OOC: If you're having trouble keeping track of what's happening in this log, don't feel bad... I do too!
= SB Unity - 1st Task Force Offices =
Bren exited the meeting in Guzman's office, but only to go to a meeting in another office. For the past week or more, his routine had consisted of going to the shipyard, his office, his bed and then it started all over again. The shipyard was luckily the least of his worries at the moment. Commander Rodgers was doing an exemplary job and Bren felt that Rick had retained most if not all of his skill knowledge. His social skills were still a bit lacking, but as far as Engineering abilities were concerned, Bren was confident that Rick could run the shipyard himself. He only stopped by as a formality to check and make sure everything was going fine.
Then back in his office, he had reports of both the Science and Engineering departments to go through... reports that just never ended. Every piece of sensor analysis from every ship in the Task Force that had remotely picked up anything resembling Romulan tech had to be picked apart to the atomic core. A close eye had to be kept on the upkeep of all ships and resources had to be allocated with certain ships given priority when it came to repairs. He almost longed back to the days of being a CO when all you had to worry about was keeping your ship safe and ensuring the success of the mission. But he knew better than to wish for it out loud; these things had a way of happening before you could say "aye".
"I have an appointment with Major Kinn," Bren announced at he approached the yeoman's desk at the Intelligence Advisor's office.
"Just a moment, sir," the yeoman said and pressed a button alerting the Major. A moment later he said, "She's expecting you."
Bren nodded his thanks and walked over to the door which slid open as he approached. "Major Kinn," he greeted her as he entered.
"Commander," she greeted him as she stood up. "I have some results for you." Giella walked over to the large terminal on her wall and accessed Unity's Intel database.
Bren stood next to her and looked at the screen. After he had reviewed the extracted information from the Tarangor Outpost R-12 communications relay, he'd sent it over to Intelligence for further study. It was really more their area of expertise and he had more than enough to keep his hands busy with. He was convinced there was something about the communication logs that didn't add up and he was sure Major Kinn with her resources would be able to get to the bottom of it.
"Those logs were very interesting," Giella said as she turned to look at Ohmsford. "The transmissions sent to Unity were automatically discarded by the computer as sensor echoes, that's we didn't flag them as suspicious coming from the relay. At first I had no idea what they were about or if they were even connected, but when I had them run through search algorithms cross-reference the Starfleet Database, several markers started popping up. These articles aren't random at all. "
"What did you find?" Bren asked, his brow furrowed.
Giella pulled up the first two articles on the screen and the overlay display listed the relevant points. "Three articles, all three about planets inside Federation space. The first about New Geneva, how the turn of the Terran 25th Century was celebrated; the second about Kas Povaan, the Vulcan colony on V'Tar II, constructing a new Kolihnar monastery. The third is about the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D on the Veridian III. When these logs were first received by the beacon, there was nothing to link them other than the content of Federation star systems."
As Giella spoke it was as if a lightbulb was slowing turning on in Bren's mind and he started to see the pattern. "First New Geneva was attacked, then V'Tar II," he said and suddenly felt cold. If they'd known sooner, perhaps they couldn't warned the colony, but there this would hardly have been enough evidence to go on anyway. "Do you think Veridian III might be next?"
"I don't know," Giella said, shaking her head. "The attack on New Geneva obliterated the entire population and it's located deep into UFP space. V'Tar II is annexed and is on the border halfway from here to the Typhon Expanse. Veridian III is also on the border but much closer to Unity. Since Veridian IV has a pre-industrial civilisation, the system has little Starfleet presence but it falls under our jurisdiction."
"May I?" Bren asked as he stepped towards the console.
"Go ahead," Giella said.
Bren accessed the star charts and flagged the three systems, displaying it on the screen. He connected them with lines and the formed a neat triangle on the screen, almost too neat to be a coincidence.
Giella started at the screen as if she saw something she should have seen before. "What's inside that triangle?"
Bren pulled up a list of all celestial locations near the centre of the triangle. "820 star systems, 62 with habitable planets, 25 starbases and stations, 1 nebula..." he read off the screen.
"Narrow it down, closer to centre," Giella said. "What's right at the centre of that triangle?"
"Three systems, one with..." Bren trailed off as he read the name. "This can't be a coincidence. One of those systems - the Sitiva System - is cordoned off. It's been the site of a large R&D anthropological expedition for the last 30 years. The expedition has uncovered a lot of artifacts from that system, many of which are under strict guard at the R&D Vault."
"Might any of those artifacts be related to this?" Giella said, tapping on the screen and looking at Bren as the next article appeared. It was about the assassination of six Federation scientists who had worked on a project for R&D called Project Nema.
Few people had access to the details of Project Nema, and two of those people were Bren and Giella, but not even they had access to all the information regarding the project. Bren knew what Giella was thinking before she even opened her mouth to speak.
"I need to know what you know about that project, Commander," she said, eyeing him. "My access is limited and I can't get any further information on it. All I know is that all six scientists connected to that project are dead, murdered by unknown suspects. Three of those scientists were Starfleet officers... Commanders Ariel Johnson, Cila Amajove and Samantha Palmer. The last name on that list, Palmer, was assigned to the USS Chimera during a classified mission to the Spinward Marsh." Giella paused and brought up another article that was listed in R-12 log archive. "She was a temporal physicist and an agent for Starfleet Intelligence. Her record contains numerous classified assignments, but her last two assignments were both on the Chimera. First as the Mission Advisor for the Chimera's mission to the Spinward Marsh and then as the Chimera's Chief Tactical Officer... before being assassinated by an unknown assailant, on Bragg of all places."
Bren looked blankly at Giella, not sure where she was going with this. His knowledge of Project Nema was more extensive than the major's, but nowhere near full disclosure.
"There's more... her name came up again in the archive," Giella said and pulled up more articles. "The USS Hyperion; official records show its stardrive section was destroyed by a powerful ion storm. Classified records indicate the real cause of the stardrive destruction was an experiment gone wrong. Now what I find interesting is this... on the name of the Hyperion's crew manifest appears the name of a Lieutenant JG Samantha Palmer. Quite interesting, I thought. What I found even more interesting is the name of the CO for that mission, the late General Aaron Greer, formerly of Special Forces Intelligence. The same General Aaron Greer that is listed as heading up the Oversight Committee for Project Nema. What is Project Nema, Commander? And why is Palmer's name connected to these articles."
Sitting down in the chair opposite her desk, Bren ran his hands through his hair. He felt as if he were being interrogated by the secret police when he had done nothing wrong. His only crime, in fact, was his inability to have connected the dots before. All the bits were slowly starting to fall into place like a puzzle.
"Here's what I know..." Bren started to explain. "One of the artifacts recovered from the Sitiva System was discovered to have the ability to transport objects between parallel universes. Project Nema was formed by Starfleet to study the artifact and to develop a new type of drive that could transport a ship between parallel universe, a transdimensional drive if you will. At first only four scientists were working on the project, but they were later joined by Palmer and another scientist. When the project entered the testing phase, the USS Hyperion was designated as the test-ship with General Greer acting as CO.
"But the project was a failure, and the stardrive of the ship was destroyed. The General's son was an engineering lieutenant onboard the ship and he was killed, which coupled with the mission failure resulted in Greer resigning from Starfleet and Project Nema being abandon. The artifact went to the vault, but several years later Starfleet decided to give it another go, this time using the actual artifact and not reverse engineered technology as was used on the Hyperion. At that time Palmer was the only surviving member of the original project still left. She wasn't serving in Intelligence anymore but on the Chimera as you said, however she was assassinated before the ship departed on its mission. The mission was a success however, but the artifact was destroyed."
Bren looked down at his hands for a moment and then back at Giella. "But there's a second artifact. About a year before the war, Starfleet received intelligence that another artifact like the one studied by Project Nema existed, a second transdimensional artifact. The problem was it was in the hands of the Orion Syndicate and they were going to sell it to the Romulans. The Chimera was tasked to retrieve the artifact and I was assigned as her CO for the mission. The artifact is intact and now in the R&D Vault. We don't know how the Orions got it, but there may be other sites in existence like Sitiva."
Giella expelled a sharp breath of air and then paced up down for a moment. "Did you know that Palmer's body was stolen from a morgue on Starbase Zetari?" she asked.
"No, I didn't," Bren sat up, surprised. "By whom?"
"Presumably Nicolas Harker, a black ops agent who defected to the Romulan Empire," Giella said, looking back at Bren. "Relax, I'm not interrogating you. I simply don't like conducting an investigation when people don't give me proper information, but judging by your body language I'm sure you didn't know that Project Nema and Palmer's details were relevant."
Feeling slightly relieved, Bren said, "The question still remains... who sent those messages? I can understand the warning about the attacks, but why the information hints to Palmer and Project Nema? Are there any deep cover agents who could have sent it?"
Giella shook her head. "There are very specific protocols to be followed for deep cover agents inside the Empire. They wouldn't do it like this."
"Maybe it's a Romulan trying to contact us," Bren suggested.
"I doubt it," Giella shook her head again. "They would have to go through too much trouble sifting through Federation news broadcasts. I suppose it's not impossible.
But what are they trying to tell us? Like you said, the attack warning seems obvious, but the others? Do you think it's possible the Romulans might have gotten their hands on a Sitiva artifact? You said the other one could have come from another site. There could be more."
"It's been a concern of Starfleet's since they discovered the Romulans wanted to buy the artifact from the Orions," Bren said. "But there's no evidence. For all we know the Ferengi could have one."
"Yes... but the Ferengi didn't steal the body of a former Project Nema scientist," Giella quipped. "No... it doesn't make sense. Two medical officers pronounced her dead, both on Chimera and Zetari. There's no way they could have accessed her memories..." She trailed off, but the idea remained fixed in her head.
"But what if they did?" Bren said, completing her thoughts for her.
Giella waved the thought away. "I need to report this to Guzman right away," she said.
"What about the other logs?" Bren asked. "Found any connections?"
"They make sense now," Giella said. "The one about the Admiral's wife being kidnapped by Orion pirates, it obviously links to your mission to recover the artifact before the Orions sold it to the Romulans."
"Obviously," Bren nodded, although deep down inside he was sure there was more to it than that. "Was there anything else?"
"Yes... I think we may have a mole," Giella replied, crossing her arms over her chest. "Your suspicions were right. The beacon recorded transmissions from Unity, but there's no content in them." Giella had privately informed Guzman of the possibility of a mole previously, but she had no evidence then and since they were normally on the alert for moles anyway, it didn't change things much. "But I'd like it kept between us for now."
Bren nodded. "Understood. I've been assigned to oversee a mission to Erassian space. If you need me, I'll be on the Chimera," he said. Giella nodded and Bren left her office, feeling rather relieved to be out of it. Even though he technically outranked her, Intelligence always tended to make him nervous for no reason.
= End Log =
Commander Bren Ohmsford
Science & Act. Engineering Advisor
-
Major Giellera Kinn
Adjunct Intel Advisor
[NPC by Bren]
-
1st Task Force, SSF
