"Cocksure Cat"

[Kansas_Jones 0]

03.29.07

ISS Agincourt ICC-81762

“Cocksure Cat”

 

Lieutenant Commander JoNs sat quietly in the darkened shuttle Hexen and edited a security report from a Padd, making notations or removing this or that. Every once in a while she would glance over to her own personal Padd, attached through small fiber optic bypass cables to the shuttle’s on board computer systems. The blue glow from the consoles cast an ice blue light in the cockpit area.

 

A paw digit idly stroked the new pip affixed to her uniform collar as a self satisfied little smirk quirked at her muzzle. She loved it when plans came together, and the new pip had merely been a welcome bonus.

 

The personal Padd pinged, and the Caitian put down the report Padd on the co-pilot chair as she leaned forward in the pilot’s chair. For this particular job, she had needed systems that were stand alone, therefore she had used a combination of her own equipment and a shuttle taken off the active rotation and slated for maintenance. A single confirmation message flashed on the screen:

 

-Payment received, and my credit account thanks you-

 

Despite the cloak and dagger esque setting, JoNs chuckled to herself. The sender was William Rile, and old accomplice from their shared days on the Thunder Cat, and one of the few humans that were “good people”, as they said. As a senior Lieutenant stationed at Imperial Ops, he was very much in a position to make administrative changes – for a price.

 

The change in question had been the abrupt transfer of one security chief Lt. Commander Benjamin Robair from the ISS Agincourt to the newly posted chief of security position on the ISS Yellowjacket.

 

Kansas had never been a power monger, and her assignment to the Agincourt had been no different. Robair had left her alone, and she had left Robair alone. Well, at least until she had screwed up and been late for a duty shift, landing herself in bed with the former security chief. Not that he wasn’t attractive, mind you, or that the romp in bed hadn’t been exceptional. However, once the Caitian had picked up on that the disciplinary pattern may repeat itself with regard to there being ‘a female in the department’, she had taken the necessary steps to ensure Robair was not a factor of her concern any longer.

 

Plus the fact, her elevation to the security chief position in his absence was not without benefits - personal, career and now rank wise.

 

Then again, perhaps she did have some desire for power – to a certain degree.

 

One thing she was sure off – choosing to let Robair live had been the right decision. Her previous involvement in the DeChevel assassination had left a sour taste in her mouth. She had acted more so out of self preservation, and hadn’t even gotten paid. How screwed up was that?!

 

Regardless, if the Caitian officer had killed him it would have been an unsanctioned hit, both Imperial command wise and Agincourt command wise, and she would have committed career and personal suicide. Granted, removing Robair with a fake transfer wasn’t exactly by the book either, but the simplicity of exploiting the constant machine of Imperial red tape was a gem in itself.

 

Commander Robair had received orders to report to the Yellow jacket. Kansas had done her homework prior, sifting through the Imperial database, looking for likely openings in security. If anything, she had done him a favor; if she had been the wicked sort, he could have ended up on a garbage scow in the ass end of nowhere. After locating what she wanted, she had put a call into William, who owed her a favor from a few years back when she had saved his lily white human butt. Rile had been in the wrong place at the wrong time during an assassination attempt; ironic, that was the word.

 

The human operations lieutenant had basically set up a looping digital paper trail that would kick in only if someone really wanted to check into the transfer of an unknown lieutenant commander, and the Caitian doubted that. Both Lt. Colonel Day and Colonel Harper were much too busy dealing with the daily command duties of the Agincourt to split hairs over the loss of the former barnacle security chief. In a way, the restructuring of the Agincourt command staff these past couple of months had given the Caitian the perfect cover to launch her little transfer op.

 

The digital trail gave tons of information in layers of sequence. The admiral who approved the transfer was non existent, but he had a nice shiny biography if anyone wanted to read up on their admirals. The transfer itself was encoded into the stream of hundreds of transfers and transfer requests that happened daily at Imperial Command Ops - why would one make any difference? Smoke, mirrors and quite a few lies were set up at every interval to give whatever information was needed.

 

JoNs set a quick acknowledgement reply, before beginning the process of backing out of the transmission program. A predatory smile lit her feline features as she masked any indication she had been using the shuttle systems to piggy back the transmission on regular Agincourt comm traffic – life was good. Gods, she loved security bypass codes - the civilian issue ones, rather then imperial codes, were the best to manipulate and easiest to encode, surprisingly.

 

The felinoid powered down the systems, removed any paw prints, gathered the two pads, and exited the shuttle quietly, moving like a golden furred wraith to check on the downed maintenance tech lying near the shuttle. She placed a paw digit gently to his neck, feeling for the pulse; it was stronger, indicating that he would be up and at ‘em in another twenty minutes or so. JoNs had snuck up behind the crewman and Mickey Finned him with a med hypo in order to gain access to the shuttle. He’d come around, report to security that he had been attacked; JoNs would investigate, and then promptly find no evidence. No evidence, therefore no need to report to the temporary CO Day.

 

Her thoughts flew to official business as she exited the shuttle maintenance area and started to walk down the corridor. Half the crew – actually, all of the humans and a few half humans – had gotten way more aggressive then usual and then jumped ship. Levy, Murray, Kroells, Nimetti, Rieve and countless others were gone, shanghaied and beamed off by an unknown aggressor ship like an unscrupulous captain would have done to the ancient sailors of yesteryear. It was just dumb luck that Colonel Harper had been detained before she could bolt as well. The current popular theory from medical and sciences was that some sort of tailor made infection had been picked up by some crew at the last shore leave planet. And once every being was back on the ship, it spread like a wild fire.

 

Kansas herself was missing quite a few from the security department; she needed to re-do the security roster to compensate for patrols, and had also received some requests for body guards or additional backup because a good portion of the marines were gone as well. She also needed to have someone relieve Brig Officer Mical soon; the Andorian woman had complained again about Harpers foul mouth.

 

Mmm. I’ll keep the Colonel on bread and water for now, maybe that will take the wind out of her sails a bit.

 

The Caitian mercenary was going to milk this ‘insane humans’ thing for all it was worth. It was also time to do some shopping in Doctor Levy’s medical supplies because in her current state she sure as hell won’t miss them. Kansas had some interested buyers, and she would get a bonus by not having to divvy up the sale profits with the medical officer.

 

Life is good. All hail the empire. Hoo rah and all that sort.

 

With a sly feline smile, JoNs disappeared into the shadows of the corridors.

Edited March 30, 2007 by Kansas_Jones