Dead Man's Shoes

Posted on Sun Jan 12, 2020 @ 6:30pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross

1,504 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: Commander Soran's Office
Timeline: MD62 11:30

[ON]

Natalie stepped into the operations center. Her eyes shifted from one side of the room to the other taking a count of everything and everyone there. She was looking for Commander Soran, but at the same time she wanted to get familiar with her surroundings. Never a good idea for an Intelligence Officer to look like a fish out of water.

Various duty posts were manned, And Natalie got glimpses of information here and there. Holding patterns for various docking bays, the efficiencies of generators, the draw through the EPS network, levels of O2 and CO2 and NO2. All the things a healthy station needs.

She was intercepted by the duty yeoman, a young petty officer who wasn't old enough to have graduated the academy had she gone. The petty officer gave her an anxious smile. "Lieutenant Cross, ma'am?"

Natalie nodded in response.

The yeoman "We're expecting you." she pointed up a short flight of stairs to the elevated floor that ran around the back of ops. 'That door there. just go straight in."

Before Natalie had a chance to say anything the yeoman had pointed her in the direction of the stairs. Natalie looked over at the stairs, and nodded once more. "Thank you." She said then headed over and up the stairs towards the door. She paused in front of the door and announced herself with a knock on the door even though the yeoman had told her to go straight in.

A moment later the door opened and Natalie stepped inside. She stopped about five or six steps inside the office. "Lieutenant Natalie Cross, reporting ma'am."

Soran's office was spartan. there was her desk and chair and that was it for furniture. But it was the back wall that caught attention. The whole thing eas transparent aluminium, it made the whole place look open to the void, the commander surrounded by stars.

Soran put the padd she was reading aside. "Welcome aboard, Ms Cross." The trill looked very neatly pressed, nothing crumpled or undone. Blonde hair was tightly braided and then pinned down so not a single hair was out of place. "I trust you're all settled in without incident?"

"Thank you ma'am." Natalie replied as she took in the sight of the wall behind the Commander. It was a sight to behold. On top of the wall, Natalie definitely enjoyed and found appealing the minimalist nature of the office. She nodded. " Yes ma'am. The trip here was uneventful. And I've had more then enough time to settle into my new quarters." She was a minimalist. Only carrying the necessities.

"You join us at an interesting time. Any questions on the briefing packet before I bring you up to date with more recent events?"

Natalie shook her head. "No questions in regards to the brief packet. I'm interested in finding out about current events."

Current events, Maritza mused. Things were always happening. "Several. Your predecessor...is missing, presumed abducted. Six weeks ago he boarded a ship, the USS Marseilles under a Captain Aaron Daniels. But when our Doctor Wells tried to contact him, she got nothing. Man and ship are gone. The only Marseilles in the registry was decommissioned twenty years ago. Blown to bits at Wolf 359."

A series of questions came to mind as she listened to the Commanders update on the situation with Captain Daniels and the Marseilles but none that needed to be asked or answered right now. "Any leads yet?" She asked assuming that an investigation was already on the way given that it's been six weeks.

"No," Soran admitted, an edge of frustration in her voice. "But I get the feeling we've nudged something bigger by raising an investigation. Also, we think this may be something to do with Haines' father, Robert. He was an intelligence officer too, before he went MIA. But Intel are stonewalling Security. I'm hoping having our own intel officer again will shake something loose."

Natalie nodded. The signs of frustration were obvious enough. No one enjoyed spinning their wheels for weeks on end without any results. "I'll do my best to get us over some of the hurdles that are in front of us." She said in a confident tone. "Why do you believe that his father has something to do with this?"

"Something that Daniels said to me when he first asked me to sign Haines over. He implied that Haines father had caused him trouble, he said he knew what to do with 'troublesome Haineses'." Maritza felt her spine go icy. "The only problem with my hypothesis is that Robert Haines was declared MIA years ago."

"Interesting." Natalie said pondering the idea of an Intelligence Officer being declared MIA. There was a good chance that he was still put there on a mission or maybe he was in hiding. She made a note to look deeper into this connection. "I'll definitely reach out to number of contacts. I'm fairly positive one of them will have something to share with us. Anything else I should know about the situation?"

"I'll have the full file sent to you, but right now... The longer he's gone, the less hope I have." Maritza's eyes looked past Natalie for a moment, unseeing the present and imagining the future. "And I have others to worry about. Ones who are definitely alive."

"I understand. I've been on both sides." Natalie put her guard down for a moment. In another life she had been the one searching for people who had gone missing and unfortunately had also been captured herself. It still feels painful thinking about it. She took a moment before she continued. "It isn't easy for anyone, but loved ones and the commanding officers always feel it the hardest. I'm going to do my best to help resolve this situation. I am sure that everyone else here on the station is also doing their best to assist in any way, shape and form." She lips curved upwards in a soft and reassuring smile, but only for a moment.

"Good." Soran replied, and then moved on abruptly. "The Xi'cadia situation is likely to remain complicated. We really need eyes and ears on the Cardassians. They're up to something. Nominally Legate Turvan is no longer the Ambassador, he had his diplomatic status revoked, but his replacement, Lim, seems...temporary at best."

Natalie nodded. The sudden shift in the conversation caught her by surprise but nevertheless she replied. "Understood." She remembered reading in the brief that Xi'cadia system ceded from the Federation, mainly due to Cardassian influence. She made a note to keep an eye on any Cardassian activity. They were always shifty. Planning and scheming. One might confuse them for Ferengi, if their motives were solely Latinum driven but unfortunately they valued power and influence on the quadrant over money.

"Additionally, we are expanding the colony below to make room for the Romulans and the Klingons. The Romulans in particular will need close watching. I'm not sure the suddenly renewked interest in the Pangaea project is entirely...benign." Maritiza wasn't going to trust the Romulans, for all their help with the Marseilles. Not straight away anyway.

Klingons, Cardassians and the Romulans all together under one roof. Sort of. It sure was looking like a receipt for disaster but these decisions were made above her grade. Natalie nodded again. "I'll add them both to my 'keep an eye on list'." Natalie stated. She definitely had one of those but more often then not it pertained to a specific individual or two but she'd made an exception and include a whole sloth of the races mentioned previously.

"Indeed." The Romulans always needed watching,
and whilst she trusted Charg with her life, there was more than Charg to the Klingon contingent and you never knew when someone on Qo'nos might get ideas. "But lightly with the Klingons, the current crop are personal friends." Another reason to make sure someone without her emotional attachments to keep watch.

She nodded fully understanding the situation. Even if it wasn't for the personal relationship that the Commander had with the Klingons it was the fact that Klingons had been one of the closest allies to the Federation. She didn't make a habit of breaking treaties over some intelligence. At least, or rather she made sure she didn't get caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"That's about it, on the Intelligence front." Maritza concluded. "The internal unrest on the station continues, but Security leads on that. Any further questions?"

"None at the moment." She replied. She had enough to go on and get started in her new role in a new place. There would be a bit if a learning curve, she knew that but she felt comfortable enough to tackle challenges as they came up.

Maritza gave her a nod of dismissal. "Then carry on, Ms Cross."

Natalie nodded then turned around and left the office.

[OFF]

Commander Maritza Soran
CO
DS5

Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross
Chief Intelligence Officer
Deep Space 5

 

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