Mission 6.1 - The Internal Thief

[Deleted]

Rumor quickly floated down to sickbay that they had Waterson's shuttle in view.

"I told them to tell me when we found her..." Nack mumbled. His EKG blipped an anomaly as his heart skipped a beat. The stress he was feeling at the time due to Waterson's sudden betrayal, or rather, the sudden realization of her betrayal, made the test useless at the current time.

"Doctor, can we do this another time? Can't you tell that my stress level is high? You know, I am a Doctor myself, and I know that these tests aren't always reliable unless you can get the patient into a calmed environment. Have you done a stress test?"

"I'm checking that now," she said.

"Well, good," he stumbled through his thoughts for a second, having not expected that response. "Make it quick, I'm needed on the bridge I imagine."

The results eventually came back - and it was agreed that this test would be better performed at a later time. It would be useful to incriminate Commander Lisa Waterson in a court martial. That is, if Nack's memory was correct about the sequence of events leading up to what was called the second heart attack.

=/\= Bridge =/\= Nack said in the turbolift.

"Commander Trek, status." Nack said immediately entering the room before anyone could announce that the Captain was on the bridge.

Nack was quickly brought up to speed, and gave orders.

"Helm, I want you to overtake her shuttle. No surprises, just quick and dirty. When we are on top of her, I want her tractored in. We'll take custody of her in the shuttle bay."

[Deleted]

With a few quick commands to the control panel, the shuttle smoothly dropped out of warp. The rendezvous coordinates were nearby, and although there was no sign of any other vessels, Lisa knew the Royal Fortune, one of Borel’s small fleet of smuggling transports, was nearby, cloaked as usual. After setting a course at full impulse, Commander Waterson ran a few sensor sweeps and was horrified to find the Nevada on long range sensors entering the system. Cursing under her breath, the doctor wondered if this was a chance encounter or they had come looking for her, and if there were here intentionally, why were they after her at all...

Quickly accessing the comm system, Lisa sent an emergency encrypted message to Tiriana, requesting that she monitor communications and be prepared to act, either to prevent the doctor’s incarceration if she’d been made or intervene in some way to maintain the cover story. Even though there was no loyalty among thieves, Waterson knew she brought in a lot of money, and as such was indispensable to Borel’s black market medical operation. There was no way they would just leave her, and all that profit she brought in, behind.

In the time it had taken to send the message, the Nevada had dropped out of warp nearby. After hurriedly coming up with a story as to what she was doing here, Lisa hailed the Federation ship, hoping to get a feel for what exactly was going on. “Nevada, this is Commander Waterson, I’m in this system following another ion trail that just ended here. Either a ship is nearby or the trail simply got to badly degraded to follow any further. Scan the region and see if you can locate a ship or perhaps pick up on what’s left of the trail that I could no longer detect.”

[Deleted]

"Acknowledged, Commander. We'll do that," Nack replied. He muted the audio, then sent the XO a look that said it all.

"Commander Park, ignore Commander Waterson's recommendation and continue to watch her shuttle like a hawk," Dan instructed the CTSO. "Be ready with the tractor beam."

"Bridge to Engineering. Ensign Littlewood, I want weapons and shields to be ready in case we need them."

[Deleted]

Tristan Littlewood was very grateful that Lieutenant Helacaan had agreed to help him track down the faulty circuit; it possibly could have taken him hours to find it on his own. The pair made their way to deck two when they had arrived Lt. Helacaan broke the silence by saying.

"I will confess to you Ensign," Seth said as they walked down one of the single circumferential corridor of deck two, "I am not as familiar with the power systems as you may think."
Tristan couldn’t help but smile a little as he looked over at Lieutenant Helacaan he thought maybe it would take hours to find the problem after all.

"However," he continued, "I'm sure with the two of us working at it we can track this circuit down." Seth laughed a little as he opened up a hatch to a Jefferies' Tube. He stood to the side and Littlewood climbed in.

Tristan and Lieutenant Helacaan crawled for what seemed like miles in the cramped Jefferies tube until Lt. Helacaan’s tricorder began to beep Ensign Littlewood sighed in relief as Seth said

"Well, I think we've found our burned out circuit."

Seth moved aside to let Tristan pry open the panel reaveling the circuits that ran through the walls all over the ship. Tristan readjusted his glasses to get a better look at the circuits before saying.

“You right sir the problem is defiantly here in, this one to be exact i should have known it would be an Tritanium alloy circuit class five they have a tendancy to burn out when to much power is shunted through them, and this one has power from the weapons and sensors running through it, can you pass me the hypo spanner sir?”

Seth opened Tristans engineering case that Tristan had brought with him and passed the a hypospanner to Tristan, Tristan brought the hypospanner to the circuits and began removing the damaged ones. After about ten minutes the circuit was replaced and the slight humming of power started to emanate from the panel.

“Well that’s done it thank you for your help sir”
<Tag Seth>

Tristan and Lt. Helacaan crawled out of the Jefferies tubes and stood in the hallway Tristan turned to Seth Helacaan and said with a smile.

“thanks again sir, I owe you a drink the next time we are both off duty, I had better get back to Engineering”

<Tag Seth>

With that the two officers went there separate ways and when Tristan got back to Engineering he though he would have a chance to do some regular maintenance on some of the ships systems but his hopes were dashed when the comm. Channel opened and he heard.

"Bridge to Engineering. Ensign Littlewood, I want weapons and shields to be ready in case we need them."

Tristan tapped his comm. Badge and said.

“I just finished fixing the weapons and sensor systems I will get to work on the shields now Engineering out.”

With that Tristan made his way back to the main engineering console and got to work

[Seth Helacaan]

The circuit hummed to life in front of Seth and the Acting Ensign. The latter began reattaching the panel, “Well that’s done it thank you for your help sir,” he said.

"That's alright Ensign." The two retreated and clambered out of the tube, Seth barely had enough room to turn around in this unusually small Jefferies' Tube, but then, he supposed there was not much room on this rather small deck anyway.

“Thanks again sir, I owe you a drink the next time we are both off duty, I had better get back to Engineering."

Seth nodded in response, offering a smile, Littlewood went off down the corridor with engineering kit in hand. Seth headed for the bridge. Lieutenant Hasak was probably capable of handling things himself up there, but Seth felt it was his place to be there, especially with the (assumed) impending arrest of Commander / Dr. Waterson.

"Lieutenant Hasak." Seth obtained the attention of the Ops officer whom he had just relieved. Hasak turned around from the Mission Ops console he had taken and looked at his chief questioningly. "I am going to hold a departmental meeting after this is over," Seth said, "Could you spread the word as this is short notice?" Hasak nodded, slightly confused he turned back to Mission Ops. The Lieutenant still did not understand his new department head.

Seth took his station and stood looking at the forward viewscreen, as if trying to espy the shuttle of Commander Waterson's in the deep inky blackness. The whole system was displayed on the viewer, three bright points pierced the dark before them, planets. The system's distant sun shone like a far-off lamp, lit by night on the silent and cold, dusty plains of Ascension. Seth had seen such a sight before, it was as spellbinding as it was eerie.

Of course, trying to see Waterson's shuttle was silly, it was still several billion kilometres away, such was the nature of Space combat, but then hopefully, there would be no discharge of offensive weapons here. Just a tractor beam.

[Deleted]

Tristan had been working on the shields for less than a minute when one of his staff brought him an idea as to how to get the shields back up to peak efficiency; Tristan listened to the idea before shaking his head and saying.

“No that may cause a massive surge of power and that we don’t need right now.”

The staff member looked less than thrilled he pointed to his rank insignia which clearly marked him as a lieutenant junior grade and said.

“I outrank you Ensign we are doing it my way” he pointed to another ensign nearby who started re-routing power after only a second the panel exploded and the ensign flew back with bad burns to his body, the lights and consoles in Engineering began to flicker as the power coming to them was being disrupted. Tristan tapped his Comm. Badge and ordered that the Ensign be transported to sickbay, Tristan looked at the Lt. Junior Grade with rage in his eyes he wanted so much to punch him the only thing stopping Tristan was his uniform.

“If that man dies you will be court martialled for man slaughter I am the chief engineer and I give the orders around here Get out of here you don’t have a position in here anymore and if the first officer agrees with me you won’t have a position on this ship, if I were you I would start packing my bags.”

Tristan ran to the power console and began franticly tapping away at the controls luckily the only place without normal power was engineering and no other system was damaged, Tristan worked feverishly for about ten minutes before normal power was restored to engineering now all he needed to do was get the shields working and soon before the bridge started getting frustrated at the lack of progress, if they did Tristan might also have to pack his bags a chief engineer who can’t do the job quickly is of no use to a captain.

Ten minutes passed before Tristan tapped his Comm. Badge and said.

“Bridge shields are up but only to sixty five percent that is the best I can give you without a few hours work” Tristan hoped this would be okay as he waited for their response

<Tag Bridge Crew>

Tristan talked to a couple of his staff to learn the name of the Lt. Junior grade who disobeyed his orders, he found out his name was Lieutenant. Jg Ridden, Tristan began writing a formal letter to the first officer requesting his transfer off the ship. Tristan said to himself.

“looks like we need a new console and defence systems expert.”

[Deleted]

|Sickbay

"One beaming in from engineering," called Nurse Devon in a general announcement. "Electrical burns, broken radius, minor."

Lucy had been thinking about heading for the bridge but turned back, running into the exam room.

Calling for Ambizine, Dr. Grey watched Devon inject the sedative. When the ensign's biosigns settled into a steady rythmn, she arranged for the dermaline spray. A gel would have worked faster, but the spray could cover a wider area.

30 minutes later, the nurses were able to use the dermal regenerator. Lucy wrote up a quick report, then called the man's supervisor just as two security officers walked in. Staring at them Lucy tapped her comm badge.

=/\= "Dr. Grey to Ensign Littlewood. =/\=

=/\= <tag Littlewood> =/\=

=/\= "Your crewman will live. What happened? Should I be looking for any injuries other than electrical burns?" =/\=

=/\= <tag Littlewood> =/\=

=/\= "He'll be in the hospital unit for the next two days at least. Then I will release him to the brig. Not before." =/\=

=/\= <tag Littlewood> =/\=

[Deleted]

Tristan was glad that his team and himself could fix the shields and the power supply to engineering but he was still seething with anger about Lt. Ridden when his comm. Badge chirped to life and he heard the voice of the ship’s doctor say.

=/\= "Dr. Grey to Ensign Littlewood. =/\=

Tristan immediately remembered the wounded ensign in sickbay and felt awful for forgetting to contact sickbay earlier to see how he was doing, the business with Mr. Ridden had him so annoyed he couldn’t think straight. Tristan tapped his comm. Badge and replied.

= /\ =” Tristan here doctor how is my crewman” =/\ =

Tristan waited anxiously for her reply he sighed in relief when it came back.

= /\ = "Your crewman will live. What happened? Should I be looking for any injuries other than electrical burns?" =/\=

Tristan thought back to the accident to see if he could remember anything the doctor could find useful but he didn’t.

=/\= He was standing in front of a panel when it expoloded he took a bit of a hard landing you may want to check his back for any injuries =/\=
Doctor grey responded with.

=/\= "He'll be in the hospital unit for the next two days at least. Then I will release him to the brig. Not before." =/\=

Tristan was confused for a second he had not sent security to the ensign but to Mr. Ridden they must be at the wrong man Tristan replied.

=/\= I apologise for the intrusion by security they are after the wrong man I will have them out of your sickbay immediately, I would ask that you restrict your patients visitors to senior staff only until he has been questioned please contact me again when I can speak to him, Tristan out. =/\=

Tristan contacted the security personnel and asked them to arrest Mr. Ridden not the poor ensign who only followed a superior officer’s order. Tristan thought about Mr. Ridden again and his grief over the ensign was replaced again by rage at what Mr. Ridden had done.

[Deleted]

"Keep working. Two-thirds strength shields will have to do." Nack closed the channel to his Acting Ensign Chief of Engineering.

"Looks like you picked a good one this time," Nack casually commented to Commander Trek as they approached Waterson's shuttle quickly. His lack of tension was noted by the crew. He knew he was right this time, and this time, he was afforded the luxury of having everyone believe him.

"Don't respond to her." Nack yelled back when Commander Waterson gave a pitiful attempt at an excuse. "We have orders to bring her in, regardless of her disposition. Starfleet can sort it out in the court martial."

=/\= Senior Staff, we are about to engage the enemy. =/\= and she probably knew that something was up by now, after her initial explanation went unanswered.

"Position ourselves right on top, and engage the tractor beam Mr. Park."

Oidar, the Helmsman, positioned the Nevada above the small shuttle. The tractor beam was immediate initiated, and started to pull in the shuttle.

"Sir, we are getting a cascading feedback." Lieutenant Nevets exclaimed. The Science panel exploded almost on cue, a direct result of the feedback. It sent the trill science officer backward a few feet, landing on her back.

"Commander Park, reengage the beam! We cannot let her get away." he turned around, "and someone take care of Nevets!"

The Nevada, in the mean time, was a sitting duck for the smaller shuttle. While the fire power was weak, the shields on the Nevada were down to accommodate the beam they were pulling her in with. A few pot shots at the underbelly, and Waterson had effectively rendered the beam unusable.

"Captain, suggest we try to transport her off the ship." Commander Trek said.

"Negative," Nevets said brushing off assistance from others, "She has modified the shielding somehow, and we can't get through."

"Maybe we'll have to cut a hole through the shields," Nack said, looking at Commander Trek.

"But on such a small ship, we are likely to cause a breech."

Nack shrugged back. "And?"

"And... " Commander Trek thought, "I guess I don't have an 'and'." He, in turn, shrugged as well. "Fire on the Captain's mark."

Nack dropped his finger, and a set of phasers fired down on the shuttle.

"Sir, her propulsion system is overloading."

"Beam her out of there," Nack yelled. It was excitement, not fear.

On the view-screen in front of him, Nack watched as the shuttle exploded.

"Stand down red-alert." and the klaxon stopped.

"Please tell me she survived?" Nack said to his senior staff, waiting for someone to respond.

[Seth Helacaan]

No one spoke for a while and for a minute it appeared as if Waterson had indeed perished. That was until Seth noticed the noise being made from his console, it was beeping urgently. A signal from a transporter room...

"Affirmative," he said then. "She's in Transporter Room 2.. and apparently in critical condition." Seth read off the report coming through from the transporter operator and looked up at Nack and Trek.

Commander Park immediately headed for the turbolift and the XO commed Sickbay in order to get medics to Transporter Room 2.

<tag Grey>

Seth remained on the bridge and scanned the remains of the shuttle. There was very little left, and he was finding it impossible to get any reading on what Waterson may have been carrying with her. Seth pushed the sensors as far as they could go, into the wreckage, trying to pick up anything, anything. He found nothing. "Captain, recommend we transport the larger shuttle debris into a cargo bay for analysis," he asked Captain Nack. The CO gave the Ops Chief a positive reply with a wave of his hand. He did not seem to care too much.

Seth admitted that the chances of finding something from the remains of the decimated shuttle were improbable at best, but at least it gave him something to do

The excitement of the encounter soon faded away from the bridge, adrenaline stopped pumping. Things started to wind down back to the normal, steady stream of bridge activity.

Seth performed the transport of the shuttle remnants and headed for the cargo bay, half of his mind on Commander Waterson's condition. Whether or not she recovered, she had managed to fool them all, except Captain Nack. Although, Seth thought, Nack's perceiving of Waterson's deception was probably more by luck than judgement. Or perhaps that was being marginally unfair, Seth was not sure.

The Wezean smiled at the irony of the task he had assigned to himself as he entered the cargo bay, he had already analysed one set of wreckage today. He looked with trepidation at the masses of burnt and twisted duranium before him, it had all been safely contained in a forcefield while the radiation had been dispersed, so he got to work.

After searching fruitlessly for a while, Seth found something of interest. It was what was left of the shuttle's Communications Transceiver. He touched it, it was cold, the heat had quickly dissipated from it in the freezer of deep space. Grabbing the twisted metal in both hands, he pulled it free from the rest of the wreckage, it made the horrible screeching noise of rough metal scraping together and then came to rest on the floor. The Wezean knelt down next to it, took out his tricorder and was very surprised to find that its memory buffer was still intact. He downloaded the data to a PADD and took a second to read through some of the latest communications. The latest entry was Waterson's attempted message to the Nevada, the one before that was...

Bingo. He stood up, ignoring the cracking of his knees (which had been giving him trouble ever since they had both been smashed six years ago), and tapped his commbadge.

=/\=Captain Nack, Lieutenant Helacaan=/\= he said, =/\=It appears Doctor Waterson was not completely lying, there is someone else in this solar system.=/\=

=/\=What?=/\= Nack asked.

=/\=A cloaked ship sir, harbouring Waterson's associates. They're here somewhere.=/\=

<tag Nack>

[Jon Park]

Commander Park had a few other things on his mind when he headed to back to the bridge. Commander waterson had given the Captain the appearance of a heart attack so the doctor reported. Given his stress the last few weeks it was bound to happen. Listening to the chatter on the bridge Park knew Commander Thomas had a eye so to speck on the ship. When the shuttle appeared Park stepped up to the main Tactical station and relived Commander Thomas.

"Position ourselves right on top, and engage the tractor beam Mr. Park."

Park engaged the beam faster then he thought however the beam was shortly cut off. As a console exploded on the bridge Park saw Thomas head over to check on the Officers status.

"Commander Park, reengage the beam! We cannot let her get away."

Park tapped on the controls and reengaged the beam. The Captain and Commander planned an attack Jon tapped a few commands and when the captain gave the order Park pressed a control. A beam of phaser fire shot out of the Nevada and hit the shuttle. Before Park could report to the captain someone else told him the shuttles warp drive was overloading .

As the ship exploded in a ball of light Park looked around and started to scan the surrounding space. There was a report she was in the transporter room and Jon headed to the lift.

=/\= "Park to Security Team Beta. Report to Transporter room 2. Place Commander Waterson under arrest. Wait for medical teams." At the same time he was heading to the transporter room armed with a phaser at the ready.

The team was already there as was medical Park turned to a nurse. "Take her to the brig and treat her there." The nurse looked stunned. "Sir. She needs to be treated in sickbay. She has very bad burns." As the nurse argued with him he knew she was right. "Nurse standby a moment. I want to lock down sickbay so only command staff can enter and exit."

Heading to the transporter Console Park tapped commands and locked down sickbay remotely. Two officers moved to the nurse's side as Park engaged the transporters and beamed them to sickbay. Tapping his combadge Park said."=/\= Park to Bridge. Commander waterson has been transported to sickbay with two beta team members. I have security teams Beta and Gamma at sickbay and locked it down to command level officers only Lt.Commander Rank and higher."

<Tag Bridge>

[Deleted]

"Send out a tachyon pulse. That'll pinpoint any singularities," he replied to the Operations Officer.

If there were more people she was working with, perhaps they would uncover some of the loot that she stole from the Romulans. Returning it might make for good measure after Starfleet had effectively harbored a criminal inside of Romulan territory. The fact that the Romulans believed the Nevada's explanation of events was the only thing preventing aggression.

The pulse went out, uneventfully. No singularities appeared on the science console.

"Try it again."

Again, there were no singularities.

"Sir, we are being hailed by a Romulan warbird. It just uncloaked off our port side."

"Got 'em! On screen," Nack said. He was busy celebrating his methods for uncovering a ship to expect what was coming next.

"Commander Tyloth, of the Romulan High Command. My ship has been assigned to follow you through Romulan space while Command considers your request to remain in Romulan Territory to pursue this--- Thief." He snickered his remarks, clearly showing his discontent for such petty work as following a Federation vessel in an uneventful manner.

This wasn't the gratification Nack was looking for - it was quite clear that this ship was who they said they were. "No big deal. Feel free to follow," Nack responded, in what appeared to be the naive tone Ferengis use to brush of major events as if they were nothing.

"Your request has been revoked, and you are to return to Federation space. We will escort you."

"But ... we have the...."

"Yes?" Commander Tyloth responded.

"We have some more investigating to do." The Ferengi Captain didn't divulge that they had captured Waterson. It become suddenly clear to him that they didn't know, and if they did, they would demand extradition; something Nack knew Starfleet wouldn't be keen on granting.

"The ship you destroyed. The debris had a Starfleet signature."

"And there were no survivors," Nack said, biting his lower lip, hoping that the Commander took him at his word.

"So be it. I suggest you follow me before I am forced to escalate this matter."

"No no.. no need to escalate anything. We will follow you out."

The downside of the situation was that there might still be associates of Waterson in the area. The immediate circumstances led to, however, the virtue of cutting what could be potential loss altogether and get the hell out of Romulan space.

"Mr. Oidar, follow that warbird." Nack ordered as the viewscreen went back to the image of a green ship floating in front of them.