An enemy within? Pt2

Posted on 28 Jul 2018 @ 1:33am by Captain Akio Tachibana & Commander S’chqenr T’Jedf Tolkath (Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Commander Rafe Cassidy (Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Deeli Kosu (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Commander Iria Taltos & Ensign Arthur Jones, Son of Ruk (Jan 2389 TRNSFR After Second Battle of XFY) & Lieutenant Harry Stevens & Yeoman 1st Class Halona Grayson

Mission: Ne Me'e Laua Na Paio - Heroes & Villains
Location: USS Hawaii - Bridge
Timeline: 1315, 16 Jan 2389

[ON]

[Bridge]


Tolkath entered the Bridge from the Turbolift along with Tachibana. "Captain on the Bridge" He announced and the duty crew sat up to attention.

"As you were," Akio said, trying to keep a straight face. While it was not rare for the Captain to be on the bridge, there was definitely a crowd so the astute officers knew this was out of the ordinary, especially for shore leave.

As there was little to get on with other than monitor the navigational sensors to make sure debris wasn't going to come on a sudden collision course for Hawaii, Cassidy's attention had wandered. But he sat bolt upright, perhaps a little too upright, at Tolkath's words, and now noted the sudden propensity of senior staff, the sudden gathering. His focus had been on outside the ship. Seemed he'd missed some of the affairs inside.

Harry entered the room picking up a cup of coffee from the replication unit and took his seat, he knew that this was going to be difficult as the Security department on the station had tried to keep this under wraps, except Ira

Harry arrived on the bridge shortly after the Captain had and took his postion at the Tactical station as he wanted to observe what the station Security would do during the scan, after all they had tried to stop Iria from doing what they were about to do.

Iria stood off to the side not wanting to interfere with the on-duty engineerng officer's duties, at the engineering station on the bridge. She had a wry cheeky grin as on her face despite the fact she was quietly concerned, what if she had the information wrong?

Tolkath crossed over to the Duty Bridge Officer who had relieved him while he had gone across the Station. He received an update on the ship's status and resumed his shift.

He caught Tachibana's eye, glanced towards the Science station and back to Tachibana waiting for the nod to proceed.

Akio gave a discreet nod as he read reports in the center seat, eager to know the results of the scans.

Tolkath then went over the Science station and spoke quietly with the officer there. The woman looked at him uncertainly, Tolkath explained again what was required and indicated on the panel where to scan. She nodded and commenced work.

Tolkath crossed back to the center. "Comm, open a channel to Station Control"

"Aye sir"

Right after the Ensign at Ops spoke, Arthur entered the bridge, "my apologies, didn't mean to be late."

Akio was not sure what the Ensign was referring to, yet he knew the shift schedules had been adjusted due to liberty, so he had heard there was some confusion with the adjustment. The fleeting thought was quickly dismissed by the situation at hand, though.

"Xavier Control, this is Hawaii" Tolkath said "Be advised, we are going to recalibrate our sensors, we will be conducting some scans of the immediate vicinity. Expected duration is eighteen minutes" He announced. Deliberately being untruthful was not natural to the Vulcan, so the duty Science officer was indeed going to recalibrate the sensor suite as part of the process.

"Xavier copies Hawaii All this debris plays havoc with ours as well. Xavier out!"

Tolkath nodded to Tachibana and took a relaxed stance to await the outcome of the scan.

Akio felt his muscles tense as he was almost on the edge of the seat.

Entering the bridge with her hands behind her head as if Deeli was relaxing. She marched onto the bridge and looked around "I got summoned...more than once to report?" Deeli replied in an annoying tone as she looked at the screen seeing the only rumble.

Iria gave a small cheeky grin, as she saw her boss, she really had no words on what to say. Should she apologize for being herself and being nosy when things didn't look right? Or for the extra work they might be doing? Nope she just stood back keeping a cheeky grin on her face and waited until she was needed to explain.

"Standby, Ms. Kosu. I did summon you," Akio said, not wanting to alarm the crew, yet also eagerly awaiting the results before acting.

Rolling her eyes as she mutters walking to some console and started to type on it. 'Always wasting my time, I got better things to do than just waiting on it' She thought and shook her head as Deeli moved towards the next console as the previous one was now working better.


Eighteen minutes later...

Tolkath crossed back to the Science Panel as the computer finished the scan. he let the duty officer refine the data and then she brought it up on the display for him to check. He looked it over for a moment, looked back to Tachibana and nodded. "Thank you, please forward it to the Captain's Ready Room. Then seal the scan, my authorization"

The officer was a little surpised but complied without question. Tolkath crossed back to join Tachibana.

"Lieutenants Kosu and Taltos please join us in my ready room, along with Ensign Stevens. Mr. Cassidy, you have the bridge," Akio said as he nodded to Tolkath.

"Dust," Cassidy muttered, before clearing his throat and standing. "I mean, aye, Skipper," he corrected, then moved in Tachibana's wake to the command chair, approaching it with cautious reverence. He'd sat in one before, though not often, having been some degrees down the chain of command on his last assignment. This was different for two reasons: Hawaii was a Sovereign, and he was reminded he sat three heartbeats from command in a disaster.

It was not a comforting thought. At least one of those hearts was Vulcan, and likely more resilient than him anyway. Besides, he sat at a bridge console. The odds of him outlasting everyone else in a crisis were slim. But his eyes still wandered to the ready room, cautious and curious and tense, as he eased into the big chair.

"About time..." Deeli mutters as she taps onto her third console that was now upgraded to function better and followed Akio towards the Ready Room and wondered what the man now wants from her.

Iria followed as quietly as a shadow as they headed for the Captain's ready room. She really hoped the mystery was about to be resolved or at the least unraveled a bit more.


[Captain's Ready Room - Deck 1]

As Akio entered, he found Yeoman Grayson inside. "Yeoman, please pull up the latest data scan from Commander Tolkath."

Tolkath followed the Captain towards his Ready Room.

Right behind Tolkath, Deeli enters the Ready Room and stood at the side to lean agains the wall. She rather stood so she could leave quicker if it was not worth her time.

Halona nodded her head and her fingers danced over the console that sat upon his desk, after a moment she looked to the Captain, "It requires additional authorization, Sir. Do you want me to leave now?" She asked lightly she wasn't sure of what was going on but if it was meant to be confidential she would excuse herself.

"If you do not have anything else to do, you may remain," Akio permitted.

"Authorization code required," the computer repeated.

"Authorization Tachibana-Zulu-6-0-1," Akio answered.

"Voice print and authorization accepted," the computer beeped.

The data came up on one of the big screens in the room. It confirmed the previous data that Taltos had pulled: the weapons signatures on the damaged sections of XFY were Klingon.

Tolkath approached the screen, tapped some commands into the panel changing the resolution and color. A number of marks now showed up in a dark maroon color.

"These marks indicate areas of the station impacted with energy signatures that correspond to known Klingon weaponry."

He briefly consulted some of the figures and date next to the marks. "It would further appear these are consistent with the slight reduction in energy found when those weapons are fired from cloaked ships."

"HA!" Deeli pointed out her finger towards the scans "I told you from the start that they were involved" Deeli had indeed figured out this information and scenario from the start when she got involved by accident in this confidential information.

"Yet you kept this information to yourself?" Akio asked blankly.

"Look at your former Science and Intel Chiefs, they knew about it," Deeli rose her shoulders up and down "I am just an Engineer and plus you never asked me," Deeli answered as a smartass.

"I'm sure we all welcome Lieutenant Kosu's prescient abilities" Tolkath commented dryly. "but making an allegation against the Klingons is not the same as proving an allegation against the Klingons."

"Which, we are still unable to do" He continued.

"What we have evidence of is that Klingon weapons, fired from within a cloak, were used in the attack of Xavier. That is not proof that those weapons were mounted on Klingon ships or fired by Klingon crews."

"We have seen that the Gorn have several previously unknown ship designs. We cannot exclude the possibility that the Gorn also acquired Klingon weapon and cloaking technology, which were incorporated into their own ship for the attack.

I had the sensors search for propulsion signatures as part of the scan. Unfortunately due to the elapsed time since the attack and the debris field there is no evidence left of the presence of any other ships, besides the Starfleet vessels here now. "

He summed up "We have evidence that Klingon weapons were used, fired from cloaked ships. And that is all.... "

"Thank you Commander for your precise observations," Akio gave a little bow to Tolkath. Once again, Akio appreciated the abilities of Tolkath to apply science in situations compared to Dr. Salmon who probably would have exploded under the pressure.

"Lieutenant Kosu, did you have additional proof you relayed to Intel and Science previously or you were just voicing a hunch?" Akio asked carefully.

Iria stood up smoothly, she had settled on her knees and heels in a crouch while they reviewed the data scans, now she eyed those in the room.

"Secrets are well and good when folks are not being hurt, but if you know something that can get folks hurt and you do nothing about it it's wrong." She wrinkled nose slightly,

"I was in the station's makeshift brig trying to keep this from them because I wasn't sure they didn't work with whomever had really done he damage to the station. I trust Commander Tolkath, the Captain. The rest of you I am still not certain yet."

"Are you implying that I'm not trust worthy Lieutenant?" asked Harry looking at her, he continued, "After all I helped you get out of that brig," he finished "Maybe I should have left you there."

Iria eyed him a moment before she spoke softly, "As I said I am not certain yet either way, I still tried my best while getting those scans, because I believe in this ship and crew. I didn't keep it to myself because I don't want folks to get hurt."

She kept the rest of her comment to herself. Tolkath and the Captain had done most of the work on securing her release he hadn't done much but ask a few questions after the Chief Science officer had already shattered their confidence with a lot of logic. The captain had ordered her to be released after the security footage had played. Either way she was still willing to put faith in Stevens, trust would come or not.

Well, Deeli definitely hated the cocky behavior of Tolkath, being a smartass and trying to put Deeli back in her place. But then her eyes winked at the reaction of her assistant not trusting anyone. Her eyes were locked at the woman as she tried to defend herself against the Ensign. Why did she even bother with these bunch of people, as if they would trust her.

Bolding her fist as she felt the frustration and looked down at the floor 'Why did I have to leave the Redguard, they at least trusted me...' She sniffles a bit as her hair covered her face feeling a tear go down her face "Well if I got nothing to contribute..."

She turned towards the door 'Why do I even bother, if Starfleet Command and SCE just stay off my back, my life would be better' Starting to walk fast towards the door as the door slides open only Akio would have noticed the tears and sad face of Deeli the moment her hair swing away and she left the office.

Tolkath watched the Chief Engineer heading for the door. Slightly baffled by the woman's reaction. One would have though an engineer would have been more .... logical.

Had Akio not seen the tears, he would have reacted differently. It still puzzled him why the Engineer did not up-channel the information, relying solely on the Intelligence and Science Chiefs to do so, yet knowing Kosu, she abhorred human interaction.

Iria looked from the men in the room as her boss exited the Ready room Sometimes being to the point honest wasn't a polite outcome. Iria didn't trust easy, out of the station when she was on the Variant she trusted five people and then only three of those five knew about her activities during off hours.

She knew eventually she would have to really trust the crew on the ship. The Captain of the Hawaii had offered her a huge boost of trust in allowing her to join the crew. Tolkath for whatever reason had seen fit to aid her the most during the brig events. Kosu, she was still trying to understand but even she could tell that her bluntness had hurt her boss's feelings. She had a way to fix some of the issues but now wasn't the right time.

"I think we have come a long way from Providence and like it or not, we must trust each other because out here, we can only rely on each other," Akio noted before dismissing the crew.

Akio let them know there would be a meeting with the USS Devonshire crew the next day and looked out to the window at the scars on XFY.

[OFF]

Akio Tachibana, CAPT, SF
CO

Tolkath, CDR, SF
2XO/CSO

Rafe Cassidy, LT, SF
CONN

Deeli Kosu, LT, SF
CHENG

Iria Taltos, LTJG, SF
ACHENG

Arthur Jones, Son of Ruk, ENS, SF
OPS

Harry Stevens, ENS, SF
TACSEC

Halona Greyson, YN1, SF
ADMIN