Seeking Help
Posted on Sun Feb 8th, 2015 @ 4:01pm by Commander Jordan Gunning & Lieutenant Augustus Deakin
Mission:
Sins of Lives Past
Location: First Officer's Office [Ops, Deck 12]
Lieutenant Augustus Deakin sat in the Operations roundel in the Operations Centre staring across at the closed door of the First Officer's Office and chewing his nails.
The ensign and two NCOs who usually manned the station during this watch were keeping their distance from the Chief Operations Officer, who clearly had something on his mind that he wasn't wanting to share. It was rare for Deakin to be up in Ops, preferring to coordinate his department from the relative comfort of his office. Which made his presence in the operations roundel even more curious.
"Are you sure there's nothing we can do for you, sir?" asked Chief D'Lesso cautiously.
"No!" Deakin snapped, eyes still locked on the XO's door. "Go back to work."
The chief turned back to look over Ensign Scalzi's shoulder, realising just how hard it was to do her job when her superior officer was sitting in her seat.
Without warning the big lieutenant heaved himself out of the chair and marched across the floor of Ops toward Gunning's office, his three subordinates watching him go and looking at each other with dismay. His mind was made up, his thoughts were in order and he had a plan. He knew what he had to do and he steeled himself to get it done.
He thumbed the call button next to the door and waiting.
The strings of Liszt's 'La Campanella' which Gunning was using to drown out the constant march of an army of thoughts through his mind. He sat with his fingers pressed to his temples and only barely heard the sound of the chime. "Come in." He said, just loud enough for the lock to disengage.
The door slid open and Deakin was confronted with a wall of music as he stepped across the threshold into Gunning's office. He cleared his throat, "Erm," he said. "Sir, do you have a minute?"
"Sure." Gunning spoke up over the music and gestured toward the chair in front of his desk. He hadn't been in this office long and it didn't feel comfortable yet, no matter how hard he tried. "Computer, pause." The music stopped mid-bar. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"
Suddenly all the courage and determination he had mustered out in Ops abandoned Gus and he sat there with a dumb look on his face, his jaw rising and falling subtly but no words coming. He fully intended to come clean on everything - the whole truth and nothing but. But now that the moment was here, he struggled to get it out. The implications suddenly dawned on him; a cover-up, lying to his crewmates, his friends. Could they ever trust him again?
No, he couldn't come clean. He wanted to run, to sprint from the XO's office and hide somewhere down on Deck 2500. But there was still the very real danger of Telan and his thugs hunting him down. He needed cover, he needed to avoid whatever Telan was planning and to do that, he needed help. He needed his new friends, his crewmates. The people he had lied to.
Back and forth, his thoughts battled inside him and all the while, Gunning watched and waited.
"Gus? You okay?"
Gus clenched his jaw and looked Gunning straight in the eye, a moment of clarity coming over him. "Commander, have you seen my service record?"
"When you first came to us the Captain asked me to have a look through it. She wanted to know what the seal was." Gunning crossed his fingers under his chin. "I wasn't able to tell her anything."
Having decided that sticking to the fiction to the bitter end was more favourable than the alternative, Gus dived in completely. "I was deep cover for Starfleet Intelligence," he said, leaning back in the chair and folding his hands in his lap. "I don't know how much I can tell you, but recent developments mean I have to share some information with you and probably a few others."
Gunning nodded slightly, allowing him to continue uninterrupted.
"I was assigned to deep infiltration of a criminal organisation operating out on Hesperia," Gus continued. "Things went bad and I was extracted, but not before my boss was the subject of a hostile takeover of his turf. Starfleet Intelligence was under the impression that this guy was dead. Turns out they were wrong on that. Very wrong."
"Not like Starfleet Intelligence to get things wrong." Gunning said sarcastically. His time as Intelligence liaison for the sector was still fresh in his mind. "Are you concerned that this man has located you?"
Gus nodded slowly. "He's here."
The Commander leaned forward, realising that the situation was more grave than he had thought. "How do you know for sure?"
"I was contacted by my old handler, who told me that they've got someone on his crew," Gus said, leaning forward as well. "And a couple of them - a Romulan and a Reman - have been following me for at least the last two days."
"I see." Gunning thought about how obvious a Romulan and a Reman running around the station would have been. It was no surprise that they'd been noticed. "Do you have anything else from the informant on his crew?"
The operations officer shook his head and frowned in frustration, "No," he said. "Apparently their agent is pretty light on details; communicates with short-burst text messages only. Intel knows that they're here on Three-Three-Two, but that's about it."
"Have Intel given you any indication of how you should proceed?" Gunning thought for a moment. "I'm assuming they're only here with an interest in you?"
"They wanted to extract me again," Gus said. "Take me someplace safe. I said thanks, but no thanks." He shifted in his seat a little and leaned forward again, "With your permission, sir, I have a plan."
The uneasiness of the conversation was finally beginning to boil within the Commander. "Go on."
"As you know, they've been following me. I've known it since the start, so over the last two days I've put myself into a predictable routine for them to see. As part of this routine, I inspect the tertiary waste recycling unit at the end of corridor forty-two gamma on deck seven-oh-seven. You know the one that has nothing to do with the refugee accommodations and has no guards posted to it?"
"And you want to lay a trap there?"
Gus nodded, "It's an awfully tempting place for an ambush," he said. "If I was planning a kidnapping, that's the kind of place I'd look for and that's where Telan will come for me. If we can have a few security guys waiting, we can catch him and his crew in the act and take them in."
"Do they have warrants out for their arrests?" Gunning asked, aware of the bureaucracy involved.
Deakin frowned, surprised at the question. "What will it matter?" he asked, a hint of incredulity creeping into his voice. "They'll be attacking a Starfleet Officer."
"Not really." Gunning admitted, he just needed something to smooth the way with Station Security. "Send me a copy of your new schedule, I'll ensure that a security team is where they need to be at the right time every day."
"Thank you, sir," Gus nodded. That was that then. But it wasn't all. He hesitated a moment and shifted in his chair. "Commander, I'm ... I never intended for this to catch up with me. I take full responsibility for whatever happens next. But I do believe we can manage this situation. I appreciate your help, sir."
"You've got it, Gus. We'll get them."
Commander Jordan Gunning
First Officer
Lieutenant Augustus Deakin
Chief Operations Officer
