Looking for Clues.

Posted on Thu Sep 19th, 2024 @ 2:51pm by Commander Jonathan Grayson & Lieutenant JG Kate Kono

Mission: The Gambit
Location: XO's Ready Room
Timeline: TBD

Jon sat at his desk, They were still no closer to finding Shran ten when they started. He sighed and made a decision, time to get others involved.

He tapped his combadge, "Lt. Kono, please report to my ready room."

Finished he sat back and waited for Kate's arrival.

Kate entered the ready room and stood in front of the desk. The slender young Lieutenants stance was easy and relaxed despite the inquisitive expression on her face as shown through her almond eyes as she pulled her freshly combed short, spiked black hair along the sides of her head

"Giving answers, or asking questions, sir?"

Kate's voice was hopeful and quiet as she looked upon the exo.

Jon looked at her, "Have a seat Kate." He said ignoring her question for now. "As Intelligence officer you deserve to know what is going on and what is going on is Captain Shran is missing and no one is talking. All very hush-hush. Sounds like a black ops operation." He stopped letting the young officer digest the information.

Kate swallowed hard and cocked her head to the side while locking eyes with Jon, not taking her gaze off of him as she took a seat as suggested. Her brow was furrowed during the whole process. Pulling a PADD from her pants pocket she pass coded into the screen and finally looked down.

"Officially missing, as in, even his handlers need to find him or just missing from us?" Kate asked. "Where was he last and who was he talking to in the ranks?" Kate started typing and preparing her search investigation right in front of him.

"Missing Kate. No one is talking and that is worrisome. He was last seen on the planet we were just in orbit above in the company of two Cardassians. The filed flight plans for Velez Prime which is near the old Cardassian DMZ. The runabout he used to get here is in the shuttle bay cordoned off. Feel free to look it over."

Kate nodded and tapped through her PADD.
"We need to make sure he actually left the planet. Flight plans could be spoofed just to throw us off. We can interview anyone we find that might have seen them. A blueberry and two spoons hanging out together on the same planet will be very memorable."

Kate tapped her PADD and looked back up at him.
"So, one team to investigate planetside, and one team to go over the runabout. I'll be sending transporter logs to your console and I'm downloading all flight plans that are logged. We can cross reference them with ships that left the planet that chose to file no plans and we can eliminate those names out of the pool."

Kate flipped an image off her PADD showing the elimination in process on the ready room screen.

"Once all three of these investigations are over, with the interviews, direction of travel, with what's left of what slipped through the cracks, we can narrow down which ship they did leave from if they even left at all. The runabout may have useful logs, but I think this is going to be how we find our captain." Kate pointed at the screen with a stylus. "Black Operations live in the void. We find the void, follow the holes he slipped through and we need to figure out how to decipher the transmissions on the runabout and find the names responsible behind the mission. They might be able to give up the two vipers and tell us what the hell this was all about in the first place."

Kate spun her chair back to meet Jon's gaze.
"We aren't going to be making any friends today, sir."

"We've already done the interviews with who saw Shran and the Cardassians and we have the flight plan. Not to mentioned Deanna scanned the people who saw the captain with the Cardassians. So need to send a team to the planet. Look over the runabout. I don't think you will find anything this has been too meticulous." Jon shook his head. "No, no turning to outside sources. No letting anyone know what we're doing or how we are progressing. This stays in house."

"Understood, sir," Kate said. She pointed behind her skinny shoulder, "when that's done compiling, we can fill in the names of the ships not on the list and I'll try and run a decypher program on the runabout to scrape all the drives."

Kate stood up and sighed.
"I chose the wrong department in Starfleet..."

Jon stared hard at her. "Excellent. If you don't feel you are up to it Kate. I can get someone else to handle this investigation." He replied, his tone serious.

Kate raised a brow and shook her head.
"I just feel like my department isn't united as one force in the fleet," Kate said. "Makes me want to find Shran and when we are done, I want to talk with whoever took him from us," she said with a hint of frustration. "Never in the history of Starfleet has anything gone smoothly when the intelligence department takes a captain from their crew for secret cloak and dagger assignments, and it's always been the captains crew to pick up the pieces and fix their shiznit. So, no, sir. I am up for it. In fact I'll find him, who took him, who hired him, the Cardassins, the mission details, and the common sense Starfleet lost along the way."

Jon listened to Kate, heard her frustration and also heard her deamination. When she had finished, he smiled t her. "That is what I want to hear Kate. Only one thing, you aren't in this alone. We'll find Shran together, the Washington crew is a family and we take care of our own." He finished in a determined tone.


Kate nodded,
"Thank you, sir."

You are welcome, Kate. I won't keep you any longer. You have work to do." Jon said dismissing the younger officer.