Star Trek: Starbase 777

It was a standard office, one that seemed a bit out of place down here in a bunker. A filing cabinet, a desk, etcetera…

Liza immediately went up to her desk and removed a small flask of whiskey from the drawer, “Jesus fucking Christ…” She muttered, before nodding over to a console, “Shutdown for the lockdown’s over there.”

Ehlai nodded and walked over to the console that was indicated. He hoped that he would be able to understand it.

Vara'l entered and moved to cover the door they'd come through as others saw to the lockdown. If the APU's resumed moving, he wanted to be ready. "You see to that and I'll keep the door covered."

"Understood, sir," Ehlai said as he went back to trying to work the console to the best of his ability.

Paco was just inbetween Vara'l and Ehlai as he scanned the room and occassionally observed Liza for a moment before just standing by. He would move over towards where Ehlai was in case he needed additional help, but most of his attention would be to the rest of the room since Vara'l kept guard of the door.

Ehlai could figure out the console pretty easily, the code having been written in standard.

Paco, one moment Liza is drinking some of her whiskey, and the next, she’s looking through her filing cabinet. After a few seconds of leaning over it, the woman spilled some of the alcohol onto the files, “God fucking damnit…” She muttered. After Paco looked away once more, there was a sudden rush of air. Liza had taken a lighter out of her pocket and lit her files ablaze, using her whiskey as fuel!

Ehlai was glad that he could figure out the console easily enough, though the smell of burning did catch him off guard. He... knew he could not stop his own duty, there were other officers in the room, officers who weren't just a cadet.

Vara'l turned as he smoothly switched his phaser rifle to stun and levelled his phaser at them. "Lieutenant, if you can get that fire out, try." He stated first before he growled. "Drop em then hands up."

"Oh shit!" Paco yelled out as he immediately rushed over to the filing cabinet before being told to do so and tried to extinguish the fire, whether that be by finding a convenient fire extinguisher, or if thats not there, smothering the stuff with his uniform jacket.

Liza dropped her flask of whiskey and the lighter onto the ground, holding her hands aloft with a smirk, “Good fuckin’ luck, Starfleet. Even before the fire, that whiskey smudged the hell outta those letters. And you won’t find any digital backups, lil’ guy!” She shouted at Ehlai over the sound of Paco smothering the fire, “We kept things all analog for occasions just like this!”

2

After being finished smothering the flames of the file cabinet Liza set on fire, Paco's first instinct was to open a different filing cabinet that wasn't set on fire and rifle through those files. If there were any that is.

There was nothing salvageable, just burnt paper, some whiskey soaked, and the rest in ashes…

Liza smirked down at Paco, “Was a good try, fella.”

"I believe you and Intelligence will be having a conversation." The Romulan stated simply then as he continued to hold the lady at Phaser point. "Hands behind your head, interlace your fingers, take two steps back from the whiskey and lighter." "Any hostile action and you will be stunned." He tapped his combadge one handed then.

He knew he needed to try, even if it was impossible. He needed to try, like his uncle would have. And so. He started to go through the console as quickly as he could.

Liza rested her hands behind her head before she let out a little laugh, “I ain’t a Federation citizen, you legally can’t hold me for very long, let alone arrest me, unless you’re looking for a real diplomatic debacle!” (edited)

Ehlai, with your speed, the lockdown shutoff was found, and with a few presses of the keypad, the emergency lights were replaced by dull, sterile white lights, and some tension left the facility.

"Damn. we could probably digitally restore the remnants of what remains when we get back to the station. Restoration of documents has come a long way." Paco thought out loud as he casually walked up to Liza's desk and opened its drawers to find any files if there were any in there, and then to just be annoying and mess up her office in a professional manner that won't upset Vara'l in vase there wasn't anything.

Nothing of note on the APUs.

Not inclined to air anything that happened to be mission critical, Vara'l just smiled a bit. She probably happened to be right but, with what they'd already discovered Starfleet at least happened to have something from this. That, he reckoned, would be Intelligence's business. Not his. As would what happened to need to be done in this situation. Though as he mentally reviewed the facts of this, he reckoned she was right. He was just beyond disinclined to disabuse her of the notion. Though saying that, he considered things then smiled. "Unfortunately, you're probably right." Vara'l stated then before he stated. "I think we'll be getting out of your hair shortly." Vara'l looked to the other then. "If you can get anything to facilitate an attempt, try." The Romulan mused then before, as he looked at the documents, he mused. "Though I'm not of the opinion it'll come to much."

"Damn. time to be petty." Paco knocked a pencil holder off the desk. "That's about it."

When Vara’l turned his attention away from the woman, Liza reached down onto the floor and picked up her flask, taking another nip of whiskey. She wasn’t going to light anything else on fire, just take a few sips of the good stuff.

Timi swaggered in, his rifle back to being slung over his shoulder. He assumed the others would subdue any stray APU before they could get in here. He raised an eyebrow at Paco swiping at the pencil holder, but didn't comment otherwise, turning to Vara'l instead. "Burnt files?"

3

"Burnt files." Paco signed before he knocked another thing off Liza's desk to be annoying

Vara'l nodded once then and signed smoothly. "She was concealing a lighter." The Romulan confirmed then before he added. "Picked up whiskey when attention was on the lockdown termination and drenched the files on her desk, then-" He gestured to the burnt mess. "-lit the lighter."

“Aw no, not my tchotchkes…” Liza muttered a bit sarcastically as Paco knocked more off her desk.

"Lieutenant, please behave like professional adult Starfleet has trained you to be." Timi was not in the mood to be herding lieutenants behaving like cats. He was an Intelligence operative, not a babysitter. "The APUs were intended to be mining equipment, no?" he asked Liza directly, though he anticipated Vara'l or Paco might need to translate.

Liza glanced down at Timi’s signing and then back up at Timi, “Whut?”

Vara'l translated as needed then. "The APU's were intended to be mining equipment, no?" He asked verbally word for word then.

Paco could probably get away with knocking one more thing off her desk.... nevermind he got caught. He put on his burnt jacket back on in a huff and stood aside to let the senior officers handle things.

Liza shrugged, “That was the idea,” She gave a little placid smile, “Though, suppose there’s some more we could get up to in the Delta Quadrant…wouldn’t know! Shame about that fire that ate up those files…”

He held his tongue, knowing that what he wanted to say would not have been received well. After all, he knew when someone was too far gone to be saved.

2

"Delta Quadrant is your own business, our allies are capable of asking for help if they need it." Like Starfleet had, the last time 777 came into contact with Breld, anyone in the Delta Quadrant would step in if they overstepped. And Timi would just send his superiors a note about watching for sustained Breld activity there. For the Breld, it was largely far from home, and, as evidenced today, dangerous if you didn't know what you were doing. "In any case, it's unlikely the APU stuff will be repeated. The loss of materials, energy, time, and human life has been substantial, and now you don't even have any research results to bring back. Your superiors will not be impressed." Timi wasn't very worried. If anything, weapons development to fight the Federation would at least have been exciting. Like this, they were just the accidental saviours to a bunch of ungrateful idiots messing with stuff they shouldn't have touched.

Ehlai was interested in staying around for the time being -- if only to watch an interrogation, but if he was told to leave, he would.

Should it be required, Vara'l translated anything that needed to be translated from sign language then. Did so before he added in sign to Timi. "Commander, we've been cleared to beam up when ready."

When Vara’l translated Timi’s signing for Liza, there was a little bit of a fall in her expression. It seemed like Timi’s words did hold some weight, though she wasn’t going to say a damn thing. “…shame,” She mumbled, still trying to keep some confidence on her.

"Sure is," Timi agreed, but didn't specify what he meant. "Shall we go?" he asked the officers around him, clearly not very interested at all in anything further going on here. There wasn't really anything physical to bring back, but he'd seen enough for a report at least.

Vara'l relayed that bit intended for Liza verbally and then signed. "Aye, lets." Then looked to the other two officers. "Time to be off."

Ehlai nodded and decided to beam off the bunker and return to Eventide.

Paco would've changed Liza's clocks to the wrong times if he had the time and chance. That's operational sabotage. "Yes, sir." He promptly said with a nod to both Vara'l and Timi. "After you sirs." He was planning to do one more petty act, but decided against it and left with the others. That act would be moving her trash bin outside and flipping it upside down.

2

As soon as the four beamed out to Eventide, Liza took another swig of whiskey and let out a heavy huff, “Fuckin’ Starfleet…” She muttered as she walked toward the exit of the bunker.