Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Executive Officer) in SCC (Tag GM, CO, XO)

Posted by Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf (Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm) in SCC (Tag GM, CO, XO)

Posted by Captain Sara Kiernan (Commanding Officer) in SCC (Tag GM, CO, XO)
Posted by… suppressed (17) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Kohana made his way to the secure communication center on deck 9. After securing the room, he sat at the computer console and began to send out feelers to his covert contacts throughout the galaxy. His request was to gather any information ANYONE had about the planet Sefarian VII, the Federation ambassador, the family in the video, as well as ANY reasoning why the whole incident would be wiped from Starfleets or the Federations files.

After hitting the send command, he leaned back in his chair and waited for the results to come in. . . . .

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

It was… odd. His network was robust enough that such inquiries would normally present results in, at the most, a few hours. But as time wore on, there was a growing number of negative responses. That is, until a Ferengi acquaintance sent a note that said he would look into it.

A few hours later, Black Wolf’s news crawler alerted to a key word. A police report from Haversham III mentioned his Ferengi contact’s name.

He had committed suicide an hour earlier.

GM

What the. . . .? That’s not right, Kohana thought, Rottor would never commit suicide, He was a successful businessman. No reason to kill himself.

Tapping into the computer again, he was able to hack into Haversham III’s police data base, looking the police report, as well as the autopsy report.

The CIO’s gut was telling him that Rottor had found something useful, and he had been killed for it. Whoever was behind this whole thing had a long reach. Long enough that they could get to Rottor very quickly, too quickly. It had only taken a matter of hours. How many of my other contacts had been silenced in the past few hours, he thought. It would make sense that they hadn’t gotten back to him.

He waited for the reports to come back, thinking a trip to Haversham may be in order.

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

(bump for GM)

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

While he waited, he sent a request to the captain and XO.

=^=Captain Kiernan and Cmdr. Calloway, this is Black Wolf. Could you please meet me in the Secure Comms Center?=^=

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

“Calloway here. On my way.”

A couple minutes later, Shara stepped into the secure space that had been essentially her office not that long ago. “Hey,” she said, knowing they would need to wait for Sara.

~Shara Calloway, XO

Sara walked in about a minute later. Seeing Shara had arrived ahead of her, she launched right in. “What’s going on?”

-CO

“I’ll get right to it, Captain, Commander,” Kohana began.

“I’ve been reaching out to my connects along my network. Not a one has responded. Even if they have nothing for me, 90% of the time, I hear something. That leads me to believe one of two things. 1) Whoever is behind this has a far-reaching stretch and has somehow put a fear into everyone. Or 2) everything is so far under the radar, nobody knows anything. My guess is option a.”

“As I said, no contact from anyone, but I did come across this. . . ” He displayed the police report from Haversham III on the wall display.

This is. . . was one of my Ferengi contacts. As you can see by the report, he committed suicide. I find that hard to believe. Smeeg wasn’t one to take that route. I have every reason to believe he knew something about this, and was silenced before he could back to me with what he knew.”

“I was able to hack into Haversham’s police records, but so far, I haven’t found any other information than it was ruled a suicide: no autopsy, no clinical reports, no toxicology . . . nothing.”

The CIO spun in his chair to face the two senior officers. “Captain, I’d like your permission to take a shuttle and travel to Haversham and investigate this ‘suicide’ myself.”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

It was at that moment that the computer chirped. The autopsy report had been completed. Normally, those reports took far longer than an hour; but the report was very straightforward: subject had died due to a self-inflicted shot from a phaser set to stun at point blank range. Found at the scene were several messages from creditors stating that the subject’s businesses were in dire straights and. being Ferengi, the shame of such failure was too much for him to take. Police were continuing the investigation, but it was not a priority at that time.

GM

Sara paced for a minute. “Lieutenant, I need more than a hunch that your contact wouldn’t commit suicide. If he was set up to look like a suicide, then whoever set him up was good. Good enough they’re probably still monitoring the investigation. You expect me to authorize this mission, give me some tangible lead. I trust your instinct, but risking your safety… give me something.”

-CO

Kohana took a deep breath. “Captain, Smeeg was on Starfleet Intelligence’s payroll. If he kept feeding them info, they made sure his finances stayed secure. That’s how effective he was as an intel source. I’ll check with SI to see if his payments were stopped at the source, but I’m guessing, if he was that far in debt, the payments weren’t getting to him, or the records were fixed. Either way, it’s still very suspicious.”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

“It would also be rather unwise to go anywhere alone. I think we should be implementing some sort of buddy-system for anything that takes place off the ship. Too many people are disappearing and showing up dead. I think we can all agree that cannot happen with any member of this crew,” Shara said firmly.

~Shara Calloway, XO

“Absolutely. Nobody travels alone.” Sara paused. “If somebody was going to intercept Smeeg’s money, they’d need to know that he was getting paid to begin with, how, when, and possibly also by who. Are we sure we want to raise an alert with Intel if anything from the computers to officers may be compromised? I’m inclined towards us going radio silent until we verify the integrity of Intelligence. And sending you to investigate Smeeg.” Sara paced for a minute. “You both have the background. Am I missing something or should we play this extremely close to the vest? Vet any crew rotated onto the ship for this assignment, control all information going out, and run this one like we’re still pirates on the run.”

-CO

Shara lifted both her brows ever so slightly and gazed at Sara. “While I think extreme caution is warranted, if we get too insular, someone will know something is up. The trick is to take all the precautions while not tipping our hand or giving away that we’re on to something. It’s all about distraction, obfuscation. Because no, we have to let the Rabid Pelican die a permanent death now. Playing from that playbook will do more harm than help.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

“You’re the pro. So how do we act casual and get what we need?” Sara leaned back against a wall and looked at her XO and CIO expectantly. She refused to endanger her crew any more than they had been by the issuance of this mission.

-CO

“I could go in as one of my legends.” Kohana offered. “The smuggler would be the obvious role. Waiting to pick up or deliver some contraband from/tp Smeeg . . . .Lycus usually works alone, but if you’re avoiding that, Captain. . . what do you say, Commander? You or Agent Pilelsimer up for a trip to Haversham?”

Lieutenant Kohana Black Wolf
Chief Intelligence Officer/Helm USS Asimov

It was different, right? They might have to play games and obfuscate, but it wasn’t going to be like before in anyway. Shara knew the difference, but she definitely had to quell a weird reaction in her gut. “You can’t go alone and you need someone who knows what they are doing. If it’s not me, I’ll ask Micah, but one of us can go, yes.”

~Shara Calloway, XO

“Commander, discuss it with Micah and decide which of you is best suited to this mission. When you’re ready, take a shuttle, get your intel, and come. Home. Do whatever you have to, so you don’t tip our hand while you’re doing this. And no matter what, if you think it’s about to go sideways, get out. Both of you need to be back here immediately upon return to the Asimov.”

-CO