Intelligent Marine Coordination

Posted on Tue Dec 19th, 2017 @ 2:13am by Lieutenant T'Relana Morgan & Major Hailey Weston

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/4
Location: Holodrck 4
Timeline: July 3, 2399 1930

ON:

Hailey slipped into the area like a predator stalking her prey. It wasn't obvious nor intended, but it was just the way she moved, like the Raider she was. The tip of the spear, the ones that went in for reconnaissance, for enemy logistical disruption and for those missions that didn't exist and which were likely immoral for the Federation, but still needed. Even with her contacts, Hailey couldn't get much about Commander Wade, which itself told her one helluva lot. She knew what her own file looked like, even to those with a rather high clearance level. However, one thing she new was that when it came down to it, like minds attracted. Not to mention that what you weren't aware of amongst allies could come back to hurt you. It was with that in mind that Hailey had tracked down the head of Intelligence on the ship and made her approach, the better to know the information source in person.

'T'Relana Morgan.' The human thought to herself, remembering the file she'd read. Most of it was redacted, just like she knew the vast majority of hers was, but enough was visible to her sources for some of the missing pieces to fall into place through logical deduction. 'Looks Romulan, but isn't, still good for infiltration and I am certain she has... Makes me wonder if she were one of our sources back when..' She shook the thought as she spotted someone, ah yes, the woman she was looking for.

T'Relana was busy tracking down the quarry of her interest. Silently moving through the underbrush, blending in with the rock face when necessary, she moved like a cat. Her instincts of hunting had taken over yet her heightened senses told her she was not alone. She deviated from her prey and silently approached the individual that was watching her. Coming out from the under brush, she saw Hailey. "Boo!...You looking for me", she said smiling.

A faint smile crossed Hailey's lips as she watched the Romulan-looking woman come out. She hadn't made a bad approach, but Hailey had noticed the unnatural quiver of the leaves before T'Relana had appeared, "I do believe you are." She replied, eyes automatically scanning the area, "Assuming you are Lieutenant Morgan, but you do happen to look like your file image. Captain Hailey Weston, by the way."

"Most people say the same thing", she laughed. "I am glad to make your acquaintance. My record photograph is supposed to be my Romulan self and not the one they have. True I am full Betazoid, but I chose to remain the way I am for obvious reasons. A misfit in a crew that has various different races already on her. My SFI boss saw fit to post me here so here I am", she said smiling at Hailey.

"And here I thought I might have to draw you out to get you to admit your 'true' self." The slight smile stayed, "Your file is redacted quite a bit, so I only have a partial file to work with, but it does paint a pretty interesting picture. Just a question, did you ever have any ops on Romulus about say... Two and a half years ago? I understand that if you did, it would be classified but I've got a ton of clearance of my own."

"Yes I was on Romulus posing as a Intelligence officer in the Tal Shiar and all that is still classified. But it was interesting to say the least. Most of my work was dealing with the security of, all things, Starfleet. Now that is between you and me. I have said enough already to get my ass in the wringer but from what I can sense you are a person who has the ability to keep things quiet. Why do you ask? If you don't mind me asking", she said, suddenly turning as her heightened hearing heard her quarry. "Wait, shhhh, stay low, he is near and I don't want to startle him again. He has proven to be quite the sly one on this hunt. I usually get him quickly but he has learned enough to evade me twice now but the third time I will get him", she said, flattening on the ground, pulling her knife from its sheath.

Hailey went into a combat crouch, the gun on her right hip materializing in her hand, it moved so fast, and was in a two-handed grip, she slowly turned her head to listen, hearing the rustle of leaves that sounded almost natural, but was artificially made. She made a hand gesture that to a Marine would signal 'Contact', then pointed behind her with a 2 and then a 5 finger signal, wavering her hand to signify that it was a rough guess. She then slowly, glancing briefly down to the ground cover, began to take a step to turn towards the noise.

T'Relana nodded and slowly, like a snake moved silently towards the noise. She was poised to attack with a vengeance, when she stopped suddenly, putting her hand up in a fist, signaling Hailey to stop her movement. The noise suddenly stopped and changed pitch. It was more like a growl and T'Relana knew what that meant. It was cornered and it was going to attack. Signaling Hailey to be absolutely quiet and motionless, she inched forward very slowly to the point were the growl changed pitch again and instantly the animal moved fast but T'Relana was faster and the knife hit home in the animals heart, bringing it down fast. There wasn't much of a fight and the animal was large. Looking at her kill she smiled. "That, Hailey is a part wolf part bear animal that I encountered on another planet about five years ago. It is a very intelligent and a smart thing that learns each time I hunt it. The pelt is gorgeous once you skin it but since this is the holodeck, I don't get the pelt. However, I do have one in my quarters from the first one I did kill on Argos 6. They are plentiful on that planet and I had the opportunity to go on a hunt with the people of the village", she said, looking at Hailey.

"I think... It might be a good idea for training Marines." Hailey had had her weapon aimed from the moment it had emerged and only now reholstered it and came out of her crouch. "Getting a jungle sense and adaptive opponents is always a good idea. But to answer your earlier question, the reason I asked the question on whether you were on Romulus was that I was on the planet too, we had a source that was feeding us some intel for our mission and I've been wondering who it was. The intel was good, but there was an un-planned for patrol that cost us the job." She knew she was being vague, but operational security still held.

"Hailey...you...oh god...it was your people I was feeding the intel to?", she said looking a bit pale. "Oh my god Hailey, I had no idea...I am so sorry...how...I had no idea..."she said. Now she really was a bit confused but it didn't take long for her to understand that her job was to send the intelligence to SFI and for them to disassemble it. All it was sent in a coded message piggybacked on subspace garbage. "Hailey lets get out of here and get a drink. Now I need one after hearing this. This is a bit disconcerting for me at this point. That was supposed to be a hush hush mission and I...damn...." she said as she closed the program and headed for the door. She was clearly ticked off and she didn't show it as she had learned to keep her emotions hidden from others.

Hailey shook her head slightly, but kept up with the other woman, "It was hushed, and no real harm was done. The target we were sent in after just happened to not get taken out. We had to ambush the patrol and wiped it out, or else it would have run right into us, but we were compromised and had to withdraw. We were using Romulan weaponry, to make it look like a rogue Romulan element. We exfiltrated cleanly, just one minor casualty. I just wish we'd gotten him. But if wishes were horses, beggers would ride."

"Had I known that they were the targets, I would have sent the message differently and you would have had your man. Some one screwed up and didn't tell me so I had no idea", she said as she walked into the lounge and ordered her drink and made it a double. Clearly some one in SFI screwed up the orders and she had no idea of the mission Hailey was on. "That pisses me off when they screw up orders and the wires get crossed. It is not the first time either. Before the Romulan mission I was sent to Zaran, near Fesarius. The mission was to infiltrate a station on Zaran which had been sending classified information from the First Federation to the Saran Empire who were planning an attack on the mining colony on Zaran. Some one in SFI screwed up the information and I was caught up in the middle of a civil war between the mining companies and it escalated into a major battle. I had to get the hell out of there fast because I was the odd man out. Nearly got my ass killed too if it hadn't been for a shuttle that landed in a small deserted area where I boarded it fast and booked. Damned near died on that one" she said as she downed the double and ordered a second one.

"Guiness." Hailey had ordered, "The things we have to do to keep operational security in place. I know there are reasons, so if one side gets burned it doesn't cost us the other asset, but it does get frustrating. I could tell you about most of my missions, but then I'd have to kill you." The Marine smiled slightly again, but her eyes told T'Relana that she wasn't necessarily kidding. "Oh hell, I'm not even authorized to tell myself half of what I've done." A slight snort of genuine humor, "Tip of the spear, things that violate some of the tenants of Federation law, that sort of crap. But if you ask, I'll deny it all."

"That mission was classified up till about four years ago but was declassified so I didn't mind telling you about it but it just goes to show you how some things can get screwed up. Now about 80 percent of my missions, are still classified and I can't even say word one about them or I would have to either deny them or...well kill you...as they say", she said smiling, downing another double. She was beginning to feel the effects of the liquor and she knew that soon she would have to stop drinking so she ordered a different drink, one that was less lethal. "Tell me Hailey how the hell do you keep such a straight face. One that is so cold and collected. I know you are a Marine and all that but you do have some type of emotions", she said.

"Control." Hailey said, sipping on her beer, "Both from when I was growing up to what I've done for a living.I choose to see things from a completely impersonal point of view and not use emotions to rule my actions." She took a deep breath and suddenly something warm blossomed inside her and a genuine smile crossed her face, "Professional versus personal. I just choose to keep professional most of the time. It's what most people think someone who could technically be accused of being a serial murderer or at least elite killer should look like. It also helps prevent me from makings mistakes that could and probably would cost the lives of some people who don't have to die. If it costs me friends? Worth it."

"I guess some of us are born into the killing business. I learned at an early age how to become an assasin and a sniper. I got really good at it when I was a teen but someone saw me and well...you can guess the rest. SFI got me and...well there you go. Never missed my mark and learned just about all the different ways to make things look like accidents", she said, shaking her head. True she knew more that 1000 ways kill but it wasn't something she was proud of. For her it was only a job.

"Better you learn it that way..." Before she could stop herself, a burst of... Something escaped her emotions, then was cut off as she focused again, "There are some things you can't learn that way, that are learned on the streets when you're ar your worst." No emotions came through at that statement, but it was obvious Hailey was speaking from some sort of experience. That wasn't even in her file, the only mention of her life before the Westons was a brief blurb about changing homes often.

"But there are only a few that can do what I do, what you can do apparently, and be fine with it. Lieutenant Valentine actually enjoys the fights she's in, believe it or not. And she's got some weapons skills I envy, just not the proper type of training to use them properly, but I intend to fix that." Hailey smiled crookedly, "Of course,there are also some other interesting things that not many people really think about." She reached to her side to a small, really small emergency med kit on her belt, "What is this?"

"Yeah Hailey...what the hell is that? Looks like a flask of some sort or something like that", she said, looking at it with a quizzical look.

"An emergency medkit, ma'am, really emergency. But I also see quite a few ways to kill someone in there, not just to heal." Hailey unsealed it, not showing the minor annoyance with her name being uses for a relatively formal meeting, showing a small hypospray, gauze, medical tape, three vials of what was probably painkillers and antibiotics, a pair of sterile gloves and suture kit. "But who would deny someone a medkit?"

"Uh huh...and I suppose you can change the vials for all typs of poisons that one can use for an assasins needs too!", she added.

Except, ma'am, I doubt any captors would let you keep poisons on you, whereas they might let you keep this." Despite what she debates telling her... fellow conversant about what could be done with it, Hailey now didn't like this subject. Yes, if ordered by competant Higher, she would kill anyone by any means needed, but using POISONS? Even she quailed from that, a gun was far cleaner to her. She resealed the pack and changed the subject, "I was primarily here to touch base wuth you to make sure the Marines and you have a solid connection. Faulty Intel is the biggest killer of us."

"True enough and I apologize for the deviation in the conversation, but yes the Marines and the Intelligence division can work together. I try not to get faulty intelligence and then if I even think that it is just a bit off, I double check the sources and if they check as false, the information does not get passed on at all. It stops with me. Faulty intelligence has gotten many a Marine and Security personnel killed or captured and it is something I really hate. Being as how we are entering into new territory, I will be pulling information and intelligence together to keep the Marines and Security on top of things. We don't want any faulty intelligence out here that could result in either a war or a complete incident like the one we just had. Can't have that happening again now can we", she said, as she finished her drink.

"No, we can't, but I would also like to see any unconfirmed Intel you might get for any situation we get ourselves into. More information is always better, and if I get told there's a gun nest in one spot and there isn't, that's a far better option than not being told anything, there being a gun nest there, then coming back to find that I just wasn't told, because it was unconfirmed." The circular logic could be confusing and Hailey knew it. "Bad intel is one thing, but another thing is how the end-user utilizes it. If we know everything you find out and get our asses handed to us, it's our own damned fault."

"Well sure, Hailey, I can give you the unconfirmed information. I can also relate to what you are saying", she added.

"Then, ma'am, I think we're good for the time being." Hailey remarked, "I need to get my troopers in order, just got given the detachment because the Lieutenant is rather new to the Corps, despite being an experienced combat commander." She breathed deeply, "Who would have imagined? A trauma surgeon leading a Marine detachment, eh?"

"Well I guess they thought that even a trauma surgeon would be a good officer to lead a Marine detachment. You are a fine officer and a good leader Hailey. You take charge of things fast and you think fast especially on your feet. You make good decisions and you follow through on what you do", she said, smiling at her. "Talking to you has been good and I enjoyed your company. Can we do this again sometime?" she asked her.

"Well, ma'am, I'm sure that we'll be seeing a fair amount of each other, given our respective positions." Hailey shrugged, "And a Raider has to be fast, confident and well... Think fast." She smirked slightly, "In fact, I'm not sure what the motto of the unit here actually is, but I'm changing it to one my old Team had. 'He who laughs last, thinks fastest.' There's even a story to go along with it, but it's the point that matters."

"That is a good saying. For my old saying was 'the faster you think with your head, the faster your feet go', as I always said" she said laughing. "I don't have a story to go with that but that one is the truth. I have to get back so I will see you again and next time the drinks are on me", she said getting up. Heading for the door, she turned and waved.

"How do you get a Marine to come to you? Offer them free beer." Hailey said to herself as she waved at the Intelligence officer. Still, a shudder ran down her spine that she couldn't account for.

OFF:

Lt. T'Relana Morgan
Intelligence Officer
USS Wellington

Captain Hailey Weston
Marine CO
USS Wellington