Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Spymasters at Work

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Daggum Hammor (Chief Engineer) in Spymasters at Work

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Faye Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Spymasters at Work
Posted by… suppressed (21) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“And discrediting your mother dearest and proving she has no legitimate claim to anything certainly helps too,” Faye said, rubbing her fingers together. “Okay, you see if you can get his transport requests. Once we have those, I can do the cross-referencing, but I can start creating a particular algorithm for it so we’re not wasting time.” Her eyes held that same gleam she got when she not only had a project but had one that had challenges and puzzles to work through.

~Faye Calloway, CIO

“On it.” Daggum said and turned and went to the desk in the living area. Nothing he was requesting was classified, but he had to make sure that him asking didn’t get back to the Admiral. So instead, he opened the mental rolodex of favors owed to him and began making calls. It took a few hours, but soon enough he had all the man’s travels for the past decade.

“I’m done. And I think you will be pleased. Maybe you will give me my espionage merit badge for this one.” and he laughed as he slid a data disc across Faye’s desk to her.

Daggum

They had left her office knowing his efforts would take time and settled back in at their quarters. Faye, rather expectedly, had dove back into her own work, which for the last ninety minutes had taken the form of messing with the top secret R&D project. While Dag knew she had the object and was given license to ‘break it’, she was unusually silent about exactly what she was doing. He might be able to guess at times, but it would only be a guess. The reality was that unless she was given clearance to talk about her work, no one here on the Athena would know anything about it. Unlike her secret work on the Manhattan, at least this stuff was guaranteed legit. No shady overlords to take down this time.

“Hmm?” she said, his words having filtered through the set of equations she was working through in her head. Fay had heard him, but it took a extra second for her to parse the meaning as she mentally set aside the calculations so she could continue them later. She cracked a smile. “I don’t know, I’m notoriously hard to impress,” she said as she took the disc and twirled it in her fingers. “But then again, you are the rare exception that impresses me often. That or I’m going soft.”

Faye popped the disc into a secure reader and watched as a jumble of data appeared on the screen. The travel records were bits and pieces and there was a lot of them. It was like someone had taken the admiral’s records, put all the pieces in a jar, shook them up, and dumped them in front of her. None of it was chronological either, which was an interesting details, because if he could have gotten them in a nicer form, Dag definitely would have. These were clearly designed to not make sense.

Anyone else with more linear thought patterns might have spent a little time with all this and shut it down in frustration, but for Faye the chaos was beautiful. For a long time she just stared at the data, not changing parameters or adding any filters. She just looked. The only tell that she was actually processing any of it was the slight movement of her fingers, like a conductor bringing an orchestra into harmony. As far as Faye went, this was pretty normal.

Ten minutes later, her fingers stopped moving as she drew in a sharp breath. Faye didn’t move. She didn’t even blink. It was like she was frozen, her breath caught in her throat.

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Daggum watched her for a moment and then moved behind her. He knew an ‘event’ when he saw one by now. He also knew there was little he could do. He set his hands on her shoulders and whispered “It’s okay, Faye. I’m here. Just let it come. I’ve got you.”

Daggum

Ten seconds. Thirty. A whole minute later Faye finally sucked in a breath and panted a bit as her body shuddered. At least she was still sitting upright and Dag’s hands on her shoulders grounded her in the chair. “Corridors. travel. Expanding networks.” She squeezed her eyes tight and then it all faded. Blessedly and infuriatingly. Maybe one day some it would actually make sense, but for now she was careful about who knew she could even recall any of what flooded her brain.

She tipped her head back, letting it rest against Daggum’s body. “I don’t know why his records would trigger anything, but then again I still haven’t found any basic correlations. But I was starting to see some patterns before the mind dump.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

“Okay.” Daggum said and softly rubbed her shoulders. “Patterns like what? And can you remember what you were looking at when the dump started?”

Daggum

Her mind was often foggy after a dump as her body adjusted to the intense input. She always felt tired. But ever since that one time in Captain Cochrane’s ready room on the Manhattan, something had shifted and it seemed to be not just continuing but escalating. That, however, was a matter for later.

“It was never direct, with a different prior and post location, but the name Remais came up,” Faye said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it before, but it feels… familiar.” She turned the chair and looked up at the giant man that was her husband. “Like I know what this place should be. Like I’ve been there before.” Of course she hadn’t. While Faye was exceptionally well travelled (especially in her pre-Starfleet days), she could remember every place she had ever been. This wasn’t one of them.

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Daggum scowled for a moment and then said “Hmmm… I know that name. Hang on.” and he squeezed his wife’s shoulders and walked over to the computer terminal. He tapped a few commands and then said “Yeah… Remais is a non-affiliated world in what was the Neutral Zone with the Romulans. Looks like it’s well-established, population of just over a million. One major city, Remais City. How original.” and he chuckled and then continued. “Major exports are agricultural and mineral, has a somewhat well-known art scene and two orbital platforms- one industrial, one passenger. Local government is fairly transparent, but there are some notices of black market activity and some underworld presence.”

Daggum

“It’s possible the Syndicate is using Remais as a drop spot. I remember when I worked on a freighter that we occasionally would be doing aboveboard business at places that also were dealing with the Syndicate. I remember Captain Jensson warning us to be very careful what we did and with whom we interacted.” Faye turned her chair to face him. “You know, it’s really annoying when stuff like this comes up. Like why would the Tal Shair include that information. There’s no way in hell anything they dumped in my head was random.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Daggum thought for a minute and then said “Well, I’m no master spy or anything, but I can say I know a bit about how the Syndicate works. And one of the main commodities they trade in is information. And form what little I know of the Tal Shair, they never shied away from learning everything they can about whatever they could.”

Daggum

“But why would I need it?” Faye blew out a breath. “Trying to figure out the Tal Shiar is likely a pathway to madness, but I was hoping at some point that some of this might make more sense than my being a random experiment. Everything was too calculated to be random.”

Daggum was silent. He had his own thoughts on why they did wat they had done to Faye, but he would never voice them out loud.

She waved a hand, brushing her verbalized thoughts away. “In any case, the Admiral was using Remais a funnelling point, which is not necessarily a problem on the surface. The question is whether we can get any farther. I can dig and see if I can find out more about who he might have contact with there.” At least this part of her work with Intelligence made sense- she had met a lot of people in her life so far and some might even deign to talk to her. But in the circles she moved now, Faye ‘s reputation had shifted in recent years, in no small part because of the shit that went down on the Manhattan

~Faye Calloway, CIO

“And I’ll see if anyone I know can tell me anything else about who the Admiral normally talks to. Maybe if we cross-check to see if they have ever gone there, we can narrow down the scope a bit.” and he kissed her head and then went to the living room and sat down at the desk.

Daggum

Faye sent off some discreet messages and waited. She wasn’t sure anything would even come back, but this place was relatively unusual that if the name Remais had ever crossed their paths, there would be something they could share with her. She let Dag work and after a little while got up again. She stopped and gazed at her husband, mouth curling into a grin. “You know, we established early on that we are a great team, but this is proof.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Daggum smiled as he tapped away at a text-based comm with someone. “Never doubted it for a minute. Now, I will say that I always thought you would want to step back a bit from the cloak-and-dagger stuff in the years and years ahead and not that I would be joining you in spy-game… but I will say it’s kinda fun.” and he looked up at her. “Especially if I can stick it to my maternal genetic donor and a crooked Admiral.”

Daggum

It was strange, wasn’t it? She swivelled in her chair to face him. “I think for me it’s about honesty. You know what I’m doing, and I know what you’re doing. Yes, we’re using connections and my clearance to dig, but I see it as a mystery that needs to be solved. I’m not deceiving people and drawing up schemes. I’m not pretending to be someone I’m not. I don’t mind playing a role for a brief time for a specific purpose, but the stuff on the Manhattan was soul crushing because I was having to deceive everyone and that’s hard enough when you believe in your cause. But when I was doubting everything and then told to do it anyway?” Faye shook her head. “I refuse to be put in that sort of position again.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

“You won’t.” Daggum said firmly. “And anyone who even thinks about trying to do that will deal with me.” Just then his terminal chirped. “Hey, I got a match.” and he turned and looked at the screen. “Ok, thats weird… seems like the USS Gideon, Star Fleet survey-slash-freighter-slash-science probe made the run to Remais almost every time the Admiral was gone and we think he was there.” He turned abd looked at Faye. “Only problem there is those ships are all automated. No crew. Mostly just used to move supplies between points.” He scowled in thought for a moment and then snapped his fingers and spun back around. “Wait a sec…” and his fingers tapped across the interface and then he said “Oh… you are so gonna love me for this.” and he sent a file to her terminal.

The file was list of repairs and upgrades to the Gideon. Highlighted was an oddly timed drydock time for ‘refit and refurbishment’. That in and of itself was not odd; save for the fact that the ship as less than two years old when it happened. That, and the refit was ordered by one Admiral Gallren.

Daggum

Her eyes lit up. “Huh, you’re right, I do love you for that. My guess is that the Admiral overwrote the sensors to mask his readings and secreted himself onto the ship. It would be inconsequential to sneak off the ship during night shift when few people would be around. As far as anyone would know, he was just a part of the supplies the ship was carrying.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

“Or just set himself up a cozy little quarters on board. Look here.” and he came over and pointed at a line in the specs. “That class of ship should have at least another hundred and forty square meters of cargo space. And look at some of the cargo it has pulled on these runs: ‘Assorted Foodtsuffs’… ‘Refrigerated Perishables’… and that tag? Thats for large quantities of alcohol.” He looked at Faye and chuckled. “Son of a b!+<h built him a luxury yacht out of a Star Fleet vessel.”

Daggum

“Well… that tracks,” she said dryly. “When was the last time it was there?” She was seeing if she could pull some of these errant threads into some sort of concrete set of events that led to Daggum’s mother making her ‘random’ call to her son.

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Hammor pulled the ship’s history and looked at the destinations. “Looks like… about four standard months ago.” and he looked at Faye. “Right around the time we started the refuge.”

Hammor, CE

She nodded slowly. “Make sense. You would have been named as the owner, so it would have been public information. Whether she was keeping an eye out for you or not, is hard to say, but it gave her an avenue to find you and Mr. Admiral here got in the action.”

A few moments later, Faye broke out into a grin. “Ha! Listen to this reply I got: ‘Calloway, haven’t I told you how much I dislike hearing from you. Always leads to trouble. In any case, Remais is a hot bed lately for black market action. There’s been a sharp uptick, but we haven’t been able to track down who is connected to the activity. Any leads would be appreciated, since you’ve brought it up.’” Faye laughed. “Ahhh, poor Connell. Just doesn’t like being outsmarted. Sore loser, that one, but at least he relied, even if it’s because he could get something out of it.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

Daggum’s face took on wickedly mischievous expression. “Oh… oh I just had an idea. But you’ll have to tell me if you think it would work. So your boy Connell, there. How would you feel about using him without his knowledge? I mean, right now we are keeping all of what we are looking at quiet, right? So that the Admiral and my egg donor don’t know what we are trying to piece together. So what if your boy Connell got a bunch of information anonymously? Information that would give him enough to start an investigation of his own. He wouldn’t know to keep it quiet, right? So when he starts poking around, the Admiral will get word, we know that much. He will have to do things to ensure he is covered… like double checking logs, manifests, and comm histories. But he will know exactly where to look. So what if we just happen to be watching him while he does that? I’m sure between your brain and my favors we can get eyes- electronic and biological- on him. And we already know that people hate him. I’m sure finding folks to help tank his career won’t be too difficult.”

Daggum

Faye was not a fan of deception, in part because her brain was wired towards black and white thinking. Nuance was hard for her. But a lifetime of navigating these sorts of scenarios had left her at least capable or wrapping her mind around choosing to engage in deception, especially where someone really needed their ass hand to them. She grinned at him. “I will tell Connell that I have a source and that source will reach out to him. It’ll be me and I’ll use my best skills to hide where it’s coming from. And then we let the dominos fall.”

~Faye Calloway, CIO

“Ok. So let’s get the various eyes we will need on him, and then send him what you think will be enough to get him moving. I’ll make some more calls.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You are awesome, you know that?” he said with a grin and then went to his terminal.

Daggum