Reading Ahead
Posted on Mon Feb 3rd, 2025 @ 5:01pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Tobias Beckett & Makeba Brown & Lieutenant Commander Rowena McGowen & Lieutenant Mira Jayna & Lieutenant JG Gage Tohoyia & Lieutenant JG Stefan Zamfir & Petty Officer 1st Class Kaylara Loran & Petty Officer 3rd Class Emiko Marley
Edited on on Mon Feb 3rd, 2025 @ 5:04pm
3,050 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
Episode 16 - Silent Cries
Location: SCIF - Deck 9 - USS Pioneer
Timeline: MD005 0900 hrs
Beckett received the information, and all through the night, he checked and rechecked the source. Everything had been confirmed. They had a trial on Calvin Quaid. He had been missing for going on a year now and was wanted for treason. Tobias summoned the staff at Commander McGowen's request so that they could all get on the same page.
Jayna was spending part of each day with The Cure. As luck would have it, she was there when she got the message about Quaid. She slipped the PADD she'd been reading in a drawer, locked it, and headed back to the SCIF for the briefing.
She scanned the room when she entered, noting who was in the room and where, and then went over to sit by Kaylara.
A diminutive doll-like figure walked into the room. Anyone in intelligence knew her as Emiko Marley. Most of the time Emiko was at her station and repeating numerous languages to herself. She rarely took breaks and thus, rarely socialized with her department. Her makeup was always impeccable and while approachable, always had a faraway look, as if constantly thinking about high philosophical issues. She, of course recognized Jayna and told her, "Hello." However, she continued to look about the room for Stefan.
Stefan arrived giving a quick glance around at those who were there already. His glance paused on Kaylara a smile in his eyes in seeing her. Then turned his attention towards the others. "Morning." he greeted them.
Makeba hadn't done much on the Pioneer in the past month or so. She managed to stay out of the way during that last bit of craziness. She rather liked it that way as she was still on the fence about being in Starfleet. Add to that her sister being transferred and was now out of touch. So, when her presence was requested in the SCIF she was caught a tad off guard. When Makeba checked her uniform in the mirror she noticed that it looked rather odd without rank pips, but that was exactly why she was still unsure. She entered the SCIF and without too much of a word took a seat at one of the consoles that faced the center of the room.
For his part, while he waited for the Chief to arrive, Tobias prepared the briefing. In no time at all the holoscreen in the center of the room showed a star map with a route highlighted in red. There was also an image of Calvin Quaid in uniform. His service record appeared on most of the consoles in the circle around the room. Tobias may not have been great at much, but getting prepared for a briefing was actually something he excelled at.
Jayna mentally reviewed her last undercover assignment when Empok Nor had been taken over by the New Maquis as she waited to see the new information.
Upon spotting Stefan, Emiko, with faux nonchalance, sidled up to him and, in Japanese, said, "Koko de o ai dekitara ureshīdesu." (Translation - Fancy meeting you here.)
Kaylara raised an eyebrow at Emiko. She was up to something and Kaylara knew she wouldn't like it. At the same time, she wasn't worried about it. She trusted Stefan and she knew the oriental woman had a hard time with subtlety.
Stefan turned his piercing green gaze towards Emiko. "Petty Officer Marley, have a seat please." He gestured towards an available chair. a few seats away from where he might be sitting. For now, though, he was going to stand until the rest arrived. He recognized Makeba from the meeting that had been put together on Poseidon Station however long that was ago. Months maybe?
Rowena had been cooping herself in her office a lot. This team was perfectly capable of doing their job without her. But for this briefing she needed to be there as head of the department. She looked at the padd Jennifer Master had sent her from Empok Nor. Rowena shook her head, remembering that woman screaming about at the screen. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and then walked out. Miss Masters was really emotional, or it was just her hormones.
Rowena walked into the room, looking at the people already there. She stood next to her assistant chief but then walked over to Tobias. She looked at the information displayed in the middle of the room.
Stefan gave a nod of acknowledgment to Rowena.
Emiko caught Kaylara's raised eyebrow. She lightly giggled in her direction and then gave her a wink. However, she was more disturbed when Stefan decided to seat her several chairs away from him. Does he think that I'm not satisfactory for him? I mean, yes, he's only a means to Edmund, but this is absurd! Rather than sitting down, she moved closer and said to Stefan, "And you, as well. I don't quite feel like sitting yet, though."
"Petty Officer Marley" Stefan whispered, his tone rather firm. "When I asked you to have a seat, that wasn't a suggestion. Go have a seat, now. We are here on a matter of vital importance and there needs to be decorum shown."
Gage came into the SCIF and paused in the doorway. He was not expecting to see so many people. He hadn't even known that there were so many that had clearance to be in the space. But he shook it off. If they were here, they obviously had permission. He found a place against a wall as far from everyone as possible and leaned back to wait and see what was going to happen.
Emiko looked up at Stefan, her eyes growing wide. She opened her mouth slightly, as if she wanted to say something. Instead, she closed it, cast her eyes down and unceremoniously plopped her rear down on the chair, facing straight ahead.
Jayna looked at Kaylara and raised an eyebrow. The half Romulan just shrugged.
Once Emiko took a seat, Stefan turned his attention towards Tobias and the information that was going to be presented. This probably will not make him to popular with Emiko, however protocol must be maintained.
Once everyone had arrived Tobias glanced at Rowena for permission to begin. When he received it he stood up and held a PADD. "Ladies and Gentlemen what you are looking at is a holo image of Lieutenant Commander Calvin Quaid. Up until a year ago he was the Chief Strategic Operations Officer at Empok Nor. One year ago the station was attacked and taken by enemy forces. It has been learned that those forces used Quaid's command access codes to lower the station's shields and board the station. He has been at large ever since. That is until now."
Tobias pressed a few buttons on his PADD and the image in the center of the room changed to an image of the star chart for the Cardassian sector. There was a red line that cut through the stars and led into the Badlands. "This is a route that was recently found by Intelligence assets in the field. It indicates a Cardassian vessel, possibly Galor Class that brought Quaid into the Badlands for reasons unknown." He paused here for any questions that anyone may have.
Gage frowned. He'd attended a lot of briefings like this and they were always hard for him because he would much rather be the intelligence asset than listening to the briefing. "What is the reliability of these intelligence assets?" Gage asked. "And how old is this information?"
Jayna looked at the star chart and nodded. So that was where he went. It made perfect sense. Hadn't someone mentioned that was where he'd run before? Maybe. She wasn't sure who, though. But it was good to finally have the information. The question now was, what were they going to do with it? She looked from Tobias to Rowena and back, waiting for more.
Tobias turned toward Gage. "Sir, the USS Valiant recently on assignment to Starfleet Intelligence has been tracking known whereabouts of Commander Quaid. I have been working with them analyzing all of the data that they have compiled. This flight plan is two weeks old. However, in those two weeks there are no unknown warp signatures coming out of the Badlands."
"So, we can assume he's still there," Jayna said. "How will this information affect us and the Pioneer?"
Gage hated to interrupt but as an intelligence professional, he couldn't let the question stand. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant Jayna, but are we basing our intelligence on assumptions? Two weeks? How do we know that he isn't on a departing ship with a known warp signature? The only path forward that I see is to send people in to find out what is actually happening and get real-time intelligence. Two weeks is a lifetime in our field," Gage said.
"Yes," Jayna replied. "And that is why I asked what we were going to do about it. Either we are simply being briefed as we were involved with the attack on Empok Nor, or we are to have some part in investigating where he may be now. At least, that is my deduction."
Tobias continued to address Gage. "The Valiant led a group of vessels to scan the Badlands. In an effort to preserve the reason for the search all ships save for the Valiant were told their scans were to be used in an experiment for chernekov radiation. I will add thought that they could not scan the Cardassian side of the Badlands. They scanned for known signatures as well. According to the data in the past two weeks nothing has gone in or out of the Badlands save for this signature, Sir."
Makeba had kept a wary eye on the imagery from the center holo. Her ears were attuned to what everyone had said. There was a moment where she thought to speak up. However, she held no rank and felt it perhaps not her place. At least not yet. Fact was Tohoyia was right. But there was something very familiar about that flight plan.
Emiko listened to this and considered the information. It seemed very unlikely that there was only one signature going in and out of the Badlands for two weeks. The odds were stacked against that. The only way that could be true would be if there was some coordination. Was this a trap? She kept her mouth shut for now. After all, she had not been given permission to speak and she was but a lowly petty officer.
Stefan was listening to the report, at the moment he didn't have any comments to add. The aspect of someone heading into the Badlands, to cover their tracks was a good idea. He'd actually had used something like the Badlands to disappear away from prying eyes.
"Then they have to be somewhere in there. A planet, maybe?" Kaylara asked. "Or they could be hiding in an asteroid." It wasn't unheard of to set up some sort of base inside an asteroid where it could be harder to detect them than a planet.
Emiko braved the situation, speaking up squeakily. "Excuse me," she started hesitantly. "It is unlikely that there should only be one signature going into and out of all of the Badlands in the last two weeks. I would suggest that some of our sensors have been tampered with or that there there's a heck of a disguise going on."
Rowena looked a moment to the petty officer. "Well, miss Marley, I think that is what the Badlands has been used for. The Maquis has used it for a lot of covering up. And please, don't be afraid to speak your mind, that's why we are al here, to bounce off each other."
As everyone discussed Makeba kept her eyes on the swirling image of the Badlands. There was something familiar about all of this. Then all at once it came together. "Sirs, if I may." She began by asking permission as technically the lowest rank in the room outranked her.
Rowena hadn't met Makeba yet, with everything going on, but she had read her files. She nodded. "Miss Brown, please..." She gestured for her to speak. "As I told miss Marley, please feel free to speak your mind, you are part of the team."
"I was brought aboard this ship at the time of the attack on Empok Nor. At the time I was a member of the New Maquis. Since this image has come forward I have thought about why it looks familiar. There is a station built by what was left of the Obsidian Order in the Badlands. It goes by the name of Breyet Nor. If Quaid is working with the Cardassians they would have taken him there for his own safety perhaps, or to avoid his capture and confession."
Jayna nodded. That made a lot of sense. And if they did have a base of operations in the badlands, intel needed to learn more.
"An exact location of the base or anything in the Badlands would be difficult to pinpoint due to the nature of the plasma storms," Emiko echoed in her high pitched voice. "The only real effective method there is echolocation due to the sensors always being limited there. Of course, echolocation only tells you if an object is there and maybe how big it is, not what it is."
"According to the data gathered by the Valiant this station is on the Cardassian side of the Badlands which makes this even worse. In order for any sort of intel we are going to have to go to the Cardassians. Which begs the question, can anything they give us be trusted." Tobias handed out PADDs as he spoke which contained all the information gathered thus far. "Furthermore, even if permission was granted for a mission. Who would go on this hypothetical mission? A starship is too conspicuous they would see the Pioneer for example coming a mile away."
"But they wouldn't expect the Marines," Jayna replied with a half smile. "The Cure is well-trained and more than capable of going into Cardassian territory. In addition, they already have an intel liaison assigned to them." One who hoped to be part of the team, but that would be up to Neil. "I know the colonel would be interested."
Rowena nodded as she listened to everyone speaking. "I agree, we need more information, and the Cure has been working to equip themselves with these types of missions and they do have a vessel that can fly into the badlands. I will bring this up at the next command briefing."
Jayna nodded. There wasn't anything else to say on the matter as far as she was concerned. Unless there was more information forthcoming.
Emiko did not know what else to say. Rowena told her to speak up, but it seemed at this point that an intelligence officer was going to be picked for this. Her specialty was languages. Would she be viewed as more valuable? She looked over at Rowena and then Stefan, wondering what would happen next.
Stefan hadn't much to say on this matter, he was soaking in the information and reading over the PADD that was given to him. Looking up he stated. "Two weeks isn't too bad, I hope that we do get more information in the current timeline. This is good work though."
Makeba had been silent for most of what transpired. She knew this station, knew what transpired there and moreover why it was built. The question now was how far was she willing to go. Would she betray her comrades in the New Maquis? She had friends now on this ship and they would most likely be heading to their deaths without this information. She exhaled sharply through her nose. "This place was built by a joint venture of the Obsidian Order and the New Maquis. It was built to be a base of operations that would never be found because of the technical issues the Badlands has on starships." She turned to Jayna as she spoke her next words. "If there is to be a Marine mission to this station you must see to it that some UCs go with them. There is a chance that an undercover could board the station as a Maquis etc... I am adding the frequency codes for Maquis transmissions to this data packet. It is an old frequency but should still be in use. It may very well save your lives."
"Thank you. I'll do everything I can to make sure that happens." Jayna appreciated the help. Not only that, after working undercover with Makeba, she knew she could trust the information.
Makeba's words drew Stefan's attention,he noticed the inner struggle and admired Makeba's decision to share. "Thank you Makeba, for the information. We will need all the help we can get with this."
Rowena nodded as well. "Thank you, ms Brown." She then nodded to everyone. "Right, I think, if there is nothing else, you're all dismissed." She then turned around to disappear in her office.
A Joint Post By
Makeba Brown
HUMINT Agent, USS Pioneer
Petty Officer First Class Tobias Beckett
Data Systems Analyst, USS Pioneer
Petty Officer Third Class Emiko Marley
Intelligence Communications Specialist, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Stefan Zamfir
Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Mira Jayna
Intelligence Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Petty Officer First Class Kaylara Loran
Data Systems Analyst, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Commander Rowena McGowen
Chief Intelligence Officer/Second Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Junior Grade Gage Tohoyia
Infiltration Specialist, USS Pioneer
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