ILLUMINARRPG: (7-2150)- CO- Captain Sekal, Commander Sienna Verin and 3rd Officer Lieutenant Dieter Gregory, CMO Quinna Solice, CTO T'Mur, SPA Ariel Trei

[Charles Gatling]

Mission:  Death in the Shadows
Day: 7
Stardate:2446.02.07

(USS Illuminar-- Deck 1 -- Officer's Briefing Room -- CO- Captain Sekal,
Commander Sienna Verin and 3rd Officer Lieutenant Dieter Gregory, CMO
Quinna Solice, CTO T'Mur, SPA Ariel Trei --2150)

The Captain had arrived early as was his normal routine and was seated at
the head of the table once again in uniform. His rest interval had been cut
short as had a number of others but he had taken some time to relax and
shower before coming up.

 A number of his senior officers were in a similar strait as he was aware
but the timing had been due to several factors and he had provided ample
warning so he sat quietly as they filed in.

Ariel Trei walked into the briefing room for the meeting.  She replicated
an iced tea for a change with a nice mango flavor.  She took her seat near
the front of the table as she always did.  She placed her PADD down on the
table and waited for others to file in the room.

Quinna slowly made her way to the conference room and sat in the middle on
the right side of the Captain.  She pulled her PADD to take notes.
“Captain, Lt. Trei.”  She acknowledged them but said no more.  She was
still not sure where she stood with the captain at this point, however she
was happy for Trei’s new inspiring position.

Sekal nodded. "Good evening Doctor."

Gregory was due on the bridge at 2200 to start his shift, but one does not
miss the briefing if at all possible.  He left Morganthall in charge, with
orders to page him immediately should anything out of the ordinary appear.
Walking into the conference room, PADD in hand, SPOTS on his right side, he
moved to the far end of the table, nodding to the assembled officers.
SPOTS jumped into Gregory’s lap and laid down.

Sienna moved into the room, T’Mur behind her, the ever present shadow. The
two women sat down, Sienna in her accustomed place on the other side of the
Captain, T’Mur beside her. The last few days had been a steady and
exhausting blur and she was ready for life to settle. She wanted time alone
with her bondmate to allow the bond to deepen as it should and not to be
running from crises to crises. She wanted a proper night of rest. Her eyes
itched from fatigue.

T’Mur touched her leg and Sienna smiled at her bondmate. She then nodded to
Quinna, not sure where things stood between the three women.  The chaos of
the previous day had left the 3 women in an odd place, and Sienna needed
her few friends.

T’Mur could sense her own fatigue settle in as she sat down. However she
shared her stamina with Sienna.  There would be time to regain strength
later. Meanwhile she looked over at Quinna and nodded, gratified that she
was able to attend this meeting. The markings on her throat were slightly
visible above the collar of her uniform.  She then looked at Gregory who
looked as though he would much rather be any place than this meeting. He
was most likely thinking about the shift ahead of him.

When Bohb entered the room he smiled a huge smile at Sekal. He was the
oldest member of the engineering staff, which by default made him the most
senior officer, at least until Lt. Jordaan returned. He moved around the
table quickly and came upon the CO, putting his hand on his shoulder.

“Son of Saleke, it is so good to see you alive,” he said loudly. “You had
us all a little worried, I must tell you.”  Then he poked the Vulcan in the
shoulder. “But you don’t seem much worse for the wear.”  He looked at him
with an inquisitive stare. “Perhaps a little wiser around the eyes I
think.”

Suddenly he realized that he might be acting a little too familiar with his
CO. “I apologize if I’m out of line. But I am excited to see you.”

Sekal shrugged. "Noted Mr. Bohb. Your well wishes are appreciated."

As Bohb went around the table he greeted each of the staff with a poke or a
prod. Then he came to Commander Verin.

“Glad to see you again Commander,” he said, picking up her hand and placing
the back of his hand in her palm.

“And the ever lovely Ensign T’Mur,” he repeated the gesture to her.

T’Mur nodded, appreciating the fact that he didn’t poke her in the chest
with one of his large digits. “Ensign Bohb, please sit next to me.”

Bohb beamed, “It’s my pleasure.”  He squeezed himself into the seat
provided and plopped onto his bottom.

“Am I the last to arrive?” he asked.

Sky walked in uncertain why he had been called to a meeting of the senior
staff. He was moving toward a seat when it hit him. ~Oh yeah, it's one of
the privileges of standing in for the CSO.~ He sat down with a sigh and
placed the padd he was carrying onto the table.

Not everyone was present but it was time and he wasn't going to delay the
meeting so Sekal got down to business."It is not news to anyone here that
the missions the ship has been on recently were mundane in nature however
it was merely an outward show of normality. We have been shadowing an
operative whose mission was to ferret out an organization that found a
cache of alien weaponry and is selling it clandestinely. We had also been
warned that Roanoke operatives were believed to have infiltrated the fleet
based on an incident that happened in the Altair system."

“The incident, sir?”  Quinna asked even though she tried to keep a quiet
profile in the meeting.

He paused and gave a slight nod. "Former elements of Roanoke consisting of
scientists gathered at one of the defensive Interdiction platforms in the
system and were conducting weapons research until an explosion in the
magazine destroyed them along with what they were working on. The
investigation as to its cause has reached no logical conclusion though it
has been closed."

"The operative failed in his mission and had to be evacuated from Starbase
23 before he was killed. Someone is believed to have linked his operation
with the presence of the Illuminar and his cover was blown. We beamed him
out just as they were attempting to murder him. That Roanoke is aboard
appears to have been confirmed by recent events; first someone tried to
murder me then he himself was poisoned. I had Lieutenant Alyl and Ensign
Matrix assigned to uncover evidence of surreptitious communications off
this ship. Lieutenant Alyl is now medically incapacitated in what may or
may not be an unrelated matter. The operative Michael Weston will be
traveling with us to Sigma Draconis Six and I have assigned him to hunt
down the other operative or operatives aboard."

Quinna made notes on her traditional PADD that she brought to every
meeting.  She thought about the device that she had yet to return to
Michael.  She still had it recessed in the panels of her office.

"While his primary mission was unsuccessful we did find evidence aboard the
marauder pointing to our destination and Mr. Weston also agrees with the
assessment. Sigma Draconis Six is thirty two hours from Regulus and I have
already been making preparations. Mr Bohb will you update us on the
technical changes to the missile please?"

Bohb nodded and put his PADD on the table.  It emitted the three
dimensional hologram of the  missile.  “Thanks to the work of Ensign
Winters, Ensign Matrix and I were able to make some adjustments to the
“bomblets”, as they have been dubbed, so that they now have an energy
release level twelve times higher than before.  Relatively speaking, each
bomblet has the destructive capability of a quantum torpedo.”  He then said
under his breath, “What we want with such a destructive weapon is beyond my
comprehension.”  Then he returned to his briefing.

“On the up side, the magnetic locking mechanism has proved to be quite
interesting.  By changing the magnetic field modulation of the hull the
bomblets will be unable to lock onto us.  The locking mechanism is what
activates the explosive charge, so it renders the weapon useless.  Unless,
of course, we simply crash into them.  Which is a possibility since the
missile itself releases dozens of the little critters.”

Gregory entered Sigma Draconis IV into his PADD and started reviewing the
data on the planet.  A class M planet that was mostly under ice age like
conditions, with a small temperate band.  First visited on stardate 5431.6
by the Enterprise under command of Captain Kirk.  Two distinct populations,
one living on the surface in ice age hunter/gatherer conditions,  The other
underground with advanced technology.  Kirk forced it to integrate after
their visit. Not a member of the federation, but have had several of the
species join Starfleet.

He entered the search term into a wider database to see what else he could
learn.  The query could take a bit longer, but they had 36 hours.

Sekal turned to Skashe. "And the other task I set for you, Mister Winters?"

Skashe cleared his throat. "We can configure the navigational array to emit
an electromagnetic pulse that will fry the guidance circuitry of the
missiles once they are fired. They will have no homing capability and be
essentially flying blind which should make them relatively simple to avoid.
Add that to the change in magnetic charge of the hull and we will have a
stout defense. I'd say these weapons are only good for a surprise attack on
an unsuspecting victim. Anyone who knows what they are up against in
advance can easily avoid them. While in theory they are a horrific weapon
in practice they are a long term failure and dead end for the Federation."

"I would agree." The Captain leaned back in his chair. "The remaining
missile is being configured to be fired from a torpedo tube rather than
operating under its own propulsion. Should we have need we may fire it at
the same speed as a quantum torpedo."

He looked around the room. "If we find our quarry at Sigma Draconis our
orders are to shut down their operation completely with whatever force is
necessary."

"Are there any final questions or comments?"

Quinna mouthed nope to herself.  This was typical, have sickbay ready just
in case mission.  She thought this would be a good time to stay out of the
way and start thinking about her next step.

Sienna remained in her chair, listening to everyone as they spoke,
assessing them carefully. “Yesterday we had an issue where an implanted
personality attacked a senior officer. It was dealt with and everyone is in
the process of recovering.” There were rumors going around the ship of
course, but Sienna was going to protect Quinna’s privacy. “There is a test
that can be done in sickbay that …” She glanced at Quinna for elaboration,
“scans brain waves. It doesn’t hurt, it just takes a while. Or a telepath
can skim your thoughts. Several of the senior officers have been through
one of the available options. We had information from Vice Admiral Winters
that there might be some people with implanted personalities aboard, but it
was not something that I took seriously until the Captain was attacked. We
have Luma, so I thought that she would be enough of a safeguard, but she is
not.  So please, make time to go to sickbay or to Counselor Hammons and get
scanned. For the peace of mind of everyone.” She sighed, leaning back in
the extremely comfortable chair.

Gregory frowned at the Commander's comments.  He remained opposed to the
invasion of people's privacy.  Perhaps it was just him, but his thoughts
turned back to the wisdom of Judge Aaron Satie, a famous jurist of the 24th
century, ~With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech
censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains ua
all irrevocably. Perhaps there were exceptions, but even in the 18th
century, this issue was being discussed, before the presence of telepaths
on earth.  The statesman Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying ‘They who
can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve
neither liberty nor safety.’~ Clearly something to explore with his
philosophy program.

“Also, while we are on our way everyone should get a full 12 hours of rest
before we arrive. Be refreshed, because I have a feeling that something is
going to go wrong the moment we get there.” Most of the senior staff knew
that Sienna’s intuitions were something worth listening to.

Gregory chuckled, 8 hours on shift, two hours of exercise in the morning.
He could get 8 hours of sleep and start work at 1600 to deal with
operations before his training sessions with Gamma shift.  ~Maybe I have to
put that off for a day~, but that was not ideal.

“Sir, when do we leave for Sigma Draconis VI? It seems we have taken on the
rest of the crew transfers, and have topped off our supplies as best we
could from here?” Gregory asked. “We are at about 75% capacity after the
repairs to the ship, but to wait for a supply ship would take 3-4 days.  I
could request that the USS Robert Bush meet us at Sigma Draconis. Looking
at her manifest, she would be able to top us off.  Looking at the star
maps, she could arrive 24 hours after we did, assuming these data are
correct.”

The Captain looked over to his 3rd officer. "We leave in three hours. Have
the ship meet us in the system, Mister Gregory." He looked about. "Is there
anything else?"

Gregory made notes on his PADD, and looked around the table to see if there
was further discussion.

There were no volunteers. "You are all dismissed. Illuminar leaves for
Sigma Draconis at 0200." He stood from the chair.

(Reply: Any)

(Posted by:
Al -Engineer Bohb,  T'Mur
Edward - SPA Trei
Charles Captain Sekal, Acting CoS Skashe
Kris - Doctor Solice
Mel - Commander Verin, Councilor Hammons
Tim - Lieutenant Gregory)




Charles Gatling
Commanding Officer
USS Illuminar
NCC 61240


"The light shines brightest amidst the deepest darkness."
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