Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Settling things with Intel

Posted by Captain Sara Kiernan (Commanding Officer) in Settling things with Intel

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Settling things with Intel
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Shara shook her head. “Please don’t misunderstand me. It’s important that we’re on the same page here or else this conversation will be pointless. This is not about Mwezi himself. Nor am I criticizing your decision. I don’t care who is XO so long as they have the experience and ability to do the job. Under normal circumstances, a person new to the role would have time to adjust and do training on the spot to fill in any disparities between experience and the needs of the job. We don’t have that time. So we have to operate as is Mwezi is at the same level and place that we all are, because we’ve been working on this for weeks. We just tested this all out as well, with the Tellerite Freighter. Mwezi wasn’t a part of that, and that is my concern.”

She leaned in. “I want to ask you serious questions, Captain, and as your Intelligence Officer you should want and need me to do that. But if you can’t allow me to do that, then I can walk out and we can pretend this conversation never happened. No hard feelings. But I can’t walk on eggshells, not with this mission and these risks and stakes.”

Commander Calloway, CIO

“Then don’t.” Sara responded curtly. “I didn’t expect Intel to wait for permission to speak freely. Consider it granted. I don’t expect you to mince words, but neither will I. If we have an agreement there, then let’s get started.”

-CO

For a moment Shara’s gaze drifted elsewhere. It was an unusual gesture for someone more likely to hold someone’s gaze. Which she would then do for an uncomfortable period of time until she got what she needed. In this case, Sara wasn’t a source and this wasn’t some casual unknown interrogation. No, this was an exchange and Shara wanted to come to it with her best intentions and understandings.

When Calloway finally allowed her troubled gaze to shift back to the captain. “What are you willing to risk to see this through? To see Blue in and out and back to the Federation knowing we have the Shadow Syndicate dead to rights?”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Sara nodded. The question was complicated, as was the answer. “When I accepted this mission, I knew there were imminent risks involved. We lost a lot of good crew to the idea of doing this. That’s why Commander Enai departed. She had her child to think of. People get frustrated when the agents say we’re still Starfleet… but we are. When we put on our uniforms for the first time we agreed to lay down everything for the safety and integrity of the federation. The mission gets done. Somehow, the mission gets done.”

-CO

Shara leaned in. “But don’t you see? For a lot of people, the reality of that is far from whatever idealistic notion they had in their heads when they first put on that uniform. Micah, Blue and I, Gadi too… we’ve intentionally sacrificed, intentionally walked into the fire understanding that as soon as we agreed to it, we were considered dead until such time as we in fact were not. It’s not comfortable, Sara. It’s not easy. But it is the mindset we have to operate with and the thing that will see us through is knowing that we will survive because we relied on each other, trusted each other even when it seems absolutely insane too. Because anything else is death,” she said, emphasizing her words with one fist smacking her other palm.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“I know. But there’s no way to understand it until you’ve done it.” Sara said with the expression of someone who had done this before. “It sounds so strange and foreign until it’s real and present in front of you. They’re learning. Through hard-won experience. When it comes to the infiltration and exfiltration of Agent Blue, we’ll have to be exceedingly cautious who we select to be our forward face. I trust your intuition when it comes to who meets the syndicate.”

-CO