The Liaison Part 4

Posted on Fri Mar 6th, 2015 @ 10:58am by Captain Jacob Lambert & Lieutenant Commander Jaca Traylor

2,234 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 4 - Parallels
Location: USS Unification, ShuttleBay, Ready Room
Timeline: Day 1 - 12:35

"Of course Commander, we can use my ready room. I already have security protocols set up. Ill inform my XO. She needs to be in on this." Jacob went to tap his badge when the Commander reached over and grabbed his hand.

"Please come into the Runabout Captain. We need a moment. I am here to speak to you, and you alone." The Betazoid replied.

Jacob stepped into the Runabout, a force field activated behind him. "Whats going… I am sick and tired of all this cloak and dagger crap." Jacob’s calm demeanour was gone. "I trust Colonel Wright, why can't you?"

"Because, Captain, right now I trust exactly 1 person within 100 light years. And that is Admiral Adislo."

"And I trust Colonel Wright. I'm bringing her in, if you really don't trust her that much, feel free to use your telepathy, and scan her. With her permission of course."

The Commander thought for a moment. "Very well, but if she refuses a passive scan?"

"I don't think she would." Jacob replied.

"But if she does, Captain?"

Jacob sighed. "I will ask her to leave the room. But I plan to bring it to Admiral Adislo as soon as we are done."

Jaca looked to Jacob, and for the first time, showed real emotion in his eyes. "Thats if he is still alive."

A shocked Jacob started to talk. "Wha…"

Jaca held up his hand. "No, not here. Your ready room, now." Realising it sounded like he was giving Jacob an order, he added "Captain" to the end of his sentence. He tapped a button on the console and the forcefield lowered. Jacob and Jaca stepped outside the runabout, Jacob tapping his Comm Badge.

"Lambert to Wright, report to my ready room, immediately. I will be there shortly. Commander Minian can have the bridge.

"Understood, sir" Elena responded before she turned to the Commander "You have the bridge". Admittedly she really was not feeling comfortable about any of this at all but she realized that there was something serious going on and this was the only way they could figure it out. Following the order she proceeded to the Ready Room and took a seat there waiting for the Captain and his guest.

Jacob held out his arm, directing the Commander to the nearest turbolift. The trip there was short, and in complete silence. Apparently Jaca Traylor meant what he said, his ready room and only there would he carry on this conversation. They walked down the side of the bridge, and into the ready room where Colonel Wright was already waiting.

Jacob waited for the door to close. "Computer, activate security protocol Lambert 47." The room seems to hum for just a second as bulkheads sealed, forcefields activated and the room became the most secure area on the whole ship. No Signals in or out, except for a specific coded frequency. "Colonel, this is entirely up to you. You can remain and listen to what Commander Ja….the Commander has to say, but he requests that you submit to a passive scan, he is Betazoid, and wants to make sure my trust in you is not misplaced."

Elena had to consider things for a while, she realized why it needed to be done but admittedly telepathy was not one of the things she liked particularly. "Make it quick and to the point" she responded reluctantly.

The Captain looked to the Betazoid. "Go ahead Commander."

The Commander looked to Elena. She was extremely hesitant to take the scan, but as his mind reached out to hers she lowered her barriers albeit almost under duress. He was satisfied she wasn't one of them. "Your faith in her is not misplaced, Captain. Shall we begin?"

Elena was happy when the scan was over, the uncomfortable feeling was still there but at least they could now proceed. "I would appreciate that"

The Captain nodded to the Commander. "Go ahead Commander."

He cleared his throat. "What I am about to tell you can go no further. I mean NO one outside of the three of us can no what is said in here. I can not stress that enough."

Jacob spoke up. "I can assure you Commander, that will not happen. Now can we please get on with it."

"Captain, you will know some of the following information. Colonel, I believe you were not yet on board the Unification, so I don't know exactly how much you know. As you may or may not be aware, the USS Galavant was MIA for a short time before being listed as destroyed. Captain, you will know this because the USS Unification, the Diligent class one, was lost searching for this ship." Jaca stopped for just a moment, knowing how much that the mention of that ship would give Jacob some hard memories to get through. That ship was lost when the USS Cassiopeia was infected with a virus, created with code from the USS Galavant. What you don't know is what happened to the USS Galavant. It was taken, by a group known as the Consortium."

"Consortium?" Elena asked surprised, the rumours about some kind of group being active somewhere were widespread but the beast had not yet been given a name as far as she knew.

"They are a group, we really don't know a whole lot about. The bits we do know are hit and miss. Alot of it is unconfirmed, but the stuff that isn't...well, it isn't good. This group has been around for a number of years, but have been working in the shadows. They have been using telepathic species to influence people."

"What do you mean ‘influence people’. The Captain asked, suddenly remembered the man in front of him was telepathic.

"They have been influencing people to join their cause, well to join their group. We don't know what their cause is." Jaca noticed the Captain shifting uncomfortably in his chair, and picked up a stray thought. "Im not here to make you join anything. Betazoids appear to be immune to this new form of conditioning. Thats why Admiral Adislo has been positioning Betazoid officers in hot spots. Vulcans too have some form of immunity, which seems to make it next to impossible for them to be conditioned. You remember Commander Tevak, his yeoman? Theres a reason he has been with the Admiral for as long as he has."

This seemed to relax Jacob somewhat. "How bad is it? How many people have been influenced in some way? How high up does it go?"

"As far as Vadosia is aware, it could go above him, right to the top. We honestly don't know. We have been watching personal assignment, ship deployments for the past 2 years. This has allowed us to estimate. Our conservative estimates, and I mean conservative, place their potential numbers at around 3800 people currently active in Starfleet, just on the Gamma side of the wormhole." He paused a moment to let that sink in.

Jacob opened his mouth in shock. Elena spoke before he had the chance to.

"3800?!? That has to be a majority of the Starfleet officers even in this quadrant" Elena said spontaneously, before even thinking everything through.

"No. Not 3800 officers, 3800 Starfleet personnel. There are approximately 35 starships currently under Admiral Adislo. Including bases, and stations there are around 30,000 Starfleet personnel. Only about 8000 of which are officers. The officer estimate is difficult to calculate, because of so much movement, but we believe there are maybe less than 150 officers under the Consortiums influence." Jaca replied to the Colonel.

At least that was somewhat comforting. "Has the Task Force Senior Staff been cleared at least?"

"Not all. Thats why there are more Betazoids and Vulcans around. A majority of the Admirals personal staff are Betazoid or Vulcan so he is insulated for the time being. As mentioned, Vulcan and Betazoids are mostly immune. As are Ullians. Captain Tarmin Mavroidis is the Ullian commander of the Compound. Captain Juliana Terlexa is the commanding officer of Gamma Command. We haven't had a chance to get near her and check. Though there have been a lot of personnel movements on Gamma Command. She is a potential issue."

Elena realized she by now probably was speaking too much whereas Jacob probably wanted to say something as well but there was one more thing she needed to address. "Is there any plan in place to counter these operatives?"

"Not until we can devise a way actually work out who the operatives actually are." Jaca replied.

Jacob looked to the Colonel, then back to the Commander. "What about when you scanned Elena. Wasn't that a way to check if she was an operative?"

"Yes, but had she been an operative, she would have detected the scan. Something in the conditioning leaves them able to detect telepathic scans." He replied. We have only scanned about 30 people, and they have disappeared soon after being scanned.

"I presume by your presence that the Admiral has an assignment for us?" Elena asked.

Jaca nodded. "Yes. The sensor buoy you are going to repair isn't broken."

Jacobs mouth started to open in surprise, before he spoke. "What? Then what are doing, going this far out of the area."

"There is a base, on a planet about 10 light years from the buoy. Once we get to the buoy, I have to send it a command, and it was remove the Unification from its sensor logs, and mask its presence. This will then be uploaded to all the sensor buoys out here, and keep the Unification hidden. Not from other Starships, but from Gamma Command, they can't see us." Jaca replied.

Elena nodded. "Is there any indication of when they plan to make their move?"

"We can't be certain. All we know for sure is its soon. Very soon. Alot of the chatter we have monitored has trailed off, and the chatter that remains is on about something called [insert order 66 here]."

"Captain what do you think of all of this?" Elena asked as she had noticed the silence from Jacob’s side.
"Honestly? If it wasnt the three of us here, I would think it was a holonovel. I'm having such a hard time comprehending something to large happening right under on noses, literally under our noses." He paused, for a second as a horrific thought flashed through his mind, the Betazoid evidently picking it up too. "Are there any operatives on the Unification?"

"Truthfully, we can't be 100% sure one way or the other. There may, or there may not." Jaca said.

That thought was quite scary indeed. "Are there any security precautions you recommend we should take?"

"Not knowing how many there could be, no. Look what happened to the Galavant. They just went MIA. We think thats why they disappeared first, they discovered something. But we will never be sure. No one will ever know for sure. As I mentioned Vulcans and Betazoids seem to be somewhat resistant to the conditioning, so you can almost certainly rule them out as operatives."

After listening Elena turned to Jacob again. "Captain we should have the entire crew, starting from the top and going to the bottom investigated. If there is even a single operative on the crew we may all be in danger"

"I think it needs to be done, but we have to be careful." Jacob turned to Jaca. "Can you do it?"

"There are around 1500 people on this ship. That will take a long time. I would recommend starting with the department heads, and bridge officers." Jaca replied.

"Of course, that is what I meant with starting at the top. We also have multiple telepaths among our own crew" Elena responded.

"Thats true. Could you talk to the other telepaths among the crew, and enlist their help? We can try and keep it limited, obviously this needs to be kept quiet."

"I suppose I could. And them being telepathic would definitely speed it along. It would be nice to insulate the bridge though. Can you subtly add any telepathic races to key areas?" Jaca looked to Elena.

Elena had to consider the options for a second. "Perhaps for a shift or two but any longer than that and the Senior Staff will get suspicious that I am not scheduling them to man their own stations"

Jaca thought for a moment. "Could you alternate between shifts then? Spread them throughout? Once they are scanned, if they are clear, you can schedule them as normal?"

Jacob tapped on the PADD he picked up from his desk. "That could work Elena. Once they are scanned, they are in the clear yes?" He looked to Jaca who nodded. "So we concentrate on scanning the senior staff first. Then we can schedule them in key areas. I think we need senior staff first, then any other crew that work the bridge then security and tactical departments. Then we need to reinforce strategic areas of the ship, engineering, bridge, tactical control and the like."

"I can probably make that work yes" Elena said.

"Get it done then please. Lets get these scans done. Commander, get with Elena to get you a list of telepaths on the crew who can help you. Elena, get our guest some quarters. Secluded if you can, close to the bridge. If theres nothing else?" He looked to Jaca who shook his head. "Dismissed."

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