The hidden cost

Posted on Thu Dec 31, 2020 @ 10:46am by Commander Ajani Carter & Lieutenant JG Finchley Kerr

Mission: Episode 1: On Stranger Tides
Location: USS Eagle
Timeline: MD 04
1113 words - 2.2 OF Standard Post Measure

The pursuit craft had almost flown itself apart trying to catch up with the USS Eagle. Finchley had thanked the Captain and her crew for their diligence in making it possible to get to there to the ship before she reached her destination. Having arrived safely on board the Eagle, Finchley made his way up to the bridge and across the deck to the Captains Ready Room. Urgency was of the essence and he felt slightly on edge regarding what he was about to say to the CO.

The surprise rendezvous of the Devil Brews rapid response courier was, well it was a surprise. They were carrying a recent departed officer, Kerr, and information that, it seemed was of vital importance so she had allowed him to beam aboard. A procedure which was no more dangerous today than a standard transport.

Reaching out he pressed the buzzer.

"Come in" she said, it was early so she hadn't officially started work yet and was sat on the small sofa under the window with her hands wrapped around a mug of mocha. As he entered she turned off the padd she was reading and laid it on the seat next to her. "Please, sit." she said determined to get off on the right foot this time.

Finchley entered the room as soon as the doors opened and made straight for the desk he saw saying "Captain, I have some..." then he realised no-one was sitting behind the desk. This confused him slightly as he'd heard the Captain offering him a seat. He then looked left and right, but saw nobody there either, so he turned around and finally saw that the CO was sitting on a sofa.

He hurried towards her repeating what he'd begun to say "Captain, I have some rather startling information..."

Taking a seat at the other end of the sofa he added "Sir, when I was called away from the Eagle, it was to examine the debris of an attack vessel found during the excursion in the nebula and the fight with the...'pirates'...only the debris I examined wasn't what I'd consider a pirate ship. True, it wasn't a complete ship, only a part of one, but the damaged computer core was salvaged and I managed to get information out of it that will be relevant to the mission on which your heading. The planet the Eagles heading towards is mentioned in the text I managed to retrieve...it was a Cardassian text"

She frowned, it was true they were in Cardassian space and the ship had been Cardassian but she hadn't seen any evidence to suggest they had been involved. "Are you sure it wasn't a translation instead of original Cardassian?"

"Yes Sir, the text mentions the given Cardassian name of the planet as J'mLal Arron, but there's something else Captain, the planet was already being used by the Cardassian's before they were part of the Dominion, as a virology lab...it was for chemical warfare Sir!"

She took a deep breath and put her mug on the windowsill behind her. "And this is the same world we are on our way to now?" she asked, of course she knew they had such labs through out their space, both inactive and active but that they were heading for one was a concern for sure.

"The trace triangulation of the messages received by the ship track back to the area of space we're heading to Captain" Finchley replied.

"Do you know the location of the front door? I would rather not poke around down there and risk something our EV suits can't deal with."

"Unfortunately no Sir, sorry" Finchley replied "The damage to the computer core was heavy, some of the other information I could garner was in regards to the Cardassian Second Order scientists called Grammat and Loram. It would seem they were the lead scientists on a project named 'Sheallion' and that they were due to try out a full scale test, but I didn't get any details of what that was" he finished.

"Hum" Ajani was thinking, putting the clues together. "Grammat and Loram, they had a very distinctive signature if i remember correctly" she had been given a good number of files on everything Cardassian. "They took an almost pathological pride in hiding their facilities in plain sight. If am i remembering right?"

"I've no idea Captain, sorry. I'll go with what you've just said, you know more about them than I do" Finchley replied.

"Then that i maybe the key to all this, if an away team can get down there I might be able to guide them once on the ground. Were you able to tie anything you found in the database to any files or reports from SFI?"

"On my way here I did contact SFI to ask and we have two other reports that mention 'Sheallion'" Finchley said "One was in regards to a shipment seized by the USS Lyle Johnson when they surprised a Cardassian freighter, the other was about a forced labour camp found by Starfleet on Primus IV. They found several dead bodies, but they also found a child who was alive and hiding out in a sewer. They kept saying that word over and over, but couldn't get anything else out of them. To this day they still won't speak" he finished.

She nodded and picked up her padd again, little more than interactive glass, she scrolled through the reports she had been reviewing. Finding the one she wanted Ajani opened and read the conclusion. "Yes, I see them now. There have been a few other reports of this word, the Romulan's and Klingon's encountered that word also. Nothing came from those reports but, well it was during the war and the fleet had other things on their mind. However, we did put together enough clues to know that it was the code word for a secrete Cardassian Order, but we couldn't prove it."

"I could literally do a bit more digging around to see what can be found out about this 'Sheallion' when we reach our destination Sir?" Finchley offered.

"Noted" she said "Thank for your hard work, if you wish i can have you transfused back to the Eagle."

"Yes Sir, thank you" Finchley replied."

Ajani smiled "I will make it happen then, dismissed." She turned her attention to the problem at hand and started to pull up data, she used the computer to look for commonality. It was only a few hours before they reached the planet. She would be on the bridge when it they arrived, there was too many unknowns for her likely.