The Fault in Our Stars

Posted on Tue Feb 7th, 2017 @ 3:45pm by Commander Mal Xustos & Captain Enalia Telvan

Mission: Refit Rondo
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: Current

Enalia clicked off all the displays in her office and leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed. These new intel systems were being a headache and they were only a few days from launch. She needed someone else to help her out with the admin side of this refit and though she knew Clio had the clearance and power to do so, she also knew that she'd piled several times more work onto her than anyone else already.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she turned her main screen back on and looked up Mal's records to see if her request to upgrade his clearance had gone through yet. Most of it registered, but there was still one bit left that Starfleet Intel wanted to investigate before clearing him to access the primary Intel databases with Command. That was good enough for her.

Enalia tapped her comm badge. "Commander Xustos, I'd like to discuss something in my ready room if you have a moment."

Mal was playing his aulos, practicing a song he thought would make Aewia smile. He jumped when the captain's voice came over the comms.

"At once, Captain," he said. He rose, put on his jacket, and headed for the Bridge. He was soon standing outside the Ready Room hatch. He tapped his commbadge. "Captain, may I enter?"

"Yes, please," Enalia replied as she looked up towards the door as it opened. "Please, have a seat. I'm getting buried under the admin side of this refit and I need your help."

"Of course," Mal said. "What can I do to help?"

Enalia motioned to four crates of PaDDs sitting next to her desk. "Every little upgrade has to be confirmed and as you can see, I'm a little behind."

Mal looked at the crates dubiously.

"Uhm...sure," he said. "Are we dividing these up or should I cancel my plans for the foreseeable future."

Enalia chuckled softly. "If you could take just one of them, I'd be ecstatic. I'm about halfway through the top one, if you want the second one. It should mostly involve the upgrade of personal terminals around the ship laid out by deck section as well as the dedicated systems in the new Intel offices."

Mal looked relieved. four crates worth of PaDDs could contain a staggering amount of data.

"Absolutely," Mal said. He picked up the second crate. "Shall I work here? That way if I get through this one I can help with the next."

"Absolutely," Enalia motioned to the second terminal on her desk. "Feel free to use that one to look up any data you need to. The holographic displays can also help if you need to look at blueprints."

"Excellent," Mal said. He moved around to sit at the second terminal and got started on the PaDDs in the crate. "We really don't need warp drive, you know. Starfleet could have it's ships travel around the quadrant on the waves upon waves of paperwork it generates."

"Hmmph, yeah if only we could harness the power of reports like that," Enalia muttered as she pulled out a PaDD and started reviewing it. "A lot of this is related to the new Intel equipment too, which generates even more."

"You clearly got the interesting box," Mal said. "I'm currently reading a report about self-sealing stem bolts. It's...riveting...get it? No? Ah, well. Care to brief me on the new toys? More importantly, would you care to brief me on Aewia Larani? There's obviously a story there, and I only know bits and pieces of it."

Enalia had started looking up the info on the computer about the new master replicator station in engineering. Apparently it was completely replaced. "Aewia Larani... Intel officer that specialized in long term missions. Her last mission was to go undercover as a Romulan researcher just high enough to be useful to what we assumed was a splinter faction of the Tal Shiar. After almost a year, she made her way to the administrative section that reviewed the data coming out of the facility we were trying to get information on. She impressed someone at the facility and they re-investigated her to see if she could be moved to that facility and things went south. She was captured and Farenia and two other operatives narrowly avoided capture trying to find her. We were then sent in to infiltrate a Reman prison colony that was converted from an asteroid mining operation. Nexi had just joined us and we had enlisted the aid of some pirates to help us take care of the patrol craft. They had someone in that prison too, so it was mutually beneficial. Once we retrieved Aewia we found out that around forty percent of her brain had been literally removed. She's been aboard the Hera undergoing reconstruction therapy ever since. Thankfully, we were able to retrieve the location of the facility from her early on and were able to complete our follow up mission of destroying it." While she was rattling all this information off, Enalia had gotten through two PaDDs and even checked internal logs to ensure they were correct.

"Forty percent of her brain?" Mal said. "I wasn't aware that was survivable. Not that I've really looked into how much of a Betazoid's brain you can remove without killing them. That poor woman. Reconstructive therapy? You're regrowing her brain? The new brain tissue, it won't have access to the memories stored in the previous brain matter, will it? Aren't you essentially building a new person? One with aspects of the previous person, certainly, but a new person nonetheless?"

"Forty three percent," Enalia replied. "And yes. Bits of her brain were cloned and grafted in so she could relearn some things and become a functional adult. She's lost most of her memories but she's been able to regain some and reinforce others. Some things though, like her years at the academy, are just completely gone. A lot of people she used to know she either barely recognizes or doesn't remember at all."

"How awful," Mal replied. "Well, she seemed a perfectly nice young woman to me. I'm taking her and her sister out for ice cream tomorrow. Looking forward to it, despite the fact that Nexi pulled a sword on me. That sort of thing is going to get old very, very quickly, by the way. What's Nexi's story?"

"A long and difficult one that you should try to get from her. She has a lot of trust issues though. She has her own ship and has free use of the hidden third shuttlebay and can come and go relatively freely. I guess you could say she's an independent contractor assigned to the Intel department. She's gotten information we needed from more shady sources for us several times now." Enalia replied as she filed another PaDD away and started on another.

"Yes, well," Mal said. "I'll reserve my judgement as to whether or not she's nothing more than a sword-wielding lunatic with impulse control issues until after I get to know her better."

"Fair enough," Enalia replied as she shuffled through several PaDDs at once.

They worked in silence for a while, communicating a bit here and there where one of them needed clarification on something. The crates were steadily getting emptied.

"So," Mal said. "Has Command told you what we're doing next?"

"Yeah, it's a suicide mission. We lost contact with a team that converted an old Cardassian outpost deep in the badlands. We also haven't heard from three teams we sent after them." Enalia replied, not really paying attention.

Mal's eyes widened.

"I sincerely hope you have a better plan than trying to fly a Nebula Class Starship through the ion storms of the Badlands," he said. "What the Hell were they doing in there, anyway? Oh, never mind. We obviously have to go and get them. We could fly a runabout or two through there, if the pilots were good. But this big fancy starship is never going to get through that. The question, of course, is what are we going to be able to do that the other three teams couldn't? Do we know the details of these failed rescue attempts? We don't want to repeat their mistakes. If I'm going to get killed, I'd like it to be while I'm doing something original."

Enalia tossed a PaDD aside and pulled up something about a dorsal RCS relay on her terminal. "We lost contact with each team in the badlands. We didn't even recover a communications recorder from any of the teams. Also, they went in in runabouts so yes, we're taking the Hera in. Nexi and I are both excellent pilots, but I'm looking for someone else as well, just in case."

"It's your call," Mal said. "But we could take a lot of damage going through there. I'll make sure we have some extra spare parts aboard just in case. I know we can replicate some of them, but that depends on the replicators working once we get through the storms. If the engineers are prepared, they should be able to repair all reparable damage quickly."

"I'd rather be over prepared than under prepared," Enalia replied. "The new hull plating should help as well as long as we don't go over half impulse and our sensors have a good chance of cutting through that crap better than any other ship."

"Agreed," Mal replied. "Do we have any theories as to what happened to the outpost? The Cardassians haven't been very active militarily, but their foreign intelligence service has been increasing its reach for years. Could they have taken it out?"

"There's been an increase in pirate, Cardassian, slaver, Ferengi, and even Breen activity in the area so who knows? All we have is speculation right now." Enalia signed off on three more PaDDs. "What we do know is that the original team was set up there by Section 31 during the Dominion war and we've only recently lost contact about a year ago. Specter squad even sent a team in with no success."

"Section 31 set up secret installation during the Dominion War and we've left it in place for almost two decades?" Mal said. "How in the name of the Great Bird of the Galaxy did that happen?"

Enalia paused to read something on a PaDD before replying. "Starfleet Intel technically took ownership when they were dismantled. Who knows what we'll find though."

Mal had been working through his crate at a pretty good pace. His crate was almost empty. He worked in silence until he completed his task.

"There," he said. "One crate done. Would you like me to tackle one of the others for you?"

"Please, by all means, help yourself. Is there anything else you'd like to know while we're working?" Enalia asked as she slipped her last PaDD away and got another one.

Mal took another one of the crates to his terminal and got to work.

"How do you like married life?" Mal asked. He was really curious about what being married to a hologram was like, but he thought asking outright was a bit crass.

"I am enjoying it thoroughly. Thankfully she can create her own holographic food to match mine so I don't feel like I'm eating alone. She gives me everything I ask for and while I'm not sure I'm doing enough to support her, she says she's happy." Enalia replied, a smile gracing her face.

"Your relationship is very unconventional," Mal said. "I applaud you both for being able to make it work. I have not found someone to share my life with, but I am young yet. I have time, I suppose."

Mal signed off on a PaDD, one of several he'd completed from the new crate, and moved on to the next. The two were making good, steady progress by multitasking, rarely allowing their conversation to interrupt their work. Mall felt a sudden craving for a cup of hot vanilla spice chai tea.

"I'm suddenly thirsty and have a craving for tea," Mal said. "Can I get you something?"

"I could use a cup of black coffee," Enalia replied looking up from another PaDD. "But the replicator in here isn't working right. Everything it makes tastes like cat food and lubricant. The one in the conference room is the nearest working one."

"I can pop over there and get us our drinks and bring them back if you'd like," Mal said.

"Actually, I think I might go with you. My butt is sore from sitting so long and I'm overdue for a break anyway." Enalia stood, stretched, and moved to head out with Mal.

Mal stood to one side to allow Enalia to exit the room ahead of him.

"After you, Captain," he said.