The Gathering Storm, Pt One

Posted on Thu Jul 27th, 2017 @ 8:59pm by Commander Mal Xustos & Chief Warrant Officer Daytona Ral & Captain Enalia Telvan & Lieutenant Commander T'Pral Jordan & Staff Warrant Officer Nexi & Baroness 2nd Class Schwein von Alcott

Mission: When Iconians Deserve to Die
Location: Small Conference Room in Enalia's Castle
Timeline: Morning after "Secret Meetings"

Enalia had graciously offered Mal the use of one of the small conference rooms she had available in her huge castle. Mal had accepted the offer with equal grace and appreciation, in part because this mission he was about to set off on was off the books. He was nervous and pacing as he waited for his chosen ones to arrive. Could he talk them into helping him? To them all of this talk of Greco-Roman alien gods and goddesses probably sounded like myth and legend. But if Mal's suspicions proved to be warranted, his planet, indeed both the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, might be in grave danger.

Was this Hermes THE Hermes? Had he not left this plane with the others? Obviously Pan hadn't left, neither had Hera. If they were still around, who of the others stayed behind...and who might have come back. These 'deities' weren't quite on the level of a Q when it came to omnipotence, but they were very powerful.

As one of the maids escorted Schwein Alcott to the briefing room, she adjusted her eyepatch over her left eye and tossed back her dangerously long platinum hair. Though she was wearing what looked like a grey camouflage uniform, it was actually a rather stylish Earth-German facsimile that had all of her medical supplies hidden in secret pockets. Now ready, she nodded and entered the briefing room, the maid announcing her presence.

"Master Xustos, may I present to you, Her Royal Highness's personal entourage Third class, Baroness von Schwein Villionette Alcott of the late vessel Queen's Desire." The Trill catgirl maid proclaimed.

Schwein blushed slightly and looked up at the chandelier as she was announced so formally. "Thank you... That was... Unnecessary..." Recomposing herself, she walked over to Mal and offered her hand in a less formal handshake, smiling up at the taller man. "Hallo, it is a delight to meet the famous goatyman of legend at last." Her blush was still present and she internally chastised herself for letting her German accent to thicken even just slightly at the prospect of meeting a real life satyr.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Baroness," Mal replied, grasping and shaking the offered hand. "Captain Telvan speaks very highly of you. I'm very pleased you'll be joining us."

As Schwein's blush deepened, she brushed her hair back in an attempt to disguise it. She couldn't get the old stories of Satyr sexual prowess out of her mind for some reason. No! She had work to do! "Please Herr Xustos, you may call me Schwein. I will be your medical health professional on this adventure, so I insist upon a more relaxed atmosphere."

"Schwein," Mal said. "Of course. Thank you very much for joining us. Please, take a seat. I notice that you aren't Trill. How did you end up with the Artans?"

"Ja, Herr Xustos," Shwein began as she took a seat. "Frau Artan personally saved me when my colony was massacred by the Syndicate when I was a child. Thus I owe her and the Prinzessin my life and will do anything in service to her and her family."

"That's awful," Mal said. "Not that the Artans saved you, but rather that you had to be saved at all. I'm so sorry you lost your parents so young."

"We all have hardship to bear and things turned out for the better in the end," Shwein replied, gingerly touching her eyepatch. "What about you, Herr Xustos? How is it you came to be in the service of the Prinzessin?"

"Oh, nothing so grand and dramatic as your story," Mal said. "While I can indicate a preference in where I wish to serve, ultimately the decision is not mine. Likewise, Captain Telvan can say she wants me as her executive officer, but the ultimate decision is not hers. In this case, when the position of executive officer became open on the USS Hera, she was sent the personnel files of several available officers, including my file. She chose me over the others and Starfleet informed me of her interest. The Hera is unique in that there's no way for a prospective officer to select the Hera as a preference for assignment. Starfleet, in consultation with Captain Telvan, comes to you if they think you fill a personnel need on the Hera. They came to me and, as I thought the work sounded both important and interesting, I accepted the offer they made. Rather a boring story, actually. This mission we are planning here, this is very far outside of my normal work, which is why I'm bringing several of the crew with me. People who are more experienced in this sort of thing."

Shwein thought about that for a moment before replying. "Ja, standard for Federation, then. But knowing the Prinzessin, I think she chose you because you were the least Starfleet of her choices. As for taking me along, why did you not instead ask for one of your own medics? Why would you decide to involve an unknown outsider like that?"

"Well," Mal said. "Where we are going, the less 'Starfleet' everyone looks, the better. I'll explain more when everyone else arrives."

Shwein grinned brightly as she glanced to the maid standing by the door in the hopes she was about to announce the arrival of more people. "Then I look forward to the explanation, Herr Xustos."

T'Pral arrived, donned in her standard duty uniform and Type-2 Phaser holstered at her waist. As the doors to the room slid open, she took in the image of the young woman by the door and an older woman wearing an eye patch sitting at the table, along with Commander Xustos.

"Master Xustos, may I present to you, Starfleet Lieutenant T'Pral Jordan, Chief of Security of the Federation starship USS Hera." The Trill catgirl maid proclaimed.

"Welcome, Lieutenant," Mal said. "Thank you for coming. Please, take a seat. We'll give Chief Warrant Officer Ral, Staff Warrant Officer Nexi, Warrant Officer West a bit longer and then we'll begin."

As if on cue, Daytona was led in by one of the cat ladies.

"Master Xustos, may I present to you, Chief Warrant Officer Daytona Ral, Intel Officer of the Federation starship USS Hera." The Trill catgirl maid proclaimed.

"Good morning, Commander, Lieutenant, and...lovely pirate lady?" he said. "Love the eye patch. What's up, Commander? Your message mentioned something about needing to handle something on the sly. That's a bit out of character for you. This must be something serious."

"It is potentially very serious," Mal replied. "Have you ever heard of an intelligence source code-named Hermes?"

Daytona was silent a moment.

"Some kind of off the books courier, right?" he said. "He's a bit of a...well...I think the term is train wreck, from what I've heard, anyway. In debt up to his eyeballs to the worst kind of people. When he's not at the helm, and sometimes when he is, he's half in the bag, sometimes more than half. The only reason SFI uses him is that he manages to make his deliveries faster than any other courier they use. I take it he has something to do with this little get together?"

"Yes," Mal said. "Yes, he does. Let's give your comrades in the black bag department a few more moments, and if they don't show I'll assume it's just the four of us. Please, sit."

Daytona took a seat next to Schwein.

"Daytona Ral," he said, introducing himself.

Shwein took in all this information calmly, logging it away for later use. She then turned to Daytona as he greeted her. "Shwein Alcott, Baroness third class in service to the Prinzessin. I am your medical support and can fill other roles as well. if you desire." With the mention of desire, she glanced towards Mal, though she was still speaking to Daytona, her German accent not quite as thick as it was earlier as she was trying to enunciate clearer for their sake.

"Very pleased to meet you," Daytona replied with a smile. He forced himself not to laugh when he caught her glancing Mal's direction. Rigelians had a bit of a reputation when it came to sex, but Mal's sexual rep as a satyr outclassed anything Daytona had going.

It must be nice to have statues of members of your race all over the place with their...members prominently displayed for all to see. On the other hand, it does cause there to be certain expectations...

It was about that moment that Nexi came walking in, but before the cute cat maid could announce her, Nexi leaned in to whisper something in her ear, to which the girl nodded in acknowledgement.

"Master Xustos, may I present to you, Staff Warrant Officer Nexi, Infiltration Specialist of the Federation starship USS Hera, Captain of the Wandering Star, and Duchess of Mayonnaise." The Trill catgirl maid proclaimed, causing Nexi to grin as she popped the collar of her leather jacket and sauntered into the conference room.

"What's up, bitches?" Nexi said as she joined her crewmates at the conference table, clearly in a good mood.

Mal chuckled.

"I prefer 'son-of-a-bitch', for future reference," he said. "Makes me sound less like some convict's ass monkey. Thank you for joining us, Nexi. Please, take a seat. We have much to discuss."

"Noted," Nexi replied with a chuckle and found a seat to get comfortable in. "Enalia didn't give me any details, just told me I should show up. Please tell me we're stealing something, I've been itching for a good heist."

"Unfortunately not," Mal said. "I think we'll start. If Mister West arrives, I trust you can catch him up, Nexi?"

"I- what?" Nexi said with a perplexed expression, sticking a finger in her ear to fiddle with the device embedded within. It was also quite possible that there might have been a slight coloring of her cheeks, maybe. She reset her translator and had it repeat the last thing translated. "Uh, sorry, weird translation... Uh, yeah, I can get him up to speed, let's just get going."

Just then, a chirping sound came from one of Shwein's many hidden pockets. Pulling out a Trill PaDD, she looked over the message on it. "If you will excuse me for just one moment please, Herr Xustos. I really must reply to this immediately." As she spoke, she was composing a reply with a stylus and soon it seemed she was satisfied so she pressed her thumb to the screen to sign it. "My apologies..." she began, but was immediately interrupted by the maid in the room, much to her surprise, eliciting another blush as her promotion was immediately announced.

"Master Xustos, may I present to you, Her Royal Highness's personal entourage Second class, Baroness von Schwein Villionette Alcott, Personal Attendant to the Princess." The Trill catgirl maid proclaimed.

"Please excuse the interruption, Herr Xustos," Shwein added, hoping the maids wouldn't announce the rest of the news so blatantly.

"Furthermore..." The maid began.

"Dummkopf!" Shwein yelled as she stood and flipped her eye patch up to reveal her glowing golden cybernetic eye so she could scan the holo-maid and get her registry number. "Computer, transfer holo-maid six nine four one to waste reclamation."

Before the maid finished Shwein's name, she had vanished and presumably been transferred to the requested area of the orbital fortress. "Again, I apologize. My personal drama will not bother any of you again," Shwein said as she closed her eyes, flipped her eye patch back down, and resumed sitting.

Daytona frowned. Ever since meeting Akira, he disapproved of treating photonic beings badly.

Mal shook his head.

"Fine," he said. "Let me lay this out for you. In Earth's past, a group of aliens with extremely advanced technology posed as the Greco-Roman pantheon...as gods and goddesses. They left when the people stopped worshiping them. Supposedly, most of them left this plane of existence. James Kirk and company encountered Apollo, though he later left. The 'God' Pan chose to stay behind in this plane, settled a planet, and created my people. My people encountered the forces of Hera, but managed to drive them away. For whatever reason, Hera has chosen to stay away and live quietly...somewhere. No one knows where, and no one has heard anything from or about her...until now."

Mal rose and began to pace as he talked.

"What I am about to tell you is highly classified," he said. "Starfleet Intelligence uses a freelance courier who they have code named Hermes. He sent a message, a garbled message, to SFI recently. The words Minotaur and Hera were clear. SFI doesn't think it means anything, or at most Minotaur is code for something, because they don't believe that Minotaur exist. I am here to tell you that they do. We have visual records of our people fighting them. They are usually minions of Poseidon or Hera. I think in this case we are talking about Minotaur in the service of Hera. We, my people, know that she also has Harpies and Amazons in her service."

Mal stopped pacing.

"I strongly believe that this 'Hermes' is the alien god pretender Hermes," he said. "And that he has word of Hera's return. Apparently, a Starfleet operative showed Hermes a report of mine, I have no idea why it was relevant to him, but be that as it may...supposedly he saw my signature, recognized the language, and referred to me as his grandson. For those of you who don't know, Hermes is Pan's father and Pan is the father of my people."

Mal sighed.

"I realize this is a lot to take in," he said. "The important thing to understand is that Hera and those like her possess powerful and advanced technology and they see themselves as gods. If Hera is making a move, it won't be good for my people. It might present a threat to the entire quadrant. We need to find this Hermes and learn what he knows. We have his last known location. It is very close to here. Enalia has been kind enough to loan us a Romulan runabout to travel to Hermes' last known location, where we will track him down, get him to give us whatever intelligence he has, and if necessary take him into custody. If he's who I think he is, brute force might not be the answer. However, I've asked for your help because you can effectively search for Hermes as well as provide security. It's possible that we may encounter some of Hera's people. They are formidable opponents."

Even thinking about Minotaur, Harpies, and Amazons gave Mal the willies. Well, maybe not Amazons. In truth, he had always wanted an opportunity to try and seduce an Amazon. They were reputedly very fierce lovers. Teenage fantasies aside, the Minotaur and the Harpies still gave Mal the willies. He settled himself before speaking again.

"This is a volunteer only mission," he said. "I insisted on that. No one will face any repercussions if they decide to walk away now. Thoughts? Questions? Comments?"

"I'm in," Daytona said without hesitation. "These 'gods' aren't exact a Q level threat, but their entrance on to the interstellar stage could change the balance of power in the quadrant. We need to get out in front of this."

"I've heard of this Hermes, he's legendary for how quickly he can cross space; there's no way I'd pass up an opportunity to see the guy, or his ship," Nexi said with a grin. "I'm in!"

Shwein didn't even need to think about her response either. "Herr Xustos, Ze Prinzessin asked me to lend you support of my own free vill and I vill not pull out now or ever. Whatever position you demand of me, I am yours."

T'Pral looked at the Baroness and then to Mal, Nexi, and finally Daytona. Logically, she would have stood up and left had the fact that James Kirk had encountered like beings during his travels. Her duties aboard the ship weren't paramount as long as the ship was docked. "I will go with you, Commander," T'Pral spoke.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Mal said. "Gather what you need and meet me in the docking bay in an hour. I want us to be on our way soon. We need to catch Hermes away from his ship. Speaking of which...hmmm...I need to speak to our engineer. Make that two hours. Thank you all. This means a great deal to me and my people. Dismissed everyone."