Worst Idea Ever (Part 1)

Posted on Mon Apr 3rd, 2017 @ 1:19am by Captain Rueben Gregnol & Dixoho Saa (*) & Alika Mahone

Mission: Mission 3 - Negligence
Location: Deck 2 - Briefing Room
Timeline: MD 01 20:00
1394 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

ON::

Rueben tapped his old-fashioned pen on the table as he went through in his head the discussion that had happened on the planet below with Cadascott and Starfleet Intelligence. He frowned wishing he wasn’t so backed into a corner over the whole situation, but then again hindsight was a beautiful and wonderful thing. He didn’t want to be doing this for them, he didn’t want to go to an old, abandoned and neglected Station to get parts for Starfleet. He couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t go themselves but he couldn’t argue they had offered not arresting half his crew and latinum in exchange. He glanced up as the door opened slowly allowing him a second to sit up straighter.

"Evening. Enjoy Bajor?" He offered.

"Who's asking?" Olsam said, watching the captain through the narrow slit of his eyes.

The doctor had come into the briefing room through the other door, the back door that hardly anyone used because it was such a pain to access, just to throw the Russian off. For all he knew, Rueben might have had the main door booby trapped. It was obvious he got up to a great many things, and if Olsam Mott were a person to get up to many things then booby trapping would certainly be at the top of his list. So, it followed, that it might be at the top of Gregnol's list, too. And he wasn't about to be a booby-trapped Bolian, not at all. It was auxiliary entrances and exits from here on out.

"No," Alika deadpanned. While she didn't appear through an auxiliary door, the pilot had noticed key members of the crew acting funny around their fearless leader. Whatever had happened, Alika found it made her grumpy. This meeting was going to give her answers.

She plopped herself down next to Mott, arms crossed over her chest. "So what's this all about, huh?"

Rueben raised an eyebrow at the pair appearing through different doors and both being a little more than grumpy. Normally the duo could be counted on to be bright and the very least friendly.

"I will explain when everyone gets here but we've been offered a job which pays well." He said simply.

Sanuye entered, his soft-soled boots making his entrance silent save for the grumbling complaint of the door as it opened and closed behind him, and took up a position by the viewport where he had a full view of the room. Chairs were an alien thing and while a part of him accepted that this was his life now, another part of him chose personal comfort but the marvel of that notion was for another time. He was dressed in relieved black and wore his shoulder-length blond hair loose. He listened while Cinon, the great Dusai that traveled everywhere with him, reported back through a series of amusing visual images what he found as he learned the limits of their new home.

"Did I hear something about payment?" Bradon asked as he entered the room., then took a seat at the table. "Gonna be some expenditure needed on repairs, Captain. Things got a bit rough last mission." He sat back, figuring he knew what was coming next. But it was what it was. Some of the needed supplies were critical as backups to life support, and that was one system he definitely was going to keep in top shape.

"Da and that is why we are taking this top to fix up our systems. I listened and took in what you said." Rueben could see that the man was acting his normal self obviously, he wasn't having a bad day like the Doctor and his Executive Officer.

Sanuye entered the Conference Room and went to stand over by the viewport, giving himself an unblocked view of the room. He was dressed in unrelieved black and he wore his shoulder-length blond hair loose.

Rueben nodded and handed out pieces of paper with a diagram on of a Space Station. It was detailed and have a full breakdown of locations that they would be going to. "We are being paid to go to Empok Nor to retrieve specific Engineering parts and data from the defunct computer." He was hoping this understood the importance of going to this station.

Sanuye accepted the sheet and studied it thoughtfully. The idea of whether or not to go did not concern him in the slightest. Such decisions belonged to the Captain. For him, it was more a matter of how to protect those who did and to that, he intended to apply himself.

Alika didn't skip a beat in asking the first question. 'Set a good example' be damned. "So who's paying us and why do we need to go?"

Olsam looked up and down the table briefly and seemed bewildered. What kind of mercenaries didn't ask about the payment? Weren't they mercenaries? He was reasonably sure that they were. If not mercenaries then something very much like them.

"And how much are they paying us? Whatever it is, I demand you double my portion. I worked very hard to save everyone's life. If I hadn't engineered that vaccine," Olsam said, already forgetting that they'd found it in the computer rather than jostling around in his brain, "then you'd all be dead. Or most of you at least."

"You are coming?" Rueben asked the Doctor ignoring Alika's request about who was paying them. "I assumed you would be leaving us here as you can get back to your Starfleet career and Federation Medical facilities?" The man admitted, he had assumed he would be looking for a new doctor while on Bajor.

Bradon cocked an eyebrow at the Doctor. As much as he had heard the Bolian complain about being aboard, he thought he'd be leaving the ship too. And double payment? He's out of his mind.

"We have better things to do with the money than double your payment, Doc," Bradon interjected. "I assume you like being warm and comfy, and breathing while we travel through space?"

"Well that's just like you, isn't it, Chief Gordon? Presumptuous, awfully presumptuous, to just assume that I like warmth and an oxygenated atmosphere," Olsam said, and he sounded like he meant it. Briefly, he turned to Rueben. "Of course I'm staying. You'd all die without me. Why I'm as indispensable as the air we breathe."

"Of course you are but I am glad to here you are carrying on this journey." Rueben murmured softly trying to not chuckle or show anything but sincerity.

Alika silently awaited the answer to her own question, glaring daggers into the Captain's head. Then she cleared her throat, not loud enough to cut through the conversation, but enough for Rueben to hear.

Rueben glanced at his First Officer and sighed softly as her tenacious attitude to finding out things, it was after all one of the reasons he had requested her of all his crew to be his First Officer. He shook his head, he would talk to her about it but not in front of everyone.

"So, what's this all about?" Bradon tossed out in the air.

"We have been asked to go somewhere to acquire things that are a little more at our level." Starfleet didn't want to be seen to be going to Empok Nor to get parts to fix Deep Space Nine that they couldn't replace again after all the years spent trying to figure things out. It was hard to admit that they couldn't copy Cardassian technology still.

"Out with it, Cap." Alika frowned, in her best attempt at 'supportive and encouraging' as she could have been, considering her abrupt glares and silent judgments prior to this moment. "We can't do anything if we don't know where we're going."

"We are going to Empok Nor..." Rueben started looking at everyone.

OFF:

Captain Rueben Gregnol
Commanding Officer
SS Mary Rose

Olsam Mott, M.D.
Ship's Doctor
SS Mary Rose

Alika Mahone
Second Officer
SS Mary Rose

Sanuye
Chief of Security
SS Mary Rose

Bradon Gordon
Chief Engineer
SS Mary Rose

Dixaho Saa
Chief Navigator
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Gregnol)