Cold Hard Truth Part One

Posted on Sun Jan 9th, 2022 @ 6:38pm by Ensign James Phoenix
Edited on on Sun Jan 9th, 2022 @ 6:40pm

Mission: Respite
Location: Phoenix's Quarters
Timeline: Current

James sat at his quarters with nothing much to do. He had finished most of his work for the day, but it was still to early to sleep or anything like that. He picked up his mug which was filled with coffee and set it down again. He sighed.

Phoenix finished his coffee soon after. Unfortunately, he was tired and the coffee was not enough to keep him awake causing the Ensign to doze off in his chair. He would be out for a good few hours. Lucky for him he already had his shifts earlier in the day.
However the tactical officer was unlucky for the fact that a message came through from the bridge, causing him to jolt awake.

=^=Bridge to Ensign Phoenix=^=

James yawned. =^=Phoenix here=^=

=^=You have a subspace message for you from Earth. Text only.=^=

=^=Send it to my quarters please=^=

=^=Message has been sent. Bridge out=^=

James groaned. He was actually having a nice sleep when it got interrupted. But at the end of the day, that is one of the things he signed up for when he put on his uniform for the first ever time.

He rubbed his eyes and pressed a button on the LCARS panel on his desk. Suddenly, his computer screen rose out of his desk. The bright screen turned on and the computer spoke.

"Please state authorization code."

"Phoenix-Beta," he paused to yawn. "Four."

"Insufficient. Please state code again."

He sighed and muttered something inaudible under his breath. He was not having it right now. "Authorization code Phoenix-Beta-Four."

Soon after, the message displayed directly on his screen. The subject title was short. It just said Your eyes only. Curious, James read futher down. All the message said was You're welcome, James. You owe me one. -Anonymous. The only other item in the message was an attached file. James reluctantly tapped on it, hoping that it wasn't anything malicious or anything of that nature.

To his surprise, it wasn't anything like that. But it was enough to cause him to freeze in his tracks. The file had the following title. Personnel File: Lieutenant Ashlynn Regan.

As his eyes grew cloudy, James wanted to read more, but he stopped himself. There was a small chance that if he read more he could be committing some kind of treason, especially if there was a coverup going on in the Starfleet brass about his best friend. So, he decided to send a message to someone else that he knew who could tell him if it was safe or not.

After a few minutes of typing the message, he sent it. Now, it was just the waiting game.

To Be Continued...