Home, home on the range part 2

Posted on Mon May 11th, 2020 @ 9:25pm by Lieutenant Commander William Gunnison & Cole Gunnison

After a couple of days at the Gunnison home, Will and Cole headed over to the Drake household. They were welcomed by Kelly's parents, Forrest and Dorthy Drake. Will shook Forrest's hand, though Dorthy insisted upon a motherly hug. Cole hugged both his grandparents.

"You're getting bigger," Dorthy said, looking Cole over.

"I'm not getting that much bigger, Grandma," Cole replied.

"I don't know about that," Forrest said with a grin. "Before long, you'll have caught up to me!" He pulled himself up to his full 6'3" frame. "But right now, I'm sure that you'll want to see your cousins. I made sure they all knew when you were coming."

They headed around back, and it was a like a repeat of the events of the Gunnison household. Cole was surrounded by a stampeding hoard of Drake cousins, who carted him off peppering him with questions about what he'd been doing since they'd last been together.

"Well, they'll be occupied for a while," Forrest said with a grin. "Oh, to be young again, eh?"

"Indeed," Will agreed. The adults headed inside, where Will greeted some of the other members of the family. He knew most of them reasonably well, though Kelly's brother Ryan he knew the best in many ways. They'd been students together at the dojo where they'd both studied martial arts, and of course it had been Ryan who'd introduced Will to Kelly.

There was a lot of talk about several issues, and, as Will had suspected, Cole's cousins there had been making plans for "kidnapping" Cole for as long as they could. "I don't mind," Will said. "Cole should have the chance to get away from me for a while and enjoy being around others his own age. There aren't too many other kids on the Astraea."

Later, Will had found himself in the kitchen with one of Kelly's aunts, Brianne Drake, herself a veteran Starfleet officer specializing in security systems.

"I have a something I'd like to run by you, if that's all right," he told her.

"Shoot," she said. "I know you well enough to know you didn't come down here to talk shop, so it must be something important for you to bring it up right now."

Will nodded. He briefly explained the Astraea's last mssion, involving the Ts'Usugi ship and their subsequent encounter with Admiral Lockwood. "I can't shake the nagging feeling that something is going on that I can't quite place my finger on. Admiral Lockwood seemed to be looking for something specific - the weapons fire on the Ts'Usugi was too precise to be luck, and I detected some sort of transporter activity that looked like his ship beamed something over from there. It's almost like he didn't even care about the rest of the ship after that, more like he was after one specific item. But how could he, if nobody knew that it was a Ts'Usugi vessel before we got to it?"

Brianne thought for a moment. "Have you considered that maybe he knew more than he was letting on?"

"How so?"

"Well, he knows how to precisely target a ship that he supposedly knew nothing about and then immediately beams something off. Seems a bit...convenient. If I didn't know better, I'd almost say that you've got a mole on board who's been feeding him information from the moment you were out of the Charybdis Sector and into communications range."

Will paused for a moment. "But who would do something like that?"

Brianne shrugged. Maybe it's someone who owes Lockwood. Or maybe it's someone who wants him to owe them. Let's face it, if you're the rapid advancement type of Starfleet officer, there are few things better than having a Starfleet admiral in your debt. Or maybe it's just someone who feels like you did - they simply believed that their actions were the right thing to do under the circumstances."

"But how to find out who, much less prove anything," Will said.

"I'd suggest taking a look at everyone on the Astraea who might have had any notable prior contact with Lockwood in any way, and not just in Starfleet. Maybe he was a friend of the family, for example. Find the connection, and you'll at least know where you can start looking further."

"Well, it may be a long shot, but it isn't like I've got much else to go on."

"One more thing, Will - be careful. Lockwood isn't someone to be trifled with. I've heard some disturbing things about him - rumors, mainly, but I have reason to suspect that more than a few of them have some basis in truth. If he thinks you're a threat, it may not end well."

"I'll be careful. Thanks."