Business as Usual

Posted on Sun Jan 11th, 2026 @ 9:29pm by Lieutenant JG Kate Kono & Ensign Kevin Mitchell & Ensign Aidan "A.J." Reid

1,359 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Not All Orders Are Easy
Location: Intelligence Office
Timeline: current

The enclosed intelligence ward glowed in muted cerulean light, the hum of active consoles vibrating through the bulkheads. Kate slumped in her chair, eyes half-lidded, as A.J. Reid—tall, lithe, perpetually restless—bounced a dense rubber training sphere off the armored walls. Each ricochet sent tiny reverberations through the table; Kevin Mitchell flinched every time the orb careened near his PaDD, his fingers tightening around its smooth surface.

“These Intelligence Performance Evaluations can kiss my tiny Asian ass!” Kate snapped, shoving her PaDD onto the lacquered tabletop. She pressed her palms into her temples, rubbing away a headache that felt like a cluster of pulsars. Without warning, she shoved her scuffed leather boots onto the edge of the table and kicked her chair away. In one gravity-defying contortion, she balanced on the back two legs, arching herself backward to tap at the wall-mounted replicator console, limbs flailing like a stranded starfish.

Kevin leaned forward, the overhead light reflecting off his thoughtful brow. He slid his index finger along a line of digital text. “Okay… got it. Listen: the subspace transceiver array could have been intentionally shifted so the uplink signal red-bands just before subspace insertion. On paper it tricks scanners into thinking the emitter sent in the RF band from a farther point in space, before slipping into subspace. That explains how our operative spoofed his coordinates.”

A.J. loomed over the table, his Jamaican accent thick as Kingston molasses. "No, no, no, mon—yuh diggin' too deep inna di exercise backstory. Even if 'im try fi falsify 'im position dat way, di ship database woulda recognize di red shift as transmission artifact, nuh deliberate deception. Dere's no loophole inna we code fi dat."

“Really?” Kevin shot back, eyes narrowing. “Have you actually tested it? Does anyone here have proof it can’t be done?”

Kate’s head, inverted, chimed in from the floor. “You lot honestly think Captain Shran would drop us out of warp just to verify a theoretical exploit for an Evaluation Quiz?” She jabbed a finger at the replicator controls, the only part of her still touching the deck.

A.J.'s voice dropped to a low rumble. "We nah even at warp speed, yuh hear mi now..."A.J. said, uncertainty creeping into his voice.

“Yeah we are, dude!” Kevin snarled. “What kind of intelligence officer are you if you can’t feel the tachyon cascade humming through the frame?”

A.J. bristled. "Bumboclaat! Maybe if yuh did monitor di sensor logs as obsessive as me, yuh would recognize warp signatures from disruption inna di plasma conduits, seen? Besides, only yuh—straddlin' dat chair like unbalanced tripod—can see di status overlay pon Kate console from up dere! Rahtid, mi nuh have time fi dis foolishness. Cho man!"

The sphere pinged against the bulkhead again, punctuating his words, and the three of them froze, suspended in their argument by a single, unspoken question: had they cracked the puzzle, or plunged deeper into gibberish?

Kate's fingers danced across the replicator interface, her spine contorted like a pretzel as she balanced precariously. She could've verbally ordered her strawberry soda and Andee's Candies—those sugar-dusted Rigellian caramels that left blue stains on your tongue—but interrupting the intellectual bloodsport unfolding before her seemed criminal. The practice ball suddenly ricocheted off A.J.'s palm with unexpected velocity, striking the activation panel with a resonant *ping*. Kate's world tilted, then inverted; her chair surrendered to gravity with a metallic clatter as her body followed in ungraceful freefall. The replicator hummed to life, materializing her treats in a shimmer of reconstituted matter while she sprawled across the deck plating. A.J. snatched his ball mid-bounce, then jabbed his PaDD screen with such force it nearly cracked, dragging his chair across the floor with an ear-splitting screech.

"Yuh see dis right yah?" he demanded, his Jamaican accent thick enough to spread on toast. "Starfleet Command dem write it plain as daylight dat dem gwaan set nuff rabbit holes fi catch we wastin' precious time on foolishness! Di whole ting is one big distraction, seen? We coulda call any Engineer right now an' dem would laugh dem backside off at we—bunch a intelligence officers actin' like pure eediat!"

Kate remained sprawled on her back, feeling the distinctive harmonic vibration of the warp drive pulsing through the deck plating beneath her shoulder blades. "Why are we at warp, anyway?" she mused, tracing a finger along the hexagonal floor pattern. "Cass had that whole antimatter injector assembly torn apart in Engineering. We weren't supposed to break impulse until gamma shift."

Kevin's shadow fell across her face as he stood, the overhead lights creating a halo effect around his broad shoulders. He righted her toppled chair with a metallic scrape, then plucked her glistening blue-flecked caramels and condensation-beaded soda from the replicator alcove. "Well," he said, setting her treats on the polished tabletop with careful precision, "if Engineering finished early, we could swing by and pick their brains about this subspace equation. Settle this whole debate, like A.J. suggested."

A.J. planted his boot atop the gleaming table with a hollow thunk, leaning forward until his weight balanced precariously on one leg. He jabbed a long, slender finger at Kevin, gold Academy ring glinting under the cerulean lights.
"Dat deh di first sensible ting come outta yuh mout since Starfleet drop dis quiz pon we head, star," he declared, his Kingston drawl thick as sugarcane syrup.

Kate rolled to her feet with the fluid grace of someone who'd aced zero-G combat training, allowing Kevin's outstretched hand to steady her before she vaulted back into her chair. She snatched her soda, the condensation leaving a comet-tail of droplets across the table's polished surface, and popped a caramel between her teeth with an audible crunch.

"Guys, let's just pause this whole quantum brain meltdown and feed our faces. Starfleet's not expecting this theoretical toilet paper back in their subspace buffers until, like, next Thursday. Besides," she waggled her eyebrows dramatically, "Ben already crushed this thing with a perfect score. I could totally seduce him tonight and extract every juicy detail while he's basking in post-coital smugness." Kate flashed a mischievous grin that would've made her Academy Ethics professor wince. "I mean, isn't that literally the point of this whole exercise? 'Creative intelligence gathering from compromised sources' or whatever bureaucratic garbage they're calling it these days?

Kevin's face contorted into exaggerated horror. "Well, you have sex with him. We're certainly not doing it," he declared, miming a full-body shudder. "Though if you need pointers on your technique, I hear Ben's last girlfriend called it 'like watching a starfish try to eat corn on the cob.'" A.J. doubled over, his booming laugh ricocheting off the bulkheads as he slapped his thigh with enough force to trigger the inertial dampeners. Kate's mouth fell open in mock outrage before she dissolved into snorting laughter that sent blue caramel specks flying across the table.

Kate's laughter hitched mid-snort. "Wait, Ben has an ex?" Her blue-stained tongue darted out to catch a caramel crumb clinging to her bottom lip.

"Nah, not that I know of." Kevin's eyebrows performed an elaborate dance. "Just had to say something suitably horrifying."

Kate twisted in her chair, aiming a middle finger in Kevin’s general direction, her Academy ring glinting under the lights. A.J.'s laughter erupted like a warp core breach, his shoulders heaving as he slapped his thigh.

"Rahtid, mi cyan't breathe!" A.J. wheezed, grabbing Kevin's shoulder with fingers like duranium clamps. "Come, make we leave di lovebirds alone before yuh set off pure chaos, seen? We go raid dat replicator till it bawl fi mercy, yuh hear mi now?"

Kate rolled her eyes dramatically, breathed a theatrical sigh of relief that fluttered her bangs, and used her index finger to flick the cluster of PaDDs away from her blue-stained caramels, sending them skittering across the polished tabletop with a satisfying series of clicks. The corner of her mouth quirked up in that particular half-smile that always appeared when she'd successfully extricated herself from Starfleet's academic nonsense.

 

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