relate a similar, albeit now non-verbal judgment on her suggestion, the room quickly fell silent. Nothing but the subtle hum of the engines, filling the uncomfortable void. “Now …” the blonde reasserted herself, spinning her chair so she was facing the middle of the cockpit. “Intelligence has provided us with an intercepted communique to General Chu’vok, hinting at the existence of a living grandson to Chancellor Martok. Hidden away somewhere in the Epsilon Monocerotis system. I don’t need to tell you what it would mean if this was true. The ramifications for the political stability of the Klingon empire would be staggering. It would make every one of us easily dispensable to achieve it.” The diplomat started out, narrating the mission, now that they were underway, letting her eyes rest on Fisher for a moment, at her last comment. But not to single him out as the first one to go, but as the likeliest to shout ‘here', when it came to it, and the emotional ramifications that came with such a realisation, for her.

“I’ve obviously intended for this to be a diplomatic mission. To find out the truth about this mystery, bringing back the grandson, if he does exist, to ensure Martok’s bloodline, as an ally to all of us, goes on. We will not engage any military forces, in defense or otherwise. At the first sign of trouble, I want you to be ready to draw us out of the system, to regroup, or withdraw.” she beckoned their pilot with a nod. “Since the intel provided, is not readily verifiable, we will not risk a diplomatic incident, by trying to extract this supposed grandson by force. It would only hurt our position later.” She wasn’t going to jeopardize their shaky alliance over the mere prospect of a stronger one. She may have been a good poker player, but she hated gambling. There was a good chance this whole thing was just an elaborate trap, to implicate them into whatever scheme was playing behind the curtain, to weaken the chancellor’s position. And she would not make herself become an accessory to this treachery.

“Now, if anyone has anything to add, let’s hear it.” she opened up the floor for debate, though her voice had been very firm on being almost immovable on her stance towards the general sentiment of this mission.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on July 26, 2020, 11:14:59 PM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04)| Warp Transit ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

[Show/Hide]

With the shuttle at warp, Lillee was all out of excuses to look "busy" and ignore the bickering senior officers behind her. Recalling the ensign's earlier joke, she smiled covertly at the Betazoid, rolling her eyes. Danvers was right, to be sure. Lillee half wondered when the two officers would "get a room", as humans put it, either to beat each other senseless or relieve the tension another way. Or both, Lillee mused. Regardless, she and Danvers were in an unenviable and awkward position, although it was at least rather amusing to watch.

Then, flicking through the intelligence records that Commander Fisher had sent her, Lillee grinned at one of the authors, a certain adorable green-skinned lieutenant. It wasn't an especially rational response, but just seeing the woman's name left a warm feeling in Lillee's stomach. despite the dangerous mission they were embarking on.

Nevertheless, when Commander Rutherford began her truncated briefing, Lillee paid full attention, turning her own chair around. She visibly squirmed at the thought of getting involved in Klingon politics, but such was the job, and at any rate, she wouldn't be called on for anything even remotely diplomatic. Or she shouldn't be, anyway. Still, one thought made her frown.

"If this is a trap, of some sort, Commander," she said, "know that we cannot outrun pursuit. Most Klingon ships are faster than this shuttle, assuming their engineers are sober, and they're far better armed. I can out-fly any Klingon, but out-running them or out-fighting them would be difficult. Diplomacy and cleverness are our only true options for retrieving this...um...boy."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on July 27, 2020, 11:14:47 PM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | In the hot seat | [/i Shuttlecraft Franklin[/i] ] Attn: 
[Show/Hide]

Open foot, insert mouth, Faye thought to herself. The downside of being a telepath was that, even when you were actively keeping your mind inside your own skull, you still picked up on the feelings around you. Nothing major, no in depth probing without effort, but you were swimming in a sea of feelings and thoughts. On a big starship, or on a planet it could either be an overwhelming roar, or a background sound. For most Betazoids, it was the latter, save when everyone was thinking the same thing at once, usually, 'oh shit, Borg!' or something similar. Much harder to tune that out or just float along without getting pulled under. In the confines of the Type-11 shuttle craft however, the ocean, such as it were, was more like a small pond, and the individual ripples were much harder to ignore. 

In this case she picked up clear amusement and mutual commiseration from the petty officer pilot when Faye made her little playing card crack, and various levels of reluctant amusement and dour frustration from 'mom' and 'dad', as the young ensign has taken to referring to Lt. Commander's Rutherford and Fisher, based on their bickering words and feelings. Sure, it was a childish comparison to draw, but damned if their behavior didn't remind her of her own parents, and the back and forth they often had. Full of love, sure, but by the gods did they bicker. 

Blowing a puff of air out that ruffled her bangs, she looked at Rutherford's reflection in the view port and shrugged her shoulders a bit. Not quite contrite, but not defiant either. She was who she was and it was hardly her fault if everyone with any sort of rank was in a sour mood. It was a long flight ahead of them, may as well relax. Apparently she was in the wrong on that. Or more likely, in the wrong for voicing that. Oh well. In truth, Faye was still getting used to not being the one in charge when it came to diplomatic measures. Even when Lt. Commander Dewitt had been assisting her in matters on Aldea, the more senior officer often deferred to her judgment when it came to strictly matters of diplomacy. Adjusting to the role and duties of a junior adjunct, in essence, was an exercise in restraint that was as tasking as some of the less enjoyable physical therapy that Nurse Paterson had insisted Faye take up after she'd been defrosted a few months back.

At least, she noted with resigned satisfaction, I wasn't the only one. While Rutherford's rebuke of her card playing suggestion had been subtle and nonverbal, there was no missing the jibe she'd sent to Fisher. But 'Mom' and 'Dad' were getting down to business, judging by the sound of things, and once she was sure that the ship wasn't going to suddenly lose warp containment, nor that the navigational deflectors and inertial dampers were not going to reverse their polarities and turn the crew of the Franklin into space paste, she turned her around to listen in on the conversation, sitting sideways to still keep an eye on the sensor array.

What followed was a very succinct summary of the situation, and the reason that Faye was on this mission at all. Her experience with the Klingon Empire, gained over the majority of her time as a diplomat. Rutherford had more experience in general, but when it came to Klingon's in general, and the current affairs of the empire over the past few months in particular, Faye was the subject matter expert. She'd cut her diplomatic teeth on assignment at freaking Khitomer, home of the self named Accords that brokered the longest standing peace between the Empire and the Federation (minus that small blip in 2372).  If there really was a previously unknown heir to the house of Martok...if he had a grandson, even with an off shot scion of the house of Duras, for all intents and purposes the black sheep of the Empire that refused to die, it would be monumental. 

And there were so many pitfalls that the fallout would be just as monumental....ly bad.

"Assuming the child exists, and we can prove blood verification, if I recall the report correctly, the mother is of the house of Duras, yes? Are we sure that Martok is going to want that to be public?" Faye saw some flickers of confusion on the other faces in the small cockpit and she pursed her lips, thinking through how to follow up and elaborate. Taking a breath, she solidered on with a bit of background, on the off chance that the others were not quite as up to date on things as she was. For all she knew she wasn't telling them anything new, but she felt it was best to be certain. 

"The animosity the House of Duras has gained in the last few decades has severely curtailed their standing within the High Council and the Empire. From triggering a civil war to dark alliances with the Romulan Empire that were to neither powers benefit," she shot an apologetic look at the pilot sitting next to her, "and the criminal efforts of Lursa and Betor, the scions of the house up until their death during the encounter at Veridian III and the destruction of the Enterprise-d, the House of Duras have become something of pariahs within the Empire. Let us not forget that Chancellor Martok officially adopted Worf, son of Mogh into his House during the Dominion War, and the former House of Mogh has a long history of...animosity with the House of Duras, which would have transferred over to Martok and his House in turn.

"Knowing that the freshly deceased heir to the reigning House of Martok begot a child with one of its chief rivals....that is going to be all kinds of messy. So I'll ask again: would Martok wish to acknowledge such a child existed, and damn the potential fall out from that, for the sake of having a new heir, or would he rather the bloodline officially have ended with Drex?"

That was a damned chilling thought, with regards to what by all reports was a child. But...that was Klingon politics. 
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on July 29, 2020, 11:17:33 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @stardust @Brutus @Griff

There were always potential professional ramifications at play when it came time for different departments to coordinate on efforts, and there were few if any other departments that were forced to coordinate on contentious matters as often as Diplomatic and Intelligence services. Since it was nary impossible for a diplomatic team to effectively court, and negotiate with political rivals if they didn’t know, and understand what the motivations driving them. In a way, it put Intelligence services at the behest of a Diplomatic corps, acting as a functionary of their mission to maintain or push for peace. There had been instances in the past, when Fisher had worked under other Intelligence Leads that were less than pleased by this arrangement; they often felt as though Intelligence could alone, better dictate the measures that should and would be taken. Politicians only ever seemed to get in the way for them. For Fisher, it wasn’t like that at all. He preferred to adhere to this standard, because it prevented him from having to make decisions that reflected badly on the intent and mission of the Federation. If it were a collaborative effort, there were more options that could be explored. If it were only ever up to him, then that absolute power would probably lead to corruption, as it had so many others in his position.

There was also however another side to the ramifications of the mission that hung in the back of his consciousness, hidden behind that foremost important professional concern, in the form of a personal one. He’d only worked with the Chief Diplomat in one previous engagement, and that had gone rather poorly to say the least. Perhaps not entirely due to his fault, but the fact was, that it had put a momentary strain on their then friendship. A strain that had only been alleviated at the behest of a bombing, jolting the both of them into a realization that they didn’t have the time, or even the want to focus on petty professional differences, especially given the near constant state of emergencies they were being dealt. Now, as that friendship began to blossom into something more, he couldn’t help but be concerned as to the potential strain this mission might put on them again, and what he might subconsciously do in order to avoid such a situation.

No, duty demanded he stick to his guns, even if it meant going against her and her decisions. But would he?

Still, as he worked at his console, he caught sight of her face reflected in the glass panel and felt something stir within him for only the very faintest of moments before he resumed his analysis of the shuttle’s weapons systems. He wondered what was hidden behind the azure gaze that had stolen a glimpse of him when he wasn’t looking, but he understood that any kind of investigation of the matter would’ve been exceedingly unprofessional given the environment.

Instead, he’d made his report on the weapons systems, and as his ‘Captain’ made another jibe at his expense, he couldn’t help but grin more broadly in amusement of the punishment he was taking. Again however, he recognized that indeed he’d made himself the punching bag of the mission by having had the temerity to accompany it without so much as an ask. It was a surprisingly small price to pay, he’d decided, as it meant he could keep a better eye on the matter, and perhaps maybe influence its outcome in a more positive and beneficial way. If not, then he could take some solace in the fact that he was getting to spend some time in the field again, as he’d spent a good chunk of the last year behind a series of desks. Operational Leads didn’t get to go out on all the ‘fun’ missions the way most field operatives did, and to a point, he’d missed it quite a bit. There was an associated adrenaline rush that came with them, and for the most part, Fisher hadn’t been able to experience that kind of rush in quite some time.

‘Only fools and dead fools relish after that rush. If you want to live, and more importantly If you want to win, then you put that shit aside, and relish after the only thing that matters. Control.’ He could hear the words of an old superior SFI officer as though he were standing just behind him. It had reminded Fisher then, just as it did now of the necessity to focus on the aspects of a mission that he could truly and directly influence. It was all a game, but it was a game that you didn’t want to lose, because if you did, it meant yours, or more importantly, someone else’s life. Anyone who got into Intelligence primarily for the thrill of it, didn’t last long as a field operative, because their instincts were all wrong. They would make mistakes because they wished to indulge in their insatiable need for a rush.

No, the better thing to go after was control. But Fisher had already relinquished most, if not all of it away, and he was determined to not attempt to wrest it back at any point if he could.

Not wishing for his thoughts to linger on unpleasant memories any longer, he’d felt it necessary to alleviate the tension by recalling her comment of the similarities played at between him, and the shuttle. And as the Commander rather abruptly cut him off, he couldn’t help but snicker audibly at the self-realization of how he’d gotten under her skin already. Turnabout was fair play he thought in the moment before he also realized that he’d grinned a little to broadly not to be noticed by the others of the shuttle if they looked. Catching himself, he cleared his throat audibly and stifled away the smirk, satisfied with having achieved a minor personal victory, even if she quickly squashed him back down like a bug with a dismissal of his attempt at jest. There had been a rather pithy and succinct retort that immediately played out in his mind, as he was ready to offer up a potentially unflattering opinion of what shuttlecraft she might be analogous to, as a joke of course, but he’d refrained.

There would be other opportunities to return fire, as it were.

Rolling his head, he’d decided to let it go and embrace Rutherford’s more serious tone as she began to offer up her briefing, regarding her with the attention that befit her role. It was after all, her mission, and as he’d just reclarified for himself, she was in charge. The last thing he wanted to appear as, was though he were a challenge to her operational authority; that he would undermine her in front of two Junior officers. It would have been moderately inappropriate from a personal point, and incredibly inappropriate from a professional one. Plus, Fisher understood the dangers that came along with splitting a crew. He needed to have her back on this and reserve any concerns for private discussion later. He needed to listen, and absorb what her plans for the operation were, so as to emphasize his intent to remain under her command, rather than a threat to it. And though he’d already understood the details, it didn’t hurt to hear them again. Often times just hearing someone else tell you what you already knew, could reveal something you hadn’t at first noticed about that knowledge. It was also good to get on the same page as her, knowing what her intentions for this mission were.

In her voice he could sense the genuine care she harbored for those under her command now; a trait that was outwardly more evident than it was whenever he spoke to his own people. His emotional exterior, when in a professional sense anyway, usually ranged anywhere from serious, to sarcastic, to defiantly optimistic. But rarely did he exude a sense of warmth for the others underneath him. At least, not the way the Chief Diplomat seemed to. To a point though, that was deliberate on his behalf, as he felt it was often best if he didn’t seem emotionally compromised. Ironically enough it was an emotion that played into it, as he simply feared showing any cracks of his mostly rigid exterior. Though this was sometimes easier said than done, and in more recency especially so. He of course did wish for the absolute best for his people, he just wasn’t the best at making it so clear to them. She on the other hand, seemed to possess a natural affinity that radiated concern. A very much warming exterior for those under her command, entirely opposite of his own colder one. A warmth that clearly held regard for him as well, as she mentioned the possibility of self-sacrifice as a part to the mission.

As the Commander then made her intentions for the mission clear, her Intelligence counterpart offered nothing but a small nod of acknowledgment, as he’d agreed to the approach on all fronts. It offered the best potential outcome, with hopefully the least amount of fallout. So, when she asked if there were any concerns, he knew it best if he kept quiet. She didn’t need his backup in the moment and offering anything of the sort would have been patronizing to say the least. A silence that continued as Lillee offered up her analysis of their tactical situation, in the most apt of ways. They were simply no match for a Klingon warship, even in their more durable Type-11 shuttle. Yet when the Ensign indeed posed a follow-up, he took the chance to speak as an opportunity to offer up an explanation of the intelligence that had served as the impetus of this mission.

“Speaking on behalf of the intel, the concerns over the validity of this... heir... are well founded.” He again knew he didn’t need to back Rutherford up, in order to emphasize her operational oversight. But he did feel it necessary to point out that even he wasn’t willing to stand behind the intel reports as they were. It would have been dishonest of him. He’d been through his fair share of shitty missions acting on behalf of bad information, and the only thing that annoyed him more than that bad information, was when an Intelligence Officer refused to admit that the information was bad before, or even after the fact. Fisher wasn’t one of those kinds of Officers. No, everyone aboard this shuttle deserved to know how little evidence there existed to back up this potential suicide mission. “Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough time needed to vet the claims made in the intercepted communications. As to what the Chancellor’s reactions might be, I’m not a diplomatic specialist in the slightest.” He admitted as he swiveled in his chair, looking to Sam for her analysis on the matter. He of course did have an educated guess on it, but he didn’t want to undercut her, when diplomacy was her forte, not his.

“What can we expect?” he asked.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on August 02, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] attn: @Griff @Brutus @Swift
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The coat of duty was a comfortable one, to wrap yourself up into. It lent a certain comfort of procedures and rules, that could steer a derailed situation back on track. It was also a rather mutual sentiment, that usually caused everyone to fall into their designated line and assume their individual roles, as signified by their rank pips and the colors of their undershirts. Almost like a communal mantra, a collective chant, in perfect pitch, sitting around the campfire of responsibility. There was much to be said, about social interactions and the dynamics between individual characters, especially for someone as skilled in it, like Samantha and Faye. But general, ‘private’ social interaction, was a far more intricate mix of nuances and shades to be considered, like vanity and subjective feelings. Something meant to be absent, from the realm of service, as far as that was possible, channeling one’s own flawed humanity, into a streamlined concept of rules and expectations. Where one was expected to function as one cog in a whole machinery, rather than the concept of putting one’s own individuality above everything else, that dominated many an officer’s private arena.

Obviously, the commander herself had not given the best example to follow after, in her interactions with Fisher. Yet short of accepting that, validating it even, to anyone else, the blonde had evaded comfortably into the sentiment of duty, to avoid any revelations, detrimental to her standing as the de facto leader of this mission. At least in regard to what damage hadn’t already been done. Opening up the floor to the group, the diplomat was keen to see what submissions would come up. Because as much as the innate differences between human individualities could complicate any interaction, it could also yield a near unlimited source of differing opinions and insights, to any given situation, that either reinforced, or even challenged, a superior’s own. As such, the term ‘speaking freely’, in service terms, was a weapon best wielded by those experienced in dealing with the havoc it could wreak on one’s own convictions. Additionally, the offer put her in a passive role, for a moment, which was great to hanging back and relaxing for a little bit, weighing the pros and cons of the facts presented to her.

Petty officer Lillee went first, giving a tactical run-down on the shuttle’s capabilities, which was well founded in her expertise as a skilled pilot. The best Theurgy had to offer, in terms of support craft navigation, if her position and the lack of a scratch marks on the shuttle’s paintjob after departure, was any indication. She certainly raised a valid point, that wasn’t even an assumption, but a stone-cold fact. Then Faye followed suit in her narration of her unique perspective, peppered by diplomatic experience, to give her very own view, of where their potentially pitfalls lay. And although Samantha was partial to forming an opinion on that particular subject, as it was basically her own forte, she intended to give each their voices the same attention and consideration. Wasn’t that what a good commanding officer did?! Ultimately the attention shifted to Andrew, as it was his turn, and the blonde could feel her posture stiffening slightly, as blue orbs made that jump over. There was an added sense of discomfort, in the uncertainty of how to deal with him, how to address their recent history properly, or how to discard it as a whole, in this more professional of settings. A decision she hadn’t quite been able to land on yet. Neither did duty lend enough of a safe rope, to pull herself along with, when it came to the handsome commander.

As he went and reinforced her previous suggestion, that the intel was not as sound as it should’ve been, to warrant such a mission, she gave him an appreciative nod. Ultimately raising her brows slightly, as he so abruptly tossed the ball back at her. Samantha had reveled in the comparable safety of siting there, just listening to everyone else, far too long and in far too much complacency. The direct prompt, however, urged her to address the subjects in reverse order, starting with the most recently voiced issue. “Well …” she started out, obviously buying time to contemplate the right words, while sitting up a little straighter and crossing her legs. “… I think that ultimate decision is well above our paygrade, or even our sphere of authority. Our main goal is simply to retrieve the potential grandson …” she looked at Faye, before letting her eyes trail back to Fisher with the continuation of her elaborations: “… or whatever intel we can, on why this ploy was invented and who would be behind it. I think even if it is just that information it can still be valuable.”

Looking back at Ensign Eloi-Danvers, subsequently, though really addressing everyone, the chief diplomat was ready to elaborate on it some more, as it was more within her professional arena. “If the intel turns out to be true, and we do find Martok’s grandson there, I could see this being beneficial in a myriad of ways, first and foremost to our standing with the Chancellor himself, upon delivering the boy – not matter his ultimately fate. But in a broader, political context, given that the House of Duras seems to be a rather passive player in the Empire at the moment, Martok could potentially use the boy to absorb their house into his, and thus till a long-standing rival. The intel itself describes Ja’rod falling out with the House of Torg and seeking out contact to the Chancellor, if that is true, then the last confirmed Duras blood relative to be alive, could be willing to join the House of Martok … or die honourably at its blade.” she stated matter-of-factly, as if narrating a procedure. Diplomacy certainly warranted a certain level of detachment, from the personal stories affected by the grander scheme. Even if they were of the definitive variety.

“If Martok chooses to rather end the Duras bloodline, by killing this potential grandson, than using him to ensure the continuation of his own. If that’s the signal of power, he wishes to convey to the council. Then that will not be detrimental to our standing with him by delivering that option. In any case, it will be advantageous. So, I have no doubts that either way, this mission will be a success.” Samantha concluded that part of the queries, though not by shutting down any potential other variables she had not considered, after all the arena was still open for factual sparring. It was also important for a leader to exude confidence, even in the face of insurmountable odds. But to be honest, unless proven otherwise, staring down the barrels of a fleet of Klingon ships, she wouldn’t lose that hope anyways. It may have been closer to a delusion, than an actual romanticized notion of a positive future, but it was damn persistent none the less. “As for the potential of a trap, and it is a likely one still, I will defer to your expertise as a pilot. Alternatively, I believe this shuttle has a few tricks up its sleeve that will give us an added benefit in our escape. I trust Commander Fisher will utilize his best tactical expertise to do so. We should leave the attempt, to outrun any of them, as a very last measure, for sure. If there’s any preparations we could do to increase our warp speed, temporarily, or decrease theirs, we should explore those.”

Concluding with a pleasant nod to Lillee, the diplomat let her pale blue eyes trail through the small group of officers, gauging their reactions, as well as their inclination to contribute to this mission briefing any further, before she would make any final decision to send everyone off on their little tasks, until they would arrive in the Epsilon Monocerotis system. No doubt in her mind that, despite her initial reluctance, this was potentially the best team gathered, for this specific mission.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on August 17, 2020, 11:50:19 PM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Warp Transit ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

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Lillee tried to pay attention. She really, genuinely did. The information in the Danvers and Rutherford's briefing might well mean life and death at a critical moment, and thus needed to be fully understood...but curse it, Lillee didn't care a whit. It wasn't the politics, as such; like any good rihanna, she paid close attention to politics, both Federation and Romulan. She even kept a weather eye on current events in lesser star nations like the Cardassians and the Tholians, and Lillee thought herself more well-versed in such things than most Federation citizens and, indeed, most Starfleet officers. Given how Rihannsu education emphasised and encouraged political studies far more than most Federation species, it was hardly surprising.

Still...they were Klingon politics. The thought of such a thing was deeply unpleasant; much like a bad date, Lillee thought it best appreciated while thoroughly inebriated, and she'd spent a lifetime quite happily ignoring the subject. She caught the gist of what Danvers and Rutherford were saying, at least; the boy was important, either dead or alive, and they needed him to secure Martok's power base. As for the rest? Lillee didn't care less. The name 'Duras' tickled her memory, but nothing lit.

As Rutherford stopped talking, Lillee considered her suggestion about for a moment. "There are a few things I can do to improve the warp drive, Commander, yes," she mused. Such modifications would mean considerable repairs back on the Theurgy, but it was a prudent precaution nevertheless. With that, Lillee turned, glancing at the sensors one last time. "Sensors are clear. Five and a half hours until we arrive. If anyone desires food or sleep, the aft cabin has a replicator, bunks and a shower. We may not have the time for such luxuries afterward, especially if angry Klingons are chasing us."



rihanna: a female Romulan
Rihannsu: Romulan (adjective)
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on August 18, 2020, 12:51:36 AM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | In the hot seat | [/i Shuttlecraft Franklin[/i] ] Attn: @Swift @stardust @Griff  
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About half-way through the answers she got, Faye felt a little pressure begin to build behind her eyes. She knew the feeling well. The beginnings of a headache were starting to blossom there, the first pick axe strikes (or perhaps mek'leth was a better analogy in this case) were starting to fall, little starbursts of mild pain that would, she was sure, build into a right proper ringer in about an hour. It wasn't because of anything related to the flight. Small craft or large, Faye did not get space sick. Seasick, sure, though she took medication for that when she knew ahead of time. But no, this headache had to do with the mission unfolding around them. 

She just knew that, no matter what, this wasn't going to go well. 

Leaning back in her chair again, she crossed one leg over another and brought her left hand up to (carefully) pinch the bridge of her nose. Slow breath in, slow breath out. Sort the information we've been given. Politics. Houses. Unverified Intel, but worth the risk. Almost any out come could be a win as long as we live. Great odds... She frowned and moved her hand away as their pilot wrapped up a quick summation of their flight time, and the resources available. A shower would be nice, but she wasn't sure that it was really called for. Besides, 'mom' and 'dad' might need to go argue with each other again, and the back of the shuttle would be a much better place than the front. Semblance of privacy and all that. If Faye tried really, really hard, she'd probably be able to ignore all the emotional noise that would bubble up out of that. 

Or maybe there wouldn't need to be a fight. In truth she didn't know anyone on this shuttle well enough to really say. Rutherford had been aboard for little over a week at this point, and while the woman seemed extremely competent in running the department (and taking a world's weight off of Faye's own shoulders), that didn't mean that she knew her boss. Fisher was a complete unknown to her as well, save that she was aware he'd been named to the senior staff as the new chief of the spook squad, and that there was some sort of recent history between him and Faye's superior (that you didn't need to be telepath to notice). At least Faye had seen the blonde Petty Officer a time or two around the ship, down in one of the bars, or the ships baths (or perhaps actually on duty), but beyond that passing familiarity she didn't know the Romulan either. She simply sympathized with the woman for being tacked onto something last minute. 

The mental gymnastics she subjected herself to, inane and off topic as they seemed, did what she had wanted. By letting her thoughts run around on mundane matters, her subconscious had managed to worm down to the real issue at hand that was bothering her with this mission in general, and the discussion in particular. Diplomacy often required a certain amount of detachment. So too, did good spycraft, she assumed, and to some extent or another, service in Starfleet as a whole required an ability to separate yourself from the circumstances of others. But Faye knew the Klingon Empire. She understood its politics. And she had seen firsthand the sheer brutality it could entail. There was much to admire about their ethos, their culture, even their cuisine. But there was a savage directness to the warrior people that could not be ignored, nor glossed over. There was a need to be crystal clear with the potential outcomes of how this could go, and get a buy in from everyone right then and there. 

Which wasn't to say that Faye was happy that she was the one that had to put the words out into the world.

"So, assuming this isn't some kind of trap, to hit either Martok or his agents - us in the case I suppose," there was a trace of amusement in her voice, considering that they were about to very much interfere with the internal politics of a sovereign empire, and bless them, no one had brought up the Prime Directive and how that might - or might not apply. "But, assuming we don't warp in and get shot out of the sky for sheer spite, or the like, and we find this Grandson. As far as we see it, returning him to Martok, no matter what happens after, is a win for us because it gives him options." There was a slow pause, and then, she very carefully, very pointedly drove the D'k tahg in to the heart of the matter. 

"Which includes the very real possibility that the Chancellor will decide to simply lop the head off of the boy who - even by Klingon standards - is a child, with no real agency of his own, because it would be more politically convenient than allowing his existence to be known." There was a long pause, and into it she added, "And we are fine with that outcome?"
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on August 23, 2020, 03:54:43 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @stardust @Brutus @Griff

Fisher kept silent, acquiescent to just listen to Rutherford as she reclaimed the lead of their four-person discussion. Nodding succinctly as she laid it all out for them, in a somewhat comprehensive manner. After all, there was only so much that they could reliably count on. The gray area of the facts of this mission was so vast, you could have likely parked the Theurgy inside of it, end-to-end, and still had room for a Miranda-class or two. He didn’t like it. Neither did any of the others, judging by the concerns that they each raised in succession. But such was the nature of the time. They simply hadn’t the luxury afforded to properly vet the intelligence as it had come in; at least not if they actually wanted to make a difference of any kind in the matter. Still, it didn’t change the fact that this could all have been an ambush; and if that was the case, then they needed to be fleet of foot, rather than die-hard. In a Type-11, they weren’t exactly formidable enough to take on a Klingon warship, really of any class. Thankfully, they had a specialized pilot at the helm, rather than one of them trying to handle that task themselves. Fisher himself was a halfway decent helmsman, but nothing to the effect of Lillee, or half the other pilots afforded to Theurgy.

As the conversation shifted to that of an appraisal of the risk vs. reward balance, Fisher perked up a little, as evidenced by his gaze escaping the blank stare that it had been locked into, and finding a gaze of each of his female companions in turn, before finally settling his attention on Sam.

It was interesting to hear a take on Klingon politics from someone who specialized in diplomacy as a trade. For his part, his own interactions with Klingons had generally only been reserved to those of fighting, or drinking. Though, in the moment he couldn’t be sure of which he had done more of. An amusing thought, but not necessarily one that was relevant to the here and now. Having blinked away the distraction, Fisher re-attuned his focus to the real matter at hand. Unlike in Federation culture, this matter of an unknown Grandson wasn’t so cut and dry. There was a litany of socio-political issues at play. Which was odd enough, considering the outside perception of Klingon culture was always so simple. A gross underestimation by those, as Klingon culture was anything but simple. It was just as nuanced and complicated as any other, just in a different way. As was made clear by the Diplomatic Officer, as she rather effectively put it all out there for the three other Officers to digest. He imagined that of the four of them, the one that was saddled with the greatest difficulty of understanding these complications, was the Romulan helm-officer. Though, maybe not so. Romulans could be decidedly pragmatic in their appraisals.

Deciding to address the tactical concerns raised, Fisher piped up. “We’re outfitted with a small number of probes which can detect latent tachyons better than our standard sensor suite. As we draw closer to Epsilon Monocerotis, I recommend we launch a pair of them to make a summary assessment of our situation. One aft, to check our baffles for any Klingons ships that may have hitched onto our warp-wake, and one fore, so as to maybe uncover any ships lying in wait. It’s not exactly a guarantee that the probes will give us anything to go on, but it might. As for defensive measures, if we need to defend ourselves, or evade capture; the starcharts indicate that the Epsilon Monocerotis system is home to a crumbled planetoid.” Swiveling around in his chair, Fisher brought up a chart of the system, and highlighted the seventh planet. It showed a surprisingly large rocky world that had essentially been ripped apart by some unknown means in the past, as half of it was fractured into an immense debris field of planet chunks and boulders, some as large as a small moon. The planet had gone through a gradual break-up, which had obviously been occurring over the course of some centuries, if not longer, indicated by the trail of debris encircling the star system. It had created something of a rather dense asteroid belt.  “Epsilon Monocerotis seven. It could provide us with some cover, and maybe a place to lay low if we encounter any issues. Though, if the Klingons are prudent, and this is a trap, then they’ll have laid down a pattern of mines to make it a little more difficult on us.”

Swiveling back, he regarded each of them in turn once more. “That’s the best I’ve got so far. But I’ll keep at it.”

Next came additional input and responses from Ensign Eloi-Danvers, whom he had no previous rapport with. Fisher didn’t venture much outside of his own department when it came to professional matters. Save for the times when he actually needed to interact with the other departments, though that usually entailed either Security, and or Engineering more often than not. On the whole, it’s true that a ships Diplomatic Corps. would be often forced to work hand-in-hand with Intelligence, but in his experience, he hadn’t been involved in many Operations that were privy to such a professional relationship. That was likely due to the fact that his expertise came more from a covert espionage / sabotage approach, rather than the far more common overt information gathering one. He just simply didn’t do overt operations, and as such didn’t need to work with Diplomatic Corps. In fact, there was a good chance that he had caused more than a few headaches for them over the course of his career. He had a history of disrupting the flow of peace-talks, by intervening with mis-information campaigns that sought to discredit rivals and enemies. It would alter an outcome in the favor of Starfleet and the Federation, but it also likely doubled the amount of research and paperwork that those Diplomatic Corps. had to go through in order to make sense of it all.

One Diplomatic Officer had once accused him of being a poor team player. A reputation he had compounded by co-opting Rutherford’s mission in the first place, but he was trying to make up for it by letting her dictate how things went. It wasn’t exactly second nature to him to relinquish operational oversight, after all.

However, as he listened to the betazoid woman, he’d been brought back to something that stuck in his side worse than the piece of shrapnel that had pierced him the night before. That this ‘M’ven’ might have been better off staying unknown. That by bringing him to Martok, they might well have been putting the young boy in danger; perhaps even signing his death sentence. It didn’t sit well with Fisher. He understood that in other cultures, the practices, and traditions of morality that he adhered to were sometimes considered odd, but he couldn’t discount the effect they played on him. No matter what Starfleet or Federation doctrine dictated, or what ‘modern’ progressive sensibilities meant, he couldn’t idly allow such a cold outcome to take place. After all, M’Ven was just a boy. Innocent in the matter entirely and deserving of a chance to live a full life. Another man in Fisher’s position would have simply justified the outcome by passivity, but that’s what separated him from them. What was sometimes viewed as a blotch on his record as an Intelligence Operative, even though he would defiantly wear it as a badge of honor. He didn’t compromise who he was, for the sake of a more ‘favorable’ outcome.

Taking a deep breath to consider how best to address the issue, Fisher instead stifled himself. He would let Rutherford speak, again not wishing to dictate her approach. Though, he knew that if the situation presented itself, he wouldn’t allow such an outcome to unfold. No matter the cost to himself, or their mission, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let something so blatantly immoral occur. However he hoped against such an eventuality, he made quick mental note to approach such a dilemma over the course of the next five hours, determined to put some form of a plan in place which would ensure that something like that wouldn’t happen. Sensing an outwardly visible look of concern on his face as he seemed to weigh it all, Fisher realized that his poker-face had given way, and so he averted his attention by swiveling his chair back around to face the console. He refused to directly address the issue, and instead stood from where he’d been seated. He would take up Lillee’s prompt to explore the aft compartment of the shuttle. Without a word, he left the other three, having set the computer to alert him of any incoming information that demanded immediate attention.

He needed to seek the solace of a cup of dark roast, if he was going to make it through this mission with the level of alertness that was demanded of him.

But he also needed to gauge his thoughts on the troubling aspect that Faye had raised.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on August 27, 2020, 10:50:52 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] attn: @Griff @Brutus @Swift
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The reassuring explanation given by t'Jellaieu, was a welcome addendum to the sentiment of hope and certainty, that the chief diplomat wanted to convey, through letting everyone’s professional skills blossom, in this little merry-go-ground between them. It made everyone feel like they were able to contribute to the positive outcome of the given mission. Where the most threatening and disillusioning sentiments were born from a feeling of helplessness and lethargy. “The same goes for the adjustments to the warp drive, I assume?” the blonde continued on the pilot’s suggestion, to get their rest and relaxation done before the proverbial shit would hit the fan. It was an order, wrapped in a suggestion, wrapped in a question. Posing three very different levels of angle from which to take it. “Maybe I can look you over the shoulder some more, when you do. Warp engines fascinate me.” she shrugged simply, touching back on a sentiment of intrigue by things that seemed entirely alien to the commander. Always had.

Samantha’s attention moved on to Ensign Eloi-Danvers, whom she shared a more professional similarity with, a subject matter she figured to know a thing or two about, to have a solid opinion on. But that did not preclude the views of others on the matter, especially if they were as versed in it as the brunette Betazoid. Surely Fisher would also have an opinion on the subject, even though it was not his realm of expertise, but rather simply for the sake of having an opinion. A thought which made the corner of her lips tuck slightly with a grin, that was not in reaction to Faye’s opinion, after all, so it boded as slightly outlandish. However, the notion soon faltered, in the eye of the quarrel posed. The more seasoned diplomat had made herself seem deliberately unattached to any of the potential outcomes, which she had narrated, and wasn’t going to fault anyone who outwardly took a side. It was a tough concept to contemplate, the fate of a child. But a level of detachment was necessary in the political arena and maybe she’d be able to impart a little bit of it on her subordinate during this mission.

But then the Ensign asked for a rather concise judgment, guidance, maybe, but there was no real absolute answer to this cacophony of hypotheticals and possibilities. Which wasn’t exactly the science Samantha normally dealt in. “Our goal is to give that boy a variety of opportunities he would not otherwise have, hiding in a remote star system, waiting to be discovered by less favorably inclined parties.” the blond reiterated, understanding it was not an answer per say. “The main objective of our mission is to find out if the intel is sound and secure the boy, at which point we will face the dilemma of our further proceedings.” Which was just her vague way of saying the decision was postponed indefinitely, because it had already been made. Not entirely realizing that she was talking to an officer with diplomatic training as well. Which eventually prompted her blue eyes to shift over to the man responsible for them all being here, more or less, as she shut off the potential for further hypotheticals on the front of their mission parameters.

Tilting her head to the side slightly, pursing her lips, as Andrew began to speak, the diplomat’s blue eyes widened for a moment, in a prodding sort of fashion, as she half expected credit for the tachyon probes. None such mention, however, made it into the foreseeable extent of his narrations, so she retracted the sentiment, with a tuck on her bottom lip. Nodding slowly, then, at the star chart and the system's asteroid belt, the commander soon was reminded of the man’s infallible prowess at planning for every contingency. Letting her azure ponds, slightly shuttered behind the fleeting shade of her long lashes, refocus on the chart that was being pulled up, the place also looked like a good spot for the intended objective to hide out in. “Since we’re not aware of the specific location of our target within the system … an orbit around that larger fragment, would seem like a well enough hiding place, where the asteroids are dispersed by the gravity well.” she pointed across the latitude of the cockpit, towards the upper left corner of the display, where he remains of the planetoid congregated in a pocket, relatively free of the smaller debris.

Sitting back up straight in her chair once more, a satisfied smile to her plump cushions, Samantha let one last encouraging glance trail around the officers. “Alright, everyone, let’s make the best of the next five hours to prepare for our arrival. Let us know before we get out of warp.” She ultimately instructed the pilot, while Faye resumed her ministrations over the OPS console and Fisher followed the suggestion to leave and investigate the back compartment. Following him with her peripheral vision, the officer turned her chair back towards her own side-console, pulling up the protocols for Klingon social interactions and courtesies. But she soon found herself distracted and unable to focus on the dryly written lines of diplomatic text. Letting out a gentle sigh, maybe she could use something warm to hold on to as well. “Ensign, you have the Conn.” And with those words the blonde got up swiftly and made her way out of the cockpit and into the back compartment of the Type 11 shuttle.

Beyond this spoiler is a little humorous joint post intermezzo, that Swift and I concocted, which is not part of the mandatory read /;-D
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Coming back from the social area of the ship, a steaming cup of ginger and ginseng tea in her hand, Samantha gently strolled over back to her seat, carefully nipping on the edge of her drink. The loud metallic roar of bugles and trumpets, flowing through the parted doors, before they zipped shut once more. If the two junior officers hadn’t been already given the situation, of their two superiors being alone in the back, a conspicuous regard, they certainly could do so now. “If any of you want to get something to drink, don’t mind Commander Fisher, he’s studying the old German classics.” she smiled, letting her body slip smoothly into the leather seat. Placing her mug on the lower end of the console, the lines of texts from the diplomatic protocol just flew by her blue eyes now, as she readily soaked up the details, making cross-references and notes, here and there. Until they would arrive in the Epsilon Monocerotis systems she would have a solid procedure established, over how they were going to make contact and negotiate a peaceful passage for the young heir. Asking Faye over a couple of times, during their travels, she revised certain points with the young woman’s expertise on the matter, before shadowing the petty officer on her warp engine tuning, until Lillee alerted them to their impending arrival.

“Commander Fisher, we’ll arrive shortly.” she instructed, after a brief tap on her badge, turning to the large viewport, anticipating the streaks of stars to condense into steady white sparkles, partly blocked by a rocky orb, as they were supposed to come out very close to the outermost planet of the system.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on August 30, 2020, 10:24:00 PM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Warp Transit ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

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The following hours were, for Lillee, consumed by tedium. She was no engineer, and the modifications to the shuttle's small warp core were fiddly work. Trusting Eloi-Danvers to handle the conn, Lillee had to devote her full concentration to the task, referring frequently to the computer as she went. Halfway through she shod her uniform jacket and opened her red undershirt as she lay underneath the core, grumbling in Rihannsu under her breath as she tweaked.

So focused was Lillee that she didn't notice when Rutherford turned up, but respectfully (and not having much choice) she explained what she was doing as she went. Nevertheless, he Commander seemed more receptive than intrusive, not overly bothering Lillee, much to the petty officer's gratitude. Finally Rutherford went back to doing something else, leaving Lillee to her task. Barely forty minutes before they were due to drop out of warp, Lillee finally finished. She groaned as she stood up, rolling her shoulders and stretching before resealing the panel over the core. Picking up her jacket, she looked forward at the two diplomats.

"All done, Commander," she reported, untying her long blonde hair from its ponytail with relief. "We'll be able to do warp 6.5 for an hour or so, if necessary. The deck chief is going to be furious when they see the state of this warp core if we have to go that fast, though." Lillee smiled, the thought an irate deck chief plainly not troubling her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I very badly need a shower and coffee."

Twenty minutes later, a revitalized Lillee in a fresh uniform returned to the bridge, sliding into her seat at the conn. The shuttle finally dropped out of warp, revealing their destination, a rather spectacular sight. What remained of a planet dominated the forward view, the world having been devastated by a cataclysm at some point in the recent past, much of the crust and mantle having erupted away. The core was visible even from space, a vast debris field orbiting above the great wound in the blasted planet.

Still, Lillee only afforded the view a glance before looking to sensors. "I have an orbital station on sensors, embedded in one of those rocks," she reported, "just where it should be. Course is laid in for approach, ready for your order."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on September 01, 2020, 02:55:23 AM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | In the hot seat | [/i Shuttlecraft Franklin[/i] ] Attn: @Swift @stardust @Griff  
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The non-reaction from Fisher spoke volumes to Faye, literally and figuratively. He was forcing himself to keep his mouth shut, out of some deference to her boss. Cute enough, she supposed, after he'd forced himself onto the mission to begin with. The Betazoid was still on the fence about that whole issue but having a dedicated pilot in the Romulan woman next to her mollified Faye somewhat. The junior of the diplomatic contingent for the mission wasn't exactly a stellar small craft pilot herself, though she could get from point A to point B without crashing. She had no idea of her senior officers abilities, but 'Jellaieu was a pilot by profession and trade, and thus, in and of herself a welcomed addition. 

Of course, the Intel Officer's outward actions were not entirely a true reflection of his inner thoughts and emotions. While Faye usually kept a good distance from the mental mindscape of others, at least in regards to what a Betazoid could, without picking up the errant thought here or there, this time, with the question before the group being as pivotal as it was, she probed slightly. Not utterly intrusive, not really. Just...something akin to running her fingertips across the surface of a body of water, testing its temperature. What she found was a mixture of restraint and impulse, emotions that were turbulent at best and...well. A point in favor of Lt. Commander Intrusive.

She felt her eyebrows rise ever so slightly as he stood, moving to make himself a drink in the replicator. It wasn't the action that surprised her, not really. It was the depth of conviction she felt. He was not, perhaps, utterly useless after all. At least in the one aspect upon which they agreed. She tucked that little notion aside for later, and tried to pretend she hadn't picked up on some of the mans impressions of her boss. If she dwelt on that she'd fall into a highly unprofessional fit of giggles on the spot, and that wouldn't do, not with Lt. Commander Rutherford laying out a path forth in regard to the child. 

Her answer being a non answer was plenty informative there, too, and Faye nodded once, not an agreement, but a simple acknowledgement of the message conveyed. Focus on figuring out if there even is a child, and getting the brat away from wherever they might be, before you worry about keeping him alive later down the line. While that wasn't the most reassuring notion ever, it was a practical path. If there was no child, there was no need to worry about him getting his angry little ridged head cut off. Rutherford preferred a more detached view of the situation, and the political ramifications, and perhaps that made the senior Diplomat better at her job as a result. For Faye, whom felt everyone's emotions in a way that the mostly human could only understand when she made an effort and forced herself to do so, it was a different matter. She would feel the dread that would come down on the child if he were to learn that his life was to be forfeit, as sure as it was her own, and she knew that no amount of mental shielding would prevent her from experiencing it from the hypothetical child in the hypothetical situation. Thus, hypothetically, she wasn't going to let it happen. 

So there.

Thus resolved, Faye eased herself back into her chair and forced her shoulders to unbunch. She stopped clenching her jaw and took a slow breath through her nose, though her onyx eyes darted from one party to the next all the same as if nothing were out of the ordinary and she wasn't going through mentally fortifying relaxation exercises. Thus she listened to the description of what lay ahead and possible methods for dealing with their arrival in the target system. It all sounded very tactical stealthy sneaky sneak.

What caught her off guard, was Samantha's departure from the cockpit shortly after Fisher. She blinked as the words registered and while, aloud, she said "Aye aye, ma'am," she found herself thinking Oh, hell. Swallowing a bit, the Ensign settled back in her seat in the cockpit and shared a glance with the ships pilot. Her eyes slid to the back compartment, and waited for the doors to close, before she let out a long, low sigh. Drumming her fingers on the edge of the console, she debated asking the Petty officer for her opinion on the matter of the hypothetical child, but decided against it. Faye was hardly one for sticking to formality when it came to non-comms (her choice of recent off duty playmates, not to mention the girl she'd fallen pretty hard for as stark testimonies for her flaunting such insignificant rules of decorum), but at the same time, she had no wish to place the woman into the middle of an argument between officers. 

Instead, she quirked her lips up in a slight smile and mused, aloud and apropos of nothing at all, "Just how sound proof do you imagine that bulkhead is, anyways?" That got a glance, and she wagged her eyebrows up and down a few times, pursing her lips and trying to hide a wider grin.  Faye gave it even odds, in her mind, that the sheer tension between those two was almost certainly non-professional in nature, manifesting itself in the current conflict related to the mission. Her jokingly calling them Mom and Dad hadn't been for nothing, and if they were back there for more than 15 minutes, well...she'd make her assumptions and be privately amused. 

Alas, Rutherford returned in a fashion that lead Faye to believe nothing so amusingly untoward had happened in the rear compartment. Which wasn't to say that nothing amusing happened, judging by the almost smug satisfaction that was radiating off the blonde officer, and the mildly amused frustration coming out of the back compartment. Revising her estimates of what was going on there, Faye smiled in her own self satisfied fashion, having managed not to ruin things during the short time that she had been left in charge of things. In response to Rutherford's declaration, Faye tilted her head to one side, appraising the music she'd picked up, and ran her tongue over her teeth, behind her lips. "It certainly sounds old, Commander, no argument there."

Wagner, Faye decided, was not to her tastes.

The next few hours dragged by, with Faye spending most of the duration making sure the ship didn't suddenly veer off course. Which was to say, she left the autopilot on and monitored the sensors, sipping at her own cup of tea. She would have killed for something stronger to relax. But that was a no no. The time not spent monitoring the sensors and the ships general progress (dull) consisted of Faye putting her head together and fielding a plethora of questions from her boss in regards to everything and anything Klingon. Rutherford was an accomplished diplomat with wartime experience under her belt, but Faye was the one who'd spent practically every year since she graduated around the warrior folk. It made her the expert, and that meant the five hours to their destination were busy for the younger envoy.

While Lillee might have had the most physically tasking amount of work to deal with, at least she got a long enough break to go take a shower. An idea that appealed greatly to Eloi-Danvers, who half toyed with seeing if the woman wanted company, before dismissing the notion out of hand and and settling back to keeping the ship from crashing into an errant asteroid or falling through a subspace fissure, or some other nasty thing that surely befell a shuttle full of red-shirted officers when the only accredited pilot took a break.

Finally however, t'Jellaieu returned to take over the job of flying the ship, leaving Faye with a scant 20 minutes to try and bleed away the boredom and stress of the past few hours. She rose in turn, nodding , and simply walked about the cabin for a moment, bracing herself against one of the support struts and stretching out her legs. She pondered the sonic shower herself, but decided she didn't have quiet enough time to properly relax. Sighing softly, and deciding she still didn't want to listen to the music in the aft compartment, Faye curled up on the transporter pad, near the warp core that the petty officer had been diligently working on earlier, tucking one leg under the other and shutting her eyes. She could feel the thrum of the engine through the bulkhead and used it as a meter to force herself through a small meditative series of exercises. 

Eventually even that ended, and she'd made it back to the front of the cockpit before Fisher got out of the rear cabin, coming to stand by Samantha and Lillee and stare out the view port at the vista before them. Despite herself, the lithe Betazoid let out a low whistle. "Damn, the file just doesn't do it justice does it?" She asked of no one in particular, momentarily stunned by the  sheer spectacle of it. Pulling herself away from that view, she slid into her chair and took her own readings of the area. "I'm not seeing any vessels closing on us immediately, unless their cloaked, of course."'

Dangers lurking behind a cloaking device aside, Faye eyed the read outs for the outpost itself, and bit down on her lip, again drumming her fingers on the edge of the console. An apparent nervous habit. Now that they were here, she found herself questioning yet again just how they were going to proceed.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on September 05, 2020, 02:22:47 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Aft Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @Brutus @Griff @stardust

Left to the companionship of Richard Wagner, Fisher leant back in his swivel chair and set down the PADD he’d been pouring over. If there was anything which could out pompous the ‘viscount of ginseng and ginger’, then it was most certainly classical music. That wasn’t to say that the Intelligence Chief outright disliked the genre, he just vastly preferred other auditory background noises upon which to work and focus. If anything, he’d thought classical music as somewhat mind-numbing in the way it tended to carry on, almost endlessly so. Every piece he’d ever listened to, had its famous two- or three-minute melody which was otherwise contained within another hour, even longer stretch that was largely forgotten and unremarkable. This was of course a wholly unfair, and crude assessment of the situation, but it was ‘his’ assessment. Still, he was reticent to let Rutherford have the final say, and perhaps even the last laugh on the matter, since he was owed some form of recompense for co-opting ‘her’ mission in the first-place.

Shaking his head in acceptance of his fate, he retrieved the coffee that had been returned to him and took a deep sip only to discover that his taste-buds had been decidedly tainted by the lingering flavor of her herbal tea.

“Figures.” He verbally mused, examining the warm black beverage with his sage-eyes.


Some measure of time later.


The time had elapsed rather slowly, especially given the slow pace of the audio backdrop which permeated his surroundings. In his head, he could have sworn his brain was on the verge of explosion, or implosion, under the stress of having spent the previous few hours organizing plans which he’d hoped would never need to transpire. He was trusting in Ives, and in Martok that they would make the just, and moral decision when it came to this M’Ven, if he even existed. All the same, it never hurt to be prepared for any eventuality, and Fisher was relatively comfortable with what he’d put in play regarding that. Of immediate expense, it would cost a small portion of the funds that he’d been amassing throughout his Intelligence career; a bit of a stipend he’d invested in a Ferengi banker a few years earlier, though the unsavory bastard was a little apprehensive about the matter. The true expense would come at the cost of his career, and perhaps even his place aboard Theurgy, if he was forced into reacting to said eventuality.

“Petty Officer.” He regarded the blonde Romulan as she entered the aft-cabin, the latest bit of living company that he’d been privy to during the journey, as there had been the occasional incursion previously. Whether it was for a cup-of-tea, or just a little more room to stretch some weary legs. But for the most part, he had been left to his own devices in the aft-compartment, while Eloi-Danvers had manned the controls as Rutherford brushed up on her diplomatic protocols, and t’Jellaieu made some modifications to the warp-core to allow for a temporary burst of speed should they so need it later. When they closed distance, he had re-routed tactical control to his PADD, and launched the pair of sensor probes which would scan for latent tachyons both fore, and aft of the Rosalind Franklin’s warp-wake. Scans which came back as negative. That was either the first bit of incredible good-luck that they were going to need, or a sign of how wrong things might be going over the course of this little mission.

“I think something is wrong with the replicator. Coffee seems a little, off.” He remarked to Lillee as she emerged from the shower a few minutes later, after she’d retrieved her own cup of the caffeinated beverage. He had some cursory suspicion that Sam had made alterations to the programing, so as to dissuade him from indulging in any more of it. In retaliation, he’d formulated other plans which would make up for such deviousness, though they would have wait for a return to Theurgy to be enacted. But it felt good to break out his old habit of pranking and practical jokes, and this one would be paying him satisfactory dividends for weeks to come. So long as it went off without a hitch. Eh, he was relatively positive that the coding he’d put together would operate within desired parameters, although he would need to look it over once more before he’d upload it into the computer systems. Reaching for the PADD to do just that, he stopped when a call came through his combadge, that they were arriving shortly.

“That’ll have to wait.” He said aloud to himself.

[ Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ]

Having finally Emerged from the Aft Compartment, and after having listened to Faye confirm the negative status of sensor sweeps, Fisher felt it necessary to appraise them of his own negative findings which had been carried out by the pair of probes he’d launch just a few minutes earlier. “Likewise, probe scans came back negative for latent tachyons. Either the Klingons have finally addressed that particular Achilles heel across the entirety of their fleet, or we’ve managed to avoid picking up any tails.” His attention shifted from the Betazoid woman at her respective position as he turned to settle down into his seat at tactical and returned all controls from his PADD to the station before him. There was a general unease in the pit of his stomach as nerves began to build in anticipation of their mission coming to a head, which would either confirm the intel that had come to him, or it would dispel it, and place the four of them in a considerably dangerous position.

“For the mission’s sake, and for our Romulan companion’s sanity, I’ll be hoping for the latter, rather than the former.” He mused as his hands danced across the console, bringing up lateral and passive sensor readings as they were starting to come in from the computer. Lillee had attuned them to scan the remnant planet, which revealed that it wasn’t merely a debris field in which they could hide if the situation so demanded it, but also the likeliest of hiding locations for their target of choice. If it existed.

“There’s no record of any existing structure in the database, but judging by what I can see, it appears patchwork in manufacture.”

That was an understatement he soon realized, as sensor-readings were building a better, more complete picture of the outpost in question. It was also far grander in size, and scope than what had been outwardly visible on the surface of the large chunk of planetoid to which it was embedded. It was clear that the structure had been cobbled together over the course of at-least a century, as there were power-readings that dated back at least that far, if not further. It was also clear that the structure had started out as some kind of a mining facility, as a good portion of the planetary fragment had been hollowed out, and he could pick up remnant readings of what must have been an absolutely monumental deposit of duranium. Not exactly the rarest mineral in the Galaxy, but still valuable in ship construction, and in such high concentrations even made it difficult to get a complete picture with sensor readings alone, due to a shadowing effect of the mineral.

“Best guess is that we’re looking at an old illegal duranium mine, that’s since been retrofitted into a smuggler’s port. I can’t get an exact number, or a fix of the specific make-up of the population, but it numbers somewhere in the two- to three-thousand range.” Swiveling about in his chair, Fisher looked over to regard Rutherford with the next bit of information, and to see how she might want to proceed. “There are also almost two-dozen faint warp signatures at play; from craft that are shored up, and also a number of power-plants built into the structure itself. But I can’t get a steady or verifiable reading on defensive systems, as either they’re non-existent, or more likely, they’re being masked due to a shadowing effect from duranium deposits.” There was a damned if you do, and damned if you don’t look in the spy’s face, which betrayed the moderate annoyance of acting on intel that couldn’t be fully ascertained. Such was the job of being in command however, and for the moment, he was absolutely committed to the agreed upon structure which placed Sam completely in that position.

“Not exactly the answers you were looking for, I know.” He said, setting himself up to shoulder the blame and responsibility to whatever tough call that she was going to have to make. In a way, it was his responsibility to bear, since Intelligence was his job, but he wasn’t directly in the position to determine which actions would follow. That onus fell upon his esteemed Diplomatic counterpart in the moment.

Not an enviable position, he recognized.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on September 09, 2020, 10:34:46 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] attn: @Griff @Brutus @Swift
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Putting her PADD down, as Lillee addressed her formally, Samantha took a brief glance back at the now closed up warp core access once more, as if to need visual conformation of a job well done. That there were no random sparks or coolant leaks. No that she could tell with the chamber sealed up like that anyways, so she’d have to take the information at face value, not a difficult feat. “Thank you, Petty Officer, let’s hope we won’t need it.” she replied, a professional, encouraging smile, stretching her plump lips thin. She uncrossed her legs and turned her chair around, to place the PADD back down on the communications console, as the other blonde excused herself to clean up, the temporal flood of Wagner, intruding into the cockpit as the doors slid open, drawing a far warmer and more genuine smile onto her features. Evoking a certain sense of reward, from the fact that Andrew hadn’t dared to change the music, suffering through it like a trooper. He’d get props for that … later.

The time until they were all back, huddled together in the considerable confines of the cockpit, seemed to have flown by with the same warp speed the shuttle had dashed towards a destiny unknown. Yet not seemingly with the same sort of gravitas, one would’ve expected, giving their impending doom. The diplomat found the mood to be excited, intrigued, if not optimistic, as the sight of the shattered planet zipped into existence, seemingly out of nothing, across their viewport. And as soon as the navigational sensors were fine-tuned to their much slower velocity, and as such, a much narrower and much more detailed field of effect, the former void of space, poetically imaged as empty space across the shuttle’s dashboard, now lit up in a symphony of blue and yellow light, as virtual asteroids and planetary debris came to life as holographic projections, casting reflections of a golden sun in an eerie turquoise pond, on each single officer, as they took a moment to stare in awe. Aside of the high stakes and the bad odds, there was still beauty, hidden in the cracks of a vacuum that could kill you with the savagery of a Nausican warrior, almost instantly.

Giving a status update, Lillee held the shuttle in a waiting position outside of the debris field, their proposed hideout invisible to the naked eye, but a clear yellow marker on one of the asteroids in the holo-viewer. A mere tap of a button and a zoom in later, the surface of said rock spread across the dashboard, superficial and subterranean structures clearly visible, as well as distinctly marked power signatures, overlaid from Fisher’s tactical scans. Complimented by Faye’s valuable input that none of the ships seemed to have noticed them, or were on any kind of intercepting trajectory. So far so good, their arrival seemed to have gone unnoticed. Having her blue orbs temporarily transition to the commander on the opposite side of the cabin, he almost instinctively volunteered the tachyon probe readouts, confirming that there seemed to be no cloaked ships either. Which at least put the survival odds of this mission a little bit into the favorable part of the statistic. The blonde listened further on his elaborations, eyes switching between the man, the asteroids through the viewport and the scan results of the hologram. Her mind processing all the information and making tiny little adjustment to the plan she had already formulated. Actually preferring a smuggler’s outpost over a strictly Klingon installation or ship. It would be far easier to blend in, and a lowlife’s motivations were usually a little more straightforward than your average Klingon warrior’s.

‘Not the answers she was looking for’ … Samantha let that phrase roll around in her head for a bit, appraising Fisher with a peculiar look. Trying to gauge whether he was intent on conveying that he knew her so well, or that he had enough integrity to not make up lies to fill the void of nescience, or that she would have unreasonable demands as to the answers given? The complicating part being that, while she was still learning about his demeanor and abilities as an officer – much like everyone else in the cabin – she was also helplessly trying to unravel him as a person. Which was a truly convoluted combination. So, she decided to let it go … but the moment of silence and the long stare, had already bestowed a certain sense of discomfiture on the moment. “I … guess we can deduct that we have not been detected yet, by the lack of any kind of immediate response … let’s keep it that way.” she recomposed herself skilfully. Andrew Fisher would not be the wrecking ball to tear down a decade of diplomatic skill and prowess. Not today, at least. Getting up from her seat, the blonde took up position between both front chairs, steadying herself with a hand casually fidgeting at the corner of Faye’s backrest.

“Conn, take us within transporter range, into a position behind one of the larger rocks, we can use the probes as sensor relays, to keep scanning for potential dangers. Ensign, let’s prepare for an away mission.” The officer detached herself from the front once more, taking a step back into the center of the cockpit, turning towards Fisher, for another moment of contemplative silence, it seemed. Or awkward, more like it. “Keep scanning the outpost for more valuable details, maybe juvenile Klingon bio-signs. Also, a secluded beam-in site would be nice.” she managed a smile, that was not only a token of reassurance but one of temporary farewell. Noting Faye coming up by her side, the two officers proceeded into the back compartment of the shuttle. “I hope you know how to blend in, Ensign.” the older diplomat chimed with palpable glee, shooting a delighted spark back over her shoulder, one of genuine excitement for the prospect of this mission. Because diplomacy was not all procedures and preparation, sometimes it was about going down into the thick of it and find a beneficial solution among seemingly insurmountable differences.

Making her way over to the replicator, Samantha activated the library function, to find anything suitable and scoundrel like. “How long has it been since your last away mission?” she asked casually, probably having been able to recall the exact date from the brunette’s personnel file, she had so diligently poured over, in the first hours of her assignment. All the while making a selection on the screen, which prompted the small alcove to light up, as the garment materialised, illuminating the elated pate of the chief diplomat in a neon hue. Picking the neatly folded, structured leather up, stepping aside, the blonde beckoned for her subordinate to follow suit. “Go wild.” she chimed modestly, excusing herself to the corner between the table and the bunks, so she would have time to give Fisher a decisive back-order, if she heard the doors slide open, while the ladies changed. Placing the garment on the table by her side, the diplomat ran down the zipper on her uniform jacket, lips parted in casual relaxation, blue eyes idly locked to the plush surface of the carpet across the cabin.

Sliding the jacket off her slender shoulders, a torso wrapped in crimson fabric revealed, that soon followed a rather similar fate as the teeth of this zipper too unraveled. This time revealing a faded purple tank-top, as far as the multiple layers of their duty-wear went. But that too found its way over the woman’s head, tussling up her already fluffy waves, as it joined the rest of the haphazardly folded uniform, on the bottom bunk. As nothing more remained but a strapless, black bra, painted to her gentle curves, the commander released the hold on her waist and slid down the creased pants, this time revealing far less layers, but a matching, paper-thin panty in the same charcoal hue. Which would go perfectly with the fabric slowly being unraveled from the table. Stepping into the readily discovered opening, the blonde effortlessly slipped the skintight tube-dress up her figure, stretching over supple protrusions and gentle recesses, slender arms funnelling into tight sleeves. Watching over at Faye once more, for the first time since starting the ordeal, Sam gladly noticed that the Ensign was already half done getting dressed herself.

“Would you mind?” she asked, nodding over her shoulder at the gaping fabric, revealing the tender curve of her spine across peach skin. Moving over to meet the brunette halfway, they ended up in close proximity to the replicator once more. “Computer, platinum wig, razor cut tips with bangs.” she instructed the machine and a distinct ball of silky strands in icy pale blonde appeared momentarily. Just as Faye was about finished zipping the skintight leather sleeve up, that made her body look like an obsidian hourglass. Picking up the wig, subsequently, the diplomat took a moment to fix it to her head appropriately, tucking her own fluffy strands underneath, before tending to some final touches of strengthening her makeup look. Ultimately satisfied with the result, she stood up straight once more, evening the fabric across her curves, giving the Ensign a gratifying once over too. Impressed with the covert look her diplomatic counterpart had chosen, as it too reflected a part of her personality. And it was always easier to portray an act, inspired by one’s true personality. Fabricating a persona out of thin air was, after all, more intel’s domain.

[Show/Hide]

Overall it had maybe taken fifteen minutes or so, in which Samantha had been able to peripherally notice the ebbing and flowing sound of the impulse engines, as the manoeuvred into position, and the large appearance of an asteroid across the viewport, as she ventured back into the cockpit, was a visual confirmation of that impression. “Any news on those scans, commander?” she casually probed Fisher, while opening the starboard locker, where she’d previously deposited her bag. Bending over in what seemed to volunteer little wiggle room, the diplomat unzipped the pouch and retrieved a few small gemstones,  then gingerly slipping them into the cutout across her décolletage. “In case they don’t accept 'physical' compensation.” she chuckled lightly, noticing Andrew’s seemingly quizzical – or maybe just genuinely stunned – look. “We’ll be taking our communicators, so we can keep in touch. Petty officer, try to keep out of sight, and if you need to evade beyond transporter range to avoid detection, you have my blessing … we can’t beam back up to a cloud of debris.” Patting the backrest of Andrew’s chair, one last smile of reassurance, the diplomat stepped back onto the transporter pad.

“If no one has any last questions or opinions …” Sam openly addressed the room, including Faye, catching up to her side. “Whatever you two can give us in terms of areal support and operational insight throughout the mission, will be highly appreciated.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on September 16, 2020, 07:40:56 PM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Warp Transit ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

[Show/Hide]

"Aye, Commander," Lillee answered in response to Rutherford's direction to move the shuttle. She worked for a few seconds, scanning the various rocks within transporter range of the station, before finding one that caught her eye. It was quite small, considerably smaller than even a Galaxy-class starship, but Lillee didn't mind at all. The asteroid stubbornly resisted her scans, the shuttle's computer struggling to make sense of its readings, which made the thing perfect.

She glanced back as the two diplomats made their way aft, curious, but Lillee dismissed it. Instead she gently pushed the shuttle towards the target rock, using only the thrusters and brief bursts from the impulse engines, surfing the weak gravitational fields of the other asteroids for additional thrust and to slow them down in equal measure. It was delicate flying but not overly difficult, permitting Lillee to relax as she flew.

"Commander Rutherford seems very impressive so far, Commander," Lillee commented with a hint of mischief, unable to help herself. "I confess, I had always thought of diplomats preferring stuffy conference rooms to dens of crime like this. Do you know her well, sir?"

No sooner had Fisher replied than the diplomatic officers returned. Lillee took another minute to cosy the shuttle into its hiding spot, only a few meters away from the asteroid that dominated the viewport on the port side. The rock itself shadowed the shuttle from the sunlight, shrouding the craft in darkness. Finally satisfied with her parking, Lillee shut down the engines, turned round...and her mouth dropped.

Wow.

The sight of Rutherford clad in skintight black leather, silver hair and all, was literally stunning. It was certainly the last thing Lillee had expected, especially in concert with Danvers' attire, but after a moment, Lillee recognised the logic. It was a place of scum and filth that they were going to, after all, so it made sense. It was also hilarious; in the space of twenty minutes, the officer had become a...what? Pirate queen? Dominating businesswoman? Some odd assassin?

After Rutherford's final comment, Lillee nodded, although she was clearly trying hard (very, very hard) to contain a smile. "Understood, Commander. Good luck."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on September 21, 2020, 05:09:18 AM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | In the hot seat | [/i Shuttlecraft Franklin[/i] ] Attn: @Swift @stardust @Griff  
[Show/Hide]

While there had been little doubt that the mission that Faye had been tapped for would be what was generally referred to in the business as exciting, at the same time, she hadn't quite expected things to unfold the way they were turning out so far. Never mind that they were on a much bigger craft, with two more bodies along for the ride. That part was incidental. Faye had assumed that they'd find the kind on some ship, have to open a comm channel, and between Rutherford and herself, charm the Klingon's into the most reasonable outcome imaginable, in which they handed over this child to Starfleet for protection. Assuming of course, the child existed at all, and the ship didn't try and just, well, blow them up. Which was a reasonable concern, and not exactly what Faye would classify as 'a favorable outcome' by any stretch of the imagination, but it was on the list. 

What had not been on her list of expectations, was the apparent smugglers starbase that happened to occupy one of the larger asteroids in the system. An old (illegal?) deuterium mine, apparently. Great place to hide just about anyone or anything, objectively speaking. For the moment at least they seemed to not be drawing attention, which was a blessing, but if there was some sort of smugglers safe haven, Faye had to wonder if the original plan was going to be the smartest play. She looked over from Rutherford, to Lieutenant Commander Fisher, their resident spy. Perhaps it wasn't the worst thing ever that he had inserted himself into the mission, as she listened to his report of what lay ahead. Delightful.

Faye began to take what they'd learned and pair it with what they'd intended, and wondered if this was going to be the point at which Fisher asserted his obvious qualifications to - if not take over the whole mission - then put himself into the running for any off ship work. Naturally her gaze shifted back to Rutherford when the blonde moved to stand between the two front seats, resting a hand on the back of Faye's own chair. Wondering if she aught to read anything into that or not, the Betazoid instead turned her gaze back to the augmented holograpic readout, pursing her lips, as if she could reach out and glean something from such distances. Supposedly some of her kind were that talented, but Faye was decidedly not. All she could sense was a jumble of emotions from the occupants of the shuttle craft, including the marked determination from Samantha to press on with the original plan of Diplomacy over Espionage. 

Uh-oh, she thought, tensing as the orders were dished out. Wondering at the wisdom of leaving the trained spy behind to man the fort, Faye blinked a bit, let out a puff of breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and clapped her hands onto her knees. "Aye aye, Ma'am," she acknowledged the order - not like she was going to argue with her boss in front of the others - and stood up as Samantha shared some silent look with Fisher. Not at all wanting to know what was going on there, the Betazoid ran a hand through her hair, swallowed back an oath and tried to tamp down on her nerves, before following Samantha into the back. 

"I like to mingle with the locals as much as the next Betazoid. Possibly more," innuendo much, Faye? She wryly noted, if only to herself, as the doors slid shut behind them, leaving the two women in the relative privacy of the aft crew compartment. "I think my last technical away mission was early in the efforts on Aldea, when Lt. Commander Dewitt assisted me in the preliminary negotiations for our stay. I haven't exactly been on may infiltration missions, mind you. I was pretty integrated into the local culture at Khitomer, but I wasn't also trying to pretend to be someone I wasn't. And on Aldea, it was simply making sure I didn't mention the words Theurgy or 'Starfleet', and that my name wasn't Faye, and I was pretty golden. This is a different cup of tea, to say the least." God help them, Rutherford was excited to go beam into the smugglers den, and beard the lion, or however the saying her mother used to use went. Faye couldn't well remember it right then, and she just shrugged in response to the commanders enthusiasm. 

Oh, playing dress up was all well and good. She liked a little roleplay now and then, and costumes could be just as fun as not wearing a stitch at all, in her humble, nudist opinion. This was something of a different fish to fry however. But...if she thought of it as a roleplay...and tried not to think about how Riley might enjoy such a thing, and just focus on the basic premise. "Hmmm," she made the thoughtful, wordless noise, crossing her arms and then tapping a finger against her chin, starring off into nothing for the moment. A glance back over her shoulder showed her a mostly unclothed Rutherford, holding out some sort of skintight cat suit, by the look of it. With that in mind, the diplomat pursed her lips and re-evaluated her choice of attire. Shrugging again - she felt like she was doing an uncharacteristically large amount of that, lately - the Ensign walked up to the replicator and started punching up buttons. "One undercover badass babe outfit, coming up." 

The alcove made a little chiming noise after a moment of data inpunt and an outfit was revield. What  followed suit was similar to the more senior officers actions, though with small differences. First and foremost. Faye simply stepped away from the replicator an started stripping in front of the common table between the bunks, not caring one wit if Lillee or Andrew might happen to walk in. She had nothing to hide, and lacked the more ingrained nudity taboo's of humans, or Romulans. Beyond that, the disrobing followed the Lt. Commanders, save that Faye had chosen a pair of warm, almost orange toned bra and panties set. Or more accurately, it had been chosen for her earlier that day, by someone that enjoyed the colors on her. Now, those remained, the dark haired Betazoid taking a moment to adjust the straps and make sure everything was still contained, before tackling the multiple layers of her new outfit.

Layer after layer was pulled back onto Faye, of the new outfit. The fist layer was skin tight, a comfortable black fabric top that, and a matching set of leggings that covered even her toes, pulled up over her hips. A top this was sleeveless, Gi like wrap, of a gray so dark that it too was nearly back. She had just fastened it in place when Samantha asked for help, and pausing, Faye turned to do just that, taking in the expanse of bare back and the proffered zipper. With the practiced ease of someone who had done this a thousand times in the past, Faye zipped Samantha up, chuckling to herself as she heard the other Diplomat order a wig. "Nice call, boss," she noted, and went back to the rest of her ensemble. 

Soon she had her boots on, and the hooded, long sweeping vest was in place, a mix of fabrics and mail, something she'd seen once on Khitomer, which would offer some protection from blades, and a hood that could be pulled over to hide the face. To this, she added a silvery, metal like fabric set of wrist wraps, snugly secure around her hands. Wiggling her fingers, she toyed for a moment with her brunette locks, that currently stretched down to blonde tips. Sighing, she tucked those away, tightly, and replicated a black haired wig, fitting it over her in turn. As nice as it had been to zip up Sam, and sure that the other woman would have returned the favor, this outfit did not require such assistance. And privately, Faye suspected the get up was more comfortable that Rutherford's choice of attire as well. That said, looking Sam over, she could only imagine how the others would react. 

[Show/Hide]

Still fiddling with her wrist wraps, Faye followed Samantha out into the cockpit and looked up, unable to repress a wicked smile as she struck a theatrical pose, of which the two add on's to the mission would see, but Samantha would not. She did not hold it long, and by the time the other diplomat was turning to raid her gear bag, Faye was the picture of professional once more, even if she were snickering inside, picking up the torrent of emotion from Fisher and t'Jellaieu. It was better than thinking about how under prepared she felt for what was going to happen, even as she picked a few assorted odds and ends of her own out of her bag, including a gifted D'k Tagh that she strapped to her belt. She prayed she wouldn't have to use the thing, because it was not really in her skill set to do so, but it fit the part, and had been a last minute addition when she thought she might be dealing with Klingons face to face on their ship. 

Klingon's diplomacy was often conducted at the point of a blade, so she'd be better served to bring her own. They'd respect that. 

Shooting another smile over at Lillie, whose amusement was infectious, Faye rocked back on her heels and forward up onto her toes, settling down again with her hands on her hips, drumming her fingers carefully. Questions, comments and concerns were addressed, and Faye coughed, asking, "Now, you're sure you'll be able to pull us out? Do we need to replicate any sort of beckon or um...transport enhancer? Don't those come in arm bands?" It wasn't that Faye was scared, far from it. She just wanted to be prepared to be pulled out such a hive of scum and villainy. After a moments consideration, she turned to Rutherford. "And on that note, what if we ah...need to tag the kid and run? We should pack something for that, yeah?" No sense in getting left behind if they had to sacrifice one of their communicators to beam up the royal brat.

Faye felt slightly embarrassed, bringing that up in front of the others. It was the kind of thing she should have thought up prior to leaving the aft compartment, to at least better seem prepared and capable of the mission on hand. She was a Starfleet Officer after all, and they were supposed to be ready for anything.

Gee, performance anxiety much? Roleplay, remember? Just...pretend its a very extended roleplay that ends up with you getting your rocks off in the end. Clearly this is how all the spies do this. Chin up girl, its Roleplay, you got this, she mentally bolstered herself, in what had to be one of the oddest internal motivational speeches in the history of untrained espionage.[/i]
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on September 26, 2020, 03:36:36 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @Brutus @Griff @stardust

The rationale that they hadn’t yet been detected seemed reasonable, as there were no hints of elevated activity or awareness from what the sensors were displaying for Fisher. Considering the somewhat chaotic nature of the system of asteroids and planetary fragments that were floating in and about the general vicinity of the outpost, it made sense that a lone contact like that of a Type-11 Shuttlecraft remain relatively unnoticeable. Still, it wasn’t an impossibility for someone to pick up on the new power-signature that their engines would have registered, regardless of operating on minimum power and thrusters. For what it was worth, Fisher just assumed that the reality of the moment was that they were lucky. Hopefully that luck would continue on throughout the remainder of whatever this mission was to be and see them find some modicum of success. Given the events of the last 48-hours, they and in fact the rest of Theurgy were in desperate need of any wins they could possibly get.

Monitoring the readouts as they flashed across the screen before him, Fisher listened as Rutherford ordered them in closer, expecting that the data he would be privy to would increase commensurate with proximity. It did. Definition started to hit him, as he could make out a rough enough layout of the interior of the outpost, however he still couldn’t necessarily make out much more than that of a cursory understanding. Clearly there was still too heavy a presence of raw unrefined duranium in order for low-level sensor sweeps to get a full picture of what was going on down there. If they wanted to remain in as unnoticed a state as they currently had been, then this would have to make-due for now. Besides which, he imagined that he and whoever else would be joining him on an away-mission, could more effectively ferret out a more comprehensive understanding of the facility after beam in. That of course all hinged on the assumption that he had made, that any form of away-mission would involve him.

Clearly such an assumption was wrong, as Rutherford called for Eloi-Danvers to make preparations for departure.

Immediately there was a thought to object to the idea that the only trained infiltrator among them would be left behind to man a console, while two diplomats braved into the likely chaotic environment of an illegal-duranium operation. After all, he’d spent the better part of a decade living among the least desirable and disreputable people in the Galaxy, all while gaining their trust and feeding word of their dealings to Starfleet. There was a reason he had been afforded such a strong measure of leeway when it came to past operations that he oversaw, because he had developed a knack when it came to disarming the suspicions of disruptive elements. It took seasoning in the field to know when to stare a gun in the face and press on a lie, when to fold on it, and when to draw your own gun and force the other one to the floor, sometimes judiciously so. As cunning as Sam and Faye likely were, he had doubts as to whether or not they possessed the kind of instinct and intuitiveness that leant a hand to someone when faced with such a daunting task as infiltration.

Of course, his fellow Lieutenant Commander picked up on this concern, and offered what was meant to be a reassurance. A reassurance that quelled the mountain of considerations at play for perhaps a brief enough moment to let her and her subordinate retreat to the aft-compartment, but not nearly enough to outright disarm Fisher and his protestations.

Remaining acquiescent to the Chief Diplomatic Officer as the operational lead was proving more difficult than he’d expected.

Reticent to let them at least make preparations in quiet and hoping that maybe Eloi-Danvers might voice a concern over the odd choice of personnel for such a mission, Fisher sank back into his chair at the tactical station. A moment of quiet contemplation ran through his mind as he stared at the console screen, debating whether or not to press the issue. Personal complications put aside, Fisher focused on the professional ramifications of what amounted to a glorified politician playing spy, and the idea seemed utterly ludicrous to him. But again, he had essentially passed on this mission. Had he wanted to dictate how it went, he should have capitalized on it himself, rather than letting it run down the line to the next person. The only issue was, Fisher hadn’t expected that the next person would be someone that carried the personal stakes that would prompt him into interceding on the matter once more. Had it been any other member of the Senior-Staff that had opted for such a mission to recover this unknown heir to Martok, he likely wouldn’t have gotten involved. The fact that he had been so co-opted by such a sentiment annoyed him immensely, and he found himself tensing as self-admonishment settled in.

“Hmm? Oh...” he answered absently to Lillee as she piped up a moment later. He’d heard her words they just hadn’t registered. Something about Rutherford being impressive. Swiveling about, he focused on the Romulan situated at the CONN as she voiced some of the concern that had been running through her own thoughts and adding a little probing question at the end.

“I met her when we both came aboard Theurgy about two weeks ago.” The answer to her question wasn’t an answer at all and was clearly meant to stall further introspection, at least for the moment.

Returning his attention to the monitors, Fisher set the computer to progressively scan and update the information he had at hand in regard to the outpost. It would effectively paint him a better picture, while he could focus on another task. He wasn’t necessarily resigned to letting Rutherford and her subordinate risk themselves in some sort of brazen display, but he also wasn’t going to force himself into the situation either. He hated the idea, sure enough, but he was willing to give a cursory benefit of doubt to Sam and her judgements as the Officer in command of the mission. He could keep a close watch on things as they developed, and if they reached a point that he found unacceptable, he would step in and make them so. For now, he approached the starboard locker and opened it. Selecting a number of items, he set them out before the science and communications console to await the return of the two women from the aft compartment. A return which came almost immediately after and prompted him to turn and appraise them.

Appraise them he did, just as he was sure Lillee was doing in her own way. Though Fisher’s gaze likely lingered a little longer than Lillee’s, as his mind was clouded momentarily by the appealing manner in which the skintight patent leather dress clung to Sam’s shapely features. It was interesting how even after you’d seen someone in their most exposed, they could still find manners in which to completely consume your interest by appearing in a different light.

Realizing that his sage-eyes were perhaps a little too obviously transfixed on her, Fisher cleared his throat audibly in an attempt to regain his composure from a moment earlier, and dismiss the more base thoughts that had stirred within his subconscious. “Right... well.” He responded to Rutherford’s queries as he stepped back to settle into his chair and review the updated information as it had appeared on the screen before him. “The general layout of the outpost seems simple enough but given what the sensors have been able to detect, there’s likely a lattice work of old tunnels that are weaved in and out from a central hub. That central hub...” he pointed at the screen as he blew up the image to be more easily seen by Faye and Sam. “...likely serves as something of a market, or promenade. Maybe even a pseudo-main street, given the high concentration of bio-signatures there. From what I can tell, there are about a dozen bleed off corridors that lead out from this main street, and they’re likely the best location I have at inserting the both of you without being detected.”

Spinning about in his chair after Rutherford made a point of reminding t’Jellaieu to keep out of sight, Fisher stood up and approached the console wherein he had laid out the items he would insist upon both Officers taking, some of which the Betazoid Ensign had already hinted at needing. “You’ve got a pair of emergency transport beacons, which if activated will allow us to effectively beam you out, regardless of transport inhibitors. The only caveat being that the signal will show up on any and all sensors, alerting everyone in the system to the fact that there are Starfleet personnel in the vicinity.” He went down the line, gesturing to each of the items in turn. “Also, a set of isolinear tags that can be used for target tracking, and also to serve as a transponder for beam out. Though unlike the ETBs, they can be interfered with by transport inhibitors, and are susceptible to duranium shadowing. So if you make use of them for extraction, you’ll want to be clear of any major duranium deposits. Otherwise I can’t guarantee a clean lock on with the transporters.” The expression on his face meant to emphasize the dangers of the latter half of his explanation.

“I’ve also tied in the sensor data that I’ve been able to gather into a tricorder, and will attempt to feed additional updates to it, but again, duranium shadowing might cause some transmission issues. Either way, you’ll have at least a cursory layout of the outpost from the start. You’ll likely have a better understanding of the situation when you get down there, than we will up here.” Moving on, he hefted up a small little pouch with an odd and rather ugly pattern embroidered along it’s surface. “Your gems might fetch something of greater value, but I never leave home without at least a few slips. It’s not a lot, but it’s at least enough that you’d not appear flat out broke upon inspection. And sometimes a complimentary beverage can lubricate any dealings into moving more smoothly.” The pouch was in fact one he’d taken off of a Ferengi merchant during a game of tongo a few nights earlier in the Aldean cantina, and in reality represented the total sum of Gold-pressed Latinum that Fisher could readily get his hands on in the moment, despite the relative fortune he’d amassed during his career, but which was locked away with a rather squirrely Ferengi Investment Banker, and his dimwitted brother.

“You’ve also a basic field kit for any minor injuries, and a hypospray which can be used to sedate someone.” It was always good to have some means of knocking someone cold without having to literally hit or shoot them. “Lastly... and you’re taking them. I don’t care if you stash them when you get down there, but a weapon in close proximity is better than no weapon at all. A pair of Type Ones.” He touched at the two ‘cricket’ phasers as they lay on the console counter, each providing some firepower in an easily concealable package; they represented some form of personal defense if things got a little heated. Ideally, he’d want them to keep the weapons on their person, but he imagined there was a hesitance to being armed at all times, as they were probably far more versed at disarming someone with their words, than otherwise. “t’Jellaieu and I will keep as close a watch on your progress as we can, while also trying to get a better idea of where or even if there’s a juvenile Klingon bio-signature down there. That said, we can only venture so near without giving ourselves up. So we should count on a routine check-in of some kind. Say... no longer than one-hour.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he still didn’t like the idea that they were going, and he wasn’t. He liked even less the idea that he hadn’t verbally voiced his concerns, but he was certain that the tone of his voice, and the general posture he’d assumed was making that evident.

“If we don’t get such a check-in, we’ll assume you’ve been compromised, and you can count on us coming to get you.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on October 17, 2020, 08:34:47 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) &  Ens. Eloi-Danvers (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Faye_Lintah_Eloi-Danvers) | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn: @Griff @Swift @Auctor Lucan
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The slight discomfort and limitations, in the leather dress, reminded Samantha of the restrictions she put upon her own composure, even when in the considerably comfortable Starfleet uniform. A certain sense of poise and decorum, ever present on her postures, voluntarily, that only now seemed like a deliberate compulsion to the blonde, that her body was forced into such sentiments, by the rigorous cut of such a garment, not her equally relentless mind. A garment that dictated a certain elegance and poise, from the flesh and blood contained within, like a graceful leather cover, suggested an expertly crafted novel, contained within its bounds. In a sense, it was an almost intuitive choice, to don a garment that mimicked – or equally dictated – her usual demeanor. Just as much as Faye’s eventual outfit gave a grander insight into her character, despite how much of her was obstructed by black fabric. It was what the diplomat already knew to happen, whenever giving someone a chance to venture beyond the predefined portions of clothes and foods that were prescribed by Starfleet guidelines. One would always fall back on the very notion clothes were originally adorned for, as an extension of one’s own individuality. A sentiment largely abolished in modern days, as it could lead to jealousy and pride. But that didn’t mean it would not continuously persist, beneath the veneer of civilized society.

And since they were to venture to a place where most likely civilization was naught but a faraway reminiscence, in the way they both smelled of fresh clothes and roses, a little bit of pride and jealousy was probably going to fit in perfectly. Fisher’s descriptions of the place, manifesting pictures in her mind, patchworked together by mementos of previous engagements and a childhood of growing up around refugee camps, drew a picture pretty much in line with her previous assumptions – no surprise there. “Sounds like a good plan.” The blonde nodded, at the CIO’s apt assessment of the best beam-in-point. Thus, approving of his proposition. Turning her blue eyes to her subordinate’s somewhat wavering pleas, Samantha did of course not see them as subversion of her procedures. Normally she wouldn’t have brought any kind elaborate of Federation technology with her, certainly not when that very association was what they were trying to conceal. But she could see the advantage in being safe, rather than sorry, and the subtle relief, in Faye having asked for it, instead of her. And without missing a beat, Andrew had moved out of his seat, crossing the short distance to the opposite side of the cockpit in stride. Though thus breaking the comfortable, warming glances, that had remained glued to her from the moment she’d re-entered the cockpit.

“I guess we’ll only activate them in an emergency then.” the commander replied to the rather suspicious nature of the transporter beacons’ signal. Though her tone already dipped in a kind of restless tremor at the sight of how many gadgets they actually had to go through and how much time it would take her to talk the man out of them. “The plan is to come back to the beam-in site for extraction. If that is not possible, only then will we make use of your technical doodads. Are we almost d…” she replied, being interjected immediately by more elaborations and even more compromising utilities. Scratching the side of her forehead, as if the platinum wig was itching her sensitive skin, the notion was rather a sense of agitation, rather than physical discomfort … though it was getting there. Deciding to wait for the man to finish, the blonde crossed her arms, betrothing him with a readily discernible way of affection as he pulled out a personal pouch of Latinum. Adding a level of craftiness to his character that she had not previous estimated to these heights. Striking a pretty interesting fact, if only casually, that didn’t really seem to register with himself, as he went on. Handing the tricorder to Faye, the diplomat gathered together the transport beacons and enhancers as well as the warm pouch of Latinum from the man’s hands. “Thanks for that …” she smiled, close proximity between them, as her gentle odor transpired towards his nostrils, before stepping back onto the transporter pad. There was no way she would be caught with a Starfleet phaser down there, nor the remote possibility to have its energy signature lead anyone to it. Thus, through the smoke screen of her actions towards the man, the two weapons still rested quietly atop the console, outside his distracted field of vision.

Giving the intelligence officer a warm smile, lasting mere seconds, as not to facilitate any further objections, blue eyes swiftly switched to Lillee at the CONN. “Energize, petty officer.” She instructed, clutching an array of items to her chest, that were not readily discernible to be all, or only pieces, of his selection. Knowing fairly well that if she’d order Fisher, a conversation would still have to be had, and the potential of a revelation could dawn on the man. Azure orbs falling back onto him ever so briefly, before they dissolved in a starburst of energy, dissipating into the pattern buffer below, before being transmitted to the secluded corridor specified by the commander. Taking a cautionary look around, holding her breath as the gentle hum of the shuttle had made space for a far lower, more distant grumble within the corrido, carved from rock and lined with makeshift metal supports, the diplomat ascertained that they were indeed alone and that their transport had largely gone unnoticed. Recomposing herself with a deep breath that made her chest heave and the tight leather generate a gentle cracking sound. Appraising their surroundings, the blonde coincidentally found a small scribble pad and crude stick of graphite on one of the rusted supports, a diagram of some electrical relays etched into the paper.

“Try to transfer as much of the tricorder map onto the pad and keep the scribble. Maybe we can dispose of the tricorder then.” The least unusual technology they carried the better, not to mention her own pocket space was limited. At least the transporter beacons and enhancers weren’t so readily identifiable as Starfleet tec by even just a school child. For now, she would just dispose of them in the inconspicuous pouch, Fisher’s Latinum came with, which ironically matched her dress quite well. “As for our cover: I’ll pose as a rare Edo slave while you will pose as my owner and dealer. Maybe we can covertly dig for information under the negotiations over how many Targs I am worth.” the diplomat explained, while pulling a little bit on the seams of the dress seemingly glued to her physique. “You think that would fly?”
 
Faye had little say in what had transpired between Fisher and Rutherford. She'd msotly just stood there like a good little girl, listening to the expert on infiltration and under cover activity dole out gadgets and gear like something out of an ancient spy novel. She half expected an embedded communicator inside a wrist chorhograph, but instead settled for the tricorder, flipping it open and giving it a slow once over. Nothing much else to be done about it, she stepped back onto the pad, following her boss, and trying to keep the frown that threatened to bloom over her face off of it. At least until they beamed down, and Fisher could no longer see it.

The young ensign was not going to undercut her boss in front of someone that had inserted  themselves into the mission. This was supposed to be a diplomatic venture, not some holoprogram. That didn't mean Faye was keen on going unarmed into a situation like this. Still, she was suddenly thrust into the role of slave owner and was trying not to drop the tricorder and the pad thrust at her in the moments after they had materlized on the planetoid.  She took a slow, deep breath and reminded herself that it was highly inappropriate to ask a superior if they were out of their fucking minds.

"I think its a believable cover. As long as I can managed to be suitably menacing. Which, we'll see. I'll just channel some deep repressed anger. That's what spies do in situations like this right?" Faye quipped. She had pockets, and began to distribute bits and pieces here and there. "Which, speaking of. With all due respect, why are you so keen to get ride of the tricorder? This thing could be the difference between life or death."
 
Nodding slowly as Faye narrated her ideas of intelligence procedures, the notion grew steadily in pace and intensity, until a small chuckle broke the repetitive stance. “Right … I suppose so.” the blonde mused. “In which case Commander Fisher should have quite a bit to thank me for.” A rather dry quip, that mimicked the stone dust, collected on the trusses and beams around them, perfectly. “The thing is, in my experience, any sort of cover or lie, that is too close to the truth, makes you complacent and sloppy. It is when you have to device a completely alternate reality, that you rethink every little detail and truly make the mirage come to life.” the diplomat related as sort of an off-handed advice, stemming from years and years of experience in the arts of facilitating an illusion of what the opponent wanted to see.

“It very well could.” Samantha replied, raising her brows in reassurance, though they were mostly concealed behind the platinum tresses of her wig’s bangs. “When you’re found to carry it, you might as well be dead. For the covert implications of being a Federation spy or simply the sheer value of such an extraordinary device.” It may not have been to them, where it was always just a push of a button on a replicator away. But the majority of the galaxy did not live in the casual luxury they had so non-chalantly grown to accept as a normality. “I agree that it would help us get around and to the source of this mystery much more easily. But when it comes down to it, I’d rather put my faith into our diplomatic talent and negotiation skills, than a token of technology that could give our true intentions away.”
 
Yes, Faye's suspicions were pretty on the ball. Something was going on between the two department heads that went well beyond the fact that Andrew Fisher had decided that she and Rutherford could not be allowed to go on such a mission alone. A bit of white knighting on his part and...well, she wasn't sure, on her superiors. It was in short none of her business as long as it didn't interfere with the mission, and it was not as if Faye had any stones she could possibly throw when it came to interpersonal relations among members of the crew. A few faces flashed across her mind, to varying degrees of pleasing delight, or, in the case of one Catian colleague, mild agitation. So setting all of that aside, she listened and nodded and took in what Samantha said.

She didn't just go along to get along either. She considered it, weighed and measured it. Listened, not just hearing. She still thought that, while they were both quite talented, and could bluff their way into and out of anything, she wanted that tricorder on hand. Arguing that with the commander seemed like a losing proposition however. "In that case, keep an eye out while I try not to screw this up," she noted, pulling the device out, running some scans, and bringing up a map.

Samantha had been in this business for too long to simply ignore the subtle nuances of uncertainty and hidden frustration within any person she interacted with. It was a skill, honed from a talent to guide a negotiation in a fashion, that felt like a natural progression of giving and taking, towards the opponent. With the intent to obscure the true course with a flutter of pointless concessions, lulling the person into a sense of achievement. So it had ben vital, that she be able to pick up whenever her counterpart was feeling as if they were not given the choices they wanted, and thus were in danger of waking from that illusion she created. Which was as much true for a mission that could almost certainly end in death or imprisonment, painting it as a matter of certain success.

Granted, Faye possessed the innate diplomatic ability to process any information given and weigh it against its benefits towards herself as much as the matter at hand, to abstract it, even if it went against her personal beliefs. But that didn’t mean that, as a person, she didn’t also have the ability to hold a grudge, if only towards herself. “I tell you what, we’ll leave the tricorder under some of these Duranium rocks, just in case … didn’t Commander Fisher indicate they would dampen scans?!” That way, maybe, it would not alert any potential scrappers or opportunistic thieves, who certainly roamed these corridors in abundance.
 
Knowing that the device was in a safe place if they needed it was something. Hopefully it would not be the kind of need where it was an immediate thing. All the same, as Faye did her best to transfer a basic idea of where they needed to go to the paper pad from the device, zooming in and out. She glanced up and gave a sharp nod. "He did say something about that yes. Its part of why we've only got a general idea of where we're going and what's in-between us and the target."

Calling a child a target (or the potential child a target she supposed) did not exactly sit well with Faye. Then again pretending to be here to sell her superior officer didn't exactly sit great with her either. Even if there was a tiny part of Faye that would have found the notion suitable revenge for a difference of opinion. Thankfully, that was a part of herself the diplomat barely acknowledged existed, let alone listened to.

"There. That's as good as I can get it." She said, sliding the tricorder shut, and then handing it over to Samantha.
 
„It looks perfect.“ The blonde judged with a slightly higher pitch to her voice, after a brief inspection of the scribblings. Turning towards the sidewall of the corridor, letting her blue eyes slide over the crudely chopped rock and rusty beams, ultimately settling on a niche in the bottom corner, obscured by some lose rocks with metallic reflections beneath the dust. Letting out a slight, victorious breath, reverberating against her vocal cords in a low whistle, she attempted to crouch down and conceal the tricorder. However, the fabric of her dress did not give as much leeway as needed to perform such elaborate acrobatics, it seemed. The slightly louder cracking of the leather alerting her to a potential failure of the seams.

Erecting herself up once more, clearing her throat in a modestly awkward fashion, the diplomat smiled at her subordinate thinly. “Would you mind?” she inquired, holding the gear out to Faye once more, ultimately brushing both palms past her hips to even out the fitted garment once more. Letting her attention trail down the shaft, to where she felt like the crowded noises were coming from, she assumed that was where it would lead into the marketplace Fisher had talked about. “I guess we’ll go that way … what does the map say?” And just like that, the Betazoid had been designated their navigator.
 
Faye actually snorted in laughter, tried to repress it, and failed. Nothing for it. She held her palm out and took the device, squatting down with considerably more ease than Samantha had a moment before. "Leather is a very tricky material to work with, Commander," Faye noted, her tone hushed, but no less amused. She wiggled the device into the crevasse in the old mining corridor, and pushed some of the soot and small rocks into place over top of it. She looked up from where she'd squatted down, sweeping eyes as dark as the carved rocks around the alcove and gave a little nod. Hopefully they would be able to find their way back here readily enough. She'd marked the point on their scratch map in any event.

Rolling back up to her feet in a fairly fluid fashion, Faye checked the sketched out document. "25 meters give or take, the tunnel forks then opens up into a wide concourse. Not sure what it was used for originally, but its a market. We have to go through it to get to where we think the child is being held in any event. So there's nothing else for it but to proceed on and hope for the best." Including, but not at all limited to no one trying to turn them both into a quick profit. After all, if Faye's cover was 'selling' Sam, someone might decide that they both would fetch a decent price. Still, she wasn't sure what all did and didn't get traded in a place like this, so she squared her shoulders and thought about Mickayla MacGregor, the security non-comm who had been assigned as her escort at one point on Aldea. With her in mind, she set forth, trying to project that same sense of power that came naturally to the Klingon woman.

Samantha followed Faye’s elaborations on their route ahead, trying to manifest the layout in her head. Somehow they’d have to traverse the central market place quickly, and preferably without any lengthy interruptions that could give their cover away. “Alright …” the blonde broke the considerable silence, after the Ensign had finished. “… if anyone asks, I am being delivered to an Yridian merchant, for … I don’t know 500 bars of latinum – not really up on how much people are worth these days.” the blonde concluded, slightly irked at the lapse in preparation.

“Try me … give me your best slave merchant grit.” The commander challenged her subordinate, wiggling her fingers towards her waist from arms held out low. She wasn’t going to be alerted to the Ensigns high pitched rant of insecurity in the midst of a hundred lowlifes with sharpened teeth and questionable hygiene.

Faye tilted her head in turn and pursed her lips. "Perhaps we should have asked Commander Fisher the going rate. I imagine he knows. Since he's the one that provided the latinum to begin with." She rolled her shoulders, "Klingons don't trade in slaves any more, haven't for a while, not officially. I know something of their economics but we live in a post scarcity society. Money is...meh." She shrugged her shoulders. The junior officer gave her boss a blatant, appraising look. "I'm sure you're worth at least 500 bars."

Running her tongue over her teeth, Faye tried for something out of a bad holo novel, and summoned up her best angry scowl. She rubbed her hands together, almost in a caricature of a Ferengi merchant, combined with that swagger from her friend the security guard. In a raspier voice, she noted over her shoulder, "Remember once we go in there, if you're the slave you're supposed to keep your mouth shut." Hows that for grit? She thought to herself.

Shooting Faye a mischievous grin at the mention of Andrew, that was not entirely inspired by her well-groomed joke, but also by the awkwardly gleeful sentiment of hearing his name mentioned, Samantha nodded appreciatively at the relation of more information unique to the Betazoid’s professional background. The very reason she had thought of her first, to accompany this mission. “To be fair, I doubt we’ll find a lot of ‘official’ business here.” She stated with thin lips, raising her brows in ominous anticipation and judgment. However, the reassurance of her physical worth, drew back vivid color and gentle curvature, to plump cushions.

“Well, just don’t let me go under 350.” the diplomat reassured with a smile, before adjusting her posture to fully take in Faye’s ‘performance’. Listening to her voice shift and her posture stiffen, the commander was actually impressed with how much spunk the little thing could project on command. She had heard whispers about how fiery she could be in confrontation, especially with one raven haired Caitian. But it was one (unhelpful) thing to be emotional - an entirely different one to summon and channel it into something productive. “That’ll do the trick.”

Nodding pleasantly, the blonde turned towards the faint shimmer around the next bend, from where the sounds of people came from. Taking a deep breath, trying to convey the sense of confidence necessary, she started to strut ahead, moving around a few corners and across intersections, always towards the ebbing and flowing sonata of alien voices, cheers and drunken slurs. One more turn, and they stepped into the ant hive of this sector’s lowlife who-is-who. A circular cavern, lined with makeshift shops and venues, domed with rusting trusses and tangled cables, oddly colored lights strewn throughout.

If it weren’t for everyone’s towering nature, their entrance would’ve surely raised a few more brows, but as it where, even the generally tall blonde, could venture forth relatively obscured. Sure, they were shot the more immediate glances of appraisal and judgment, but at the very least the entire room was not instantly alerted to their presence. Weaving through the musky stench and rotten odor, in the general direction of the opposite corridor, Samantha DID try to occasional tiptoe and get a look across the sea of thieves.
 
Pleased that her commanding officer thought she could manage less than reputable on command, Faye took in that confidence and pride and tried to channel it outward into her actions from that point on. She was going to need to give the performance of a life time. Diplomats did that all the time, or so she told herself. What was a negotiation but a particularly well crafted play, with both sides acting out parts in their own personal best interest. You didn't know the lines ahead of time, or not all of them, and had to play against the other 'actors', but you knew the general gist and your role. This was simply another day at the negotiating table; albeit a very dingy and poorly lit one. Where perhaps the other players on stage could have used a bath. It was the 24th century. She shouldn't be smelling quite so much body oder in the corridors.

That this was the first things he really noticed spoke volumes about Faye and her priorities in life. What they faced was truly something out of a holonovel, and Faye made mental notes here and there, should she ever want to recreate such an encounter. She'd never really done this before, and beneath the nervous worry and repressed terror there was something exciting about it all. Carefully, just as she had with that first breath of air, Faye let her barriers down, testing the temperature of the mental waters around her. She did not pry into anyone's mind directly, but simply allowed herself a sense of the emotional atmosphere. It was as jumbled as the visuals before them, the Starfleet ensign doing her best not to stagger or gape about.

"Steady on," Faye muttered, as much to her 'wares' as to herself. She kept her head on a swivel for now, threading around - yes that was an orion, and what looked to be a Selay, with its cobra like head arguing with a Ferengi merchant over something small and furry in a cage. A small smile tugged at Faye's lipss as she saw a Bajoran  merchant ant a gaggle of Yirridians. "At least our cover looks like it'll be eay to sell," she noted, nodding toward the gathering. Not too far beyond that she spotted a pair of Pakleds sitting on a bench, starring straight ahead.

„Our cover or me?!“ Samantha whispered over her shoulder, making sure it would not be considered an inappropriate slave uprising by any onlookers. It was a dry joke, but adding a smile to it, even if it just tugged at the corners of her plump lips, would’ve not sat right with the role she was supposed to play. Takings tock of all the different aliens around, none of which the diplomat was overtly surprised to see here, the lack of Klingons was surprising though. Then again, in the context of who had selected this place for refuge, maybe not so much. It would’ve certainly aided a young Klingon fugitive to remain considerably unbothered.

Making their way across the courtyard slowly, a quick hand suddenly dashed form one of the patrons they had to snake by in close proximity, squeezing the blonde’s buttocks almost painfully. Like a pair of rude pliers. Letting out a slight, involuntary yelp, she twirled around instantly, ready to get her sudden revenge, but just as quickly realizing, it was not her place to do so, in this scenario. So, angry blue eyes thus fell on Faye, and with it a good deal of responsibility and expectation.
 
"Six one way, half a dozen the other," Faye hissed back to Samantha, using the old Terran saying, yet another idiom she'd picked up from her adoptive mother. She'd been full of sayings like that. With Faye's sheids lowered somewhat, she was able to pick up on the emotions behind the words and appreciated the attempt at humor, and the effort that her boss had to put in to keep her expression schooled. They were of like minds on that moment, and Faye kept stalking forward through the crowd, looking for signs of actual Klingon's anywhere in the secluded outpost. Given the dirth, she felt that their supposed targets would stand out pretty well. But then there was the outburst behind her, the sudden shock and indignation rolling off her suprior, and a sense of lechery from the crowd.

Faye spun around on her heels and summoned up her her best impression of a bull in a china shop (again with the idioms) and stalked toward the man that had reached out and cupped a hand full of latex coated bum. She shoved a finger in Rutherford's face as she moved past, as if to stop her, and then barked out in passable Klingonese, "vaS'e' luja'chugh je Dalo'chugh, petaq!" With a dark snarl, she pushed forward toward the offending bystander, and switching to standard. "You couldn't afford the price."

Having a finger shoved in her face like a petulant child, although part of the plan she herself had laid out, drove the diplomat close to the conundrum of who to slap first … before retreating into the safe anonymity of ‘slave girl #1’. Portrayed by some ditzy model, with no acting experience beyond keeping a straight face, who was not being paid to talk. Or even have an opinion, for that matter. Witnessing Faye assert herself, however, bringing all that knowledge and experience to the table she valued the Ensign so highly for, reminded her why she’d devised this ploy. Not the slave-girl/merchant bit, but this entire scheme of pushing her subordinate into a semblance of command.

Brushing her lips together, merely reinforcing what the Betazoid had said with a sassy nod, as the culprit glanced her way, to finally gauge the worth, probably. He then looked back at Faye, chewing on something unsavory in the pocket of his scruffy cheek. “What about an hour?” Yeah right, Samantha barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes but rather constricted them between narrowed lashes. As if he could last that long. “What about if I just take her … and you too?” he leaned forward a bit, his voice growing lower and more personal, as his foul odor brushed past the brunette like a gentle breeze, wafting over from a dumpster.

"She's spoken for," Faye fired back, not really recognizing the creatures species as she tried to improvise. The heavy in a holo-drama would jut their jaw out, strike a pose and blow the man off. SO that's what she went with, hands firmly on her hips now, and sure enough, she pushed her jaw forward. In the back of her mind she was glad that she'd kept herself to just a finger in Sam's face. She could have been just as effective if she'd smacked the other woman, as if it were the slaves fault that she'd been pawed at. Better to save the physical stuff for the brute that was forcing itself into the conversation. Her nose scrunched up as she caught a whiff of his stench, and she tipped her chin up higher. "You wouldn't last five minutes pal," Faye fired right back. Inside she was fighting not to bolt, but again, what was diplomacy if not a good deal of acting? So she tried very hard to play the part and gently readied her left leg, popping up onto her toe and wiggling her foot side to side. If it came to it, well, she had half a plan.

Right about then though, it sure would have been nice to stick one of those cricket phasers up under his jaw. Oops.

Samantha watched the situation unfold with growing anxiety, the restraint of not being able to do something, burning beneath her skin, as teeth gritted together, causing small ripples to form, across the peach skin over her jaw joints. She was readying herself to interject at any time, potentially blowing their cover, but yet still harbored a good sense of trust, that Faye would be able to diffuse this all on her own.

“Oh ya? Is that an insult?” the lowlife barked back, leaning forward even further, to the point where his forehead almost touched the Betazoids if she didn’t retreat. The fact that he had to ask spoke volumes to his wit. At any rate, she could discern his breakfast and lunch, from watching the leftovers in between his graciously spaced teeth alone. Raising his hand, the man grabbed the short brunette by the hood of her coat, attempting to drag her to the side, making space to move in on the merchandise.
 
Being able to feel the anxiety bubbling up behind her from her superiors and the position the woman was forced to play, the vapid, helpless and at least mostly cowed form of a slave, at odds with the training of a Starfleet officer, did very little at all to reassure and calm Faye as she was faxing down the towering alien. There were downsides to being a telepath and empath, and even when she had her control tightly reigned in, things could be pressing and distracting. Now, when she'd been leaning on it for a tactical advantage in their situation, those complications were all the more pressing. Everything's a double bladed mek'elth, I swear, she thought, to no one in particular.

And then he got physical. Which was his mistake. She had a few options handy to her and her initial impulse was to send a knee to his groin. But she remembered a lecture at the Academy in her basic defense course, about how not all alien's kept their genitalia in the same place. Given that, and other facts at hand, she swept her left arm up to dislodge his grip. Now, given her size and his size, her general lack of combat practice in the years since the Academy, and her less than confrontational nature, it should have been laughable. Save for the small fact that Faye's left arm had been utterly destroyed in the assault at Jupiter Station, in the same explosion that had killed off the rest of the Diplomatic mission assigned to the Theurgy. And her replacement had been scavenged from the Black Opal supply depot, one of the hidden caches of weapons and medical supplies along the neutral zone.

Starfleet didn't make a habit of advertising that such artificial limbs could, in short bursts, greatly exceed the parameters of their biological counterparts that they had replaced. Thus, when Faye brought her left arm up into contact with the man, not only did it arrest his grip, there was a nasty, crunching sound as it cracked his wrist with ease. "I Said, hands. Off. The. Merchandise." She growled, in her best impression of every heavy she'd ever seen, while trying not to vomit in the back of her throat. She could quite literally feel the pain she'd just caused and it was utterly sickening.

The muffled crack, like a porcelain amulet, breaking in a leather satchel, cut through the loud surroundings like a phaser beam through a dark room. It constricted the blonde’s airflow with a sense of anguish, not born from sympathy, but from a sentiment of pain perception by proxy. The lower edges of plump lips, drew to the corners of her defined jawline ever so slightly, revealing the roots of white teeth, between rouge pillows, in abject suffering. A notion that was soon replaced with the horrific truth of an affliction that, despite its gruesome auditory prowess, was neither fatal nor incapacitating. And the reverberating echo, would likely inflict tenfold its original scathe. There was, however, nothing either of them could do about it. It would take a Nausicaan, to alter that fate, or at least a couple of lowlifes.

Switfly dashing her skinny arm forward, the blonde ripped a leather balloon from the scoundrel’s belt, showing stains of bloodwine or red liquor, in streaks down its side. Unnoticed by its owner, blue eyes briefly scanned their immediate surroundings, landing on wide, squared shoulders, presenting their back towards them, a mere few feet away. Raising the pouch above her head, liquid swishing around inside, Samantha threw it against the other man’s back with enough vigor so the seams ripped and a bloody explosion splattered over the majority of his hind side. And as the initial pitter patter of drops against the dusty floor subsided, the only thing that remained was a low grumbling that grew in intensity as the mass of muscle drew momentum and turned around, revealing a burly Klingon with brows drawn low between dark eyes, sharp fangs glimmering opaque beneath untamed scruff.

Erecting her arm in a swift motion, pointing towards the original culprit without a word, the leather strap on his waist still dangled, from where the stolen contraband had started its journey. A mere step aside enough to make way for the Klingon to turn into a raging bull, charging for the proverbial red flag. A red flag that, until the heavy thuds of quickening footsteps drew closer, had no idea what was hitting him, and would likely not know either, after he was thrown backwards, into the crowd of lowlifes, that did not take too kindly to such surprises either. The growling and howling erupted like a tsunami wave across the room, as the motions in the crowd grew quicker, more erratic, like a stirring ocean.
 
So in the end, the burst of inhuman, artificially augmented strength alone wasn't enough to fully deter the man. But it had been enough to both buy time, and distract everyone from looking at Samantha. Faye would take that as a win, eventually. Once she made sure that her heart wasn't going to beat right out of her chest, or that her stomach wasn't going to void itself all over one of the rough hewn walls. Which wasn't a sure thing at the moment, given that her brain echoed with the phantom pain she'd caused, and the angry emotions of the large Klingon that had tackled the would be assailant away from Faye. She'd had very little time to react herself, and managed to scamper back just in time to avoid being swept into the crowd with the full body block from the wine drenched behemoth.

Stepping back twice, she swallowed and snaked her very real, very flesh hand around Samantha's arm, and gave a solid jerk to the side, pulling the blonde back from the unfolding scuffle. Bodies flowed all around them as the brawl broke out in earnest, shop keepers and merchants doing their best to protect their wares in the commotion, while shoppers themselves descended into an all out melee. The Betazoid found herself breathing heavily, panting and slammed her mental walls back into place with such force that her ears rang while she blocked out the swell of emotion and violence. "Oh god, I hate shit like this" she snarled under her breath, shoving her boss along and doing her damndest to get them lost in the fracas.
 
Being pulled away from the turmoil, Samantha found herself staggering a little bit in her tight dress during the quickened pace. She understood the urgency of the situation, but good god, her knees could only move so many inches apart in this thing. There was certainly no opportunity, or accident, to get laid in this dress. They managed to stagger to the sidelines, however, where shops and corridors were carved from the cave walls. However, as they sought themselves in considerable safety, the blonde had to admit, she had completely gotten turned around in the moment.

Taking a cautionary look around, gauging the many tunnels that branched off, she wasn’t quite sure at first if they had managed to traverse the marketplace straight on, or had gotten deflected somewhere to the side, like shrapnel. Then, however, she was briefly distracted by Faye’s comment, even more. Letting out a muffled chuckle, the diplomat irked a brow at her subordinate. She wouldn’t have thought her to despise a little bit of ruckus. “Well, as hard as you may try, not every negotiation will result in the shaking of hands.” she assured her, now also safe enough to talk, while everyone’s attention had focused on either joining, or keeping away from the fight.

“You got any idea where to?” Sam inquired curtly, realizing full well that a tricorder would’ve been handy now, but wouldn’t let it outwardly show. She still stood by her conviction.
 
"I think I broke his hand when we 'shook' does that count?" She groused in turn, her hands now on her hips as she took long, deep breaths to try and calm herself. she wouldn't allow her head to look down. If she bent too far forward who knew what might fall out of her mouth. Diplomat as she was, she'd rarely had a negotiation descend into the kind of chaos unfolding before them. Swallowing the acidic taste in the back of her throat she rubbed at her right temple, feeling a pulse of pain as she too mirrored Samantha's actions, trying to get a feel for where they now stood in relation to where they had come. Again, she longed for the tricorder, but all the same it might have drawn unwanted attention back to them just as they were trying to feel such observations. Drat.

"Sorry. I just...had my mind very much exposed in the moment. Walls were down and I just paid the price by feeling...all of that. I think," she paused, bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. So many of the beings in this place were taller than she was and it was frustrating. Faye was of average height for a Betazoid, even one of the colony girls like herself. It didn't help all that much here, and she'd settled on practical footwear with no heels so there was no boost to be had in that department. "I think we need to go that way," she pointed, to one of the branching off shoot tunnels. It looked right, but her little sketch only helped so much.

„It’s certainly a good start.” the blonde snarked, but in a heavily distracted manner. Naturally a negotiation, starting in such a manner, would dissolve into anarchy eventually. This mission would certainly call for an interesting debrief, that was for sure. Letting her sense levitate over the ailments of her body, be it form the garment or the elevated stress levels, he Vulcan training and partial heritage, did a rather good job at suppressing these sentiments in favor of logic. Yet, the logical approach would’ve been to retrace their steps, if getting lost, but that seemed an utterly dangerous idea, given that the path they came from was now a pulsating, gyrating knot of limbs and heads.

“Well, having half a Vulcan olfactory system, doesn’t exactly help either.” Samantha replied, attempting to convey a sense of shared impairment, to alleviate any undue feelings of guilt. Turning her attention towards where Faye indicated, fielding it as good a possibility as possible, the commander nodded decisively. “Let’s go then …” And with those words the tall blonde moved ahead, feeling that if any more danger was lurking beyond these curves and corners, it should’ve been her brunt to bear. No matter their current roles.

Slipping into considerable quiet and desertion, the corridor was barely distinguishable from the one they had materialized in. Making it extremely difficult to keep an optimistic spin on the possibility to stumble upon their target. The labyrinth of tunnels stretched onward until they could hear nothing of what they had started, back in the marketplace, anymore. It was, however, replaced by an eerie silence, interspersed with a growing and ebbing hum of power couplings and conduits. That was, until voices cut through the thick air, one high pitched and more delicate, the other strong, yet feminine.

Moving through a ripped burlap curtain, out onto a small platform, overlooking a lower cave, a small shed like structure was huddled against the far side, flickering lights illuminating the space. And in front of the makeshift abode, sat a Klingon woman and her child, no ten years old, from the look of it. A gentle sigh of relief left the blonde’s nostrils, as her shoulders relaxed into a more gradual incline. Faint twitches, tucking at the corners of her plump lips.

So Faye had to deal with the brain waves of others and Samantha had the heightened scents to contain with, thanks to a Vulcan ancestor. As bad as the place already smelled, the betazoid had to admit that this was something of a determent indeed. She was glad she didn't have that burden to bear in addition to her own. It was something to distract herself from the mental backlash of the fight as the two women wove their way down the corridor of rough hewn asteroid rockface. They were giving up on the whole guise for the moment in favor of speed and practicality, and Faye didn't seem bothered at all to let Samantha slip around and take the lead. As the quiet descended around them, Faye let her senses open back up a bit, to try and give any sort of warning. Something, or someone did lay ahead. And they were wary.

Sensible.

The junior diplomat lay a hand on her bosses shoulder as they rounded the corner and the child came into view. As with the other woman she felt her breath catch slightly. Faye wasn't sure how to approach, how to let them know they were there. She'd let Sam handle that. That's what having a superior was for. Passing the buck in a nasty moment. Instead, she took two slow steps back from the entrance, the towering platform and pressed her back against the rock walls. She reached into the folds of her over cloak and triggered the small device, opening - or attempting to open - a channel back to the shuttlecraft. "Eloi-Danvers to Fisher. If you can read this, we've found the package. Will try and tag. Can you get a lock, over?"
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on November 07, 2020, 05:51:57 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) & PO3 Lillee t'Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @Brutus @Griff @stardust

As Fisher briefed the two diplomats, Lillee wisely stayed out of it. With one notable exception she had no experience with clandestine missions of this nature and was content to focus on her own job while everyone else did theirs. Nevertheless, she could read body language well enough to be worried. Rutherford was confident, perhaps too much, while Eloi-Danvers was clearly nervous. Fisher (when he wasn’t distracted by Rutherford’s attire) seemed downright anxious. It was all enough to make Lillee wonder if perhaps transferring back to CONN wasn’t as safe or smart as she’d first thought.

At Rutherford’s command, Lillee turned back around to her console, working the controls. “Energizing,” she said as she beamed the women away in a whirl of blue sparks. She checked sensors once more, although the need to stay hidden severely reduced what the sensors could detect, and sighed, relaxing in her chair.

“How bad do you think this is going to go, Commander?” she asked Fisher wryly.

There was clearly a sense of reticence that welled up inside of Fisher’s stomach, mostly in the form of nervousness as sending a pair of Diplomats, no matter their level of cunningness, into an unknown and dangerous lair of sorts was well outside of the purview of what was normal. He had to remind himself constantly, that this wasn’t his mission; that he wasn’t in charge, and that he wasn’t sending anyone. Sam had operational command; it was up to her to make such decisions and it was up to him to abide by those decisions even if they went against his better judgements on the matter. He was entrusting her like he hadn’t anyone else in quite some time, and it bothered him immensely that his professional considerations were so compromised. It likewise confounded and confused him, because he was aware of the fact that he should have been able to rise above it. But simply put, he couldn’t, or at least he hadn’t.

When the blue energizing field faded from view he was left to stand before the transporter pad, feeling more than apprehensive at the prospect of their mission, but he could find some level of comfort in knowing that the pair were outfitted with a bevy of equipment, and options should anything arise. That was until he spotted the pair of Type-1s sitting on the console, and he did something of a double-take, replaying the interaction from an instant earlier, and realizing that she had deceived him.

“Damnit.” He said softly, moderately annoyed by Rutherford’s stubbornness with regard to going in armed.

Turning away from the transporter pad, he approached the tactical station so as to monitor the beam in location, hoping that maybe he could get a definitive signal on the two Diplomatic Officers as they appeared. Tapping at the controls, he could see a mild sensor ghost which was likely their life-signs, but it was very difficult to distinguish them from everything else at play. This was going to be a difficult mission to keep proper operational overwatch on. “Well...” he hesitated in response to Lillee’s question, weighing it all in an instant, and tempering his general negativity on the matter. “...I imagine Vegas betting odds aren’t in our favor.” Forgetting that she likely wouldn’t understand the reference, he continued on without stopping to explain, hoping that the tone carried with his words would at least get the point across. “But I’ve always liked a good underdog.” His hands began to delicately dance across the console, as he struggled to keep some kind of a fix on their compatriots aboard the unknown outpost.

“Let’s just hope nothing happens along to toy with those odds.” He doubted they would be so fortunate. “Care to place a wager on it?” he mused, trying to as always embrace and rely on his sense of humor to see him through the relative quiet of their mission.

Lillee smirked, shaking her head. “Ah, but if everything goes badly and we both die in a fiery explosion, how do I collect my winnings?” she said playfully. She looked out the viewport at the rocky vista beyond, the asteroid surface dimly reflecting the world light of the shattered planet that the field orbited. It was a cold and desolate landscape, reinforcing just how completely alone Lillee, Fisher and the others were. The nearest help was lightyears away, if it came at all.

Bemused at her own melancholy, Lillee checked sensors again, although while Fisher focused on the away team, she focused on the space around the shuttle. With nothing else to do but wait, Lillee pondered how to spend the time. She and Fisher hardly knew each other, really; she had simply been the first available shuttle pilot when he’d needed one. Nevertheless, Lillee felt a need to fill the silence. If she was fighting alongside someone, she was determined to know him at least a little.

“Commander,” Lillee asked cautiously, “do you know Lieutenant... umm... Dantius? She works for you, yes? Came to the Theurgy with you?”

Annoyed at how quickly the distinctive life sign patterns of Rutherford and Danvers coalesced into the background noise of the outpost, due in no small part to the sensor shadowing caused by the copious pockets of unrefined duranium deposits, Fisher considered for a moment to draw upon a far more colorful phrase out, but stifled it, at least temporarily. He could still detect the barely noticeable increase in total life sign patterns, which signified a subtle increase consistent with two additional beings among the general population. A small consolation sure, but it meant there was a semblance of operational oversight at play. If that number dropped suddenly or drastically, then he’d know that something had gone wrong, and he would need to assume command and make necessary moves to intercede on behalf of the two now undercover diplomatic assets.

Assets. He hated using that term with regard to Sam, and even to a lesser extent Faye. It was a harsh and unfeeling term, which had been devised to avert any implicit feelings of guilt when a person whom a spy was reliant upon, or exploiting for information, wound up dead. “True enough.” he replied to Lillee, only half-listening, not out of any deliberate ignorance of her, or her thoughts, but due to his inability to accede control of that which he could not readily influence, dictate. “I uhh… give us sixteen to one odds. Against.” he mused in kind, as he wondered if he could track the pair of diplomats via the faint power signal of the Tricorder he’d given them, his hands playing at the controls as he tried to distinguish a recognizable elevated pattern from all the others which obscured it.

“Hmm?” his voice piqued up a little when Lillee drew upon his rank more directly, affording her a greater modicum of attention. “Yeah, she’s one of my Analysts. Very talented. Very spirited. And while technically we came to Theurgy together, I didn’t get a chance to interact with her, or for that matter any of the other new members of the crew while aboard the Vor’Nak.” For a moment, Fisher remembered how utterly dull the near two-month voyage had been due to his having been filed as a VIP aboard the Klingon cruiser, which meant he was mostly confined to personal quarters out of safety precautions. He still wasn’t sure if it had been an intentional measure taken, or accidental, or worse if it was someone’s idea of a cruel joke.

“Spirited,” Lillee muttered under her breath, fighting very hard not to react. That was one of the most apt adjectives she could imagine, more than Fisher knew. “I met her a few days ago,” she said with a very innocent tone. “I was curious, I suppose. She is...impressive, yes?”

Tapping with a lot of pent up aggression against the console, Fisher grunted under his breath as the obfuscating nature of their surroundings was driving him mad. How he much rather would have preferred to be on mission in the field, rather than manning a console, attempting to monitor the situation as best he could. Sure, he often filled the role of Operational Lead, which sometimes entailed hanging back, rather than going forward, but when he was surrounded by glorified Politicians, and a Pilot, he had assumed that if there were going to be any away team missions launched, that he would have absolutely been the one to lead it. Instead, here he was, about ready to thrust his fist through the screen in front of him, not only due to how difficult it had been to get a decent reading, but also because he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t raised an ounce of ire over who had gone on said away mission in his stead.

“Hmm? Oh…” he blinked back from his momentary lapse, realizing that Lillee had asked him a follow-up, and that he’d been ignorant of it. Replaying the auditory input that his brain had subconsciously recorded, he found the query she had lobbied at him, and thought for an instant as to how to respond. “...yeah, she does a good job. Thorough. I uhh... actually had a mind to name her as Senior Analyst, since I don’t yet have one declared, and she routinely uncovers more actionable intel than her peers.” He wasn’t sure how well Lillee had known Dantius, other than the fact that she admitted to it. “Why, is there something I should know about her that you need to inform me of?” Exhaling deeply as the computer gave him a ‘wait’ warning as it went about trying to re-resolve the data as it was coming in, he realized how he would have killed to have had the particular Orion in question here to take care of this for him.

“Nothing at all,” Lillee said far too quickly, focusing on sensors with somewhat more attentiveness than was warranted. Belatedly realizing how guilty she sounded (and she had nothing to be guilty about, surely…), Lillee glanced at Fisher. She was, of course, conscious of the man’s tension and her own, taking the opportunity to distract them both from the interminable wait until the action began. It was a valuable skill for any soldier.

“Excuse me, I shouldn’t gossip about a friend,” she said. “It is just so rare for me to meet intelligence officers like yourself and Dantius. You seem different than the archetype. Most of the ones I knew before you were either Tal-Shiar or SI agents. The former are parasitic vermin whether they are Infested or not, while I always found the latter to be far too pleased with themselves for their own good, usually without reason.” She paused, filtering a passive sensor reading carefully before continuing. “It is a pleasant change to see one such as you. Commander Rutherford seems to appreciate you as well.”

A subtle little dig, one Lillee couldn’t resist, even as she fervently hoped that Fisher wouldn’t recognize how she’d deflected. The man didn’t seem to know that she and Anh-Le had started something, but if he learned it from her before Anh-Le was ready...

Fisher could sense that there was something more at play with regard to Lillee’s reaction to his returned inquiry; that there had been some form of a dynamic that had developed between one of his Data Analysts, and the blonde Romulan Pilot at the CONN but that wasn’t of immediate or any concern really. Clearly, Lillee had come to the same rationale, as she seemed to digress back from the point before any further inspection could take place on his behalf, though he likely wouldn’t have pressed on the issue in the first place. The interpersonal relations between members of the crew, while sometimes relevant with regards to how they could affect objectivity, didn’t merit his attention beyond that of mere friendly curiosity. “No worries.” he offered her as an amenable acknowledgement, so as to relieve any potential tension which may have manifested as a result of the subject.

Yet, when she soon returned to it after a momentary instance of silence, Fisher couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and swivel in his chair to look more fully in her direction. Evidently the dynamic between Lillee and Anh-Le was greater than he had initially surmised, though not in any kind of negative way it seemed. He could appreciate the honest reproach with which his fellow Officer was assessing the performance of Intelligence services, and in fact could even empathize with her on the matter. Even if she was decidedly unaware of the slightly distasteful history that had existed as part of his past with Starfleet Intelligence; as Fisher was a principled man himself, he wasn’t always the one in charge and making the big calls which left him at times in the position of having to do unpleasant things.

As a chirp at his console soon regathered his attention, he swiveled back to face it only for a slight twinge at the back of his neck trigger at the subtle hint of Lillee’s similar awareness of something more existing between himself and the Chief Diplomat. If anything it was a rather skillful parry and riposte from her on the subject, which, given her heritage and the sword that she had brought with her, made all too perfect sense. However, rather than respond in similar fashion, as he was often prone to do, he opted instead to just grin in amusement and mind the data that was starting to fill the screen before him.

“...and there it is!” he blurted out abruptly as that data resolved into the form of a contact as it had just appeared within the periphery of the system. “We’ve got incoming! New warp signature, moving at high-impulse speeds on a direct intercept course with the outpost.” he announced to Lillee as his hands began to dance across the Tactical console, attempting to get a better fix on this new presence. “Best guess says they’ve not yet picked us up on their sensors, but we’re going to be visible soon unless we stick to the debris closely. Do what you have to.” Losing track of the approaching ship for a moment, he nearly punched the console before it once more picked up a loose tracking of it once more.

Fisher knew that Lillee was doing her best to stick to the mountainous boulders of planetary rock, so as to avoid detection by the new contact moving in at speed toward the outpost. But at the same time, it was making his job monitoring for any signal from Rutherford or Faye exceedingly difficult, as there were sensor ghosts all over the board. It was hard enough to keep a fix on the number of individual humanoid life signs aboard the outpost, which was the only way he currently had of ensuring that all hell hadn’t broken out. Simultaneously, he was watching for anything which might identify this new warp signature, and give him an idea as to whether or not their cover had been blown, or if the Klingons loyal to Gorka had been sent to outright destroy the outpost in order to eliminate M’Ven.

“Damnit. C’mon!” he exclaimed out of frustration as the sensors lost lock of the intruder once more, only for it to reappear once more an instant later. “Sorry, that’s not at you! Sensors are driving me crazy!” he called back over his shoulder to Lillee, who likewise had her hands full at the controls, ensuring that the various gravity wells wouldn’t cause them to drift into and collide with one of the planetary fragments.

“I hope Sam and Faye are having a good-ole time down on the--” before he could finish his comment, there was an alert klaxon on the console, indicating an incoming transmission, which Fisher jabbed at in a blink. It was Faye, though her message was garbled, and broken up by static. Something about a package, and lock. Thinking for a moment, Fisher read between the lines and connected what was lost due to signal degradation. Likewise though, he imagined that any he might send in return would be lost, or maybe even potentially intercepted. It didn’t matter, if Faye and Sam were ready, they needed to get them out of there, and bolt out of the system asap. Actuating a response channel, on the same frequency, Fisher leant forward at his station. “Understood, Eloi-Danvers. Return to origin point for beam out.” He knew that anything more complicated than that, might have resulted in the message being lost. That detailing why he needed them to go back to their original beam in location, was an unnecessary piece of information when he needed to be short, and concise. In accordance, he set his transmission to repeat three additional times.

“Alright, Lillee… get us in as close as you can without our new friends spotting us.”

“There are times when I really miss cloaking devices,” Lillee muttered under her breath. She worked her console, tweaking the holographic overlay over the viewport to not just include the gravitational wells, but sensor efficacy in various areas near the asteroids. It made the view a befuddling mess of color shading, and Lillee spent a few seconds reading the view carefully, conscious that Danvers and Rutherford were relying on her.

“..got it,” she finally said, squinting at the viewport before glancing back at Fisher, smiling apologetically. “I hope you don’t get motion sick, Commander.”

Before she let him answer, Lillee tapped the impulse controls and the shuttle rocketed forward. Unlike before, however, there was nothing gentle or smooth about Lillee’s flying. She drove the shuttle on a wild path, skimming first one asteroid then another, then another, often with meters to spare as she zipped the shuttle past far faster than was safe, constantly clinging to the sensor-dark regions. It only took a minute before the shuttle settled into a new spot, this time tucked tight in between two asteroids that were only a dozen meters away from each other, both rotating slowly on their axes. Just ahead, through the gap between the rocks, the facility was visible.

“This won’t be safe for long, Commander, maybe a few minutes depending on the Klingon sensors,” Lillee warned. “They need to hurry.”

Clinging to his console as inertial dampeners struggled to account for the sudden boost of acceleration, Fisher was well aware of how dicey things were going to get in the very near future. The only thing that he could really count on in his favor, was that the pilot currently situated at the CONN had clearly been the right pick with regard to this mission, as her skills and deftness had already exhibited. Now he just needed Rutherford and Eloi-Danvers to be as adept with regard to their exfiltration from the outpost in question, and maybe this whole mission would have proven a success.

“...out of the frying pan, Sam…” he whispered softly under his breath, hoping that rather than in the fire, she’d wind up safely back aboard with Faye and the retinue that they had come here in search for.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on November 08, 2020, 09:06:48 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) &  Ens. Eloi-Danvers (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Faye_Lintah_Eloi-Danvers) & M’ven/Jo’reh | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn:
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Bathed in golden light, as if bowing over an ancient treasure, the wonders and the wealth, reflecting in her eyes like glimmering blue diamonds, Samantha marveled at the site below for a moment, frozen to the secluded spot above. Almost out of reach of the warm-tinted bulbs and fixtures, that had been scattered around the bottom of the well, mere feet below, yet seemingly an entirely different world, from where she cowered close to the ceiling, like a bat. Her black leather dress, sparkling like millions of dewdrops, on raven fur. A Klingon woman, and child … she had to admit, at times it had seemed like a far-away dream, fueled by want, rather than impression. And even though the revelation was not entirely clear, yet, the blonde felt an almost overwhelming burst of achievement, sparking in her chest like a sunrise.

It took a few words of Faye’s, uttered covertly into the sneakily readied communicator, for the diplomat to touch back upon the rickety iron latticework. Letting a small wave of relief, wash over her slender features, at the knowledge of the shuttle being kept appraised. Yet, as another moment of silence ensued, the blonde was not keen on waiting anymore. They were too close to play it overly save. Detaching herself from the makeshift banister, that lent little to no support, she delicately snaked down the staircase, following the curvature of the cave, down into the golden light.

Sooner than later, sure, the squeaking of the metal joints alerted the mother and child to the presence within what they surely considered a home. Holding up a dainty hand cautiously, moving slower as dark eyes cast upon her, the blonde tried her best to seem as little of a threat as she could. Obviously, her outfit could not hide a weapon of any kind, as intended.

“We mean you no harm.” she spoke, softly, letting the UT morph it into perfect Klingon almost instantly. Deliberately opting for the plural moniker, even though Faye was out of sight still yet. There was no need for the woman and her kid to be startled twice. Reaching the bottom of the step, she stopped encroaching on their territory, waiting to gauge their reactions first.

Her head snapped around at the sound of the approaching figure, and even as her thick braids settled around her neck, Jo'reh's upper lip was curled and she put a hand on the handle of her disruptor. She took a step forward, to put herself between the intruder and her child.

"I might," she growled in warning, her brown eyes piercing the dim light.

"Who is it?" asked M'ven, looking between the profile of his mother and the approaching figure. He had his knife out, one mother had made for him, and he snarled with bared teeth in warning, for he was raised well - able to protect himself if so needed.

Positioning herself a little more readily in a nearby light source, the vibrant warm hue creeping up her slender physique like a new dawn, the unimposing blonde (or some might’ve assumed otherwise) held up soft palms in a universal notion of peace and good-will. Of course, it was perfectly understandable for the woman to react in a protective manner, befitting years and years of abscondence and distrust. Each little hint and giveaway, thickening the plot like pumpkin soup.

“A friend …” she said, calmly, leaving the sentence deliberately hanging there, choosing to add an object to its grammatical structure, after assessing the general mood better first. “I have no weapons, and I am sure you could vanquish me without yours - even just the little one.” she gave a slight nod and gentle smile to the teeth baring kid. “You raised him well …” blue eyes fell back on the woman, seemingly his mother, if intel was correct. “… surely you have taught him about honor too.” A little more strength and unwavering determination to her voice this time, as the smile faded into a sentiment of seriousness. Attacking an unarmed individual with a knife or a disruptor was well outside the Klingon understanding of fair, or honor, for that matter.

Least that was what she’d learned and now hoped was applying almost universally. Hence probing into the matter lightly, rather than slapping the woman across the face and gauging the reply.

Jo'reh was cautious as she watched the figure, which indeed seemed to be a human female, and while she didn't remove her hand from her disruptor, she gestured with her open hand towards M'Ven to settle down. The development might not promise another fight, yet clearly, the female wanted something from them.

"Speak then," she said remaining perfectly still where she stood in the light. "What do you want?"

M'Ven obeyed his mother, and sheathed his knife. He noticed she didn't remove her hand from her disruptor however, and so he mimicked her, and kept his hand on the handle while glaring at the female. On the outpost, coinage moved everything, so he expected that she either wanted to buy or sell something.

Even despite the situation being somewhat hostile – likely much more so than the diplomat would’ve admitted to herself – the blonde couldn’t help but let a smile lightly tuck at her plump lips. There was a mignon quality to the kid’s demeanor, how he mirrored the movements and posture of his mother, like a little chick. Her pate almost dipped into veneration of the cutely wrinkled nose and baring teeth – in dire need of proper hygiene. So it was almost a surprise, as the officer was drawn from her focus by the strong, adamant voice of the woman, addressing her probingly.

Defaulting to a more serious stance, in terms of mimic, Samantha nodded briefly, acknowledging the challenge. “I have an offer, for the two of you, that will grant you something I presume you haven’t had for a while: The opportunity to decide your own fate.” she told them, making sure to add a little bit of attitude to the words, indicating that it was a superior offer, to anything they could hope to find in these dark, dirty caves. “I am offering a way off this rock, protection, and a pathway towards reclaiming your honor.” Another small pause, trying to gauge any of the woman’s reactions, as the kid was pretty straightforward by comparison. “It must be disheartening to be on the run, always hiding.”

Jo'reh's eyes narrowed, not liking how this stranger gave off an air of knowing more than they did, suggesting she had any idea what had befallen her in the House of Torg.

"A 'friend' would give a name and quit speaking in riddles, instead stating where she suggest we go, and on who's ship. If you're of the Syndicate, bah! We're more free here, owned by none." She raised her chin towards the female. "So tell me, why should I trust a stranger, who knows more than she should? Makes me wonder which House sent you..."

Oh, M'Ven knew of strangers without honor, and wondered if this might be one of them. He bared his teeth at her for good measure.

Samantha nodded with due consideration, of the woman’s words, taking a moment to tailor her diplomatic schooling towards the situation at hand. “Well, just like a skilled warrior wields his bat’leth with consideration, reserving his stamina, allow me to wield my own sword, with equal deliberation,” the blonde replied, yet as soon as the words had left her lips, dictated by an infallible sense of protocol and procedure, she had realized that yet another “riddle” was likely going over the woman’s head, or right to the end of her patience. But even before she could construct a more readily deductible answer, her pate jerked slightly, at the sharp accusation.

“You think I work for the Syndicate?” Having a moderately hard time not to take this personally, the diplomat quenched al volatile ambers in her chest with a deep gust of considerably fresh air. “This …” she let her delicate hands gently gesture down a quarter of the leather clad curves, “… is just a disguise to reach you without raising suspicions. I come on behalf of Starfleet, to extend to you the offer of safety and new hope. Our intelligence has picked up on a plot to deal with the both of you permanently. The Federation values its relationship with the empire, we do not intend to let cowardly rogues undermine the political system. Nor do we stand by when a mother and her child are being hunted down like Targs. We understand honor too.”

Starfleet? M'Ven wondered, having heard a lot of mixed words about the Federation. Some of the elders thought the Kithomer accords were important, others, not so much. He looked towards his mother, who seemed contemplative. They had been on the run since.... that day when word came. That his father had left on his last voyage and passed through the gates of Sto-vo-kor. It had been difficult before that, indeed, but not like right then. Mother saw bared steel in the faintest of glimmers around her.

"You know a lot, even though you are far from Federation space," said Jo'reh, and the only indication that there was ought else than distrust in her heart was the lack of challenge in her words. "I wonder, how much do you know? Who has spoken, and who do you believe search for us?"

M'Ven wondered what mother was doing, asking those questions... Was she gauging the the merit in the woman's words? Making sure she knew what she spoke of? Perhaps it was a test, to see if she was truly whom she claimed to be. The woman's grandiose claims were just winds and words, lest you could hear there were no lies among them.

Back in the corridor that Sam had come out of, Faye stood, hunched against one of the walls, almost leaning over her communicator as she made her call. There was a crackle of static that put her on edge, and she was barely able to make out the response from Lt. Commander Fisher.  “Understood, Eloi-Danvers. Return to origin point for beam out.” Faye was not one of those Betazoids so gifted that she could sense emotion over great distances, but she was a diplomat trained to dissect every word and nuance out of what someone said. There was  terse quality to the mans tone, as if she had interrupted him in the middle of something critical. Not quite an urgency, but a  definitiveness. Blast she thought, straightening up and turning her attention back to the room below, and the conversation unfolding. She was hoping that Fisher and t'Jellaieu would simply be able to hone in on the signal boosters and extract them. No dice, as her mother was fond of saying. Now the question was how to let Sam know they needed to move, without causing more issues in a delicate situation. She carefully edged forward, toward the stairs down, peering out and trying to judge the situation at hand.

For the moment, staying put seemed to be the best option. Perhaps if I just wiggle my hand...

Noticing M’ven pondering on behalf of the mention of Starfleet, as a side note, Samantha focused on his mother more aptly, as she seemed the bigger threat … and the one harder to convince. “Not THAT far … in the grander scheme of the Empire’s expanse.” she assessed, pursing her lips for a moment, shrugging her shoulders gently. A test was forthcoming, that much was evident, and perfectly justified all the same. “Your brother, Ja’rod, coincidentally … we intercepted his communique revealing your son’s existence. Alongside the threat to his life, and yours, should Torg, son of Kormog, catch up with you. Likely to stake his eternal claim to the House of Duras, alongside a D'k tahg in your chest.” Those should’ve been enough names dropped, and gratuitous violence narrated, to give her statements some merit, in the eyes of a Klingon.

Noticing some covert motion out of the corner of her eye, such has heightened, one quarter Vulcan hearing, picking up on Faye’s presence, the diplomat understood it as a prompt to move along, one way or the other. “I know you have no reason to believe me. Though, if I came to harm you and your son, it would’ve been done. But we have to move, if you want the chance, I am giving you. Now.”

What? thought Jo'reh when she heard the woman, and it dawned on her that whomever this human was, she could be half-right, only not in the fashion she thought. "M'Ven, collect our things. Be quick."

"Aye, Mother."

Her teeth bared, she stepped towards the human as she corrected her. "Ja'rod is not my brother," she stated flatly, angry with how he'd made such a claim after all that had happened. "He courted me before I had M'Ven. While I never claimed it to be the case, he thought he was the father. He would not accept anything else. Ja'rod learned who the real father was when I finally told him, over a month ago, after he died in battle over the Coreless Moon of the Azure Nebula. The crew of a renegade Federation ship bears the blame."

Jo'reh came to a stop before the woman."We have been on the run since. Ja'rod has the ear of my House. Torg wants M'Ven because of his bloodline. Ja'rod merely wants me. If he can't have me, he wants me dead."

Jo’reh instructed her son to gather his things – a large boulder fell off Samantha’s shoulders as she caught herself exhaling an expired breath, burning in her lungs. She nodded, courtly, ultimately looking up at Faye, beckoning her down with a subtle wave.

“We can help you carry, but take only what you can’t replace.” she urged, offering a hand if they so chose to accept it. It was then that the woman went on to explain further the true twists and turns of her family legacy. Frowning slightly, at the gentle ping of pain from trying to wrap her mind around the new information, the blonde shook her head free of such currently pointless trivia.

“Well, if we’re lucky enough, we’ll make both Torg and Ja’rod pay, for their cowardly schemes.”

"Bah, that's rich, coming from the crew of the Theurgy," came a male voice from outside the shadows. "The very crew that had Drex killed."

And out of the darkness stepped Ja'rod and four other Klingons, disruptors drawn.

"Yes, I have given you a chance to avenge his honor, my dear Jo'reh..."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on November 29, 2020, 06:45:39 AM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

[Show/Hide]

The wait was tense. Lillee felt horrendously exposed in their present position, painfully conscious of the fragility of the shuttle against Klingon cannons while she and Fisher had no idea what was happening on the facility. The diplomats could have successfully talked their way into success, and could call the shuttle at any moment to request a beam out. They could be stuck in the fight of their lives, desperately needing help but unable to call for it. They could even both be dead.

It took serious effort for Lillee to make herself relax, to breathe slowly and regularly, to not let the tension and worrying get to her. She had flown plenty of combat missions when such a skill had been required that she'd honed it well, from the recent campaign in the Azure Nebula all the way back to her days in a cloaked warp fighter, stalking Federation starships so close that she could almost reach out and touch them. Nevertheless, that skill didn't make the waiting any more unbearable. It was a minor comfort that Fisher was just as uncomfortable as she was, perhaps more so, given how fond he seemed to be of Commander Rutherford.

Then a sharp alert rang, and Lillee was on it in a flash. "Klingon sensor ping," she said briskly, her hands working her controls rapidly. "I am unable to determine the source. I think the asteroids distorted the ping enough that they didn't detect us this time, but I can't be sure." Educated guesswork, and Lillee knew it. She was no science or operations officer; she could read the data, but interpreting it accurately was simply beyond her skills. She sighed in frustration, biting her lip, before glancing at Fisher.

"Commander, if you want to beam down and help them, I can handle things up here," she said, flicking a strand of blonde hair back behind a pointed ear. "Either way, we're on borrowed time. The next sensor ping could get a read on us, and we have no way of knowing what ships are out there."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on December 03, 2020, 12:25:21 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Brutus @Griff @stardust

Diligently manning the tactical readout, or as he often liked to tease: ‘jockeying a console’ was one of the last things that the Chief Intelligence Officer liked to be doing in the midst of an ongoing crisis. While more than adept at working the computer, and plenty capable of keeping an attentive eye over things as they developed before him, his talents and skills were generally better suited for the field. But considering Rutherford had wanted to keep things a little more low-key with regard to how this mission of theirs proceeded, he had reluctantly accepted her decision to go on in his stead. She was after all, the foremost Diplomat afforded to Theurgy, and her approach would surely keep whatever situation existed on the Outpost from boiling over. Whereas he would stick to the shadows and do his best to blend in, only to take his targets by surprise in succinct fashion, likely without their forewarning or approval in the form of what amounted to little more than an abduction; he imagined that Sam with her silver-tongue was working to elicit a more cooperative reaction from M’Ven and whatever retinue was accompanying him.

At least, that was the hope.

Meanwhile, he and Lillee had their own situation to deal with. At the behest of an alarm klaxon, his console and hers both erupted with a warning of a sensor ping that had emanated from the third-party vessel which had only just dropped from warp a few minutes prior. “Klingon. Awesome! Great!” He remarked in reciprocation of the dread that his Romulan companion likely felt. With hands that danced across the console, he felt the shifting of momentum in the shuttlecraft as Lillee attempted to stick to the obscuring sensor ghosts provided by the planetary debris surrounding them. He once more felt fortunate to have such skill at the Conn, so that he could more directly focus on getting a thorough reading of whatever was happening down on the outpost. And as if on cue, one of the things he was carefully monitoring blinked across the viewer in the form of detected energy spikes in accordance with the discharge of handheld weapons. Something was going on down there. “I’m picking up weapons fire!” he announced for Lillee’s benefit, exhaling deeply out of personal annoyance that he hadn’t objected to the selection of who was going down there.

He had half a mind to take the Romulan up on her offer and began attempting to home in on the general vicinity of the energy spikes for a potential beam in point, but before he could another alarm rang out from his console. “Hang on! That’s an ETB signal! Energizing!” the activation of one of the two Emergency Transporter Beacons that Fisher had given to the pair of Diplomats spoke to the direness of their situation, as he had made it clear that it would alert everyone within the system of the presence of Starfleet technology. As the transporter began to buzz with activity, his attention shifted to the pad at the aft of the fore compartment as a young Klingon boy materialized in an obvious sense of surprise and shock. M’Ven. It had to be, he aptly surmised. More than cognizant of the panicked thoughts that were likely running through the young boy’s mind, and even detecting a sense of aggressive agitation in his face, Fisher, without so much as a second of hesitation grabbed at the Type-2 'dolphin' phaser at his waist, and with the lowest stun setting fired at the poor confused boy, dropping him to the carpeted deck plating in an unconscious state.

“I am not playing babysitter!” He remarked as way of explanation as he hurried over to the unconscious boy and hefted him up.

“I’m going to set him up in one of the bunks, so that he’s not just splayed out on the floor for whoever is next to arrive. Also, that signal will have put everyone on high-alert!” he warned Lillee as he moved into the aft compartment with the boy in his arms, carefully depositing him into the upper cubby and onto the soft mattress. “Sorry kid. I’ll let you take a swing at me when you wake up later on.” It didn’t feel right at all but given the calamity that was sure to unfold as a result of the EBT going off, Fisher knew that neither he, nor Lillee had the benefit of time to attend to a panicked child. Especially a panicked Klingon child. Stepping away, he shook his head in self admonishment. “Exactly how I saw my day going when I woke up this morning!” Once more in the fore compartment, he felt it necessary to vent as he opened the weapons locker and first retrieved a sheathed steel carbide tanto knife, strapping it to his thigh. “Damned Klingons.” He then grabbed a bundled trio of pattern enhancers for their extraction. Slung over one shoulder by a strap, he lastly plucked a Type-3 compression rifle from the rack and tapped at the console just off to the side of the transporter pad, recalling the same coordinates that he had sent Sam and Faye down unto earlier.

“Damned Politicians.” He pocketed the two 'cricket' phasers that had been left behind, and went about programming the rifle’s setting, cycling the charging slide once before looking back to Lillee. “I never said that last one.” With a nod, he hoped she might understand the necessity for discretion with regard to the dynamic she had picked up on earlier. “Lots of luck. Energize!” not exactly specific on whether he was wishing it for or of her, he soon disappeared in a brilliant haze of blue energy.

[ Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ]

“Damn.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on December 04, 2020, 05:28:29 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) & Ens. Eloi-Danvers (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Faye_Lintah_Eloi-Danvers) & M'ven & Ja'rod & Jo'reh | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn: @Griff @Swift @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]


A cold shiver ran down the diplomat’s spine, like the first waterfalls of spring, breaking through from beneath the ice, cascading over the gentle curvature of her skin, as Ja’rod emerged from the shadows. She should’ve known that the male Duras heir had inherited the devious genes of his lineage. A pedigree poisoned with blind ambition. That also, however, had a history of being cut back by Starfleet bravado … well, so be it then. Who was she to contest history repeating itself?

“How dare you cast such baseless lies, you dishonorable BiHnuch!” she barked back at him, blue eyes growing a menacing deep-sea navy, voice almost carrying beyond the immediate arena of the cave. “Hiding in the shadows like a cowardly t’gla, huddled against the bosom of your protective entourage, stalking single, unarmed, human females. Your infamy displayed here today is so grand, it devours both your houses. Why should Jo’reh dishonor herself and join with such a spineless p’tahk?! You disgust me, Ja’rod!”

Pooling together what moisture she could, in the back of her throat, Samantha spat a nasty lump of goo to the dusty floor just beyond Ja’rod’s boots. All the while tasting the acidity in her mouth that accompanied the internal tremble, that churned her innards in a flurry of adrenaline and absolute terror. What on earth had she just started. Clenching her fists, she glared at the five male Klingons, their weapons and physical might. She may have been without a phaser, but that didn’t mean she was unarmed, as her words had cut like a bat’leth. And neither were Jo’reh and M’ven, whom she hoped to be able to sway to her side, by asserting her own honor over that of this slimy wimp, scurrying around sniffing the Klingon female’s behind and marking his territory.

"Lies?" asked Ja'rod and chuckled, stepping around the spit on the ground. His companions remained in the background, disruptors still drawn. "Oh, so you deny belonging to the Theurgy crew? Odd, since they were the ones to get my message. How else could you be here, trying to sway Jo'reh to support Drex's father without telling her which ship you mean to bring her to? Now, you were saying something about 'dishonourable'?"

Jo'reh's priority, however, was her son, whom had yet to emerge with their belongings. She had her teeth bared, hissing under her breath at this situation which had her doubting the Starfleet woman, and yet knowing that Ja'rod would either have her as his own or he would have her dead. So, knowing that Ja'rod was unpredictable and capable of harm, the path of least resistance - and harm to M'Ven - was to indulge his word for the time being, just so that she might get a better opportunity to ensure safety for M'Ven. Let Ja'rod think this profane gesture to win her over was getting some credence...

"Is it true?" she snapped towards the Starfleet woman who had yet to present herself by name, "do you belong to the Theurgy? Speak straight and true, human! More slithering words means I slit your throat myself."

 Of course, the question had merit on it's own, for she had loved Drex for all his faults, and the Theurgy had taken him from her.
 
„LIES!“ Samantha repeated herself boldly – a brave act, merely, but a good one at that. “Like the very bile you exhale with every dank breath. The lies you sent to Chu’vok, to trick Martok like a petulant Ferengi, to gain this woman’s grace … oh what blithe theatrics! The moral high ground you see yourself on is a dusty and barren as the one you drag your dishonorable corpse across. Do not cast judgment from one person to another! If you so seek retribution, to primp your image in the eyes of Jor’eh, face the culprit yourself, without your cowardly entourage, instead of blaming a lone woman from the Federation for your blatant incompetence.”

Chip, chip, chip … piece by piece chipping away at the man’s credibility. All the while noticing subtle hints in the Klingon woman of some silent understanding. The diplomat may have been wrong, given her limited experience with the warrior culture, but she got the idea that Jor’eh was far more inclined towards her plans than those her unwarranted suitor had in mind, if only be process of elimination. That was the tangent she’d want to pursue.

“I am Lieutnenant Commander Samantha Rutherford, I am a diplomatic attaché to Starfleet on Starbase 133.” she clarified towards the Klingon woman, with all the confidence the quasi truth provided, before turning back to Ja’rod for a moment. “Feel free to run any checks against the Federation database you must, though I doubt you have the capability to. If you ever were to stumble across the truth, in your life, it would be by sheer accident.”

Jor’eh’s beef was not with Theurgy. It was yet another instance of reality being blown out of proportion. Theurgy had not sanctioned Drex’s death, quite the opposite, so there was no need for that can of worms to be opened this instance. Once they were back, and bath’lets were to be pulled, she’d point her in the honorable direction to avenge her fallen lover, if she so wished. That was the kind of respect the customs of other cultures deserved, under diplomatic considerations. Tea for another day, though.

“We have a shuttle nearby, and my offer for save passage is more than Pinocchio over there could ever give you. Shuffled along by the strings of his own blind ambition, despicable.” Another human snare at the head of the Klingon posse. “Not that he would let you go anyways … all this empty talk is just a smokescreen to disguise his lack of integrity. Isn’t it, Ja’rod.”
 
It took an effort of will for Faye to neither squeak aloud at the unexpected arrival of J'Rod, of the House of Duras, nor groan at the outburst from her boss, wondering who exactly had taught her how to swear in Klingonese. Honestly, that was probably the right track. If one had a weapon on hand. Such as the cricket phasers we left behind on the shuttle craft. Still, Faye knew as well as Samantha that sometimes a deftly wielded silver tongue was more deadly than a finely honed Bat'leth. In this particular instance, Faye (no great fighter) still would have preferred the Bat'leth. Preferably wielded by someone that knew what they were doing and happened to be watching their back. Not for the first time, Mickalya McGregegor's visage came to mind. Nothing she could do about that though.

Edging back in the shadows instead, admitting to herself that it was rather clever of Sam to note that as far as Starfleet was concerned, she was attached to Starbase 133. Point in favor of the diplomat. Had it been Faye on her own down there, she would have had some fast explaining to do. Again she lamented the lack of a proper hand phaser. From where she stood, able to look down and see them, she could have picked the warriors off in rapid fire. From this angle it would have been hard to miss. But she didn't have a phaser. However... she carefully slid closer in to the potential fracas below, putting to use what she did have on hand.

Ja'rod had bared his teeth at the sound of the female's scything words, and Jo'reh suspected her stubborn suitor might act out in violence. She spoke of General Chu'vok, whom she admitted had been contacted by Ja'rod and it implied that it was true the damn Targ had set this "rescue" in motion. Whether or not he was right in how this Rutherford would hail from the Theurgy seemed to be a case of word-against-word.

Yet for Jo'reh, who had been hiding from both her House and the equally adopted and asinine Duras warrior - in order to protect her son from their viles - she would simply make her judgement call based on what would keep M'Ven safe. Right then, it seemed playing along with Ja'rod's plot was the best option, since the number of disruptors were on Ja'rod's side.

Edging closer to her persistent shadow of the past months, she kept her eyes on the female in open hostility, yet in her peripheral vision, she was weighing her options based on what Ja'rod was doing. At current, he was biting back against the Starfleet woman's accusations.

"Indeed, I am facing you, am I not? Perhaps I should show you the integrity of my word by paying retribution on behalf of Captain Drex and the entire crew of the Hakkarl," he snarled, but then is eyes went to Jo'reh as she stepped closer, and he paced himself somewhat, "even if I would prefer Jo'reh to get the vengeance she's been longing for since he died. M'Ven's father died at the hands of your crew, for we both know you wouldn't have come here from that Starbase. It's too far away for you to get here in mere hours."

Jo'reh, gave Ja'rod a grin. "So you knew I was here?" she asked, realising that if he knew... "Does Torg know as well?"

Ja'rod look towards the Starfleet woman whilst he answered. "Aye. A ship of his will pick us up... but you have all the time in the world to tear this duplicitous Federation harlot apart," he said, and with a sharp-toothed grin, he ran his arm around her waist, pulling her close. "Are you grateful?"

"Release her!" echoed a loud call between the cavernous walls, a battle cry amplified by it's own echo. Jo'reh's eyes widened, for it sounded like Drex.

Suddenly, Ja'rod was screaming in pain, pushing Jo'reh away. Not until she could orient herself did she see M'Ven behind Ja'rod, and the handle of her old mek'leth sticking out of the screaming Duras warrior's lower back.

In retrospect, Jo'reh did not know who fired their disruptor first, but suddenly, as Ja'rod was aiming his against her son, she had her own out, and the cavern came ablaze.

M'Ven looked like a feral demon out of Sto-vo-kor, not fearing to be returned there by Ja'rod, but Jo'reh would not have it. Her first disruptor bolt caught Ja'rod's hand and disruptor, disintegrating former. It earned her taking a shot from one of the other Klingon warriors, pain skewering her shoulder. M'Ven leapt after Ja'rod's dropped disruptor and tried to save his mother, shooting from a prone position. Together, as mother and son, they defended themselves once again.

Only they were only two, and one Klingon was about to open fire against M'Ven... and Jo'reh knew she wasn't quick enough...

And with that final chip, the diplomat unearthed that thick vein of gold beneath the surface, that symbolized Ja’rod’s feeble pride, like a raw nerve. “With four warriors to make up for your lack of honor, sure, you’re facing me. Bravely though, I have to say, as I have dealt with more than five Klingons at once before.” The blonde sold confidently, relying on the mere veracity of her comment in terms of lacking context, for a confidence boost. The second part of his comment she simply ignored … and it was no big feat either, since Jo’reh basically jumped in by her own volition. Her cunning assessment of the odds dripping rom every pore. She was a woman, after all, and woman of most species, were the more opportunistic gender.

Yet just like that the situation escalated. Why she thought that there was any reasoning with a horny Klingon, she didn’t know. Samantha was both annoyed as well as obviously agitated over the developments unfolding like a lightning strike. Within a matter of seconds, two of the Klingons were down, including Ja’rod, revealing a snarling M’ven, who had somehow managed to slip between the leaders back and his entourage unnoticed. Another split second later, Ja’rod was clutching the stump where his hand used to be, in his true, whining form, before going down entirely.

This was not really how Samantha had intended for this to go down but in hindsight coming to a Klingon gunfight with nothing but snide prose was probably not the best approach, no matter Starfleet protocol and personal creed. “For fuck’s sake …” the blonde uttered, instantly regretting the slip of the tongue and hoping her subordinate did not listen as closely, and rather devised an exit strategy on the fly. Leaning as quickly as her leather tube dress allowed, the blonde reached for the handle of a cast iron pot and flung it with added momentum against the most opportune Klingon’s head. The one that was aiming at their chief goal.

Grabbing the child by its shoulder the commander slipped one of the emergency transporter beacons into his neckline, activating the same, to send an unmistakable signal to the shuttle, alongside whatever weapon’s fire they could've registered as well – and had hopefully closed in upon already. Within seconds, the kid was gone in a flurry of glowing white flakes, dropping his disruptor as part of the transporter’s safety protocol. Picking it up swiftly, shooting the stumbling warrior with the pot-imprint in the chest, the woman positioned herself alongside Jo’reh, pointing it at the remaining Klingons. And suddenly a stalemate had ensued.

“Now, maybe we can talk this over, again.” she cleared her throat, as well as the air in the now smoke and dust filled cavern. But really, she already knew that neither Ja’rod nor any of his posse were in any position to demand anything, at this point. The diplomat was just buying time. All the while casually throwing Jo’reh the second transport enhancer, with her free hand.

"Qapla’..." snarled Jo'reh in subdued triumph at the the Starfleet woman's side, trading glares with Ja'rod where he sat on his knees, clutching his stump. She had already dispatched the Klingon that had almost killed her son, and before Rutherford had given her the same transporter device that she'd given M'Ven, she hadn't been entirely convinced the woman hadn't whisked him away from her.

Now, as she faced Jo'reh and the last standing warrior of his, she was confident she could bring things to an end. She had no way of knowing what mettle Rutherford had, but at least she'd saved M'Ven's life. "Stand, Ja'rod."

Glaring daggers still, the warrior of Duras decent slowly got to his feet, while his last remaining companion looked uncertain as to whom he might shoot first between Rutherford and Jo'reh, knowing that Ja'rod fancied her but deemed the Starfleet woman a lesser threat. Jo'reh decided that she didn't want to wait for him to make the call.  So, she raised her disruptor against Ja'rod, saw the hesitation, and then switched to shooting the nameless Klingon instead - her bolt going right past Ja'rod's head and into the other Klingon's face.

"jagh yIbuStaH!" screamed Ja'rod, Concentrate on the enemy! being clearly directed at her. Jo'reh, however, knew from Rutherford's actions whom the real enemy was.

"Not only have you not taken my 'no' for an answer, nor set the entirety of House Torg after me because I vexed you, telling them the truth about M'Ven," she snarled at the Targ that had yet to rise from his knees, "you just tried to kill him as well. Do you really think you'd have me all to yourself if you did? You are the greatest fool I have ever known, and you were never a match to Drex."

Whatever plan Faye had been concocting in the back of her mind ground to an abrupt halt the moment the warrior child they had come to save proved himself to be more of a warrior than a child. Or well, a pig headed Klingon who rushed into things, than a strategist. Though, points to the vengeful tyke for getting a good, solid blow in when the enemy - as she assumed he saw the Duras Scion - was distracted. Faye didn't wnat to think about how much a blade like that would hurt in her back. She already was working hard to reinforce her perception of the mans painful, anaquished cries and broiling anger. Swallowing as the shots started to fire, she hunkered down and triggered her comm. "Lillee if your listening its all gone to shit here and the natives are trying to kill each other. Any help would be appreciated! I'm....oh hell. Going to try and tag our friends. Hurry."

But instead of killing the channel she left it open, and watched, eyes wide, as the boy vanished in a swirl of familiar blue white lights. Well, that was good news. The cavalry was nearby. Sure, fine, she could work with that. The trick would be to get the other woman out. Frowning, Faye couldn't' see a away to get to Jo'reh without getting gunned down...but she could cause a distraction. The stray disruptor bolts had done a number on the ledge she was on, and she saw a large chunk of debris just propped up at the edge. "Here goes nothing," she thought as she wedged herself in against the wall, planted her feet against what amounted to a boulder of rock and deruainum alloy, and pushed as had as she could manage...shifting the rock and sending it tumbling toward Ja'rod and what was left of his assault party.

Sadly, at this point, with a blade wound in his back and a hand missing, Ja’rod wasn’t really in the talking mood anymore. Which didn’t stop Jo’reh from laying into him with what seemed like years and years of growing resentment. She could understand that … something women of both races seemed to share: the capacity to hold a grudge. Settling into an almost sense of complacency, given the moderate amount of peace following that unexpected skirmish, the diplomats heart managed to slow down into a more agreeable pace. But that notion was rather short-lived.

With a rather sudden thud, both remaining Klingons were struck down by a large, beige boulder, accompanied by the gut-wrenching sound of bones cracking and skin splitting open. A few stray splatters of blood dipping the two women into a gentle shower of warm summer rain … although far more disgusting. Heart revving like a combustion engine, sending another injection of adrenaline into the blonde’s stiffening muscles, another moment of silence ensued, as the dust settled. Leaving nothing but a sentiment of absolution behind.

“Well … that would conclude this portion of the talks.” She mumbled sarcastically, using a moniker normally reserved for negotiations postponed. Though this time seemingly indefinitely. Since, however, she had not much heart to discuss the whole incident further, down here in the caves, while Jo’reh sure had many a question, she found it more conducive to make the Klingon woman the shuttle crew’s problem. Pinning the last of their two emergency transporter beacons on her, a flurry of white light white light, with a gentle blue tint, washed over the commander, and as soon as it had subsided, she hurried up the rickety stairs as quick as her tight dress allowed.

“Let’s hope we’ll be able to beam out without any enhancers.” she said to Faye, her voice carrying across the quickly closing distance between them. “Good job on the rock, I thought this ordeal would never end.” she added, while finally arriving at the Ensign’s side, voice slightly out of breath, though a covertly chipper ring to the slightly mocking statement. “I hope you remember the way back.”

Stepping out from the shadows, Faye was half bent over, rubbing her hip. She looked down over the ledge again, to see Samantha standing up, surrounded by the mess of what had just happened. The blonde was soon at her side and Faye had turned her back on the whole scene, her face taking on a slightly green cast. "Yes well....as long as I don't lose my lunch we'll be fine. That's certainly the first time I've solved a problem by throwing a rock at it. Or kicking it in this case." Her stomach churned a bit. Just because it was necessary didn't mean it wasn't...disgustingly messy. She'd never had to outright kill someone like that before. At least, not knowingly.

Taking a few deep breaths - far enough away not to smell the gore - the Betazoid reoriented herself. Pursing her lips, she gestured back down the corridor. "That way. Pretty sure," she started off, trying to sound confident, to reassert herself as the one that was supposed to look like she was in charge. A small smile passed her lips as she added, "How do you think Mommy and Junior are going to react to Lillee?"

Following the Ensign with a gentle smile, dipped pate soon turned somber, at the prospect of the two Klingons being aboard the shuttle without diplomatic supervision. Worst of all, with a Romulan and a spook, instead. “Well, I think the most tedious part is yet to come … and that will be our flight back.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on December 08, 2020, 04:24:53 PM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

[Show/Hide]

When the emergency beam-out signal came from the away team, Lillee felt her blood burn as she felt it all begin, that insane chaos of battle. Knowing that their position would be betrayed by the emergency signal and forthcoming beam-out, she spent a few seconds hurriedly powering up the shuttle's systems in preparation to run for their lives. She had only just finished when Fisher activated the transporter, and rather than one of the two women who had left the shuttle earlier, the figure that appeared was smaller...a boy.

A Klingon boy.

The boy's eyes snapped to Lillee first, her pointed ears and cranial ridges, and she tensed as he recognised her for what she was. She saw the fear and fury of betrayal in the boy's eyes, saw his knees bend as if to attack, only for Fisher's phaser to promptly send him to the transporter pad like a sack of potatoes.

"Good!" Lillee remarked wryly back at Fisher, grateful to not have to deal with such a mess. She hated seeing a child stunned like that, but...well, he was a Klingon boy. Truly, who cared?

At Fisher's reminder that their position was compromised, Lillee nodded, turning back to her controls, and at her command, the shuttle zoomed out of the gap between the asteroids like a rocket, emerging into the relatively open space around the mining facility. Lillee pulsed her own sensors, hoping to catch the foul Klingons who were surely hunting them, but now the asteroids worked against them, occluding the Klingons.

Lillee was considering trying to go dark again back in the asteroid field when an alarm flashed on her console, but sensors were unnecessary; Lillee could see the cursed Klingon ship up ahead, approaching from the other side of the station! An emerald bird-of-prey, B'Rel-class, its gun-wings angled down in combat mode, prevented from opening fire only by the large station that was inbetween them. Lillee cursed, spinning the shuttle around and flying back into the cover of the asteroids, but there was no hiding now with a bird-of-prey on their tail. With a precise vector for their sensors, the Klingons would be able to detect them easily, sensor distortion or no.

Lillee glanced back as Fisher returned to the cockpit, positively festooned with weapons and other equipment and swearing the entire time. At his last curse about politicians and the quick backtrack that came after, Lillee turned back and smirked.

"It never happened." she agreed. "Be swift, Commander!" Without pause, she activated the transporter, sending Fisher away in a whirl of blue sparks. She had barely finished the beam-out sequence when the computer signalled a warning as it detected a weapons lock. Cursing, Lillee flew the shuttle into a wild evasive maneuver, coming about in a loop back towards the station, asteroids covering her from the relatively clumsy Klingon bird-of-prey. The warship came about, racing after the shuttle with intent, flying through the dense asteroids with the same recklessness as Lillee.

The comms came alive. "Federation shuttle! In the name of the Klingon Empire, you are commanded to stand down and surrender or be destroyed!"

Lillee scoffed, tapping the button to reply even as she accelerated madly, her heat pounding with the exhilaration of battle. "Do not threaten that which you cannot do, han'mhai!" she shouted back, only to wince at using a rihannsu curse. The diplomats would skin her alive for that. Cutting off the comms to avoid any further errors, Lillee focused on her flying. With the need to keep shields down so that the others could beam back aboard, and a need to stay near the station, fancy flying was the only thing keeping her out of the B'Rel's gunsights. A single well-aimed shot would smash the shuttle's engines into useless wreckage and doom the entire team. The bird-of-prey was holding its fire, waiting for that perfect angle, that perfect weapons lock, where they could be assured of disabling the shuttle, not destroying it.

The shuttle was like an annoying gnat, perennially avoiding its pursuer by desperate flying through the asteroids, but Lillee's room to maneuver was dwindling rapidly as the bird-of-prey inexorably came closer and closer, pinning her in towards the station. The two craft danced madly, the Klingon ship trying to gain the advantage as Lillee slipped out of trouble again and again. Occupied in her flying, Lillee barely noticed when the ETB signal came again, and she activated the transporter almost without thinking as she skimmed over the surface of an asteroid, glancing back to see who it was.

Not Fisher, not Rutherford, not Danvers, but a Klingon woman, her shoulder a scorched mess. Oh Elements curse me, what a mess, Lillee thought. She saw the Klingon's fury at seeing a Romulan at the controls and Lillee pre-empted the inevitable attack. "Peace, I am Starfleet!" she shouted, glancing back forward for a moment as she zipped the shuttle behind an asteroid, then looked back at the woman. "The boy is aft on a bunk! Secure him and yourself there now!"



rihannsu: Romulan
han'mhai: literally translates to "little penis-man"
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Auctor Lucan on December 15, 2020, 03:28:32 PM
[ Jo'reh | Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn: @Griff @Swift @Auctor Lucan

Her braids whipping about her head as she looked around herself, Jo'reh had only eyes for her child, whom were nowhere to be found.

The pointy ears of a Romulan or a Vulcan was at the helm of the shuttle she found herself on, without any of her belongings and unsure whether her child had been taken from her after all. The blonde human with the skimpy outfit had left her bereft of all her supplies, which told her quite a lot about how uncaring she truly was towards her and her child. It suggested that they had a very personal stake in seeing M'Ven brought to the care of Starfleet, and she felt her knuckles crack in ire. She'd lost her dear and trusted disruptor, again at the courtesy of these 'saviours', but that made her no less lethal. She bared her teeth at the back of the pilot and hissed loudly, getting a reaction and some answers from her. It only marginally lessened her anger.

It was apparent, also, from the viewscreen in front of the pilot that House Torg had arrived, and they were trying to get away, even if they had at least two officers down at the outpost. She urged herself to be grateful that there was a marginal chance at getting away from House Torg, since she'd had little chance of that on the outpost, and decided to give the pilot the benefit of the doubt for the time being instead of twisting her head off. She said naught to her, however, heading to the aft compartments to find M'Ven.

And she found him unconscious.

Whatever embers remained of her anger reignited then, by the scent of M'Ven having been hit by a directed nadion particle beam - stunned by a Starfleet phaser - making her bare her teeth. She put her hand on her son's forehead, and then she returned to the cockpit of the shuttle in full stride. At least she had her dagger, and she pulled it with a loud metallic sound.

"Set a course out of the system now, or you die and I take the helm in your stead," she snarled and walked up behind the Romulan, about to put her sharpened steel against her throat in order to make her comply.

That's when she saw it. The designation of the shuttle, visible in the corner of one of the LCARS screens.

NX-79854
U.S.S. THEURGY

Ja'rod was a fool, but it seems he didn't lie, she thought, eyes widening as the realised that the woman in the seat in front of her belonged to the crew that killed Drex - taking away M'Ven's father. The blonde woman had lied in order to get her and M'Ven aboard the shuttle. She might as well kill the Romulan regardless if she complied, and hoped that House Torg would do what she couldn't to the blonde human when the shuttle left the system and Transporter range.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on December 21, 2020, 06:04:03 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Brutus @Griff @stardust

As he actuated the power toggle on the control cuff of the third of three transporter pattern enhancers, Fisher sighed with no minor sense of annoyance evident in the expression on his face. The trio of meter-length cylinders supported by extended legs were glowing with a bluish haze as they homed in on the requisite signal that the Rosalind Franklin was constantly emitting, at least as long as said shuttlecraft was still within range, and or still operational. He could only imagine the kind of situation that his Romulan companion was dealing with back aboard, trying to avoid a direct engagement with the Klingon ship that they had detected on an intercept course with the outpost, no doubt encroaching upon Lillee in haste. It was a situation that would have been far more tenuous, had he left the young panicked and agitated Klingon boy conscious and unattended to. He hadn’t exactly liked shooting a child, even if he had done so with the lowest possible setting on his phaser. But it had to be done. There was simply no way that he, or Lillee could afford to play babysitter in the midst of an ongoing crisis. Nor were there any guarantees that someone else might soon materialize, who could look after the stricken boy, keeping him from causing any issues or interference.

Reaching for his tricorder, he flipped it on and linked it into the pattern enhancers as he began scanning to acquire a better lock-on. “Ugh! Where’s a transporter jockey when you need one?!” He griped aloud as he began modulating the attuned frequency with no real notion of skill. Fisher’s abilities were generally reserved for those of clandestine, and or more violent inclinations. Engineering was and always had been his short-coming. He knew enough to get by but was often frustrated with impatience, while others found things to be simple and easy. For an instant, the pattern enhancers blinked to action as their signature beams connected in formation of a triangle as he managed to find a connection, but just as quickly the signal was lost, and the beams disappeared once more. “C’mon man! Please!?” he pleaded as he poked at the tricorder some more, aware of the fact that any minute the two-woman away team might manage to find their way back to this exact location, possibly even under attack. He needed to be ready to beam them out in a hurry and was counting on the pattern enhancers to make up for the duranium shadowing caused by the deposits hidden within asteroid fragment.

“No. That’s not the trick. Maybe...” he whispered to himself as he played with the handheld computer.

“There we go!” Exhaling deeply, Fisher felt an obvious sense of relief as the signal was re-established thanks to an auto-modulation sequencing he had programmed into the tricorder, allowing it to automatically maintain the connection without his clumsy input. The beams were also soon reconnected, once again forming a brilliant triangle pattern, and the spy set the tricorder down onto a nearby rock so as to let it do it’s thing. “Alright. Step one complete: Exfiltration secured. Step two pending: Recover assets.” Unslinging his compression rifle from behind his back, he grasped it with readied intent before tapping at the combadge on his chest; he needed to at least attempt an apprise Lillee of his situation. “Fisher to Rosalind Franklin. Transporter signal lock is set but won’t last forever. Any word on the away team from your end?” He wasn’t sure how much of his signal would get through to Lillee, but he knew he didn’t have the time to necessarily sit around and wait for it to come to him. Instead, he began taking steps up the length of the rough-hewn tunnel in the direction of the outposts epicenter. If he was going to find Sam or Faye, it would likely be somewhere in that general vicinity, at least that was the operation assumption he was making.

“Going to make a lot of friends looking like this.” He reasoned as he stopped, aware of the Starfleet uniform he was still wearing. At this point though, subterfuge was all but a moot point, as the EBT signal might as well have been Rutherford and Eloi-Danvers planting a literal Federation Flag in the middle of the market for everyone to see.

“I wonder how many more people I’m going to have to shoot in order to get out of here today.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on December 30, 2020, 10:55:43 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn: @Griff @Swift @Brutus @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]


The track back to the shuttle was a quiet one, for better or worse. Whatever was going on outside the rocky caverns had everyone in enough of a fray to crawl back into their individual holes like the roaches they were. And as much as her professional etiquette demanded, Samantha didn’t know what encouraging thing to say to Faye, in reference to their mission. Because her personal pride also would’ve demanded for it to be some sort of truth, and such an intricate combination just simply wasn’t available at the time. They had achieved their desired conclusion – at least to this chapter of the grander plan – of bringing M’ven and as a secondary goal Jo’reh back to the shuttle alive. But things had not gone down as smoothly as the blonde had hoped for, prayed for, at the altar of her presumption and vanity. There would be a time and place for her to spin this into an irrevocable, undebatable success under the guise of ends justifying means – or more diplomatically -ends covering up for the means. But that time wouldn’t be until they were both off this rock in one piece as well.

So she let Faye do her work, quietly, while at the same time trying to remember her way back too. Every now and then recognizing a corner or a special sculpture of jagged and hastily welded support beams. The main marketplace was certainly a beacon, though woefully deserted and ominous, as they quickly shuffled through, nothing but distant beats of weapons fire and the dry rustling of their soles against the dusty stone. Another few corridors and caves that were more distant in her memory, as they had become respective to their physical position in all this as well. Approaching a white glow around one of the last bends, it seemed, the Commander drew reassurance from the Ensign’s levity, that they were closing in on the beam-in point. A reassurance that was soon met with a familiar male voice, muffled around an outcrop of rock. Showing pale palms at level of her midriff as a token of submission and no ill-intent, the two officers stepped into the final secluded hallway. At least one of them giving the operative an expression of relief that – for a moment – went beyond that of professional etiquette. That was until the entire setup sank in. The uniform, the pattern enhancers, the freaking science lab he had brought over.

After a mere second of double-taking the display and not intent on wasting anymore time, while the mission could still end in failure, if the shuttle with the Klingon targets blew up, the diplomat made her way over to the rocky sidewall and its support structure, unearthing the hidden tricorder from the rocks. “Couldn’t find a neon Starfleet sign, I reckon.” the blonde muttered under her breath, haphazardly brushing ochre dust from the silver box. Remotely aware of how inappropriate her critique was. Ironically never as aware as how her feelings were scraping away at that air of duty, she held so dear. Maybe that was the distinction though, right there. She cared more about those notions that made her look less masterful of her vices and talents than what simply and utterly made her look like a bitch. She could deal with being considered a bitch. Certainly better than with being considered unprofessional. Because in summary, that distinction of values, had aided her exceptionally well in her career. And her career had basically been her life for the past eight years. And it was getting exceedingly harder and harder to argue with that logic. Especially for a one fourth Vulcan.

“You’ve established a lock?” Samantha asked rather rhetorically, looking at Fisher with expectantly raised brows. A distinct nod to her heritage. Deliberately omitting the ‘… a child could’ve with these.’ from her query. By the signals on the pattern enhancers one could easily deduct that a connection had been made and was – currently – holding. Though the gentle flutter in brightness was a sure-fire urge for haste. Blue eyes subsequently fell to his satchel, its contents then becoming as aware as her general understanding on how the man operated. Nonchalantly digging her hand into it she pulled forth one of the Type-1 phasers that had been intended to come to the asteroid base in the first place. So, it seemed only fitting now that one would stay behind. Pulling it closer, to enter a specific sequence of button presses, the device was set to overload in a flash. She wouldn’t leave any physical evidence behind, if she already couldn’t do anything about the empirical ones. Placing it down by one of the pattern enhancers, the diplomat ushered her subordinate into the circle that barely held enough space for the three of them. Giving Fisher the final honors to transport them back with a gentle look, that may have conveyed some of the gratitude that currently being held at bay by whatever sense of drama her human gender warranted. Then again, she wasn’t entirely human.

“Rather sooner than later, would be good.” the blonde couldn’t help but remark dryly, at the pitch increasing hiss of the phaser on the floor.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on January 07, 2021, 03:21:07 AM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

[Show/Hide]

The pilot of the Klingon bird-of-prey wasn't Lillee's equal, but as the minutes passed, Lillee was gaining a new appreciation for the unknown Klingon's abilities. They were learning far too quickly for her comfort, adapting their maneuvers, and Lillee was very nearly out of options. She still waited for the emergency transporter beacons of the away team, who surely had to coming soon, but there was a limit to how long she could wait.

When was that time? She had the Klingon boy, after all. The mission was complete, with the bonus of the boy's mother as well. Lillee could zoom out of the asteroid field, jump to warp, hail the Theurgy and get home safe. The sacrifice of three officers for such a mission was likely an acceptable loss. The three of them would probably be fine, at any rate. Fisher was trained for such things, while he and Rutherford were Starfleet, with all the protections that entailed. Danvers...could manage.

The justfications rolled through Lillee's mind, warring with a deep reluctance to abandon comrades. If this were a Romulan mission, she'd have already left. Instead, Lillee was left to judge for that crucial balancing point between leaving too soon and waiting too long, all with the threat of a Klingon brig over her head. She knew full well what happened to Romulans in Klingon prisons.

Distracted with her thoughts, and flying the shuttle on the razor's edge, Lillee didn't notice the Klingon woman until the blade was at her throat. She tensed, hissing in reaction, her body freezing. The temporary distraction was all that was needed for the bird-of-prey to take advantage, disruptor fire lancing out at the shuttle. The aim was just slightly off, the emerald fire only glancing the craft, but the shots were enough to chip away at the shields before Lillee regained control and continued evasive maneuvers.

"Stupid beast! Kill me and you won't make it out of this asteroid field, kling'haan!" Lillee replied furiously, keeping her eyes forward. "I am trying to save you and your child, and I know you don't want to be taken by them any more than I do. Sit down, shut up and let my fly or none of us will make it out!"

The shuttle rocked again under fire, this time more serious. Ducking behind a large asteroid, granting a few moments respite, Lillee turned in her seat and glared at the stranger with clear loathing in her blue eyes. "This is my shuttle, kling'haan, and I have decided that we wait for as long as is reasonable for my crewmates. You have no choice in this if you wish to protect yourself and your boy, so stop fighting me while we protect you."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on January 11, 2021, 09:45:59 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Brutus @Griff @stardust

There had been more than a handful of occasions in his decidedly classified past, when the spy had found it necessary to storm an active enemy stronghold, or task location with weapons drawn and at the ready. Occasions when he had known that a full-on firefight would ensue, and any ideas or illusions to the concept of a covert infiltration were all but null and void. Occasions like this one, when the alarms had already gone off, and everyone knew something was about to go down. Hence why he had come prepared to fight it out with the entirety of the outpost if necessary; armed with a compression rifle, grenades, and other weapons which would have made such a ludicrous task slightly more tolerable, if not outright achievable. After all, it was a foolish man who stood naked at the edge of a vicious blizzard as wind gales blew on and who declined to accept the benefit of a coat and boots, resigning themselves to a fate of frostbite and hypothermia. No, he wasn’t so prideful as to think that his considerable skills as an infiltration specialist would serve him in the here and now, the way some other Officers might have bet on their skills as Diplomats to serve them in a den of deceit and danger. You simply had to assess the facts of the situation which loomed before you, accept them, and rather than pretend that you could change or alter them to fit your needs and or abilities, outfit yourself with whatever you could which would make the situation tenable. You simply needed to accept the damned coat and boots.

You simply needed to accept the damned phaser.

Yet here he was now, about to be off on some asinine endeavor to recover two stubborn Starfleet Officers who had stirred up a whole hornets nest of a situation in their attempt to recover the prize. “Whatever. Not like my career has any legs left to it anyway. Came half-way across Federation territory to join with a rogue Starship in its suicide mission to uncover and dissuade the annihilation of Galactic Civilization.” The sentence felt as ridiculous to say as it did to think, yet he cared not for whatever consequences would be rendered unto him as he looked to round the first corner of the corridor.

“Well... that’s convenient.” He remarked as approaching him were said two stubborn Starfleet Officers, one of whom curried a particular visage of favor for him; one in which he mirrored for the faintest of moments before protocol dictated its dismissal. Clearing his throat after being teased for his set-up, he perched an eyebrow slightly higher than it’s companion out of a minor annoyance that his work was being double-checked and second-guessed. “Yes, Ma’am. Lock is established, and your chariot awaits.” He peered at Faye with a bit of a wry smirk, before backing down the corridor to where the trio of transporter beam enhancers were active and synced up with their signature connect blue beams. He imagined he might pay for the teasing remark later on but considering the manner in which their little mission had unfolded, he felt it warranted. Besides, Rutherford would likely need to fall in line behind a number of others who had a bit of a bone to pick with him, given the fact that he’d rather unceremoniously shot the subject of their mission. Blinking at the realization that he’d need to explain that to the pair of them, assuming that the second ETB had been used for M’Ven’s mother, Fisher cleared his throat as he fell in position to the right of Eloi-Danvers, and to the aft of his Diplomatic counterpart.

Tapping the combadge on his chest, Fisher raised the shuttlecraft’s automatic transport system. There was a momentary delay, as he imagined there would be while the computer system finalized lock-on. So, as the phaser that Sam had set to overload continued to whine with increasing pitch, he felt it an opportune moment to appraise them of the situation awaiting them back on the shuttle. “Incidentally... about M’ven....”

Yet before he could elaborate further, the three Officers began to dematerialize in a haze of swirling blue light.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Auctor Lucan on January 14, 2021, 09:32:46 PM
[ Jo'reh | Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn: @Griff @Swift

With her fury equal to the Romulan's, Jo'reh bared her teeth at her with just a glance towards the Torg ships out there.

"Did you not hear me? Leave the outpost behind or you die!" she growled, and she had her bared steel against the woman's neck. With jus a flick of her wrist, the Starfleet woman would be bleeing out on the deck. Her eyes narrowing, she stalled the cold stroke of her weapon merely to lay her accusation unto the officer at the helm. "You shot my child, and your crew murdered his father!"

With another glance towards the Torg ships, she saw how they circled off for another pass against their current trajectory. Time was short, and she would have to master the helm of the Starfleet vessel in short order if she were to kill the Romulan right away...

She did have time for questions, and she asked them after wrapping her fingers around the collar of the woman's uniform - keeping her in place and pulling her firmly against the edge of her weapon. Leaning in, she snarled her queries into her face. "The blonde woman, she tried to fool me, saying you come from some starbase, and I ask to what purpose? For oh, I know of this renegade crew, that defected to your people. In fact, with you being here - a Romulan - I see it now. The Praetor means to use my child for ransom in the war to come! Is that it? Speak!"

The sound of the shuttle's transporter came then, and Jo'reh snarled, wrenching the Romulan woman around so that she had her as a pointy-eared shield between herself and the ones who came aboard. The Torg ships were yet to circle around for the next volley, so Jo'reh had a couple of moments still. She glared at the three figures across the Romulan's shoulder, with her steel firmly pressed against her jugular, and she said her piece. "You lied, Theurgy vermin, you murdered Drex at the Coreless Moon! And you shot my son! I know you mean to deliver us to the Praetor, you traitors! Deny it!"

To the Romulan, she hissed her demand. "Tell your computer to set a course and go to warp. Now!"
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on January 14, 2021, 10:55:20 PM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

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Lillee's blood boiled at hearing that the Klingon had been lied to. No wonder the filthy bitch had reacted so violently, especially upon seeing a Romulan at the helm. By the Elements, what insanity had happened down on that station!? The cold steel began to cut with a sharp pain into Lillee's throat, a trickle of green blood slipping down her neck and into her uniform. The Klingon's firm grip left Lillee no options, no way to struggle without the blade cutting deep into her throat; she had no weapons, no real training for such a thing, but as frightened as she was, the fear just made fed Lillee's rising fury, a building insatiable desire to disarm the stupid beast and keep punching until there was nothing left to punch.

A new alarm sounded from the console heralding the incoming transport of three signatures. Lillee didn't have time to react before she was spun around in her chair as a living shield, glaring at the away team as they materialised on the transporter pad. They looked like a mess, but Lillee was all out of sympathy, profoundly regretting not leaving sooner when she'd had the chance. Her hands clenched into fists, desperate to start hitting something.

"If we go to warp from here, they will catch us in twenty minutes," Lillee said furiously, her eyes fixed on the away team, praying that they could save her. "We need to break sensor contact, distort our ion trail behind one of these rocks then jump, and the computer can't do that without me." Reacting impulsively, she added "Computer, evasive pattern gamma around the largest asteroids within five thousand kilometers." A relatively simple evasive pattern, one far less effective than how Lillee had been flying so far, but she hoped it was sufficiently different to give the Klingons pause, if only for a few seconds.

"Think, you filthy kling'haan," Lillee began angrily, glaring at Commander Rutherford and hoping that the diplomat could fix the mess they were in. "If we were truly working with the Star Empire, I wouldn't be in a Starfleet uniform, and we wouldn't be in this shuttle. We'd be in a Romulan ship with a cloaking device, already on our way out of here! I know what it is to fear for your babe, but your stupidity is just putting him in more danger!"
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on January 18, 2021, 09:26:42 PM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | Twisting paths|  Former Durainium Mining Facility] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Griff @stardust @Swift 
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Samantha wasn't the only one making fervent prayers, though Faye's were more of a practical nature and not offered up to any one particular place or deity. At the moment she wanted to get the hell off this rock, in one piece, and preferably without voiding the contents of her stomach. Smashing Ja'rod has been an unfortunate, but necessary action; certainly not a diplomatic solution, but one that had done the need at the time. Faye was fairly certain however that this was the first time she had knowingly killed someone, in the line of duty or otherwise, and really, that wasn't sitting well with her. She was just grateful that, at the time, her mental walls had come slamming down before the rock had done exactly that to the belligerent Klingons, and she had not suffered the mental backwash of feeling their deaths.

Rutherfords worry was bad enough.

Rather than get lost down that rabbit hole, Faye focused on trying to remember the way back out of the cavern in which they had found the potential house scion and his mother. She had a general notion of where they needed to go but the could only hope her memory held out on the specifics. It wasn't as if they had caused a massive riot in the middle of a shopping district and been spun about a few times in the resulting tumult, right?

Oops, she thought, with the ghost of a self-deprecating smile flickering over her features. The fact that the market had all but cleared out, and the distant sounds of fighting still filtered down tugged at her guilt somewhat, but like the blonde, Faye was willing to scamper through swiftly. All the same, as they left it past them, Faye muttered, "Well I think we're out of the frying pan."

Soon ahead of them, Faye felt the tugging of a familiar presence and saw glow bouncing off of the rocks. Like her superior, she held her hands out, and muttered something light hearted about following the light as they rounded the corner. Faye was happy to see the ships Intel Chief, and more so, the pattern enhancers that were sure to secure their release. She felt a bubbly sensation in her boss that soured fast enough for Faye to get a bout of mental whiplash, shutting her mouth with an audible click and taking a step back as Rutherford stepped toward Fisher with an acerbic greeting. Biting her lower lip, Faye answered Fishers smile with a small one of her own, and a considerably less tart greeting of, "Fancy meeting you here."

Deciding that there was far too much to unpack between the two Lieutenant Commanders for one lowly Ensign with a nasty habit of sticking her nose where it didn't belong, Faye instead stuck her head back down the way they came, keeping an eye out for pursuit and wondering if 'mom and dad' were going to need a room to themselves to work things out. Shouting match or something else, she wasn't sure what, but she wasn't sure if she wanted a ring side seat.  A trickle of dread ran down Faye's neck as her boss pulled out a familiar type one cricket phaser and she muttered a soft, "Oh bollocks," under her breath as she scampered into the vibrant triangle of light between the enhancer pylons.

Thankfully, the shuttle craft swept them away just before the ever-increasing whine of a phaser overload gave way to the massive detonation when the devices pre firing chamber passed the last of its tolerances, bathing the entire alcove in an orange white light of pure destruction, leaving no trace of their presence behind, and rather enlarging the small nook into a proper cavern.

[Transporter Pad | Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin]

Blinking her coal black eyes rapidly as the blue white motes of the transporter faded, the junior diplomat found herself looking into what appeared to be negotiations conducted on a razors edge. Or a d'k tahg, as it were. A tad less diplomatic than she should be, considering it was her bosses job to berate the CIO and not hers, Faye nonetheless muttered, "Whatever this is about I'm guessing its your fault," back to the male Lt. Commander. Sucking in a deep breath, she tried to gain a fix on the situation at hand. There was a distressing lack of giant rocks for her to deploy so she wasn't sure how much use she was going to be.

Letting out a low whistle at the outburst from Lillee, Faye raised her hands just a bit. "You might want to listen to her," she suggested, pointing back at the Romulan. "She is way to pissed off at us to come up with a lie right now, and I don't think anyone here want's to be turned to atoms. Which...that ship is probably going to do when they realized I turned Ja'rod into a Klingon pancake. You're welcome for that, by the way," she added, flashing a grin at Jo'reh and trying to keep the contents of lunch in her stomach as she recalled, vividly, the wet splurt and sickening crack of flesh and bone collapsing under a bolder.

"How about you stab everyone else," she flicked a finger back at Rutherford and Fisher, not that she imagined anyone was going to let that happen, "After we get away? Take someone hostage who doesn't have to fly the damn ship? Deal with bruised egos and all later? Hmm?" Swallowing, she dredged up an old Klingon proverb she'd heard used before.

"meQtaHbogh qachDaq Suv qoH neH*. You don't strike me as a fool, Jo'reh, daughter of Torg."



OOC: Translation: Only a fool fights in a house that continues to burn.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on January 19, 2021, 11:24:49 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn: @Griff @Swift @Brutus @Auctor Lucan
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The growing crescendo of energy buildup served almost like a musical score to the heightening tension ahead of an uncertain beam out. Even taking the possibility out of the equation that Andrew might’ve made a wrong calculation, or that an asteroid was passing through the transporter beam right that moment, chances of rematerializing at the desired designation and without an arm growing out of one’s head, were entirely unpredictable. So adding to the general discomfort of having one’s atoms pried apart, condensed in a data stream and reassembled upon arrival, came a distinct sense of void in Samantha’s chest, that could only be labeled as moderate anxiety. For all she knew, the Franklin wasn’t event there anymore - nothing but a trail of glimmer in space. Yet the most peculiar sentiment had always been, how a simple thought seemed to transcend through the entire process uninterrupted, as if the conscience traveled on a different trajectory. The blond found herself turning her head, as matter turned into energy, watching Andrew’s face dissolve into a flurry of glowing snow, like an energy blizzard, only to moment’s later find it still attached to the same fit body as they came back into existence on the shuttle’s transporter pad. The only thing left behind in the void of space being the anxiety, as if filtered from the pattern buffer upon arrival.

Blue ponds drifting to the scene unfolding, just as they came back to sentience, thought and emotions reuniting with their physical presence, the diplomat was honestly unmotivated to even say anything, at first. Parting her plush lips, however, as Faye started to speak, the blonde gave her subordinate a small side-glance, letting the situation unfold. She had no game in the continued survival of either of the two, currently enamored in a tight embrace, as neither was essentially relevant to the success of their mission. Though escaping would’ve been a good bit harder without the plucky pilot. Noting the ensign’s well-placed Klingon cliché with a covertly impressed nod, she however had no intention to wait out a potential merit dawning on the scraggly woman’s feeble mind.

“No one’s going to get stabbed … we’ll need to work together if we want to get out of here. Listen to the Romulan, for once.” The commander stated plainly, stepping off the transporter PADD and calmly making her way in a safe circle around the hostage situation, towards the operations console at the front. Taking quick stock of the situation, she devised a potential solution on the fly, that not only benefitted the lot of them, but also warranted everyone’s cooperation. And who better suited to elicit such communal spirit? Probably just about anyone …

“Keep that thought, will you?” she motioned toward Jo’reh, making a gentle downward motion with her flat hand, while using her other to pull up communications and setting a narrowed field for the video receptors. “Tell them you got the shuttle under control, Ja'rods murderers in check, but that you need reinforcements. Tell them to beam a squad over.” Feeling the general rise in tension, making the silky hairs in the back of her neck stand up, the diplomat quickly moved to the totality of her grand ploy. “Commander, take tactical, as soon as they drop their shields I expect you to take out their engines.” she suggested to Fisher in a fashion that was only short of an order by the vestiges of care for him, recently ever present on her dainty features. “Ensign, I hope your skills with the bat-leth were not overstated, and that we can take care of any potential commandos that make it over?” she raised towards the Betazoid, potentially alluding to a skill she didn’t have, yet with added reassurance. "It's time for some tough diplomacy." Letting her eyes trail back to Jo’reh with an expectant raise of thin brows, delicate digits hovered mere millimeters over the button that would lower shields and initiate a communication link with the Klingon ship, Jo'reh in the sole focus. And it was that determination, that wiped away all doubt and worry. That outward calm and steadiness, that sold a scheme.

“I suppose you stand with us?! A death best shared, and all that stuff.”
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on January 25, 2021, 05:46:59 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Brutus @Griff @stardust

Fisher had been very much aware of the fact that there would be consequences rendered for having rather unceremoniously shot the grandchild of the Klingon High Chancellor, and that he’d likely start facing them the moment he returned aboard the shuttlecraft. It was easy to imagine that Jo’reh would want satisfaction for the state in which she would find her son, just as any loving mother would, and upon having found Rutherford and Eloi-Danvers without said mother in their midst, he had accordingly surmised that she had already been transported ahead of them. It meant they were probably about to materialize in the middle of a rather chaotic situation, as he doubted the Klingon woman would react with any notion of temperance. For most people, the sum of the whole of it would have elicited a modicum of worry and concern, but the veteran spy found himself surprisingly calm and collected. Even as the world before his green-eyes began to transition at the behest of an all-enveloping blue shimmering light, only to be greeted by the sight of a knife held to the throat of their pilot companion, Fisher could only register a slightly sarcastic nod of acknowledgement.

“Yeah. This seems about right.”

Of course he had half a mind to bring his compression rifle to bear and allow the mother a chance to share in her son’s unconsciousness, and he was in fact more than willing to bet that he’d turn her off like a light switch well before she could’ve actually caused any serious harm to poor Lillee. Appropriately, Faye offered an ‘analysis’ which rightfully painted him as the reason for this mess and were it not for the moderately dire circumstances he might have in turn fired back a snarky retort about how she and her superior had in fact instigated things before he made them worse. Instead, he let the Ensign make an attempt at trying to resolve this without the need for added violence, at least temporarily so. It was a somewhat impressive plea, punctuated by the equally impressive use of naturally spoken Klingonese, which he imagined she had come across and memorized during her diplomatic studies back at the Academy; maybe even she’d read it out of the little book of Klingon proverbs. That, or she’d simply strung together a mess of semi-coherent words into a platitude about battles fought and won. Either way, he saw how she was hoping to appeal to the enraged woman’s warrior sense.

Glaring at Jo’reh, Fisher was willing to afford her a few seconds to mull Faye’s words over before he would act drastically to end the stand-off.

However, Rutherford seemed far less inclined to let the situation linger on any longer, which was probably rather prudent given the encroaching Klingon warship which threatened them and their relatively little shuttlecraft. Her movements were bold, and in fact caught him by surprise, but he immediately caught onto the confident and entirely pragmatic display she was making. It was clear that if they were going to survive this, then Jo’reh would indeed need to delay her need for satisfaction. After all, her life and more importantly the life of her son depended on it. At the same time, the diplomatically minded Commander had also seen how the enraged mother could in fact be of use toward the resolution their impeding doom. ‘Clever’ he thought to himself as he listened to the instructions being imparted, and when he heard his call come in, without hesitation he slung the rifle over his shoulder and stepped over to the tactical console. “Let’s see. It’s an older D11 class bird of prey. I should be able to temporarily render them as little more than adrift flotsam with one-or-two well-placed torpedoes.” Fisher’s days spent aboard the Diamondback (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=USS_Diamondback), patrolling the Klingon border were suddenly coming in handy as he punched targeting commands into the computer.

“Weapons ready, Commander.” Peering out of his peripheral vision at Jo’reh, he could feel a twinge of adrenaline ready to spike if she so much as twitched in a matter he deemed unacceptable, the motor neurons in him poised to bring the phaser up and fire into her face if necessary. His mind instinctively began plotting out the steps he would need to immediately take after such an occurrence.

Regardless, he was sincerely hoping Jo’reh wouldn’t force his hand.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Auctor Lucan on January 31, 2021, 04:54:15 PM
[ Jo'reh | Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ]
The three arriving Starfleet officers spoke in turn, and neither of them denied Jo'reh's accusations. None even offered any explanations as to why they had a vested interest in her son's survival. What did they care of Drex's son?

The one who called herself Samantha had claimed they'd learned about their flight and her hiding from her House, citing some vapid Federation solidarity towards their plight. Ja'rod however, despite his sordid intentions, seemed instead to have spoken the truth, and in the end, she couldn't quite fit the pieces together. She narrowed her eyes at them, not about to surrender her leverage without trying to gauge her odds. More importantly, the odds of her child's survival.

There was... something that irked her, while the shuttle preformed its automated manoeuvre, and it was related to how Ja'rod hadn't lied about these officers being from the Theurgy - a ship's name she knew well from the death of Drex. A murder at the Coreless Moon, which had sent the High Chancellor into the Azure Nebula to seek vengeance. After that, songs had been spreading about a glorious battle against the Borg Queen and an invasion halted, yet there seemed to be doubts about that even happening when speaking to non-Klingons. Not a word about the Theurgy's fate, however, as far as she recalled.

That was, if she were to discount what she had heard the night before. A drunkard on the outpost, talking about House Mo'Kai. How someone named Gorka, son of Margon, claimed Martok had been hiding the Theurgy from the Federation. She had dismissed it immediately, for why would he have aided the crew that had his last living son slain?

Yet.. what was it that Samantha had said, before Ja'rod died?

"The lies you sent to Chu'vok, to trick Martok like a petulant Ferengi, to gain this woman's grace ... oh what blithe theatrics!"

A halfway admission? While confirming that Ja'rod had arranged for Starfleet to come to the outpost, why would she have mentioned the Chancellor by name? If Ja'rod had told the truth about where these Starfleeters hailed from, did that mean Martok actually stood with the Theurgy? Why so, if they had killed Drex? It made little sense, but coming from the blonde female, it was the sole thing that rhymed with Ja'rod's claim. That could, potentially, mean that it was Martok whom had sent Starfleet officers to extract them, and Ja'rod had just meant to win her trust by serving Theurgy officers on a platter.

Grinding her teeth, cursing how she couldn't even trust their word if she asked them if Martok had sent them - since they ought to have said so to begin with - all Jo'reh knew was that the blonde had lied to get what she wanted and omitted the real reason they had come, and that her child had been shot when coming aboard the shuttle. The ploy they now suggested, wherein the Torg ship would lower its shields, was of great merit, and would benefit her regardless where she stood with these lying vermin that had come for her.

"If Martok actually sent you here, as little as it makes sense..." she said, her cutting glare flashing towards the moronic woman whom had not told the truth, "then they will learn how you chose to approach me and my son." She then looked towards the others, including them all, the male in particular. "Moreover, they will learn what Theurgy officers do towards the grandchildren of their allies. You will pay for your conduct today, you petaQ."

Prompted to speak with the Torg shuttle she did so, after violently pushing the Romulan into her seat and removing the blade from her throat. "This is Jo'reh, I am aboard the shuttle designated 'Franklin'," she stated over the comm channel, "Ja'rod spoke the truth. They are from the Theurgy, and I have them holed up in the aft compartments. They are keeping the heir of House Martok hostage back there. I need help. Beam aboard and aid me in killing those who murdered Drex and Ja'rod both."

The die was cast, and Jo'reh headed straight to her child's side in order to protect him, leaving the bridge, and indeed...

...while there was no reply from the Torg ship, its shields lowered, and the next couple of seconds the outcome of the battle rested on the abilities of the lying Starfleet vermin. Jo'reh would deal with any survivors that might make it back to where M'ven rested.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Griff on February 03, 2021, 05:18:44 PM
[PO3 Lillee t’Jellaieu (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Lillee_t%27Jellaieu) |  Shuttlecraft Rosalind Franklin (NX-79854/04) | Asteroid Field | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] Attn: @Brutus, @stardust, @Swift

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More furious than anything, Lillee tolerated it all as the nick in her neck bled, a streak of green blood trailing down into her uniform. It was a sharp and irritating pain, but Lillee was forced to just stand there, helpless and hating every second of it.

Finally the officers worked out a solution, the Klingon shoving Lillee unceremoniously back into her chair. Swallowing the profound desire to grab the Klingon's head and smash it repeatedly into the console, Lillee sat herself down properly and worked her console, conscious that Fisher was ready on weapons. They were absolutely screwed if the Klingons got aboard, but there was nothing Lillee could do about that. Instead, she worked the thrusters, rotating the shuttle gradually towards the Klingon bird-of-prey in what she hoped would look like an innocent maneuver, giving Fisher his firing arc. It was rare for Federation shuttles to be armed with micro-torpedoes, so maybe they wouldn't suspect...maybe they hadn't noticed...

Lillee glanced back as Jo'reh left the bridge, swearing inwardly as she watched the Klingon go. Nevertheless, Lillee focused on her controls, calculating the course they'd need to get out of the asteroid field and jump to warp, then glanced at Fisher.

"Escape course plotted," she reported, "target in sight. If we don't knock out their warp drive before they raise their shields, though, they'll catch us long before we can rendezvous with the Theurgy."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Swift on February 07, 2021, 10:43:10 AM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Fisher (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Fisher) | Fore Compartment | Type-11 Shuttlecraft | Rosalind Franklin ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Brutus @Griff @stardust

A sense of genuine surprise overtook Fisher as the agitated Klingon had come to an apparent understanding of her scenario, seemingly having worked the math of it all in her head over the course of a just a few concise seconds. Points in her favor Fisher thought as he felt a modicum of relief over the fact that he likely would not need stun yet another member of the Klingon High Chancellor’s family. He in fact imagined he had quite a bit of explaining to do already with that regard, so it was better to keep the requisite comeuppance as minimal as possible. Still, that wasn’t to say that he had so completely dropped his guard, as out of the corner of his green-eyes he kept a vigilant watch over Jo’reh, indeed ready to snatch up his rifle from where he had settled it nearby, if necessary. Yet with the knife lowered from Lillee’s neck, and Jo’reh’s testament made in accordance with the ploy that his fellow Commander had hoped to enact, albeit an exceedingly begrudging one, Fisher knew he could at least count on the fact that the Klingon was acting with the best interests of her son in mind. Even as she strode past him, after having aggressively threatened to pursue punitive action against himself and Rutherford, Fisher found himself moderately comfortable with the outcome that was unfolding before them.

Was this really a win?

“Never you worry, Miss t’Jellaieu, I’m just as good a shot with torpedoes as I am with that rifle.” His hands danced across the console in a well-choreographed manner as he punched up a targeted flight path for each of his shots, accounting for the way the Rosalind Franklin, D-11 Bird of Prey, and surrounding asteroids were moving with regard to one another. “Locked. We just need their shields to drop... and...” the very instant the sensors detected a decrease in power being fed to their enemy’s shield systems, a signal that they were about to drop, Fisher’s finger depressed against the LCARS input which triggered the starboard-side torpedo launcher. Immediately, three micro-photon torpedoes were fired in successive shots, as while he had ensured two would have sufficed, he knew that one extra for good measure wouldn’t hurt. At least, it wouldn’t hurt them. “Torpedoes away! Surging our shields back up!” letting his programming guide the torpedoes unto their target, the spy worked with haste to ensure that any window within which the Klingons could have beamed someone aboard the shuttle was a rapidly closing one. In fact, he had timed it out so well, that the shields had re-flared to life the very moment that the last of the three ruby-red glowing orbs had cleared the launcher, streaking off toward their target as it was closing in on them. Blinking on the screen in front of him, the computer sensors had indeed picked up a failed attempt to beam a party of Klingons over to the shuttle, having just missed their chance by a matter of seconds.

“That’ll do it, Commander!” he exclaimed, confident that his shots would strike true, and as he turned back to her, he caught out of the corner of his eyes a trio of flashes at the stern of the Bird of Prey as it had been barreling toward them from their own starboard side. The computer chirped loudly to confirm the impact of all three torpedoes, and that the enemy ship had been stricken as little more than adrift. The targeted weakness he had exploited was an old design defect of the D-11, wherein the hull-plating just beneath the engineering bay was found to be surprisingly thin, and prone to wear and tear. Alarak, Fisher’s contact within the Tal-Shiar had keyed him in on the details of said design flaw as something of a gesture of good will, back when the two had first met during the short-lived Klingon Federation war. Fisher of course relayed this information onto Starfleet Intelligence, and in turn had caused more than a few of those particular Klingon Birds of Prey to suffer damage to their engine cores. The first torpedo would break away the hull-plating, the second would penetrate and damage the engine core beyond, and the third would only make matters worse by potentially causing casualties to any personnel within the general vicinity of the Engineering section. Almost immediately the enemy ship began careening off course, damage wrought more than had been expected and accounted for by whoever had been at the conn, and it didn’t take long for it to slam dorsal-side into one of the stray planetary fragments.

Without operative shields, and at the speed it had been moving in order to intercept the Rosalind Franklin, the Bird of Prey’s back was soon crunched through and broken. Not necessarily destroyed outright, it had sustained a heavy amount of damage, and if they in the shuttle were so inclined, could have been dispatched with little additional effort, but then again that wasn’t their mission, so Fisher did not attempt to pile on.

“They’re down for the count. I suggest we go before they call for help.” He added as new sensor readings flashed across his screen, confirming what his eyes already had.
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: Brutus on February 07, 2021, 09:37:43 PM
[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | On the run |  Shuttlecraft Rosiland Franklin ] Attn: @stardust @Auctor Lucan @Griff @Swift  
[Show/Hide]

The group sprung into action as if collectively voting to ignore Jo'reh and do what needed to be done. If it wasn't for being able to sense the emotional turmoil of her colleagues Faye might have thought rather poorly of them, but eventually the Klingon matron released Lillee, dumping her back into her chair. One less thing to worry about at least. She didn't much trust the Klingon woman, but then, the Klingon had precious little reason to trust them in turn. Sighing heavily under her breath, Faye scooted out of the way, to let the mother go to her son. She wasn't going to stand between the woman and her child. That was a recipe for disaster.

Also a disaster in the making,  the thought of Faye with a Bat'leth. She managed not to flash a look of pure  incredulity at her boss, even if she was thinking, very hard, who are you fucking kidding? She doubted anyone in the room though she could properly wield one of the curved blades. Then again - she had squashed the opposition earlier in the old mining outpost. Again, the resounding smack of flesh and rock filled Faye's ears, the memory of it never far from her at this point, and a bit of color drained out of her face. The further removed from the immediacy of the act she became, the more disturbed by her own choices she felt. 

Staring down the barrel of ship mounted Klingon Disruptors was neither the time nor the place for some reminessance however and so she pushed past to the same weapons locker that Fisher had acquired his own phaser rifel from. As the intel chief worked the tactical station and the D-11 gained some ground, Faye responded to her superior. "I can hold my own," she lied, "but given my choice I'd much rather shoot any intruders than let them get close enough for me to have to do things the hard way. Smarter, not harder, Commander." That was truth, well enough, and she racked one of the rifles before tossing a second to Samantha, and hoping the blonde caught it. Dropping the thing would totally ruin the effect, and as much as she'd rather settle this without blood shed she wanted to be prepared if she had to do things in a less diplomatic and more primitive fashion.

Besides, the more fo them that were armed the less the chance that Jo'reh decide she could start stabbing the team again at a moments notice. 

All that aside, Faye was still a Starfleet officer, and thus while it was set to a heavy stun, she still ensured that the phaser rifle from the shuttles stores was on stun, and not kill. She had more than enough blood on her hands today, and didn't intend to add more if she could help it. Setting up with her back braced against one of the bulkheads, she waited for the tell tale sound of a transporter beam effect to materialize. Their shields were down, and she felt the tension of the rest of the shuttles occupants. Mistrust rolling off Jo'reh. Anger bubbling under the surface of Lillee's psyche. Calm calculations mixed with genuine worry from Fisher.  And her boss? Well..she could spend an hour trying to describe that quagmire. 

In the end, it all happened faster than Faye thought it would. The ship came about. There was an announcement that its shields were down. Lt. Commander Fisher was firing. She saw, out of the corner of her eyes, the trio of micro torpedos hit. Explosions slammed into the bird of prey, and soon it was a wreck in space. Or near enough for all that mattered to Faye. She was keyed up to the point that the phaser rifle shook slightly in her hands. Where was the boarding party?

But no one materialized. It was all rather anticlimactic. Turning away, she reached over to one of the aux stations and punched up a series of readings. Frowning, she then blanched a bit and swallowed back the taste of bile. "For the record, they did try to beam over. But the shields snapped into place before the rematerialization process could truly begin.".

On a Starfleet vessel, such an occasion would not necessarily be instantly fatal. A Starfleet transporter would pull the pattern back and rematerialize the travelers on the pad they started out from. Assuming of course, the system was still working when the signal got bounced back. If say, the ship got struck with a trio of micro-torpedoes during that beam over....well then it was anyone's guess as to the status of the transporters. This of course did not account for whatever precautions a Klingon vessel came equipped with. Especially one as old as the D-11 type bird of prey.

Turning back to Lillee, the Betazoid let out a sharp huff and gestured at the controls, keeping her barrel pointed down at the deck. "I second that suggestion. Let's go go go."
Title: Re: CH02: S [D02|1500] An Unknown Grandson?
Post by: stardust on February 16, 2021, 10:08:21 PM
[ Lt. Cmdr. Rutherford (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Samantha_Rutherford) | Former Duranium Mining Facility | Asteroid Fragment | Epsilon Monocerotis System ] attn: @Griff @Swift @Brutus @Auctor Lucan
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A moment of contemplation and quiet descended upon the small group of astronauts in their little spaceship, like the calm before a storm. The gentle hum of the engines, the periodic jingles of the instruments - hard at work following their assailant around, acting as sort of a baseline to the evanescent silence. Standing firm through every second of it, dragging on like the expanding universe, Samantha focused on her confident attachment to a favorable outcome. A sentiment born from desperation, sure, but manifesting itself as the most adamant persuasion possible. One so powerful it deluded the most firm of minds. This WAS going to work, she was entirely sure of it. A conviction that was easy to convey, even to those around her, when the only other possible outcome was an end to their very existence. So, what else really was there?

As the silence finally did break, the diplomat resisted the very politically incorrect notion of rolling her eyes at the Klingon woman, though with only moderate effect. Returning to the console, drawing in a large gulp of conditioned air, she shook her head once … a mere twitch. “Did not say Martok sent us, neither did I lie about being from Theurgy.” she muttered under her breath, but making sure whatever level of acoustic perceptiveness the warrior race employed, that Jo’reh could hear her. She had said that Martok was the original recipient of Ja’rod’s trap transmission, which they intercepted, and that she was stationed on Starbase 133, which officially she still was. Yet no one seemed to appreciate the fine nuances of the truth anymore, even when it got wielded with the same finesse as a well sharpened Bat’leth.

Intentionally, the com-channel opened so quickly that no one could question her views on the matter, which was just another diplomatic ploy to sway the high ground in her favor - and almost compulsory so. Jo’reh delivered a magnificent performance, her anger so believable, as if it came from an actual, genuine offense. Sure, she could’ve done without the added slander, in the end, but not much was to be said about Theurgy’s reputation anyways. So surely that one reiteration of tired tropes did not hurt as much. Watching the woman retreat into the back compartment, however, Sam could not deny the understanding she felt for a mother’s protectiveness. Although not one herself, maybe it was a sensibility ingrained in any woman’s genes, by evolutionary design.

Lillee reported her evasive readiness just as Andrew established target lock and lowered the shields into a standby position to feign compliance with Jo’reh’s show. Turning back towards the front of the cockpit, watching the large reticule zero in on the holographic representation of the Bird of Prey, amidst the glowing blue asteroid wireframes, the blondes brows furrowed for a moment of anticipation, hoping they could really forego the whole mortal combat thing. And when the confirmation came, that torpedos were away, she piled upon the Klingon ship's hull the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by her whole experiences since coming to Theurgy; since joining Starfleet, even; and as if her chest had been a mortar, she burst her own heart's shell upon it, alongside the red hot blazes of glory.

The shields came up with an enigmatic pitch, just as the shuttle swerved around to give a passing view of the fireworks. And even though the ensuing damage, caused by the asteroid collision, was unforeseen, it luckily did not cause the ship to explode. There was something to be said about living freely when one didn’t have any reputation to lose, yet there was also unnecessary hindrance in rectifying such false perception. With that in mind, Sam briefly let her fingers fly over the Ops station’s sensor window, making sure the Klingons had enough life support to start repairs, or at the very least limp to the outpost for help. Whether they would’ve rather died, than accepting that dishonor, was entirely up to them at this point.

“Take us back to Theurgy.” she nodded at Lillee, erecting herself from the right side position, patting the backrest of the Petty Officer’s chair, while making her own way back to the science station, beckoning Faye to take her designated seat once more. Everyone had acted perfectly during this whole mission, minor missteps aside, that she would simply put down as everyone’s individual interpretations of ‘the rules’, in her report. When, in the end, exactly these proclivities had resulted in them working so well together, complementing each other. Lillee’s firecracker attitude that had kept the shuttle up and running, Faye’s impromptu judgment by gravity, that terminated a situation which would’ve otherwise taken longer to defuse than Lillee’s talent would’ve held out. And, of course, the Spymaster General’s penchant for treating every encounter like a Tom Clancy novel, who had provided the single way out of a precarious situation. No matter how the blonde disagreed with almost each and everyone’s approach, not even her Vulcan side could deny the mutual benefit of them working together. And that was high praise for everyone involved.

Pulling up the internal sensors for the back compartment, the commander already started a preliminary in-depth bio scan for the child. As much as the shuttle’s systems and her own basic academy knowledge of medicine permitted. Luckily a DNA match was not exactly rocket science, with the help of the computer.  And the results were both relieving and foreboding … difficulty decisions would still need to be made. Hopefully though, they wouldn’t be hers.

FIN

*credit to Herman Melville for his inspiration on one paragraph :3
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