Star Trek: Starbase 777

Shane stood in ops looking more than anything a bit bored. He liked to grab a shift in ops whenever he could to get out of the CTO's office espiceally while he had been acting CTO. This particular shift had nothing much going on, and so Shane stood at a tactical console running diagnostics on the weapons and targeting sensors. Just because he could.

Haru was also at station ops, humming softly to himself and doing a little dance by bouncing with his legs. He was humming a popular Klingon pop song that was top of the charts on Spacify or whatever music streaming platform was called.

Kya yawned as she stood at a different console, running a few tests on their weapons systems, it was late for her shift.

The Vulcan entered the room discreetly looking around at the current activity. Not much was happening, the shift was progressing uneventfully for most of the divisions. Since his very recent promotion, he had taken the task of personally checking on each one of them. He was aware not many would know him yet and this was probably the best way to show himself present and win his fellow senior officers, and other officers, trust. It was also good for him to know the teams. Seeing the current ACTO on duty, he moved towards him. “Lt. Cdr. Lawson.” He acknowledged with a polite nod.

The cap'n was here! He'd been talking to a nervous ensign who'd made a small mistake and was convinced the whole station was going to blow up. It was their first day and they had the jitters. He understood. As he saw his new XO pass by, he gave them a nod and then resumed talking to whoever else he was talking to about whatever task of minor importance they were working on. A very average day. Nothing bad happening at all. The best kind of day!

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Sideon walked into station ops looking a little distracted as he scanned over a document on his PADD, tongue sticking out awkwardly as he was deep in thought and concentration. It wasnt even that complicated of a read, he was just tired and worried he would miss something important on it.

Shane looked up to Tarsek as his new big boss approached. "Commander V'hgai, how's the new post treating you so far?" Shane asked as he looked up from the diagnostic console glad to get a break from boredom as he chatted to the XO. (edited)

”The progress has been adequate.” Tarsek answered regarding his adaptation towards his new duties. “I trust the same can be said for your division’s current shift?”

Vara'l slipped quietly into Station ops as he commenced his own shift. Heading to a console he started his usual thing of ensuring everything remained normal and as expected for this shift at the TAC console. His usual routine, with respect for the diagnostic he noted the ACTO had elected to run, from the look of the diagnostic console he'd passed. Varied ever so slightly periodically, especially with the directives he'd received from the previous XO. Directives that had caused him to keep a eye out for more than he'd used to do. Used to do prior to the reports of oddities in relation to Tactical and indications it had happened to be more wide spread. Not that there was much that one happened to be able to do differently with a initial routine of checks conducted on a console followed by a request for a report or well.. a update from the ACTO, when he happened to get around to that. He was after all, a CTO, not a counter-intelligence operative or some other form of investigator trained in other things. "Jolan tru all, Commander V'hgai, sir." The Romulan stated by way of greeting as he started to do all this.

Shane gave a nod to Vara'l when he approached the group. "Yes not too much going on at the moment." Shane said replying to Tarsek. Oh Shane how wrong you were.

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Vara'l's head snapped up at the sound from the captain's com badge. "Captain,I highly recommend passing out side arms to all personnel present in ops and calling intruder alert." Vara'l stated then.

She nodded. “And setting up defensive positions.”

Vara'l nodded once. "Targets are likely ops,engineering the armoury and any individuals they're targeting." He paused abruptly then stated. "The senators."

He'd received a call from Commander Lhai'Ivek telling him that there was intruder alert in the quarters corridors, and told her he'd send security down. "Lieutenant Commander T'Shai was with them? Romulan ranks? Well, seems like something's going on after all. We'll do all of that, and someone get in touch with the CoS, will you?"

"We should warm up the shields and weapons and start scanning for cloaked ships." Shane suggested, intruders had to beam in from somewhere nearby after all.

She moved over to where they kept the phasers and started hanging them out to everyone, keeping one on her hip. “Remember, these are some of the most dangerous people in the quadrant. Don’t play nice with them.”

"Lieutenant commander Pok, pass out side arms, cover turbolift doors and Jeffries tube entrances." Vara'l stated then before he nodded to Lieutenant commander Lawson. "I agree with the ACTO." He then frowned and stated. "..T'Shai was CTO,elements." And lapsed into a moments silence. "..I shes been an agent for quite some time." He looked sharply to Lawson. "..What's the console saying?" Something happened to feel..wrong about this. But what.

”Inside job is a specialty of theirs. And if I may add, their intentions might not be to get the senators out alive.” After the attempt on all their lives, why not just finish the job. He nodded in agreement to Lt. Cdr. Pok. “We cannot take any chances.”

"I have a feelin' this was a sneakier method than that, but no harm scanning anyway," he said to Shane. "You're at the console, so do you mind?"

Also overhearing the comm badge, Sideon would look up from his document and in the concerned distraction almost bashed his hip into the corner of a desk. He quickly closes up the PADD and moves to stand ready, reporting for direction by the other officers here. Being handed a phaser by the Lt. Cdr, he attached it to his own belt and kept it ready. "Understood Commander."

Shane pulled up the diagnostics on the console and displayed them to the group.

"..If I had a agent at that level I'd have taken steps to ensure everything seemed fine.." Vara'l mumbled then as he attempted to work out why something seemed particularly wrong about everything. "Computer, Intruder alert."

WEAPONS > Scheduled for maintenance SHIELDS > Scheduled for maintenance FIGHTER BAYS > Locked for maintenance SENSORS > Reduced Capacity for maintenance USS EVENTIDE > Locked down for maintenance Maintenance Scheduled for: 999+ years All affected systems will be offline for the duration. (edited)

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She peaked over Shane’s shoulder. “I’m going to pile drive her when I get the chance.”

999+ years? Damn, he'd better get back into cryo again. "Okay, I need people working on reversing all that shit now. The IT guys in ops - there are failsafes for this kind of thing, get 'em to try 'em."

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"Well, fuck me." Shane said looking at the console. "We need to lock down ops and engineering and lock out the main computer while we've still got computer control."

Arriving in the station operation area of the Jeffries tubes Evoras paused and reached for her comm badge again. She had no idea what the situation here was, but she could hardly stay in the tubes either.

Vara'l covered the tube with his hand phaser then as he asked. "Do we have internal force field control?"

The ACOS had leaned over Shane’s shoulder and grimaced, “This is shaping up to be a particularly bad day…” Maxson stood and began to consider what in the world they were going to do.

After a brief conversation on comms, he turned to everyone else. "Commander Lhai'Ivek is about to come through the tubes. Keep your phasers aimed there in case the intruder follows her in. Don't shoot her, though, obviously."

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She nodded and moved to take cover by a pillar, aiming for the tube. “Copy.”

So much for the “all divisions seemed to be having an uneventful shift” Tarsek thought, obviously unaware of the situation on engineering. He prepared himself along with the others.

"Aye Sir." He takes point much like others, aiming for the tube.

"Okay, that's probably enough people pointing phasers at 'er now." Also, at this point, he'd pressed the funky little yellow alert button on his fancy little captain's chair, which was the least dramatic way to describe setting off an alarm.

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The entrance to Jeffries tubes was opened. Evoras was still wearing her uniform from her shift and had somehow not spilled any of her tea. As soon as she was properly in the room she turned to close the Jeffries tubes again, before jugged the remaining tea. There was no need to waste it, but she needed her hands free as soon as possible.

"Standard procedure for an installation being boarded is to secure ops and engineering. We need to keep control of both if we want to keep this station." Shane said, rattling off the standard operating procedure to boarding and counter boarding. "Here and main engineering will be their next stops if they want control of this station. We also need to raise command and tell them we've been boarded, as galactic law stands this is basically a declaration of war by the free state." Shane said as he grabbed a phaser for himself, before looking at an ops console to see if they still had control over secondary systems like internal sensors, transporters and forcefields.

“They could be a rogue faction or unaligned with the boarder free state.” She reminded. “It’s unlikely, but let’s not treat it as if we are instantly in a quadrant wide war. Somebody should also send a message to command.”

"I'm just gonna do some things myself." He sent a message to command, then replied to comms.

Vara'l tapped his own combadge then. "Advise we prioritize identifying secondary systems we have access to,locking out main computer and securing turbolift control." The CTO stated then before he then added. "Slow them down and give personnel the time to arm themselves and senatorial security more time and such.."

There was a thud, echoing through the tube.

He took precautionary aim once more. (edited)

She heard the thud. “Phasers up.” She said quietly.

He didn't turn comms off, but muffled it with his hand. "They're already in Engineering. We need a team down there now. tr'Hara?" He was the tactical guy, after all.

After a quick look around the room to orientate herself, Evoras walked over to the phasers and picked one up. She aimed it at the tube entrance and positioned herself in a corner of the room next to the tube entrance so she would be in the blind spot for anyone coming through it.

As soon as Mo said they had gotten to engineering Shane ran to an open console and began locking down everything in engineering and rerouting it's functions to Ops. They had to run the whole station from here now. "Respectfully sir taking Engineering by force is tactically unsound. We need to hold here with as much force and manpower as possible, I'm re-routing engineerings command functions here." Shane said as he speedily tapped on consoles authorising the transfer of engineering functions to Ops. (edited)

In a similar way to what Shane was trying to do, critical station function was being routed to Engineering at the same time.

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"Tactically unsound? Elaborate. We have plenty of tac and sec officers to spare to send down while we still have comms up." They wouldn't be able to give orders across the station once those were down, and he had a feeling the intruders would go after comms eventually.

Shane feverishly tried to outpace the intruders and keep command functions in ops. "I need help here! They're rerouting systems to engineering!"

"Computer, erect forcefields at all Jeffries tubes up to station ops and restrict control of fields to Senior staff voice authorisation from Station ops only." The CTO proceeded to say then before he then added. "Is there..any way we can strip T'Shai of her personal access's and cut her combadge from comms?" He inquired then before he ordered. "Computer,intruders in engineering, lock out all engineering command functions and lock command functions and related instructions to station ops and voice command only, voice authorisation Vara'l-Beta-One-One." Hoped the computer would respond to that as he then tapped his combadge to carry out the captain's orders.

The door slid open with a quiet hiss, though there was no one on the other side. at first. Until a gloved hand peered around just enough to launch a stun grenade into the room, blinking and flashing as it activated.

"Engineering is a fortress sir, it's designed equally for engineering and for defence if exactly this scenarios happe--" Shane was mid sentence when the piercing flash of the grenade hit him face first before he could react.

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"Blocking off T'Shai's commbadge and Senior Officer perms now. I can probably trace down the non-starfleet comms signals and try jamming those so they cant coordinate fur-." Jena said as she tapped away at her console, that is before she was interrupted by a damned stun grenade

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Before any sort of imput was computed by his mind, and with no way to act against it, Tarsek felt the effects of the stun, falling to the ground.

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Maxson collapsed alongside Jena, slumped over the console he was seated at like a sack of bricks.

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As he was one of the officers taking point looking directly at the damn tube, he saw the grenade get tossed and so manage to at LEAST avert his eyes. That is of course going to nothing to prevent the deafening bang that comes along side the flash, and with his ears ringing extremely loud, it would have been hard to hear the orders and directions given.

"No need to close the door on us, Commander," a voice responded through the abrupt silence as the squad made their way in. She approached the Tactical console, and the senior officer in the room gestured for someone else to do the same to Security (and shoving Maxson off like he was a sack of potatoes, sorry man).

"Restrain them," the senior officer said, keeping his weapon pointed at the door. The group spread out, tying up the officers helplessly on the ground.

A blind and deafened Maxson her the ground with a, “Unf-!” his head swimming from the sudden change in position of his sensory deprived body.

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He covered his eyes instinctually, but it was too late - he was left as disoriented and nauseous and tied up as everyone else. "Eurgh..."

Already in the ground, Jena let out an "Ow-!" as a brick wall collapsed on her (very sorry, man). Having an artificial eye, would have recovered very slightly quickly compared to her other eye. Although it wasn't enough to throw off the stunning effect of the stun grenade, she still tried to do something if she could. Mainly attempt to transmit a command scramble security codes to most critical areas of the station through her cybernetic eye, though that may be futile given the stunned state.

While in the process of being stunned, bound, lift up, and without any further consideration hauled around. Tarsek, if it was possible that he had recovered enough to do just that before the intruders were upon him, pressed with one of his hands his comm badge in a way only one other person in the entire universe would know what it meant. GM, he wishes to use the power of friendship.

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With the lockdown on systems unfortunately successfully reverted, the senior officer took one last sweep of the room. "Get the Vulcan. Strip them of their combadge," he said, nodding towards Tarsek. "Black-haired human, too." Too bad, Tarsek. You were tied up and you're getting yoinked. No time for the power of friendship. Shane too, yoink!

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Sideon started to shit bricks when they said black haired human, only to see them go for Shane and not him. He felt a small selfish moment of relief, but that did not last long enough to bring any comfort.

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"Ugh..." Jena groaned after a little while. Tied up. "Sitrep.... not good... fuck..."

A weary Maxson similarly started to rouse, laid flat on the ground. Staring up at the ceiling, still blanketed in yellow light, his mind rapidly caught up to the situation. He shifted, sitting up with his arms still tied behind his back, “ACOS present…” (edited)

"Someone paged in through comms." Jena said as she heard Garcia's message. " Maybe they aren't tied up in Engineering... hold on...Sorry, Maxon" Jena said as she rolled and inchwormed herself over to Maxson, trying to press her commbadge against Maxson so she could make a reply

Maxson turned to have his hands facing toward Jena and tapped at the badge when given the opportunity, “You’re clear.” (edited)

"Alright. That should do it." Jena said as she rolled a bit away from Maxson. "Help should be on the way soon. Engineering also got hit hard."

Tied up, livid, and very impatient, Sideon inches his way to a corner of a desk where he starts to rub the middle of his restraints against its edge. Either he will break them, someone comes to help thanks to the coms of his collegues... ...or the heat death of the universe stops his efforts.

Vara'l slowly started to return to consciousness a little bit after the others had managed to. As he did so, he tested his limbs. Tested them and discovered restraints. Restraints he frowned at before he'd then slowly proceeded to slip his hands toward his chest then out as he'd slipped to one side. With that done, he'd proceeded to sharply bring his hands forward then pulled his arms back and apart as he attempted to snap the wrist restraints. "..Everyone okay?" He'd asked as he did this.

"I'll live" Jena answered Vara'l as she rolled over to do the same, raising her hands up and pulling her wrists apart as much as she could as she sharply pulled her hands towards her chest to snap the ziptie restraint. "Station security's compromised. I suggest after getting ourselves out of here, we try to move out and check in on the others." The betazoid suggested as she pulled out a pocket knife from her pocket before she began to cut the restraits from the others, starting with Maxson. "Starting with Command Hub and Engineering, who knows what type of data they could've gotten their hands into."

Having snapped his restraints, Vara'l looked about and grimaced. "It's a snatch and grab, data's probably secondary to ensuring we're combat in-effective and can't stop them." The Romulan mused then before he observed. "I do agree with you though, we need to secure command hub and engineering as well as check in on the senators." He paused then. "That is, if they're still alive." Vara'l looked up then and proceeded to say. "Computer, initiate red alert." And waited to see how the computer responded.

While not as strong as the others, she had the great ability of tactical training. She pressed herself against a console and then cut her restraints using the edge of the console. “Does anyone else need a hand?”

Haru heard peope shuffling around and talking, he was shaken and not stirred, but alright for the most part. "Yeah.. i'm.. alright. Uhh..." Haru tugged on the restraints and surprisingly they broke pretty easily. Although he was on the weaker end for his species, he still could snap the restraints with his Vulcanoid strength. "Oh, what a time to be Romulan."

How strange. The screen of the CTO's PADD suddenly lit up. All but a single message was in there, the word "scorpion", sent from his son.

Vara'ls stomach turned to ice and he stood up, looked to his PADD and inhaled sharply. "I've just received a panic alarm notification from Telim." Looked around as his body tensed like a animal ready to start to run. "I can work on the move, permission to go retrieve my son, sir?" He asked as he looked to the Captain. Looked to them and then stated. "If he's sent it, it means something's happened to Elohae." Swallowed as he added. "...Elohae's his babysitter, he's ex-republic navy, if something's happened to him, it is very serious." (edited)

With only a moment's hesitation, the red alert klaxons began to blare..

He'd only just recovered, having spent the past few minutes blinking the sight back into his eyes and the ringing out of his ears. "Permission granted. Can someone help me outta this damn ziptie?"

Kya moved over. “Got you cap.” She said before helping him out of it.

The Security Chief nodded in agreement to what Vara'l had said. "The senators must probably be why they're here... Computer, any signs of the Senators still in the station?" Jena asked the computer, one could never be too sure. Though she was not that confident at the potential result.

"Thanks." He rubbed his wrists, then his eyes. They were watering a little, so he wiped them on his sleeves, too. He had no idea how everyone else was recovering from this so quickly. Maybe he was getting old... When was his fiftieth birthday? "How much of our systems are compromised by this point?"

Kya walked over to one of the consoles and began to look over it. “T’Shai needs to be dealt with, and we’ll have to clean our systems once we get control back online.”

Jena gave a quick nod to the captain as she tapped away at a security console to get a status report of how much damage and snooping they have done during their raid. Aside from T'Shai acting as an inside agent, there must be other security gaps that could've gone wrong to allow this to happen.

There was a ringing in her ears that was only receding slowly and spots in her vision like she had looked at the sun. The ziptie wasn't too much of an issue, but she took a few moments to just stand and blink. She must have fallen awkwardly, because her knee hurt. "Is there anything I can do to help here?"

"I'm not sure. For now, all I know we can depend on is the air we breathe and our own two feet. We need to get security officers to protect as many of the senators as possible. Save who we can, for now." Short pause. "I know that sounds like I've already written off those captured, but I haven't. Trust me." (edited)

Without another word Vara'l raced out of the station ops, he only paused to look around to see if any hand phasers had been left discarded. If one had, he snatched it up. Then off he raced, only one thought on his mind now, Telim. Well. Two thoughts. Telim and that if whoever had harmed Elohae and threatened his son remained on the station, how that threat might be..neutralized if encountered. Worry and anger and pain all things that mixed together in a medlay of emotions that roared about the core of control he'd pieced back together since the Borg cube. Roared about it and propelled his steps as he raced away.

Freeing himself after a little work between a desk and the zipties, he widened his shoulders and rolled them in a stretch. Answering Vara'l as he did the same stretch but with his neck. "Yes...yes sir." Just about telling the truth as he did so. The red alert blares, and with it another spike in adrenaline. No matter how prepared one can be, its always a test in the moment. He makes his way to a console to pull up some station wide statistics, including a heatmap of traffic. He gets on comms with a few of the local security stations in some of the more populated sectors to help route potential bottlenecks in foot fall, his work in traffic control for ships has some transferable skills at least.

After a conversation over comms, he said, "Eventide's Shiar-free again thanks to Engineering - particularly Garcia, and our sensors found where the prisoners are, so no time to finish yer grubs - we've gotta send the ship after 'em. Any volunteers?" Undoubtedly, some would want to give chase. (Also, the grubs thing was a Ferengi phrase that basically meant 'no time for dilly-dallying).

“I’d love to, but someone has to stand behind to help guard if they come back around. Good hunting.” She said with a hum.

Finishing up his own task, he turned and headed over to the captain. "Lt. Ezra reporting for immediate deployment, it would be a privilege to pilot the Eventide once more, and even more so given the circumstances, sir." His formal tone a mask for the strong emotions he felt, but at least he is locked in despite them! (edited)

Zhi'rev reported as well, and had definitely been around since red alert had been called, having abandoned his mac and cheese. "I am not sure how much help I can be, but I am here for the journey."

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"Of course. Ezra, you're the pilot. tr'Lareth, every little helps. Is tr'Lareth a common surname, by the way?" Or was this guy related to a friend of his?

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"I... recently found out I was related to someone on this station, if that is what you are referring to." He responded with a slight chuckle, even in such a dark time. He needed to keep his spirits up... right?

"Aye, Sir. Shall make my way there and prepare departure." He took off from station-ops to the drydock.

"If I am not needed here, I can also head to the ship." Evoras raised an eyebrow in question, but she was relatively certain there was no acute need for her on the station.

Zhi'rev walked quickly to the Eventide, planning on helping wherever he could.

After nearly 2 days of lockdown, interrogations, and some small-scale arrests, a warning about an approaching ship suddenly broke the silence of the consoles...

The time that followed the lockdown order was a difficult one to navigate, but what else of a better coping mechanism was dolphin diving into work. Head first. Off a cliff. More so base jumping? Either way Sideon was FOCUSED. His eyes were narrowed and his posture was atrocious, his tongue sticking out in intense avoidance at any mistake or missed info. Thats when the alarm went off causing the poor fucker to bite his tongue in quite the startle. "Thuck!" He muffled the explicative with his hands as the pain was yet another thing he had to ignore as he jumped up to the get a look on what was going on. "What are we dealing with now?!"

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As soon as Sideon paid attention to the screen, he would see a Warbird, mid-decloak. With signs of battle evident on her wings and flank, the vessel still stubbornly trudged on, holding itself at a respectable distance from the station, yet very obviously facing it head-on.

Vara'l rushed to the tactical console upon having glimpsed that. "That's a warbird." He stated, stating the obvious as he answered and mentally kicked himself for stating the thing that happened to be obvious. "But who does it belong to." He checked the console to see if it'd powered up weapons or anything, that and to see if it happened to match the friendly one.

Still talking a tiny bit funny as he made sure he didn't nibble off a piece of his tongue, he pulled up the same information in front of him to look it over. "Not sure commander, but it seems whoever it is has had just as much of an eventful time as us as of late. Seems damaged...should we attempt a hail? With the lockdown i fear it getting to close."

The conversation with the diplomats was now (presumably) over, so the Cap'n was back in here again! "Hail them. We need to warn 'em to stay away either way. Maybe whatever they have to say to us will be compelling enough for us to make them an exception."

"Aye sir." Sideon shall take control over the comm frequencies as its not like this station has thrusters for him stress out engineering with, also frees up some hands elsewhere should this go south. "Hailing them now."

The young cadet had been working day in and out alongside with Zhi’rev and the rest of the diplomatic team, working to piece together everything they had to tell the senators and make sure relations wouldn’t deteriorate. For the moment, she was running down a list of various potential leads and diplomatic connections that their suspects could have at station ops when the vessel arrived. She gave the viewscreen a very worried look, not looking forward to another potential incursion. However… “I-It could be Whisper,” She said softly to Sideon, having been seated beside the helmsman while they both worked.

"Monitoring scans." He reported then as he watched for any sign that weapons were charged or charging. Ready if something appeared that needed to be reacted too. All that had happened, all that anger at the fate of his friend that boiled within him, pushed him hard to do his job right. He needed to do things right. Needed to be ready if this vessel turned out to be something other than it seemed. "Even if it is, there's a risk that they could have been boarded or some such." Vara'l had softly observed as he watched his console.

The ship stayed in place, almost as if letting the starbase run it's scans on it. The weapons were not charging, and the Republic regalia, it's appearance and name - RRW Arre, meaning grace - matching the Jhu'ael class that came to aid a few days ago. "Starbase 777, it's quite nice to see you still in one piece," came the familiar scratchy voice, soon followed by the appearance of the Reman. This time, she was sitting on the bridge by the side, surrounded by her colleagues - chosen as the voice of conversations due to familiarity, despite Whisper's... lack of people skills. Although, maybe that's why there were so many listeners around her this time?.. "Albeit on high alert, judging by the scans. Can't blame you, though."

"Can't blame us for asking if you're compromised, then, neither? Not to be rude to someone I've just met, though not heard about for the first time," Meph said, looking behind her to see if there were any suspicious characters on the call. Probably not, since even if there were they wouldn't let themselves be on camera, but no harm in checking.

A solid wall of masking uniform made it a hard task. Like trying to discern a single zebra out of a herd. Whisper, in the meantime, sighed something tired: "No. No, we can't," something glinted in her red eyes as she lifted her eyebrow ridge: "How do you want us to prove that fact, though?"

He sighed. It wasn't easy to discern beyond the scans they were already doing. "Well, first I'd like to know what you're doin' here. Do you want in? It's good to see you in one piece too, by the way."

Yali sat and fidgeted with her hands, her mouth in a tight little knot as she thought. There must be something that they could ask Whisper for to prove it…

"Personally I think we can work distantly," she shrugged, unbothered. The less eye-to-eye she had to suffer through, the better. "We may have failed to apprehend the mogai before it left, but we've managed to track it after all. Information that would be of great interest for you all, I imagine. If you're safe to share it with, of course." "Whisp..." another Reman side-eyed her, voice masculine-leaning - the only palpable difference between him and Whisper. Siblings? Meanwhile, the hacker glared right back at him: "What? For all I know it's a beehive of Tal Shiar officers in there!"

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He laughed. "Big fuckin' beehive. I assure you I ain't compromised, though I suppose it's also pretty hard for me to prove that, so unless anyone can think of some very good questions we can ask one another to prove we ain't Shiar, we might just have to go on trust."

"Remote work certainly reduces the risk of giving that trust our side, sir. We could use as much intel as we can get our mitts on..." As much as it concerned him to trust anyone at a time like this, the information could provide a difference of lives here. Who knows what state the abducted were even in right now.

Whisper was about to open her mouth to joke about how the captain's status could be argued as a non-sus one purely because of his height that rarely any Vulcanoid shared, but decided against starting a Federation-Republic war on top of the current issues. Instead, it was her brother who piped up: "Well, you've scanned us. I think scanning you and judging for ourselves can only be fair, because any other methods are gonna be more precise but take more time, and time is of the essence if we don't want the Tal Shiar to have an advantage over us. How's that sound?" "Blind trust..." someone commented from the back, albeit thoughtful rather than dismissive or as an objection. "Ceph is right, though."

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He would have laughed at that too! Thick of skin, he was. "Yeah, that sounds entirely fair to me. Scan away. Let us know if you find anything interesting, actually." Maybe their romulan scanners might pick up something that they didn't. Or maybe an outside perspective might bring something new to light. Or maybe nothing. Probably nothing.

"Standby," was the reply, as the communications were cut off. They could see the ship adjust itself a bit, metaphorically staring right into the starbase's soul, before... "You sure have a party on the brig," Whisper commented with a raise of her eyebrow ridges. "You didn't waste time, huh?" Cephalon rolled his eyes: "Anyways. We have failed to apprehend the mogai. However, we've managed to put a tracker on it, as well as send our people after it, with the intention of infiltration." "But, they're not enough to successfully lead out like 20 or something people out of a high-security prison," Whisper stated. "The most they can do is try and make sure that your people survive, and weaken the security measures. Which is why we came back to you."

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"I see. Well, I think we should be able to work together on this just fine. I'll just have to sort out who wants to go on this rescue mission and then take it from there." A plan built around those who attended the rescue would surely have a higher likelihood of success, right?

"Get people who are adequate with a phaser on a stun setting," Whisper responded, scrunkling up her nose as she continued, "and medics. Better be safe than sorry..." "In the meantime, I could send you the data we've acquired?" Cephalon offered, picking up smoothly from where his sister's voice trailed off.

“Y-Yes please,” The cadet piped up from where she was sat, already having lifted up her PADD to prepare. She had been listing and sifting through so many things these past few days, what’s a little more?

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He reached out to Yali for a moment, as if to tell her that he would handle this now that he was here. He needed to show a good example after all. He already felt bad about missing part of the meeting, but now that he was here he was going to pull his weight. And so, he had grabbed his own PADD to gather information if needed.

Yali glanced back at Zhi’rev, and noticeably her fingers curled a bit tighter around her PADD. However, the cadet did realize she had been burning the candle at both ends while Zhi’rev handled other things. She gave a little nod, and her grip on the PADD loosened. She wordlessly accepted the help.

He smiled reassuring-ly at her. It wasn't a knock against her, not in the slightest. He wanted to make sure she was resting as well.

1

"Please and thank you," he replied. Very polite, reflecting Cephalon. "In the meantime, I'm going to assemble some people." And so he will, imminently, over comms, so watch out!