First Steps

Posted on Tue Jan 16th, 2024 @ 10:08pm by Lieutenant Sofia Gonzalez

1,270 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: EPISODE 1: SHAKEDOWN
Location: Chief Intelligence / Executive Officer's Office - Deck One
Timeline: MD02

::ON::

Sofia paced the turbolift nervously. It had been several days since she had arrived aboard the Hecate, and I'm still not sure why Burke brought me aboard. She had been restless during her previous posting, and Burke swanning in and plucking her from Earth-14 had tickled her ego.

Looking at the turbolift door, Sofia wondered if she had made the right choice.

The dig had been a large, planet-bound project. Here out in space, there was no hiding from cold reality.

As the turbolift doors hissed open, she let loose her own hiss of breath, squared her shoulders and took in a deep calming breath before stepping out into the corridor. It was early, but the Intelligence Officer had decided to take the bull by the horns and report to her new superior officer.

Pressing the chime to the door, she waited patiently, PADD in hand.

"Enter," Khiane said. She had extended the claw on her index finger and was idly scratching the side of mug as she worked a split screen, one side, reading through a briefing, and on the other side, making occasional notes to herself. Items that needed further exploration or clarification. She looked up as the door slid back and regarded the newcomer. "Please, come in."

'Commander Mau,' Gonzalez said breezily as she stepped through the door, PADD held in front of her in both hands. 'Lieutenant Sofia Gonzalez, reporting.' She flashed a slight smile, 'I thought I'd make myself known to you, report in if you will.' She resisted the urge to tuck an errant stray hair behind her ear as she remained a respectful distance from her senior officer.

Khiane, claw once more retracted, accepted the PADD and then gestured toward the seat in front of the desk. "Please, have a seat, Lieutenant." She took a moment to read through the orders and then fixed her gaze on the anthropologist. "I understand your background is in anthropology. Have you had any training in analysis?"

'Yes,' Gonzalez slipped into the indicated chair, folding her free hands into her lap as she did. 'Once I accepted the transfer to Intelligence they gave me an intensive training course in Starfleet Intel analysis techniques at the Berlin Annexe.' She smiled ruefully, 'they came in handy while compiling reports from the classified digs on Draco Seven. There were a lot of them after all.'

"Can you tell me something of your work as an anthropologist," Khiane asked. "What do you study? How does it affect your analysis of a developing situation?"

'My specialisation is Romulan anthropology. As you can imagine, with the Empire only now coming out of an isolation phase, it is currently still unfolding,' Gomez flashed a smile again. 'As a Starfleet officer, both Science and Intel, I've had more access than most non-Vulcans, but what we have is sparse for political and military analysis.' She cleared her throat, clearly not expecting a detailed interrogation. 'More latterly I've been involved in archaeological anthropology - that is, studying the extinct culture of indigenous Mesoamericans on a duplicate Earth. Most of my reports there centered on similarities and divergences between the identified groups and their counterparts on Earth.'

She shrugged, 'that obviously doesn't pertain to a developing situation. When dealing with Romulan matters, I've attempted to inform rather than dictate what will happen next. Just because similar situations have arisen in the past doesn't mean that it will play out in the same way again. I can give a likely interpretation of how a situation could evolve, but not a certain one.'

"We'll get transcripts of conversations and communications," Khiane said, "along with all the routine data and analysis. Part of your job will be going through them. Sometimes, its a couple of low-level smugglers talking about a shipment or a planet where a non-native has been camped out for weeks waiting for something. Unrelated events that are suddenly tied together by another piece of information that lets us know about a shipment that's gone missing. Course, there's a lot of tracking down details, questioning agents in the field, and the like, but in the end, our job is to figure out what's going to happen." Her eyes glowed gold for a moment and then faded. "Hunting. One tiny seemingly irrelevant piece of information at a time."

Flashing a grin, Gonzalez leaned in towards her superior, hands interlacing, 'now this sounds like proper work. I'm no afraid of long hours, I'm not afraid of having to pore over transcripts and reports from different communications and threading the patterns from them.' Her sense of imposterdom lifted for a moment. 'It's in essence the same type of work as anthropology.' Gonzalez chewed her lip for a moment. 'What about ... fieldcraft training? Will we be undertaking that, or is it dependent on the data analysis portion of the job?'

"For now, your role is limited to analysis but I'm not opposed to expanding your role if you have what it takes. Fieldwork requires an entirely different set of skills," Khiane said thoughtfully, "and its rare to find someone who can do both successfully. Tell you what, I can take you through some training exercises and see if you have a talent for it. How would that be?"

Looking at her hands for a moment, Gonzalez considered the proposition, before nodding firmly. 'I think that's entirely fair, Commander. Like I've said, I'm not afraid of hard work, and I don't want to be stuck behind a desk for the rest of my Starfleet career.' She looked up with another determined expression, 'I intend to learn as much as possible from you to make a success of this opportunity. And to pay Captain Burke back for his kindness.'

"Along with your analytical tasks," Khiane said, you'll need to do strength training as well as hand-to-hand combat. And talk to security about weapons training as well. This is going to go beyond the basics you learned at the Academy. In the field, you won't have the support of an away team or a ship hovering above you. Before we even start the exercises, you have to get into shape."

Making a few notes on her PADD, Gonzalez nodded to herself as she made a short to-do list for herself. She checked herself, and looked up at the other woman, 'so this strength training. Are we looking at a specific program with targets? Or just additional training for stamina-slash-endurance purposes?'

"How about this," Khiane said. "There's a evaluation exam that's given to field agent recruits. The physical aspect tests your strength, agility, endurance, and reaction time. We'll see how you well you do on that and I can use the results to identify weak points and structure a program around the results."

'Thank you, Commander,' Gonzalez said with evident greatness, 'you've been very kind with your time.'

Mau nodded her understanding. 'Now, if there's anything else that you need?'

Standing, Gonzalez shook her head. 'No. No questions for now.' She waved the PADD in Mau's direction. 'I'll get right on these programs.'

The Commander got to her feet, waved at the door. 'I look forward to watching your prgoress.'

Stepping out, Gonzalez felt a warm feeling of satisfaction spreading from her stomach. Finally, a step in the right direction.

::OFF::

Comander Khiane Mau
Executive & Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Hecate
[NPC]

Lieutenant Gonzalez
Intelligence Officer
USS Hecate
[PNPC Captain Robert Burke]
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