Now you see us. Now you don't.

Posted on 14 May 2019 @ 2:45am by Major Patrick Smith 'Nine' & Ensign Temperance Zachary

Mission: From the Darkness
Location: Blackbird

As both Temperance and Patrick entered the cockpit it was pretty clear to anyone familiar with starfleet design, that this ship had been made a lot more comfortable. The pilot and co pilot chairs were large and comfortable but still very functional. They even had cup holders, oh and a built-in console. The consoles around the cockpit themselves had been set out in a custom design and arranged so that either position could control everything. "Alrighty, Doc. Grab a seat and buckle up. There's a group of technicians over there I want to scare the pants off on the way out."

She slid into the seat, pulling the seatbelt across quickly and fastening it. "Temperance or Temp will do just fine, thank you Major Smith. I still find it awkward being called Doc. Every time I hear someone say Doc I want to look over my shoulder looking for Old Doc Ibby." Sliding her hands down and gripping the edges of the seat, she cast a glance at him, watching as he settled himself into his own seat. "So what did they do to you? Or is this just one of those male 'just because' things?"

"Patrick or any variation there of," he replied starting up the ship. "And not quite. This is more of a fighter jock thing. Since I know if I did a 'fly by the tower' manoeuvre the Colonel would shoot at us I figure scaring the hangar crew is the next best bet. You ready?" he asked with the most childish grin possible adorned across his face.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Temp replied, suppressing a smile at the sheer glee on his face. Taking a deep breath, she wedged her boots firmly onto the floor, pushing herself back into the seat. "Just don't kill us both in the process please?"

"Ah. Yea. I don't make promises I can't keep," he said as he began the startup sequence. "Computer. External Audio. Load track 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns 'N' Roses. Play internal and external," he instructed audio and ships engines firing at the same time. From the cockpit, they could see at least three mechanics jump and one bump his head on a starfighter undercarriage. Fingers moving across the console Pat fired the interial thrusters jumping the ship off the deck before quickly balancing off to avoid becoming part of the roof. "Roadtrip time," he declared with a sideways smirk as he grabbed took hold of the throttle and moved it quickly forward, the ship roaring through the Akiras hanger before popping out the other side.

His initial reply did nothing to set her nerves at ease, neither did the sudden introduction of the music which also took her completely by surprise. As the engines fired, she probably would have crossed herself, that is, if she could have unwedged her fingers from the sides of the seat. Seeing the reactions of the mechanics, she couldn't help but feel sorry for them. "I'm starting to see why the Colonel would shoot you," she murmured softly as she ship jumped to life. It was only once they were clear of the Powell that she allowed herself to exhale, not even consciously aware she had been restricting her own breathing. "Well, that was fun," she said dryly, flexing her fingers slightly and massaging her fingertips.

Pat chuckled to himself as he turned the volume of the music down and killed the externals. "Computer enable silent running. Set course to observation point echo - seven - four and proceed at maximum cruising speed." He cracked his knuckles and sat back taking a breath. "You'll be glad to know I'm not usually this excitable. Mission brief time then. We are having problems tracking down a large fleet. Which you would think would be easy, but with Klingon transport manifests its shall we say... well it's just not. So I had an idea. Follow the two things everything keeps track of," he said by way of explanation. "The first is weapons. Turns out the Klingons guard those well. Who knew?" he asked rhetorically.

His face now as he got into the flow of the serious bit started to reflect that. "The second. Is medicine. Klingons track it. But don't seem to guard it. Problem is I can't tell one from the other unless they have a label on them and learning what I'm looking for would take too long. Ergo. Doctor," he said motioning towards Temperance.

"I guess that makes sense," Temp replied quietly. "Do you know what you're tracking? Or at least how you're going to track it?" She paused for a moment. "Anything more you can tell me?"

"I know where the medical supplies are going through. I have a background as a smuggler and one of my contacts has gotten me an in at sort of dubious facility the supplies have a layover in," he began to explain. "The plan. Hopefully. Is to buy some supplies and then add a tracker to the shipments during the transactions. As for the what. Supplies for triage wounds is what we want to target. Wartime medication and supplies."

"Okay so Klingons and medicine is a little different to almost any other species, they embrace that whole death thing a little too freely so their wartime medical supplies might be a little thin on the ground. If you can get me in there I can tell you what to track. You'll want to make sure what you're getting is the real deal. Some pain medications, specifically stronger medications could be a good thing to track, they get distributed pretty widely and their use is not always purely medicinal." Temperance offered a slight smile. "I worked with what was basically a Klingon Medical Officer for a couple of months before I went to the Academy."

"So. Super dooper painkillers. Presumably, so they can go back to hacking and ignore the missing limb. Gotcha. What about field dressings or prosthetics?" he asked trying to widen their target list a bit.

"Not much in the way of prosthetics, they wear their injuries like badges of honour." Temperance paused looking thoughtful for a moment. "Target antifibrinolytic drugs instead. Look for aminomethylbenzoic acid or maybe tranexamic acid. Field dressings would be an easy one to target but there's no real guarantee that they'll end up in the right place and it might be difficult to actually get anything resembling a tracker on them without compromising the packaging enough that it would be noticed. How big are the tracking devices you're planning on using?"

He looked at her and nodded as she spoke. "I haven't the faintest idea what you just said for half of that. But as long as you know what you're looking for we can talk to the sellers and they will sort it. As for the tracker. They're extremely small. They are designed to send a small signal once every hour rather than continually broadcasting which mean a miniaturised power supply could be used along with smaller sensitive transmission equipment since continuous use wouldn't degrade it," he described holding up his thumb and forefinger leaving a small button-sized gap.

Temperance laughed slightly. "Okay, so they should be pretty easy to hide the tracking devices, depending on how the drugs are packaged. We can work that out once we see them though, it shouldn't be terribly difficult I wouldn't think." She lapsed into silence momentarily, her expression bordering somewhere between contemplative and concerned. "Do you really think you can pull this off?" she finally asked quietly.

He looked at the ground for a moment face contemplating. "These things are never certain to work. But I believe I have the best equipment and the two correct people for the job. After that, we play our parts and cross our fingers."

"Well, you should know, I'm really bad at acting," Temp replied lightly. "I mean REALLY bad. So I hope you're good enough to cover for both of us. Who or what am I supposed to be pretending to be? Like I said, I wasn't really told anything, just dress like I wasn't myself and show up."

"Take a breath. You don't need to act or pretend. I need you to be a doctor," he said hoping to calm her down a bit before holding up his right hand forefinger out as if counting. "Step one. Find someone willing to sell supplies. My Contact has sent me several reliable names and a few less so. So we are ahead in that one. Step two," he continued holding up another finger. "We meet the buyer. If they ask you have been sent by the buyer to verify the goods. You don't have to say anything if you don't want too. You can simply nod or shake your head. If the product isn't what they claim I'll get us out of there."

He took a breath and took his hand down to his leg but counting out the third finger. "Step three. If it's what we want you and I will 'look for a good batch' so to speak," he said doing air quotes, "Really it can be any. But while we do that we stick a few trackers in. If you're not comfortable I'll do that. Lastly and not least. Step four. Work out what we do with a cargo bay of Klingon medical supplies because unfortunately in this job. I end up with a lot of crap I don't need," he finished with a sort of half bemused yet defeated look. "I still have that spider tank..." he muttered.

"Spider tank?" Instinctively she pulled her feet up off the floor, and rested them on the edge of her seat. "Uh... did it actually have spiders in it?" she asked, looking around, wide eyed.

"Uhhhh. It was a tarantula about the size of a fist, that had gained sentience thanks to a crystal. Long gone now don't worry," he added. "Iggy was perfectly harmless. Though she had a weird sixth sense for when people were having alone time."

Temperance shuddered visibly, still not putting her feet back down. "I don't like spiders," she said with a shake of her head. "They are the one thing I just can't stand."

Wrapping her arms around her knees, she shifted slightly in her seat so she could watch him. "Klingon medical supplies wouldn't be too hard to palm off," she finally offered. "Especially if you look for smaller colonies, ones out of immediate trade paths. Non federation colonies would be good candidates, though they're more likely to barter then buy."

"Be glad you missed her babies. They at least never made it on board," he hastily added. "I'm not really worried. Anything that will save for a while I usually add to my stash in case I need it to bargain with later. Perishables get dropped off in refugee camps and the likes."

She raised an eyebrow slightly. That was possibly one of the last things she expected to hear, least of all from him. "Anything you have left I can tell you what kind of shelf life you'll be looking at," she offered. "I can also give you worst case scenarios. Sometimes medications work well long after their dates are technically up. Some work but are less effective. I'm pretty good at working out what's what."

"Well let's not worry about what we have left over at the moment. For now. Relax. Enjoy the ride and I'll let you know when we arrive," he said to her.

"How long do you think it'll take for us to get there?" Temperance asked quietly. Small talk wasn't really her forte, but if they were going to be stuck in the small craft for very long then she may as well make some effort to get to know something about him, aside from his name.

"Long enough for us both to nap," Pat answered putting his feet up. "You'll thank me later."

"Okay then," Temperance said with a shrug as she leaned back in the seat, tucking her feet up and resting her head against the back of the seat. "I guess it's a good thing I can sleep most anywhere," she finished with a smile.

"A good skill," Nine replied with a smirk, putting his head back and closing his eyes.


=/\=

'Nine'
Smuggler
Kewl Dewd

&

Ensign Temperance Zachary
Chief Medical Officer
USS Powell