Confessions

Posted on Fri Mar 24th, 2023 @ 1:01am by Lieutenant Hatham tr'Krotash & Subcommander Kaiae t'Lien

1,435 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Chapter VII: Into the Storm

The couple of PADDs of information - her mother's message, the research she'd done in the brief time in between receiving it and going over to Drozana, other associated material - shifted nervously in Kaiae's hands as she approached Hatham's quarters. She was probably about to interrupt the man coming out of showering the blood off and stowing his weapons, but there was a limited amount of time to do this before their next meeting, and a limited amount of options to deal with the situation. In fact, when it came to how she intended Hatham to find out about their newest addition she'd made while the Magpie had been gone, there were really only two choices here: She could have him hear it from her, or learn it on his own or from someone else, when he discovered the guard roster she'd set to carefully observe the new arrival.

Stop that, you're not sixteen, she thought to herself as she noticed her hands shifting the PADDs again, and forcibly stilled them as she reached out to signal the door: She hadn't had that much trouble controlling her outward tells that way in years.

Having indeed just showered off, Hatham arrived at the door hastily dressed in pants with a robe thrown over. "What is it?" the short-tempered answer was hastily amended at seeing the CO outside his door. "Forgive me, Subcommander. Please, come in."

Kaiae gave a fractional nod and entered, moving to sit on one of the chairs where they had planned out so much over the last six months. This was different, though.

"There were...complications...which arose while the Magpie was on her mission." She gestured slightly to the other chair and waited as he settled himself, then handed over the documents she'd been forcing herself not to shuffle around.

In the 5 minutes of objective time we were gone? Hatham thought, brows rising at what that might be, especially given Kaiae's demeanor. But he quickly remembered that they had made their initial jump at a distance from Drozana so as not to alert the Amelia. Still, it had been at most half a day... "What kind of complications?"

“My cousin decided what he wanted for the rest of what we owe him; and my mother sent me a courier with a message on it. Message is in the top one.” She gestured at the stack of stuff again. “Specifically, he wanted safety for a distant relative of his wife. Who was already on Drozana by the time the courier arrived, or shortly thereafter.” Kaiae continued with a weary, exasperated sigh, and the tone and cadence she settled into afterwards would perhaps have been recognizable to most people who’d ever had to sit through history classes and hear recordings of various people’s Right of Statement before their executions.

“The bottom ones are what I was able to dig up on the guy. Which - unfortunately - matched most of what her message said about him. I have him in quarters under guard right now.” The immature part of Kaiae wanted to just let him learn the most damning part when he read the material she'd laid out, and avoid putting words to it. But no. She had done it; for all there had been little choice if they wanted to keep their source for travel permits. She had decided it and she had done it as a matter of her command; and so she had to say it. “The man in question was, until recently, an engineer aboard a Tal’Shiar warbird; the husband of its commander who - if we are to believe what's laid out in the message - decided to implode his own life and leave both his husband and his post.” The just-so tone said that Kaiae clearly did not believe it herself; at least not the latter piece of it: People left the Tal'Shiar one and only one way, and that was with their deaths.

"Great..." The word dripped with weary sarcasm. Still, Hatham understood the reasoning, or at least the difficulty of refusing. For perhaps the first time, he regretted that the telepath had left the crew because this would be an occasion when looking at people's thoughts would be quite useful. "Seems we have little choice, but since he was an engineer, I'd suggest a tech in addition to a guard to keep an eye on him."

"Good idea." Kaiae did not, like the habits of a fair number of Romulan officers, make a note: You only put things in writing or otherwise on the record if you had no other choice; things too complex to work out or recall or communicate otherwise. "Got any in particular in mind? We'll need a few though; like with the rest of the rotation." She was uninterested in letting a potential threat go unmonitored at...basically any time day or night; and was certain he would feel similarly on that.

Hatham thought for a moment. He honestly didn't know that many of the techs. "You know the Galae techs better than I do. But we do have two xBs and I'd think it would be difficult to put anything over on them there."

"We built the group on allegiance and trustworthiness, not necessarily on a perfect balance of ranks or skills. And that was before it splintered later. I'm not sure many of them would be a match for him." It was no insult to the personnel in question; just an accurate assessment of where their skills probably fell in comparison to a Tal'Shiar officer. It was a decent stretch of the term 'we', though: Areinnye had built the group and the list of personnel; Kaiae had in the beginning merely been on that list. As for xBs or mercenaries or the rest of the ship...She wouldn't have thought to trust them with that sort of task; but it might prove unavoidable, and possibly intelligent for that matter: Sometimes, two potential threats could be made to cancel one another out; be kept busy with one another long enough to allow you to finish your business unbothered. "But I'll set a few of the most promising ones up for the job in the meantime, though, until we can investigate the latter suggestion."

Hatham contained a sigh. "I don't suppose we could ask Doc to put him in an induced coma until this is all over?"

"I considered just putting him in the brig; but came to the conclusion given his skillset that he'd probably manage to get out of it at that point, and then have potentially few qualms about going scorched earth on us immediately after that. As for sedating him...No, I'd be wary of that, too; no way to know what he has or hasn't had done that might be able to counter it or the like." It was hard to separate out exactly what of the various things or countermeasures it was rumored some Tal'Shiar personnel were sometimes equipped with were real and which were mere myth or legend (let alone which personnel had what done or not); but that was undoubtedly part of the point, that uncertainty of it all.

"The same limited time that works against us may work for us now, though. It's a short window for us to act in; but it's short for anyone else to interfere, as well." Kaiae continued after a moment. Even now, on the homeworld and on Remus and the other involved core worlds, she knew people in their families and those on the list would be receiving the permits they needed to travel; would soon be moving into position within days to await pickup out of doomed space, by the ships they had waiting for the task. Last to move would be her mother, who would simply (to any outside observer) fail to show up to work at the bank one day. Leaving the PADDs for him to review further later, she stood and moved back towards the door, one hand reflexively smoothing her sash and tunic.

It also gives limited time for reprisal if I have to kill him. Hatham didn't say it. With luck and vigilance, it shouldn't be necessary, but if that changed, it was best Kaiae had plausible deniability. For right now though, he needed to get dressed.

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