Missing! Pt. 3
Posted on Tue Nov 19th, 2019 @ 1:52am by Commander Curtis Thibideaux & Commander Natan O'Donnaghue & Commander Daynah Ral & Lieutenant Day Smith & Ensign Lisa Creed & Lieutenant Rianna Repatha Thibideaux
Edited on on Tue Nov 19th, 2019 @ 4:14am
2,013 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Missing!
Location: USS Valiant - Mess Hall
Timeline: MD001 15:50
Natan had found his communicator and activated it. =/\="Commander Thibideax, this is the captain, I am returning to the ship, please make sure there is a cold drink waiting for me in the senior staff lounge, and have the senior staff report in immediately." =/\= He then turned to everyone in the room. "And now everyone out, that's an order!" He wanted to get dressed now, he was embarrassed enough for the day.
Slumping with relief into the command chair at the captains voice, the executive officer touched the comm, =/\= Aye aye sir, the crew is mostly recalled and the ship undamaged. We'll be ready for you. And, it's good to hear you, sir. Valiant out."
Standing, Curtis nodded. "Alright people good work so far but we're not done by half. We still need to find out where Lieutenant Commmander O'Donnahue, is. That's our priority." The blonde man really wanted to pace, but slipped his hands behind him and instead said, "Day, compile a quick report on that transporter information and prepare to present it. Lieutenant Repatha, the same with the explosives and anything else that occurs to you. Lieutenant Creed the status of the ships scans and an analysis of the tactical situation we're facing in finding Bella."
He paused then, "She's one of us. Part of our family. We need to find her...
"Agreed sir, it was and is the captain's biggest concern right now. My findings will be ready", Rianna said calmly.
Curtis and the Valiant’s department heads were in the mess when Natan had arrived. Hasty had met him at the Val’s ramp and ensured that the short walk to the Captain’s quarters had been devoid of personnel. In the mess hall, tables had been re-arranged, and Ainsley had set out food and drink while Security teams had swept the compartment.
Twice.
Curtis had wordlessly slid a rocks glass something colored a deep amber in front of Natan as he assumed his seat at the head of the table and said, “Good to have you aboard sir. We have some information…” The exec glanced down the table and nodded generally.
Natan picked up the glass and took a sip from it. "Thank you, Curt, I needed that. And I could use all the information I can get at the moment. As he looked at the glass.
Daynah smiled at her commanding officer. "Glad to see back in action, and in better spirits. Welcome aboard young man." She smirked at the man she felt she knew, well Ral knew him anyway. "We have been waiting with baited breathe to see if you anything about who would want to do such a thing."
Natan put his glass down when he heard Daynah spoke. Overall Natan was a friendly guy, but right now he was antsy and irritated. "Ral, I will be in good spirits when my intelligence chief is back at my side. not only do I love my wife deeply, she is a valuable officer in the fleet and we can't afford to loose her to the enemy." He sighed and then said, "I am sorry, commander, I know you meant well." He nodded and said softly in her head, "Sir," as he remembered Ral as his former captain.
Day got up and showed the findings she had to the holo-display in the centre of the table, the awkwardness of the situation fully flying by her and thinking that the invite from the Executive Officer was aimed at her as she felt as if his gaze lingered on her as he talked about the information they uncovered, "There has been some odd transporter patterns going around, a capable technical person granted themselves access to the controls. Their skill is only diminished by the lack of thoroughness in their cleaning up after themselves. The transporters were subsequently used to..." The operations officer looked up from her PADD and around the room and interrupted herself when she saw that there were some awkward stares in her direction, "My apologies, did I speak before my turn?" She fumbled around with the PADD in her hand, looking at the people around her before settling her gaze on the XO, not sure if she should sit back down and kill the display feed or if she should continue.
Curt glanced about the table, then at the Captain and shook his head. "No, you're doing fine Lieutenant. Finish your report." the exec gave her an encouraging smile and nodded for her to continue.
"The transporters were used to move explosive devices into restricted areas that could be of strategic value to the culprits." Day showed a map of the explosions on the Starbase, they had a relatively high impact on Starbase operations without having huge collateral damage, "The fact that they were able to subsequently lock onto the Commander's full attire and remove it with use of the transporter shows a high proficiency with the use of the transporters."
"Transporters can be programmed to actually do that. However in one instance, if memory serves, there was an incident on Enterprise D involving Riker, Troi and her mother. I believe it was the Ferengi whose transporters were able to transport both mother and daughter but without their clothes. That being said, I believe we are dealing with a similar transporter," Rianna said.
"If you have the fully clothed person in the pattern buffer it's elementary, we do it all the time with weaponry and unknown biological matter that needs to be moved to quarantine." Day nodded in agreement, "this was something completely of a different level though. Being able to first hack into a Starfleet facility's transporters remotely, using it to transport explosives, which breaks a dozen security protocols hardcoded into the subsystem, and subsequently take the time to lock down on someone's clothes, down to the underwear, without affecting the biological matter of the person is..." she left it hanging in the air for a moment, she knew she'd been rattling a bit, plus she wasn't sure if her next remark was going to be appreciated, "very impressive."
"Yes Lt. Day, it is impressive but if you have access to the stations security codes plus you know your way through the systems that control the transporters you can bypass all the safety protocols and beam anything you want anywhere you want witnout setting off the alarms. It has been done before and if you have the latinum, you can buy those codes. My bet is that there are only three or four races have that much latinum on hand and on the station", Rianna said.
Curtis listened to the back and forth between the Ops and Engineering officers and mused on that until they had finished. "Regardless of how it was done, it was done. That means that whoever is involved in this has considerable resources. However, we don't want to miss anything. We'll want to focus on the individuals that set off this diversion were the ones that have Belle? I know that the Ferengi have the resources to pull this off. Question is why and who", Rianna said looking to the XO and then to Day. "They could be who we are looking for. Does the station have any records of any Ferengi being on the station?", Rianna added.
"Only in the bars Sir," replied Lisa looking at her Terminal, She continued, " and only one of them is licenced by the Nagus," as she hoped some intelligence might come her way from there as they would not want him to be coming out here.
Curtis became distracted as the mess hall's doors opened and Chief Hastings entered.
"Excuse me, Captain," the Valiant's Chief of the Boat said to Natan , glancing at the others and meeting Curtis's eyes, "PO Jov and myself reached out to contacts we have on the station and came up with something, if I may?" Getting a brief nod from the exec, she said "Based on what the Captain mentioned, and the override on the camera's around the VOQ, we backed out footage and found the following."
On the shared terminals around the table, a video flickered in. Or a series of them. Several scenes were cut together from various angles and showed Bella walking with five individuals: two klingon, two human and an hooded figure that kept pace behind Bella. Through the different camera angles, the hooded figure kept it's face diverted through luck or design.
The final bit of footage showed Bella and her captors walking through a maintenance access hatch and disappearing. "It seems once they were in the maintenance accesses, they cut all the camera feeds and looped them to hide their passage," Hasty said," but, at least there's a starting point."
Curtis nodded to the chief, saying. "Good job, Hasty." Then he looked to Natan, "Well sir, looks like we have a starting point, or we can continue to investigate. Or do both."
Nathan put an empty glass down after hearing all the reports. "Commander," He turned to look at Curtis. "I think we wasted enough time here already. Let's take what we get, we can continue investigating on the way. We need to get Bella...I mean Commander O'Donnaghue back. Not because she is my wife, but she is a damn good intelligence officer and she knows things. If the Romulans get to that knowledge we're all... well you know."
Day had sat back down after all the commotion around the table. She had looked at the security feeds, the people displayed all seemed like very capable mercenaries. She was sure she didn't want anything to do with chasing them down, "I'll continue my investigations into the people that accessed the security and transporter systems on the Starbase." She hoped she could find a lead there and help in narrowing down the suspect pool.
Curtis watched the stream again and then nodded to Day. "Facial recognition might tell us something. Good thinking. It seems that these characters have been here for a while. Or at least have had people working here for a while. Lets hope all that tells us...something."
Curtis was surprised when a flash priority was piped through from the bridge. Glancing at Natan, the exec saw it was from SB80’s executive officer and put it up on the mess hall’s screens.
“Captain O'Donnaghue, I thought you should know,” Commander Day said tersely,” That we have also tracked your wife’s abductors and it appears they had taken her to one of the ambassadorial suites. With all of the chaos, we were able to few teams and it appears there was a whole shadow play afoot. We don’t know why, of course, but we do know that this ship…”
The viewer changed to show a sleek, dark hulled, small ship with a vague E shape departing the station and jumping to warp,”…left the station ten minutes ago. She’s the Lucurn a Miradorn courier. Or so we thought. She’s flying the Lucurn’s transponder, and she’s Miradorn built, but that is NOT the ambassadorial ship. Placing things together, we can say with near certainty that Commander O'Donnaghue is aboard that ship. We’re tracking her but that ship is fast.”
Natan has always been a calm and assertive person and today was no exception. "Thank you, Starbase 80. If more information arises, please let me know. For now, I just want anything on that ship, including their speed and heading. Valiant out." Natan disconnected the com. He turned to his first officer. "Number one, make sure we get out of here following that ship."
"The Miradorn and Ferengi have trade alliances and it could be a possibility they are using that ship as a ploy", Rianna said.
Natan nodded to Rianna. "Alright, stations everyone," He said as he tapped his badge, =/\= "All hands, this is the Captain, General quarters, battle stations!" =/\=
To be continued in part 4.
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