Staff Meeting

Posted on Sun Jul 4th, 2010 @ 9:35pm by Commander Jack Tolren & Commodore Edward Fannin & Colonel Wilhelm Baron von Hackleberg & Captain Anna Johnson & Commander Krang Darkmoon & Commander Dhindara Vrel & Commander Basil Hart & Commander Lucas Jackson & Commander Raven Adams & Commander Ian Casey & Lieutenant Cole Russo

1,825 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: On Typhon Station
Location: Operations Conference Room
Timeline: Current (follows "The Return of Jack")

Jack did as he had said and after reoccupying his office and shuffling some padds around he sent a message around the senior staff to attend a briefing at 1400 hours. It wasn't long, catching up on messages was never a short task after being away for a few months, before the clock was showing 13:55 and Jack made his way to the conference room.

Anna had made sure there would be coffee, and other refreshments for the meeting and was in the conference room checking on everything when Jack arrived. "I think everything is ready sir." Anna said.

Jack smiled as he saw the coffee, "I'm glad tradition never changes." He took a cup before ensuring that the room was tidy and ready for the briefing.

Ian stepped into the room and paused to look around. He was a little surprised to see that he was one of the first to arrive. He looked at Anna and smiled. "Hello, Anna," he said to her. He turned to the other man and said, "Hello, Commander. I'm not sure if we've been properly introduced. I'm Ian Casey, the base's Air Group Commander." He stepped forward and extended his hand to Jack.

Jack took the man's hand and shook it firmly before replying, "Jack Tolren. It's a pleasure to meet you, Commander."

Wilhelm, wearing combat fatigues, walked into the Conference Room. "I heard there was a meeting...." Wilhelm paused and noticed Commander Tolren was back. Wilhelm walked over and extends his hand. "Commander, welcome back. Pleasure to see you again." Wilhelm then sees Anna and Ian, "Hey guys. Ian, we will be ready to load your Razors in about six hours."

Raven was usually one of the first to arrive, but today she was running a bit behind. She did a quick assessment of the people already gathered and walked up to Commander Tolren. "Good to have you back," she said with a smile.

"Thanks Raven," he replied, taking a glance at her rank insignia. It seemed everyone had been promoted around here. "Hope you're well."

"I am, thank you." She caught his glance at her rank insignia and smiled. Yes, a lot had transpired while he was gone.

Basil strolled in, waved a cheery greeting to all, and gave Jack a half-serious jaunty salute. "Welcome back, Jack!"

Jack smiled and nodded in response as he took a sip of coffee and sat down at the table.

Dhindara entered the room, nodded and smiled at everyone assembled and took a seat.

Krang walked in quickly swallowed the last of the carrot he had been chewing on all morning. He looked around the room and saw a face he only recognized from the personel files. "Commander Tolren. Nice to meet you finally, Sir. I am Krang Darkmoon, the station's chief of security."

Luke strolled into the room enthusiastically, but the smile quickly faded from his face when he realized how many officers had already gathered in the conference room. He wanted to give Jack a good welcome, but Lucas couldn't with the large amount of people. A proper "good friends" welcome would have to wait.

"Ok folks," Jack said, obtaining the attention of the room. "I hope you've all got coffee, I know I've certainly missed the real thing..."

"Anyway, the point of this briefing is to just let you know that Captain Fannin will be off station dealing with some administrative matters for a short time, obviously now I'm back I'll be assuming the CO duties, with Commander Johnson acting as first officer in addition to her duties as Chief of Ops."

He took a sip before continuing, "as I've been away I would appreciate I quick catch up, a status report if you like, of what you're dealing with and where you're at. I'm particularly interested in these murders, although I'll save that to the end."

"So.... what's happening beside the murders?"

"Apparently OreCo acquired mining rights to Tiberius IV without submitting a bid -- or even any notice that mining would open up. The cargo ship is now at the bottom of a lake of sand. It's apparently too fine to hold weight. We're still investigating," Raven said.

"Is that Mason's ship or one of the company's?" Jack asked.

"It was a company ship. We haven't been able to connect anything directly to Mason," Raven replied.

Jack nodded, "we need keep an eye on him, I've no doubt he's done a survey of the planet."

"Right, so the murders then, what updates do we have?" Jack asked, turning his attention to the combined team of science, medical and security for a response.

"It appears we may have an alien entity on the station. It is in the records under aliases such as RedJac, Beratis, Kesla and Jack the Ripper. It inhabits humanoids in order to commit murder. Evidence points to it being Redjac himself, or one of his species, that is behind the murders," Raven replied.

Krang was about to speak when Raven spoke for the whole team. He was, to say the least, not happy about being upstaged, but he decided that here and now was not the time or place to make an issue out of it. He added to what Raven had already said, "We do know that there seems to be a pattern and there has been at least one case where the perpetrator has taken time to deliberately call me out by name and mock our lack of being able to find them."

Basil chimed in. "The wounds on the victims conform in every detail to those of the original Ripper murders on Earth, which led me to a mistaken conclusion of a copycat killer at first. But the trail of murders off-Earth and outward indicated the presence of the Redjac entity or one of its ilk. I'm concerned (to put it mildly) that the killing will continue and escalate in frequency and gruesomeness as the entity becomes stronger and stronger. The more terror it can generate, the stronger it will become until it becomes too strong to deal with."

"On that basis then, let's make sure we have the contingencies in place to get all the civilians off the station, quickly and without much fuss. Afterall, this isn't a holo-novel and we aren't dealing with the deaths of insignificant background characters..." his voice trailed off for a second, before he continued. "What's the research of the previous encounters with the entity provided? Anything?"

"We're talking around 50,000 civilians. I don't think getting them off 'quick and without much fuss' applies," Raven said wryly.

Wilhelm chose then to speak up. "If there is a need for evacuation, none of my marines will be on hand to assist. In less then 16 hours the 21st Marines will be on their way to Exeter for combat operations."

Lucas took a chance to speak. Criminology wasn't his field of study, but he's taken a good deal of psychology classes at the Academy in order to be of some use. "Furthermore, a wide-scale evacuation could promote the killer to take heightened measures. The killer can change is plan of attack as soon as he gets the feeling that he's being closed off."

Anna hadn't really been in on the investigations as much as staying in ops making sure areas were shut off when they needed to be and cleaned up when they needed to be. However, a lot of this information she had already read in reports that had come across her desk as acting XO.

"On paper, that would be true. In reality though we can't afford to take a non confrontational approach." Krang answered a bit irritated. Then he looked at Wilhelm and said, "Don't you think that the safety of people on this station is more important that some training maneuvers?"

"Yes I do Commander." Wilhelm said responding to Krang. "However, what the Regiment is being deployed for is full scale combat operations to help civilians against some Breen and mercs. From what I understand most of the Seventh Marine Division is being deployed. Orders are direct from Marine Command."

"The Marines will have to go unfortunately," Tolren confirmed, "although we may be able to get assistance from any nearby starships. I agree though, the last thing I want to do is cause this entity to kill more people. I want you to continue to work on a method of stopping it, in the meantime we need to ensure we are prepared to get everyone off the station who is non-essential."

"The entity is able to take possession of another person without giving any outward signs thereof", Dhindara cautioned. "If we evacuate, it will likely slip onto one of the transports and leave to get to another star system, where it can continue to kill. I think we should impose a quarantine, rather."

"How did it get here in the first place?" Tolren asked, he wasn't overly familiar with the Redjac entities' abilities, other than the basic information he had picked up at the Academy.

"Unknown", Dhindara replied. "We don't know where the entity's homeworld is, how many there are and which ways of travel they prefer. However, it is reasonable to assume that they took control of a person who travelled here. If they do not kill, there is no way to detect them."

"It uses humanoid hosts to travel from planet to planet," Raven added.

"Ok," Jack thought for a moment. "We have to consider all options, Commander Johnson would you make sure our emergency protocols for quarantine and evacuation of the station are in order and up to date; the rest of you, we need a solution to finding this entity before it kills again."

Anna nodded, "I'll get on it right away and make sure any available space can be used." She said.

"Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise trapped the entity and beamed it into space. What if we could fool it into transferring to something else and do the same? I mean, it posesses and blinds a person's consciousness, why not trap it in something like a Katric Jar?" Basil had an idea that might work, but the Vulcans wouldn't like it unless there were no other choice.

"Go on," Jack said, slightly skeptical of using what he believed were Vulcan religious objects to capture criminal entities.

"We can't destroy a katric jar. The entity, yes. The jar, no. It's a sacred Vulcan artifact," Raven cautioned.

"Do you have any suggestions that don't involve destroying artefacts?" Jack asked.

He waited, but there were no forthcoming ideas. "Ok, lets work with what we've got, I expect solutions to this problem by the time the Captain returns, or we'll be looking at a quarantine of the station and every ship that's visited here between now and then."

Jack looked around for confirmation before rising to his feet. "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, that's all for now. Thank you for your time."

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