Debrief

Posted on Sun Sep 9, 2018 @ 7:36am by Lieutenant Kivan Ta'Gas & Commander Caleb Ryan & Ensign Jessica Mayhew

1,052 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Victory Conditions
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD09 0900

Caleb nodded to the nurse at the duty station when he walked into Sickbay. “Mayhew and Kivan?” he asked. The nurse indicated the quarantine ward, standard for portal travelers, even though they knew the time period and place the two young Starfleet officers had been. He was informed they were no longer under quarantine.

Caleb caught Travis Nottingham as the young security officer exited the room, one of Mayhew’s security team. “Checking up on your boss?”

“Yes, sir,” Travis said, straightening instinctively and blushing slightly.

Caleb raised an eyebrow. Well, he couldn’t fault the man. Jessica was an attractive young woman. “Good man,” he said, patting Travis’ shoulder. “They decent?”

“I--I--um--” Travis stammered, looking like a man caught in flagrante.

Caleb laughed. “Relax, Nottingham. Ah meant is it safe ta go in?”

“Yes, sir.” Travis managed an embarrassed smile. “I’m on duty, so I better go.”

Caleb nodded and watched the young man leave before knocking on the door and entering. The room had been partitioned by a curtain, though it was pulled halfway back, allowing Caleb to see both sides. Jessica sat up in her bed reading a padd. She looked fine, and was dressed in sickbay slacks and a tunic. She was also likely bored out of her skull.

Kivan had been a lot worse. He’d had been rushed to surgery the night before after they had been retrieved from Pangea following the Svikari incident.

“How ya’ll doin’, ensigns?” Caleb asked.

Jessica looked up at her former boss and now XO. “Bored,” Jessica said. “Any way you can get me released and back on duty?”

“Up to the docs, Ah’m afraid,” Caleb said.

"I'm doing well enough, sir," Ensign Kivan Ta'Gas said as he sat up in his biobed and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He struggled for several moments, but eventually he was able to climb to his feet and come to attention in the presence of the Executive Officer.

“At ease, Ensign,” Caleb said. “Ya just had a Cardassian knife in your gut. Ah think we can dispense with the formalities for a while.”

Jessica gave Kivan a scolding look and hopped off of her bed to help him back into his.

“Can you two give me a quick rundown of what happened?” Caleb asked. “The cliff notes, while ya write your official reports.” Caleb pulled over one of the doctor’s stools from the corner and took a seat.

Kivan slowly walked back to his bed and got back into it. He took several deep breaths before responding to the XO.

"It was a setup from the very beginning. The bastards used the child as an excuse to get through the portal just so they could give the Cardassian government the morphogenic virus," Kivan said. "I'm not sure how they were able to get the information. Maybe they had a spy within Starfleet Medical, or maybe they had some other way of gaining that classified information," Kivan said, still unsure of how Legate Umar knew what he did.

"They just slaughtered Crewman Mistal and Rhianna as if they were some kind of animal in the wild," Kivan said, his anger rising from his voice. "Those bastards in that Embassy knew about this and sent us all to our deaths," he said, even angrier.

“All right, son. Ah’ll look inta that,” Caleb promised. “But you stopped them, obviously. The timeline seems unaffected.” Of course, would he know? This is why time travel was forbidden! He knew they shouldn’t have sent the boy back. “Ah want ya both ta keep yer eyes an’ ears open to anything you think is...different from what it should be.”

“We didn’t leave any evidence behind,” Jessica said. “I used a plasma grenade to flash fry the bodies and gear since we couldn’t take them with us.”

Caleb nodded. “That will have ta be good enough.”

"That's not entirely true, sir," Kivan said.

"The boy, Bretav, he's still alive. He saw the exchange of fire and heard Legate Umar. I'm not sure how much he was able to pick up since children's universal translators don't have the same range of language as an adult in Starfleet or Central Command," he said. "We weren't able to figure out what he knew because we were rushing to pop smoke before Cardassian reinforcements arrived," the young engineer said as he leaned back further in his bed.

"Plus there was no telling what was said during the exchange with the Umar's communication officer when he was signalling for pickup," he said, still running the entire scenario though his mind. "If the Cardassians are smart, they'd probably have detected the difference in Umar's outgoing signal compared to then-Cardassian military signals," he added.

“We can hope they chalk it up ta some kind of signal interference or something,” Caleb said. “So the boy got home safely?”

“We don’t know, sir,” Jessica said. “He ran off when the violence started. I told him to run. I was afraid Umar might kill him as a witness.”

Caleb nodded. “Ah’m not sure there was much more ya’ll could do,” he admitted. “Ya did good ta minimize your footprint, an’ Ah’m glad you’re back safe.”

Kivan withheld any further comments. Part of him wondered if allowing Bretav to run off was a good idea. He had already been taken from his home once before. At least if he were brought back to the station there'd be no risk of him contaminating the timeline. Even more pessimistically, Kivan wondered if perhaps all interests would have been served if he had been killed in the scuffle as well.

Caleb put a hand on Kivan’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Get your reports written up while things are still fresh in your minds,” he told them. “Then rest up. Ah’m gonna put ya both in for a citation. Ah’ll also put an inquiry in about Bretav, see if we can’t find out how he turned out.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jessica said.

Caleb gave a nod and turned to leave.



Cdr. Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer

Ens. Jessica Mayew
Security Officer
NPC Caleb Ryan

End. Kivan Ta’Gas
Assistant Engineer

 

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