We regret to inform you...

Posted on Wed May 20th, 2015 @ 6:42pm by Commander Angelica Fairchild & Stephen Jenkins & Captain Enalia Telvan & Alden Engstrom XIII

Mission: The New Sydney Fiasco
Location: Conference Room 3
Timeline: After T'Pel is "vaporized"

In an unusual turn of events, when they had tried to page T'Pel for her briefing, the computer had informed the Temporal Investigations team that she was no longer on the ship. Some deeper probing had revealed that she was, in fact, dead, and then Stephen had received a message from Commander Fairchild that she and Captain Telvan wished to discuss the matter with them before they left. Now they were waiting for the Hera's command staff to arrive, and Stephen was tapping a PaDD stylus against the table in an irritated fashion.

Alden wasn't too happy about this turn of events either, but he wasn't about to show his displeasure without an audience. That was when Enalia and Angel walked in. Enalia wasn't one for wasting time as she sat down. "T'pel is dead. I disintegrated her in my ready room." She said bluntly.

"Would one of you care to elaborate?" While Stephen had been the more pleasant of the pair to deal with, now he was agitated. Annoyed that they'd apparently taken this matter into their own hands and created a bigger mess than was necessary.

"Sure," Angel said bluntly, sitting down next to Enalia. "She was passing information about this crew back to Drake. She refused to stop passing him information. She was a threat, and she was dealt with."

"What... the ... Hell... were you thinking? On whose authority did you do... that?" Alden asked, obviously put off by what Enalia had done.

Enalia fielded this question, not currently caring what it would mean to Angel. "Under the command authorization of Starfleet Intelligence. When I agreed to take aboard Section 31 agents, they made it clear, in writing, that if I felt they were a threat or a danger to the ship or crew, I was to remove them from being a threat by any means necessary. I chose disintegration."

"You have one of those agents sitting next to you!" Stephen exclaimed in disbelief, not entirely sure what he was hearing.

"Okay, let me stop you right there," Angel growled at him. "I turned my back on Drake before we even did our time travel nonsense, and when those bastards called me, I told them in no uncertain terms to leave me alone. You don't get to compare me to T'Pel."

Alden was simply speechless as Enalia followed up Angel's comment with her own. "Exactly. She has proven her loyalty to this ship and crew several times and has made clear her position with that group of fanatics in a closet. Besides, if I had any inkling that she would have been a danger to the ship and crew, she'd now be atomic dust on my couch as well."

"I see," Stephen said quietly, falling rather silent after that. His judgement of Angel's loyalty had clearly been wrong.

"Do either of you honestly think that Enalia would have made me her first officer if she thought I was a threat to her crew?" Angel rolled her eyes at the thought.

"I don't know her well enough to make that sort of assessment," Alden said as he flopped back in his chair, exasperated. "This leaves us with two things left to do, then. The first is to ascertain what information T'pel passed to Drake and how. The second is to interview your romantic interest and have him vouch for your personality and loyalty after a mind-meld."

Angel pulled a mini-PaDD from her pocket and tossed it on the table in front of him. "I pulled everything she sent him right off the shuttle's computer. She deleted it, but she failed to completely wipe it. As for my romantic interest... you can't force him to meld with me or anyone else. So take your threat and shove it."

Taking the mini-PaDD, Alden glanced at it briefly before resuming his threat in an even, monotone voice. "Then we'll have to bring in our own psychic and probe both you and your Captain. We have to be sure of facts."

"Isn't that illegal, forcing people to go through psychic probing against their will? I'm pretty sure it's illegal." Angel folded her arms over her chest, staring at them both.

Uncomfortable with Angel's piercing gaze, Stephen looked away from her, swearing under his breath.

"Leaning forward, Alden lowered his voice as he spoke. "Not in New Sydney's territory. They don't fall under Federation law. While I would prefer voluntary cooperation of both yourself and Commander Sinek, I will do what is necessary."

"You will do no such thing," Enalia said in a deadly serious tone, not taking anymore shit from this Agent. "I remind you of what I did to the last person I deemed a threat to my ship and crew. Shall we have a repeat performance?"

"New Sydney may not fall under Federation law, but the Hera does. And I'm pretty sure that if you force something like that on me, Commander Sinek will very quickly become your worst nightmare." Pacifist or not, Angel knew that Sinek wouldn't allow anyone to force their way into her brain. Or anyone else's for that matter. It was just plain wrong. "If you know what's best for you and your team, you'll get off our ship."

"I agree," Enalia said as she stood. "Your investigation is concluded with this interview. You have one hour to be off my ship. Find your own transportation back to Earth."

Before Alden could say anything stupid, Stephen grabbed the other man's arm and pulled him back from the table. "Let's go. We have what we needed, and pushing any further isn't worth getting shoved out an airlock."

"A wise decision," Enalia said as she turned and left the conference room with Angel.

Once Enalia and Angel had left, Stephen let go of Alden, sorely tempted to beat him in the head with the PaDD he picked up from the table at the same time. "You idiot! You could have gotten us killed! Don't... just don't say a word. Go get your stuff so we can get off this ship before Fairchild comes back with a rifle."

Alden nodded and started packing his things there in the conference room, still speechless at what Enalia had threatened.

Meanwhile, a little ways down the hallway, Enalia slumped against a bulkhead and laughed a little, turning to look at Angel. "So how do you think that went?"

Giggling a bit herself, Angel leaned on the bulkhead next to her. "Better than I thought it might... best fun I've had in a while. I can't believe that asshole honestly thought we would let him bring psychic probing into this mess!"

"Yeah, that was such a painfully obvious bluff it was almost sad," Enalia said, relaxing and smiling a bit. "Now that that's over, let's get to some shore leave. Got any plans with Sinek?"

"I might see if there are any restaurants worth visiting down there... the rivers are all gross and polluted, so they're not really suitable for anything. So maybe the holodeck." Angel brightened a bit more talking about Sinek. "I think there are a few pet shops on the planet. I might drag him to one and see if I can get him to crack a smile in public. Could be fun."

" That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm headed to the orbital station. I've heard they have spas there that put the Risian hot springs to shame." Enalia replied.

"Spas aren't really my thing, but have fun, all right? You deserve it after the crap we've been through on this ship lately." Angel smiled a bit. "And leave your comm badge in your cabin. That way if you miss a call you can be all apologetic and claim you forgot it."

"I'll leave it on my uniform. I plan on taking a shuttle and changing on the way." Enalia replied with a smirk. "I don't get to fly much anymore, let alone in anything nice." Moving away from the bulkhead, she waved to Angel as she headed off down the corridor. "See you in a few days."