By Avery Breaux and Keiran O'Sullivan
80309.12
Following Unanswered
-=O'Sullivan's Quarters=-
80309.12
Following Unanswered
-=O'Sullivan's Quarters=-
"Chief of Security's personal log, stardate. . ."
Keiran paused and rubbed his eyes. "What is the bloody date?"
He thought a moment, and then continued.
"Stardate 80309.12. I have spoken briefly with twenty four members of the Serendipity's crew and so far, every instance of the flagged words in the comm logs has been innocent and completely verifiable."
He paced back and forth as he spoke, shuffling a PADD between his hands. "Letters home, mostly. Letters to parents. Siblings." He paused. "Children grown and gone." He sat down at his desk and retrieved a small disk from the top drawer. It contained the only holoimage he possessed of his son, Carrick.
He turned it on and stared at the boy, just a toddler when the likeness was captured.
"None of the messages bothered me. Until I saw the ones written to Grace." He could see the words on the screen every time he closed his eyes, and they truly got to him.
"How any father could disown a daughter as gentle as February is, for whatever reason they think they can justify," He shook his head. "Is beyond me. What I wouldn't give to have my child write to me," He switched off the image of Carrick and tossed the disk back into the drawer, realizing now that the young man his son surely had grown into would bear no resemblance to the child in the hologram.
"He's a man now. A young one, but a man still. I wonder what he wants to do with his life. I wonder. . ."
He slammed the drawer shut.
"I wonder if I'll ever have the chance to find out. If he looks like me. What his talents are. If he's fallen in love yet." He stopped adding to the log entry and told the computer to save it. Then he asked it to begin taking down a letter.
"Carrick, it's your Da. I don't know if you'll ever get a chance to see this, boy, but I want you to know that whatever you may think of me, what ever you have been told, that I would love nothing more than to see you, son. Anytime, anywhere. Just say the word and I'll be on the next transport.
"If you're not ready for that, write, or send a subspace." He thought about how he'd nearly died on the last mission, and how fragile life was overall. "I just need to know you're all right. I love you, son. Always have, and nothing can change that. Computer, translate voice recording into text only and submit to the last known address for Carrick Riley O'Sullivan in my database."
A moment later the computer beeped. ^Message relayed.^
Having finished that task, now Keiran felt he could finally get back to work.
The next person he needed to speak with concerning the cryptic messages and potential contact with Angela Nolan was someone whose record of service worried O'Sullivan on the Nolan front -because he had previously served aboard the Erasmus.
*****
-=Captain's Ready Room, USS Erasmus=-
-=Captain's Ready Room, USS Erasmus=-
Angela Nolan finished the last of the assignment PADDS and was finally caught up and ready to head out on her two week diplomatic junket...she tapped her comm badge, [Nolan to Clarke]
[Clarke here]
[Mister Clarke, I have completed the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo and I'll be on my way...as discussed, you have the ship during my absence...try not to get involved in anyt'ing too dramatic...and...do enjoy your time...one of us has to...Nolan out.]
She made her way from the Ready Room to Shuttle Bay 1, and within minutes she was on her way to one of numerous destinations on her tour...
*****
-=Office of the Chief Engineer, USS Serendipity=-
-=Office of the Chief Engineer, USS Serendipity=-
It felt strange to Avery, sitting at the desk that he was so used to seeing Lair Kellyn occupy.
Salvek had already come by to pick up the few mementoes that his wife had kept in the space, with plans to move them down to her new laboratory.
Still, the room felt more like hers, than Avery's. He realized that he was going to have to personalize the place a little, just so he'd feel more at home.
"Afternoon, Commander," A friendly sounding voice, accompanied by a friendly smile got Avery's attention. It was the ship's chief of security.
"Keiran!" Avery rose to offer a handshake to his fellow Terran. "Good to see you up and around so soon, man! You gave the Away Team quite a scare."
Keiran's expression indicated that was a topic he'd rather leave alone. "Good to be back, thank you. I'm not officially on duty yet, but something came up that needs my attention right away. Do you have a moment to spare? I could use your help with it."
"Certainly...please sit down."
"Congratulations on your promotion, by the way, and your other accomplishment as well. A doctor and an engineer, quite something to be proud of." O'Sullivan said, taking a seat across from Breaux's desk.
"Thank you...I've been exceptionally fortunate on many fronts," Breaux was also considering his recently passing the medical boards and the recovery of his comrades.
"I've found that fortune tends to favor those who work their arses off." Keiran said with a small laugh. Avery laughed as well, but felt a little uneasy that the ship's chief of security was coming to see him all of a sudden, without any warning.
"Is there something I can do for you, Commander?"
"Right, right. The reason I'm here." His smile faded into an expression of dismay. "Do you have any idea who may have been the intended recipient of this message?"
He handed Avery the PADD containing the fragment of text transcript from Breaux's last conversation with Angela Nolan. "I couldn't retrieve the whole thing from the system, and I wonder, since you served aboard the Erasmus, do you know of anyone that Captain Nolan may be trying to contact aboard the Sera?
Breaux didn't miss a beat, "Angela! I can only assume this was meant for me...we have a quite a history. She's a great leader...have you ever met her?"
"Can't say as I've ever had the pleasure." Keiran tilted back casually in his chair. "Known her long?"
Breaux laughed, "Yes, we go way back. I was posted to her ship for fifteen years..." Breaux looked a little wistful. "You know there's a special bond between crew, and over that amount of time...well, it's very special."
"I've never had the opportunity to serve in one place that long." Keiran volunteered with a tone of longing in his voice. "Maybe Sera will be like that for me, eh?"
He shook his head now, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Do you have any idea why the rest of the message might not have come through? It looked to me at first as if it'd been deleted, but I can't tell if the original transmission was simply garbled and lost over subspace, or if it was intentionally removed from the system. "
Breaux furrowed his brow, "Hmmm...I'm not sure...I've handled a great deal of late, it's possible I deleted it. I know Angela has wished me well and tried to catch up with me. I have had communiqués from her...nothing major. I'm a little confused, is there a problem with our communications? Something I can help with?" Breaux volunteered. "We took some damage during the mission- all that radiation and such. Maybe there's a bug in the communications array. I could have somebody look into it right away."
"That would be appreciated. It's really odd. You see, thing is the fragment, well, way it was worded, it set off the damn security safeguards. So now I have to investigate."
"Security? That is odd. Maybe the parameters are too wide. Angela is pretty harmless," Breaux laughed.
Keiran looked at Breaux sideways.
"Yeah. Routine sweep flagged a hundred and seventy some odd messages, and lucky me, I get to go through them all."
Breaux smirked, "Angela setting off security safeguards," he chuckled..."It has to be that self-proclaimed wild Irish temper of hers...Gods know I was on the wrong side of that a few times. I'll try to contact her and see if there's a problem with our outgoing subspace to Erasmus as well. She'll get a laugh out of this."
"Oh, I don't think it's anything you need to bother Captain Nolan with," Keiran waved dismissively, sitting upright in his chair once again.
His gut told him that he needed to look no further for the person to keep an eye on in the days to come. Something was up between Nolan and Breaux, but until he had more evidence he wasn't going to go accusing anyone of anything.
"Such a busy woman. I'm sure it's just a glitch on our end, with Sera having gotten so banged up. Hell, with the Gateway to Alchemy and all that ship went through it's a wonder anything is working at the moment. A tribute to your fine engineers."
The question forming in O'Sullivan's mind as he spoke was, was Nolan using Avery without his knowledge, perhaps piggy-backing messages on her friendly transmissions to him, encoded in a way that they were forwarded on to someone else? Or was she encrypting data into the messages which he was knowingly passing on or using to some end?
Breaux decided to press it a bit, "Perhaps it's an issue on the Erasmus end. She might want to know in that case. Have other communiqués experienced similar problems?"
"Here and there. If you feel it's best to tell her, then by all means, pass it along." Keiran did not know Breaux well enough yet to trust him, and he was very concerned that someone with ties to Angela Nolan- and who also could be acquainted with her infamous "Mother"- might have just been promoted to one of the most sensitive, potentially dangerous positions on the entire ship's roster.
"Well I've taken up enough of your day with this nonsense. I've got to get to Sickbay, as well. I'm expected for a quick post-release check up." Keiran said, rising and offering his hand to Breaux once again. "If Doc McKay knew that I was doing any work at all he'd have me in there and tied to a biobed straight away. I thank you for your time, Lt. Commander. Please let me know if you find and resolve any glitches in the comm array."
He lightened his tone intentionally, to try to give the impression that he was satisfied with Breaux's answers and would be letting the matter go. "I hope to fine tune my own scanning processes as well. Narrow those perameters down so these false hits don't come up and keep me chasing my tail and pestering fine officers such as yourself for no good reason."
"Not a problem, always glad to help," Breaux watched with a smile as Keiran departed.
*He knows...at least he knows something...god damned Barbary Coast.* Breaux thought. *Run a diagnostics on the comm array, there's sure to be the usual bubble and that can be the explanation of why the message was piecemeal.*
Breaux picked up a PADD and feigned going over a report . *Who knows who or how they are watching at this point.*
*Maybe Keiran is Barbary Coast...maybe Angela has gone off half-cocked without telling me..again.*
---------------------------------
Lt. Commander Avery Breaux
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lt. Commander Keiran O'Sullivan
Chief of Security
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. Commander Avery Breaux
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lt. Commander Keiran O'Sullivan
Chief of Security
USS Serendipity NCC-2012