Questions and Answers

Posted on Sun Aug 5th, 2012 @ 11:59am by Vice Admiral James K`Temoc Bremer & Commodore Leon `Lee` Pike & Lieutenant Saith i-Ki Baratan & Commodore Alexandra Harrison & Sergeant Maal son of Torg

1,354 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Mission 79 - Triangle
Location: USS Steadfast
Timeline: Following 'Moving The Conversation Elsewhere'

Lee nodded to Sgt. Maal and then took a seat across from Captain Harrison on the other side of Ensign Baratan. The big Klingon stood by the doorway with his phaser on one side of his belt and Ensign Baratan's on the other side.

Saith was furious but tried to calm down as they walked to the conference room. She knew she had to keep her head and not react so strongly. As Sgt. Maal pushed her down into the seat, she pulled her arm away from his grasp at about the same time he let go. Making her arm flail slightly before she pulled it back.

K'Temoc took a seat opposite Saith. They needed answers and they needed them fast. He just hoped the Ensign would cooperate. He knew part of the reason she was so suspicious was her nature, she was Romulan, however she was also a Starfleet Officer and he hoped her training would work to their advantage so they could all get past this.

Saith reasoned that she could cooperate until she saw her opportunity to get a message to the base about their treason. She paused to consider what Captain Harrison had just said. Without saying anything she looked each Captain in the eye before bringing her attention back to Captain Harrison.

“You realize of course, that last thing you would do if you were a traitor is admit to me that you are.” She took a deep breath and continued, since Captain Pike was there he knew everything she did anyway. “As I reported to Captain Pike this afternoon,” she looked pointedly in his direction, “I was reviewing the crew manifest when I observed a computer anomaly. It was outside of normal protocols and I worked to track it down, but was unable to locate an originating or end point. I could only tell the transmission was a short message and had gone off base. As Lt. Cmdr. Lokran is not currently on station, I logged it in the Security log and reported it to Captain Pike.”

She looked K’Temoc straight in the eye, “I know nothing about Clark except for the couple of small mentions I saw in the reports I was reviewing. It did not occur to me that they may be related until I was escorting you to your confinement. Had I known that you weren’t to be trusted I wouldn’t have bothered asking you.” She defiantly crossed her arms over her chest and quit talking. She had only told them slightly more than what Captain Pike already knew, she didn’t need to let on it was all she knew, that she had made an educated guess. She figured that was a good place to stop. She resolved not to say another word.

Lee gave Ensign Baratan a funny look:"What message to me are you talking about?"

Something in Saith sparked at K’Temoc’s question. Maybe the three Captains weren’t the source of her problem . . . maybe. Placing her resolve not to speak aside, she glanced at Captain Pike, it wouldn’t be unusual for someone not to get to a report right away, but maybe he never got it at all, which would be curious. “I sent you a report early this afternoon, just about 20 minutes prior to being called to the Japanese restaurant to break up a fight.” She looked ruefully at Captain K’Temoc.

Lee:"I haven't received a message at all from you Ensign."

Alex shifted uncomfortably in her chair. This was not a good thing.

K’Temoc then spoke up, “Ensign, what time and where were you when you observed this anomaly? Was anyone else with you?” He had a feeling her answer would hold the key.

“To answer your question, Captain,” she paused recalling, “I was in Security. I had spent most of the morning familiarizing myself with personnel files. I wasn’t alone initially, there were three other people but it was my first shift so I don’t know who it was in the department. The anomaly occurred at 1145. I ran a diagnostic but it showed nothing, so I dug a little deeper. I could tell it was a message but it was so quick and so far outside of protocols my instincts told me to keep at it. Had I not seen it with my own eyes flit across three terminals I would have missed it altogether. The message was like the wind; I knew it had been there and I could tell the direction it went, but I could neither pinpoint an origin nor a termination point. Whomever sent it was very good at covering it up. When I looked up to see if someone else could help me, I was alone. I am not sure when the others left or if they left together or alone. I logged the incident in the Security logs, and sent a report to Captain Pike. I had just returned to my chase when I received the call to the restaurant for your altercation.”

Lee got up and walked over to a wall comm panel and accessed his logs, he looked for any message from the Ensign but found nothing:"This isn't good, there is no message at all in my logs from the Ensign."

K’Temoc looked over to Pike, “Get with Mr. Smith, go through your logs. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Deletions, fragments, unauthorized access, anything.” He looked back at Baratan for a moment, “I think we have at least one Operative, possibly aboard this ship now, maybe still aboard the Station, either way, we should go to Security Alert Two for now. We also need to let the Admiral know.”

Lee signed himself out of his logs:"It could be possible there is a spy aboard Star Base 400."

"I need to get back to the bridge. Either the spy is already on this ship or they aren't too far behind. Mostly all of the Steadfast crew are regulars on this ship except for a few. I'd suggest keeping an eye on them." She didn't know who she could trust these days but she had a feeling that they were eventually going to find, out one way or another. Hopefully, they'd get the spy before the spy got them.

K’Temoc looked back at the Ensign, “Ensign Baratan, you’re free to go. Please assist Captain Harrison on the Bridge. Look into the crew files, you seem to be good at that. Maybe we can find someone with a reason to assist Clark’s group.” He looked over to Alex, “If the Captain approves.” He flashed a smile.

"Yes, she approves." Alex returned the smile then started for the door. She paused and turned around, "Ensign Baratan?"

Lee nodded:"We all must be careful now and to talk about none of this with anyone at all excpet us and Admiral Bremer."

Saith thought that was an excellent idea. She wished she had the opportunity to talk to the Admiral before this all went down. She glanced at Captain Harrison, then at Captain K'Temoc and came to a decision.

Lee turned to Sgt. Maal:"Give Ensign Baratan her phaser back and then go to the bridge with her and Captain Harrison. I'll get in touch with Mr. Smith and get that figured out."

Maal nodded and walked over laying the phaser down on the table in front of the Ensign.

Saith stood and picked up her weapon. She walked around the table until she was in K'Temoc's face. "Let us not forget something Captain K'Temoc, I am still under Admiral Bremer's orders. Which means, I still consider you my responsibility." She smiled, turned and headed to where Captain Harrison stood by the door "After you Captain Harrison."

K'Temoc smiled as he stood up, 'A feisty one' he thought to himself. He also needed to head up to the Bridge and make contact with his brother, and update him on everything.

This mission was sure starting off interesting...he just wonder how things would progress once they located Clark...


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