Posted by Lieutenant Patrick ‘Paddy’ McMillan (CNS) in Setting Boundaries (Tag COS)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Bethany Kovra Gadi (Chief of Security) in Setting Boundaries (Tag COS)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Bethany Kovra Gadi (Chief of Security) in Setting Boundaries (Tag COS)
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Paddy’s concern rose thorugh him instantly, he had never seen Bethy this bad before, “I see the Security team’s drill training times have been good over the past few weeks,” he said, trying to sound as if he knew what he was talking about.

-Lieutenant Patrick McMillan: Counselor-

The small cylinder sat in her hand as she raised and lowered it to the desk top. Tap.....tap.....tap..... “Yeah, for Star Fleet officers they are a well oiled efficient machine. They will never make convincing mutaniers at this point. Too by the book, unable to let go and fudge our code of ethics. It will give them away and get them killed. Running under the radar, sneaking around, quiet in and out they can do, but it’s always been by Star Fleet’s rules. This is a leap too far for some of them. Of course they can stay, but then who do they send to replace them? Can’t say I trust the judgement of those providing the resources and planning for this little sortie.” She glared at the screen and then reached out and slapped the control to turn it off. Good thing she managed to leave her palm open and not use a fist. Blue blazes she was tired and irritated and… exhausted. “You got your affairs in order McMillan? Last minute letters home to your mom and siblings, ‘just in case’?” She picked up a glass, filled with water, and stared at it as if wishing for something stronger, but drank it anyway.

Gadi, CoS

Paddy was intially taken aback by the favt that Bethy was using his last name, but realised that this was probably due to the fact that the Security Chief was in business mode, “I’m confident that we’ll get through this Bethy, but I suppose it’s always good to be prepared.

-Lieutenant Patrick McMillan: Counsellor-

Bethany quirked a brow at the use of her nickname. She knew he was making a point. She’d done the same on many occasions. She sighed, “That’s the nature of the game, Counselor. Some of us will and some of us won’t. And only whatever gods we might believe in know who falls into which category. And if there is one thing I learned, all those years chasing Balthazar, no amount of being prepared will make a difference.” She finally got up from her seat, leaning forward so it popped back up right suddenly and stood. She ran a hand through her hair, causing some accidental semblance of neatness. “Sorry no coffee tonight,” she paced and then sat. She hated this situation…and her reaction to it.

Gadi, CoS

It occured to McMillan at that moment that he had not learned that much about Gadi’s past in previous appointments, so decided that getting to the route of this issue would be the best way of solving this problem, “What’s your history with Balthazar Lieutenant?”

-Lieutenant Patrick McMillan: Counselor-

Ah there was the turn to professional connections. She’d said something to peak his concern or interest. “Ah now, Lt that would be telling secrets. Ah but what does it matter now? The task force has been disbanded and you deserve to know what’s going on.” Bethany stopped short of laughing, because she knew it would come out a bit hysterical. And why not? Three years in she’d undergone her standard psych eval. They had said she was paranoid about Balthazar. And they sent her back in. “The first six years of my career I chased that monster. The task force had been formed for a year before I joined them. I have an uncanny knack for finding him. It took a year before I finally caught up with him.”

Bethany sighed, leaned elbows on knees and then leaned back, arms stretched across the back of the chair, right ankle over left knee. “Our history is complicated. Our first ‘meetung’ he stole a bracelet from me. It was my mother’s. He still wears it. Every time after that he would steal something of mine. Then he would wait till we were gone on another assignment and return it, by singing telegram. Using my real name, my full name. I can it tell you the amount of danger that put us in, or the fact that after awhile no one would work with me.” She did laugh then it with no humor, “Hell, I didn’t want to work with me.” She waved her hand like she was clearing the air. “I was on a different assignment, the trail on Balthazar had gone cold and I was with a totally unrelated team. Short in and out, along the demilitarized zone. Caught some virus, total fluke. But we couldn’t get off planet and there were no doctors to be seen. I was dying, nothing The n our medkits could help and we all knew it. The team had isolated me in the bedroom of our safe house.” She ran a hand through her hair, again and stared at the ceiling. “Middle of the night I get woken up, insistently, to Elias Balthazar gently, gently!, but insistently waking me up. Holds up a hypo for me to see. I just know he’s going to poison me, kill me, so I can’t track him anymore, and I can’t talk or fight back. He gives me the hypo, and says, ‘Tsk-tsk-tsk… you can’t die yet. I still have plans for you.’ The whole team had been sedated, not a scratch on them. The hypo was the antiviral I needed.”

“3 years ago, I had him. In cuffs, caught and his head got blown off right in my face. Clean off his shoulders. Nothing left,or so I thought.”

Gadi, CoS

‘Are trinkets like your mother’s bracelet the kind of thing Balthazar was known for stealing? If not, what do you think led him to do it?’

-Lieutenant Patrick McMillan: Counsellor-

“A hair tie, my shoes once, the stylus from my PaDD, the wand of a medical tricorder in my kit. Held me at phaser point once and used a knife to cut my pants off. He said it was to discourage me from chasing him through the streets. Inconsequential things. Why would he steal them? He’s a pirate and a scoundrel and likes to torment people? At first I thought he was embedding tracking technology into them or explosives or something when he sent them back, but they were always clean. The only thing of value he ever took was the bracelet. And it’s the only thing he kept. A souvenir? Criminals do strange things, find emotional value, justification, or pride in the keeping of trophies. Balthazar steals all kinds of things, he’s notorious for it. Does he usually steal such small personal items and keep them, I have no idea. I was never able to infiltrate his inner circle. Gods know I tried.”

Gadi, CoS

“Was he connected to some sort of criminal organisation - or rather, was he the ringmaster?”

-Lieutenaant Patrick McMillan: Counsellor-

Gadi stopped and looked up at him. He didn’t know who Elias Balthazar was…is…something? Maybe not, his field wasn’t exactly focused on catching master mind criminals. She stood up and walked over to the desk, rifling through the endless stuff on the desk and grabbed a PaDD, turned and handed it to him. “Elias Balthazar. He belongs to no criminal organization but himself, unless he finds it beneficial to use a specific organization for his purposes. He is the ultimate ringmaster.”

Elias Balthazar
Half-human, half El-Aurian
Pirate
Mass murderer
Smuggler
Sentient trafficker
Slaver
Rebel Freedom Fighter
Mercenary
Thief
Assassin
Pimp
Armed Robber
Free-er of Slaves
Card Shark
Con Artist

He was on the Federation Most Wanted list for over a decade. I was on the task force sent after him. The task force was a joint Federation/Klingon/Romulan task force.

Think Jack Sparrow crossed with the Punisher. And not evil. Worse. ENTIRELY neutral. He’s Neutral, lives by his own code of right and wrong and that code fluctuates. The only constant is him at the center. He is a truly dangerous person. He is who the boogeyman tells horror stories about. Jack the Ripper would be squeamish in his company.

But at the same time… he also liberated an entire system from an oppressive dictatorship. He’s stolen priceless art works and dropped them in a poor box on remote planets. He once commandeered the flagship of a Royal Navy just to give it to the rebels fighting them.

He sabotaged an entire Cardassian task force en route to destroy an independent colony of 125,000 people. He somehow got canisters of an experimental binary gas into every ship’s life support systems. Killed over 800 Cardassians. And as noble an act as that was, he also sold all the ship’s to the Orion Syndicate.

Another time, he got himself arrested by the Anticans so he would be sent to prison just so he could escape with a convicted terrorist bomb builder. Killed 8 guards in the process.

After the task force commander died the team was in a kind of in limbo, waiting for orders. Tevik and Gadi were sitting outside at this little food stall talking. He was animated, as usual, about the atrocities Balthazar had committed and how horrible of a person he is. And then….Tevik dropped dead into his soup bowl - Poisoned. A note was tapped to the bottom of the bowl, handwriting and DNA trace a 100% match to Balthazar. Note said, “Lesson for the day: Thou shall not taketh my f&^%ing name in vain.”

He ‘died’ 3 years ago.....He was killed right in front of Gadi. Disruptor through the head just as I was clipping the cuffs on him.

Gadi waited for him to finish reading. “You must not take for granted his dichotomy of motivations. He is yin AND yang, and no one can ever tell which is up at the moment. For every bad thing he has done, he’s done ten good ones. And for every ten good ones, he did 100 bad ones. And so on and so forth. Do not mistake him for a good person, he does whatever is best for himself. And this is the man that Star Fleet expects to use to help us with our mission.”

Gadi, CoS