Timely Briefing

Posted on Thu May 18th, 2017 @ 10:47pm by Commander Mal Xustos & Captain Enalia Telvan & Lieutenant Commander Eneas Clio & Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi & Lieutenant Commander T'Pral Jordan & Akira Zhuri & Lieutenant Mona Gonadie & Staff Warrant Officer Nexi & Alden Engstrom XIII

Mission: Death is in the Details
Location: Conference Room
Timeline: 1 week prior to time jump

An alert sounded in Enalia's office, letting her know it was time for the staff meeting she'd scheduled. Grabbing a cup of coffee, she headed out of her office and crossed the bridge to the back doors and headed into the conference room. Interestingly enough, she wasn't the first one there - she had been preceded by the Temporal Investigations Agent, Alden Engstrom the thirteenth. Nodding to him, she sat in her usual chair and waited for the senior staff to assemble.

Stepping through the door came the ship's engineer. Smiling the andorian nodded politely to the captain and the stranger before taking her seat.

Mal walked in and took his seat at the table.

"Greetings, Captain, Lieutenant," he said. "And to you as well, Alden Engstrom the On-Going."

T'Pral entered, scanning the room and noticing the Captain, Thex, Commander Xustos, and the man she knew as the Temporal Agent, Mr. Alden Engstrom. She nodded towards the captain. "Captain," she greeted. She then turned to the other three. "Commander, Lieutenant, Mr. Engstrom."

"Lieutenant T'Pral," Mal said. "How's that team of yours coming along?"

"They are coming along satisfactorily, sir. I believe they are ready for their first mission if needed," T'Pral stated as she took her seat.

"Excellent," Mal said. "I had hoped to keep you here on the ship with me, but if this team of yours is showing promise, I suppose I'll have to do without you! My loss is the mission's gain!"

Clio was never the first to arrive to these briefings, and for once she was glad about it. The less time she had to spent with Engstrom the Infinite, the better! Slipping into the room, she secured a seat at the table, though she didn't greet anyone as she entered. She wasn't that social to begin with, and Engstrom's presence seemed to put a dark cloud over her head.

Once it seemed like everyone had arrived, the blue-skinned Akira vanished from her station on the bridge, only to reappear in the briefing room; all the necessary preparations for their impending trip were well on their way and could do without her attention long enough to get this meeting out of the way. She took a seat at the briefing table to await discussion.

Meanwhile, in the shadows of the room, another figure lurked with a grin, leaning against the bulkhead with her arms crossed over her chest; there was no telling exactly how long Nexi had been there, but she did love how Enalia always left a shadowy corner for her to hide in as was her habit.

"As most of you know, the office of Temporal Investigations has sent us an agent." Enalia began by motioning to Alden as a way of acknowledging the elephant in the room and quickly moved on. "As for our mission, it's mostly planned out thanks to Mister Engstrom's assistance and historical records. There are a lot of things we don't know, though. We know that the Hera travels back in time to destroy a genetic research facility working on Gorn and Orions and somehow that leads to three of our tricobalt devices being used to destroy that facility and killing several million people."

Pausing a moment to let that sink in, Enalia made eye contact with everyone before proceeding. "As for the unknown part, we'll be sending three teams of three to four people each to survey and investigate. The team leaders will be Nexi, Clio, and T'pral. Mal is in charge of team assignments so if there's anyone you want specifically, take it up with him. Very few races aboard are known to the Orions in this era, so the list of people that can go is short. Basically, you have to pass as either Orion, Vulcan, Nausicaan, or Gorn. Klingons are not on friendly terms with the Orions, though I'm sure you'll see some of them. Captain Ka'lar's ship is the one that gets the best sensor readings of the explosion so he may have crew on shore leave."

"Transporters will have to be disguised and while our stealth plating will shield us from too much curiosity, we'll still have to time our beaming to a six minute forty seven second rotation in the isolinear security grid to avoid detection. As a backup, we have obtained a shuttle of the era and one of our best pilots will be ready to go in if need be." Pausing another moment, Enalia leaned back in her chair. "Questions? Comments? Vicious outbursts?"

Chief Warrant Officer Daytona Ral entered the room quietly and unobtrusively in plenty of time to hear the Captain's words. He nodded to Enalia and took a seat.

"The teams will be as follows," Mal said. "Nexi, Chief West, and Chief R'Tor. Commander Enaes, Ensign Shavni, and Chief Warrant Officer Ral. Lieutenant Jordan, Lieutenant Thex, and Warrant Officer Read. Team leaders please meet with your teams and get prepared. Any further questions?"

While she could think of plenty of vicious outbursts that Enalia would no doubt enjoy, Clio kept those thoughts to herself. In mixed company, her less-than-professional demeanor sometimes got her in trouble. Besides, the door opened just as Enalia finished speaking, and Clio turned to see who was joining them. Intelligence black with chief warrant officer pips, but not anyone she knew. Deciding to figure that out later, she turned her attention back to the briefing. "Not a question but a comment. Anyone tasked to play an Orion woman should expect to meet with Maica III and myself for a crash course in Orion dance. Hell, make the men come too. We'll turn it into a general Orion culture class."

Nexi cleared her throat, then spoke up. "I can help with that," she said a bit uneasily. "I've had to pass myself off as an Orion a time or two, and I've worked extensively with the Syndicate, so I can give you an idea of what to expect."

"Consider yourself drafted then." Clio wasn't blind to how uneasy Nexi was about the conversation, but she wasn't going to acknowledge it either.

"Never expected anything less," Nexi replied with a smirk. Honestly, with all the preparations made, it was a lot more than what Nexi was used to, but then again she was used to flying by the seat of her pants, making things up as she went along, and while that had its advantages, it also had its drawbacks, so she could definitely appreciate how much effort was going into this mission, especially given how much was at stake. "Is there a backup plan?" Nexi asked out of the blue. "You know, that if for some reason we ain't able to get back to our time, do we have a plan for what happens to us?"

"If the Hera is destroyed or for some reason has to leave the away teams behind alive," Mal said. "You will have two choices. First, you can try to find a warp-capable ship equipped with technology sophisticated enough to allow it to survive a sling shot maneuver. If that is not possible or if you determine that doing so will cause too much of an impact on the timeline, then you will make your way to as insignificant a place as you can find, as far off of the trade routes as you can find, and settle there, doing nothing of note through to your dying day. I suppose a third alternative exists. You could find a way to put yourselves in suspended animation for two hundred some-odd years. If the Hera is too damaged to make the sling shot maneuver, I'm not certain what we are going to do. I'm open to suggestions on that one."

Mal turned to Clio.

"Commander Enaes," he said. "Chief Ral is too modest to brag, but he has over a century's worth of experience with the Orions, as a soldier, an intelligence officer, a police officer, and finally as an intelligence operative yet again. He's been assigned to your team, so feel free to utilize him."

Daytona grinned. "You pimping me out, Commander?"

"For everything EXCEPT that, thank you very much in advance," Mal replied.

The rigelian intelligence officer raised an eyebrow in a very vulcan-like manner. "Is that so? Don't worry, I've got your back."

It was Mal's turn to grin. "As long as you're not trying to get my goat!"

Daytona laughed. "You said it, Commander, not me!"

"Alright everyone," Mal said. "Last call for questions. None? Alright then. Dismissed."