Star Trek: Starbase 777

As usual burning the candle at both ends Aoife sat in her desk in the intel hub, it was a nice desk which she claimed the second she got there. And since it was more or less always covered in coffee cups no one seemed to want to take it away from her. A stack of PADDs and even more coffee surrounded the officer as she worked, extra busy after the calamity on Mol'rihian.

Vara sat at her station with a hum, juggling a few knives in her chair as she waited for a reply from one of her contacts in Romulan space. She was a perfect juggler somehow, with them not even close to getting loose.

Havra was nearly dropped her coffee as they returned back to the room. At the sight of Vara juggling knifes all remaining tiredness fled their body at once. "Don't do that!" They flinched slightly at how much they sounded like they were talking to their child. "I don't care how good you are at this. It's unsettling. Something could always spook you... You could damage something. You could hurt yourself or someone else..."

Aoife perked up from the PADD she was looking at when Havra spoke. "You'll have to replace the desk if you damage it you know." Aoife asked with a hint of sarcasm. Annoyed more that her train of thought was disrupted then Vara spinning knives.

Vara sighed. “Fineeee, just bored.” She said as she caught all three knives in one hand perfectly. “I dated a Vulcan clown once, they taught me how to do that.”

Vovvi was chipping away at her current workload, previously choosing to protect her peace and entirely tune out the rest of the room for today. There were things to be done. Well... Until she spied what the hell Vara was up to out of the corner of her eye. "You're not supposed to have those on your person, anyhow. Especially not while you're in uniform."

She nodded. “Well I’ll go put them back in my quarters when work is done, I got these off those uh, earth mobster guys, whatever they call themselves, 4th or 5th heist.”

"You can leave them on the shelf above your station so I can keep an eye on them. Don't bring a weapon that isn't Starfleet-issued in here again." Back to work. Beep boop beep boop.

“ Finnnne.” She said, putting them on the shelf.

Vara saw the yellow alert pop up. “What’s that about?”

They had let out a sigh after the knifes were put to the side and taken a seat at their desk, but the relative peace was not meant to last. As the yellow alert started their head snapped back up. "I have no idea, Ensign ."

"We need to secure the Senators." Aoife said as she stood, producing the phaser she kept in her locked desk drawer. "They're the only high value targets here that warrant an insertion by special forces."

They were not going to think about where Laina was, they had to keep functioning. "What do you propose we do about it, Commander? The corridors to the quarters seem to be compromised, the turbo lifts probably are as well. If we try to make our way to them we will likely just draw more attention to them. As it is at least they are no more likely to be found than anyone else..." Havra made their way to the weapons locker in the intelligence hub, where they picked up a phaser before returning to their console. "We should make certain they can get no intelligence from here that they do not already have... if it come to the worst..."

They began doing their best to make any information that might be accessible from the intelligence hub less so. Nothing Havra couldn't reverse if they had the time, but they were aiming to make it difficult both to figure out what anything meant as well as what bits and pieces might be important.

Hey, have you considered changing your lightbulbs? Your lights are flickering.

3

Vovvi scowled at the lights like they'd personally offended her. They had. "Storm, maybe?.." she offered.

Havra exhaled through their nose, if the situation had been any less tense they might found the Commander's comment amusing. "I wish..." If they had had more time they would have been able to a better job, but it would have to do. They stood up, took a deep breath and gipped the phaser they had gotten earlier tightly, before looking over to the others to check what they were doing.

"Power systems being messed with?" Aoife said as she looked at the lights flickering in their small office. "That was an intruder alert so we should assume engineering is compromised if the power systems are having issues." Aoife said as she moved to a console and began tapping away. "We should purge the computer cores here, they should be backed up at headquarters already."

Suddenly, during one of the longer flickers, a gentle whoosh could be heard. A smoke grenade. It cheekily rolled in, bumped itself off of some table leg, and began to exhume plume after plume of thick fog...

"Smoke! Cover!" Aoife yelled as she dove for whatever cover she could in the cramped office. "Computer! Begin data purge! Authorisation O'Rielly Delta, Four, Omega one!"

There was also movement. Someone was now in there..

Vara grabbed her knives and ducked behind cover, phaser in hand. “Now I’m glad I got some knives.”

Not daring to say anything and doing their very best to be as quiet as possible overall, Havra moved into a position that wouldn't hinder their moment if or rather when they had to quickly react to something. The phaser was in their hands still, even if they could feel them shaking slightly. They raised it in the direction of the movement. It wasn't like they actually expected to stand a chance, but they would be damned if they did not at least try.

Vovvi dove for cover as well, grateful Aoife was quick to purge the data. "Fvadt—" she hissed under her breath, trying to get a look at just what the hell they were dealing with, sleeve covering her mouth.

Havra could feel something solid behind her. A solid, warm wall.

Said wall then proceeded to unceremoniously grab at the Romulan's forearms just above their elbows, trying to gain control over the phaser. "Don't be dumb now," there was an almost sing-songy quality to his mocking tut...

Vara gasped as she saw the large fellow grab at their colleague, and had all three knives in her dominant hand. She tossed one towards his shoulders, trying to help Havra in the struggle. “Off her bastard!”

Havra flinched violently at being touched. They weren't entirely certain if what they did next was an action born out of helplessness, frustration and rage or if it was part of the flinch, but they whipped their head back and connected with something hard and painful. Maybe it was at least painful for him as well (or not). "Khoi-udt." Brute force had never been something they had excelled at. This mattered little when they weren't surrounded by other vulcanoids, but in this situation their relative lack of strength rendered their continued struggling useless.

He grunted out a half-amused "nohtho" as he took a slight step backwards, just in time for the cry from somewhere to his left. Unsure of what it would entail due to all of the smoke, he just turned and held Havra in front of himself like a decently sized, convenient meat shield.

4

Too caught up in struggling they did not realise immediately why he was turning them around. Then a knife hit them in the shoulder. Havra was almost as tall as the man behind them and while they were quite a bit narrower they served their purpose as shield well. The pain registered only a few moments after the actual impact and accomplished what their attacker hadn't yet, it made them drop their weapon.

Well, fuck that didn’t go well. She decided to focus on phaser for now, putting her knives on her belt as she aimed at the man. “Drop her, and maybe I’ll lower the stun just a bit for you.”

Seeing as Vara had decided to talk Aoife tried to sneak around behind your tall romulan holding Havra. She stayed low trying to not get spotted in a stealthy movement that would make Solid Snake proud.

3

Rhean was having quite an eventful day - well, specifically his head was. The agent was feeling the effects of hot water, and shards, and now a blunt hit from Havra... Nevertheless he persisted, driven by a horrible concoction of inner strength and misguided loyalty. Havra could feel a slap of something just under her shoulder, and then-- nothing. Because within the next few blinks, the Intel officer would find herself in a dark, crowded brig. "I dropped her, satisfied?" came a cruel joke of a response, before he proceeded to lower himself and move to the left. Aoife was left unnoticed - thankfully. (edited)

The room was swimming, flickering in and out of focus from where Vovvi lay near silent, her breath sharp, shallow, but somehow still soft. Her knees felt weak — even in the haze of smoke, with the way the figure spoke, with the slightest glimmer of a uniform, it was easy to make assumptions. She hadn't prayed in a long time, but now, she was praying for her children. For her little girl, for her beloved nephew. She couldn't be a coward. Trembling hands went for her phaser, peering around cover just long enough to try to get off a stun shot.

1

Vara noticed that her teammate was sneaking up on the bastard, so it was time to keep him talking. “You know! I am. What kind of rates do you Tal Shiar fellas pay?” She asked, doing her best smirk. “I have access to a lot of files I would be willing to give you, if you let me get off the station without issue. I’m only here to avoid jail time, so I ain’t got a reason to be loyal to these fascists.”

5

There was an annoyed sort of huff in reply to Vara, the Andorian's voice a buzz in his head that, were he not on a time limit, Rhean would have a lot of fun and satisfaction squashing. But he had a Commander to answer to. "There's something more valuable than anything you could give us," he moved through the haze and smoke and turned his head to what he suspected to be a glint of the phaser, and just like that... his eyes landed on Vovvi's figure. Like shark attracted to the smell of blood, he took in her fear, and gave her a toothy smile, his hand moving to his side, where his disruptor was hanging...

Vara moved quickly seeing him turn towards Vovvi, rushing through the smoke and trying to hop on his back. Normally she would run, she was a bad person after all, but Vovvi was a good person, and maybe she didn’t deserve a bad fate like she did. “Get away from her!”

As soon as his hand moved, Vovvi was quick to aim, trying, trying to keep steady hands— (she was back in the fog, the side of her stomach stinging with the jagged edge of a razor-sharp blade as it was pulled out of her,) But Vara, Vara, fucking Vara— she drove her up the wall on the best of days, made her consider quitting at worst, and her leaping to stagger the agent was enough to send Vovvi's shot at the wall instead of anywhere that mattered. She let out a frustrated groan, breaking cover. (any second now she'd open her eyes and find herself alone, alone on Virinat, cradling a crying child in her arms and begging them through tears of her own to just go to sleep,) "Ensign, you're going to get yourself killed, damn it—!!" Another attempt at firing, an attempt at slipping past the agent so she wouldn't be cornered. (edited)

Suddenly there are people all around him, and he's the center of this storm. There's a look of what can only be described as awe in the Tal Shiar agent's dark eyes as he looked at Vovvi, scared to half-death, throwing herself in front of the blue one like it all didn't matter. It's almost cruel, how easy it becomes to grab her by the hair, slap a tag on her like a price on a bag, and order a transport for himself. But only almost.

“Got you bastard-“ She saw Vovvi get got, and the other fella transport out with her before falling on her face. “Ow…..” She said as she landed on the floor. “Damn it.” She said before getting up. “What’s the plan?”

Into the tubes.