STF

Ready Room - Calling Faye

Posted June 2, 2020, 11:02 a.m. by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) (James Sinclair)

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Ready Room - Calling Faye

Posted by Commander Ardashir “Jack” Creed (Executive Officer / CIO) in Ready Room - Calling Faye

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Ready Room - Calling Faye
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Hmm, that didn’t make sense. She talked to ‘Blue’ regularly. What other handler was he talking about?

Cochrane cleared his throat and said “We all should be mindful of letting our emotions overshadow our thinking.” and he cast a glance at Creed. He liked the man, and knew he… just like Alex… was put in a very precarious position. But he wasnt going let hurt feelings, wounded pride, or simple miscommunications cloud the issue. “Now let’s just get everything out in the open. Lieutenant Calloway, lead us off. Tell us everything about why you were sent here, both above board and covertly. Then we will build from there, as your arrival was the catalyst for all of this.”

Cochrane, CO

Faye gazed at Cochrane, her stormy-sea hued eyes obviously conflicted. It seemed like not that long ago that he was telling her they’d keep that order under wraps lest it create strife with the rest of the senior staff. But she wasn’t stupid. Things had clearly escalated and changed. “I was given two instructions. The first was to do hardware and software upgrades to prevent a very dangerous computer virus from being able to take over the Manhattan’s systems if we came across it.” She looked at Creed. “I debriefed the Captian, Chief Engineer and Chief of Operations after the explosion in the jefferies tube that I was lucky to have come out of alive. I can give you the same debriefing later, if you like, but based on… Commander Calloway’s assertion already, that order is sound.* Even mentioning a rank with her mother made her want to vomit, but she was channeling her scientific discipline in order to maintain something of her sanity in this unbelievable situation.

Calloway gestured to Alex. “You read the other order, that came from Deputy Director Yi. It was to do a basic security assessment on the entire senior staff. Problem was that we had so much turnover that that was becoming a rather difficult thing to do. On several occasions I broached my frustrations that my orders weren’t evolving with the situation, but my handler, whom I have spoken to regularly”-she shot Creed a look-“said that while he understood the frustrations and agreed with them, orders higher up confirmed I was to continue on until told otherwise.”

Shara frowned. “And you never spoke to any of these people higher up?”

Faye shook her head. “No, everything came through Commander Strickland, and I trust him with my life.” Which was something given that Faye’s trust issues ran deep. “He’s the one who oversaw my last… assignment with Intelligence,” she said, her jaw tightening slightly. “Blue is solid. I know he is. If there is something going on, it’s not with him.”

~Faye Calloway, Data Specialist

“There is quite a few quandaries with this all, first Starfleet was aware of the virus, but when the spectrum analysis came up when I cross referenced it something interesting came up.” Jack said as he put a PaDD over to Faye.

Faye frowned, but accepted the PADD, glancing through it. There was a lot there and she wasn’t going to be able to read through it all now, but even as Creed continued talking she could already see several things jump out at her. Well, shit. She was in deep, deep trouble.

“The issue is these orders were intended to be relayed to me, but your handler seemed to remove these markers. You see this virus was created by Creed Technology, a task I have been given as a secondary objective next to my primary.” Jack said as he clenched his jaw, much of the information about his parents and their death and stollen tech was not known, nor his mission to track down and errors the sources of their tech.

He wondered if Shara knew a bit but seeing as he had to fake his departure of Starfleet under the deepest of cover he wasn’t sure if she knew more than the most basic thing such as the name she used to help ID her. His death at Maz was wrapped tighter than anything he has seen before, forcing him to hide from even Celina for a period of time.

For her part, Shara kept a neutral expression, though a slight shift in her brows indicated that something had piqued her interest.

“The gist of the information you have here is my parents created a lot of tech, they were a engineering/science combo working on tech for Starfleet and private industries. Much of it was years more advanced at the time than what many organizations had. They were killed, only to be made to seem like an accident.” Jack said as he took a breath as he tried to breath as he felt a knot in his neck forming.

“I was brought in years later to decode some technology that had been found on the black markets from what seemed to have markers on tech they had developed, this was when I came brought in to track down what I later found to be their murderers… but the Orion’s where just puppets for a group… well only so far call then the Shadow.” Jack had been painting the picture but not all details need to be told, and he needed to move this on.

“This virus details was modified to remove the marker that would have alerted Starfleet to have me beginning investigating it… and then passed onto you to find something without all the details on the ship with the very person who should have been on the mission, and then you were told to sift through and find information about her crew. Now I don’t have all the details, but why would someone know to remove those markers and pass it up the chain only to have you sent here with me if someone wasn’t trying to both sniff out my identity along with procure something that Starfleet has deemed very dangerous and shouldn’t fall into anyone else’s hands.” Jack asked Faye, the truth is he needed to find more evidence but the lack of Starfleet knowledge of her secondary mission to investigate the crew, and the lack of their knowledge of the Creed Technology marker made SIA worried there was a breach, which now was forcing Jacks hand.

If it was for Shara and Cochrane he was fairly certain his approach wouldn’t have been so open, and just left an empty quarters and missing person report. Alas he couldn’t deny there seemed to be an element of manipulation against Faye which he hopped was true. Otherwise all this information was being forced out to the one person they shouldn’t be trusting.

Creed, XO

Faye shook her head. “I have no idea,” she said flatly. Rising to her feet and stepping behind the chair, Faye moved away, pacing slightly. Her mind handled stress better when she was moving and right now she was rather aware of how bad this looked. “But why me? Why drag me into any of this? That makes no sense except…”

Turning to look at them again, she gazed directly at Cochrane. “Except that, I’m the perfect scapegoat.”

“And there is the other mater of your… knowledge,” Shara said, tapping two fingers to her head.

At that Faye took an almost startled step back. Of course, her mother knew about that. Of course. But who else did? She really wanted to talk to Blue now. He’d be able to confirm her side of the story. What Creed was saying about her handler didn’t make sense!

~Faye Calloway, Data Specialist

“Look, we don’t know each other well Faye, but I understand the ins and outs of being Intelligence and I feel I can understand a bit where you are coming from. Living in the shadows can make a paranoid life, no one knew my secondary task on this ship… not even my fiance’. That said, I also know you have to always be critical and never take anything for granted.” Ardashir said as he took a deep breath as he moved his chair to get a better eye-level view with Faye.

“You don’t know if you can trust any of us, or if you can trust your handlers… there is something afoot and I know you are smart enough to see that. So what would you be doing in the field with this? If it was me I know I would be verifying and moving forward myself, verify the chain of command, verify the orders, find the point where the information breaks down. You know how to do that, and it may not be… comfortable, you may not like the truths you find, but you know that is the steps you must take.”

Creed, XO

She threw her hands out to the sides. “And how the hell am I to verify anything? If what you say is true and my handler is somehow… missing, then who have I been talking to all this time? He looks like Blue, and I worked with Blue on my previous assignment. You have to understand that I had never been near Intelligence before then. I went and did a specific task for them, and in the execution of it, got royally screwed over. If my handler is a part of this problem, how much you want to bet that any verifying evidence is gone?” Her eyes flashed with anger. “And do you know what that means for me? It means no evidence. Nothing to prove I’m not the problem.” She also knew it could be infinitely worse. Moving away from them, Faye’s anxiety had skyrocketed. And that wasn’t even considering the woman sitting at the desk across from the captain.

Shara watched her daughter carefully, seeing the tell-tale signs she had taught herself to look for and knew it was time to intervene in a more concrete way. Cochrane and Creed had no idea what they were dealing with when it came to Faye’s more… volatile moods, and right now they needed to keep her focused. “Lieutenant, take a deep breath,” she said firmly, but not unkindly.

Spinning, Faye glared at the woman she still couldn’t process was there. That simple invocation reminded her that she was the most junior officer in the room. “Since when does Intelligence toss family members together? Aren’t there rules about that?”

“It wasn’t intentional, I can assure you,” Shara said, her voice placid. “No one expected you to be caught up in this. I am just following my orders to investigate all these false orders.”

“And what if you found something odd?” Faye said, planting a hand on her hip.

“Follow procedure and contain any threats. Same as anyone would.” Commander Calloway glanced at Cochrane and Creed, trying to read their reactions on the matter. By all rights Faye should be in the very least confined to quarters while they investigated, but she wasn’t about to go there, daughter or no. “Regardless of what happens in this room, you all have to remember that I have people expecting me to report in very soon and they will be expecting concrete information, one way or another. Fortunately, I have a fair bit of leeway with all of this. That gives us options.”

~The Calloways

Cochrane glared at the mention of ‘procedure’ and ‘containing threats’, but held his tongue. When the senior Calloway finished he said “With all due respect, I don’t give a single damn about what the expectations of your ‘people’ are. That being said, I am willing to listen to you and what you think. Options. What are they?”

Cochrane, CO


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