LtCol Wes Greaves - The Odd Couple - Part IV
Jacob Rittenhouse
((Crew module, Foxy Lady, near Port Coray, Gamma Quadrant))
Greaves: (Exasperated) V’Len, it’s the 25th century. How does this thing not have a transporter... Wait, how old is this ship?
Kel: ::smiling:: It’s a classic 2365 model according to the manual.
Wes sighed again and shook his head slowly as if to ward off his annoyance at the antiquated equipment. The old rust bucket had one thing going for it still. It was inconspicuous.
Greaves: Do the EV suits at least have control thrusters? I’m less than enthusiastic about an EV freefall.
Kel: Fear not Colonel, the EV suits are modern Starfleet issue. Courtesy of Arlill, Nilsen and Vomek. They have all the bells and whistles.
Greaves: Okay. That’s workable then. Once we get inside we’ll need a way to access their computer systems and find out what the medicine is for, or better yet, if there are human patients in the clinic.
Kel: ::looking up and nodding at Greaves:: Wouldn’t that be a treat. Assuming we can find them or anything else.
Greaves: Aren’t most medical systems standardized?
Kel: In the Federation? Absolutely. Out here? It’s anybody’s guess. ::noting Greave’s expression of concern:: Still there should be some bits of medical data that all facilities have. If I can find the right bits of data I should be able to navigate their system.
V’Len programmed the computer to continue to build a picture of the facility using the Tidbitter data. He turned to Greaves.
Kel: Your turn. This is a hospital, but they’re still going to monitor who’s coming and going. Can you mask our approach?
Greaves: Not unless you’ve got a cloaking device squirreled away somewhere on here… and since you don’t even have transporters, I’m guessing that’s a long shot.
V’Len knew that hiding the Foxy Lady was possible. On the last covert mission he went on Jack and Cabrillo had masked the Foxy Lady to allow them to travel into Zet space undetected. But how it was accomplished V’Len did not know.
Kel: I can “flash the pan”, bring us out of warp right under the pharmacy module. Maybe we can hide there from their sensors. They’re still going to see us coming. I’m certain there’s a way to make the Foxy Lady hard to see.
Greaves: Look, it’s not easy to hide a ship. Space is a giant blank spot. Ships emit all kinds of stuff from heat to radiation. That sort of thing kind of sticks out. There’s a few tricks we can do to make it harder to see, but not necessarily hard to see.
Kel: No I’m sure it’s possible, Jack set it up for a covert mission once before.
Greaves: Oh?
It was a single syllable, but the look Wes shot the other man said more. A lingering pause of anticipation indicated he was ready for V’Len to tell the rest of the story, but it was quickly apparent that Kel didn’t intend to.
Kel: ::looking down:: It’s classified. I can only say that the Foxy Lady was modified in a way that kept us from detection in Zet space.
From behind Kel’s shoulder Wes looked down at the Trilldorian, frustration beginning to show on his face. He didn’t know what it was about V’Len. Normally the Marine was the picture of professionalism, offering a smile to everyone around. There was just something about Kel that got under his skin so easily. Made him lose patience so quickly. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in a while, and until now, Wes didn’t realize how much he’d disliked V’Len’s effect on him.
Greaves: Care to elaborate more?
Kel: ::regret:: I’m sorry I’m under orders not to say anything more. ::offering a small smile:: You remember orders, those things you always wished I followed better.
The Maine let out another exasperated sigh and he stepped back, sitting down heavily into the co-pilot’s seat. When he spoke, his voice was full of sarcasm and annoyance.
Greaves: Better late than never, but your timing sucks. .
Kel: ::sighing:: I couldn’t agree more. I wish I could share. It’s hard to not talk about it.
Honestly he wished he could say more. Greaves would likely understand better than others what it meant when a mission went wrong. V’Len had told no one about the loss of his friend Jack. On the Ronin, he and he alone knew about what had happened on a fateful mission to a Zet detention facility. How he’d seen an explosion and then when he’d been ordered away, he’d just gone. It wasn’t like him. The old him would have objected, but for perhaps the first time he’d followed an order he’s strongly disagreed with.
The Marine looked up and rolled his head from one side to the other while thinking. Several sharp pops marked the cracking of his neck. Reaching up, Wes pinched the bridge of his nose, then rubbed his eyes before settling back into a less confrontational tone.
Greaves: Look, I can mask some of our emissions, I can rig us for a reduced signature, but ultimately, I can’t make us invisible. If we get close to anything we’ll be detectable. I don’t know what Jack did before, maybe it had to do with the Zet’s sensors, or maybe it was something different. I can’t know that unless you tell me. Otherwise we need a different plan.
Kel: Maybe that’s good enough. Drop out of warp right under the facility and park there. Hope no one looks out the window.
Greaves did not seem sold on the plan. V’Len didn’t blame him. If anyone saw them coming things would be over before they began.
Greaves: (Gesturing to the monitor) What’s the traffic in and out of that place? Maybe we can hide in plain sight. Blend in with the crowd on arrival.
V’Len turned back to the Tidbitter information. There were several holofeeds of the space around Tranquil Nebula Clinic. It was crowded with numerous vessels proceeding in all sorts of directions.
Kel: There’s certainly plenty of traffic in the area.
He began doing a new search and Wes turned the swiveling co-pilot chair to face the console. With a few quick taps the device came to life. While it wasn’t a starfleet standard console, most ships that starfleet officers operated usually had similar command sequences. He began pulling up some ship diagnostic data but asked his question out loud just the same.
Greaves: The ship’s got an autopilot, yes? Automated docking by chance?
Kel: Yeah it can land itself and go through the shutdown sequence. It was part of the safety system for the Denali Race. ::smiling:: And I just found us a code for free parking.
Half turning in his chair to look at V’Len, Wes finally had a genuine, albeit small, smile on his face.
Greaves: Boom. And just like that we’ve got a start to a plan. We can figure out the rest on the way.Care to get us rolling.
V’Len turned and began to power up the drives. The Foxy Lady rumbled to life with a gentle vibration. And it was soon floating out of the docking bay.
Kel: So we what? Let the Lady park and we go out in the EV suits?
Greaves: (Shrugging) That’s my thought. I doubt they’ll break down the door to the ship as soon as we land. It’s a public place afterall. We should have time before they get suspicious when no one gets out. That’ll buy us time to take a walk outside.
V’Len considered for a moment. As the Foxy Lady shuddered and convulsed forward into warp.
With the ship fully underway Wes spun the chair back to face V’len as he was hardly providing any useful function behind the controls. His gaze met the Trilldorian’s who seemed to be plotting something in his mind.
Kel: Do you know any Zet names?
He had to think back. A few very high profile names came to mind. Zet who Wes wished he’d never met. The faces of others flashed through his memories, but many of the names had faded with time. Still, he remembered a few.
Greaves: I’ve met a couple dozen Zet, so yeah, some.
Kel: It’s likely they’ll want to know who we’re there to visit. We could pretend to be delivery drivers but we’d need to know a physician at the facility.
He considered that angle. It wasn’t bad. The station had to get a ton of deliveries. They wouldn’t pass scrutiny for long, but if it truly was a Zet facility the workers were probably tired and overworked and likely wouldn’t look at them too closely. Unless it was a high profile security operation. Zet security, despite being overworked, wouldn’t dare let a security threat slide by. Their entire family would pay the price for that.
It would be a risky play, to stake all their eggs into the hope no one looked at their story too closely. That, and Wes didn’t actually know any possible patients or physicians that even had a remote possibility of being there.
Greaves: You’re looking at the wrong guy for that kinda info.
Kel: ::thinking:: I met a Vorta doctor at a conference once. Dr. Beedras. Maybe he’s got privileges there?
The Marine nodded along in agreement, but his mind still tore at the uncertainty of it.
Greaves:What if we don’t even try to fake our way in. Maybe we can just sneak in and hack into their database. We get a copy of their logs and we’re golden. We can analyze it for intel when we’re safe.
V’Len seemed to consider the idea briefly, but didn’t outright protest. It struck Wes suddenly that for at least the last several minutes they’d been functioning as a team without issue, complaint, or coercion. He idly wondered if that was a first for them before Kel’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
Kel: Well we’ve got 2 hours to figure something out.
Greaves: Right. You do some more open source research on the facility and see if anything useful comes up. I’ll work on a data snatching program and we’ll see what we’ve got that's workable in an hour. Sound good?
Kel: Yes sir.
With the pull of a lever the Foxy Lady gave a loud groan accompanied by a threatening tremor before and leapt to warp speed.
TBC
JP By:
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Lieutenant Colonel Wes Greaves
Marine Detachment Commander
USS Oumuamua NCC-81226
E239702WG0
&
Lieutenant Commander V’Len Kel
Chief Medical Officer
USS Ronin NCC-34523
T239811VK2
He/Him (character and player)
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