Status

Posted on Tue Dec 29th, 2020 @ 3:32am by Commodore Wilkan Targaryen & Captain Nathan Bishop & Commander Ash Randall & Lieutenant Commander Chire

1,506 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Cheese
Location: Ready Room, Starfleet One
Timeline: 2430-08-30, 10:00

Admiral William Teagarden sat in his office adjacent to the Bridge of Starfleet One looking out the window. They had arrived at Earth after their evening of travel at high warp and he was more annoyed than ever. For all they knew Sakkath was dead at this point and an armada of Warbirds was on its way to Earth for an invasion. Not that the President wanted him to do much of anything regarding it at this point. Despite President Enaren having pardoned him for his actions with the Federation's dirty little secret, he knew that President Gruzy never had shared her view regarding the Federation's secret police. If anything he would have rather seen William in the brig.

Which was why he was so surprised that the President didn't take him up on his offer. If he had then, frankly, all this not knowing would be immaterial because he'd already been at Ni'Var finding out what was going on.

Instead he got back to work. Rather than be on the Bridge for the arrival of the ship at Earth he had chosen to remain sequestered in his office working on his own projects. He'd already reviewed and replied to the two dozen messages he'd received this morning and was getting ready to meet about the ship's status with the XO, Chief Engineer, and Operations Manager. This would be the first time he saw Captain Bishop since their exchange the previous evening and he truly wondered how it was going to go.

Sitting back in his chair after freshly rearranging the furniture, William awaited the arrival of his attendees.

Bishop was on the bridge, he had been on the bridge almost continuously since the meeting the previous night and the coming to light of Admiral Teagarden's role in trying to orchestrate the overthrow and downfall of the Romulan Star Empire by using their Vulcan cousins to do it. He sighed as he thought on it. It was typical of the Admiral to do something like this, to be a one man task force, to take on something this monumental by himself. To leave others (himself) in the dark, whether it was to spare them any knowledge of what was going on or the Admiral felt they just didn't need to know. He closed his eyes and didn't know if he had the Admiral's trust and that is what bothered him. The Admiral used him to carry on the day to day functions of the ship. However something like this, he was out of the loop.

He looked at the chrono, mounted high on the bridge wall and saw he would need to go to a meeting the Admiral called with himself, the CEO and Operations Manager in just a few minutes. He wondered if the Admiral would be anymore forthcoming or would he hide behind the 'need to know' option. He would find out in a few minutes. He rose from the chair and turned the bridge over to Galatea as he headed for the meeting with the Admiral.

Ash saw Bishop leave his seat and took that as her queue it was time to go to the morning staff meeting. The CEO logged out of her engineering station and accompanied Captain Bishop for the short walk to the office of Admiral Teagarden. Silence seemed to be the watch word for Ash these days as she hardly spoke a word on the bridge unless directly addressed. Not chatter, banter or witty comments, just all business answers to questions, confirmation of orders and status announcements.

Chire winced ever so slightly as she exited the turbolift and headed for the ready room after having been summoned to do so. The flying lesson with Dylan had gone well as far as he was concerned, he was really making progress. But, she'd sprained the tip of her wing on a stupid maneuver and was now paying the price for it. Sickbay could wait as she didn't need her wings to do her job.

Admiral Teagarden sat in his chair at the desk as the three Senior Officers started to enter the room. He checked the datapads that he had on his desktop to ensure that they all had the appropriate information for what he was planning to go over. The large display to his left showed a miniaturized replica of the Bridge and Engineering Master Situation Display that was replicated on the PADDs themselves. He couldn't help but yawn as they waited for everyone to arrive.

"Thank you all for coming," he greeted almost by rote at this point. "I know that you are all very busy, so I will make this meeting fairly brief." He glanced Commander Ash and Commander Chire as he spoke, very rarely looking to Captain Bishop. "We are preparing to escort the President on a trip to the planet Vashti. Much of the course that we will have to follow is along the Federation/Romulan Neutral Zone. We will need to prepare this ship for potential combat exercises and I wanted to know what you all thought about that."

Bishop looked at his datapad and at the proposed route they were to take. "I have no issues with combat exercises, I am wondering about the proposed route however. There are other less ... provocative routes to take to reach Vashti. Though if we stay on our side of the Zone, there should be no problem." He replied calmly.

Ash studied the route for a few seconds, looked to the Admiral, looked back to the datapad and then set it back down. "The course serves no purpose unless that purpose is to provoke an incursion by the Romulans into Federation space or to make an incursion into Romulan space. Alternatively, it would be appropriate for the purpose of a clandestine rendezvous at one of half a dozen systems that butt up against the neutral zone." The CEO observed, quietly. "The furthest we'd be from the border is an hour, at high warp or a few minutes using the coaxial drive." She added.

"It will require some extra hands on duty to make repairs and keep systems going. But I have no objection of course," Chire replied her beak clicking closed. It was her job after all to keep things running smoothly and she had confidence in those under her. They knew what to do.

William had listened to the trio carefully. Vashti was a world along the former Romulan Neutral Zone that was a tenuous member of the Federation at best. The President was making a point of going to Vashti as a show of support for their world, though the Admiral wondered how much they really would benefit from all of this. He remained a bit more concerned by the questions of the route. "This is the most direct course," he commented, "and the one that was proposed by Starfleet Cartography for our voyage. It's the way we will be going," he answered flatly. "You may use whatever personnel you need, Commander Chire," he glanced at Commander Ash, "Take them from Engineering if necessary."

Commander Randall made a mental note to, going forward, keep her thoughts to herself when asked what she thought. Ash looked to Chire. "Feel free to pull personnel from the cross trained pool as you need them." She informed her, quietly.

"Thank you sir. I will do that." She said first to the Admiral then to Commander Randall.

"Please feel free to work together on your plans," the Admiral noted. "With the absence of the Spock from our repertoire for the foreseeable future we need to be prepared too with a method of extracting the President should we face attack." He looked at his XO, "I am assigning you to oversee those responsibilities, Captain."

"Bridge to Admiral Teagarden."

William looked at the group. "Excuse me," he said as he tapped his communicator. "This is Teagarden."

"Admiral, we have an incoming transmission from Rear Admiral Coulson for you. It's marked urgent."

For a moment William let his guard down and a look of dread passed by his face, but only for a moment. He quickly restored himself to business, "We will have to table to rest of our discussion. Thank you all for joining me. Work together on developing a plan to extract the President in an emergency. Dismissed."

Commander Randall nodded in response to the dismissal by Admiral Teagarden and looked to Captain Bishop. "I have an idea for getting the President away safely if push should come to shove." She advised him, quietly. "It's already in progress...as a personal project." She added, with a glance at Chire, because the Chief Engineer had taken over the refit and overhaul of a damaged runabout a few weeks ago and was doing most of the work, herself, while off shift.

Chire, distracted in her thoughts by something that had happened earlier that day, moved carefully past those that were still there and made her way to operations to discuss things with her team.

 

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