Late Night Visit...Yet Another One

Posted on Mon Apr 27th, 2015 @ 2:22am by Admiral Ricky Wegener & Admiral Lucius Hawke

Mission: Breaking New Ground
Location: Deck 10 - Admiral Hawke’s Quarters
Timeline: Current

* * * Admiral Hawke’s Quarters * * *

The conversation with Commander Winter had settled a long-standing question for Lucius but left him too wound up to go back to sleep. As he wandered the station, the time crossed over into midnight - and the day he loved for Li’s sake and dreaded for the sake of his lost son. Li had made it customary to stay close on this particular day but bigger things called her away, and considering who they were looking for, Lucius understood. He had his own ghosts, but they were not a real and present danger as was the one who haunted Li.

Finally, he made his way home. He wandered his rooms for a bit, then put through a call to Rick, asking him to come. He needed to know what Lucius had discovered.

* * *

Sitting on Lucius’ sofa, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Rick huffed. “It’s early, or late, depending on your point of view,” he said with a chuckle. “So, what’s up?”

Lucius pulled out a bottle of cognac and two glasses and returned to sit across from Rick. As he poured, he cleared his throat.

“I had the dream again and this time it played all the way through. I saw the whole thing.” He passed a glass to Rick. “I know who was there with me.”

“You saw them? Like, one hundred percent sure, you saw them?”

“I did.” Lucius sipped from his glass, then rested his arms on his knees. “It was Commander Winter. After I woke up, I went to see her and she verified it. That is where the story of now begins I think.”

“Ehlana was there? Wait--then that probably means…”

Lucius gave Rick a wry smile. “You’re not the only one I woke up tonight. But you can likely guess. She was there to make sure….” he paused and drained his glass. “To make sure the launch happened. If it had not, TA was certain the link to Section 31 would never have been found by us and we’d all be in a hell of a mess right now.”

Rick slowly sat back, hit hard by what this meant. “Lucius,” he started softly, “I’m so sorry,” he said earnestly. “What happened was horrible, no doubt, worse that you were right there to have to witness. And sad that the explosion was the only way to tie Section 31 into things.” He stared at the glass in his hand and finally downed the entire thing. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Lucius refilled the glasses and nodded. “She says it was the first time she hated her job. She tried to talk them into the alternate course but they stood fast. I can’t blame her, Rick. It haunts her as much as it does me. But it also worries me. On our behalf and hers. I think this sudden investigation may be related.”

“To the explosion?” He cocked his head, trying to think. “I don’t follow.”

“To Section 31. Revenge, Rick. We dealt them a massive blow a year ago. Whoever is behind this investigation has access to things that aren’t common knowledge. The Temporal Affairs connection certainly wasn’t made public. But the timing, with it being the anniversary of Nahi’s death, is interesting don’t you think?”

“That is true, and a bit suspicious. Do you think the admirals are in bed with 31 or just puppets responding to their strings being pulled?”

“I don’t know yet,” Lucius answered. “But whoever is behind this has access that can only mean Command. Who else would have the ability or access to fake believable evidence?”

“Well, Command, definitely, but you and I both know how Section 31 operates,” Rick said, his anger rising at the thought of being a pawn of S31 and their idiotic games. “They could be generating all kinds of malarkey and bringing it to the attention of someone at Command. But I wouldn’t put it past them to have one of our illustrious leaders in their pocket.”

“Exactly.” Lucius sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Which means this is all far more serious than I thought.” He stopped as the door chime sounded and looked to Rick. “Odd.”

“It’s getting crowded in here, man,” Rick said. “Don’t they know people are usually asleep at this hour?”

“No shit.” Lucius rose and opened the door to find Admiral Cruzado there. The man was the last one Lucius expected to see but stood aside to let him in. “Come on in Tomas.”

“Thank you, I’m sorry, I know it’s late.” Cruzado stepped in and seeing Rick smiled. “Am I interrupting?”

“Considering the time, I would have to say it would be an interruption for anyone,” Rick grumbled. He then added, “But who could say no to either of you?” It was a piss poor attempt at trying to make light of his prior statement. And at this point, he thought it close to time to take the gloves off anyway.

“Have a seat. Care for a drink?” Lucius motioned Tomas to a chair. When the man nodded, he stopped at the bar for another glass. Finally he sat and poured another round. “So what can I do for you?”

Tomas glanced to Rick and nodded once more. “The time is an inconvenience but I chose it specifically as I didn’t want to get too deep into explaining where I was going. If you get my drift?”

“Why don’t you just tell us where you’re going with this,” Rick said, waving his glass, “so we can just get down to brass tacks. Since we all know that you two weren’t just ‘in the neighborhood’ and wanted to visit, I’d like to know your true purpose here.”

Yep, the gloves were quickly coming off and Rick was starting to see pink, quickly moving towards red.

“You’re right, Rick. Which is why I wanted to see you two alone. I intended to have Lucius call you but you’ve saved me the trouble.” Tomas swirled his glass for a moment. “I wanted to talk to you without Eria here. Neither of us is happy about this but I think you deserve a heads-up outside formal proceedings or questions. We’ve worked together far too long for such blindsiding techniques.”

“Well, that’s at least something,” Lucius responded. “So, let’s hear it.” He studied Tomas a moment and his eyes narrowed. “I was right.”

Tomas looked up in surprise. “I should have known you’d figure that out. It does seem to come from your investigation into Section 31 in my opinion. Two weeks ago, evidence was delivered, anonymously of course, indicating that there were some irregularities in the work you two did on several...shall we say….sensitive matters for Intel.” Tomas looked suddenly uncomfortable.

Rick was about to crush the tumbler in this hands. “Tomas, I’ve never had anything but respect for you, but if you keep pussy-footing about and don’t just come clean, I’m going to drag the information out of you in a way that you know I can do, and do well. So quit stalling and spill your guts before they’re spilled for you!” He was standing now, his imposing six foot, five inch frame towering over the man. “This is not something that you play around with, man. Out with it.”

“They think you were collaborating with the Cardassians, passing intel to them. Important secrets in exchange for ‘convenient’ captures of disposable Cardassian agents.” He looked from Lucius to Rick. “I’ve seen the evidence and at first look it is quite convincing. It seems to indicate that you enabled the discovery of some of our operatives along the DMZ as well as the..shall we say...loss of key personnel on Bajor.”

Lucius was silent but his expression had turned stony. He considered all this for a moment, then finally spoke. “Don’t you find it odd that this is just now coming out all this time after the war?”

“I do, but we are bound to look into it. You understand what sort of damage this could do to relations in the Federation? With Bajor? With everyone? Especially the two of you? They’d be calling for your blood and Bajor would likely leave the Federation.”

“Tomas,” Rick said, finally, after listening to the story, “you and I know that this is complete, fabricated horseshit. I have been in Starfleet over two hundred years and not once has my integrity or loyalty to Starfleet, or the Federation, been called into question, nor has Lucius’. And I do not associate with anyone lacking the same integrity or loyalty, as you well know.”

“There’s more.” Tomas paused to take a drink. “The next day, a threat came in that stated we had one month to bring you two in or they would make this public. We’re racing against time here to figure out who so we can stop this. That’s my own conclusion, by the way. Eria knows nothing of my thoughts on this yet but she will have to be told.”

“And you really think this is related to our investigation of Nahi’s death?” Lucius asked.

“I do. I think it’s revenge pure and simple. It’s the only thing that makes sense. As Rick said, you are both beyond reproach and always have been. But the evidence was well-done and there are a few that are beginning to wonder if it might not be true.” Tomas let out a slow breath and shook his head.

“I would see this evidence,” Rick said. “If we are being charged, it is our right to see the evidence laid against us so that we may form a defense. It would also allow us to look into things a bit further so that we may find the villainous pox-marked miscreant that fabricated this whole thing.”

“That is my intention, yes.” Tomas shifted in his seat. “Tomorrow we are scheduled to sit down with you, with Lt. Benson present, for a reading of the charges and evidence. You will be informed at that time of the progress of the investigation and what’s being done. But I wanted you two to know now, in case there’s anything you want to look into? Something that may jog your memories and produce something useful?”

“In other words, go through our records from this last mess and see who we seriously pissed off that didn't get caught in SFC’s net and now wants to strike back,” Lucius grumbled.

Tomas finally smiled. “Exactly.”

Now that the cards had been shown, finally, Rick almost felt the urge to apologize to Tomas for snapping at him--well, threatening, really. But as much as he wanted to, the best he could manage was a nod and, “Well, thank you for the advanced warning.”

“Of course. And let’s keep this between us, shall we? Eria has her doubts but she would skin me alive if she knew I was here.” Tomas paused to look at Rick. “There is one more thing. I may be wrong but I suspect that part of this is to see you moved on to other pastures, shall we say? And leaving a vacant chair in the most sought-after spot in the universe?”

Rick grunted. “Only two ways to get me out of my chair here, Tomas--I retire, or I die.” He smirked. “I’d like to see anyone try the latter.”

“Let’s hope not on that one.” He set his glass on the table and stood. “Well gentlemen, seems like you have enough to keep you busy for a while. We will convene in Lucius’ office at 1100 hours.” Tomas paused to look back at them from the door. “Do try and get a little sleep. I’ll let myself out.”

The doors opened and he was gone. The room remained silent for a few beats until Lucius finally gave a low whistle.

“Well, that was interesting. I was right but I didn’t think it was that deep.”

“It’s always been said that the higher you rise, the more people are at your back who want to take your place,” Rick said, finally drinking what was left in his glass. “It’s almost guaranteed that whoever is behind this has their own lackey ready to take our spots if they manage to take us down, which is highly unlikely, by the way.”

“I don’t doubt it. Now we just need to figure out who.” Lucius stretched his legs out and propped his feet on the coffee table. “At least we know where to start. In the morning.”

Rick nodded. “In the morning sounds like a plan.” He set the empty glass on the bar and clapped a hand on Lucius’ shoulder. “We’ll figure this out,” he said. “We have more contacts combined than most of Starfleet ever dreamt of having. Someone somewhere will be able to find out what we need to find these fuckers.”

“We will. goodnight Rick. I’ll make some calls before we meet tomorrow.” He watched as Rick departed, then rose and finally went off to bed himself.

*********************
Admiral Lucius Hawke
Target #1

Admiral Ricky Wegener
Daring Anyone to Make Him a Target

Admiral Tomas Cruzado
A Little Advance Warning