Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Talking With the Intel Chief

Posted by Captain Sara Kiernan (Commanding Officer) in Talking With the Intel Chief

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Talking With the Intel Chief
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Sara sighed deeply. “There are too many moving parts for this thing to go off without a hitch. We can only wait and find out what the hitch is and call the play from there. I am concerned right now with the people going over knowing where they’re needed, and being ready to redirect if necessary. We’ll be watching and… somehow make it work.”

-CO

“Well, I’m usually the adaptable one, and normally I’d be able to weave my way through this,” Shara said, leaning back in her chair. “But I’m going to be really honest Sara that I don’t know how to go about it this time. There is a reality here that makes anything I suggest in the moment much more complicated. And that makes me feel hesitant, which is a good way to get yourself killed.” She threw up her hands a little in a rare show of frustration.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Sara wordlessly reached for the brandy in her desk drawer and two glasses. The brandy was significantly diminished by her last talk with Shara and her conversation with Blue. She placed it all on the desk. “Alright. All cards on the table time. I need you focused and clear right now. So what’s going on, and how do we work it out?”

-CO

Shara reached out and poured herself and Sara a large measure and then knocked some of hers back. She let the taste wash over her senses as she gathered her thoughts. “All cards? Okay. Here it is. If it weren’t for Micah I would have left ages ago. But I also have too much damn pride and always finish what I start. The reality is, Sara, that this crew as a while does not trust me. My impromptu party, or lack of one, demonstrated that. I don’t care about being liked. The last Starfleet vessel I served on I was a Maquis. But I wasn’t alone. we could stick together when it clear were weren’t wanted or trusted. And since then I’ve been dealing with limited teams, mostly doing solo work. I left field work for a good reason and it’s still valid, but I don’t know how to be part of a crew and it’s clear this one doesn’t want me. I’ll see this mission through to its conclusion, if nothing else because I’m too deep in now to get out. But if we survive to tell the tale?” Shara inhaled and blew out a breath. “I think you should request a new Chief Intelligence Officer. Someone people around here might actually trust.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Sara chuckled. “Consider your request denied Commander.” She took a large drink. “Without your counsel, we would not have survived The Cloud. The crew trusts you. They trust you with their lives. And there lies part of your problem. Intel doesn’t knock on your door to say hi. You’re an officer of the most tight-lipped and dangerous branch of Starfleet. You can’t orchestrate friendships Shara.”

-CO

Shara shook her head, casting her gaze to the side. “They don’t trust me no. Because I’m married to one person they are wary of, and come from the same organization of the other one they’re not certain of. So don’t give me that crap. The ones that are vocal about it might be the minority, but I’ve done this too long to know that others thinking it.” She knocked back a good measure of her drink and looked back to Sara. “As for friendships… did I come to the Asimov hoping that something would be different? Yes, I did. This is the first time in twenty years I’ve just been another officer on an assignment. But that was tossed out the airlock the second my husband surprised me by showing up. None of you know how hard it was for me to get a regular duty assignment. The fights I had to have with Admirals, just to be allowed to walk away from field work, even though psyc was never going to clear me for it again even if I wanted to. Do you understand, Sara? I shouldn’t be here. Yes, we were given a choice, but it really wasn’t one for me. And if people do trust me around here? I foggiest idea why, because I don’t even trust me with this,” she said with a bitter laugh.

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“I feel like we were on opposite sides of this conversation a while ago.” Sara said bluntly. “I couldn’t find my feet. My first major assignment as CO of this ship and I’ve got to be someone else and also me and- it was all too much. And then you came in here and you had the right words for the right time.” She paused, finding her own words. “You told me that the crew would follow my example. Well the example I’m giving them is “Shara Calloway is one of the people I trust most. She was before all this mess started and she will be after. Because she’s reliable. She does her job and does it well. She gives good advice. You didn’t get the normalcy you were looking for. Well, nobody did. The Asimov was a science and exploration ship when she was christened. And now here we are. Nobody was ready. Unless that Admiral screws us on the end of this, we’ll go back to missions we can write home about. The normalcy is coming.”

-CO

A part of her really wanted to believe that, to hold on to it, but it had been slipping through her fingers like water. She knocked back the rest of the liquor in her glass and set the glass down with a sigh. Looking over at Kiernan, Shara took a moment to really gaze at the captain. “Thank you for your trust.” Those wren’t just words, they meant something very profound, especially for someone like Shara. “I just hope it’s enough. I…” A pained expression slipped onto her face before she could brush it away and she shook her head. “I’m doing the best I can to keep my PTSD symptoms at bay, but I don’t know it’ll be enough. And it terrifies me. Especially given the stakes here.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

“You think that if you felt what you’re fighting off you’d be a liability to the crew and the team. But you also think you’re a liability now, too busy fighting off your emotions to be effective. Is that about right for the situation?” Sara pushed further.

-CO

Glass empty before her, Shara wished it contained some of Micah’s ‘shine and she could just knock it all back and bypass everything right now. Though it was a brief moment, it spurred the older woman to rise from her seat and move away towards the window. She gazed out into the nebula that encompassed them, and also wished they were on the move in the stars where everything felt more comfortable for her.

Shara turned on her side to lean her shoulder against the edge of the window and gazed back at Sara, distress painted over her features. “What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room, and though there are some on the ship that already know some of this, Micah and Blue are the only ones that know the whole of it.”

She gathered herself for a moment- steeled herself, really- holding the terrible sensations swirling in her gut and locking them underneath a barrier that would hopefully last long enough for her to spit this out. Sara needed to understand and there was no way to do so without disclosure.

“Three times I’ve been undercover in Romulan space. That last time was a very long term assignment and I was there posing as a medic… with the Tal Shiar. Despite the chaos their people have been in since Romulus was destroyed, the Tal Shiar seemed to operate as not much had changed. In any case, I was working at a facility where they did a bunch of experimental work. I was keeping tabs on anything that would be considered dangerous to the Federation after our relationship with the Romulans fell apart. One day, they brought in a prisoner: a foreign asset that had been arrested. I don’t think I need to explain what the Tal Shiar do to spies they capture, and while it was clear they had interrogated the woman while in prison, before and after her supposed trial, they hadn’t executed her the way they would have normally. Because this Human woman was no ordinary Federation Intelligence officer. What I gleaned over time was that they figured out who she was and understood that she was of use to them, her extraordinary and brilliant mind was of use to them. And so through a long series of terrible experimentation, they sought to break her and slowly gain control of her mind for their own purposes. What those were, we never learned.”

Calloway moved back to the desk, grabbed the chair and set it next to Sara, sitting to face her captain. Anguish filled Shara’s stone-washed blue eyes. “That woman, that prisoner… was my daughter Faye.” Shara forced herself to take a breath. “Every day I was there monitoring her vitals as they inflicted terrible pain on her. Not enough to kill her, but enough to make her wish she was. And most of the time they kept her in a drugged state. And there was sh!t-all I could do about it Sara. I was undercover too deep and one tiny wrong move would get us both killed. So I bided my time, gathered my resources and made a plan to get her out. Very long story short, I did, but Faye was in their hands for nine months and I witnessed all of it. I did my best to secretly sedate her when I could, to give her a reprieve, or inject her with extra nutrients because she couldn’t eat and was getting very malnourished. And when the opportunity finally came about with help, I carried my daughter’s limp body to her shuttle they kept for reasons I can only speculate on, injected her with stimulants to wake her up and shake off the other drugs, and set an automated course back to the Federation. Then I got the hell out of there and hid for awhile till it was safe to also try to make my own way back to Federation space. We both made it, but it was clear in the weeks after I put her on the shuttle that I was not okay. I did a helluva lot of therapy and recovery work to get me functional again, but when I’m stressed and worried about those I care about, my PTSD flares.

“It wasn’t until a subsequent investigation brought me to the Manhattan that Faye and I were reunited after 25 yeas apart. She didn’t even know I was alive and didn’t know I was the one who got her to safety from the Romulans until I told her.” Tears slipped over her face. “We worked together to uncover the work of this Shadow Syndicate and clear Faye’s name, but the reality is that because of what happened at that facility, Starfleet still is wary of her. They can’t be sure she can be trusted, even if Faye is entirely innocent.” Shara leaned in, desperation radiating off of her and she was almost shaking. “Faye is doing Command training. She wants to be a starship captain and Sara… she will be extraordinary. But I know, even if she does not yet, that Starfleet will never put her in the centre seat as a Commanding Officer unless they are certain she’s clean. This whole mess you and I and this crew are trying to set right will give officers like Faye a chance, because the manipulations of the Syndicate won’t being hanging over them anymore. Faye was used and abused in so many ways over the years and it was never her fault. But she is being quietly punished as if it was. And I will do anything to make sure she gets her chance for success and happiness. She’s earned that a million times over and the Federation owes her more than they realize.

Shara choked back a sob, something normally she’d never allow herself to show to anyone but Micah. “I am losing a battle with my own mind right now. I am caught in an impossible situation and I’m not sleeping. The flashbacks are back with a vengeance and I know one small mistake could get myself or others killed. I don’t have a choice but to push through. My sense of duty won’t allow for anything else, but even though I’ve confessed to Micah how much I’m struggling, I can’t share the whole of it with anyone and it’s killing me, bit by little bit.”

~Shara Calloway, CIO

Sara nodded and took it all in. “The things Intel asks people to do… They knew you were here, what the risk to you was and that I didn’t know any better than when they said jump just to ask how high. And out of all the ironies in the universe; that’s why I want you to be my Intel officer. I don’t trust the division. I trust you. I can’t make anything you’ve gone through okay or even better. But I can say that you are one of the strongest women- hell, strongest people I’ve ever met. But if you need anything to help, even if that takes the shape of your job for the mission changing, just ask.”

-CO