Those who stay behind... Part V

Posted on Sun Jan 30th, 2011 @ 2:30pm by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Darek Halsey

Mission: Hippocratic Hijacking
Location: Intelligence Offices, Deck 10, USS Arizona

The next item of business for Captain Nathan Cowell was his compulsory trip down to the lower part of the ship to speak with the Intelligence Chief. Having had only one real encounter with the man since his arrival, that being his 'liberation' from the Deep Space 6 brig, his opinion and view of the man wasn't overly favorable even if his service record said he was good at what he did. His 5 deck turbolift ride ended with Nathan being the only on in the lift, and as soon as he was deposited, the sparse nature of the lower decks of the ship became obvious.

"The deck less traveled," Nathan chuckled to himself, making an obscure personal joke for his benefit as he continued along the corridor until he stood face-to-face with the door labeled "Intelligence Offices, Authorized Personnel Only". Being entirely authorized, Nathan tapped his command codes and the door slid open swiftly, making the interior of the compartment visible. As the Captain entered, the unusual sight of a pair of Binars standing off to one side of the room. Nathan wasn't even aware he HAD any on his boat. That showed him the error of glazing over the manifest.

"Mister Halsey, I need to talk to you a minute," the Captain announced, bring the activities in the room to a sudden halt.

At the sound of the main doors opening Darek continued his work at the situation table in the center of the room; he assumed it was Mike North or one of the unusually quite bynar pair who had entered. Not the ships Captain. He hadn't even expected the old man to come all the way down from his ready room and bridge to talk. But it wasn't the first time he'd been wrong, and probably not the last.

Tapping in the final sequence of commands Darek looked up, "How can I help you Captain." He said finishing his work at the table and going to a some what loose attention.

"In the morning we will be heading off toward the Neutral Zone to hunt after those pirates and the cargo. I need to find out from you if any of your people are staying behind with the away team or not," Nathan said without regard for the audience he had.

"Yes I've assigned Mr. North to stay ground side with the away team as the rest of us go hunting," Darek replied as candidly as the CO had, there really was no point in having secrets in the intelligence annex, someone would always find out.

"Very well," Nathan nodded, "That bum ought to fit right in with the scruffy people I saw down there on my short visit. Have you guys found anything out I should know about or is it pretty much status quo around the whisper locker?"

Nodding Darek tapped a few commands into the pool-table's controls and the holotable lit up quite brightly in the darkened room. "Here first of all, our good Captain of the North Star seems to like to be in the wrong place at the right time," He said motioning to the bank statements, ship/computer logs and a few vid sources they'd found. "He's been 'hijacked' four separate occasions and at the end of those, he magically gets a large sum of latinum deposited in his bank accounts back on Ferenginar. We can only trace it so far, before it just stops." He waved his hand to swap Intel feeds, "Then there is this...." A large segment of code began to scroll across the viewer. "This is something I've only seen once before in my whole career; and that was back on Earth, some where deep inside the Starfleet Intelligence building... But the code, it's a worm, that once given a function does what it does, it eats anything pertaining to its job. This one was tasked to erase all information on what ever vessel attack the North Star."

"That could have just as easily been planted by the pirates as it could have been intentionally set off by Grixx. As much as I'd like to believe that he's a slimy piece of shit, I can't just throw him in a dark cell for a bad feeling. That money could just be insurance, Ferengi don't do anything without a contingent to make up losses in the event of the unforeseen. Keep your ears open and your eyes wide on this one. Let me know if anything else comes up," Nathan said, turning toward the door. He still had much to do, and this just gave him more to think about...