A Shadow Revealed
Posted on 29 May 2023 @ 11:03am by Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Captain Carwyn Bowdler & Commander Róisín O'Damhain & Lieutenant Tahriik & Lieutenant Mahmoud Asaam & Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Louke Haille & Chief Deputy Marshal: Ridge Steiner - FMS
Edited on on 30 Aug 2023 @ 1:22pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Korin Space
Timeline: Immediately Following A Rift Between Us
2425 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure
Previously on: Obsidian Command: “Lieutenant Tahriik?” She called out, her voice rising in pitch as she did.
“Clearly Federation, Captain. Odyssey class. I’m not picking up a transponder,” he declared. “And Starfleet vessels don’t have cloaks.”
She stared at the ship, very clearly in the space in front of them, and then looked back at Tahriik.
“Captain,” he said calmly. “We’re being hailed.”...
And now the continuation…
”The hail is text only, Captain,” Tahriik announced. “Lower your shields,” he read aloud.
“What?” Corvus breathed back, standing up from her seat. It was obvious that their mysterious benefactor here was Starfleet, but it didn’t quite sit right. Starfleet wasn’t operating in this sector of space, because if they were she’d have known about it as Admiral Sepandiyar would have known about it. He wouldn’t have sent a Nova this far out if there had been an Odyssey already here. Plus, Starfleet didn’t have cloaks. Something specifically banned. This didn’t sit right at all.
“Captain, they’re insisting. That we’re wasting time,” Tahriik relayed.
The turbolift door slid open and Steiner exited, his uniform still soaked through from the rain on the planet and his carbine slung over his shoulder. After the Runabout had come aboard they had disembarked and rushed the injured survivor to sickbay when all hell broke loose.Without knowing what was occuring he had then made his way to the Bridge. He looked around and quickly realized whatever was going on, it was not over yet. He caught Zahn’s eye and gave her a quick grin, to which she replied with a side eye; no doubt he would be hearing from her later about his stroll on the beach. Then he moved over to the Security position to get an update from Saaba, since the huge Tahriik had taken her slot at Tactical.
“Lower shields,” DeHavilland said. It was a request from their mysterious savior, but it wasn’t one that they could refuse. They had no leg to stand on whatsoever.
No sooner than Tahriik had disengaged the shields, there was a hum of energy and three blue columns of light appeared behind the Tactical arch, resolving in a moment into three figures. Two wearing Starfleet uniforms and one wearing something very different.
The first of the three was a man in command red with dark brown hair, a bit unkempt and a thick mustache on his lip. He really wasn’t unique or intimidating in any outward way, yet he was all the same. Corvus recognized the man standing in front of her. Not because she’d worked with him before, or served under his command, but because just about the whole of Starfleet knew who he was: Captain Bowdler of the USS Alabama. The literal poster child of Starfleet. He might not have been Captain Picard, of the Enterprise, but his star was shining bright enough even Picard might notice.
Behind him on his right was a Lieutenant in Operations yellow, carrying what looked like a custom data PaDD in his hands, and looking to the Ops station almost as if it was hurting him not to be there. His dark black hair was flecked with gray and he had an untidy stubble of beard.
The third figure was also wearing a uniform, but not of the expected variety. It was Romulan Naval and had the makings of a Commander, a small bag slung over one shoulder. The uniform was being worn by a tall, willowy, Romulan woman, classic features, dark hair longer than normal, clasped behind her neck in a ponytail. Her age was, as usual in her species, difficult to discern but there was a hard, experienced edge in her bright blue eyes, which flicked around the Bridge, rapidly taking in details and evaluating reactions, and there was just the slightest hint of amusement within.
Calliope was at a loss; she was still managing a runaway heart rate over a situation with stakes so mind bendingly wild that the abrupt resolution hadn’t yet sunk in completely. She had been breathing like a runner without a cooldown, following the tension and all of the shouting and having been bracing for come-what-may. DeHavilland had ordered the shields down before she could so much as formulate a question, let alone ask one. And now a legend of an officer was standing on the deck with a Romulan in tow, a conjunction that Calliope somehow managed to piece together to surmise that they’d more likely decloaked than come out of warp to their aid.
“Captain Bowdler?” Calliope addressed him. She wasn’t sure this wasn’t some kind of shifted timeline. Was this an effect of subspace tears? Meeting your heroes?
Carwyn gave her the slightest of smiles as he moved smartly around the tactical arch towards DeHavilland, pausing briefly to look at the tower mass of a Tactical Officer in Tahriik. “Captain, I’m afraid I don’t have much time to explain, nor do we have much time to linger. There are two more Pyrryx escorts on route as well as a cruiser. We need to settle business quickly, and get you and Theseus on your way.”
Corvus shook her head, not certain what was happening. “Captain… what are you doing here?” she asked, really voicing the only question that she could, despite the fifty running through her mind at the moment.
“We were never here, Captain,” Bowdler answered, looking back to Asaam and N’vun and giving a wave. “Security protocol 786-B requires that all sensor logs and data entries be purged for the vessels covered under this measure. That includes my ship and my crew,” he explained.
“You can-,” DeHavilland started.
“You did an incredible job today, Captain,” he interrupted her. “You showed the best of Starfleet. You were about to give your life, and the lives of your crew to save that planet. A lesser person would have tucked and run, but you faced it down. I’m sorry that the rest of Starfleet doesn’t get to hear that now. That this…” he said, waving at the screen. “Didn’t happen. But those are the orders. The same holds for Captain Callum.”
Almost asynchronous to the situation, Calliope laughed. It was her nerves that made her do it. Of course, she would meet the man from the poster that had hung over her tiny study corner in her academy dorm— his then much younger crew arrayed behind him like a uniformed rock band— and not be able to so much as request his signature. Besides that there was the utter absurdity of the situation: the Pathfinder had been deployed armed with as little functional information as possible, commissioned explicitly for the purpose of gathering information, and here they would be returning to base, having to tell partial truths to the Admiral who was clearly not on the inside track himself, or else this entire wipe would have been unnecessary. Karma.
“What the hell is Security Protocol Seven-Eight-Six-Bee?” Steiner whispered to Saaba, she shrugged and looked confused too, but bent over the screen and tapped in some entries. A moment later she nudged him and he looked down, there was a screen full of text. He quickly glanced over the paragraph headings to get an idea of what it was.
Security Protocol Seven-Eight-Six-Bee… Classified operations… Classified asset allocation… Classified personnel transfers… Classified movements…Classified data… Restricted information… Restricted reports sharing… Restricted… Restricted… Suspension of standard operating procedures… Suspension of reporting requirements… Suspension of policies… Suspension of… Delineated authority… Delineated independent actions… Delineated command structure…Duty to comply… Duty to cooperate… Duty to assist… Protocol approval requirements… Credible potential for serious harm… Imminent threat… Imminent danger…Flag Officer grade personnel… Flag Officer authority… Flag Officer… Flag Officer…
A lot of it was in Starfleet terminology that he was not familiar with, but he had read enough Marshal Service rulebooks and regulations to recognize that whatever this protocol was, it had come from the highest levels of Starfleet command and appeared to give this Bowlder almost unlimited powers to act He wondered how DeHavilland was going to take it.
He glanced at Saaba, she had read it too, she frowned and shook her head, clearly not liking it either.
Separate from the Captain’s conversation below, the dark-haired Operations Lieutenant approached the Pathfinder’s Ops station, confident he was in the right place. “You’re the Operations officer, yes?” he asked, doing his best to ignore the hulking form that was now shadowing them.
Louke regarded the newcomer with barely veiled curiosity. “I am,” he offered, turning in his seat to regard the newcomer.
“I’m going to need your terminal, Lieutenant,” he said, stepping towards the station carrying a small data-padd like device in his hand. “Please,” he added as an afterthought.
Dark brows arched in surprise and Louke shot a glance to the Captain who nodded acquiescence. “As you ask,” he murmured, rising from his seat and moving to the side for the stranger to take his place.
“Thank you,” Assam said quickly, “I will be quick,” he added as if to reassure him that he wouldn’t be long defiling his domain.
Tahriik didn’t like this situation at all, and liked it even less with a Romulan aboard wearing a Romulan Naval uniform. Hobus may have been gone but that didn’t make what was happening any less concerning. He might have been injured and exhausted, but he could handle one Romulan and two small humans.
The Romulan woman had followed the Operations Officer over to the position. She glanced up at the looming Geuraani, her eyes running over his torn uniform, cuts and bruises and the blood soaked injury to his shoulder. Her clear blue eyes settled on his face, one eyebrow quirked, as she recognised his potential for interference.
“Please step aside Lieutenant” She spoke quietly and evenly, no implied threat or provocation, but with the tone of one used to being obeyed “You appear to be in need of medical care, now would be the appropriate time to attend to that.” Her eyes remained on his.
“I am fine,” Tahriik replied, folding his arms across his chest, effectively drawing himself up to his full height.
“This doesn’t need to be confrontational,” Captain Bowdler chimed in, stepping away from DeHavilland to look up on the arch, seeing the simmering tensions. “We’re all Starfleet here. My orders just supersede yours right now,” he said.
“Captain…” Corvus shook her head, “You’re asking us to stand here and just let you scrub our sensors and go back to base acting like nothing at all happened here? That no one here saw anything, when we clearly did? What exactly am I supposed to tell Admiral Sepandiyar when I return?”
“That you saved the last survivors of a lost crew, learned a hell of a lot about the Pyrryx, and lived to tell the tale,” Bowdler replied without missing a beat, almost like he’d planned for the question. “All I’m asking you to do, is forget you saw us. Your away teams were collected, then you and Theseus broke orbit, fought a quick battle against Pyrryx reinforcements, and ran like hell back to base,” he smiled. “Just like you were ordered to do.”
“Don’t look at me,” Calliope said to Corvus, darkly amused still as the situation was far beyond anything she had any leverage over. “You lowered the shields and let him aboard.”
“Well,” Corvus said, sighing at Bowdler. “He saved our lives. It’d have been rude to say no.”
Carwyn smiled broadly, “I promise you, Captain DeHavilland. I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t vitally important. Please. Trust me,” he asked.
Before Corvus could answer, Bowdler’s commbadge chirped, ”O’Damhain to Bowdler,”.
“Róisín?” he replied after tapping his badge.
“Clock’s ticking. Seven minutes until the Pyrryx patrol arrives.”
“Mr. Asaam?” Carywn asked quickly, turning about towards him, walking smartly around the arch now.
The Romulan looked at Tahriik and gave him a thin smile, “Very well Lieutenant.” She stepped neatly around him and joined Assam at the Operations Panel. She opened her satchel and withdrew a small handheld device. “I believe we will need about ninety seconds for the program to work, once you have accessed the files.”
Steiner watched from the security panel, acutely aware that his carbine was still slung over his shoulder. He was not totally sure this was going to be resolved without him needing it. He waited on DeHavilland to make a decision and hoped Tahriik was not so amped up that he made it for her.
“I have the logs,” Assam offered his counterpart, already synching the device she’d laid on the panel next to him. He activated the process and shifted over a panel, now quickly skimming other data points for anything that they might have missed.
The Romulan looked on, watching the device’s readout. “File deletion at eighty-three percent… eighty-nine… ninety-four… ninety-nine…“ There was a soft beep “File deletion complete Captain.” She called to Bowdler, then collected the device and returned it to her satchel, it was a little something she had brought along from the Tal Diann. She moved to walk back past the simmering Tahnik to join Bowdler.
Bowdler offered his hand to DeHavilland, “Thank you, Captain. I know this isn’t easy,” he tried to offer reassuringly. “Once we’re gone. Run like hell,” he added firmly.
Corvus shook his hand, not really sure what to say. What did you say to a legend that appeared from nowhere, saved your life and then insisted that he and his crew be forgotten - wiped clean from all sensors. She wasn’t sure if she should be angry, or terrified of the implications.
“Commander,” Bowdler nodded to Zahn.
“Whenever you come back to civilization from your dark ops, Sir, I’ve got a holo-film print with a few missing signatures.” Calliope said, offering a handshake, her diving EVA glove still dangling by the cuff latch.
A curious expression twitched on the edge of Carwyn’s face, but he managed a nod. “Good luck, Commander,” he said simply, then tapped his badge. “Bowdler to O’Damhain. Energize.”
