Briefing

Posted on Sun Mar 6th, 2022 @ 8:57pm by Commodore Phoenix Lalor-Richardson & Captain Garrett Lovejoy [ Taylor] & Captain Gary Taylor & Lieutenant Commander Aurelia Taylor & Commander Sthilg & Lieutenant Colonel Azhul Naxea & Lieutenant Commander S'hib & Lieutenant Commander Alicia Kelea-Salik & Lieutenant Victor Barclay de Tolly & Lieutenant Tate Sullivan Ph.D. & Ensign Olivia (Carter) Voight & Lieutenant Commander Rin & Lieutenant Myne Redal & Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Lieutenant Commander Malakai Starr [Taylor] & Captain Mattias Richardson [Reece]

Mission: Season 5: Interlude: Darkness Abounds
Location: Conference Room 1, Deck 6
Timeline: MD2 - 09h00
4981 words - 10 OF Standard Post Measure

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Lily looked around Conference Room 1 from where she casually lounged against the wall.

The gathered officers were all the Senior Staff members and their Assistant chiefs.

Out of the Black watch crew, only Malakai and Mattias was with her, as she felt any more and it would not work properly. Both were in their alter egos as S'Kar the stoic Vulcan and Jax the Orion xBorg who hovered menacingly beside her.

Lovejoy stood at the front of the room, Gary Taylor beside him, waiting for everyone to settle down before speaking.

Garrett waited for everyone to get into their seats and settle down. Once they were he spoke. "Attention everyone. Miss Kass, will give this briefing so please give her your undivided attention." He turned to Lily, "Miss Kass the floor is yours."

The Blond bajoran moved to the front of the room, the Vulcan following, but she waved Jax back to the wall. She had been assessing the group and knew she was in for a fight, recognising the signs in some of the long term senior staff. They were not happy.

The XB Orion had started to move, bit stayed where he was and nodded slightly when he got the signal from Lily. From his place against the bulkhead, he watched the gathered officers with a quiet stare.

She turned, and placed her hands behind her back and then began to speak. "This is not normal." She said. "Starfleet Intelligence understands that. And we appreciate the fact that this mission will cause interruption in your day to day operations." she reached down and pressed a button on the table and a holoprojection of a Starfleet Admiral appeared. "This is Admiral Matthew Highlaw," She said. "He is the current head of a subversive group known as the Watch."

Alicia looked towards Lily. “A subversive group? One along the lines of section 31, or something worse?”

Lia now sat up and spoke out loud, "I knew that crazy bitch went after the watch, she just couldn't leave Commodore Heling as a dead end".

Lily raised an eyebrow at the words 'crazy bitch' just who was that officer referring to she wondered. But she allowed the others to react.

Tate had been to enough staff meetings to know that emotional outbursts bordering on the inappropriate were not uncommon aboard ship. Sullivan knew the crew were a passionate bunch who frequently spoke their minds even when doing so took the discussion off topic. The counselor could only hope they didn't take too many detours before coming up with a plan of action. She expected nerves would be particularly frayed simply because the intelligence operatives were aboard disrupting their regular routines.

"The Watch's creed is simple. They believe that Starfleet is going the wrong way about things and believe that the federation should, conquer all other powers." Lily Kass said calmly.

Miraj's draw dropped. She hadn't really recognised the admiral, but hearing his plan, she knew that was a good thing. That was... insane. That went against everything that Starfleet and the federation stood for. No-one would be that... "But...why?" she blurted out

Malakai as S'Kar spoke, his voice perfectly modulated. "If you will allow our Captain to speak you will know why and your questions will be answered,"

Garrett stood to the side as Lily began the briefing. his eyes sweeping over the group of his officers, and he knew there would be reactions to what Kass said. He was interested in seeing how she handled it.

Lia now stood up, "Miss Kass, this Admiral. Is he connected to Commodore Heling in any way? It's just a personal thing, I've had contact with this "Watch" lot before".

"We are aware of this ships' interactions with the Watch previously. On one of those occasions, the Watch was hurt badly." Lily replied "And yes, he took over from the Commodore" She looked at the Ensign with pink hair, a small smile. "As to why? Power, glory, worship. The man is delusional. He has turned the Watch into a criminal enterprise, has used contacts in the Orion Syndicate and other enterprises to build a war chest which he is quite happy to use to spend supporting politicians who, are of his views. He uses his contacts to make officers he 'disapproves of' disappear. And he put a bounty out on a starfleet vessel. The USS Elysium is wanted, in tact, crew either dead or alive, for 250 Bricks of gold pressed Latinum, as well as three chests of what he terms priceless jewels and antiques." She paused to let that sink in.

Were the briefing not already taking place, Tate would have thought what was being described was pure fantasy. Yes, people were flawed and capable of presenting a façade for any number of motives, and yes, there certainly have been any number of subversive groups within the federation, but such raw naked criminality seemed nearly impossible to hide for long. That there was now a bounty on all of their lives, and that intelligence has been gathered to uncover this, no less, was positively surreal.

"And thisss is why the hegemony hasss lawsss about sssecert sssocaity'sss. " The gorn said quietly from his chair. He kept sniffing the air with his tongue something about this was off, but he couldn't put his finger on it. " I take it that'sss why sssomeone in intelligence has hired your team? They believe their own assssestsss may be compromised?

“Dead or alive...” Alicia sat perturbed by what she’d just heard. “There are families aboard this ship... children...” She looked towards Sthilg, then back at Lily.

"Yes Commander, that is why we were hired. That said, we are all Starfleet officers, we are just outside the normal chain of command." Lily Kass replied. "And we are going to give this man what he wants, the Elysium. With your help."

"You must understand, the Admiral and his 'associates' do not care about you or the families aboard this ship. You are all expendable. You mean nothing to him. He is only after this ship and as Captain Kass has already stated. We will give it to him. I will let Captain Kass explain in greater detail." S'Kar replied placidly.

T'Kara raised an eyebrow. "If what you say is true." She said in her logical tone, inside the Vulcan was raging that Highlaw put a bounty on her ship, her crew, and by extension Myne. She wanted to snap Highlaw's neck. "If we give our ship to Admiral Highlaw, it is logical to assume he will promptly order our immediate execution." Even through T'Kara's logical shell, the trained eye could see that she did not like her Myne being threatened even indirectly.

Lily nodded. "So what we are proposing is this, A masquerade, a pretense. We will be requesting several of the crew, among you included, join us as 'mutineers' or pirates. The rest will be held in cargo bays with the civilian population, but those held there will have hidden weapons caches at their disposal. My team is only 11 adults and one teenager, Those who will assist us will not be dressed in uniform nor will there be any punishment for joining us in this 'mutiny'." Here her gaze moved to the pink haired ensign.

"Ensign, you are the chief flight control officer of this vessel, I am told and the best pilot of Odyssey classes. If you are amenable to it, I would like you specifically to join in the masquerade, otherwise, I will pilot the Elysium. I am cleared on her class of vessel but it has been many years since I have had to do so."

"I'm the best pilot full stop." And if this woman thought she was going to let anyone else sit at con whilst they dangled her ship out for a sociopath, the Bajoran was sorely mistaken. "Of course I'll do it." Miraj's orbital arches flexed for a moment. The Elysium class was less than ten years old. And if there were more than 3 of them in production she'd eat her own toes. How would she have flown one years ago. "You deal with the crazy person."

"Others among you and your teams are welcome. Unfortunately," here her lips quirked, "I will not be asking Your captain or his executive officers to be on the Pirate side of things." Her eyes, deep purple sparkled with mirth. "After all, they need to look beaten when we arrive."

Alicia looked towards Lily. “I’ll volunteer to help, I have children to protect and it seems a logical way to do that.”

Garrett gave a curt nod, he knew the role he was asked to play.

Gary looked first to Lia and then to Lily. "Of course Captain Kass, I will do whatever is needed."

Myne raised a timid hand. "I am up for playing pirate. I do have a few decades of previous experience at actually being a pirate. And who knows, maybe we can actually score and keep those 250 Bricks of gold-pressed Latinum?" The young Trill stole a glance at T'Kara and saw the storm boiling underneath that calm and composed exterior. What better way to make sure everyone was safe than get a chance to actually let her little creations go wild on some evil people for once?

T'Kara shook her head and then spoke. "In absence of a logical course of action, we can only perform an illogical course of action. I will also become one of these... mutineers for the purpose of apprehending Admiral Highlaw." But mostly, she was going along with it to keep Myne safe."

"Once we arrive with the ship, Highlaw will beam over to inspect it with people to take control. It is then when those being held will rise up, take out his forces and when Highlaw is on the bridge, we will capture him."

Rin was careful to keep her eyes forward, glancing at the xB only out of the corner of her eye. She had known when Ebi had arrived on station. She had been on the ship only briefly before sensing McKay. But this guy...nothing. Not a nanite in him.

Still, she gave the equivalent of a knock-knock at what should have been his neural interface door. No response. He could, of course, simply be keeping her out. That would be entirely reasonable in the circumstances.

But that didn't explain not noticing his presence at all.

She caught Gary Taylor's gaze, momentarily flicked her eyes in the direction of the supposed xB, and shook her head ever-so-slightly.

Gary caught Rin's gaze and kept his expression neutral but did give a slight, subtle nod to acknowledge her silent message.

"Is there any way we could evacuate the civilians?" Rin asked Lily. "We're mutineers looking to make money. The civilians have no worth. They're a complication. The logistics of herding hundreds of civilians into the cargo bays would be immense. But just because we're mutineers doesn't mean we'd be ok with a mass slaughter. So can we believably leave them somewhere safer than here?".

"They could be locked in their quarters. They would be relatively safe and out of the way." Garrett offered.

Tate appreciated the question, both for its logic and focus on safety. She couldn't imagine how she would keep so many civilians safe in one place, let alone calm enough to wait for their moment to rise up. Certainly, there would be those who would not be in a position to fight, so keeping them locked in their quarters would only add to a sense of helplessness on top of leaving them in harm's way

As the discussion continued, from his spot, Mattias thought he caught one of the officers, a Lieutenant in Intel Grey, trying to subtly look his way. That was when he noticed her implants. Without any external tell, he realized that they might have a problem. When they had decided on their disguises, they had not known that an actual XB would, not only be aboard, but a part of the staff. He was sure, from what he had read about other XB's, that while they were no longer part of the Collective, most still chose to commune with others like themselves. He wondered if this officer was attempting to do so now, with him. He'd have to talk to Phoenix about it after the meeting was adjourned.

"You have shuttles correct?" Lily asked. "We can evacuate as many as we can by them, and jettison escape pods and then return the shuttles back so it looks like they evacuated when we took over."

"We do and that will work." Garrett admitted. They will need to be out of sensor range when the Admiral shows up.''

"No need to do that..." S'hib perked up behind Lia, clutching his phase staff loosely as he leaned against the wall. "We can move the civilians onto deck thirty-three... it's right below marine county, we get it locked down with containment shields and fake an antimatter leak... mask the bio signs from sensors." He said, pausing slightly as though still thinking.

"rest of the crew..." He said slowly, adjusting his staff to the other shoulder. "They can get out of uniform and pose as the civilians locked inside their quarters... make it look like most the crew abandoned ship to save themselves, this would feed into the admiral's notion that he is right about Starfleet..."

Mattias/Jax thought about the Commander's idea, the nodded to himself. It was an excellent idea.

T'Kara spoke. "There is another way we can entrap, Admiral Highlaw." The Vulcan noted. "There is a human axiom; no plan survives contact with the enemy. Therefore we need a secondary plan in-case we fail. I can establish a low level subspace signal with a Federation Relay station and upload a covert recording of Highlaw's activities on the Elysium to the Department of the Judge Advocate General at Starfleet HQ. When the Admiral drops his fascade... We can thoroughly incriminate him with every action he takes towards this crew." The Vulcan noted. "At beast - we will apprehend him, at worst; we can ensure he will be hunted relentlessly."

"We already have the proof which is why we are here" Lily replied calmly.

" I can make sssure any fake injuriesss look the part. " The gorn said still trying to place the taste. He'd tried scanning the strangers with his arms scanner which of course was being jammed. " Though Misssss Kassss you are asssking a lot to trussst you. I'd like to sssee sssome more proof if posssssible." he asked politely his mind drifting to his family.

All of this sounded insane to Naxea who had been quietly listening. She had not met this Commodore Heling or Admiral Highlaw as the others apparently had. She supposed every organization had their king nutjob, even the Federation. "I agree with Commander S'hib's plan and I will be one of the captives." Even though she hated the idea, it made the most sense regarding her position and service record if anyone looked. She glanced at her XO, who she suspected would make a good pirate, especially being new aboard.

Lily nodded at the Marine and then looked at the Gorn. "What sort of proof do you require Doctor?"

" Thisss watch would need to have a trail even if it'sss hidden. Do you have any recoredsss?" the gorn asked?

Lily nodded and pulled two data chips from her pocket with a small smirk. She placed them in the computer. "Computer, please show the details."

Avalon appeared and said "on screen"

The information scrolled through for the doctor and the command staff to see.

Having said nothing while people volunteered, Lia now stood up and faced Lily. "I don't think it practical if everyone simply joins the rebellion, so I will remain loyal to Star Fleet. As for my staff, I'll leave it up to them which way they jump. How do you intend to deal with the loyal crew Miss Kass?" Lia knew she had a valid point, not all the crew would mutiny on any ship.

Was Lia suddenly deaf? Lily let her violet gaze rest on the chief of security. "As stated previously, they will be held in the cargo bay with hidden weapon caches so when the time comes they can help take down Highlaw's men"

Lia nodded, "And I think some of those "Loyal crew" might be better left on the loose, I mean this is a large ship and not everyone is going to be caught straight off the bat. When we fought the MU crew several pockets remained free, plus we have diplomats on board. Now I may have missed what you said you'd do with them, but for my own information just what are we going to do with our diplomats?"

"Your Diplomats will be given the same choice as the crew. They can participate or we can seal them with the Civilians?" Lily replied calmly.

Listening to the back and forth of this conversation, Myne cleared her throat and looked to the side as she spoke. "Well, if I were to try and capture a Federation ship through a mutiny, taking the bridge would be a priority. Worked very well last time and with a crew this large, the best way to do it is take out the three most important targets. The main bridge, the battle bridge and engineering. Once I have those, then the rest of the crew doesn't need me to waste precious manpower to keep them contained. It is easy to seal off parts of the ship, using force fields when necessary and even using environmental controls to knock off troublemakers as well. If we want to sell this, we don't have to coral up the loyal crew like cattle. As long as us mutiny folks have the three main objectives we can lock the rest of the ship and make it seem like we are in control rather easily." Myne used her fingers to do air quotes when she said the word lock. "At most we can clear a few decks around the important objectives to make it look good, while maintaining that the rest of the ship is successfully locked down. And if the admiral knows about Avalon I can arrange to have her appear as hacked and compliant. Or even appear as deactivated if needed be."

Lily looked at Lovejoy for a moment. "My team will divide into 3." she said calmly. "To be in those places, and our medic will want to work with you Doctor, and your team in Medical."

"Of course Miss Kass." Lovejoy replied crisply if not dryly as he looked to the Elysium's CMO. "Doctor Sthilg, would you please give any assistance to Miss Kass's medic along with working with her."

The gorn was still reading through the evidence the bajorian had sent him as he tried sucking in it to remove the artificial taste from his tongue. Looking up he gave Lovejoy a polite nod. " Off courssse captain."

Victor kept quiet. All of this seems to be a play out of Calhoun’s playbook. The real truth needed to be played out.

"I'd like to access the Admiral's personell records and in particular, his psychological profile. There might be some things within that we can use to our advantage when the time comes. Understanding how and why he came to think this way could be key to making sure we stop him." Sullivan paused, then added, "That said, I'm still a bit confused about why this elaborate plan to catch him in the act so to speak is necessary if additional evidence has been gathered and transmitted to the appropriate authorities already? How's the previous evidence been deemed insufficient?" Tate asked.

Myne shifted in her position, a shift that was a bit more that just physical to her. The question that Tate posed brought up to the surface memories and experiences Myne found just as uncomfortable as the ones that she drew on for her proposal. The source was just a bit surprising. "Yeap, that sounds reasonable. Why not have some delusional operatives with something to prove or whom are deeply misguided and a the crew of a renegade ship present their rock hard solid evidence against a respected member of the Starfleet Admiralty. Everyone knows only criminals get to be Admirals and no one vets them."

The young Trill had to cough to catch herself and change her tone to a more subdued one. "My apologies for the tone, I did not mean it. What I am saying, the balance of taking such proof as the one available now at face value is not in our favor. Not against a Admiral, it will be perceived as a attack on the entirety of the Admiralty board. That is even without discounting bribery and corruption already in place to secure his position against exactly this action. The only course of action is basically this one. Capture, interrogation, making him show his true face and getting such direct evidence that even those he has in his pocket will distance themselves from him to save their own skin. Or so those are my two cents. Not sure how the political psychology has changed in the past few centuries, but back in my time this is what I would have had to consider if I had been in his position or ours."

Tate was not one to throw her rank around, but even she was taken aback by the tone of Myne's words. She was raising a legitimate issue and to be met with such sarcasm was uncalled for. Again, not entirely unexpected given the meetings she'd been present for with this crew and the ones she'd heard about, but Sullivan wasn't about to accept such treatment personally. It was only because she'd received a quick apology that she avoided addressing the issue directly. A counselor who didn't practice setting her own boundaries wasn't much of a counselor, after all.

"I expect people will be inclined to discount our evidence no matter what we do," Tate replied calmly. "As you said, the people we are going up against are emotionally and financially invested in maintaining the status quo. They may not have a lot of work to do to convince a motivated audience the proof we provide is not to be trusted simply because it comes from us. I realize we can't afford not to act, however, and I know we will do so with all the determination and pure grit we have." Tate knew that much. She'd seen people come through as many similar scrapes and lamented so many of the crew wouldn't need training on how to act traumatized and browbeaten.

She cast a glance at Gary, feeling a sense of protectiveness toward him since she'd personally helped him heal from being held captive.

Miraj listened to the crew bat ideas back and forth, and she couldn't quite shake the feeling that having anyone on board that anyone else cared about when this Admiral took possession was insanely stupid. To easy to hurt, too easy to lose, too precious to risk. But they couldn't all be evacuated, especially not if they wanted all the shuttles back as well, there just wasn't enough shuttles... Oh. Oh!. Davey Jones' hairy sack! She hated the thing, but it was the sensible option. It would solve the problem. Especially if they started outputting now. She raised her hand slowly, and waited to be noticed.

Olivia had been watching the interaction of everyone while the briefing took place. It didn't sit well with her on what was being asked of everyone to do in order to take down a rogue set of Starfleet officers. "I hate to stir the pot so to speak," Olivia said, "but just what makes you think that we would be able to pull this off without a hitch? A few crew members are still dealing with issues from the time we spent in another time line. I'd hate for everyone to have to relive something similar all due to this particular mission."

"Miss Kass, what do we do if any of our Diplomats wish to evacuate Elysium? I can think of at least one Diplomat who might use her fighter to attack what she would see's as an attack on this vessel, before she departs and the ship is taken." Lia had the Ojnas in mind, the few talks she had undertaken with Imik showed that this ship was her home. And as such, she might react violently against the Admiral as she would see them as traitors.

Lily had noticed the Flight chief's hand and then considered which one to call on first. So she answered the questions. "One, because this crew has done something similar before, when the Elysium was 'borrowed' by a team. This is no different from then. And if you can not trust the diplomat to behave then maybe your Captain needs to speak with them Commander" She then turned her gaze to Miraj "Ensign Derani?"

"In the age of sail, if a crew mutinied, anyone who didn't join the mutiny would be marooned, or set adrift. This mad admiral seems to want our jollyboats as well as the main ship, so he might be expecting we don't do that. But we can. We have a shuttle replicator," She couldn't believe she was suggesting using the blasted thing, but here she was. "We don't have the dilithium to power them, so they'd only have impulse engines, not warp, but we can output some big shuttles, enough to get everyone off who needs to be off. That way we can dump the civlians, then suggest a rendez-vous with the bad guys far enough away that the QSD can handle the distance easily, but keeps everyone we care about far away from whatever reception the admiral has planned. And we can put any dodgy diplomats in charge of the drift boats, so they have something to do that isn't suicidal strafe runs on a ship that would shrug it off and then blow them from the stars."

Lily nodded and then looked at Garrett. "Captain, your chief of Flight has come up with a very good solution."

Garrett nodded in agreement. "Indeed, she has Miss Kass. She is quite imaginative when it comes to flight operations."

Lia nodded, "Good idea, and we could place our resident Ojnas with them. It'll keep her out of our way plus she can feel useful by protecting the civilians, how about that Captain?"

Garrett looked at Lia, "I leave it in your capable hands Commander. I am sure you will make sure everything goes off without a hitch. and Imik knows what to do."

Lily picked up the PADD she had carried in. "Are there any other questions? We have 3 days to prepare the ship and crew, Captain Lovejoy, if you could get me a list of Crew who wish to 'join the bad guys' by 13h00 tomorrow it would be great so my team can train them and outfit them."

Garrett gave a curt nod at Lily's request. "Certainly Miss Kass, I will make sure you have it." He paused, "Unfortunately Gary and I will not be joining your team of 'bad guys' as we will be your prisoners."

Kass smirked at that, and violet eyes danced as she spoke. "Well I am sure your doctor can make you both look... roughed up... unless you want to make them real?" her tone was innocent.

Lovejoy shot her a look and replied. "I'll get back to you. Though I think they will be more believable to the Admiral and his group if they are real."

Giving him another smirk Lily turned to the assembled. "Three days, to get the Civilians off the ship along with any non combatant officers who do not wish to participate at all. 3 days to get those of the crew who are 'mutinying' against the evil Captain Lovejoy and joining my team up to speed, and three days to prepare the weapons caches and the holding area in the cargo bay." she paused "I believe those who are joining the bad guys, can be sent to a meeting point... may we use Holodeck 1? Its on...deck 3 if memory serves?"

"Lot's do to and a short time to do it. Let's get it in gear people. Give Miss Kass and her team your full cooperation." Garrett answered coolly then continued, "Yes, your memory is quite good." He acknowledged.

"A personal foible" The bajoran replied.

Lia now approached Garret, "Captain, I think a small group of Security might be left with those being set adrift. It'll give them a sense of safety, and if the Diplomates question any of our actions we can sort it out on the spot. What do you think?"

Garrett looked at the security chief. "Make it so Commander, emphasis on small." He said simply as he silently reviewed the plan they had come up with and had to admit it wasn't bad. Still a lot left to chance but that couldn't be helped. He knew he and Gary and the rest of the crew would do all they could to capture the Admiral, his team with hopefully no one getting hurt.

Nodding, Lia responded. "I'll take four with myself as section leader, that'll leave S'hib and the rest onboard to assist with retaking the ship." She went to leave then stopped and spoke again, "I think its best if at least one senior Officer remains with the families, might make them feel better."

Lily nodded "That is all I have captain" She said to Lovejoy.

Garrett nodded and turned his attention to the assembled officers. "Dismissed." He stated simply.