It Takes An Orchestra To Play A Symphony
Posted on Fri Jun 28th, 2024 @ 9:02pm by Commander Arianna Frost & Lieutenant Calderon Jarsdel & Ferrofax & Captain Akiva ben-Avram & Taskmaster
Edited on on Fri Jun 28th, 2024 @ 9:02pm
1,983 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
S1E6: Where Skies End
Location: Overwatch Station
Timeline: MD 5
After they'd both performed what tracing they could, via witness statements and sensor logs, Arianna and Akiva were still no closer to locating the wayward Khaiel dh'Ikatsi, as they'd expected. So, after collating and doctoring the report enough to warrant Taskmaster's attention, Arianna had sent off a request for a meetup on a Level 4 situation, under Project Castermer's purview.
Level 4 described a situation and/or individual suspected of willingly or unwillingly joining the ranks of the Black Nagus. With Khaiel's profile and method of disappearance and the fact that he took his personally developed AI with him was concerning with or without the rest of the subtext. Arianna therefore would have requested help either way, except in this case, she had to play the part of the dutiful, remorseful, obedient underling who wanted back into the good graces of her master.
It sickened Ari to have to play this game, but she was a professional who had a double stake in this game (personal and professional), and she would do whatever it took to stick a landing with this one. The only way to take Taskmaster down was to do it right and throw the full weight of The Book at him otherwise everyone who'd ever worked with him would be under scrutiny without a chance to prove their loyalty.
The message came back in short order. "CONFIRMED. LIVE DELIVERY INBOUND. NORDO." Short and to the point: he was coming in person and would not respond to further communications.
"Live delivery? Shit! Another butler? Fuck!" Thoughts ran through her head as she typed in a coded message to Cal, who was standing by to assist her in attaining the DNA sample.
"Far from God's Garden I Bring The Gift Of Roses." The code meant it was go time, but that he wasn't coming alone. Cal was to attach a signal masker to himself so that he couldn't be detected on scans in her vicinity, watch for psionic scanning and try to get a read on Taskmaster himself while Ari played her part.
Ari picked up the doctored PADD and headed for the landing bay. She took deep breaths as she walked down, and repeated the plan in her head over and over and over.
"Ferrofax, it's time. You ready?" She asked as she neared the bay.
The AI was to assist them as well, to try and get as much of a scan off of Taskmaster before the security scrubbers kicked in.
"Ready is a relative term. We've stacked the deck as much as we can, short of mildly irradiating this area to better highlight photonic computing shadows. As it stands now every passive sensor I have direct access to is tasked with monitoring this space. Any more fidelity and I'll be able to tell both the direction and spin of a quantum particle." Ferrofax muttered. "Besides, its not often I get to match cybernetic whits with a fellow war-forged AI."
Nuances of thought and the general atmosphere of espionage took Cal back to older, happier times back before the head-fuck when he'd been able to make a difference with his own innate skills. To be back, being useful and included was absolutely a big deal, but the sense of chill calm that returned to him was old-school spy and it made him feel more comfortable than he wanted to admit out loud. The situation itself was complex and intricate in its own way, but those were always more interesting to play a part in. Out here, stealthy and relevant, was exactly where he wanted to be.
Tucked into a hiding place, masked from active and passive scans by both tech and his own psionic talents, Cal waited.
There was the signal. Ari was understandably experiencing some.. trepidation? Yes. Not fear, but a need to control the uncontrollable. A desire to emerge triumphant. There was a lot on the line, but they'd prepped well enough and their experience and outlook was solid. Silent confidence enrobed the telepath as he waited, read the message, and reconfirmed his stance. A-okay.
Arianna nodded and took a deep breath. "Game of the lifetime." She closed her eyes and willed all other thoughts away save from the role she needed to play. Another deep breath felt the tension and the worry ease. She summoned thought patterns and behaviors, a whole persona she would project if she were really feeling this way. Except she was not and this particular pretense was harder than most. She blinked away the 'intrustive' thoughts to help herself maintain the dutiful, remorseful persona.
Another deep breath and she straightened out, tucked her uniform down and headed over to the door. Another deep breath and she stepped into the landing bay.
The runabout had docked and deactivated its engines for only seconds before a squad of Marines took up covering angles with weapons at the ready. The flight crew of the runabout stepped out, submitted to clearance checks and identity scans, and proceeded to relinquish custody of the cargo on manifest. To the trained eye, the Taskmaster did not appear among them. There was a Bajoran male, a Bolian male, Caitian male, and a human female.
Arianna blinked, eyes darting between the four. "Where the..." she muttered under breath. Then it clicked. Of course. She sighed for the benefit of the onlookers and took out one of the two PADDs she had on her. Ari tapped a few commands and set the scan on the four crewmembers that just disembarked. Of course he'd be under cover, especially if there was classified cargo involved.
She actively stopped all thought in her mind from betraying the game, choosing to focus on the task at hand, and on the urgency of said 'task': Locating the wayward Romulan hybrid Khaiel d'Hikatsi and finding out whether he had been turned by the Black Nagus or just AWOL.
The PADD displayed the results from the cargo bay's scanners. There was a discrepancy in the Bolian's bioscan. Chief Umlaut Vokale. His pH balance was out of whack for the Bolian standard. Either Chief Vokale was extremely sick and performing a Herculean effort to stay on his feet or...
Arianna read out the data on her PADD. The name almost amused her. Had she not known what to look for, she would have missed both clues. His scan and the horribly on the nose alias. She headed over to the group resolutely.
"You in charge of your group?" Frost said to the Bolian, playing into the game to initiate contact.
"Cut the shit, Frost." The Bolian didn't turn to look at her, just handed off the PADD manifest for the cargo. "Make it quick. What do you got?"
Ari sighed, taking the PADD, as casually as she could without touching too much of it, and handed him the PADD with the 'false' report. "I have a lost lamb that requires our special kind of attention. Contains the location of disappearance, leads we were able to trace so far and our suspicions. Our special friends are on top of the list, considering the recent ingress attempts. As I'm here on my punishment detail, my reach only goes so far. I've not given up the cause though."
"Other assets are in play to reacquire," the Bolian said flatly. "I'll see that they get this post haste." He narrowed his eyes at Ari in suspicion. "Was this it?"
"Just...." Ari forced herself to really believe the next words coming out of her mouth, "I'm sorry for mocking you when we last met and I hate not being part of the team. I understand that I have to work on getting back to it. I intend to do that, being sat behind a desk is driving me nuts." She said with a sigh.
This was partly true. She hated being Administrator and missed being an Intelligence officer, a field officer, a handler even, like crazy. The only good part was Akiva, if she was honest with herself. Quickly though that thought was squashed away.
"It was already done before you stepped on your proverbial dick," the Bolian said. "Your impertinence only added pleasure to executing the order." He kept his cover but the tic of a smirk cracked his face. "If your lead proves useful, there might be something for you. Otherwise remain embedded and continue as you are. Should this agency become compromised, then your value as an asset will rise considerably."
Ari nodded, again forcing herself to believe her penitence. "Thank you, will do." She said as she tapped on the PADD and said. "This all looks in order, Mister Vokal. You may offload in section 2B." Frost deflected back to pretense, forcing her mind not to wonder to all of the possibilities before he and the team were gone.
"I'm watching you." For a moment, the Bolian disguise was gone. The cold, soulless eyes of the Taskmaster shined through the disguise. "Do not make more work for me." With the way he put emphasis on "work," it was obvious he did not mean the constructive kind. But then he nodded, his disguise back in place. "Yes, ma'am." He returned the PADD to the rest of the crew before reentering the shuttle.
Arianna nodded, understanding the underlying threat, the reminder that the leash, or rather noose, around her neck was still there and that he wasn't afraid to use it. She had to force herself even harder now to keep her thoughts and reactions in check. It was almost over.
She kept the pretense of tapping on the cargo manifest PADD for a few more moments as the others offloaded the cargo before they too returned to the shuttle.
As the shuttle made its way off the deck and into space, she waited for Ferrofax's signal that the shuttle had gone to warp and that no bugs had been left by the off-loaded cargo. The last thing they wanted was to start talking and realized that they had been bugged.
“All hands announcement," Ferrofax's voice rang out across the station. "This has been a silent test of the facility's self-destruct protocol. All manual and electronic safeties have been restored, and magnetic fusion containment has been released back to manual control. Thank you for your time and consideration.”
Ari let out a breath of relief and felt the tense coil that had held her body and soul in a godly constraint release. As adrenaline left her for a moment she found herself in need of support so she extended her hand and braced against the stack of crates they had been standing at.
She took a deep breath and then exhaled, and then another, and then another as she allowed herself to feel and process. Now that she knew just how far he was willing to go, Arianna identified one of the myriad of feelings as fear.
Another thought though kept nagging at her louder and louder. He seemed completely unsurprised by the revelation about d'Hikatsi. Almost as if he was expecting her to give him this report.
"He knew...." Ari muttered as she felt her heartbeat increase. "The fucker knows about Khaiel. He knows..."
She could feel herself spiraling into panic and anxiety so she forced herself to think. "Ferrofax prepare Snowflake," she said.
Snowflake was a code word for the Secret Lab they conducted their investigation from.
Then she tapped her commbadge. "Frost to Jarsdel, I need to move on to phase two, can you investigate this live cargo and report to me at Snowflake? I'll have more by then myself."
As she got acknowledgement from Cal, Arianna had to muster her control back up again so as to not madly dash towards the lab to start comparing DNA and hopefully identifying Taskmaster finally.
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