Let's Not Play Pretend Here
Posted on Mon Nov 21st, 2022 @ 5:44am by Captain Luka Mahone & Lieutenant Colonel Shaun Bradley
2,029 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Roll With It
Location: Haumea Landing Pad
Having promised Alika that he would check back up on her once this mess of a holographic nightmare was sorted out, Luka tapped his badge.
"Davna, I should be coming back soon."
The voice of the young, Orion yeoman came with a nervous chuckle and the sound of dogs loudly barking over her. "QUIET BOTH OF YOU!. Not you, Sir. The dogs."
"I knew who you were talking to." Luka gave the shimmering spectacle an annoyed side-eye as he strode from the tarmac of the landing zone. "Now why are you acting like you're about to get in trouble for something?"
"Oooooh, no reason Sir."
"You didn't tell anyone where I ran off to, did you?" Luka's voice lowered conspiratorially as he ducked behind a large crate.
"Define 'anyone'?"
Luka held the bridge of his nose with a small sigh. "Davna."
"I ah... might have mentioned it to... ah..." The sound of the Captain clearing his throat had the words tumbling out of the yeoman's mouth. "The Lieutenant Colonel, Sir. I told him. Because he asked."
Mouth opening and closing a few times, Luka's eyes closed. Shaun was far from an unreasonable person, but he had a sneaking suspicion that the Marine was going to take to Alika's presence on the colony about as well as he took to their first Fenris guest.
At least Alika had the benefit of not having crash landed on the planet. "I'll talk to him, Davna. Just get some rest. We've got a long day ahead of us."
"Yes Sir. You too."
Luka popped his head out from behind the crate, searching about for signs of Marines, or worse... worried civilians.
"You'd make a terrible Marine and a worse spook," came the voice of Shaun as he was leaned against another set of crates examining his cuticles. He was decked in his Starfleet duty uniform, looking remarkably un-Marine like, aside from the green tones and winged leaf standing apart from the pips most of Starfleet wore.
His eyes moved up to where the face of the Captain was, and then darted to the shuttle not far away, then back. They narrowed, but he said nothing more as he waited to hear what Luka had to say.
Luka gave a jump, slamming his back against the crate with wide eyes. The reverberations of the hollow crate interior died down before the Captain took a breath, straightening his uniform out and recovering from the shock of half a second ago. "Well, it's a good thing I'm neither of those," he stated coolly, electing to not explain his odd behaviors. For the moment. "Nothing's exploded, has it?"
"No," Shaun said, amusement colouring his tone. He nodded towards the shuttle hidden amongst the other craft. "Unregistered, and came in low power. A civilian operator wouldn't have noticed it, and truthfully most Starfleet comms officers wouldn't even notice. I pulled the logs out of curiosity and wouldn't you know? Sensors picked up the tinest sensor ping with the computer cataloguing it as an error." He stepped from he crates and looked at the ship more carefully.
"The bubble shows signs it's artificial in nature. Some kind of holographic protection field. I think it's tied into the security systems. It seemed to react to the danger of the people inside." He paused glancing over his shoulder to the man who was, for all intents and purposes, his superior. "I had a parent ask if we could punch through it. Phasers, all the regular You're a Marine, force your way in! When you have to use exponents for values of estimated ordinance it's surprising how quick the 'shoot it' option gets shuffled away." The shuttle was boring, a Ranger craft that was utilitarian in function. It had weapons, and a trained pilot could make it something interesting, but against most Marine aviators it would be a sitting duck. Pretty neat though.
He held a PaDD up in his hand, then placed it on a crate between the two. "We tag all traffic, remember? You authorized the plan even. Between exiting warp and moving into the low power mode a ship makes a request for navigational data. We are currently logging that data. Any other beacons they've tagged, their computer systems. Anything we can pull in the few nanosecond connection process." He gestured to the PaDD now, suggesting the Captain take it. "That's all the information on this shuttle. Clever of the Rangers how they mask things actually. I bet you even the spook you have running a bar wouldn't have thought to look for these things. I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been looking for you and your yeoman mentioned you'd gone for a walk. She was a lot more flustered when I called back a few minutes later - but considering I'd checked my terminal to see if I could find you and saw the log discrepancy I can understand her concern. Now it's none of my business, who you choose to affiliate with. I don't even particularly care about their origins on a personal level. But Captain, is there a good reason I shouldn't tell anyone else?"
"I'd rather we didn't try to blow things up until we knew it wasn't going to damage literally anything else." Luka resisted the urge to roll his eyes; the act before thinking mentality was something he expected out of the marines as opposed to anyone with fewer weapons attached to their associations. But his thoughts on the matter turned and his cheeks turned red.
"She said she cleared the communications through your Marines," he commented, eyeing the shuttle with concern. Likely Alika had chosen a little white lie to shuffle through any sort of nagging she thought she was going to receive. "I don't want this to overshadow the dangers of what's going on on colony."
Luka shook his head. The Marine was right; sneaking around and doing anything covert was not something he was good at. "She's one Fenris Ranger, here to drag our other problem off the colony. I just didn't expect her to be..." He took the PaDD as he went through his explanation. "She's claiming to be my sister. Who, if you go through those files, was nodded off as KIA a few years back. It's... complicated, apparently. But having someone claiming to be a deceased enlisted Starfleet member throws up enough red flags that it might divert focus from the - what did you call it, holographic protection field? She wanted to take a scan of it and accelerate a solution so she could take the Ranger and get out. So she did. Came to the same conclusion, but that doesn't exactly help us with... whatever it is we need to do."
"Nothing." The words were plain from the Colonel, almost a little too nonchalat for the chat at hand. "We've run the tests, nothing short of a large burst of energy is going to knock that field down. We are talking ship level phase fire, and that poses extreme risk to everyone else on the ground. With us knowing it's a holographic byproduct, we just have to trust those left inside will be able to safely shut it down." He shrugged, a motion he was more than used to using as a point to accent the end of a topic.
"As for your friend, and getting rid of the idiot Ranger, I am more than happy to see that through. On that note, you have an Ensign who thought it was a good idea to have a dedicated cuddle fest with the man in question. I've already had him sent to the brig. So I will personally be happy to see him gone."
The Captain's brow raised. He was not foreign to random hook ups, but there was something about career-ending moves that made for surprises. Especially if it was a massive security risk, among other reasons. "I'll make sure that paperwork shuffles faster," he commented. "Did they happen to know each-... you know what? I'll just make sure the paperwork happens and I won't ask questions."
Next came Luka's exasperated sigh. Ranger Blue, and Rangers as a whole, just spelled a mess for Starfleet and both himself and Shaun to clean up. "We can send our first visitor off on the first Starfleet cargo pick-up off the Colony. As for..." he made a gesture behind him to the shuttle. "I want peace with whoever she is and whoever she claims to be. If she is who she says she is? That opens up the question of where she popped in from - and if something else is going to be coming after her. If not? Then who is she and why is she impersonating, of all people, the sister of an out of the way station's Commanding Officer? I need to know, not simply for the security risk it's posing, but for my own peace of mind. So let's hold off on shooing her away too quickly... please."
Shaun's eyes studied the Captain's for a moment. He was a telepath - sure, and had learned the empath side that came with it. He didn't need those skills to feel that this was more important. Still, he stood there, mulling over, and wondering what the best foot forward here would be. Finally, he shifted from his spot, cleared his throat, and punched two fingers onto his comm badge. "Marine Ops." There was a pause as the system connected.
//"Colonel?"\\
"Sorry to bug you Gunny. Can you push through a maintenance reset and check on the scrub system? That ship we flagged as a ranger ship is just a cargo ship." There was another delay, as someone on the other end was clearly working.
//"Uh sir, sorry to contridict you, but the system was pretty clear. It looks like a range vessel trying to slip past the grid. You sure sir?"\\
Shaun smiled. His teams were thorough - and correct. "Yeah Gunny, I'm looking right at her right now. She's a similar model to what the rangers use. Looks like her comms system is damaged somehow. This ship wasn't trying to sneak anywhere, hell she's parked in the middle of the space port. Flag it as a first time error and just reboot the system. Probably just a calibration error, though its good we still keep an eye on these ships. One never knows." His eyes didn't shift from the Captain.
//"Yessir. Anything else Colonel?"\\
"Nope, you're good Gunny. Have a good night." The comm went dead, and Shaun stood there for a moment. "There," he said to break the silence. "A proper paper trail to make it look like everything is above board. I hope you find what you're looking for." He now paused himself, and then leaned back against the cargo container. "Anything else Captain?"
Slowly, Luka blinked at Shaun, tilting his head to one side in mild confusion. But, it was best not to question what had occurred; he was not fighting for answers this time around. "Thank you. If it turns sour, I'll make sure it's taken care of." Some glimmer of hope set in his chest, but he brushed it aside in the next thought.
"No, that should be all. I'll get back to fending off the alarmed civilians. Hopefully it won't be too much trouble to-"
+"Bzzt!"+ Both Shaun's and Luka's badges chirruped as Graham's voice cut through the conversation. +"Sirs, there has been an anomaly from within the shielded area. It appears someone may have broken through. Chief Nilsson and I are about to investigate, but it may be something for you to come down here for, Lieutenant Colonel."+
"On my way," Shaun said, pushing off his spot, and nodding to the Captain. "Hope you find what you need," he said before taking off at a sprint.
As Luka watched Shaun dash off, he turned his head toward the shuttle where his 'sister' was. "I hope I find it too."
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