Mission Briefing

Posted on 12 Mar 2016 @ 5:30am by Captain Harvey Geisler & Commander Terry Walsh & Lieutenant Commander Jiang-Chao Xiao & Commander Jayla Kij & Lieutenant Jarveth Adan & Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Parisa Rykov DCS & Lieutenant Avery Stuart Ph.D.
Edited on on 12 Mar 2016 @ 5:31am

2,417 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Location: Deck 6 || Conference Room 1
Timeline: MD 2 || 1300 hours

Camila looked up as she got the notification for all senior officers to report to the conference room and for a moment, she waited for the Chief of Security to notify her that she had control of the department. Then it kicked in that she was the Chief of Security, which made her a senior officer and she gave a nervous swallow. The Captain seemed like a good man to work with considering how she had been promoted to her position and she took a moment to calm herself before she rose from her desk and checked her uniform.

Once she was satisfied with her appearance, she tucked a stray lock of hair back into the braid she kept it in while on duty, grabbed a PADD and went to the turbolift. "Deck three," she ordered it and waited until it arrived, which didn't take more than a few moments. She exited and headed down the corridor and entered the conference room and was surprised to see that she was one of the first officers to arrive. She chose a seat near the middle of the table where she could see the door and have a wall behind her and waited for the others.

Dr. Parisa Rykov was doing some last minute reshuffling of personnel shift rotation in Engineering before heading to the Conference Room located on Deck 6. A First Officer gets thrown into the Brig, the Captain gets assaulted, and the Security Chief turns out to be a no good snake in the grass thought the recently appointed Chief Engineer. My Romulan half is loathing this ship already the thought privately to herself as she stepped into a turbolift and took it to the Black Hawk's sixth deck.

The Conference Room was the first room on the sixth deck and was easy enough to locate after watching the tail end of Lieutenant Di Pasquale strut down the corridor and veer off into a room. Clearly, she is going to the meeting surmised Rykov Because, let's face it, Commander Rosario sure the hell isn't the woman thought with a small smirk. Regardless of what had happened, Parisa had climbed the Engineering ladder and skipped few rungs on her way to the top. Evidently, the Captain got some sense knocked into him at some point during this whole incident.

Entering the Conference Room, Rykov quickly observed that Camila had taken a seat already, and a rather tactical one at that. "Fancy running into you at one these functions, Millie" said Rykov as she headed over towards a food and beverage replicator on the wall. "One cardamon tea, hot...two sugars" said Rykov as she ordered the hot beverage and took her seat at the table. She decided on a seat directly across from the new Security Chief and moved her chair over just an inch in an effort to obscure the other woman's view of the doorway.

Jayla entered nearly on the heals of Rykov and smiled at the two other women. "Hi!" she said cheerfully, as always. "I hope everyone's day is going well. I'm Doctor Jayla Kij, by the way," she added to the woman she didn't know."

"Millie?" Camila asked with a raised eyebrow at the Chief Engineer's extreme casualness. "My name, Lieutenant Rykov, is Camila, not Millie, but you may call me Lieutenant Di Pasquale." She turned her attention to the Trill Doctor and gave a nod. "Doctor Kij," she said. "I promise that I'll come in for my physical as soon as things calm down. I'm sure you can appreciate how hectic things have been."

"It's okay," said Jayla with a customary grin. "As long as we get to it before year's end, I think we'll be okay."

Rykov nodded simply. "My apologies, Lieutenant. I was testing out a nickname...apparently it is not to your liking" replied the Chief Engineer.

Terry walked into the briefing room a couple of minutes later. He grinned as he realized how 'female' the senior staff was becoming. He had seen that before on a starbase, but not so much on a starship. At any rate, he walked to the other side of the table, one chair away from the Security Chief and sat down. He looked at each woman in turn, beginning with the Chief Medical Officer, and nodded. "Doctor Kij, Lieutenant Di Pasquale, Lieutenant Rykov."

Bast was the next to enter the conference room. As soon as the doors hissed shut behind him, he felt the level of tension rise. He tried to persuade himself that it was only his imagination.

"Good afternoon," he mumbled. He elected to sit close to a friend, and sat next to the Chief Medical Officer.

Jayla gave him a winning grin. "Glad to see you're feeling better," she said. "No more cane?"

Bast shook his head. "I wouldn't try to run a marathon, but my ankle feels well enough to walk to a staff briefing," he replied softly.

"I hope I'm not late," JC announced as he hurried into the room. He had been reading personnel files when he was informed of the briefing. He decided to finish the file he was reading and misjudged how long it would take him. He looked around the room and realized that he didn't actually know anyone present. "Uh...hi. Lieutenant Commander Jiang-Chao Xiao," he said with a little wave and a dip of his head.

Jarveth Adan was busy when the notice to arrive in the conference room. Work was never done and now this. Quickly, he put his things together, grabbed a data padd and left his office.

He was right behind another office, A Lieutenant Commander according to the collar, and entered the room. "Hello everybody," he said. He saw the other two Trill officers sitting together and offered them a smile. The three of them sitting together would be a show of solidarity on Bast's behalf, so that's where sat... right next to Bast and Kij.

Avery entered the conference room and as soon as she saw Bast, she was reminded once again she wanted to follow up with the Trill officer as soon as possible. They'd all been through one hell of a mission, but the counselor couldn't begin to imagine the hell Bast had suffered, the mental violation of being disconnected from his symbiont. She offered a warm smile to everyone in the room who met her eye. "It's good to see you all here."

The conference room doors parted yet again, this time allowing entry to Captain Geisler. "Good afternoon, everyone," he said, setting a PADD at the head of the table, though he did not take a seat. He looked around the room, taking note of the individuals seated at the table. So much has changed...

Harvey cleared his throat and kept his hands at his side. "Before--erm--we get started, I want to thank you all. The Black Hawk has been in the Gamma Quadrant for six months now. You'd think that every mission would get easier, but it seems like situations are growing more and more complex. Our last outing was... simply unfortunate. Were it not for your actions, I most likely would not be standing here today."

His eyes landed on Lieutenant Bast for a moment, then Doctor Kij. Then Lieutenant Di Pasquale and Rykov. Harvey cleared his throat once more, pushing himself past his emotional moment. "I think you all have met by now Lieutenant Commander Xiao," he said, moving to stand past the red-collared man. "He will be serving as Executive Officer while Commander Kos undertakes a Medical Leave of Absence. I also want to welcome Lieutenant Di Pasquale as Chief of Security and Lieutenant Rykov, who has taken over Engineering.

"And that takes care of the formalities," he said, moving back to his seat. Pulling an isolinear chip from his sleeve, Harvey approached the viewscreen and inserted it into the chip holder beside it. "Time for business. I spoke with Commodore O'Connell this morning. What I'm about to show you is something that will not be entered into the ship's logs or records." He tapped a button and the screen came to life, showing a map of the Gamma Quadrant. Large portions--a majority really-- were tinted red while others, like the location of Starbase Unity, were tinted blue. Over forty red and blue Starfleet icons were scattered across the screen. Less than half of them were tinted blue. Included in the red icons was Deep Space 11, the last base they'd departed from.

"This, everyone, is the true state of affairs in the Gamma Quadrant," Harvey said. "Red icons represent Consortium-controlled starships and their last known locations."

Camila nodded to the Captain in acknowledgement as she studied the viewscreen. "With less than half of our ships in the quadrant still under our control, Captain, what is Starfleet's proposed plan of action? Surely we can't go one on one as outnumbered as we are. That would have deadly consequences if the Consortium controlled ships decided to come at us two or three to one."

"That's the question of the day," he remarked, looking up at where Starbase Unity was marked on the map. "Both Consortium and Starfleet assets are scattered among the quadrant, so a full-scale action on either side is still weeks or months away at the most. And, centralizing forces in any one area is not an option because, as Lieutenant Di Pasquale has noted, we are outnumbered. We're also outgunned. The Consortium control two of three Galaxy-class ships in this quadrant, along with a majority of the Intrepids, Akiras, Sovereigns, Nebulas, et cetera. But that's not the real problem."

Harvey turned to face the senior officers. "We saw it here. Two people were enough to turn this ship upside down. I've been reviewing the logs from the Scorpio, Nogura, and even the O'Carroll. Each ship had less than ten agents on board. As far as the most of these--" Harvey pointed at a cluster of four Consortium ships stationed near each other "--crews are concerned, most of them believe they're actually still following Starfleet's orders. The real trick is overriding Consortium control on these ships without harming the crew."

"For what it's worth," Avery offered, "psychological specialists with Starfleet Medical are working hard to develop a profile of the typical Consortium member in an attempt to identify likely suspects. Obviously, the problem is, they're capable of behaving just like anyone of us and their patient enough to avoid suspicion over long periods of time. Frankly, as much as those of us with psychological training are concerned about identifying Consortium loyalists, we are also concerned about the impact of rampant paranoia and suspicion entire crews. We have no hope of accomplishing any of our goals if we become conditioned to thinking everyone is a traitor. I know what I'm asking isn't easy, but I'd hate to see who we are completely destroyed before the Consortium has even a chance of consolidating and destroying us in battle."

Stuart's eyes met Geisler's and then Bast's. The entire crew had been through hell, but these two men in particular had been through their own personal traumas. She wouldn't blame Harvey for being angry and taking a hard line against any potential threat within his crew, but she also felt for Bast who had suffered an extremely personal violation out of his control by all accounts and yet was still being treated harshly and suspiciously for it. The conditions were right for the crew to continue turning on one another, and Avery feared Bast was going to be convenient target should emotion and paranoia boil over.

"Keep in mind," said Bast, speaking softly, "that not everyone might need to be... coerced," he said finally, tripping over the last word, "into helping the Consortium. Commodore Terlexa is doing this of her own free will. As is Commander Stanton. And I'm certain Commander del Rosario was acting of his own volition as well, even if he was operating under false information. And finally, keep in mind that Consortium agents are under orders to destroy a ship if they can't consolidate their control over it."

Harvey didn't vocalize his agreement with Bast's statements. The Captain went on, "While the brass is still working on their tactics, the priorities are to consolidate and arm up. Our destination is here," he said, pointing at a sector that was very close to Consortium space. "Yolvanda II. We've been selected for a supply pickup. And, we'll get a little R and R in the process." He then indicated the two nearby Consortium controlled vessels, the USS Chimera and USS Cochrane, both Intrepid-class vessels. "That is, if these two decide to keep their distance."

Terry looked at the locations of the Intrepid class ships. "Captain, will the 325th be on standby or providing escort duty?" he asked.

"Escort," Harvey simply replied, turning to look at the Squadron Commander. "Just make sure the pilot rotations allow for a bit of R and R."

“Too easy, Captain.” He made a note on his PADD. “I will definitely make sure they get some R and R. If they didn’t, I’d never hear the end of it.”

Avery didn't say it aloud, but she made a mental note this would be a good time to continue to reach out to the crew as a whole, to get to know them and also help them make sense of recent missions. She needed to do what she could to prevent paranoia from running rampant.

"Any other questions?" Harvey asked, looking around the room.

Terry shook his head, his only question having been answered. There was a lot to do once the briefing was over, including touching base with Lopez. He wanted her to get with the Flight Deck Commander and put together an R and R rotation schedule for the flight deck personnel. Terry planned to work on the one for the pilots.

"Can we expect support from any other ships in the meantime, Captain?" Camila asked.

"Only the USS Maketu will be in range," Harvey replied. "Saber class. All other Starfleet assets are being used to secure our border."

Harvey finished his survey of the room. "Hopefully this will just be a walk in the park," Harvey commented to the team. "We leave in two hours. Recall your people and let's get this show on the road. Dismissed."

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