Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Will the Real Leroy Strickland Please Stand Up?
Consoles exploded and the ship shook hard. Tossed off the bunk in his brig cell, Agent Vector rolled onto his stomach, popping up to crouch, centre of gravity kept low. Another lurch of the ship and it was clear what was happening: torpedoes. Someone was beating the hell out of this starship and he was stuck in a godsforsaken cell. The lights flickered. Definitely having a power issues, probably related to the main supply.

Crouching but inching towards the forcefield, Vector scanned the place. Two guards, one was down and the other was clearly injured. There were two outside the brig doors too but he didn’t know their status.

Another hard hit and the deck shifted. Vector yelped slightly as he hit the forcefield and just started to curse when there were more explosions. Everything went dark.

Blinking his eyes, Vector found himself prone on the deck, half inside the brig cell and half out, red lights fading in and out. And his head bloody hurt! Pulling his hand away, there was red and he cursed. But time was of the essence and this could be a chance. The second officer was down fully now, so he quickly moved over to the closest one and grabbed their phaser. Injured, his vision spun a little, but not enough to deter him. Moving to the brig console, it was still active from the officer who had manned it but a minute ago. Fingers dancing, Vector set about a surreptitious way of getting to his quarry.

A moment later a site-to-site transporter gripped his form.

It was so easy, but then again, they hadn’t expected to have to fight on two fronts. He bypassed the pre-flight chicks and brought one of the Manhattan’s shuttles, checking on the ships’s status as he listened to the commotion. The fight was going badly by the sounds of it. And it wasn’t that he hadn’t been noticed, but there were only so many people they could divert while it appeared the crew was now trying to evacuate. “Suckers....” he said with a snort.

The ship slipped into space and Vector could feel his heart pounding. Then his ship shook and an alert went off. A few moments later, while the Manhattan continued to suffer damage at whomever they had pissed off, the shuttle carrying Agent Vector slipped to warp… and to freedom.

---

Inside Computer Science Lab 2, Faye was watching the feed and analyzing the simultaneous recording to make sure they caught everything. This was their evidence, after all. “Is the program still stable?” she asked to the person next to her.

To Faye’s left, Shara was watching things scroll and her fingers now and again tapped out commands. “Still good, holding steady.”

Faye snorted. “Who’s the sucker now, a$$hat?”

Setting a course for the closest safe place they had, Vector felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. “Computer, activate EMH.”

“Please state the nature of the-“

“My head. My head is the medical emergency,” Vector said.

The EMH (actually Ensign Caldwell) moved over and quickly began to assess Vector. “Trauma to the head, we need to get you to a medical facility immediately.”

“Yeah no s$!t, give me two days and we’ll be right as rain. I just…” His vision spun and he lost consciousness. Caldwell immediately injected him with a sedative. The head wound wasn’t actually that bad and really just needed some careful dermal regeneration, and thankfully her scans showed no sign of concussion, so the sedation part of the plan was still valid.

Several hours later with a well treated head wound, Vector woke up to find the ship was suddenly a day out of their secret base. The EMH was sitting at an auxiliary station looking bored. “What happened?” Vector asked.

“You went unconscious. I’ve treated your wound but due to the concussion I was unable to wake you,” Caldwell said, the lie exiting her mouth smoothly. “Fortunately, the ship was easy to put into auto-pilot. Wherever we are going , we should be there in a little less than a day. Apparently.”

Things continued at status quo for awhile and Vector ‘went unconscious’ for another period.

By this point, the team in the Computer Science Lab was gathering some very interesting information.

Faye copied something and entered it on a PADD. “Here, coordinates. You can give that to your boyfriend. I’m sure his people will be all over it.”

“My boyfriend?” Shara said with a snort. “Don’t you think I’m a little old to have boyfriends?” Faye shrugged. “Do you mind?”

Faye shot her mother an amused look as she continued her delving. “Mr. McGruff? Nah, he’s okay. I’ve met a lot worse in my travels.”

It was almost approval in the language of Faye and Shara couldn’t help but smirk. Whatever Micah was to her, she wasn’t ready to define it, but she was also glad Faye wasn’t hurt by it.

Along with the coordinates, Faye was eyeing a small message Vector tried to send. She shadowed his encryption and began to break it down. At one point an hour later, she slapped a hand over her mouth.

“What?!” Shara said, sliding over to peek at her daughters finding. “Bloody hell… is that a cipher?”

Faye nodded slowly. “Three layers in. Part of it can change to keep it fresh, but with the basis you can always figure it out,” she said quietly. “This is what I’v maanged to put together, but it looks pretty complete.

“Call the Gents. Good job, Faye!” Now that was progress. The location of one of their secret operations bases was a huge find, but to have the ability to decode any message sent between Shadow Syndicate members and their affiliates? Jackpot.

~The Calloways, Dynamic Programming Duo