Posted by Commander Jason Reilly (XO) in Main Sim - Ask And You Shall Receive… For A Price

Posted by Gamemaster Alfredo Linguini (GameMaster) in Main Sim - Ask And You Shall Receive… For A Price

Posted by Commander Jason Reilly (XO) in Main Sim - Ask And You Shall Receive… For A Price
Posted by… suppressed (8) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Admiral Frederic looked at the video. “That does seem like an artifact in play. Your Chief Engineer’s kidnapping has already been made aware to me, and I have activated resources to send information to your ship as soon as possible, but your crew must obtain the artifact neutralizing supplies otherwise your crew will be defenseless against whatever dangers may come before you. Furthermore, in your best interests, information regarding Lt. Petrov’s disappearance has been kept secret. Also, among that 0.1% however… I should mention that there are alternative universes, and people who do accidently discover artifacts on their own unintentionally. It’s a big galaxy, Mr. Reilly.”

Frederic handed Reilly a PADD. “All the data from Risan security, Mr. Reilly. I am afraid we haven’t had time to perform an analysis, but my department delivered this information for me. Also, don’t be rude to little old ladies who are trying to sell you a fair market price on old antiques, you were clearly undervaluing all the objects in her shop. Fortunately, she doesn’t carry anything of interest or dangerous.”

GM

Reilly took the PaDD with a not-very-sincere-smile. “Was never rude ma’am, but haggling is to be expected… especially in a Risian shop. And had you told us that she didn’t have anything of interest before, we’d still have our Chief Engineer and probably one of your toys already.” he said flatly and looked at the PaDD.

“Did you ask Lt. Mado or Lt. Fihnrilkk’Hob”ledn-ardol about the shop?”

“Lt. Mado and Lt. Fin were as much of a help narrowing down the field as the rest of the directives we have received so far, Admiral.”

“Hardly fair accusation when you didn’t do your own due diligence, Commander. And may I remind you, the USS Wolverine is still being evaluated whether it can be trusted. How is it suppose to be an evaluation if you are given all the answers?”

“Determining trust is one thing, Ma’am. Determining ability is quite another. But the Wolverine and her crew can handle it. Especially now that we know we are, as usual, being left to fend for ourselves. So we will just do what we always do… make our own rules and let chips fall where they may.” Reilly’s tone was professional, but his look was plain to interpret. He hated it when higher ups played games that only served to put their subordinates in harm’s way.

“Should the need arises, Commander, you may order Lt. Mado to request for additional support, but please bare in mind that my department has no Starfleet vessels. They are mostly civilian ships with agents of the department, so expecting support is a bit of a stretch considering my department is constrained as well,” said Admiral Frederic.

“Appreciate the file. We will review immediately and see what can be done. And I will make sure the neutralizing supplies are loaded asap, Admiral. Anything else you’d like to share before I get on this?” and he looked up at the Admiral.

Reilly, XO

An incoming message distracted Reilly’s attention for a split moment. When he turned to tell the Admiral that he had the call to take, she was gone.

GM

Reilly’s jaw clenched and he took a deep breath. Turning, he tapped the comms. =/\= Commander Reilly. =/\= he said as he looked to the screen.

Reilly, XO

The man that he requested favors appeared on the screen.

“What the hell did you get me into, Reilly?”

GM

Reilly swore… loudly. “Nathan, talk to me. What’s going on? I’ll help however I can.” he replied with earnest.

Reilly, XO

“I don’t know, Reilly. Half of the favors I had to call in to get you that information are now upset because their own security clearances were slightly downgraded. I mean, yah, they can still access about 90% to 95% of the same information but some information has been restricted or sets off weird alerts resulting in an access information audit… in fact, I’m now under audit!”

GM

Reilly swore… again. “Understood, Nathan. I’ll handle it. Seriously, didn’t know it would be… well… like it is. Give me a few days, ok? I’ll see what I can do.” and he cut the comms. He then immediately tapped his commbadge.

=/\= Lieutenant Mado to the XO’s quarters immediately. =/\=

Reilly, XO

The door rang immediately.

When beckoned to enter, Andreas Mado showed himself. “Admiral Frederic sent me a message saying you might want to talk, sir,” said Mado.

GM

OOC: Minor correction: not once did Admiral Frederic use the word “Warehouse” – she said ‘division of intelligence’

IC:

Reilly looked at Mado and said “I’m sure. Take a seat Lieutenant.” and he gestured to the seating area by the windows.

Taking a seat himself, he said leaned forward and looked at Mado. “Listen. I just spoke to Admiral Fredrick myself, so her contacting you isn’t a surprise. But we… ‘we’ being the crew of the Wolverine who I am going to take the liberty of and speak for here… need you and Admiral Frederick and your whole intelligence division to understand something. And I am going to try to be very clear here without being defensive, okay?”

‘Clearly you are already on the defensive. Stating that you aren’t, just makes it look like you are going to be,’ thought Mado.

“Now then… you all came to us. That, to me, would indicate that you or Frederick or at least someone in your division actually took the time to check up on us before sending you and Fin here and tasking us with your artifact recovery. So you should already know about this ship and how we operate. So when we do what it is we do and how we have always done it… and then you all come behind us and smack our proverbial wrists for doing things you don’t like in order to fulfill your mission parameters… well… that’s a problem. That tells me that one of two things is happening. One is that you don’t know what you are doing and you didn’t do you r due diligence and find out how we do things here first. I find that somewhat hard to believe. So the other option is that you are simply making things harder than they should be for the sake of us ‘proving ourselves’ or some other bull.”

‘Honestly, it wasn’t my choice to involve the Captain and the entire ship in this. Why am I getting the blame here? Oh, it must because he thinks I can be the target of his frustrations and imitate me,’ thought Mado, ‘I wonder why he didn’t call Fin? Maybe he can’t imitate Fin so that’s why I’m here alone…‘

“And yeah, I know this is some kind of hush-hush glorified test to see if we are ‘worthy’ or whatever… but when you all start to interfere with how we do what we do without reason or warning, see… that’s a no-no. I don’t mind getting in trouble for breaking the rules. I definitely mind getting in trouble for breaking rules I didn’t know existed. And that is where we are now. So, in order to further the investigation, I did what I am supposed to do and I called in favors.”

‘So you butted in where you didn’t have to be… and you didn’t run it by the Captain?’ thought Mado, ‘Well, I suppose from another perspective, he was trying to do his own research. But you know, we’re an intelligence operation, and if I recall correctly, he was in intelligence before – so didn’t he just make the blunder of setting off alarms and then trying to pin the responsibility on the Admiral and myself?‘

“I don’t know if you or the Admiral understand how favors work, but it is a currency that we deal in quite a bit here on the Wolverine. More so than almost anything else, actually. So when you and your division stick your nose into that economy, it causes a great deal of disruption. So now, I have to deal with not only your ‘so super secret that we can’t even tell you who are doing the looking what to look for or how to find it artifact garbage; I now also have to do damage control from your groups overstepping and micromanagement. And that is why you are here, Lieutenant. You are going to learn first hand how our ‘favor economy’ works. That way, you can participate in it without destroying years of relationship building and simultaneously hindering your mission form being completed successfully. Understand? Good.” he answered himself without allowing Mado the opportunity.

‘Why couldn’t you just ask Admiral Frederic to deal with the damage control? I guess he didn’t find out until after he spoke with the Admiral,’ thought Mado. Mado inwardly sighed, but his face remained expressionless throughout Reilly’s speech.

“So what we are going to do is this. You are going to call your Admiral and tell her that the blow up she and her people have caused with my contacts stops now. Not tomorrow, not when they can… now. Everything is put back like they found it.”

‘Well… there is one way to do this but it involves contacting the Department of Temporal Investigations and they hate altering the timeline. But I’m not going to say that out loud,’ thought Mado.

“While you all are doing that, I am going to make sure that all of your gear is brought aboard and stored properly and securely. Then, to make sure you know that I am appreciative of you doing what I have asked, I am also going to make sure you have a full contingent on hand for training in how to use said gear. Now before you protest and say ‘But Commander, that is what you are supposed to do anyway’; yes, I know it is. But what you and your people have to understand is this: As much as this is a test on whether or not we can be trusted and relied upon to do what you need; it’s also a test to see if we can trust you. Which right now we can’t. Trust goes both ways.. and right now you all have done more to make us not trust you than you have the opposite. So… you get done what I ask, I’ll do what you need. That should put us on fairly equal footing going forward. In turn, I will do my best to make sure that all of us here in the Wolverine have everything we need… material and information… to get this job done. Is that a deal, Lieutenant?”

Reilly, XO

‘This was never an equal footing to start with’, thought Mado, ‘He’s being utterly silly, but I can’t risk saying that since he’ll just get upset more. I wonder how Fin would handle him?‘

“I am afraid that is not how the Admiral operates, sir. The Admiral already ordered me to train the crew in the use of the equipment, if you were not already aware, as it was informed to the Captain about that. Also, I can only guess from your statement, sir, that your contacts looked into the Admiral’s intelligence division and like the story of Icarus, got too close to the sun. But, if you were to put this in perspective if you were the Admiral – If you were in charge of a top secret clandestine intelligence division which is responsible for collecting objects that redefines the nature of what we know about the universe and bends the laws of physics and someone was snooping around reveling the existence of your division which should not be made public at all and have to lockdown any potential leaks, how would you accomplish that?” asked Mado politely, “And from my understanding, sir, the Admiral negotiated all this with Captain initially.”

GM

“Except I didn’t ask anyone for anything to do with any intelligence agencies, objects, or anything of the sort. I asked for the standard Intel uploads from Risa which happen all the time. Information, by the way, I should have access to anyway, but I figured you all want to play secrets, so I didn’t make it an official request.The fact that you guys didn’t do a good enough job of covering your tracks and a simple search threw up weirdness is not my problem. Perhaps next time your department wants to scrub files, they should get someone competent to do it if you want stuff like that to stay hidden.” and he leaned back.

“Appearances are misleading, Commander,” said Mado.

“So far, you all have asked for a whole lot and given very little. I get it, and that’s fine. But what isn’t fine is you all throwing up unnecessary roadblocks and hindering us because you guys can’t delete a file registry properly. So go have Frederic call off the dogs. That is… if she actually wants us to be able to help. Besides… all that extra attention is just going to make people more curious and draw more attention to you. Otherwise, just charter a damn runabout. Risa has plenty, and you don’t have to worry about us trying to find information you either don’t have or won’t give.”

Reilly, XO

“If you have a complaint to file, register it with the Captain,” replied Mado, in a matter of fact tone, “I may be of a lower rank than you, Commander, but as Federation Security Attache, I am not required to cooperate with you fully when you are obviously throwing a temper tantrum like a child.”

GM

Reilly looked at Mado and simply smiled. “And that’s the reaction I expected. And that is why I know that you are not really good at the whole ‘covert operations’ schtick; because insulting and demeaning people you are asking for assistance is no way to get that. You want to be friendly… supportive… you want to be seen as useful; not adversarial. You see, you all want to keep your presence low-key… and understandably so. But between you and your Admiral, you have given us a whole lot of information about you, and a whole lot of reasons not to trust you. You walked onto a ship filled to the brim with covert operatives, Intel assets, and criminals… and then punish us when we act and work like covert operatives, intel assets, and criminals. And that just doesn’t make much sense to me. Especially if you want to stay under the radar, so to speak. And remember, Lieutenant… you chose us. We didn’t ask for this, you dropped it in our laps. So… we did what we normally do. But apparently our normal is a problem for you even after you already knew who we are.” and Reilly shook his head and laughed dismissively.

Mado calmly answered in a Vulcan tone, “Commander, your behavior is rather illogical. You claim to be a good covert operative by being friendly and supported but all you have done is attempt to provoke a response from me, and be completely upset at the person who is not responsible for Admiral Frederic’s actions. At the current moment, I am trying to decide if you are trying to act a certain way to provoke a response out of me to seek a desired answer – but obviously, you already knew that, did you not?”

“So, okay. Fine. I gave you the opportunity to work together rather than at odds. I offered you the chance to work with us rather than against us to get your job done. So be it. I’ll be filing that complaint, as you so helpfully suggested. But it will be outside of the ship. I’m pretty sure Fleet Command will very interested in knowing that a Starfleet vessel is being tasked by a covert civilian authority and their actions have directly led to the abduction of a Starfleet officer. And that there are apparently objects with unknown and varied powers being secretly obtained and locked away by a shadow organization operating without their knowledge. Just imagine, Mr. Mado… the Command Brass in possession of those items… even just some of them. Why, R&D would try to get them into a lab in a heartbeat. And that is just gonna lead to all kinds of chaos. And the press! Oh my… what a field day they will have” and he made a tsk-tsk-tsk sound.

Mado shrugged. “You are not the first officer I have met to make that suggestion, Commander. For the record, I am being cooperative, but you seem to be upset about something beyond my control. You could have summoned Lt. Fihnrilkk’Hob”ledn-ardol and myself together, but it seems you wish to take your anger out on me,” said Mado, still in an emotionless tone.

“Or… and this is just a suggestion…” and he locked Mado with a look that encouraged him to really listen and think, “… or you can help us help you. You can be a useful friend, and fix what you broke so we can do our job and make sure your items are kept secure and safe and secret. There… everybody wins. Or, you can keep on being a short-sighted errand boy with a stick up his aft section and all this blows up in everybody’s face. There… nobody wins. Well, maybe the guys you are working against. Wholly and completely your choice, Lieutenant. But a bit of advice when trying to recruit an asset. You want to be a useful solution… not an obstacle. You want the asset to either like you or need you… ideally you try for both. So, pick one. Useful or obstacle. Up to you. Dismissed.” and Reilly tapped the desk and the door slid open.

Reilly, XO

Mado sighed. “Life is never easy, Commander. I believe you are misplacing your anger at the fact that an away team member was kidnapped that you were in Command of. Either that, you are trying to provoke me to a desirable action in attempt to prove I am not a professional and that your particular methodology of psychological warfare to goat me into action when I have clearly have been doing my job to the best of my ability. Lt. Petrov’s kidnapping was not even anywhere in the risk assessments made. Someone wants to kill your Captain, and that is what we are trying to focus on – either way, the USS Wolverine has been painted as a target the moment that the Captain was attempted to be murdered. This should have been obvious to you, Commander, that the threat to this ship and crew are the reasons why Admiral Frederic tasked Lt. Fihnrilkk’Hob”ledn-ardol and I to protect this ship and its crew from the unknown dangers that your crew was not previously aware of, which was revealed to the Captain. Quite honestly, the crew never thought this mission was dangerous or serious until Lt. Petrov was kidnapped,” said Mado, in an analytical, logical tone.

And with Mado being already dismissed, he left, leaving the First Officer alone to his thoughts.

GM