The Cold Light of Day (Part 3 of 3)

Posted on 20 Jul 2023 @ 8:17pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Commander Scarlet Blake & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Rafe Caradec & Ensign Amanda Turell & Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeysa Zeror
Edited on on 20 Jul 2023 @ 8:18pm

2,725 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 1, Conference Room
Timeline: MD 11, 1318 hrs

Previously, on The Cold Light of Day (Part 2)...

Nothing was ever easy with scientists and their research, Morgan was beginning to learn. In a strange way, she also started to understand the intricacies of Galileo's previous mission at the Latari system; specifically the complexities they'd faced and the delicate maneuvering which no doubt had taken place. It was easy - relatively-speaking - for her to simply evaluate their after-action reports and cast judgement. Yet seeing first-hand how they adapted to the unforeseen was...enlightening.

But that did little to help her in the current predicament. It seemed both the first and second officers had differing views of how to handle the cold station's recovered research. Each of them had qualified their remarks and explained their positions. Ultimately, Galileo was like any other Starfleet vessel. Not a democracy, but a hierarchy, which meant the decision was ultimately Tarin's. She was privately thankful for their opinions and dialogue and realized she needed more time to contemplate the decision. She reached up with both hands to push her stray hair curls back behind her ears again. "I appreciate your opinions. I'll consider our options and make a decision later this evening." Tarin nodded at all those assembled then turned to more tangible business.

"In the meantime, I need to brief you all on the condition of Galileo and the events of the last 36 hours." The acting captain looked over her shoulder to the young Trill yeoman with a request. "Zeror, the ship's log."

And Now, the Conclusion...

[ON]

Jeysa grabbed a new PADD off a side table, she'd spent a good chunk of the last hours updating the log with everything that she could remember, the events of the last 36 hours had certainly been a complicated mess. "Here Sir." She offered Tarin the PADD.

Morgan accepted the large slim device from Jeysa then slowly began to scroll backwards through its contents. The ship's log was a detailed filing of all recorded events aboard the vessel. It contained brief yet often thorough notations of all evolutions ranging from the mundane to the most critical of situations. It took a few moments before she finally located the last entry prior to the away teams' dispatchal.

"Shortly after Galileo launched Livia and Virginia, we moved to a standby position farther away from the cold station but still in local range. The intermittent contact trailing us since we left Regula I gave no indication that it had left. I ordered the initiation of a series of gravitic pulses to locate and expose it while we had the opportunity," explained Tarin before glancing back down at the PADD. "At stardate 69348.36, Galileo initiated its first pulse and detected a nearby cloaked vessel. Subsequent pulses confirmed the target's location. I ordered the ship to intercept and lock a tractor beam." She inhaled a larger-than-usual breath as the visceral memories returned. "Once the tractor hold engaged, the vessel decloaked." Morgan looked back up to the other officers around the table.

"It was a Ferengi D'Kora-class heavy cruiser -- with a cloaking device installed that was stolen from the Klingon Empire. They were...pleased to encounter us and considered our ship and crew their new 'property'. Stalking would be a better term. At stardate 69348.46, they engaged Galileo with superior weaponry. The ship suffered heavy damage to the starboard nacelle and main engineering, leaving us unable to escape. The Ferengi, under the command of a DaiMon named Nok, were seeking 'new financial opportunities' here in the Pleiades Cluster. Pillaging not only scrap, but smaller Federation vessels -- and apparently, their crews." The disgust was bleeding through Tarin's voice while recalling the next actions of the Ferengi commander's crew. "With our warp and impulse drives offline, the Ferengi beamed aboard then began abducting our crew. We engaged in close quarter combat but several of us were taken. I was one of those who was abducted to the marauder when they targeted the bridge," Morgan revealed with angry candor.

'Damn' Amanda thought wishing she had been there to do her job aboard the ship and teach the Ferengi several painful lessons but of course protecting the away team had been just as important.

Blake held her breath for a few more moments than necessary, and her expression remained cool but with just a hint of 'I was gone for five minutes and people got abducted?' She was pretty sure that every time she left the ship, she ended up in one circle of hell or another and the ship went to pieces. Literally. "But that doesn't explain the Klingon in the morgue..."

Tarin cast a fleeting glance to Blake. "No, it doesn't. While I was aboard the Ferengi cruiser in captivity, our crew continued to fight -- resorting to hand-to-hand combat. A Klingon vessel then appeared, the IKS Praxis, in search of their stolen cloaking device. That ship had tracked down Nok and his crew across many lightyears and came to Galileo's defense at the most opportune moment. From what I've been told...they boarded our vessel and joined us in fighting the Ferengi, capturing and killing many of them in the process. The Klingon ship disabled the Ferengi cruiser then boarded it. They took as many prisoners as you'd expect, but freed me from captivity," Tarin continued to reveal. Her eyes shifted with uncertain feelings. "The Klingon in our morgue is Captain KehG, Praxis' commander. Ensign Mimi is currently in the brig under suspicion of killing him. Suspicion of murder."

There was a long silence. Not a word was said and so Morgan continued her debriefing of recent events. "When the Ferengi vessel was finally disabled, we engaged in diplomacy with KehG and his crew. It was an attempt to negotiate for the lives of the captured Ferengi who KehG would almost certainly execute. As part of the negotiation process, I invited all of Praxis' senior staff aboard Galileo for a formal dinner." She shifted herself slightly in her chair as memories of that night quickly returned. "Negotiations were...proceeding well enough until the ensign made several comments disparaging Klingons. Which," she sighed, "led to the Klingon captain revealing one of his prior missions. Apparently he personally oversaw the destruction of the ensign's Nekomi colony when she was a child. Ensign Mimi didn't take it well. She attacked KehG at the table and the two fought to the death, both severely wounding each other until Lieutenant Rice incapacitated both of them with a phaser. Later that evening -- while the two were both in sickbay recovering -- Captain KehG was suddenly found dead next to the ensign with stab wounds to his chest and a Klingon knife next to Mimi's hand containing her fingerprints."

Rafe piped in, "Surely, video of the attack must be on record. Sickbay always has security footage. What does that show?" He was wondering why they were even talking about this. This should have been settled within an hour after the discovery of the dead Klingon. Unless, no, had the footage been scrubbed?

Morgan sighed to Rafe and the rest of the senior staff. He was right, it should have been recorded in full. And that was the crux of the problem. "The sickbay's internal video logs are...incomplete. Most of the pertinent recordings are either missing or distorted. I've tasked petty officer Stark with restoring as much of them as possible with Ops' assistance, but we can't deny or verify the ensign's actions at this time."

Caradec mulled this over. "But even so, Captain, wouldn't there be some metadata we could sort through in terms of isolating who was where with recognizable bio patterns and movements through the room? Since this is sickbay, wouldn't all this be constantly recorded? Even if the computer is not assigning this data to a particular person, couldn't we run a comparative analysis to validate who was there at what times and what movements they took?" Rafe would be the first to admit he didn't know what level of monitoring the main computer performed in sickbay, but he could always hope.

He considered a thought..., something more secure... Hmmm, perhaps that could be something suggested to Commander Allyndra at a later date if it wasn't already protocol. He would pursue this later when time afforded.

Prominent signs of fatigue were starting to present in Morgan's features. She hadn't slept in close to 24 hours, and even with the away teams now recovered, she saw little hope that her duties would subside anytime soon. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, the corners of each displaying slight redness. "Petty officer Stark is conducting the investigation," she repeated to new red-collared lieutenant. "I'm sure he's utilizing all of our resources. But your assistance is welcome, if Commanders Blake and Warraquim approve?" Her gaze fluttered to the other commanders in the room.

Blake managed to refrain from rubbing her face with a hand. How was everything such a mess? Mimi suspected of murder? Mimi? And if Stark had been put in charge, what was Aria doing? She refrained from asking for the time being. Because frankly, she wasn't sure she could deal with any more bad news for the time being. "I'm sure Stark could use the extra pair of hands."

"I have no objections," Allyndra cocked her head slightly. "Has an autopsy been performed on the subject?"

"No," Tarin promptly responded. "Captain KehG's body will need to be returned to Praxis soon. Along with notification that their commander was murdered under our care. Possibly executed." The acting captain grit her teeth. "We can't deface his body using Starfleet medical technology and add insult to injury."

"Yes captain. While I would say after reviewing the file, injuries and death are consistent with what you described, there is always something that might be found. Consistent does not mean conclusive." Allyndra shrugged.

The doctor wasn't wrong. Her prudence was certainly appreciated and perhaps she possessed medical skills and techniques which could possibly circumvent some of the political concerns. "You have my permission to examine Captain KehG's remains. In a non-intrusive manner," Tarin agreed.

"Very good captain." Allyndra made a small nod.

The debrief continued and Morgan's thoughts about KehG became conflicted. On the one hand he was a capable and diplomatic warrior who had supposedly led many ships through battle and was an asset to the Empire. That much alone was enough to earn Tarin's respect. And yet he had challenged one of her own crew to the death... Or had he? It had been Ensign Mimi who'd initiated the conflict by assaulting him during the diplomatic dinner. Never once had the ensign backed down following the initial engagement. And now, KehG was dead, and Morgan wasn't sure how to interpret his short legacy aboard Galileo.

Tarin lightly shook her head, her curly hair shifting across the top of her shoulders. "In the aftermath of Ensign Mimi's challenge againt the Klingon captain, I attempted to restore diplomacy between our two vessels. To preserve the lives of the Ferengi still aboard Praxis," she explained. "I offered an exchange -- one of our own officers would temporarily serve aboard their vessel in exchange for free passage for the Ferengi to Regula I and a provisional port for Praxis to resupply at." She glanced around the table again before revealing the reason why one of their most prominent senior officers wasn't present. "Lieutenant Rice is now serving aboard Praxis under Commander Kuran, KehG's first officer-turned-captain."

Blake watched Tarin steadily for a long moment. Her features were closed, but behind her eyes she was in absolute disbelief. The ship already had a fair number of higher ranking officers off the ship on an away mission, and the security team was running on an absolute skeleton staff...and she'd sent Rice to a Klingon ship to find a penpal? "All things considered, we should be looking to get her back as soon as possible."

"Rice can handle herself," Tarin replied to Blake. "She has a new duty to perform right now...as an ambassador." Out of all the officers aboard the Nova-class starship, Rice had earned the most trust and confidence from her over the past two weeks. Not only because she was able to keep up in PT during extraneous exercises, but also because she seemed to have something to prove; a chip on her shoulder that she might not know exited. Ambition to prove herself. There was no better place to accomplish that than a Klingon battlecruiser.

"I'm not concerned about her, I'm concerned about us," Blake replied honestly, shaking her head slowly and carefully as she touched her finger to the desk to indicate the ship. "We've taken a beating. We have limited support out here. Our security team is dangerously small. We need our Security Chief here."

Morgan looked into her first officer's sharp blue eyes. "Now that you and the away teams have returned, you can fill her position as chief of security. You are a former-Marine, after all. Or...are you volunteering to take her place aboard Praxis?" she asked. The solution seemed simple to the New York-raised captain. The starship was indeed short on personnel, but if the crew stepped up to their potential, they could maintain at least 70% operational efficiency over the next several days until they returned to Regula I.

"I'm saying we need to worry about ourselves first. A Klingon ship is capable of looking after itself," Blake replied bluntly, shaking her head with a frown at even entertaining the idea of lending their staff out after everything that had happened. "We need all hands available here."

"And we also need that Klingon ship to escort us back to Regula I," countered the acting-captain with an obvious wave of her hand. She exhaled then leaned further back in her chair. "You're correct, it is a capable warship, and right now, it's our best defense against anything else we might encounter until we get back to port. Their dead captain is in our morgue and they've taken most of the Ferengi as prisoners who won't survive their journey back to Rura Penthe. We need diplomacy with them right now. Rice is the one to achieve it."

Another short pause presided without further comment. Taking her cue, Tarin picked up her PADD then handed it back to the yeoman. "Let's get ready to return to Regula I," she instructed the assembled officers. "We've spent too long here already and the ship's in need of repair. Some of the crew, too, from the looks of it," her hazel eyes flicked across those present who'd just engaged in an emotionally charged debate. "We're departing in a half hour. Take care of any last-minute issues and I'll see you on the bridge at 1400. Dismissed."

Blake rose first, pushing herself to stand, drawing herself to her full height with military posture as usual. She strode out briskly, tugging at her cuffs to straighten her sleeves, giving her hands something to do in her irritation. It was such a mess...an absolute mess, and she couldn't even bring Aria home.

Amanda stood and headed for the door, with Aria on the Klingon ship it effectively left her on charge of the department and there was a lot of thing that needed checking and a debrief of her own to perform with Gabriel.

Allyndra stood but waited while the rest filed out. She wanted to show that even though there was discussion and disagreement, in the end she stood with the first officer and the captain. She thought it important. She then made a nod to those two and followed the rest out.

[OFF]

--

CMDR Morgan Tarin
Acting Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A

PO3 Jeysa Zeror
Yeoman
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

LTJG Rafe Caradec
Conn Officer
Cold Station 31

ENS Amanda Turell
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

CMDR Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

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