Star Trek: Starbase 777 - cos′-office

The COS' office has clearly seen better days - bloody, trashed, there were even dents in the walls, as if something - or someone - was thrown into them. There was a darts board on the wall, now bent in, a cracked photograph near the overturned table, and a battered computer somewhat nearby. No one was inside.

Aoife walked in rifle raised, once she was satisfied the room was clear she picked up the photograph and inspected it.

The background of the photo seemed to be some sort of garden or a park, judging by the greenery; that was obviously not Earth flora. Perhaps Romulus?.. Two Romulans were staring right back at Aoife. There was a tall man, back straight, posture soldier-like... yet his mouth was curled in a sheepish half-smile, making him seem much less intimidating that way. His right arm was thrown around a much shorter woman, face similar to his, who was openly grinning. Her posture was slightly hunched under the weight of the hug, yet she was leaning into him comfortably. In her arms was a rather sizeable book, with a schematic depiction of a Warbird on it, and while Aoife couldn't understand all the Rihannsu on it, there were a couple of words that she could make out - "learning", "flight". On the photograph itself was a short writing - "Little bird has learned to fly. Karrim and Jaeih." (edited)

5

Aoife's eyes went to the man first, judging by his size he must be the one who left the bootprint in the armoury. In some way the tall romulan reminded Aoife of herself, his posture and what looked like a forced smile all screamed that he was a soldier, one who had definitely been through some stuff. The woman on the other hand, was in many ways his opposite, shorter, not wearing a sheepish forced smile of a soldier who didn't know how to carry themselves when away from the field. Was she his lover? Or perhaps a sibling? Or perhaps the man's daughter? Judging by the similarities in their faces. Aoife then looked at the book, she didn't understand all the words but with the words learning, flight and a picture of a warbird she deduced that she had to be a helmswoman. "Karrim and Jaeih." Aoife said out loud when she got the writing at the bottom of the picture. She didn't know why she said the names out loud, it just happened in some way, Aoife's mind was trying to make her remember the names of the pair they could be useful later, hopefully if they were alive.

Jamis, who had stayed quiet for the majority of the mission thus far in sheer awe of the ship and it's infestation, entered the office next, joining Aoife at the picture frame. He too inspected it. "Little bird has learned to fly..." He repeated the inscription. "Father and daughter photo? Makes sense given the male's proud smirk. Plus the phrase 'little bird' sounds like a private nickname..."

"That's not a smirk lieutenant, that's the face of a soldier who doesn't know how to carry themselves with people who aren't also soldiers." Aoife corrected, politely. It took one to know one so someone who hadn't been in the same boat might not recognise the expression. "But I agree it has to be a nickname. If I could guess I'd say the COS's daughter is aboard and he went looking for her, otherwise I'd expect him to be down here. But uh, we should get a look at his computer console while we're here." Aoife gently placed the photo back down, this time face up it was clearly important and it didn't deserve to be facedown in a pool of broken glass. After that she went over to the computer console to see if she could get it working.

"Agreed. I'll help in anyway; Romulan tech is tricky." Jamis moved to the computer console too. They tried to recall anything from Siren's days of working with Romulan technology back when she occasionally worked on their ships as a guest crew member. First though, they recalled a time when Humble tried to teach a group of Romulans how to cook Human food in a cultural exchange visit. The arguments they had on certain techniques were still funny to them, even now aboard something as dangerous as this ship.

It was laggy as all hell, but somehow, it worked - eventually it turned on. The first thing they could see, were the numerous encrypted files, most of them corrupted either from the attack or on purpose. There were also COS' logs...

Aoife pulled up the most recent log entry and began to play it.

The voice belonged to a man, strong Rihannsu accent seeping through the translated speech. His tone was low, intense, and his heavy breathing was audible through the message - as well as shots and pained shouts and moans, somewhere in the background. "They got onto the ship before we ---- -- -- -- -, we couldn't outrun then, we tried. They won't find Jaeih, I made sure of that.... - -- -- - -- - -nd will hope that someone finds the ship and saves her. If this is my last log - so be it. Everyone who stayed... knew that this was a risk. I just hoped that... nevermind. I am going. I have a duty to perform - the rest of these sick fucks and their little toy will be dragged to hell with me. To anyone who might hear this - know that we fought. Know that our own Empire treats us like lab rats. I -- --- -- -----------" End log.

1

"I guess we should find Jaeih then. Maybe the other logs will tell us more." Aoife said thinking out loud. She began playing the next log entry.

Meanwhile, Jamis was taking a look at the other files, encrypted, unencrypted and corrupted alike, to see what else they could dig up. He still shuddered at the sound of the final log. "I hate to say it, but if Karrim is mentioning the Empire, then it's likely that this ship could be over a decade old. Jaeih may have been hidden, but she might not be alive either..."

"The empire never truly died, there's always been remnants of the Tal Shiar and the Imperial government floating around, I have a feeling Jaeih is somewhere onboard, he must have been trying to protect her from the borg, some kind of fatherly instinct. I don't think he would have killed her." Aoife was thinking out loud while she waited for the next log to load. "Although, if you wanted to protect someone from the borg playing dead might not be a bad idea. The Borg won't waste time assimilating someone with no life signs, and we know there's lots of ways to mask a life sign...."

"So if we keep scanning the ship for signs of different masked signals, we may eventually find her." Jamis concluded with Aoife's aloud thoughts. Others too, if Jaeih was able to replicate it to protect survivors. If they fought for their freedom against whatever it was they were doing onboard, it's likely they would try to save as many of their own as possible."

This one sounded solemn, but at least there was no intense background noise. "I and Juler have ensured that our crew has been sent away. They're safe. Now there are only five of us left, counting my sister, she... she refused to go." There was a long pause. "If we survive this, I will make sure to reconcile with our father. That's a promise. As for now, I have to go help Sindari out in the medbay." End log.

1

"Whatever their plan was the medbay must be important. I say we download the contents of the console for intel to crack later and see if team one found out anything up there. What do you think?" She looked to Jamis to see what his opinion was?

Ahh, so not Father and Daughter. Brother and Sister. Jamis could relate. He was raised with seven other siblings, and had a different bond with each of them. It was hard to let go of such a bond, no matter the race. Presently, he refocused on Aoife and her question. "Do it, but I'm going to see if can open any of these encrypted files that haven't been corrupted by the Borg-tech. They may have vital information we'll need sooner rather than later. Especially if this is remnant Tal Shiar ship."

"Alright, this download might take a minute so you can get cracking." Aoife placed her tricorder on the desk and began to download as much of the console's database as possible, on top of the logs there was probably some actionable intelligence on free state operations, it was an opportunity too good to pass up. Maybe she could even get a map of the ship as she was downloading, that would make things a lot easier. "I'm gonna play the third most recent log while the download runs in the background, can't hurt to watch it rather than just waiting for the download to finish." Aoife pulled up the third most recent log to see if it would play while the download did it's thing.

[Comms] "Eventide to away team two, what is your status? Is everything alright?"

"This is O'Rielly, we're in the chef of security's office at the moment, there's been some kind of bloodbath down here lots of bodies all from stabbings. We found a few logs, from what we're gathered the warbird was running with a skeleton crew and were attacked by the Borg. The chief of security seemed to be protecting another crew member who we believe is his sister. That's all the information we have at present, we're downloading the contents of the COS's console for intel to crack when we get back to 777." Aoife gave Gylea a status update even though they haven't found out much yet.

[Comms] "That sounds worrying. Please proceed with your search and let me know if you have new information, thank you."

"Acknowledged sir. O'Rielly out." Aoife ended the comm line.

Suddenly the team could realize that the ship was... trembling. Like a restless twitch of someone, awakening from a long slumber. The computer sparked and died off, as well as the lights.

After his communication with Five, Jamis tapped his communicator too. "Captain, we just received an update from one of the other team members - they found the sister in intensive care. She's alive with a 'masking chip' indicating she's dead so she would avoid assimilation. Unsure of her current status or if the team is willing to revive her at this time, but she may be useful in gathering more intel." Then the lights died. "Oh, and that may be needed as we just lost any ability to copy any data from the ship over."

"Well that's great." Aoife turned the torch on her rifle, she picked up the tricorder to see how much of the database they had downloaded before it shorted. "Must be a short somewhere, let's see how much we got then get off this deck."

There was the deep rumbling, the very familiar ambiance of a ship flying, determined to get away as far as it could. As for the good news - Aoife and Jamis managed to recover approximately a whopping half of the data before the computer decided to die on them.

“Oh shit! The ship’s moving!” Hal said, very newly panicked again. Hal had definitely also been here helping and making contributions to things and recovering data. But what would happen if she never returned- who would take her cat? It was all she could do to not cry.

Jamis did the sae as Aoife in switching on his rifle's torch as a light source, staying close to the computer anyway even if they were off. Then, just t be sure, they checked their settings again. "What was that?" They asked as the ship began to move. Jamis' gut dropped; they recognised this movement. The ship was going into Warp! "No. No way we're going into Warp. Who's flying the ship?!?"

Aoife felt the warbird lurch into warp, she didn't feel noticeably more worried then before. She noticed both Hal and Jamis seemed to be freaking out. The first order of business was to calm the two down or they wouldn't get anywhere. "I need you both to breathe, we're gonna take this one problem at a time. First things first were gonna find out the status of the other teams and regroup, alright." Aoife spoke calmly and clearly she didn't want the others to get even more freaked. Aoife closed her tricorder once she figured out they had about half the database.

[Comms] "Everyone alright in there? We don't know what's going on."

“Right. Regroup, then haul ass to the command deck to see what’s going on. If we’re going into warp it’s obvious something’s happening there.” She said, starting to snap her fingers again to calm down. She was definitely not expecting to be chillin on a ship that was actively taking her away from her home, cat, friends, and beloved microscope.

"Alright let's get up to the med bay, we're not gonna find anything else down here." Aoife said, ready to head back into the corridors and towards the lifts. (edited)

Jamis followed behind Aoife, trying not to look as panicked as he was. This was not the way he thought things would go on this mission, not at all. He knew Away missions were always at risk of being dangerous, Borg missions ten-fold, but evidentially that was naivete on his end. To that end, he made a note to think through his initial thoughts from now on.