Debriefing

Posted on Fri Mar 22, 2019 @ 8:59pm by Lieutenant Kivan Ta'Gas & Civilian Jason Haines

1,715 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: Intelligence Office
Timeline: MD 07 - 1000

[ON]

Jason sat at his looking at some reports that had slipped by, including one that his superiors wanted more information on. He tapped his comm badge.

"Lieutenant Kivan, this is Lieutenant Haines, Chief Intel", Jason said. "Please report to the Intelligence department offices."

Lieutenant Kivan looked up from his console at the summons. He wondered what the Intelligence department would want with him. But the bruise on the side of his head reminded him of his most recent jaunt on the planet surface.

=/\= "Lieutenant Kivan here, I'm on my way." =/\= the young Engineer said as he notified his replacement and made his way towards the nearest turbolift. Within a few moments the lift stopped on the desired deck and the doors slid open.

Lt. Kivan made his way down the hall towards the Intelligence office. It was an unfamiliar location to him since he had never had any need to interact with intel previously. Once he came to the main doors he entered and waited to be acknowledged by the crewman at the front desk.

"Yes, I'm here to see Lt. Haines", he said.

"One moment", the crewman replied and then locked his terminal and got Jason.

Jason smiled at the Lieutenant and reached out his hand.

"Jason Haines", he said. "Come on back to my office."

He led the man there and asked, "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Kulvan Tea will be fine." The Engineer said as he entered the office and took a seat. Oddly, Ta'Gas expected an intelligence office to be filled with padds marked "classified" and covert hi-tech gear. Sadly, the room did not meet his expectations or imagination.

"So I can I be of assistance?" He asked.

Jason got the tea and his own glass of water. He looked at the Engineer and said, "Well, I do apologize about this as it isn't very timely, but it was requested that I follow up on a portal encounter you and some of our other Cardassian guests had about a month ago. I've read general reports, but what was given to me didn't have any first hand accounts."

Ta'Gas sat up in a jolt. His experience going through the Fae portal had not been a positive one. From time to time he still thought about his encounter with Legate Umar and just how close he came to dying. Not just dying, but dying on Cardassian soil, a land that he was familiar with, but still felt foreign to him.

"What do you want to know?" He asked, snapping back into the present.

"As much as you can recall", Jason replied. "Let's start where you were first brought into the situation? What was your involvement? Take your time and relax, I'm not looking to get anyone in trouble, just to understand."

Ta'Gas groaned inwardly as he took another drink from his cup. How could the intel officer understand what he had experienced? Ta'Gas had tried his best to ignore the past, to think of something other than watching two fellow officers being disintegrated by a Cardassian disruptor. There had been more nights than he could remember where all he could think about was the weight of Legate Umar as he pinned his body into the grass and jammed the weapon through Ta'Gas' side.

This is where you will die. . .
This is where you will die. . .
This is where you will die. . .

Ta'Gas shook his head as he looked back towards the intelligence officer. "I was brought along by Lieutenant Annora as the subject matter expert in operations and engineering. It was unclear to what extent our technology would work interact correctly with the portals." He said. He left out the fact that his Cardassian heritage made the idea of Starfleet encroaching on Cardassian territory a bit easier to swallow.

"So, what was the reasoning behind using the portal?" Jason asked after taking a note on his padd. He took a sip of his drink and took a somewhat casual position, hoping that Ta'Gas would relax a little so he could speak about things a little easier.

"It was to take the Cardassian boy, Bretav, back to his time period." Lt. Kivan said in a more stronger tone. "The boy had been brought to our period by Commander Ryan. The Cardassian government had been pushing for us to return the child to their custody. Security and Science believed that this was the best option since it would have avoided any complications with the Temporal Prime Directive." He said hesitantly. "At least that was what Starfleet thought." He said a she took another sip.

"It turned out to be a damn trap by Legate Umar to go back in time and provide the morphogenic virus to Cardassia to use against the Founders." Lt. Kivan said. ". . .damn idiots."

Jason scowled at that. The Cardassians had been trying to manipulate the current timeline. He wondered what the boy had to do with it?

"Do you know why Commander Ryan brought Bretav to our time period?" Jason asked, noting to follow up with Commander Ryan.

"I'm not sure, I was not a part of the original mission." Lt. Kivan replied. "From what I heard it had something to do with a firefight that occurred and the need to treat Bretav's injuries." He said. "I'm not too clear on the particular details." He added.

"Officially, the Cardassians's story was that they wanted to escort the boy back to his time period and insure that it was not further corrupted by Starfleet interference. We figured that it would be safe since there would only be the Legate and two security escorts as opposed to the entire Tactical Wing that was parked right outside our doorstep", he said.

Jason tried to pace himself to let Kivan collect his thoughts and recover any composure needed. He could tell this was a difficult thing for him to discuss.

"I know that it didn't turn out too safe, but will you tell me from your perspective what happened?" Jason asked.

Ta'Gas was losing his patience with the questioning. He had no desire to relive the experience or to re-live the look of surprise and horror on the face of his crewmates as they were painfully incinerated.

"What's the point of all this?" Lt. Kivan said he slammed his cup down on the desk frustratedly. "Everything that took place is already in my report. I don't see what benefit will come from going over the particulars again." He said.

Jason paused letting Kivan put his frustration out, "I understand this is difficult, I do. Unfortunately reports can only convey so much. I am sure as an engineer, you can appreciate the fact that there is a difference when some describes a support call versus actually being there and seeing things for yourself. Please, let's try to get through this. I will try to be as quick and succinct as possible, I promise."

"Fine, you want to know the truth!?" Lt. Kivan said, his voice rising in emotion. "They were the same typical, scheming, and dishonest fucking Cardassians that they've always been!" He said as he rose to his feet. "They saw chance to screw over the Federation and they took it. Why is anybody surprised? This is what we do!" He said, his voice still carrying the same intensity of emotion.

"We pick fights that we can't possibly win because we're too goddamn short-sighted to see the harm. Occupation of Bajor, the Maquis, joining the Dominion. All of those were our choices and they came back to bite us in the ass." He said angrily, his chest rising and falling rapidly. "Why should this plan have been any different?" He said as his voice began to descend.

Ta'Gas stopped once he realized that he had begun pacing in the middle of the excitement. His outburst was uncalled for and he wasn't quite sure what drove it. Perhaps it was the stress of what he had gone through, perhaps it was his conscious voicing itself, or maybe it was something deeper that he had tried to suppress for a long time.

Jason let Ta'Gas pace and rant, obviously he needed to get it out. It wasn't until Ta'Gas had paused that Jason spoke again.

"So, our timeline doesn't seem to have changed. How did you foil the other Cardassians' plan?"

"We were able to kill them before they could kill us." He said, somewhat oversimplifying what took place. Ta'Gas knew that had Legate Umar made contact with the Cardassian forces in the area, then they would have most certainly been captured and publicly executed. Killing Legate Umar and escaping was the only option he and Lt. Tessero had available.

"It was a stupid plan that never would have worked." He said in a strong voice, but inside of his mind he still had lingering doubts. How different would the fate of his people have turned out if they were able to wrestle control from the Dominion before they massacred entire cities?

Jason jotted a couple of items down and knew the Lieutenant had reached his limit.

"I know it is a touch early, but if you are up for it, let's hit the box and grab a drink and a bite", Jason said. "If you want to say anything more there, you can, if not we move forward and not look back more."

Ta'Gas shook his head. "No, that won't be necessary. I'm tired as it is, I'll just return to duty and finish up my work there." He said as he began to turn to leave, he stopped and looked back at the Intel officer, "Are we done here?" He asked.

"Indeed we are Lieutenant", Rob said. "You are free to go."

Ta'Gas just nodded as he continued out the door.

Jason watched the man leave. The ordeal had definitely been hard on him. He wondered if the medical staff had insisted on counseling. It might do Ta'Gas some good. Then again, who was he to judge. He had his own demons that no counselor had been able to exorcise to date.

[OFF]

Lieutenant JG Jason Haines
Chief Intelligence Officer

Lieutenant J.G.
Kivan Ta'Gas
Assistant Chief Engineer

Deep Space 5

 

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