Of Memories and Ghosts

Posted on Mon May 11th, 2015 @ 6:56pm by Stephen Jenkins & Petty Officer 2nd Class Amelia Takethen & Alden Engstrom XIII

Mission: The New Sydney Fiasco
Location: Conference Room 3

Agent Engstrom, in a flash of compassion (for him), decided the next appointment would be better handled by his companion. Moving to the other end of the table, he addressed Jenkins. "The next interview is with a woman who may very well blame herself for the deaths caused by the Devidians, including, if rumor is to be believed, her lover. In the interest of expediency, since you're better at dealing with such... people... it's your turn to conduct an interview."

"So does this mean you'll stop giving me death glares for interviewing Telvan?" Stephen quipped humorously, flipping through their gathered reports to look for anything that mentioned the Andorian officer. "I'll handle Takethen... I doubt she's the one we're looking for anyway."

Looking over at Jenkins, Alden had his usual haughty demeanor. "I don't give you death glares... do I? Either way, we have to investigate the possibility of a link between the rogue agent and the Devidians. If there is nothing... good..."

"Oh, you do. Not quite up to Janeway's level of expertise, but fantastic all the same." Stephen chuckled a little. "I don't think our 'friend' has anything to do with the Devidians, but we'll see."

Alden had to roll his eyes at the mention of Admiral Janeway. He had been involved with that masterpiece of temporal mischief and loathed all that it had entailed.

Stephen snickered a bit before composing himself again, barely keeping the amusement out of his voice as he paged Amelia to join them. "Petty Officer Takethen, please report to conference room 3."

Amelia wasn't far from there, having been running paperwork around that deck, trying to track a few things down. Within moments, she was entering conference room 3, not entirely sure what to expect. "Petty Officer Takethen, sir. What can I help you with?" she asked with a strained smile, her antennae rotating to face each agent in turn.

"We just want to ask you a few questions about the Hera's trip to the past and how it got here." Having found the notes he was looking for, Stephen folded his hands on the table. "First we'd like to know if there is anything you'd like to tell us that isn't in the reports."

"Not in the reports?" Amelia asked worriedly, glancing to one of the chairs as she stood there and fidgeted. "Well... I tried to leave out my personal relations with... With Ven..." she stammered, looking like she was going to start crying again.

"We know about your relationship with him, and we aren't interested in getting you in trouble for dating an officer." Stephen smiled just a bit. "I was thinking more of whether you had noticed anything unusual before or during the trip."

"No... Everything was business as usual. Even the pod power grid was behaving as it should. It's always been finicky, especially when we're using the sensors at full and the torpedo launchers are online." Amelia explained, thankful that they didn't want to go into her personal life.

"The Nebula class is infamous for that particular flaw. No one seems to know why it happens," Stephen commented idly, hoping that keeping Amelia distracted from Ven's death would keep her coherent and talking. "Tell me about the modifications done to the phaser grid."

Though Amelia had a pretty good idea why it happened, she moved on to the question at hand. "Commander Fairchild came to me to help her modify the weapons to turn them blue. We went over a few things, but all of them would have taken days, if not weeks. In the end, since I had done research into triolic waves and the Devidians, I ran a few simulations, which the Commander then approved of. Basically, we charged the hull with the triolic waves and rotated the phasers into the IR range. When we fired, they'd pick up the blue from the triolic waves and look blue on sensors and visually. As for the ship, we had sensor masking galore, so that wasn't a worry. As long as the triolic waves didn't leak in, we would have been fine, but I didn't count on them feeding back into the EPS grid..." Pausing in her rambling, she fumbled with the PaDDs she carried for a moment.

"So it was a mistake. That happens. Did Commander Fairchild not realize it either?" Stephen knew they hadn't gotten into too many specifics about the actual mechanics of the modifications with Angel. While the XO knew her tactical systems, she didn't know enough about the power systems to answer accurately.

Amelia shook her head. "No, I assume not until we fired the phasers." She didn't want to mention that the Commander had fallen asleep on a console while working with her...

"Yes, that was in her report. I'm wondering though how it slipped past her in the working stages. She might not be an engineer, but she is rather intelligent." Stephen had known that before he'd even talked with her. She'd have to be pretty smart for Drake to want her working for him.

"I'm not sure... The simulations ran perfectly so I suppose she based everything on that. She did object to using triolic waves, but I guess I made a good enough argument in the end..." Amelia said, her words trailing off. She knew this was all her fault. She had gotten a lot of people killed because of her plan and though they had gotten back to their own time period... four years late... she still blamed herself and it showed.

"Commander Fairchild's report also indicates that she'd had very little sleep for several weeks preceding the event and she'd been feeling unwell because of it," Stephen continued gently, trying to ease some of the guilt Amelia was clearly carrying. "No one is blaming you for the accident."

Amelia nodded silently, holding tightly to the PaDDs she carried and standing there nervously none the less.

"You said she objected to the use of triolic waves. How did you convince her otherwise?" Stephen's question was innocently curious; that information had been conveniently left out of Angel's report.

Amelia nodded, beginning a technical tirade of knowledge. "I assured her that since we were charging the hull through the shield emitters, it would stay in the shielding system and by all rights it should have, other than what bled into the phaser beams themselves. I also scanned for known sources of Devidian activity and energy patterns, which there were none at the time. Unfortunately, the sensors didn't pick up Driffen's comet as it headed through the system. I also showed her a simulation I had quickly programmed in based on the known specs of everything we had."

"Well it sounds like your ship decided to have some fun with you then." It wasn't a strictly factual response, but Stephen had often heard stories about starships doing odd things that they shouldn't logically do. "From what we can see, neither of you is truly at fault."

Amelia nodded again. "Do you have more questions, sir?" she asked, uncharacteristically timid. It was a relief that he had said that, but it still weighed heavily upon her.

"Just one." It was the question no one had liked to answer, and for Amelia Stephen had saved it for last. "Are you aware of any members of this crew who may be working for Franklin Drake?"

Completely unfamiliar with the name, Amelia shook her head no. "No, I don't even know who that is."

"Perhaps you know his organization, Section 31?" Judging by how Amelia had initially answered, Stephen was pretty sure she didn't. But if he didn't ask, it would be his head on a platter.

"I've heard of them. Aren't they some secret organization that was active during the early days of the Federation?" Amelia asked, still somewhat clueless.

"They still exist, just not in as powerful of a form. At least, officially. Drake's been trying to change that." Unlike Alden, Stephen didn't much like the idea of destroying anyone's trust in the XO, but he quietly slid a PaDD across the table toward her. "Please tell us if you see any familiar names."

Picking up the PaDD and glancing it over, Amelia nodded. "I do. Several are familiar. The Commander, T'pel, Garret... I was in classes with him I think..."

"Fairchild's been cleared, and she's helping Telvan investigate T'Pel." Stephen wasn't terribly worried about Garret. Last he'd checked that name wasn't on Hera's manifest.

Thank goodness. Amelia didn't want to see Angel get into any trouble over this. "Is there anything else, sir?"

"No, you're free to go." Stephen smiled just a bit, indicating that they were finished.

"Thank you," Amelia said, not wasting the opportunity to get out of that conference room. She had work to do and memories to not think about that that interview just reminded her of.