Black Site

Posted on Mon Feb 15, 2021 @ 4:35pm by Civilian 'Key Holder' Dorian Gabriel & Commander Caleb Ryan

3,279 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Things Past
Location: Bajor/Capital/Central Constabulary
Timeline: 2376
Tags: Bajor, Section 31, Intelligence, Winchester

Natalya smoothed her hands over the little black dress she wore, low cut and high hemmed to draw attention away from Dorian. “So weepy mugged tourists is the play?” she confirmed with him. “We’re going to need to get our hands on some uniforms to go deeper into the building. Unless we can distract the desk sergeant and any overzealous officers. Maybe cut the power somehow?”

Dorian shook his head dismissively as he pulled out his padd and examined an overhead view of the complex. "Negative. This facility undoubtedly has a separate power source. Cutting power won't do anything except attract attention from somebody on the outside," he replied. "Plus, as soon as we walk through the front door the sensors will record our biometrical information. That is the last thing we'll need."

He zoomed in further on the southeast location. "This is the Central Facility. They manufacture and distribute uniforms to the rest of the force from here. It cuts down on the risk of criminals making fake uniforms themselves," he said as he pointed to the access corridor.

"We need to find a way to get in through there. It'll lead us to the Supply Department. Lighter security there," he said as he put the padd away. "We can move fast, take out the guard, and get what we need without setting off perimeter defenses."

“Okay, so how do we play it?” Natalya asked. “Lost tourist? Delivery? Street walker? How many guards on that door?”

"Damsel in distress," Dorian said as he rolled up his sleeves. "Nothing will make the guards leave their posts quicker than thinking that a meek and defenseless woman is being attacked by an angry man," he said. "When they run over to protect, then we can disable them quickly and move into the facility before they have time to notify backup," he suggested.

"Let's get moving before they change shifts," he said as he made his way down the street to the facility.

Natalya nodded, following Dorian. “Security sensors will be lighter on that entrance, too,” she said. “Employees only, and all that. Likely will only register appropriate comm badges rather than biometrics. And don’t be afraid to hit me,” she told Dorian. “Make it look real.”

It was a short walk across the plaza to the Central Constabulary, so even taking a roundabout way to the back service entrance, it didn’t take them long. Two guards stood smoking whatever it was Bajorans imbibed outside the door. They weren’t too alert, she noted. Likely not much ever happened here right in the center of the capital in front of the constabulary.

Dorian observed the two officers for several moments before he nodded towards Natalya.

"I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A STUPID IDEA!" he said as he grabbed her by the arm tightly and threw her against the nearest wall. "I KNE--I KN--- I KNEW YOU WERE FLIRTING WITH THAT WAITER, JU---JUST LIKE THE WHORE YOU ALWAYS ARE!" he said, choosing to slur his words in a drunken demeanor as he shook her violently and slammed her against the wall.

Natalya rolled with the assault. She started to whimper and cry, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I wasn’t flirting! I just said hello!” she begged helplessly. “Please!”

Dorian could hear the voices of the guards, but he wanted them to come away from the door and get as far from the surveillance sensors as possible before responding. He turned back towards Natalya and punched her in the stomach, just below her rib. "YOU WHORE! YOU'D PROBABLY WANT A GO WITH A BUNCH OF CARDIES, TOO, HUH!? IS THAT WHAT YOU LIKE!" he continued.

“Hey!” came a challenging call. The blow had left Natalya wheezing, and she looked up helplessly at the surprised faces of the guards as they walked rapidly over to the arguing couple. “That is no way to treat a lady!”

As he heard the voice get close enough, Dorian took a step backwards. He pivoted on his back foot and brought his left elbow into the closest guard’s face, catching him off guard. He spun around completely, bringing his right fist around and brought it into the connection between the guard's nose and face, spewing blood in a small arc.

As the guard was disoriented, Dorian swept his back leg out from underneath him, dropping him to the ground, causing him to slam his head back forcefully onto the concrete and begin to lose consciousness.

Natalya reached under her dress and pulled out the stun baton, snapping it open. It sparked as she jabbed it into the second guard, who was trying to call for help, silencing him as his body jerked spasmodically before falling to the alley pavement.

“Well, that got the blood going,” Natalya said, collecting the comm units from the two guards, as well as their phasers, tossing one of each to Dorian. She took some zip binders from her purse and hog tied the two Bajoran constables. “Nice shot, by the way.” She smiled at Dorian. “I’m going to bruise up nicely.”

"Yeah..." Dorian responded less than enthusiastically. The idea of punching a woman wasn't exactly his idea of a good time. He dragged the nearest guard to him out of view and took his access device.

"Let's move quickly," he said, as he made his way over to the door and activated it. He waited for several moments as the door processed the device and eventually opened. Dorian held the door open and made his way inside with his weapon drawn. According to the diagram, the Material Storage facility was almost ten meters away.

It did not take long to make their way down the hall and to the room where additional uniforms were kept for storage and distribution. Dorian held up his hand to Natalya as he looked inside and saw personnel mulling about inside the room.

"How do you want to deal with them? From the looks of it, they appear to be non-combatants and just staff members who handle distributing the uniforms," he said to the other officer.

Natalya considered, eying where stacks of uniforms sat on the shelves. “We can blow the primary EPS circuit for the room,” she said. “Slip in during the confusion and use the darkness to get the uniforms. It’s either that, or a wide beam stun and hope we get everyone.”

"Let's go with the EPS blowout, keep it local to just this room," Dorian said. "Considering where we are, a phaser discharge would set off every internal sensor."

Natalya nodded and moved to the wall. She used a multitool from one of the constables they had taken down outside to remove the access panel to the EPS grid. The circuits were nice and neatly labeled. Wonderful. She found the one for the equipment room and snapped it off. “Go!”

As soon as the lights within the room cut off, Dorian moved quickly. He crossed the room in under two seconds and grabbed the first employee and placed him in a sleeper hold. He struggled briefly before the pressure applied to his neck caused him to quickly lose consciousness and collapse. Dorian allowed his body to drop to the ground.

He withdrew his weapon and aimed it at the temple of the remaining employee just as the lights came back on. The employee's face was a combination of fright and surprise. He tried to utter something close to being a response, but his words were just a jumbled mess.

"Two Constabulary uniforms...now!" Dorian said as he pressed the butt of his weapon into the employee's temple with each word in order to drive the point home. "Or else you'll end up just like your colleague," Dorian said, implying that the other Bajoran had been killed. Dorian hadn't killed the man, but he saw the benefit in letting the terrified Bajoran believe so.

"Now move!"

“Th-This way,” the employee said, indicating the aisle with the uniforms.

Natalya slipped inside with them, keeping watch as they moved down the aisle. She checked the uniforms and found two in their sizes. She also grabbed a bunch of zip ties and a pair of socks to bind and gag the two employees.

“We can stash them in the maintenance closet in the hall,” she said, already peeling out of her dress.

Dorian nodded as he began to drag one employee over to the nearby maintenance closet.

Natalya stripped down to bra and panties and then pulled on the Bajoran constable’s uniform. It fit a bit snug across her chest, but it would do for what they needed. She also grabbed the ID badge off the constable they had incapacitated. She set it to scan so they could hear the constables’ internal communications.

Once the closet was secure, Dorian started to fit himself into the particular uniform. Although it generally fit him, there did not leave much space around the torso and neck region.

He retrieved his schematic of the facility. "Nalis Pym said Myra Jeru is inside the morgue that is in the basement. We can probably reach the stairway that leads to the basement access by going this way," he said as he started to head in that direction.

"What's the plan for getting the Minister out of here, assuming she's still alive?" Dorian asked as they made their way down the hall.

Natalya grabbed another uniform. “Same way we came in,” she said. “And if it gets hot, we call in cavalry.” She indicated a Winchester comm unit. “Pierce doesn’t think the Bajorans will want to shine too big a light on their black site once we have what we want.”

Natalya purposefully took the stairs down to the morgue. There was only a sleepy night attendant on duty, and she quickly took care of him with a stun gun against the side. Then they were alone in a room full of drawers of dead people.

Natalya started scanning as she went, looking for the hidden access.

There was a cavalry waiting for them, just another surprise that Pierce had kept to himself. Dorian could only imagine the fun that was going to be had when the Powers That Be realized that a covert team had breached their security and stolen back a high-valued target like Minister Myra Jeru. A Minister that was supposed to be dead.

"Will we revive her here or wait until we can extract her?" Dorian said, trying to work the calculations in his mind as to what condition she'll be in and how to get her out of the facility. "Chances are they are masking her vital signs within the morgue to make it harder to locate her, since everyone is supposed to be dead,” he added.

“We’ll need to at least get her out of the black site,” Natalya said, “whatever condition she’s in. Someplace not being masked, as you said. Outside the transport inhibitors would be even better.” It was a constabulary, after all, so much of the building was shielded from transport.

“Here,” Natalya said. “There’s a dead zone.” She stopped at the last morgue stasis unit. She opened the door and shined her light inside. She found a hidden switch and triggered it. A hidden panel on the back wall slid open, just like Pym had said it would.

Natalya pulled out the black passcard they had taken from Minister Pym, and then a small contacts case with the retinal copy that she carefully put into her eye, blinking back the tears. “Get the voice code ready,” she told Dorian.

Dorian withdrew his comm unit that had been programmed to emit the sound recording of Pym's voice, tone, and pitch. He figured they would be able to use the device once before the machine recognized that it was being artificially transmitted since normal people did not talk the exact same way multiple times in a row.

"It's ready," Dorian replied.

Natalya nodded. She swiped her passcard, then nodded to Dorian to play the voice code. She leaned down to let the scanner read the retinal contact in her eye.

ACCESS GRANTED flashed on the screen, and the sound of heavy security locks releasing echoed in the empty morgue. There was a hiss as the door slid to the side, revealing a short flight of steps down even lower than the basement. There was very low light, but it started to slowly brighten.

Natalya gave a low whistle and glanced over at Dorian. “Jackpot.”

Dorian continued to watch the exit hatch as he walked over and began to make his way down the flight of stairs to the lower basement. He could not see that well, so he was forced to use his data padd as the only source of light as he felt his way towards what he believed would be Myra Jeru. Once he reached the bottom of the stairwell, the low light in the room shined over the prone form of Minister Myra Jeru.

"There, let's get her up and out of here. We can explain the situation as we're moving," Dorian said as he gave a furtive glance towards the exit.

There were a few cells down here. Most were empty, but a few contained prisoners. A couple of older Cardassians, likely here since the end of the occupation, and a couple of teens and twenty-somethings bearing the distinctive markings of Bajorans and Cardassians -- half-breeds. But their goal was the woman in the last cell.

Myra Jeru’s blonde hair was nearly grey, falling out in patches. Her pale skin was flaking off in large chunks. Even her clothing had the same flakiness. She lay unconscious on the cot inside, barely breathing. Natalya frowned and studied the woman as she unlocked the cell.

“Something isn’t right with her,” Natalya murmured as they moved into the cell.

"Yeah, she's been held in a morgue for years. I wouldn't be right and dandy either," he replied sharply. "We can run a medical diagnostic on her later. Right now we need to extract her before anyone finds out that we disabled the employees in the uniform department," he replied.

“No, you don’t understand. I’ve seen this before.” Natalya moved to the bed. “I’ve seen this degradation in changelings infected with the morphogenic virus.” She ran a quick tricorder over Myru Jera. The woman’s blue eyes fluttered open weakly, her mouth moving with a silent plea.

"What the hell are you talking about? Only changelings can contract that virus. The Dominion recalled all of the Founders that were operating within Cardassian space at the conclusion of the war," he asked, not sure what Natalya was getting at.

Natalya showed Dorian her scans. “She is a changeling,” she said. “And if she’s been down here since her supposed death…” She shook her head in amazement. “I’m surprised she’s still alive!”

Dorian turned and stared Natalya in her eyes. "We're down here chasing after a damn Founder!" he said angrily as he realized the larger scope of the mission. "Pierce sent us down here knowing what the hell this thing is and never told us!" he continued. "What the hell is going on?" he asked her suspiciously.

“I intend to ask just that when we get back,” Natalya said coolly. “Let’s get her out of here.” She put her tricorder away and moved over to the bed, helping Myru Jera -- the changeling -- to sit up, then get to her feet, pulling an arm over her shoulder to help support her weight.

Dorian eyed the changeling carefully. He didn't have a sufficient disruptor on him, so the thing could kill both him and Natalya if she really wanted to. However, it appeared that her condition was too weak to really make her much of a threat. However, she was a Founder, she could be doing all of this as a ploy to simply get them to let their guard down.

"Fine," Dorian said coldly as he took the lead and began the climb up the stairs back towards the morgue. "We're going to need to do something to conceal her appearance, otherwise we're obviously going to stand out if someone walks by and sees us carrying a damn Founder," Dorian said as he reached the door and began to look for a hovercart. "Here, put her on here and cover her. It will look as if we are transporting a patient. If anybody asks, we can just say we have to get beyond the transporter dampeners inside of the facility. That should give us enough cover to get to the extraction site," he suggested.

Natalya gently eased Jera onto the gurney and pulled a sheet off a dead body to cover her with. She started pushing the gurney toward the freight elevator. It must have been the late hour, but they didn’t meet anyone on the way out. The officers on the door they had rendered unconscious were still out, and apparently hadn’t been noticed.

“You folks need a lift?” a tall, broad-shouldered shadowy figure spoke from the end of the alley. A large delivery truck blocked the end of the alley, the lights shining on the rugged features of Starfleet Marine Sergeant Erebus Caine, complete with Bajoran nose ridges to mask his appearance, dressed in a brown delivery man uniform. “How has the honeymoon been?” he asked Dorian with a sly wink, looking Natalya over admiringly.

Dorian was in no mood for pleasantries. He had just discovered that he had been sent to retrieve a damn shapeshifter. “It was fine,” Dorian said through clenched teeth. “It was filled with nonstop surprises.”

“Seems like a fascinating tale,” Caine said with a smile, turning and opening up the back of the delivery truck to reveal a small marine strike team. “Hop on in.” He came over to help with the gurney, and soon enough they were speeding out of the city.

Dorian climbed in and took a seat as the other marines moved the changeling into the vehicle. He looked around suspiciously at the small gathering. He hadn't been told that their extraction would involve others. More importantly, a small Marine strike team. Dorian knew that such a cadre of fighters would not have been gathered unless someone believed they were needed. Dorian leaned his head back and listened to the others continuing to talk.

The Marine’s corpsman took a quick look over the suffering changeling. Myra Jeru flaked pieces off herself at every jostle, so they had to be careful. “She’s stabilized, somehow,” the corpsman said. “Medical will be able to tell more than I can with just a tricorder.”

Natalya nodded. “You have a change of clothes for us?” she asked, starting to open the fasteners on her constabulary uniform. It wouldn’t do for them to get pulled over with a pair of Bajoran constables in the back of a delivery truck.

“Bespoke,” Erebus Caine said, eying the attractive lieutenant appreciatively for a moment before tossing her and Dorian a set of civilian clothes, along with a transporter tag. Once they were dressed, he knocked on the panel connected to the driver, who pulled over and parked before the entire team and the changeling disappeared into the midst of a transporter effect.

---

Lt. Natalya Ivanova
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Winchester
Section 31

Lt. Dorian Gabriel
Starfleet Intelligence
USS Winchester

Sgt. Erebus Caine
Starfleet Marine Corps
USS Winchester

Myra Jeru
Former Agriculture Minister of Bajor
Founder of the Dominion

 

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