Preparations for Trill

Posted on Sat Aug 4th, 2018 @ 2:36pm by Captain Elijah Michaels & Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Commander Ziyal Tajor & Lieutenant Hel Samedi & Lieutenant Jaton Alyl & Lieutenant Sara'draphia T'eseri & Lieutenant JG Scotty Kayne & Lieutenant JG Alejandro Fernandez

Mission: Trills and Thrills
Location: Conference Room

"All Senior Staff and selected Officers please report to the Conference Room." Elijah said as he sat at the head of his table and waited for the others to arrive. He had been here for a few weeks and they were heading a little closer to home even though it was on business.

Hel walked inside, positively beaming, humming a tune and with a spring in her step. "G'morning, captain!" she smiled broadly, ruffled his hair then sat down. Someone was in a good mood.

Walking into the Conference Room, Sara was surprised to see that she was one of the first officers there. Normally she would arrive later than most if not the last one to arrive. Moving towards one of the empty chairs, Sara nodded to the two officers already seated, "Captain, Lieutenant. I trust all is well"

Jaton walked in with a PADD under his arm containing his status reports as well as room for notes. He didn’t know much beyond they were headed back towards the Federation core. He nodded to each person as he passed and took his seat.

Alejandro made sure he looked his best. No dust, no dirt, no lint, nothing at all to ruin his first Officer's meeting aboard the Victory. He wanted to impress, he wanted his superior officers to know that he was serious and committed to this ship and its voyages. He went over his formal attire one more time just to be sure there were no imperfections to be found. He looked into his mirror; those deep dark brown eyes stared back at him as he made sure all of his hair was in place and his goatee was groomed as neat as possible. He dabbed a little cologne on himself, a little something he had brought from Mexico called "Color del Sol" a light but still masculine scent that had an earthy, yet pleasant odor. He then proceeded down the corridor. He arrived at the Conference room standing tall and present. Alejandro always carried himself with pride and confidence that showed on his body language. He immediately saw Captain Michaels; stopped, bowed slightly and said, "Gracias por tenerme aquí, Capitán (Thank you for having me here, Captain)", then looked around and slightly bowed to the others in the room, found a seat, took out his PADD and readied himself to take notes.

Hel quirked a brow at the new entry and sniffed the air a bit as he walked by. Head turned to follow, gaze going up and down his body once, a smile quirked on pale features.

Jaton sniffed the air as Alejandro passed by and cocked his eyebrows. He flashed Alejandro a smile and a nod as he sat.

The next through the door was the newest addition to the Operations department, but no stranger to the halls of the Victory: Valeria Mordin. The rabbitess entered the conference room with a PaDD slung under the crook of one arm, and a cup of tea in her opposite hand. "Good morning." she greeted everyone, in a general fashion, before she turned her attention to the pale acting-chief engineer and gave a ghost of a smile, before finding a chair for herself to occupy. Then, her little nose gave a sniff. Then another. She didn't dislike it, but it wasn't a scent she had been exposed to prior. Finding it rather agreeable, she settled into her seat for the meeting.

Ziyal strode in with her half-dozen PADDs. She sat down and spent several moments arranging them in front of herself in a way that would allow her to easily refrence one if the need should arise.

Bertrand was almost the exact opposite of Alejandro. The Betazoid was short, heavy set, and permanently disheveled no matter how hard he tried to be otherwise. He strode quickly into the room and stopped short sniffing the air. "Have we... has there been a chemical spill in here?"

The wash of emotions from the room told him instantly he had performed some faux pas. But that was just like humans, wasn't it? Always upset by someone saying aloud what everyone else was thinking.

"Never mind," He tried poorly to cover it. He took his seat next to the Captain. He glanced at the empty seat opposite him and looked down the table.

"Hel, while Cor is away, your are acting Chief Engineer. Come up here and take the seat." He grimaced, "And please try to think of something else just for the period of this meeting?"

Hel didn't feel right taking Cor's seat. She told herself she would just keep it warm while he was away as she switched seats. At the last comment though she chuckled and blushed slightly, a subtle tinge of red on pale skin. "I'll do my best, Sir. No promises."

Scotty walked in, drink in one hand, padd in the other, as always, set the padd down, and waited for the meeting to start,

After everyone had arrived and was seated Elijah took the floor. "Well good morning to you all, nice to see the majority of you back after nearly a month away." The Captain gazed around the room his eyes on his staff and his friends though they lingered at Hel and smiled. "First order of business is staffing related, Cor is taking some personal time so Hel is taking his place as Chief Engineer."

"Until Cor has worked through some issues and will take his rightful place back." Hel agreed.

"Secondly we are to handover the relief efforts to the Salvation and the Liverpool, Starfleet has need of us once more." He then input a command into the interface. "Trill is our next stop, specifically the Science Academy."

Jaton was gobsmacked. So soon after he’d had that cryptic conversation with his mother? Could she have known something? Could she have engineered this? Alyl gave a little twinge in his abdomen. He knew Jaton’s mother and her machinations just as well as Jaton did.

After a few moments, he found his voice again. He attempted to speak with confidence and authority, but felt his voice crack more than once.

“Sir, what is our mission at the Science Academy?”

Elijah looked to them all. "There is a spy in the Science Academy." He responded. "Several projects that were under wraps including advances in Propulsion and Sensor Technology soon ended up appearing in unlikely places." Elijah scrolled through the interface. "Ferenginar, The Orion Colonies, Tholia."

Hel gave a low whistle, rocking in her chair. "That's no good. Why send us, though? We're not intelligence?" beat. "I think?"

"Well for one, we've dealt with a few of these projects ourselves." The Captain commented. "Secondly it gets us away from here after nearly 4 weeks."

Valeria gave a nod in agreement. This was not a good sign. "It's also possible that Intelligence is on their way, and we're the obvious party." the rabbitess pointed out. "All the attention of this spy will be on us."

"Not exactly," Bertrand cut in. "We do have other legitimate reasons to be going to Trill."

Sara looked over the list of stolen projects, “are we being asked to do something spacific Captain? Shouldn’t the authorities on the Trill Homeworld be the ones to deal with this?”

"Ordinarily yes, but Trills authorities don't have the resources to handle it." Elijah commented. "Besides if there is a spy selling secrets then that can jeopardise the safety of the Federation itself."

“Do we have any idea who this spy is working for or what specifically he’s after?” Jaton asked.

"Part of what we are going to find out," Bertrand supplied. "Our cover story is twofold. Firstly, we are going to attend a social engagement by a high ranking Trill family; a marriage between one of them and the head of one division of research. Lt Alyl can brief us further on that, I believe. The second is that one of the areas currently being developed is a geological weapon. The Victory is to be a testbed for the weapon. as such we have good reason to be at Trill engaging with the research personnel."

"Trill home security has tried, but been unable to make headway. They think that, whoever is on the inside has close enough contact with security to be able to avoid acting when or where the police are watching closely. Fortunately, this sort of thing, is where most of my training comes in. There will be specific tasks for everyone which will allow you to engage with various members of the R&D team. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Bring suspicions straight to me."

Jaton nodded. “I’m familiar with most of the families in Tresh society, so it depends on who exactly is involved in this marriage.”

Bertrand blinked a couple of times, "Well.... your family, certainly... I thought..."

"If we're going to serve as a test bed for an experimental weapon, what can I expect, as acting chief engineer?" Hel opined. "Is there a brief or technical readout, blue prints I can study? What will be asked of the ship? Most of it is back operational again, there are some minor niggles and instabilities in some of the tertiaries and redundancies, but I can work on those while we're underway."

"Given the concerns with security, they were unwilling to transmit such details. Part of our reason for going there in person, or at least our cover story," Bertrand explained. "Don't worry. You'll have plenty of time to look over things when we are there, and nothing gets put on the boat till the CEngO is happy to sign off on it."

Hel heaved a frustrated sigh. "Eh, I can work with that, I guess. I'll just work on smoothing out leftover hiccups on the way."

Jaton took a double take at what Cuprum had said. “Hold on a moment, back up. My family? Who’s getting married?”

It was unusual to see Cuprum so put out. He realized Jaton genuinely had no idea of the discussion, and wondered at how the Command crew could have received a wedding invite if the groom had not been informed.

"Well, er..." he floundered," I thought... on the invite... it said...you!"

Valeria simply rolled her eyes at the prospect of a geological weapon. Lasers causing earthquakes, magnets pulling down meteors... silly concepts. Though the prospect of a wedding was fun. She loved social parties like that. Jaton's flustered look made it all the more amusing. "Congratulations Jaton. I'll remember to dress for the ceremony." she teased, though her congratulations were sincere. "Don't feel left out, it can be hard to reach a starship in the Dark sometimes."

She turned her reflectionless eyes towards Bertrand, "With permission, I'd like a chance to study the technical readouts of the weapon system to ensure a proper test. Engineering and Sciences would need to work together to properly catalog, install, and operate the prototype."

Without missing a beat Hel raised a hand. "I'm for it!" Beat. "I promise we'll actually work on the weapon, too."

“I’ll be happy to lend any assistance that I can,” Jaton said. “Weapons and warfare may not be my specialty, but geology certainly is.”

"That was the plan," Bertrand confirmed. "Science is to look at the projections, Engineering the install, operations the power load and system impact, an security the tactical applications. We also need contingencies. If we are developing these, chances are, someone else has thought of it too and could try it against us. Medical is to look at the casualty projections, Search and rescue scenarios, etc."

"Meanwhile, Diplomacy and Command will be schmoozing the higher levels, attending meetings and preparing for... a wedding... I think?"

Alejandro made copious notes with as much detail as he could. He highlighted words and phrases like "spy", "experimental weapon", and "wedding on Trill??!!??" This would be he first ever visit to Trill and he was excited at the prospect even though it was the idea of playing in the "spy-craft game" that intrigued him more. He almost imagined himself as the modern version of Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca; even if real life never could match the the ancient art of cinema, it would still be something to see... and besides, Trill women were known for their beauty weren't they?
He quickly shook his head over all that he just imagined. This was serious. Tactics and strategy would be tested to their limits here. He had to be focused. He listened even more carefully to the conversation at hand, ready to take any role Command wished him to take.

Jaton nodded. "Understood, sir." He then whispered under his breath. "Looks like I'm going to have to have a stern talk with my mother."

"Well then, dust off your Dress Uniforms it looks like a Wedding is on the Agenda." Elijah chuckled. "Department Heads are to transfer all data from the last few weeks to the Salvation and Starfleet Command and then set course for Trill."

"Forgive me Captain, but this geological weapon, is Starfleet in the process of designing and building a weapon of mass destruction? If so, I may need to talk with you in private" Sara asked, concerned as to the use of this new weapon

"To be clear," Bertrand supplied, "Starfleet is investigating the potential of a weapon deployed by us, or against us. We also have research into Bio-genic weapons. The research is secured once completed for later reference. We have experienced first hand how fiercely the Federation safeguards that tech. However, we are also up against a new enemy who we are desperate to find an advantage against. We used tectonic instability to win the day in System 365-7, this is not so different."

"As with all weapons, the difference is in where and against who it's used, with what intention." Hel spoke. "I don't know exactly what this weapon does or how it does it, but right now, I don't see it particularly separated from, say, a phaser bank or a salvo of torpedoes. Conventional weapons for us, but packing an amount of firepower several orders of magnitude above those that once were already considered weapons of mass destruction. Let's wait until we know more before rendering judgment."

"Very much so." Elijah said to them all. "The 'trip' to SFI's Station 18 months ago highlighted the dangers of a weapon that lost control and safety protocols and as such we don't want another incident of that vein."

"Which is part of our brief; to ensure safe field testing methodology is observed," Bertrand agreed.