Old Friends and Old Habits

Posted on Sun Apr 13th, 2014 @ 10:24am by Commander Alexandra Vance

885 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Revenge
Location: Captain's Ready Room

Alexandra sat down at Samantha's desk turning the console towards her. "Open a secure channel to Admiral Severide."

Moments later an aging man appeared on her screen. His face was covered in the scars from past conflicts and his eyelids sagged below his eyes indicating his younger years had long since past. As with all intelligence officers not all pass their prime at the same age as a standard federation officer. as his colleagues would vouch.

"Admiral." Alexandra began.

"Alexandra Vance. It's been a while, how are you?" he smiled courteously.

"I've been better, but unfortunately I've run into some trouble lately." she replied.

"Alexandra Vance, trouble? You're kidding right?" he answered sarcastically. "What's Hunter got you into now?"

Alexandra look wide eyed at Severide.

"Oh c'mon Alexandra. Head of Fleet Intelligence goes on an excursion, of course I'd know."

Alexandra shot him a quick half smile then bowed her head. "He's missing James, and I haven't got a clue why."

James leaned back in his chair stroking his chin concernedly. "Max may not be the most foregoing individual but he sure as hell doesn't just go missing mid mission without a word, not unless something is wrong or there is someone he doesn't trust. Did anyone else go missing?"

"The Commanding Officer, Colonel Raine and several other members were taken by some form of transporter. I've got personnel on it but we are early in the investigation." she replied.

"And you're hoping I have some answers." Severide stated in turn.

Alexandra resigned herself to a sigh. "Yes, that's right. I don't know these people and hardly trust them. They are cohesive but I don't know how long it will take them to find the answer. Samantha York has been taken twice in less than a week. I don't know if it's complacency, dumb luck or simply this ship has found a way to piss off a lot of people but this cannot be allowed to continue, it's an embarrassment."

Severide let out a hardy laugh. "If anyone knows how to piss off a lot of people it's you Alexandra. These people aren't like us, they aren't trade how to hide, they can't be the cloak and dagger. Their outlook is different than ours you can't hold that against them. You gotta give them a chance. Now did you get any data on the transporter beams?"

"We did, we're in pursuit of the vessels, but nothing more then an approximate location." she replied.

"Send it to me."

Alexandra tapped the console and sent the data to Severide. "You should have it."

The glow of the screen in front of Severide grew more intense as he moved closer to study the data. "Crap."

"What?" Alexandra replied curiously.

"I've seen this before." James stated thrusting his hand towards the screen. "Orions. Caught a couple syndicate ships using this to grab people from Andoria. Probably to use them as labourers or something, not all of them were female so brothels were eliminated."

"Did you ever find out where they were going?" Alexandra asked hopefully.

"Nah. These guys wouldn't crack even with our best interrogators. One of them took the secret to the grave, others are still rotting in a penal colony somewhere. Prisoners knew nothing, just that one moment they were on Andoria, the next they weren't." Severide replied frustratedly.

"You didn't have me." Alexandra quipped arrogantly.

"They weren't afraid of death or pain Alex. They were afraid of whatever their masters would do if they betrayed them. Hell one of our guys threatened to chop a guy's nuts off and he still didn't break. All Orions love sex, but this guy didn't care, the secret was worth more."

"So what are you doing about it?" she asked.

"Bah, we have bigger fish to fry. We can't keep worrying about the small fish, we gotta keep our eyes on the sharks. If the Orions wanna make a few bucks, well that isn't as bad as a full on invasion. With the Calypso finding those Borg..."

"Those Borg are of no threat." Alexandra interrupted with a fury in her voice. "We dealt with them."

Severide sighed. "Alex listen. It's not that we don't trust you but we've gotta be sure. That was too close to home and we can't afford to be complacent. You of all people should appreciate that."

Alexandra rolled her eyes. He was playing to her character and she hated it. The Borg were dead and she knew it, she could still sense them but the voices had gone quiet for weeks. They had long since fled. "Send me your data so I can have my people look it over. I can't have the syndicate thinking they can get away with capturing Starfleet flag officers. Otherwise I'll have another race to eradicate."

"You still haven't given up on the Cardassians have you?"

"Not until they're all dead." she replied coldly.

Severide leaned back and sighed. "Fine. I'l send you what i've got but my best people couldn't even crack them."

"Well then maybe it just needs someone with a different outlook." she shot back taking a stab at him.

"Perhaps. I'll send it right away. Severide out."

Moments later the files appeared on Alexandra's console. She got up from her chair and departed from the room.

 

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