The insider

Posted on Sat Aug 5th, 2023 @ 11:41pm by Lieutenant Commander David Wallace

Mission: Mission 10. Move to the Lagoon Nebula.
Location: Eir Terminal- Erinis System - Essary Colony
Timeline: Concurrent

On:

The late season weather on Eir is compared too parts of Earth called Canada, cool, light snow, and cold nights. In the control tower a lone figure, sat feet up at the sensor arrays. Space traffic was non-existent at this outpost, the terminal had only had one ship arrive in the last two weeks, that was redirected to a special hangar on the far side of the outpost. Not all that unusual with the scout corps. They'd go out, something would happen and their ships would be redirected to a secure hangar, the crew might get arrested or reassigned and a new crew would take over. But there was a large amount of unusual activity at this hangar, and the scout crew were ordered back to space and the hangar itself was under guard for forty hours for no reason. No reason given too the control officer anyways.

Jordan Hughes was the name of the control officer on duty tonight. The previous watch officer said that the secure hangar had it's guard doubled. Jordan didn't show his reaction, he waited until his counterpart left then made his rounds on the security cameras, there the guards were just as he'd had described too him, two Essary militia with pulse rifles, signs of three maybe four more inside. He made note of them and then quietly opened up an unused and unmonitored communication frequency, he keyed in an encrypted message too a preset relay station at a set of coordinates that made little sense too the ship traffic specialist, but they were the coordinates that he had been given by his special contact.

For the next few hours he basically sat at the monitoring station, keeping an eye on the hangar, then on that same frequency he received a message, in the same encryption key he'd used a few hours ago. He punched in the few commands he needed to decode the message and read it.

==Msg==

Verify resident of hangar. Urgent.

Reply if resident in SF Command grade officer.

Use Blue Raven Code.

Ghost

==End Msg==


Jordan deleted the message and grabbed his heavy coat along with a tricorder he'd acquired through dubious means. The night air was harshly cold this night, the could cover was thin tonight making it even colder, Jordan pulled up the hood waving a flashlight like he was going a routine walkaround. He made his was as close too the security hangar as he could without drawing attention to himself and ducked behind stacks of pallets that littered the space between the two small storage buildings. He took a scan of the hangar and discovered a seventh occupant too the building, he moved to get a better look in the hangar, it was frosted over already, but he saw a man in what looked to be fishing garb. The other oddity was he was secured with an ankle monitor inside a holding cell.

He took a couple of images with the tricorder and quickly hid the device in his coat. He started to walk back when he heard foot steps and paused, it was one of the guards pacing around trying too keep warm. He quickly made his way back too the control tower and plugged in the tricorder too the transmitter, making sure that he used the proper encryption key he'd been asked to use and sent of the small data burst. knowing he might get caught he quickly hid the tricorder in the same spot he'd kept it for two years, and went back to his coffee.

A few days later Jordan was covering the back half of a shift when he saw that the space where he kept the tricorder had been searched, Jordan knew that he was about to be discovered. He keyed in a series of commands into the computer and opened his locker, after pressing on a panel that gave way and he pulled out a backpack. He opened it and pulled out the data cartridge he'd been told to use if things went bad.

The display opened a file and began to read, the instructions were to go to a hangar located on the opposite side of the base in a rarely used portion of the spaceport and to keep out of sight until he was contacted. He waited until dark when he decided to make his move. Jordan quickly walked down the two flights of stairs, he pressed a button on a crudely assembled remote. The remote to anyone but it's user would look like it was for a toy or a drone of some kind, Jordan had modified it to knock out the security monitoring go offline for three minutes, that was long enough to get out of the main part of the terminal and get into the barely used areas that he knew he'd be able to get too, then he would make his way too the designated hangar in part two of his plan.

Jordan kept too the cleared walkways as much as his exit plan permitted, and entered a utility tunnel entrance where he quickly climbed down into the tunnels that laced their way throughout the spaceport. He followed the map he had too the first checkpoint he'd set, he pulled open what looked like an access panel and pulled out a grey case. Opening the case Jordan pulled out a pulse phase pistol and three extra power cells that he quickly tucked into his coat along with the pistol. He put the case back and closed the panel and started the next phase of his escape.

Walking down a new tunnel he entered the older parts of the tunnels where they were less used and barely maintained beyond keeping them from collapsing. He arrived at the next part of his escape route, there he found the ladder that would take him up into the empty hangar. As he climbed up he found the hatch had a keypad lock on it, he tried a code he'd been given and found it worked. He climbed up and closed the door then pulled a pin that physically locked the door disabling the keypad permanently.

He found that he was in a bunk room, it had four bunks, a replicator that looked like it hadn't been serviced in months and a computer terminal that looked to be starfleet issue. He put the data card in the terminal, the remaining instructions were to wait for a recovery team that was inbound.

==Starbase M-69==

Aya saw the dispatch from he contact that he'd relocated to the ops hangar that starfleet kept at the Eir Terminal spaceport. She keyed in some commands and looked out of the office she'd been given waving to David, "Our contact on Eir has been compromised, he's in hiding now we might need to extract him as part of the mission."

David groaned, "This is already turning into another Hellguard, where's the safe house?"

"Hangar eleven in the old section of the spaceport, operations uses it as an observation post, but there hasn't been an operative on Eir for over eighteen months but it's supplied so he's safe until we go collect him and make our entrance into the spaceport." Aya reported.

"We're still landing at that abandoned farm as planned?" David asked

"Yeah, the local customs guys are lazy, they don't even know that that farm has been abandoned for ten years, last time I was on Eir we were able to land there undetected and operate for three months before they got wise to anything even going on." Aya said almost bragging.

"Is security that lax?" David said with some curiousity

"Outside of the secure hangars and the supply depot you could smuggle Romulan ale in and not even be noticed, even Aldebaran whiskey has a high demand on the black market, Operations has a habit of using smuggling drops as entry points for missions inside Essary space regularly." Aya said then added "We're using a drop point that the local black marketeers have given us in exchange for turning a blind eye to the alcohol smuggling that goes on in their space out of certain starbases."

David smiled, "So is that why we're traveling with a beacon dampener instead of false transponder codes?"

Aya tapped her nose, "The smugglers found out about twenty years ago that Essary boarder patrols are virtually non-existent in the flight corridor we're using, but there is a base that is three hours away at warp five that has three of their Broadsword crusiers and two of those delta winged frigates you had a run in with during the move."

"That's it?" David said then adding "I was expecting the heavy stuff."

"The Erinis system is too remote to defend, when their fleet is in normal deployments, we did notice that during their last fleet drills they used Eir Terminal as a forward operating base, we have to hope that they don't go on alert until we're on our way out." Aya commented

"What about these older patrol craft they have, are they any kind of a threat?"

"No, a Danube runabout could disable one and not break a sweat, most of the Corvette class ships don't do much more than supply convoy duty, they do have a few of those old Daedalus class ships converted into communication monitoring ships that might be a problem. but they're lightly armed and slow so we're safe." Aya commented the held up her mug indicating she wanted a refill.

Pouring the refill David asked "What about the rumored Romulan and Cardassian ships?"

"They have one Gallor class ship that was still undergoing refit, and the three known Romulan ships might be undergoing wartime resupply." Aya said setting down the mug.

"The rumor mill has them in possession of a pair of ninety year old K'tinga class ships, maybe one or two salvaged D-6, was that ever verified?"

"We confirmed that, but couldn't collect any specs." Aya said as she drank her coffee, "Since I left operations in Essasy space the only new data is one maybe two rebuilt Tre'ax warbirds, and over sixty of their Delta Class fighters are rolling off the factory floor as we speak."

David looked at the numbers, "We're screwed if this gets heated."

"When this mission is over go spend some time with Maria, I think we're in deep." Aya said after downing her coffee.

End

Lt Cmdr David Wallace
Chief Intelligence officer
Starbase M-69

Lt Aya Moreau
Starfleet Intelligence Operations