What to do about the Guests

Posted on Fri Jul 2nd, 2021 @ 2:45am by Captain Kelly O'Connor & Lieutenant Glenn Radars & Lieutenant JG Cara Ross & Lieutenant JG John Adams

1,629 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Mission 8 - A Blast from the Past
Location: Meeting Room
Timeline: 2296/03/12 0745

O'Connor did not like this situation. An avian looking species that spoke a Romulan dialect on this side of the neutral zone. A first warp flight. Saving a ship of these creatures that could or should have burned up. Did they violate the Prime Directive? Not likely. But all of the connecting dots were missing. She was far from a diplomat. She was a woman of action and now decisions needed to be made. Hopefully, they could at least make nice and get permission to investigate more on the planet. She sat down at the head of the table, her eyes furrowed in deep thought, as she waited for her chiefs to arrive.

Conversely, Cara was almost down right giddy. There were not all that many avian species in the Federation, or without it, that she had been able to interact with. Her entire in person experience was relegated solely to the Aurelians. To her, this was a golden opportunity. The trick would be reigning her enthusiasm into something approaching polite.

Adams waited for the other senior officers to arrive, before he entered the meeting.

Cara passed him on her way in with a small smile, tugging on the top of one of her boots as she entered, data slate tucked under her arm. "And here I was worrying about being late."

"I was waiting for you, before going in...but I would wait for you for as long as I had to." He motioned to the ready room door, and was prepared to follow her in.

Jason Frankley soon arrived, nodding as a greeting before taking a seat, silently.

Cara held her tongue at Adams' passing flirtations, but there might have been the smallest of blushes as she settled into her chair in turn. She nodded to Frankley and O'Connor in turn as well, waiting for the session to kick in.

A rather smug looking Glenn entered and sat down in an empty chair.

Upon seeing everyone arrive and seat themselves, O'Connor started the meeting without any preliminary introduction. "We have a problem, folks. We have these avian creatures on board. We have their ship. And we have a first contact situation that has gone less than perfectly. I do not believe the Prime Directive is in play because they have warp capability; however, we still have a duty to not interfere with another culture. Yet, they have been, at least as far as I can tell interfered with. This may give us wiggle room. I need not say that our decisions in this room may affect all of our careers, so we need to discuss this out carefully. I want your thoughts. I'm going to start with Adams. He had the first introduction to these creatures. Adams, what are your thoughts about these people/creatures and how we should handle this?"

"I think we should proceed slowly with them, captain. When they first came aboard, they saw the two security guards and assumed they were going to be prisoners. It took them several minutes to calm down, allowing me to show to the guest quarters." He reported. "They did say that someone told them that we were going to take them prisoners."

"More evidence of Romulan influence, I would suspect." O'Connor furrowed her eyebrows. "What do we know about this planet? What do we do with these creatures and their ship? Any ideas? Anyone?"

"It's not a planet we've surveyed in any great detail prior to now," Cara chimed in at this point, "Nothing beyond long range probes, for obvious reasons." Given its proximity to the neutral zone. "That said, I've currently tasked the Science department with rectifying that."

"Good. We're in orbit, now, so everything that you get will be useful." O'Connor looked at her staff and said, "I'm concerned that the longer we have these creatures up here, the more we look like kidnappers."

Jason piped in, "I mean, personally, I don't see it as kidnapping. If they want to leave, they can do so. Perhaps, yes, this is a first contact, but first and foremost we are here to assist and aide them. We'll show the hospitality and send them on their way. If they feel we are an enemy, I'm sure basic manners, hospitality, and maybe even patching their ship, will make them question who the true enemy is."

"You may not see this as a kidnapping. I might not see this as a kidnapping, but THEY might. And, as you say, we still have their ship. Should we even patch it? They would have burned up. Did saving them violate the Prime Directive? I don't think so since they were warp capable and indications are some sort of Romulan influence. How do we ferret it out? I can only think about going down to the planet," O'Connor grumbled with furrowed brows.

She looked sternly at her white haired, timid Chief Communications Officer and put her on the spot. "What do YOU think Ms. Rogers?"

Aurora blushed a little. She'd been trying to get a word in for some time, and now had opportunity. She somehow felt that she was in trouble for not trying hard enough. Regardless she nodded, "I actually think that commander Frankley is right, to a point. We have an opportunity to stretch out an olive branch. In one sense, their ship is their planet. This is a first contact with an equivilant of and we should treat it as such. That said, I still think we should go to the planet, but only on the condition we make a good first impression with our guests first. For all we know, if we mess this up and don't offer to help repair the ship and if we don't offer courteous hospitality, they could send a message home before we would even get there. We may be shot out the sky, so to speak. We need to make a good impression here first. Once that relationship is there, we should go to the planet and learn more."

O'Connor gave Aurora a crooked smile. "Well, you're the communications officer. You're going to communicate with them. Perhaps you should take Mr. Adams, too. He met with them first. If they seem uncomfortable with him, you're on your own. You take lead on that. I want them as comfortable as possible and as much information as you can before we go down." For an afterthought, she added, "Take the Doctor, too. If we can get some biology readings on them, to get a sense of what they're like surreptitiously, I would like that. If not, we will live without it. Her gentile nature may be of some assistance, as well."

"Yes ma'am," Rogers replied, "we'll make them as at ease as possible, I'm hardly the scary person."

"Understood, captain." replied Adams.

"Yes ma'am." Stallworth nod.

Making a note of the assignments being handed out, Cara shot John a brief smile of encouragement. First contact was a big deal and they were all right at the forefront of what was proving to be quite the mystery.

Looking at her lazy engineer, O'Connor said, "Radars, I want you to diagnose their ship. Only use materials and repairs that would get their ship down safely with THEIR level of technology. They need to make their own discoveries and we probably have exposed them already to more than they should know. Anyways, you might find it to be a fascinating project. Frankley, make sure he stays on task and help him where required."

"No problem" Radars replied simply leaning back in his chair. "It's almost like you don't trust me Cap. I know better to mess with their tech without knowing what it does. I'm not going to be installing anything that shouldn't need there. Too much hassle."

"Consider it more in the way that you have someone to back you up when Fleet inevitable start smacking the backs of our hands for this grey area first contact," Frankley replied, "two senior officers saying 'we did the bare minimum' sounds better than one. Less wiggle room for fleet to accuse us of giving them something these people haven't thought of yet."

"Let me look at their so called warp engine. If its influenced by the Romulans. It may be 'beneficial' to see how it operates, if you catch my drift?" Glenn suggested with a sly grin.

"Mr. Radars, I highly doubt that the Romulans gave away any of their cloaking technology, but you are welcome to see anything that might be in plain view and report it to me.

"Not just their cloaking technology" Glenn piped up leaning forward slightly. "Any of their tech would be beneficial to us! After all they're hostile towards us, if they as so much as shared anything we might be able to use that in a sticky situation later on" he explained.

"My guess," the Captain replied rather disinterestedly, "is that anything that we find on that ship is more than 300 years old in technology. Romulans do not fight fair. If they're here and influencing this species, it is is likely to give us more problems at our back door than to actually give them anything worthwhile."

Crossing his arms Glenn sat back in his chair in an almost sulky fashion. "It'll still be better than nothing. But I see your point. Romulans don't fight fair at all"

"Ms. Ross, get me all that data as you suggested. Does anyone have any questions?"

"Hundreds, ma'am, but none of them useful right now. We'll see what those scans of mine bring up and go from there." Ross retorted, acknowledging both the orders and the inquiry.

O'Connor nodded. "Well, let's get to it, then." With that, she walked out of the meeting room.

 

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