State of Affairs

Posted on Fri May 30th, 2014 @ 8:19pm by Captain Liarra Von

Mission: Aggressive Negotiations
Location: Captain's Office

Von studied her security report carefully, looking for any detail that would be of great concern to the station. So far it had been the typical kind of infractions. Someone tried to smuggle a banned substance through a checkpoint, pickpockets on the promenade, signs of a scuffle on Deck 2301, et cetera. There hadn’t been anything resembling a major breach of security, something that Liarra was starting to pride herself in. Sure, there were still the illegal gambling and occasional shoplifter, but in the grand scheme of things, those didn’t really matter. She was concerned about people getting through that threatened the people she was sworn to protect. They had already lost too many innocents to senseless violence, all because someone out there wanted to send a message. Well, they received the message loud and clear.

The last couple of months hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. Between the personnel shuffles, the security changes, and that excitement over the escaped Corrine Steiner, the new station administration had seen plenty of challenges. Repair work on the station was moving at a strong pace, and Liarra expected that the exterior damage would be repaired in a few months. There was still a lot of interior work to be done, and nothing could bring back those that were lost, but at least shoring up the major hull breaches would start to bring back some semblance of normalcy.

Liarra set aside the station security briefing and moved on to the sector security report. While life on the station hadn’t been too bad since the attack, all things considered, life in nearby systems has been challenging, to say the least. Sojourner attacks have intensified, and although they haven’t actively gone after Federation starships, they have been enforcing their ‘borders’, at least what they have proclaimed to be their borders. Skirmishes between Sojourner and Starfleet have ended many different ways. Sometimes Starfleet fought them off. Other times they weren’t so lucky. In most cases, the ships just fired on each other until they were both tired of fighting and withdrew. Even the Ritorians have been getting more aggressive, though intelligence reports suggest that that is mostly caused by their Sojourner allies pushing them into conflicts. Between the Sojourners and Ritorians, several smaller worlds have been taken and absorbed into the other two empires. Liarra had been pleading with the brass to put an end to this conflict before things get worse, but the Federation’s official stance on the issue was that they had to maintain their borders. They weren’t about to get involved in someone elses war. Though as far as Captain Von was concerned, it was their war the moment Thane announced their secession, and was escalated by the Sojourner’s attack on her station. But that wasn’t enough to convince San Francisco or Paris to act.

She continued to go over the report. This one tended to be under even more scrutiny from the young captain. The only thing that had her more concerned than the security of the station was the security of the sector. The news this week was troubling. The Sojourners had taken another two systems by force, Kintara and N’vec. The Ritorians had taken a third, Amolla. While these governments did not posses any sizeable territory beyond their own systems, it was still a blow to the stability of the sector. The Kintarans and N’Veci numbered in the billions, and the Amollan civilization had a population nearing a trillion. According to the report, milliions of refugees tried to flee their homes prior to the Sojourner and Ritorian attacks. While ships were reported going in hundreds of different directions, with the Federation on one side and their enemies on the other, it didn’t take a genius to know where they were going to go. Von made a note to talk to Commander Ratchford about that one.

But the smaller civilizations were not Von’s biggest concern. The latest report suggested that the Sojourners were looking to make new allies, and their neighbors were in prime position. The region maintained a delicate balance. Besides the Federation, which was obviously the largest player in the region, though certainly not the most active (that would be the Sojourners), and the Ritorians, the other major players were the Myaz, the Pak’Leth, and the Ferengi outpost on Mira. Currently, all of the latter three were under a non-aggression pact with the Sojourners, but it wasn’t known how long that peace could last.

Liarra read on in the report. It went beyond the Archanis sector and talked about some of the other regional powers. There were reports of activity around the Gorn and Klingon border, two civilizations that have never managed to get along. There was also reports on the loss of the Endeavour, though fortunately most of the crew was able to escape. The briefing shifted to events further and further away from Archa IV, and Liarra found herself starting to lose interest around some internal Romulan conflict. Sometimes she wondered if she really needed to know all of this. She’d be glad when Commander Gunning got back. He usually did a much better job of filtering the report to only include information that she really needed to know.

She laid down her PADD and took a sip of her coffee. It must have been some time since she had last had any because it was ice cold. She stood up from her desk and walked over to the replicator, swapping the cold cup for a hot one. On her way back to her desk, she stopped by the window and gazed out at the stars. When she joined Starfleet, she never expected to find herself hiding behind a desk while the galaxy tore itself apart. She had always envisioned racing through the stars, exploring strange new worlds and new civilizations. Instead she had become an administrator, spending half of her time trying to reassure the Archans and the rest of her time reading reports. Even much of the day to day operations of the station were handled by Commander Ratchford while she handled larger concerns, concerns that she could do nothing about. At least some of that was about to change.

Von was pulled from her thoughts by the chirp of her commbadge. ”Ops to Captain Von,” the officer on duty reported through the communicator’s speaker.

Von tapped the badge to acknowledge. “Von here, go ahead.”

”Captain, we have a priority message from Cestus III. Admiral Quinn is on the line on a secured channel.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Patch it through to my desk terminal. I”ll take it in here.”

”Aye, Captain. I’m patching it through.”

Von tapped her commbadge again to close the connection and returned to her desk, setting her fresh cup of coffee out of sight of the terminal. She switched on the display and completed the connection to Admiral Quinn’s Channel. “Good morning, Admiral. What can I do for you?”

”Good morning, Captain,” Emily Quinn responded. As often happened officers that started out in a particular field, in this case engineering, proved their leadership ability and ended up getting themselves promoted out of their field. Vice Admiral Emily Quinn was one of those officers. One of the masterminds on the Vesta project, even with the project’s setbacks, had moved up the ranks rather quickly. While she did still occasionally oversee new technical programs, she had also taken on responsibilities of managing the Eleventh Fleet’s anthropological committees, and in turn, made her more involved in the region’s political quagmire more than she had anticipated. “I was hoping that you’d be willing to take a little a field trip for me?”

“Is it to Thane?” Liarra asked enthusiastically. In her dealings with Cestus III, she had gained a bit of a repore with Admiral Quinn. The Trill made it no secret how she felt about the Sojourners, sometimes to the annoyance of the admiralty.

”No, Liara,” she replied with a slight glare. ”I do have a related job for you though. We’ve received reports that the Sojourners may be making a diplomatic move on the Myaz Sovereignty. And I use diplomatic in the loosest sense of the word. The Sojourner’s track record hasn’t exactly been the best in that regard.”

“Tell me about it,” Liarra replied, trying to hold back the sarcasm in her voice.

”Right now the Sojourners and Myaz have a non-aggression pact, but lately the Sojourners have been posturing to expand that relationship. We believe that they plan to invite the Myaz into their alliance with the Ritorians.”

“An alliance?” asked Liarra with a confused tone. “Do the Myaz even have much of a military?”

”Even with our close proximity, we’ve not had a lot of contact with them. But our intelligence suggests that no, they do not.” Quinn paused a moment to let that sink in, and to collect her thoughts. ”However, we do believe that they possess advanced terraforming technology, technology that may be valuable to the Sojourners. Right now they’ve mostly been spreading by conquering. Controlling Myaz space would add a considerable area to their borders. And that terraforming technology may be used to build new colonies and let them expand even faster.”

“So I’m guessing that we better not let this one get away.”

“That’s the plan. We have made contact with the Myaz government, and they have granted us permission to send a delegation. But time is short. They’ve given us a rather small window in which they are willing to entertain talks. And as luck would have it, you’re in range.”

Von leaned back in her chair. “Admiral, I’m no diplomat. And our embassy department was pretty much destroyed in the attack. None of my previous hosts have had any experience with this sort of thing either. Are you sure that I’m really the best person for the job.”

Quinn shook her head. ”Captain, I’m aware of your strengths, and I know that diplomacy is not one of them. But when I said that you were in range, you’re the only one in range. We need to get a team over there as quickly as possible, and we won’t be able to get a specialist to you in time. You can handle this, Liarra. We both know that you could probably do this better than me. I’d end up spending the whole time talking about terraformers. And the technical side of things, at that. Besides, we need someone who knows what the Sojourners are capable of. We need to let them know what they may be getting themselves into.”

The Trill sighed. “Alright. What do we know?”

”I’ll have the most current data transferred to you for review. You primary objective is to keep them from siding with the Sojourners, but if at all possible, we want to establish steady relations and get them on our side.”

“That sounds like quite the uphill battle. I’m guessing it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared for surprises.”

”That’s why I like you. You don’t get caught off guard often.”

“Once was enough, Admiral.” Liarra’s stoic expression told the rest of the story well enough.

”Point taken. But I agree with you. Go seeking peace, but expect trouble. They Sojourners may be making a move soon, and I don’t want us to get caught with our pants down. Don’t be the aggressor by any means, but if things get tense, get you and your people out of there.”

“Understood, Admiral. We’ll take the Carthage. That might look a little better than sending the Jackal.”

”Agreed. Good luck out there, Captain. We’ll be rooting for you. But I’m sure you’ll do fine. Quinn out.”

Liarra reached switched off her comm and laid her head in her hands. She was a warrior, not a diplomat. A tactician, not a negotiator. Quinn seemed to have faith in her, but Liarra wasn’t sure she did. She sat back up and turned her chair to face back out the windows. A million thoughts ran through her head as she assessed her objective. But the biggest thought that kept coming to the surface was how would Alex have handled this.

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Captain Liarra Von
Commanding Officer
Starbase 332

Vice Admiral Emily Quinn [NPC-Von]
Chairman, Galactic Anthropology Committee
Starfleet Eleventh Fleet, “Pegasus”