Honor Among Thieves

Posted on Sat Aug 9th, 2014 @ 2:21pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Staff Warrant Officer Nexi

Mission: Something Amiss
Location: Enalia's Ready Room
Timeline: MD1

Sitting in her ready room, Enalia was looking over what little she had on the captured operative. She had been given little more than a name, picture, and identifying information, but hopefully it was enough. It wasn’t going to be an easy mission and though she now had likely cooperation from a civilian, she still worried about their first mission. Find this woman, retrieve her, and act upon her data. Nothing about other prisoners… Nothing about what they were going to do after, other than a set of heavily encrypted coordinates. What ever it was, it was certainly going to be interesting.

Suddenly, the desk terminal no longer held information regarding the operative, but rather the face of a rather angry looking Brekkian woman. Nexi scowled fiercely at the Trill Commander she was now working with. “I thought I said no evidence of my presence on your ship,” Nexi scolded sternly. “Kinda hard to scrub the evidence when you’ve got a transporter lock on me.”

“Sorry about that - I like taking precautions. I did erase the records though. Just like I did for the Ferengi shuttle delivering our trade goods. That won’t hurt our working relations, will it?” Enalia had become a rather conniving woman during the refit of the Hera and it was starting to show.

“My demands were for your benefit, not mine,” Nexi said, pausing to carefully chose her next words. “You need something that I can provide, but what you need can’t be done within the confines of your rules and regulations, which means our working relationship doesn’t exist. It’s called plausible deniability, and for that there can be no connection between us before shit hits the ceiling. I was never on your ship, do you understand that?”

Leaning in towards the monitor, Enalia had a rather serious look on her face. “I got the same speech from Intel. We don’t officially launch from the Utopia Planitia Fleetyards for 2 more weeks. Officially, the Hera is still being refit. That means we’re a ghost ship and last I checked, ghost ships don’t keep logs of visitors they never had. Now would you like some more information on the mission we’re not embarking on?’

“Your ship is much too noticeable to be a ghost ship,” Nexi muttered as she futzed about with her console for a moment. “And if you want this job done, then some information would be nice.”

Smiling wryly, Enalia punched a few keys to send a copy of the operative’s profile to Nexi. “Well, they wanted a ship that can detect cloaks, so we’re it. We’re going to a small moon to break our operative out of jail. It’s supposedly a standard Romulan penal colony, though I have my doubts. We’ll be dropping out of warp on the edge of our sensor range, well outside of theirs, to make sure. once we have our operative, we’re to act on her information. Whatever it is…”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that…” Nexi mumbled as she received the file and began to gloss over its details. Breaking a prisoner out of a Romulan penal colony? What a joke! “I can tell you right now, you’re probably severely underestimating their sensor range.”

“And you may be underestimating ours. Word of advice - Don’t be near the tactical pod when long range sensors are at full. You’ll know they are by the glow.” Enalia quipped back.

“And that’s how they’ll find you,” Nexi retorted. “Have you ever done a breakout before? because I have. Trust me, there are ways of doing this…” Her words trailed off as she came across the operative’s personal information. Before, she had been focused on the information regarding the location, but now she was absorbing information she wished she had never seen. She glanced up to Enalia, then back to the file, then back to Enalia, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “Are you… never mind… I want to talk to whoever you have running Intel on your ship. I need to verify some information.”

“What information we have, you now have too. If you want to confirm that with Commander Stanson, that’s fine, but I doubt you’ll get anything more. Something bothers you?” Enalia queried.

“It’s nothing,” Nexi replied uneasily. “Now you said your ship was a ghost, you ain’t keeping logs. If I dock, can I… Can I trust you?”

“We’ve given each other little reason to trust the other. You know I’m a Starfleet captain and I need your help, so you can trust in that. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.” Enalia said with a grin. “Besides, I was hoping you would join me for a meal.”

“You know one of the downfalls of being as good as I am at the things I do? No reputation. I am a ghost, only a select few can recognize my handiwork and even then…” Nexi felt strangely numb, a hollow feeling settling into her chest. “Open your shuttle bay, I’m coming aboard.”

Pressing her comm badge, Enalia called out her orders. “Bridge, open the doors for hangar bay 3 and standby for our new friend to dock.” Tapping her badge again, she smiled at Nexi. “Would you like me to meet you there?”

“I don’t care, do whatever you want,” Nexi replied ambivalently as she changed her heading to navigate her ship to the hangar bay.

“Then meet with me at your leisure. I’ll likely either be on the bridge or in my quarters. I’ll have someone meet you to show you to our guest quarters.” Enalia replied.

“Fine, I’ll see you shortly,” Nexi replied as she brought her ship about, though she had no intentions of staying in any quarters they provided. She shut off the connection to Enalia's desk terminal to focus on landing her ship. This job was taking turns in directions she had never expected. There was no way she could have foreseen that she would be asked to rescue her own sister...