An Alliance of Convenience

Posted on Tue Dec 11th, 2018 @ 12:57pm by Captain Benjamin Ingram Dr

Mission: S1E1: Welcome Home, Now Go Away
Location: Station Commander's Office
Timeline: MD1 - 1530 PM

"Sir," Dania greeted as she was finally let in. "I've just finished the interviews with the latest group of our guests. The bajoran, Bahat Riya and one of the Traveller's Med Techs, Harrison."

“So, illuminate me with your keen insight on the situation? I have the Starfleet summary stitched together from the Travellers crash beacon report they received prior to our arrival” Benjamin said from behind his desk. He tapped a PaDD for emphasis. “Let’s see if the former Marine has fabricated parts of her tale. It would make what comes next...easier.”

"They're both telling the truth, from a certain point of view, sir. While Bahat is a lot better at hiding her anger at the Traveller's actions, she's come to understand that they needed the Medics' help, and I believe she may be the key to getting the Acheron colonists to listen to us." Dania said, intertwining her fingers on her lap. "While she didn't directly say it, I don't think she believes that the Traveller shot them down out of the crew's malice, or is at the very least reluctant to believe they would have done so. I think Harrison and company affirmed that. Sending the hapless to help the hopeless was a good move on MacDonald's behalf."

"Or he might be covering his own backside. You can never tell with these Rish, they're all about the singing and dancing right up until they lift the command codes for a ship and make a break for open space. And one in a Fleet uniform...well who knows what sort of nonsense he came up with at the time," Benjie said with about as much concern and interest as he was paying the dust mote he flicked off his desk.

"This Harrison fellow is one of the Traveller's crew huum? Keep him confined for now in whatever passes for guest or transient quarters. I don't want him running around putting the fear of whatever fantasy monster the mad Traveller is chasing. We'll have enough to worry about if we find the other Modules and they're badly damaged, or worse," he said imperiously.

"A simple gag order can do the trick just the same, sir. We don't want to make him think we're the same as the the Traveller crew, or at least those that were involved with Abborax. I can get him to sign a secrets act. If he breaches it, we have full grounds for arrest and detainment." Dania countered.

"If you think that is the appropriate course of action, then I bow to your expertise in these matters," Benjie said. "I want him monitored. The moment he opens his mouth about what's been going on, I want him separated from the general population. Fear is contagious, and by the blue fire we have enough of that around here with the missing Modules."

Dania nodded, "of course, sir. Should also give us a handle on whether he's been influenced or not. As for Bahat, she's in the waiting area. I thought you'd want to speak with her. Being former Fleet and now part of the Colony administration, she might just be the Bridge we need to communicate with them."

"Very astute of you," Ingram said and leaned back in his chair. "I'll invite her in shortly, but do me a favour. Go over her personnel file, the one stored in the main computer. If she left honourably from the Marine Corp she's still applicable under the reactivation clause in the event of an emergency. A useful 'break glass' piece of paperwork. Both lever, and punishment rolled into one if she proves to be less useful than is desired."

Dania nodded, "you'll have the paperwork sent to your docket as soon as I deal with Harrison, sir."

---

Bahat Riya sat in the small waiting area adjacent to Commander Ingram's office. Long practice stopped her from fidgeting, but her mind was racing. She considered it a positive omen that she wasn't currently in restraints, but that was as much as she could count on. Her initial communications contact with Ingram had given her the impression of a man who played fast and loose with protocol. Still, he'd played along with her pretense of politeness as far as she'd been willing to push it. Prophets willing, there was still a way out of this mess that didn't involve her spending her time in Messier 4 in a holding cell. It was all a matter of what each of them had that the other party needed.

She hoped.

“Are you nervous?”

Yeoman Keth Soban sat behind a desk that, when compared to his physicality, looked childlike. Starfleet was designed for an averagely sized humanoid, and the leonine giant was well above it. He poked at his computer terminal with a stylus, which vanished into his hand easily.

“I wouldn’t be nervous,” Keth said earnestly, which seemed to be his default. “Dr Ingram is very accommodating and insightful, and kind too. You’ll see. He’s got the patience of a saint! At least that’s what he tells me every day.”

"You're very loyal to your commander," Bahat observed. She favored him with a warm smile. This was something she could use. "You must spend a lot of time with him, and it's clear that he trusts you implicitly. You must be very good at your job."

Keth didn't blush, couldn't really. But when it became very clear the EPS grid in this section wasn't overloading with its customary rising hum, and it was, in fact, Keth who was purring the effect was the same.

"Oh, I've been with Dr Ingram since my second assignment out of the Academy. We've been all over the Federation, and I like to help where I can, and Dr Ingram says the most help someone can give is to help him. He's very smart," Keth enthused. "And, if I'm honest, I like serving on Starbases. Ships are nice but awfully delicate. And it reminds me of home, all these people crowded into a confined space."

"Yes, it's very cozy, isn't it?" Bahat affirmed. Privately, she wondered what the hulking alien's home life had been like. "You've been very friendly to me since my arrival, Keth. I was wondering if you could tell me: what does Dr. Ingram need help with the most here? If anyone knows, I'm sure it's you."

“Well...huum, let me think about that for a moment,” Keth said, his eyes narrowing in concentration. “Dr Ingram is a very focused man on a particular set of problems. He’s a worlds renowned scientist, always discovering or improving things. So if you are helping him pursue that goal of furthering the sum total knowledge of the universe, than you’re a-okay in his book!”

She pursed her lips to keep a sigh from escaping. "I'm sure we'll do great work together," Bahat said finally. "Thank you, Keth." Not exactly the behind-the-scenes secret scoop that would help her in this meeting.

"You are very-" Keth began to gush before his terminal lit up and he unfolded himself from his chair with alarming speed. "Dr Ingram is ready to see you now!"

The door opened, revealing the glass-fronted office that overlooked Station Command. A powerful roost to watch over lacky's and loom with suitable gusto. Ingram stood from his chair, walked around the table with a smile on his face suitable to charm the rings off Dutchesses fingers.

"Miss Bahat, please come in. Sorry for keeping you, but station business: I'm sure you can sympathise to a point," he said and held out a hand. "Can I get you anything? Keth does a passable tea service if you're interested?"

One of the first lessons that Riya had taught her daughters was that when a host offers you something, it's not to make you more comfortable, it's to make themselves comfortable. It reassures them that they are being a gracious host. That would be a helpful frame of mind to get Ingram in. "We've been on emergency rations for two weeks," she said. "Any food you could offer would go a long way."

Ingram nodded, and returned to his desk, pressing an icon on its smooth black surface.

"I can well imagine the hardships you and your fellow colonists have undergone during your trials up until now," he said and indicated to a pair of comfortable chairs set off to one side. "Once Canopus has successfully reached orbit, I'll see to it that emergency supplies are shipped down to the surface. I'm sure you must have a list of desirable items if they are within my ability to spare they shall be gifted. But as I am sure you must have seen from your apprach to the station, we are not in a position to give as much as we would like. Not yet, anyway."

"Yes, I saw that two thirds of your stations seems to be missing." Bahat settled into the chair that he'd indicated. Not bad. "Rough trip from the Milky Way?"

"No rougher than your own," he said with a thin smile as he too settled into a chair.

"Anything you can do to help the colonists would be appreciated, truly. We didn't bring equipment suited to such a dusty, arid environment, and that was before it was damaged in the crash." Calling what had happened a crash was the most polite term she could bring herself to use. "The colonists are doing our best to set up infrastructure to keep the people still in cryostasis alive until we can wake them up. Energy, food production, water gathering and purification, communications... it's a long list."

"And that brings up the topic of our own supply issue. The lower two-thirds of the station hold the vast amount of the station's infrastructure. Life support generation, power, hydro and aeroponics. Even our fuel harvesting apparatus is all stored there. As it stands we are very well provisioned, but those supplies are intended to finalise the construction of the station," he said carefully.

The door then opened, and Keth walked in with a tray held in one hand. He set it down between the two of them on a table, presenting a sandstone coloured tea urn which he poured out into a pair of cups in the Japanese fashion. Ingram gave a little flick of one finger, instruction enough to leave.

"Besides I don't think a squadron of zero-gee construction mechs would do you much good down the gravity well," Ingram mused. "But the mech's do come equipped with a rather robust fuel cell good for 600 hours of heavy labour. In a lower power setting, each power cell could last 3 months each. As for water...huum. I could spare one of the stations Arrow class Runabouts for a planetary survey. From low altitude, the ventral sensor array could achieve spectacular subsurface results. A little better than dowsing. Thoughts?"

"Fuel cells would be very helpful, thank you, and now that you mention it...." Here was an opportunity to make a difference for her comrades. "I'm not familiar with the Arrow class, but after it completes its scans, perhaps one of the senior engineers could find a way to attach it to our power grid? The Acheron's warp core is offline due to damage. I know that a shuttle won't be able to match an entire barge's output, but considering that we're not going anywhere...." She thought about offering the concession that they could remove all of its offensive weaponry before turning it over, but no reason to plant that particular bug in his ear.

"Huum..." And a raised eyebrow was all that Riya got from Ingram for a moment, as he picked up his teacup and gave the brew and approving sniff. He then settled it back down onto the tray and leaned back into his chair. "I'm sorry, but that really is beyond the bounds of reason."

He held up a hand to paused her rebuttal.

"The Arrow-class Runabout is an advanced piece of engineering and spatial aeronautics, not to mention being Starfleet's premier long-range multi-purpose small craft. A good deal of its systems, including its miniaturised warp drive and fusion bottle, are considered classified. Not to mention the weapon and targetting systems, its sensor suite. Even the life support system comes with trade embargo attached to it for at least another two design rotations. But," he said, replacing the raised hand with a single finger. "a manned vessel, and by manned I mean solely by trained Starfleet officers rated for the craft...that might be possible. With that condition, I couldn't see the harm in allowing the colony to benefit from Starfleet largesse."

Bahat sat quietly, her eyes focused down on her teacup. Her mind raced as she tried to decide whether it was time to attack or if she should continue to play nice. She could quibble over the specifics of how many officers or what kind, but ultimately the question at hand wasn't about a runabout or power sources. It was about whether Carpathia would accept the strings that came attached to Starfleet's offers of help.

Her thoughts turned to Bajor. Her world had joined the Federation ten years ago, not that she'd been there to see it. It had taken years of factional in-fighting to reach that moment in history, to decide that Bajorans were better off surrendering their hard-fought independence. She'd been a skeptic of the Federation then, and she was now. Most of her post-Occupation life had been spent serving in one Federation agency or another. It was enough for her to see the cracks in the coalition's veneer. Humans, in particular, seemed to love providing aid to others... as long as those others were suitably grateful, suitably compliant, suitably amenable to Federation ideals. Asking her fellow Carpathians (and she marveled at how quickly she had come to think of them as her fellow Carpathians) to accept help from the same people that had stranded them on a prairie moon....

She thought about the Starfleet technicians that they had made honored guests of last week. Yes, they'd been a meager gesture of reparation when the Traveller had dumped them there, but most of them had seemed sincere in their efforts to help. Even after being placed under house arrest, they continued to repair systems while on duty, without attempting sabotage that the colonists could detect. Now, a cunning colonial representative might have bartered their safety for concessions from this encroaching Starfleet officer. There were even times in Riya's past that she would have done that.

But Riya didn't want to spend the first month of her fresh extragalactic start negotiating the release of hostages. She wanted to find a way to turn their ball of dust into a livable habitat. There were crops to sow, cryostasis units to preserve, satellite systems to design.

There was bread to bake.

So Bahat Riya looked up at the expectant expression on Commander Ingram's face and said: "Of course. The people of Carpathia look forward to making a home here together with our friends in Starfleet."

"Rebuilding the trust lost through foolish misadventure," Ingram said graciously and took a sip from his tea. "I do not intend to overstep the bounds of our relationship, I have no interest in running a planetside colony. I leave that to the people who want such things. I am here to further the scientific and strategic goals of Starfleet and the Federation. Of which Carpathia is one such goal."

He settled the cup back onto the table again.

"Though I would prefer dealing with the Carpathia via a proxy I know, and with one I have a rapport with. I feel such an arrangement would benefit both the colony and Canopus Station a great deal, cutting away all of the politics and sophistry these sort of things generate. Help speed things along, and secure any power structure on the colony in place. Wouldn't do to shake up an already shaky apple cart, now would it?"

"Mmm," Bahat said noncommittally while she tried to figure out what a shaky apple cart was from context. An apple was an Earth fruit, she thought? "I want to be clear on one thing before this conversation goes any further: I'm here on behalf of the colonists on the good will of those colonists. If they accept me as a... I guess we could say liaison? Then I'll serve. But I serve on their pleasure. I won't be a... I believe the term is 'rubber stamp.'"

"And as I said before, I have no desire to run a colony. I'm a scientist leading a scientific and logistics outposts far beyond the bounds of the Federation. That alone is a job that would tax even one such as myself. Being the mayor of prefab village and all the...various minutia," Benjie added just a hint of disdain to the last words as he shook his head. "Not my cup of tea I'm sorry to say. But given it is your role, to act as a go-between, I trust that you will do everything in your power to make sure you are the voice of your people. I'd hate to have one of these conversations with a new liaison every other month."

"You've lost two thirds of your space station," Bahat said with a sly smile. "I hope that I don't have to have this conversation with a new Starfleet commander next month." She hoped that the smile would make it clear that she was joking... mostly. His assurances of noninterference notwithstanding, she had the impression that any colonial liaison would need to be an active, powerful presence to hold him accountable.

"Quite," he said with a thin smile that was anything other than friendly. "Well, I'm sure you have things to do, surely. I would not want to keep you from your work, and nor do I believe you would want to keep me from mine."

"Of course." She knew a dismissal when she heard one, so she stood and returned her refreshments to their tray. "Now, should I head back to Carpathia, or is there more for me to do here?"

"I'd stay if I were you. There are some preliminary sensor reading's on the location of the two missing Modules I think you'll want to hang around for," he said cryptically. "I'll have Keth assign you some guest quarters, and in the coming weeks we'll open up some office space for you to run the colonial administration."

By this point he had gotten up and walked to his desk, picking up a data pad and glancing down at its contents. A dismissal as clear as any other.

Bahat nodded as graciously as she could, turned on her heel, and headed back toward the waiting area. If she were younger, she would have done a small leap for joy--she'd gotten through this crisis without being imprisoned, her colonists were safe for now, Carpathia would be supported, and she'd have a role in decision making here in Messier 4. As it was, she allowed herself a satisfied smile. Maybe things were finally turning around.