Springing a Leak
Posted on 28 Apr 2025 @ 6:02pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Commander Maurice Rubens
Mission:
M4 - Falling Out
Location: OC, Promenade
Timeline: TBD- Breakfast
2456 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure
If there’s anything to be said about the Romulans’ political class, they were masters of subterfuge and supreme practitioners of espionage. Everyone else in the galaxy was playing at politics like angry toddlers, gnawing and drooling on their favorite toys. Romulans moved through the space like professional dancers, feet gliding effortless across the floor. Rice could hardly call himself a master of their arts, but he’d learned enough moves on Vvalti to be called an apt apprentice.
Take for instance leaking information. Most reporters in the Federation assigned to the political beat worked tirelessly to get to know government workers of a wide variety. That way when they wanted a hot take on the day’s decision making, they would call up functionary so-and-so and get a unnamed quote. Or, vis-a-versa, an official would call a reporter to let them know something was afoot for a wide variety of reasons: try to pull one over on the opposition, covering their own tracks, testing the waters for an idea somebody had just come up with prestige, or (worst of all) just because they could.
Rice hated leakers who did it to inflate their own ego, disliked those who did it simply for the pleasure of pulling one over on their political opposition, and tolerated all the rest. Any way you sliced it, though, it was all thumbs. The Romulans weren’t so coarse: for instance, they had a method of leaking called ‘Shinarae Uwheawhoiik'heqhr a D'. Roughly translated, it meant pushing a pebble down a mountainside to cause an avalanche.’
It was his favorite.
Rice sat at a large round table inside a restaurant named on the Promenade with Iskander bin Osman and his wife, Izatti Sitio, a translator, across from him. Little did they know, they had the roles of larger stones to his tiny pebble. Not that they would get blamed for anything that happened here today, either.
“I think this is the translation,” Izatti said, handing a PADD across to Rice. When the refugees had come through the station, they’d been required to bring papers that confirmed their identities. Security had run them through the computer and sorted them out already, but he needed to go through the paperwork again. “The i-Vivsa family. The father was a dockworker on their homeworld, the mother a computer technician, and four children.” She sighed sadly. “It’s a really bad story. Their planet was just on the edge of the supernova and though it survived, it was basically dying. They lost one of their children to hunger before they escaped and…”
Rice glanced up at Izatti when she didn’t finish her sentence. She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “Sorry,” she croaked.
“No need to apologize,” Rice told her gently. He looked back at the PADD, “I suspect we’ll find even more heartbreaking stories before we finish.” He sighed and carefully set the PADD down. “I know of this planet and its people. It looks genuine, so I don’t think they’re who we’re looking for.”
He’d called both his ensigns to work with him today to help him look for inconsistencies in what records they had on the refugees. With as many families as there were, it promised to be a long day.
“Why am I here?” Iskander groaned. He had two PADDs in his hands. One contained the family’s records; the other a Romulan-Standard dictionary. “I don’t really speak or read Romulan. Can’t I just get the computer to translate?”
“Translation is more of an art. The computer has its own way of painting a picture, so to speak. I want to see if there’s a different one buried here. Plus, we’re still shorthanded on translators,” Rice explained, studying his own PADD. None of that was a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth. Although he had a reputation with people in the know, his role at the Exterior Department had kept him in the shadows. Reporters didn’t tend to recognize him. The station’s media officer, however, would be quickly spotted.
“Anyone want more of this…stuff.” He shook his own empty glass, the insides lined with some sort of thick, bright blue smoothie. He’d ordered it for everyone, but neither Iskander nor Izatti had drank more than a quarter of theirs. Rice wasn’t exactly sure what was in it. He didn’t recognize ingredients, but the names seemed Tellarite in origin. It did have an unpleasant aftertaste.
They both shook their heads.
“One for me, then.” He turned to catch the waiter's attention and caught sight of the front door to the place. Walking into the restaurant was the people he’d been waiting for. He hadn’t chosen the restaurant; not really. They had: the Andorian and two humans, one of whom was Eloise Khadra-Vogel. It was their regular breakfast stop. He saw her scanning the room, while he ordered a second round, and then watched as she locked eyes on Iskander. Like a moth to a flame, she began making her way toward their table.
Iskander’s face sank as she marched up to their table. “Ms. Khadra-Vogel,” he glanced at Rice nervously, worried he was going to screw up in front of his boss. “Good morning - uh - what brings you - uh - here?”
“Usually the Sudari Egg special and the coffee.” She quipped before painting on a camera ready smile. She pulled out a chair without waiting to be invited. She’d been acknowledged and that was enough to operate on as if she had been. Here she had Mister Request-Denied right in front of his boss. “But this is a nice surprise, finding you both in the same place!” She waved a member of the waitstaff over and indicated what she wanted from the menu before looking back. “I must say, you run a very tight department, Mr. Rubens. You should give a few pointers to the Security Council. I’m surprised you can even be spotted conferring out in public.”
Rice chuckled. He had in fact briefed the Security Council more than once, although not on security. “We’re not digging through top secret files,” he replied with a smile. With a swipe of his finger across the screen, he minimized the file he’d been looking at, but conveniently forgot to minimize the screen behind it, leaving a missive to Honor he’d been crafting open as he flipped his PADD upside down on the table, “Just doing some translating.”
“Obsidianite?”
“Romulan, actually. Refugee testimonials.”
“Ah, I see.” She feigned interest. Displaced Romulan issues had been ongoing news for over a decade. Still, a ‘humanitarian’ piece was better than the engineering conference blurbs her team was left putting out.
“Indeed,” he said as he scooted his PADD a little closer to him, “You should talk with them. Or visit. They have a nice colony going down there now, along with El Auriens and Obsidians.”
“Mm, yes, I did a little research on the El Aurian settlement. Itonia. It’s quite unusual that the natives would have allowed any Romulans to settle there, as I understand it?” Her eyes flicked around the table at the padds scattered around, looking for crumbs of information between the emptied plates of the diplomat diners.
“It is unusual,“ Rice yawned widely, putting his hand up to his mouth as if the whole conversation was boring, “Caused more than a bit of a rift between the clans. That might be more of an interesting story for you. It’s important we help put a stop to it, I think. Refugees…I mean there are so many now aren’t there? Did you see that report - I think on BNA - about the refugee camp in the Neutral Zone? Well, the former Neutral Zone.”
“They overwhelmed the life support system on the repurposed asteroid mining camp, used a recycled scrubber and poisoned themselves. That story?” Khadra related it in summary without any change in expression. Bad news kept people reading. Her plate of eggs arrived and she moved her hands to make room for the server to set it down.
“Exactly. It’s hardly bad news down on the planet for the refugees. By all reports, they’re settling in nicely.” Rice gave her a toothy grin, “On the other hand, maybe a puff piece is right up your alley.”
Khadra tucked a napkin into her blouse, fancy bangle bracelets rolling down one of her forearms. It took effort not to grit her teeth and bear down on the knife as she cut into her breakfast. Rubens knew the story she was after, or rather entire suite of stories: The Sunrise and the Mission to Korix and what was going on with the closed door deliberations. These were super-massive headlines that needed to be broken to the public… He was playing keep-away with her, and now he was outright taunting her.
Khadra held her tongue for a beat, acting as if she couldn’t care, while it was giving her indigestion to keep back her actual reaction. She was contemplating looking for dirt on Rubens and drawing up an expose as either payback or leverage, at this point. He probably wanted to get her off station so she’d have her cameras pointed away while he pulled off some deal. “I’ll find something to break the cycle with, I’m sure. I always do.”
“Mmm,” Rice agreed. The waiter returned and put his bright blue smoothie. “Ensign bin Osman can help you with that. He has some great ideas -” Just as the waiter set the drink down, Rice swept his arm out to gesture to Iskander, knocking the full glass skittering across the table and into Iskander’s lap.
“Ah!” the ensign bolted out of his chair, sending it flying backwards into another table whose occupants let out cries of surprise. Rice jumped out of his chair, apologies launching from his mouth. He ripped his napkin from the table. As he did so, the square cloth whipped his PADD from the table to the ground where it skidded underneath Eloise’s chair. He rushed around the table to try to help clean the blue liquid off of his subordinate. The waiter, too, sprinted into action tearing off his white apron to use as a makeshift towel. Izatti and everyone else could only stare at her drenched husband.
Everyone else, except Eloise who quietly bent down to retrieve the PADD.
While the chaos played out she took the opportunity to have a closer peek at the device that Rubens had been so protective about since she had joined their table, ostensibly in the generous act of recovering it for him…
Honor, the note on the screen began. It’s essential that we find the Romulan family before Harshman does. I’m using my contacts at Starfleet Intel to see if there’s any possible way to keep a tab on Harshman’s communications. We can’t let the Admiral find them and report their location to…
“Is that my PADD?” Rice barked at Eloise giving her just enough time to shut it off before he ripped it out of her hands without waiting for a response. His cheeks flushed as he examined it as if just by seeing it up close it would tell him everything he needed to know. “Was this on?”
“Was it on?” she echoed dumbly. Eloise’s heavily made up eyelids fluttered, both processing what she had read and covering up the fact she had seen anything at all, pretending she’d only meant to hand the diplomat his device back while feigning ignorance. She shrugged.
He glowered at her, turned to his two officers, and sternly ordered, “Get your PADDs. You should get cleaned up, Ensign.” Rice paused, jaw clenching as if trying to decide on something. “You’re right, probably nothing on the planet for you. Permission to visit the planet would be a waste.”
Iskander looked at Rice in confusion. “But, Sir, I already released the passes. Just like you - ”
Rice fixed him with an icy stare and spat, “What are you jabbering about? Nevermind! Let’s go.” He quickly ushered his officers toward the door, glancing back over his shoulder at Eloise with a mixture of distaste and worry.
Eloise looked for all the world like she had no other interest than finishing her plate of eggs. She did, however, make short work of them before motioning to her crew a few minutes later.
“Take the rest to go. I’ve got a lead.”
Otath had his gums around a cold ham breakfast sandwich and quickly stood, his chair teetering on two legs behind him while he was debating if he could get his orange julius transferred into a to-go cup.
“Leave it!” Brenna pushed him, snatching a basket of fried banana chips and wrapping them in a few layers of napkins to stuff into her pack. “You heard her! Let’s go!”
In their wake, the chair clattered backwards onto the floor.
A waitress chased after, trying to flag them for their bill, swearing about dine and dashers. “You forgot something!”
Just outside of the door, Otath backtracked and met the waitress waiving the payment scanner, pausing only long enough to wipe his greasy hand on his pant leg in order to give his thumbprint while trying to apologize around his last mouthful of breakfast.
Otath cast a longing look at his abandoned juice before breaking away.
Rice, sandwiched in a small cutout between two shops a couple dozen meters away, watched Eloise Khadra-Vogel and her team exiting the restaurant. He wasn’t sure if his acting had been good enough, but she seemed to not have realized it was a play directed, written, and performed just for her. Hopefully her reputation wasn’t all smoke and mirrors and she’d be able to turn the crumb he’d fed her into a meal. He had more work to do, more crumbs to drop. Was it too much to hope that she had some contacts with the intelligence community? Who else would she reach out to?
He’d start with his Federation Intelligence contact, Cormac O’Braonain. Maybe he’d know who she’d talk to - if she talked to anyone. Then he’d drop another crumb.
After he was certain the journalist and her team had disappeared into the morning throng, he chuckled to himself, left his hiding spot, and almost started skipping toward the lifts.
