Instrumental Break

Posted on Sun Mar 8th, 2020 @ 10:57am by Captain Abigail Laurens & Lieutenant Commander William Rogers

Mission: Dead Moon
Location: Captain's Ready Room

Abigail sat in her ready room waiting. The away team had been cut short and the crew had been recalled from the alien vessel. The comm from Lieutenant Rogers had provided near no detail, but the tone of his voice meant she trusted him immediately when he had firmly suggested that the away team be ended.

Now she was waiting for the explanation. The away team had already transported back and she knew he would already be on his way to see her.

The captain would not be waiting long. Buck had headed straight from the transporter pad to the ready room, not stopping for even the most rudimentary of post mission medical checks. While he suspected he was expected he had enough military discipline ingrained in him to hit the announcer chime and wait to be called into the ready room.

"Enter," Abigail called, rising up from her seat. "Lieutenant Rogers, nice to see you made it back in one piece," she said quietly, motioning for him to take a seat.

"Thank you, Captain." Rogers sat in the indicated chair. Lent forward slightly he rested his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. "Guess you wanna know why I had you recall the away team." It was not a question.

"I'll be honest, it is something it a question that may have crossed my mind," Abigail caught the short tone of her own voice and sighed. "Sorry, that was a lot terser than I had intended it to be."

"I'll cut to the chase then. That ship," Rogers jerked a thumb in the direction of the bridge and the vessel they'd been ordered to retrieve. "is Ts'usugi."

Abigail's face rmained completely devoid of any form of response as she stared at Rogers for a long moment in silence before blinking and shaking her head. "Sorry, Lieutenant, I don't think I heard you quite correctly," she said quietly. "What did you just say?"

Rogers frowned a little, concerned he'd screwed up the pronunciation. "Uh, it's a Ts'usugi, ship Ma'am." He slowed down when he said the name, trying to make sure he got it correct this time. "If not?" He shrugged. "They're gonna wanta know about it."

The Commanding Officer leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes for a moment. "Damn it to hell..." she muttered darkly under her breath, the implication of this revelation starting to weigh in on her. Opening her eyes, she looked toward Rogers again. "Who else knows about this?" she asked quietly.

Rogers rubbed his chin while he thought. "Of the people who went to engineering I'm the only one that made the connection. I don't know if the bridge team found anything that would have tipped them off."

Abigail paused again, contemplating. "Lieutenant, I know you've had dealings with the Ts'usugi, you understand their deep seated desire for privacy, especially when it comes to their technology." She paused, her gaze shifting to the Starfleet insignia on the console of her desk.

Already she could feel that intensely sick feeling rising in her stomach. "I need to ask you to do something that is well out of your scope of work," she said quietly. "All telemetry taken from inside that ship needs to be scrubbed from our computers, including primary and secondary backups. I want the data stored to one single data PaDD and delivered to me."

Watching in silence as the flight control officer stood up and offered a nod before heading for the door. "You did good Lieutenant. You made the right decision." She waited until he had left her ready room before turning her attention back to the console again, still just staring at the Starfleet Insignia on the screen. Now she had her own decisions to make, and she wasn't sure which would be the right one.