EPIL: S [D06|1900] Initial Report

April 07, 2019, 10:26:29 PM

[ Lieutenant Carrigan Trent | Intelligence Officer's Quarters | Deck 10 | USS Theurgy ] attn: @Auctor Lucan

Quote from: Auctor Lucan on April 07, 2019, 02:19:19 AM

=/\= INCOMING MESSAGE =/\=

TIME INDEX: SD 57556.74, 1500 HRS., MARCH 10, 2381
SUBJECT: CONTINUED ASSIGNMENT
SECURITY CLEARANCE LEVEL: SIX [ENCRYPTED]
FROM: JIEN IVES, COMMANDING OFFICER
TO: LIEUTENANT CARRIGAN TRENT

As disappointed as I may be in your performance under duress, I also realise the impossible situation you were put into. Because of this, and the assistance you could provide in the battle at the apertures, I have chosen to forego any further disciplinary action. Your demotion to Lieutenant does not preclude you to earning back repute and standing with the crew, even if it will be difficult. The means in which you can prove yourself is to apply your skills fully to a new assignment. An assignment tailored towards the role you had prior to Captain Vasser's hostile takeover of the ship.

Your position is now that of an Intelligence Officer aboard this ship, without any other officers reporting to you. Despite your demotion, you will retain your Department Head level quarters, so that you may use its fully featured personal workstation as your office. Two engineers will visit at 1700 hrs. and they will be installing upgraded security and computer bandwidth features to ensure that your office will have all that it needs, and that the data cannot be compromised from outside. Because of the information you will be handling, only I will have access to your continued work aside from yourself.

This ship is bound for Aldea in the Epsilon Mynos System, a planet under the protection of the Klingon Empire, and which you likely have little familiarity with since Starfleet has no jurisdiction there. Before the Dominion War, however, Starfleet was able to aid the Aldeans in their adaptation to independence from the Custodian. The skeletal base structure of the Aldea Prime Shipyards were of Starfleet design, and had Wolf-359, the Maquis and the Dominion War not disrupted Starfleet's ambitions in the System, the Aldean would never have had to rely on the Klingons for protection. We lost favour with the Aldeans, but before then, I was personally assigned to the planet an an undercover operative of Starfleet Intelligence. Between the years 2365 and 2371, I did not only gather intel and make risk analysis on the inhabitants and their technology, I also established nine safehouses, places where undercover operatives such as me could conduct further clandestine observations or surreptitiously meet with my handlers from Starfleet Intelligence.

Attached to this message is all my accumulated data from 2371, along with the intelligence reports on Aldea since then - the scarce data collected since the Klingons took over the protection of the Epsilon Mynos System. Your assignment is to take up where I left off, working with what we know, and ensure that Starfleet Intelligence cannot learn about our arrival and continued presence. Here is a list of continuous tasks for you in your new position:

Intelligence gathering, coordination and reporting, including:
- Corroborating old data with new.
- Assess and confirm recent Starfleet Intelligence activities.
- Conduct continuous threat assessments, both known or suspected activities.
- Locate and identify persons of interest, ranging from political leaders to possible Intelligence operatives. Track both.
- Identify possible friendly force individuals.
- Terrain and city development updates.
- Orbital scans of safehouses. If there are no life-sign activity, make careful approach to learn of any recent usage. Do not enter unless the safehouse have no subspace alert system installed.
- Alert security if Starfleet Intelligence field operatives are located, but they should not engage such operatives at this point.
- Assess local population, Aldea Prime & the abandoned cities.
- Assess Aldean political, religious, social status, especially changes. What political groups exist now? Which political groups cooperate with each other? Which political groups do not cooperate with each other?
- Any assessment of Klingon Empire forces in the system is to be done with extreme discretion. Open channel and transparency is key for building trust with our ally.
- If possible, gather intel on current activities in Federation space and Starfleet deployment of ships.
- Assess fallout of Omega device activation in the Azure Nebula.

Your continued Security Clarence is that of a Lieutenant's, and any data required above that level may be authorised by me. Keep personal logs of your progression, but reports are expected at no later than 1900 hrs. on a daily basis, and they are sent only to me for the time being. Your specific tasks are not to be discussed, the official statement merely being general intel gathering and analysis. Depending on development post arrival, any field work towards completing your tasks need to be approved by me, but if the Aldean Defence Committee is accommodating enough, such authorisation may only be required if engaging persons of interest or safehouses. Collaboration with other officers aboard is encouraged, as long as sensitive data isn't spread in a way that may jeopardise the crew's standing with the Aldeans or the Klingon Empire.

I understand that you may bear resentment towards Lieutenant Commander Dewitt, but I trust that you will refrain from engaging her in any way other than professionally, since she will be our Liaison Officer during the time we are at Aldea. Data gathering from her will be conducted in a manner befitting a Starfleet officer. I will not tolerate any less.

First report is expected today at 1900 hrs.

Best Regards,

Captain Jien Ives
Commanding Officer of the USS Theurgy

When the message had been delivered to his quarters, Carrigan Trent had never heard the chime. His exhaustion had finally caught up with him and while he had not managed nearly as much sleep as he would have liked, the few hours he had managed to catch had been most welcome. In fact, he had just enjoyed more rest in a few short hours than he had in the past three days. For days, he had feared to do so much as blink lest nightmarish images appear behind his closed lids, and sleep was something he had dreaded for he knew the horrors his mind would subject him to.

Though when he woke up, he had not known of that particular notification, and he only found out much later when he returned to his quarters. And he was far less than pleased.

Initially, he had expected to revert to his substantive rank of Lieutenant Commander; after all, his promotion to full Commander had never been ratified by Starfleet Command. But it would seem Captain Ives saw things differently. A demotion to Lieutenant. That was a hard blow to accept in the first place. And now, he was given what amounted to an impossible task.

He was to deal with the ship's intelligence needs, and without any personnel to work with him. That alone would be a daunting process even if he was limited to tactical and strategic arenas. But it would seem Captain Ives wanted far more than just that. What they now expected was for Trent to do, on his own, the task that would otherwise call for a minimum of a half-dozen collators and analysts, not to mention field work and analysis into fields he was eminently unqualified for. Politics and economics were well outside his field of knowledge; and while there was a cursory introduction to various aspects of the intelligence field in the Basic Intelligence Officer's Course, he had specialized to be a tactical and strategic analyst... and he was now expected to act as a spy?

One one hand, he was at least gratified to not be put out to pasture indefinitely, or put off the ship. But on the other hand, he had the strong impression he was being set up to fail given just how much was now demanded of him that lay entirely outside of his area of competence. In fact, part of him wondered if he was put in this position so he could put off the ship by virtue of running afoul of their Aldean and Klingon putative allies in such a way that would not look as though he was being summarily discarded...

But then again, he might be wrong, and his impressions left coloured by the events of the previous twelve hours.

Despite the late receipt of his new orders, and the inability to actually work until the technical team performed the modifications required to the quarters he shared with Heather, he did manage to make the 1900 deadline for his initial report.

And he was not particularly happy with it. His own access into Starfleet's databases did not give him much of a glimpse into Aldea. Even with the reach he had as Admiral Sankolov's staff intelligence officer, that part of space had been deemed outside the area of interest and as such he was extremely limited as to what he could reach. And given that he had lost the command-level clearances he used to enjoy, his ability to do his job were even further limited.

Along with the inability to absorb years of data across a number of different fields in a few hours, he was forced to simply report on the last readily available information, which was anywhere from a few hours old via the Federation's interstellar trade databases stating there was a two-ship merchant convoy due in Aldea in eleven days, to political assessments that were months out of date.

At least, Aldea did not have a formal Federation consulate or embassy, and the only diplomatic presence was a Rigellian businessman with permanent offices on Aldea who was granted the lowest possible level of consular credentials. So no Starfleet attache, no formal intelligence presence, and no particular reason for him to look to the sky save to search for the next cargo he expected to receive. Of course, he did expect the man to maintain a network of contacts, maybe even informers, for the semi-regular reports he filed indicated he had a number of local sources, but all of it had a strong economic bias that gave very little insight in the inner workings of Aldean affairs.

And given the distance to Aldea, there was also very little that long-range sensors could tell. Starfleet's listening stations were not pointed in that general direction, and Theurgy's simply lacked the reach to provide much passive input. Which meant that the list of vessels in-system would be painfully incomplete and highly tentative at best, and limited to warp-capable vessels that had their warp core online at the time. However, the assessment of Chancellor Martok's remaining vessels was far more complete, and the degree of confidence in the data was high enough to make it reliable for planning and operational purposes.

But, he reflected mostly on particular sections of his report.

Quote

Operational recommendations:

Access to traffic control and monitoring:

Between being in shipyard hands and the limitations of passive sensors, access to Aldean and Klingon communications, tracking and traffic control systems is required to maintain situational awareness within the system; this should be considered a high priority.

Spacegoing assets:

The shipyard lays in geostationary orbit above Aldea Prime, and our requirement for discretion would preclude the use of any of our currently embarked small craft for any surveillance from orbit save within line of sight by passive sensors. We will require locally-sourced, deniable, small craft with sensor packages sufficient for our purposes. Operation of these flights will require careful coordination and cover stories to ensure deniability when overflying sites of interest. Access to the planetary communications and/or surveillance infrastructure may mitigate the need for manned flights, but not entirely eliminate them. Furthermore, having spacegoing assets would allow us to maintain independent situational awareness when the ship's sensors will be unavailable due to maintenance and repairs.

Ground assets:

Recommend all department heads provide lists of personnel who would be suitable as eyes on the ground; no intelligence training is required, simply good memory and observation skills, and the ability to remain discreet and sufficient common sense to not appear to be intelligence assets.

Furthermore, Security should provide a list of candidates well-suited for rapid reaction on the surface, including the ability to quickly search a location and report on any irregularities, and accompany liaison personnel to identify possible intelligence assets or threats.

Liaison staff reporting:

Recommend all liaison personnel file clear, concise and detailed reports, preferably accompanied by audio recordings, of all interactions with Aldean and Klingon points of contact, and such reports be forward to me as a default

Counterintelligence concerns:

ALL personnel should be briefed on the need to maintain a low profile, and common indicators they are being pumped for information. A common cover story, as well as individual ones, should be crafted accordingly. Secure communications need to be established, staying away from known Starfleet and Federation frequencies, and encryption should be made available. Exclusive access to a set of Aldean transporter facilities in the shipyard, and/or locally sourced small craft for personnel transportation, is imperative.

Personal suitability:

Exposure to several aspects of the Intelligence spectrum of operation was only cursory introduction during the Basic Intelligence Officer's Course, and my knowledge base makes me unsuitable for a number of tasks. I am not trained as a spy, commercial, political or social analyst, counterintelligence agent, source handler or covert operative; employing me in such roles would result at best in inaccurate or incomplete analysis, at worst in tainting our relations with the Aldeans and the Klingons and seeing them turn hostile to us.

Further recommendations will be made as the situation develops.

And with that report filed, all he could do was wait for the response... and whether or not he would be tossed into the deep end or see some kind of support thrown his way. And the worst part, something all analysts knew entirely too well, he knew there was something he was missing in his report and his recommendations. For that was the nature of the Intelligence beast: certainty was always a complete stranger.

~FIN