Beg, Steal or Borrow – False Flag: Part 2
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Colonel James Darson
Post Details
Perched on a tall, backless stool desk Ael ir-Leinarrh drummed her fingers on the shiny surface of the reception desk. Her eyes were on the chronometer, noting each minute that passed by with mounting trepidation.
She dropped to the floor and slipped through the discreet door behind the desk into the small office crammed with equipment. Ael lifted the soft brown holdall that stood on the only clear area of desk and dropped it to the floor then slotted herself into the chair; her ‘friends’ wanted to know what each one of t’Khellian’s visitors had to say, each conversation she could report meant more latinum, and Ael needed latinum.
Just like the Klingon, Ael grumbled as the monitoring equipment in the room transmitted static. Ael got to her feet and stuffed a less technologically advanced piece of equipment into a pocket then she hurried down the corridor and into a disused office that shared a wall with the vast office that the ambassador occupied. The access hatch was still open and in seconds Ael dropped to her knees and inserted the stethoscope in her ears and positioned the other end against the partition.
“… And that of course leads me to question whether of not this person was acting on their own volition…or if they had the authority of somebody in charge. Thoughts on the matter, Isha?"
“I think that you should think very carefully before you explicitly make such an accusation. I think that our conversation is over, Major Darson.”
Ael continued to listen, taking the occasional note on a padd and allowing herself a chuckle every now and then as she imagined the look on the ambassador’s face at being spoken to like that.
“Alright, I’ll get straight to the point. I know that somebody in this embassy blackmailed one of my Marines. I only want that one person. The question is whether or not she was taking orders from somebody higher on the chain of command. And the way I see it, there are two ways this can go down …”
Ael jumped, dropping the end of the stethoscope. She crawled backwards out of the space and tore the instrument from her ears; she had thought she would be safe until the shields came down and the transporter beam lifted her away. Quickly Ael returned to the reception area and the tiny cramped office behind and stuffed the stethoscope into the holdall. There was a back-up plan, her benefactor had assured her of that; if you are discovered get out of the embassy and rendezvous with … she was on her way there now.
Ael stopped dead as the main consulate doors parted, “Get out of my way,” she said.
The Marines who had parted to let Ensign Opaka through closed their ranks, forming an impenetrable seal around the hallway. The squad leader, a hulking Human said in a growling tone, “This area is locked down Ma’am. All Embassy personnel are to stay inside until the Major returns. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Now please, step back inside the consulate.”
"Which part of move do you not understand? Your action is unlawful, now move aside!" There was another way out of the consulate, but that lay through the ambassador's office ... if she waited, Ael reasoned that she could exit that way. "I'm reporting this!" she fumed as she retreated into the consulate.
The Marine stood tall as he watched the infuriated Romulan go inside. As the hatch shut, he opened a COM channel to the Major.
---
Darson knew that he had pushed Isha to the edge, and that it was time to drive the point home, “I’ve shown you the carrot Isha, and I’ve shown you the stick. Think very, very, carefully about the choice you now have to make.”
“Think? I think that outfit is restricting the supply of oxygen to your brain,” Isha snatched up a long necked bottle and turned, hurling the object across the room.
Darson quickly identified the rapidly approaching object as not hot or explosive, thus making it safe to grab, and expertly snatched it out of the air as it moved towards him. He shook the bottle rebukingly in her direction, holding it by the neck, as if to say, “Don’t throw things, Isha.”
Suddenly, there was a crackling in his helmet as the squad leader of the Marines he had bought with him opened a channel, “Major…one just tried to leave. She seemed to be in a bit of a hurry.” There was no immediate response except for two clicks, which indicated that he should maintain radio silence.
“What is it?” Isha snapped stalking back across the room.
Darson cocked his head to the side, sighed, and strode towards the door, “It seems like one of your employees is trying to leave…she appeared to be quite flustered…any idea what could cause such a reaction?”
“None whatsoever. Perhaps an affliction similar to that which caused your employee to be susceptible to bribery,” was her acid suggestion.
Darson shrugged and said, “Only one way to find out,” as he reached for the door controls.
Isha slipped in between Darson and the door and with her back to the door placed her hand over the control panel. “My consulate, my way,” she said with a savage little smile as she rested her head back against the door. “I require a little more than the suspicion of one of your robots. If someone is overly keen to leave lets open a door for them and see if they opt to use it.”
Darson refrained from mentioning that he had considered many times replacing some Marines with cyborgs, on the assumption that now was not really the right time. He bowed his head in acquiescence, and said in a low tone, “Of course…I would never arrest someone without probable cause…but what exactly do you mean by, ‘let’s open a door for them’?”
“If one happens to be familiar with the amended schematics of this facility one will be aware that it is possible to leave the premises through my private apartment on the other side of this office – it would be a very foolish conspirator who had failed to make themselves aware of such an escape route. If you would be so good as to move back a step, I’ll go and disable the connecting door.”
Darson stepped back out of the way from the determined Isha, and turned to look at her, “And then,” he said conversationally, “after we open this door, how can we be sure that this traitor will go for it?”
“If I were cornered in such a way I’d have already assessed my options and be waiting for this chance – the odds that it is not a trap are,” Isha paused briefly as she performed a mental calculation, “good actually. This is very simple, we storm out of this office and out of the consulate – I take it you can act?”
Darson stared at her intently for a moment, and said sarcastically, “Have we not met before? Well, let me introduce myself. I’m Major Darson…and you are?”
Isha came very close to sticking out her tongue in response but restrained herself. "Shall we go?” she swept through the door and began shouting, “… and I will not have you coming round here making unfounded accusations. If you are holding someone I want to speak with them.”
Darson also got into character, raising his voice and adopting an angry tone, “No! You get nothing until you give me the information I want!”
They turned the corner into the reception area, “No, Darson. You’ll take me there now. I want to speak with them,” she repeated. “The Empire does not waste its time bribing marines.”
“I am not accusing the Empire, I am accusing you, Isha! This embassy is mine to do with as I please; you are not in the position to be making demands of any sort whatsoever!
“You have no right to lay siege to my embassy! And when I get back you can order your troops to depart, right after you apologize to me.” There were few people in the consulate that could have missed the commotion.
Isha paused by the door as if collecting herself before going out in public, then activated the door controls.
“I see why one might be caused to panic,” Isha remarked once the doors had closed behind them, all semblance of anger gone as she eyed the assorted range of bulk and muscle that was occupying the corridor.
Darson chortled delightedly to himself as he smoothed his cloak out in the hallway and gestured the Marines to take a step back and give Isha more space, “A magnificent performance Isha…and if I were a different man, I would deliver a standing ovation…bravo indeed.”
“Now we wait,” she said smoothing her skirt over her hips.
“Yes…now we wait,” A marine moved up alongside them with two thermoses, “Coffee or tea?”
---
Darson stared intently at the wall of the embassy. To anybody else, it would appear that he was doing nothing more than starting intently at the wall of an embassy, but in reality, he was utilizing a powerful thermal filter in his helmet to keep an eye on the office.
Though not as powerful for these purposes as the x-ray filter, it took time to focus through bulkheads and get a clear image, whereas just being able to see a silhouette was fine in this case. After a couple of minutes, he identified a ghostly figure of heat moving quickly through the reception area, and into the office.
“Game on,” He said in a calm voice as he pushed himself off the wall and motioned for a fire team of Marines to accompany him. They quickly moved towards the doors of the embassy, opened them, and stormed the reception area with quick steps and raised weapons. One quick look determined that the area was deserted, the receptionist gone, and all other personnel working in the back offices.
“The apartment. Move, now!” Darson said quietly into his helmet COMM, and the small group of Marines thundered down the hall to the designated room. They found the door open, and took a split second to stack up on one side of the door before entering, in case the traitor decided to pull a disruptor.
As they entered, they found a Romulan woman frantically attempting to pry open a discreetly placed escape hatch. As she spun to face them, one Marine rushed forward, and put his leg behind hers as he levered his arm across her chest, dropping her to the ground. The rest of the fire team cleared the room while the lone tackler bound the now gibbering woman, who Darson silently identified as the receptionist who had guided him to Isha’s office in the first place.
He stood in front of her and said quietly, “On your feet,” The Marine pulled her up. Darson took a second to stare at her, then pulled her away, and none too gently guided her to Isha’s office, throwing her down on the floor when they entered.
“ir-Leinarrh, precisely what did I do to injure you?” Isha asked, her tone mild as her gaze followed the woman to the floor. She stepped over to her desk and leaned against the edge; she would have sat, but her chair still lay on its side where she had upended it earlier. “Oh, don’t bother to give me excuses,” she continued as the woman spluttered something unintelligible.
Isha turned to Darson, “I have all the evidence I require, Major. Take her, but do try not to lose this one, my supply of traitors is running low.”
Darson replied mildly from where he had taken up residence in the corner, “One can never be short of traitors in this business, Isha…but I’ll be careful to keep her under lock and key. Though I can’t promise she’ll have all her appendages when I’m through with her.”
Ael ir’Leinarrh found her voice, “Traitor? I’m not the one colluding with aliens– you can’t win, we’ll see the empire restored to greatness.”
“As nodody has appointed you arbiter of right and wrong that’s not really much of a defence, ir-Leinarrh. Tell me, how much latinum did it take to make you into an isolationist or was your fondness for my predecessor reciprocated? Kholairlh-a! (Elements!) how desperate does one have to be to make love to a decaying paranoid old man to get ahead in life?”
Isha snorted, as the answer rippled across Ael’s face, “and I wonder why people have trouble trusting Romulans! Do you remember Verelan Iawaain?” Isha asked, “Of course you do, as it is her escape that you have engineered – you should consider yourself lucky that my Chief of Staff is absent, otherwise you’d be talking to him before I allowed Darson to take you, and he takes a very dim view of treachery.”
Isha straightened and turned away as if bored by the whole episode, “I think that concludes our business today,” she said as she sat down on one of the sofas in the seating area of the office and picked a piece of fruit from a dish on the table. “Please get her out of my sight, Major.”
As the Marines dragged the now screaming receptionist off to a small cell in the bowels of the HQ, Darson turned to Isha and said calmly, “Thank you for your services, Isha…we never would have been able to root out the traitor without your assistance. My apologies for the heavy handed tactics, but they were necessary to bring you around.”
"You might have tried asking nicely," Isha suggested digging a nail deep into the flesh of the fruit. "but then you wouldn't have enjoyed that quite so much, would you. She might be besotted with the old bastard but it was not my predecessor Liun who paid her, rather it had to be someone who knew enough to convince her that Liun would approve of her actions. Such naivity should be a crime! It doesn't really tell us who she was working for - we're agreed that it was not me ..."
He nodded, “Humph…I’ll find out who was pulling her strings if I have to take her to hell and leave her there,” He went to the middle of the room, faced Isha and bowed deeply, almost touching his toes, “Until next time Isha, I bid you, adieu.” With that said, he produced a smokebomb, and threw it at the ground, and when the small cloud of black smoke cleared a few seconds later, he was gone.
OFF:
Ambassador Isha t'Khellian
Ael ir-Leinarrh NPCd by Louise
Major James Darson
Marine Commanding Officer
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Colonel James Darson
Post Details
| Title | False Flag: Part 2 | |
| Mission | Beg, Steal or Borrow | |
| Author(s) | Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Colonel James Darson | |
| Posted | Mon Mar 16, 2009 @ 7:52am | |
| Location | Romulan Consulate. Deck 60 | |
| Timeline | SD8 - 12:55 |
She dropped to the floor and slipped through the discreet door behind the desk into the small office crammed with equipment. Ael lifted the soft brown holdall that stood on the only clear area of desk and dropped it to the floor then slotted herself into the chair; her ‘friends’ wanted to know what each one of t’Khellian’s visitors had to say, each conversation she could report meant more latinum, and Ael needed latinum.
Just like the Klingon, Ael grumbled as the monitoring equipment in the room transmitted static. Ael got to her feet and stuffed a less technologically advanced piece of equipment into a pocket then she hurried down the corridor and into a disused office that shared a wall with the vast office that the ambassador occupied. The access hatch was still open and in seconds Ael dropped to her knees and inserted the stethoscope in her ears and positioned the other end against the partition.
“… And that of course leads me to question whether of not this person was acting on their own volition…or if they had the authority of somebody in charge. Thoughts on the matter, Isha?"
“I think that you should think very carefully before you explicitly make such an accusation. I think that our conversation is over, Major Darson.”
Ael continued to listen, taking the occasional note on a padd and allowing herself a chuckle every now and then as she imagined the look on the ambassador’s face at being spoken to like that.
“Alright, I’ll get straight to the point. I know that somebody in this embassy blackmailed one of my Marines. I only want that one person. The question is whether or not she was taking orders from somebody higher on the chain of command. And the way I see it, there are two ways this can go down …”
Ael jumped, dropping the end of the stethoscope. She crawled backwards out of the space and tore the instrument from her ears; she had thought she would be safe until the shields came down and the transporter beam lifted her away. Quickly Ael returned to the reception area and the tiny cramped office behind and stuffed the stethoscope into the holdall. There was a back-up plan, her benefactor had assured her of that; if you are discovered get out of the embassy and rendezvous with … she was on her way there now.
Ael stopped dead as the main consulate doors parted, “Get out of my way,” she said.
The Marines who had parted to let Ensign Opaka through closed their ranks, forming an impenetrable seal around the hallway. The squad leader, a hulking Human said in a growling tone, “This area is locked down Ma’am. All Embassy personnel are to stay inside until the Major returns. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Now please, step back inside the consulate.”
"Which part of move do you not understand? Your action is unlawful, now move aside!" There was another way out of the consulate, but that lay through the ambassador's office ... if she waited, Ael reasoned that she could exit that way. "I'm reporting this!" she fumed as she retreated into the consulate.
The Marine stood tall as he watched the infuriated Romulan go inside. As the hatch shut, he opened a COM channel to the Major.
---
Darson knew that he had pushed Isha to the edge, and that it was time to drive the point home, “I’ve shown you the carrot Isha, and I’ve shown you the stick. Think very, very, carefully about the choice you now have to make.”
“Think? I think that outfit is restricting the supply of oxygen to your brain,” Isha snatched up a long necked bottle and turned, hurling the object across the room.
Darson quickly identified the rapidly approaching object as not hot or explosive, thus making it safe to grab, and expertly snatched it out of the air as it moved towards him. He shook the bottle rebukingly in her direction, holding it by the neck, as if to say, “Don’t throw things, Isha.”
Suddenly, there was a crackling in his helmet as the squad leader of the Marines he had bought with him opened a channel, “Major…one just tried to leave. She seemed to be in a bit of a hurry.” There was no immediate response except for two clicks, which indicated that he should maintain radio silence.
“What is it?” Isha snapped stalking back across the room.
Darson cocked his head to the side, sighed, and strode towards the door, “It seems like one of your employees is trying to leave…she appeared to be quite flustered…any idea what could cause such a reaction?”
“None whatsoever. Perhaps an affliction similar to that which caused your employee to be susceptible to bribery,” was her acid suggestion.
Darson shrugged and said, “Only one way to find out,” as he reached for the door controls.
Isha slipped in between Darson and the door and with her back to the door placed her hand over the control panel. “My consulate, my way,” she said with a savage little smile as she rested her head back against the door. “I require a little more than the suspicion of one of your robots. If someone is overly keen to leave lets open a door for them and see if they opt to use it.”
Darson refrained from mentioning that he had considered many times replacing some Marines with cyborgs, on the assumption that now was not really the right time. He bowed his head in acquiescence, and said in a low tone, “Of course…I would never arrest someone without probable cause…but what exactly do you mean by, ‘let’s open a door for them’?”
“If one happens to be familiar with the amended schematics of this facility one will be aware that it is possible to leave the premises through my private apartment on the other side of this office – it would be a very foolish conspirator who had failed to make themselves aware of such an escape route. If you would be so good as to move back a step, I’ll go and disable the connecting door.”
Darson stepped back out of the way from the determined Isha, and turned to look at her, “And then,” he said conversationally, “after we open this door, how can we be sure that this traitor will go for it?”
“If I were cornered in such a way I’d have already assessed my options and be waiting for this chance – the odds that it is not a trap are,” Isha paused briefly as she performed a mental calculation, “good actually. This is very simple, we storm out of this office and out of the consulate – I take it you can act?”
Darson stared at her intently for a moment, and said sarcastically, “Have we not met before? Well, let me introduce myself. I’m Major Darson…and you are?”
Isha came very close to sticking out her tongue in response but restrained herself. "Shall we go?” she swept through the door and began shouting, “… and I will not have you coming round here making unfounded accusations. If you are holding someone I want to speak with them.”
Darson also got into character, raising his voice and adopting an angry tone, “No! You get nothing until you give me the information I want!”
They turned the corner into the reception area, “No, Darson. You’ll take me there now. I want to speak with them,” she repeated. “The Empire does not waste its time bribing marines.”
“I am not accusing the Empire, I am accusing you, Isha! This embassy is mine to do with as I please; you are not in the position to be making demands of any sort whatsoever!
“You have no right to lay siege to my embassy! And when I get back you can order your troops to depart, right after you apologize to me.” There were few people in the consulate that could have missed the commotion.
Isha paused by the door as if collecting herself before going out in public, then activated the door controls.
“I see why one might be caused to panic,” Isha remarked once the doors had closed behind them, all semblance of anger gone as she eyed the assorted range of bulk and muscle that was occupying the corridor.
Darson chortled delightedly to himself as he smoothed his cloak out in the hallway and gestured the Marines to take a step back and give Isha more space, “A magnificent performance Isha…and if I were a different man, I would deliver a standing ovation…bravo indeed.”
“Now we wait,” she said smoothing her skirt over her hips.
“Yes…now we wait,” A marine moved up alongside them with two thermoses, “Coffee or tea?”
---
Darson stared intently at the wall of the embassy. To anybody else, it would appear that he was doing nothing more than starting intently at the wall of an embassy, but in reality, he was utilizing a powerful thermal filter in his helmet to keep an eye on the office.
Though not as powerful for these purposes as the x-ray filter, it took time to focus through bulkheads and get a clear image, whereas just being able to see a silhouette was fine in this case. After a couple of minutes, he identified a ghostly figure of heat moving quickly through the reception area, and into the office.
“Game on,” He said in a calm voice as he pushed himself off the wall and motioned for a fire team of Marines to accompany him. They quickly moved towards the doors of the embassy, opened them, and stormed the reception area with quick steps and raised weapons. One quick look determined that the area was deserted, the receptionist gone, and all other personnel working in the back offices.
“The apartment. Move, now!” Darson said quietly into his helmet COMM, and the small group of Marines thundered down the hall to the designated room. They found the door open, and took a split second to stack up on one side of the door before entering, in case the traitor decided to pull a disruptor.
As they entered, they found a Romulan woman frantically attempting to pry open a discreetly placed escape hatch. As she spun to face them, one Marine rushed forward, and put his leg behind hers as he levered his arm across her chest, dropping her to the ground. The rest of the fire team cleared the room while the lone tackler bound the now gibbering woman, who Darson silently identified as the receptionist who had guided him to Isha’s office in the first place.
He stood in front of her and said quietly, “On your feet,” The Marine pulled her up. Darson took a second to stare at her, then pulled her away, and none too gently guided her to Isha’s office, throwing her down on the floor when they entered.
“ir-Leinarrh, precisely what did I do to injure you?” Isha asked, her tone mild as her gaze followed the woman to the floor. She stepped over to her desk and leaned against the edge; she would have sat, but her chair still lay on its side where she had upended it earlier. “Oh, don’t bother to give me excuses,” she continued as the woman spluttered something unintelligible.
Isha turned to Darson, “I have all the evidence I require, Major. Take her, but do try not to lose this one, my supply of traitors is running low.”
Darson replied mildly from where he had taken up residence in the corner, “One can never be short of traitors in this business, Isha…but I’ll be careful to keep her under lock and key. Though I can’t promise she’ll have all her appendages when I’m through with her.”
Ael ir’Leinarrh found her voice, “Traitor? I’m not the one colluding with aliens– you can’t win, we’ll see the empire restored to greatness.”
“As nodody has appointed you arbiter of right and wrong that’s not really much of a defence, ir-Leinarrh. Tell me, how much latinum did it take to make you into an isolationist or was your fondness for my predecessor reciprocated? Kholairlh-a! (Elements!) how desperate does one have to be to make love to a decaying paranoid old man to get ahead in life?”
Isha snorted, as the answer rippled across Ael’s face, “and I wonder why people have trouble trusting Romulans! Do you remember Verelan Iawaain?” Isha asked, “Of course you do, as it is her escape that you have engineered – you should consider yourself lucky that my Chief of Staff is absent, otherwise you’d be talking to him before I allowed Darson to take you, and he takes a very dim view of treachery.”
Isha straightened and turned away as if bored by the whole episode, “I think that concludes our business today,” she said as she sat down on one of the sofas in the seating area of the office and picked a piece of fruit from a dish on the table. “Please get her out of my sight, Major.”
As the Marines dragged the now screaming receptionist off to a small cell in the bowels of the HQ, Darson turned to Isha and said calmly, “Thank you for your services, Isha…we never would have been able to root out the traitor without your assistance. My apologies for the heavy handed tactics, but they were necessary to bring you around.”
"You might have tried asking nicely," Isha suggested digging a nail deep into the flesh of the fruit. "but then you wouldn't have enjoyed that quite so much, would you. She might be besotted with the old bastard but it was not my predecessor Liun who paid her, rather it had to be someone who knew enough to convince her that Liun would approve of her actions. Such naivity should be a crime! It doesn't really tell us who she was working for - we're agreed that it was not me ..."
He nodded, “Humph…I’ll find out who was pulling her strings if I have to take her to hell and leave her there,” He went to the middle of the room, faced Isha and bowed deeply, almost touching his toes, “Until next time Isha, I bid you, adieu.” With that said, he produced a smokebomb, and threw it at the ground, and when the small cloud of black smoke cleared a few seconds later, he was gone.
OFF:
Ambassador Isha t'Khellian
Ael ir-Leinarrh NPCd by Louise
Major James Darson
Marine Commanding Officer