Dressing Down

Posted on Mon Oct 21, 2019 @ 6:28am by Lieutenant Jason Haines & Commander Caleb Ryan
Edited on on Mon Oct 21, 2019 @ 1:55pm

1,530 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: Commander Ryan’s office
Timeline: MD13 1000

The crewman working the front desk in the Intelligence department sat up straighter as Jason returned from coffee break. “Commander Ryan called down for you, sir,” she said. “He wants to see you as soon as you are available.

"Thank you," Jason said, and turned on his heel and headed back out the door.

He knew this discussion was going to come. He just hadn't been sure as to when. He was grateful that the commander had given him a little time to recover. He was ready for it, but it still wasn't going to be an easy talk.

Once at the commander's office, he said to his aide, "Lieutenant Jason Haines here to see Commander Ryan."

“He’s in his office. I’ll let him know,” she said, pressing a button on the desk. “Sir, Lieutenant Haines to see you, sir.”

“Send him in,” came Caleb’s Texas drawl.

When Jason entered, Caleb was sitting and leaning back in his chair, giving Jason a level look. He tapped a control on his desk and the windows darkened. There was a whirr as the soundproofing turned on.

“Ah s’pose ya know why Ah called ya in?” Caleb said quietly.

"I wouldn't presume, but I do have my suspicion, sir," Jason replied respectfully.

This was not going to be a fun conversation. It would be a tad bit easier than if Commander Soran was across the desk, but not by much.

“Ya put the recent away mission in danger when ya ran off, Lieutenant Haines. An’ ya withheld from me that ya had competing motives. Ah wanted ta give ya the opportunity ta explain yourself before Ah put anythin’ in yer file, son.”

"Thank you, sir," Jason said. "There is a group within Intelligence that works closely with Temporal Investigations, more so than most. There has always been a handshake agreement between the two organizations, but this group is a more defined cooperation. Given my scores in temporal mechanics in Academy, I was brought into the group."

He paused briefly, collecting his thoughts.

"The emergence of Pangaea, as you can imagine, caused quite a stir within various groups, including mine," Jason continued. "Although they disagreed with the decision to give Sciences the lead on the planet, the group acquiesced. Until recently, they were content to wait for reports that came from here."

He paused again.

"When Voyager returned to the Alpha quadrant, she had amassed quite a bit of information that pertained to temporal mechanics, especially from the Borg," Jason said. "And as I am sure you are aware, the crewmember known as Seven was a Borg that was removed from the Collective. She was instrumental in advancement of a lot of the technologies in temporal now.

“One of those allowed for basic simulations of time manipulation, as the transwarp conduits that the Borg create are in fact a manipulation of time. These simulations allow for determination of what could potentially happen given a set of assumptions, in essence, predicting the future. In recent running of such simulations, it was determined that something big, temporally speaking, was about to happen here, relatively soon. They sent me here to both serve as the station's intelligence officer, and to observe temporal activity in the region, and conduct limited simulations, and send information back to the task group to ascertain whether or not the suspicions of a major temporal incident were warranted. I was also given the directive that key individuals, which included Lieutenant Wells and the temporal physicist T'gan, were to be monitored at all times, and should they be in danger of capture or being coerced into giving up information about their studies here, I was to prevent it from happening at any cost, even if it were to mean killing them.

“I was to keep my temporal activity secret unless absolutely necessary, as the task group was trying to honor the agreement that Sciences would be in charge of portal and planetary exploration. They felt if my connection to Temporal was known, that the work that Sciences was doing would be impacted by suspicion. I was given the call as to when I felt it was necessary to reveal the dual nature of my role. So, fast forward to our dubious mission."

He couldn't help but roll his eyes when he said it.

"I would have stepped forward with this information prior to the mission. However, I was kept out of the loop for planning. And given interactions with the Commander the day before, when we assembled, I didn't believe it would be prudent to bring it up at the portal in front of foreign dignitaries, so to speak. The best I could do was put a tracker on Lieutenant Wells.

“Given the interview with the rebels and a discussion with Lieutenant Wells, I was highly suspicious of Inspector Sovok. When my suspicions about the man proved to be correct, my directive in regards to Lieutenant Wells came into effect, and I didn't have the time, nor the privacy, to discuss it with you. And that is why I separated from the group. That is why you didn't know of my dual role until then."

“You could have told us,” Caleb said. “If we had known Lieutenant Wells was on our side of the portal, of course we would have gone after her,” he said. “You going alone was foolish and dangerous, and forced us to have to wait for you, or plan some way to extract you. There is a reason that away team protocol maintains no member goes off alone,” he said sharply.

"With respect, time was of the essence, sir," Jason said. "Someone needed to secure the portal before the Vulcans did more to it or us. That couldn't have been accomplished if we took the time as a whole unit to rescue Lieutenant Wells. Also, if I did have to go the any means necessary route, I'd rather the team think of me as a dumbass deserter rather than a traitorous assassin by seeing me do what I would have had to do. Sort of shoots morale all to hell during the mission and afterwards. That wasn't needed."

He paused a moment.

"Sir, I know typically unplanned split up of teams is bad," he continued. "I'm not a first-year cadet. I wouldn't have done what I did if I didn't believe it was necessary."

“Are there any other secrets?” Caleb asked. “How can I trust you, now that I know you actually work for someone else, and not the best interests of this station and its crew? Including to the extent you are willing to eliminate one of your colleagues?” he said coldly. Caleb had thought he was done with this sort of subterfuge when he left the Nemesis.

"Other secrets, no," Jason answered. "How can you trust me? Only you can answer that, and whether or not you will, I can't control that. All I can say is, one, I work for intelligence and temporal, part of Starfleet, part of the Federation. What happens to anyone here, happens to me, too. Second, if I were willing to eliminate one of my colleagues, I wouldn't have taken the beating I did. A frag grenade would have done the job more efficiently. And last, when I first met you, I apologized to you right off the bat. Do you remember why?"

Caleb considered. “Ah don’t recall,” he admitted. “You forget, Ah’ve worked intelligence, too,” he pointed out.

"I apologized because I had accidently put your butt in the fire," Jason said. "I didn't have to, the Commander would have found out about you clocking that reporter eventually, but I did, because it was the right thing to do. You can count on me to do the right thing. That, however, can't always be done without bending or breaking a few rules. I think the saying is, 'you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs'. That's all I've got, sir. Like I said, I can't control whether you believe or trust me, that's up to you."

Caleb nodded. “That incident was all over FNN anyway,” he said. “This will have ta be noted in your file, Lieutenant,” Caleb told Jason. “That’s as far as Ah’ll go with it for now. But let’s not make this a habit. You get any more secret orders from on high, you tell me or you tell Commander Soran, is that clear?” he asked coolly. “Starfleet Intelligence an’ Temporal Investigations can Monday mornin’ quarterback us all they want, but they ain’t out here on the line. They don’t get a say. We have a chain of command for a reason.”

Jason simply said, "Aye, sir." There was no use trying to convince him otherwise. Plus, he knew his other bosses would have a say, just at a different level.

“Dismissed, Lieutenant,” Caleb said.

"Aye, sir," Jason replied, and turned and left.

Somewhat easier than I thought, Jason thought to himself.

"One down, one to go," he muttered.

FIN

Cdr. Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer

Lt(jg). Jason Haines
Chief Intelligence Officer

 

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