A rose by any other name...

Posted on Wed Nov 2nd, 2011 @ 7:56am by Commander Oralia Zeferino & Lieutenant James Holbridge

Mission: In Our Time of Need
Location: Varies

After Jim and Paddy had landed, Holbridge went to his quarters. Breezing past his wife, he made a beeline for his secure study. Once there, he accessed his messages and pulled up the last one from Dave Lorenz. His buddy had been uncharacteristically angry and the message hadn't made sense. Right before the end, Lorenz lowered his voice and said "Caesar Box" then cut the channel abruptly.

Holbridge quietly activated a program he and David had developed after their rescue form Cardassian Penal Camp 114, a Caesar Box. The numeric code "7-4" meant that the translation matrix was 15 characters long and 4 deep. Identification of the words was easy as they were all nonsense words, seemingly garbled by static. After a program cleaned up the static clear text letters appeared on the screen. Inputting the letters, Jim stared at the new message. "COUP ON PLANET SPEAKER IN DANGER POSSIBLE ASSASSIN."

Jim reviewed Lorenz's report on his harassment by the Divitian Nuth. It seemed to occur after the discovery of the waste storage facilities, then David resorts to a rare message device BEFORE he is drummed out of the Corps. Did he know something about the Divitians that he wasn't supposed to know? Or had he fallen on his sword to keep others safe from scrutiny?

Jim stood up and downloaded the messages to an isolinear chip, then quickly left his office.

ZEFERINO'S LOCATION

"Anything on Kh'ali, Gilroy?" Zeferino asked as she set her coffee mug on her desk. While waiting for his answer, she looked around her recently-scrubbed clean office and - more importantly - sniffed the air.

"Old fashioned chlorine, and an attempt to cover it with... mint, I think, Commander," Gilroy told her what he smelled before answering her: "Nothing on Kh'ali. We have teams going over the escape pods, but still nothing yet."

Oralia sighed and took her seat just as Lieutenant Holbridge came in. "Lieutenant, what brings you around?", she tried to sound welcoming and mostly succeeded.

"You look pretty busy so I won't bug you with a lot of trivial bullshit," Jim said in his usual blunt way. "I ran a sweep in a scout ship with Paddy Smith and one of those Divitian ships got downright aggressive in their maneuvers. Than after I returned from that run, I remembered a message that Captain Lorenz said me from Divitia before he was sacked. I won't bore you with all the technical jargon but suffice to say the captain alerted me to some political unrest on Divitia as well as some shenanigans here on the base." Jim showed Oralia the decoded message.

"Shenanigans?" Oz barely kept a smile off her face; her idea of 'shenanigans' had been tainted by a piece of ancient Earth pop culture: South Park. Reading the message on the PADD, she nodded and commented, "This is consistent with our information, Lieutenant. Any idea how Lorenz came to have this information?"

"Beats me, commander," Jim replied testily, glancing at the woman. "All I know is that Captain Lorenz doesn't holler unless he's hurt. Plus, he took the time to encode the information in a secure communications protocol known only to a few people. On a scale of one to ten I would give it a twenty for reliability and accuracy."

"I'm not questioning the reliability of the information," Oz said, quickly exchanging a glance with Gilroy. "Just... if we knew where he got the information... it might be useful. Without knowing where this idea came from though...," she paused and shrugged.

Gilroy picked up where she left off: "Why do you trust this information, Lieutenant Holbridge?" It wasn't quite the question Oz wanted answered, but... sometimes their teamwork was slightly off-step.

"Because I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for that man, sir!" Holbridge said, calming his own rising temper. "He and I escaped a prison camp together, an operation planned out over the course of several months! I know when he says something that is relevant to a situation you can rely on it."

Again, Oz and Gilroy shared a glance. "As I said, this is consistent with information Security is already working with. We know there's a plot involving the Speaker afoot; there's a murderer about; and everything possible to find Commander Kh'ali is being done, as you know, I'm certain, because some of your people are aiding in that search." Concern that all they were going to find of the diplomat was a corpse rose up for a moment and she paused. This time Gilroy didn't fill in for her and, after moving a PADD to center stage in front of her, she continued, "Also, I have word from Ops and Tactical that there was an apparent misunderstanding with your scout ship and the Divitians. It seems that, for whatever reason, they were either unable to pick up your transmissions or unable to send transmissions to the scout. They were moving in to assist in the search, as they have been doing their own scans upon the Speaker's orders and with our consent. Their movements were not intended as 'downright aggressive', merely as offering aid." Aid, which, at this point, Oz was starting to think might be pointless. But at least it demonstrated that the Divitians were interested in having a working relationship with the Federation, not a strained or tense one.

Jim looked at Zeferino like she was carrying a plague. If she believes that line of shit, we have a serious problem with security! he thought to himself, hoping Gilroy wasn't a telepath. "As I said before, commander, Captain Lorenz doesn't holler unless he's hurt. However, I can see that you have the situation well in hand. Sorry to have bothered you. Please excuse me?"

"Of course, Lieutenant, you're dismissed," Zeferino nodded. Soon as he was out the door, she looked at Gilroy.

He raised a brow. "I'm surprised you didn't lay into him."

"He's a department head," she shrugged. "He's also one angry man, no need to be Betazoid to read that."

"Agreed, though, in this neck of the woods, we might be best using 'Mari' as our telepathic designator," he grinned, trying to make light of the situation.

Oz did him one better and surprised him. Again, she shrugged a shoulder and said, "A rose by any other name..., right? However, his anger is a little contagious. Feel like sparring a bit?"

Just as she was about to stand, her comm sounded: "Commander Zeferino, we've found her." The voice gave a deck and section, directions that sent Oz and Gilroy out of her office at a run.

________________________
Lieutenant Commander Oralia Zeferino
Lieutenant Gilroy
Security

Lieutenant James Holbridge
Strat.Ops.