= USS Valiant - En Route to SB Unity =
Major Giellera Kinn sat at the desk in her tiny quarters onboard the Defiant-class USS Valiant that was speeding its way at Warp 7 towards the Aeran System. The adjunct Intel Advisor was returning from SB Bragg after two weeks where she attended an untimely meeting of the SSF Intelligence Committee. Normally the Intelligence Advisor would attend the meeting while the adjunct (if there was one) oversaw things in their place. But since Giella was holding the fort alone in Intel at 1st Task Force without a replacement yet, she had no choice but to attend the meeting.
Having to leave Unity could not have come at a worse time. They had a mysterious prisoner of war in custody captured from Narendra, which the medical examiner had not yet been granted access to; there were two senior officers missing, kidnapped presumably by the Romulans; besides that there was a war raging on and the normal Intel duties to take care of.
While still at Bragg Giella had received word that a message had been received from Commander Summers and that Commander Terek was working tracing the message. In the meantime, Security teams had finecombed Commander Ohmsford and Major Varis' quarters and discovered a broken vial that once contained diophyletine; hair strands superficially resembling that of Major Varis were also analysed and found to have underlying Chameloid DNA, confirming what Commander Summers revealed in her message.
As soon as she was able she sought for leave to depart from Bragg and return to Unity to continue her work. In retrospect she was glad she attended the meeting because some very important information was revealed. It was discovered that several Federation agents placed within the Romulan Empire were compromised for months and are now MIA. While they apparently routinely reported back to their handlers, SSFI learned that these routine checks were fake and executed by the Tal'Shiar to placate SSFI and keep from suspecting their agents had been made.
Two other security breaches had been uncovered, one at Khan Station - the headquarters of the 2nd Task Force - and another within R&D. Fortunately both had been eliminated swiftly. Giella had also handed over copies of her reports about Outpost R-12's communications beacon to SSFI and they had deployed agents to infiltrate the pre-warp civilisation at Veridian IV. The archaeological teams at Sitiva had also been withdrawn and the system declared off-limits under General Order 12.
Now Giella waited in front of her computer terminal for a secure connection with Unity to speak to Commodore Guzman. As was always the case, she was patched through to Lieutenant Pakosii, the Commodore's aide.
"Lieutenant," she ambushed him as soon as his face appeared, without so much as a greeting. "I need to speak with Commodore Guzman immediately, it's urgent."
"The Commodore is not available at present, Major," Pakosii replied, his face almost asking if she ever contacted him about anything that wasn't urgent.
"I understand he's a busy man, but he would want to speak with me," Giella insisted.
"I'm sure he would but he is not here," Pakosii replied. "He's on a classified mission on the USS Qashqai, Major. I can put you through to Captain Rodgers if you like."
It didn't take a genius to figure out what mission the Commodore had gone on. If there was any hint of where to find his partner and child, he would no doubt follow up on it immediately. Captain Rodgers had obviously arrived while she was gone and was now in charge of the 1st Task Force. For a moment she almost felt sorry for the man who was definitely being thrown into the deep end. She hoped he was a good swimmer.
"Has Captain Chisulo returned from his mission to V'Tar?" Giella asked instead. She'd been notified of the success of the mission but wasn't sure if the captain was back at Unity yet.
"Yes, Major, he–"
"Good," she interrupted him. "Lieutenant, please set up a meeting with Captain Chisulo and Captain Rodgers for me in 7 hours sharp. I will be back at Unity by then. Please tell them it's–"
"Urgent, yes Major," Pakosii nodded quickly.
"Thank you. Kinn out," she said and ended the communiqué.
She sat thinking for a moment and then tapped in a request for another communiqué to Unity, this time to the Science Department, to Commander Terek.
"Science Department, Commander Terek," came the answer when the Bajoran's face appeared.
"Commander, have you been able extrapolate the location of Commander Summers' message?" she asked pointedly.
"No ma'am, I'm still running it through an analysis algorithm," he replied. "It was sent through several communications relays and its taking some time to pinpoint them all. It will take at least a few more hours."
"When you are done, do not pass this information on to Commodore Guzman," she stated firmly. "It's very important that you remember this."
"Ma'am? I don't understand..."
"If Commander Summers' captors intercept that message and find proof that we have her location, they could execute her or move her, if they haven't done so already," she explained.
"The Commodore has asked me explicitly to pass on the information to him as soon as I have it," Terek objected.
"Just hold off on it for an hour or two," Giella replied. "I'll be back on Unity in 6 hours and I have a meeting scheduled with Captains Rodgers and Chisulo. We'll make a decision, but until then please don't contact him yet."
Terek nodded reluctantly. "Yes, Major."
"Thank you, Commander. Kinn out," she said, then closed the channel.
= End Log =
Major Giellera Kinn
Adjunct Intelligence Advisor
1st Task Force, SSF
[NPC by Bren]