Security Matters
Posted on 18 Feb 2016 @ 2:26am by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale
Edited on on 18 Feb 2016 @ 2:30am
811 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
Outbreak
Location: Security Office
Camila sat in the Chief of Security office and looked at the terminal, unsure of what to do first. It was unexpected when Lieutenant Commander del Rosario turned himself in on charges of assault and conspiracy and even more unexpected when she had been made the new Chief of Security and promoted to full Lieutenant.
The office had been cleaned out of all of del Rosario's effects and she had put her favorite mug on the corner of the desk, a picture of her parents on the other corner and a few holo images on the walls of her vacation on Pacifica a few years before. Still, it didn't feel right and she knew that it would take time before she adjusted to the office and position.
She sighed and pulled up the roster with the intent of finding a new Assistant Chief and began to go over the personnel. Thirty minutes later, she was no closer to finding someone to serve as her assistant suspected that the problem was she felt that she couldn't trust anyone in light of the recent revelations about Consortium agents that had been on the ship.
The Chief of Operations, Lieutenant Bast, had hit close to home despite the fact that she barely knew him, and then the Chief of Security. If the Consortium could corrupt officers in department head positions, they could get to anyone and she didn't know who she could trust. Despite everything, she suspected that they hadn't gotten everyone and she didn't want to be betrayed so soon after being handed the position.
Maybe Starfleet will assign someone she thought as she picked up her mug and went to the replicator. "Hot chocolate, whipped cream, and caramel drizzle," she ordered it to put the delicious liquid in her mug. Once it was filled, she took a sip and sat on the corner of her desk and looked at the closed door.
"Chief Di Pasquale," Camila murmured. "Well, you did have you sight set on this position. It just wasn't in the way that you had planned. It's time to work with what you have and make the best of it." She took another drink of the hot chocolate and went to sit back at the terminal.
She knew that people on the ship were going to be paranoid and suspecting everyone else of being Consortium and that meant trouble. Her first order of business was to issue a ship wide notice stating that anyone caught in violation of assault of a fellow crewman would face severe penalties if it was an unprovoked attack. Next, she ordered the Security personnel in her department to patrol in two person teams at all times and if, for any reason, they had to separate, to contact her immediately.
Next, she instituted a trace on all incoming and outgoing transmissions and began to scrutinize everything that Bast and del Rosario had sent or received since they had been in the Gamma Quadrant and put each suspicious item in it's own category to be investigated. Granted, it would be unlikely that Consortium agents would be so blatant as to use open communications, but anything could be encoded to look like an innocuous communication requesting parts, trainees, or anything else. It would be a while before it was all sorted out, but she was happy to have something to do that didn't involve shooting a fellow officers or locking them up.
Bast came to her mind again and she made an inquiry as to his current medical treatment and the officer that had been assigned to watch him. He was still in medical and the officer on duty reported that all was normal for the moment. She signed and pulled up Bast's file and looked it over; he had a history as an engineer prior to joining with the Bast symbiont on Trill before returning to duty on Deep Space 11 as the Chief of Operations and continued in that position on the Black Hawk.
It was curious as to why he switched, but she had read that Joining could seriously alter someone's personality and desires. It also wasn't unusual for an officer to wish to switch positions, but with one so well rounded as Bast had been prior to his Joining, but she had no reason to question him about that despite a nagging suspicion that someone with his skills could undoubtedly make a lot of mischief with access to shipwide operations in the position of the Chief of Operations.
She sighed and shook her head - the investigation would be carried out and Starfleet would want their investigation team on everyone who had been revealed as Consortium. Until she got further orders, all she could do was attempt to make things as smooth as possible in Security matter and hope for the best.