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Main Sim - I've Got Good News... And Bad News (Tag Command Staff, DH's)

Posted July 20, 2021, 12:09 p.m. by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) (Lindsay B)

Posted by Gamemaster Alias Smith N. Jones, Esq. (Gamemaster) in Main Sim - I’ve Got Good News… And Bad News (Tag Command Staff, DH’s)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Si’Rek (Chief Operations Officer) in Main Sim - I’ve Got Good News… And Bad News (Tag Command Staff, DH’s)

Posted by Commander Siadra Enai (Executive Officer) in Main Sim - I’ve Got Good News… And Bad News (Tag Command Staff, DH’s)
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Blue chuckled and said “Such a strong term, Captain. But not a wholly bad idea either. Now then… Preparations for the insertion will take place inside the Cantreken Nebula.” He activated the view screen and a picture of the nebula appeared. “The Cantreken Nebula. A veritable ship’s graveyard that has accounted for dozens of lost ships and countless lost lives over the past two hundred years since it was discovered, the hard way, by a Vulcan science vessel. The entire region is a designated no-travel zone, but some still try to shave off the ten days added travel time by cutting across the peripheral boundaries. Many studies have been done on the nedula to to try and find out the source of the massive ion-plasma storms that erupt without warning from it. Only one was successful, and that is why we are going here.”

He tapped a few commands and the view was now of a startling and unfamiliar form of space installation. “This is Cantreken Station… a wholly unacknowledged and highly experimental station designed by the Tholians some four hundred years ago. Yes, I said it’s a four hundred year old space station inside an impenetrable ion-plasma storm generating nebula. It was discovered by the survey ship Eleanor Rigsby forty years ago right before she was destroyed by said ion-plasma storms. Since that time, Intel has kept it completely isolated from general knowledge. In fact, until you were just told, exactly one thousand people in all of the Federation knew about it. Nine hundred and ninety-three live on the station itself. One is the Admiral in charge of Special Projects, one is myself, one is Agent Pikelsimer here, one is the current President of the Federation, two are members of the Vulcan Science Council… and one is the Director of Star Fleet Intelligence. That nebula is where the Asimov will supposedly be destroyed. That station is where we will refit the Asimov and make it what we need it to be: a ship of pirates and marauders. Criminals and murderers. Everything a growing criminal enterprise needs to grow up nice and strong. Questions so far?”

GM

Si’Rek groaned internally and then, as the CE hadn’t been able to make it yet, said “And just what sort of ‘refit’ are we talking? Cosmetic? Structural? Systems? What?”

Si’Rek, Ops

Blue looked at him and paused before saying..

“Yeah.”

GM

Shara chuckled softly. “Basically, we have to make things look shabby, like we’ve been through the ringer. Too clean cut and they’ll spot our game lightyears away. The trick is to rough things up enough. Keep things functional but break a system or two. We’d do well to get out in a shuttle and fire a few shots on the hull. Give ‘er a little wear and tear. Especially if we’re going into the eye of the storm, we need to look competent enough to have been successful at a mutiny, but they have to see that it cost something.” A ever so slight edge touched her voice before it was gone. “And uh, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but been there done that. I was rebel cobbling things together, so I know this game.” She leaned forward, eyes flicking between Blue and Pickelsimer. “So what’s the catch gents? What the variable we might have to work harder at getting right?”

Commander Calloway, CIO

Pikelsimer looked at her and said “The ship we can do easy. And the shuttle idea? Gold. I’ll make sure you and I get to do that, Commander. The catch, as they say… is just what Commander Calloway said. We have to look like we have been through hell. Us. Our physical selves. That means medical alteration… cosmetically, of course. Wounds. Scars. Burns. The whole thing. So in addition to changing the clean and sleek appearance of this fine vessel… we’re gonna be changing the clean and sleek look of her crew as well.”

Pikelsimer, FedSec

Sara nodded. “Alright so cosmetic surgery from the medical department.” She considered slightly further. “We should probably start with the bridge crew so that our outward face is completely scruffy. Ditch the uniforms as well?”

-Captain Sara Kiernan, CO

This was entirely her shtick and it grated on her that it was useful now. So soon too! She had hoped to get a bit of distance between it all first. “The cosmetic stuff ain’t the issue folks. Behaviour is. Two seconds around a bad performance and I promise you our targets will be all over it. We’ll be done. Probably dead. We have to sell it. You each have to believe in this. You have the become the mutineers we’re portraying. This isn’t a game and treating it like one will get yourself and others killed. So, if you’re not sure how to pull it off, well, I can give pointers, critique the nuances, but you have feel it. You have to summon real emotions from a real place. The trick is that you’re mixing it all up. Putting emotions behind words and actions that are all an act. Does that make sense?” Shara said, eyeing the room.

Commander Calloway, CIO

“So we are modifying our ship… right after we repaired it, I might add. We are modifying our bodies… a violation of the laws surrounding body autonomy, I might add. And we are putting our lives in jeopardy for… what? Why are we doing this?” He looked at Blue and Pikelsimer and said “You speak in generalities. You give half-truths… if even that much. And you still have the absolute gall to come onto this ship and ask this of people without giving us cause to accept it as necessary? I’m sorry, I may be out of line here and if so please accept my apologies… but this is so far past the norm of orders as to be almost a work of science fiction.” Si’Rek looked at the Captain and XO and waited to see what they had to say.

Si’Rek, Ops Chief

“Your objection is noted Commander Si’Rek.” Sara nodded. “Those who elect not to participate in any part of the mission are free to do so. No one is being coerced. Crew who want out can play the part of loyal Starfleet crew who get ejected as part of the mutiny. They won’t be required to be involved.”

“Except some of us have to be, Ma’am. I doubt the ship would fare well if, for instance, almost everyone in this room decided not to participate.” He looked at Blue and Pikelsimer. “Offering a choice isn’t the same as being given a choice… now is it?”

Blue nodded once and said “Contingency plans are in place for that, Commander. Any critical role that is vacated by the assigned officer will be filled prior to departure. So yes… you really do have a choice.”

Bethany sat quietly and listened. The kind of modifications they were talking about to the ship meant that she was going to have to get creative with the tactical capabilities and start running trainings to make sure her department knew how to be David and knock out Goliath. Si’Rek wasn’t wrong. This was so far beyond ‘normal’ orders for ‘normal’ Fleet. Her gaze slid of Calloway. She got it, just like Bethany did. This was normal for them. And appraising Pikelsimer and Blue she had no doubt they both did too. But echoing Shara’s words Bethany’s soft Appalachian accent filled the temporary quiet, “You gotta give ‘em a reason. As Cmdr Calloway said, we’ve got to sell it, we have to believe it if ‘they’ are going to believe us. You gotta give the crew a reason to sell it. And simple ‘orders’ ain’t gonna do it boys.”

Gadi, CoS

“I’d like to minimize our contact with those who could see through our cover.” Sara said. “If we have to attribute that to mechanical failures or ongoing personnel issues, the less we deal with people, the fewer opportunities we have to blow it.”

-Captain Sara Kiernan, CO

Her back straight and her hands folded in her lap, the First Officer had been sitting silently at the conference table while she listened closely to everything that was being said. Every question that was being asked. And watched those around her just as closely as she listened to their words. Her face was a nearly emotionless mask of professionalism. Though anyone who knew her very well or was really good at reading people, as she knew several in this room were, would most likely be able to detect the emotions that were boiling underneath that calm facade of hers. She’d definitely have to talk to Calloway and get some pointers from the other woman or else she would be the one who’d blow their cover. After all, selling a story she not only didn’t really believe in, but also having some serious issues with their mission was not good a starting point. And yet she felt obligated to stay. She was the First Officer after all and this was her very first mission in that position. Not counting the rescue mission, that is. And thus she felt that she not only owed it to the ship and her crew to stay, but also that she had to prove that the was worthy of the pips on her collar and the new title she carried.

Shifting her gaze towards Pikelsimer and Blue, Siadra asked, “Those surgical alterations, are they only going to make as look like we’ve been through a lot or will some of us be given completely new identities as well? After all, if there really would be a mutiny not everyone would be on the side of the mutineers. Or else a mutiny wouldn’t be needed, no?” Unlike during their earlier meeting her voice remained perfectly even and as gentle as it usual was. Though the piercing gaze and the slight flare of her nostrils hinted at the fact that she wasn’t as calm and relaxed as she tried to appear.

~Cmdr. Enai, XO

Si’Rek, Ops

Blue looked at her and said “Some will be modified partially, but retain their identities. Those individuals will be made criminals or deceased. A few will be given whole new identities, designed and crafted by Agent Pikelsimer who, I can assure you with zero reservation, has done a very thorough job in crafting. Who gets what is already decided, and no one has a say in that selection, I’m sorry to say.”

GM

“Captain, if I may add something?” Shara said, gesturing to the table with a reflective expression. She could hear and see the resistance to the whole thing and she wasn’t going to try and remove it. But after all these years, what she could offer this crew was hard-earned perspective.

Commander Calloway, CIO


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