"Risk vs. Reward"

[Joe Manning 0]

Was it worth it?

 

That's the question Joe had to keep asking himself. His job was to weigh the risks of a plan against the potential rewards. In this case 'potential' was an imposing word.

 

Joe had survived this long as a starship Captain because his gut instincts were seldom wrong. If he felt strongly about a plan of action or a line of inquiry, it was often the right course. There was no quantifying it, no teaching it at a command school. Maybe it came with years of experience, or maybe it was just an inborn gift, but some people had a knack for hitting on the right approach.

 

The tough part of command was allowing oneself to trust the instincts of others. Joe simply did not know T'Aral well. His former chief engineer, Henry Baxter, was a whiz with machines and a good delegator of responsibility; the areas where he fell short were analysis, good decision making, and (sadly) sobriety. He could be left to run a good engine room, but could rarely be trusted for command counsel. He'd been killed, along with half the crew, in the Hydran Expanse just weeks ago, leaving T'Aral in charge.

 

Joe had never worked closely with Baxter's assistants. T'Aral in particular had usually kept to herself, on and off duty. But Joe knew enough -- from the interviews with T'Aral two years prior, discussions with Baxter, and simply the fact that she was a Vulcan -- to believe that her instincts could be trusted.

 

T'Aral seemed convinced that Jerald LaHaye was important, even if the empirical evidence Joe was hearing suggested he was simply an undercover corporate investigator. Joe had his doubts that LaHaye would yield anything useful to his attempts to get in contact with Minos. The city was under attack, however, and Joe had no other leads; he would have to trust T'Aral's judgement and take on the extremely risky endeavor of infiltrating the Guardians' chief medical facility.

 

"Glad you could make it, Doc; try not to mind the smoke," Joe said as Dash turned into the alleyway outside the safehouse. He stood on the other side of the doorway with T'Aral and the cigar-smoking Troy.

 

 

Dash paused a moment as he looked around at the others and then down the street from which he came, instinctively looking for tails.

 

Joe continued. "When we move on the facility, I'll be passed out on a gurney. That'll make you the point man. If there are any trouble with the guards, you'll have to talk your way past them."

 

"So I'm the resident actor now too huh? Dual jobs earn dual pay?" Dash grinned and leaned up against the wall of the building. Is it just me or do you enjoy putting me in positions where I'm likely to get shot? You do realize I'm not as fleet of foot as the rest of you. Well, maybe faster than Troy." He grinned at Troy and then prepared to hear Joe out on his plan.

 

"You're playing a familiar part," Joe pointed out. "There shouldn't be trouble anyway. T'Aral's planted some phony personnel records in the Guardian databanks, and Pher's hunting down ID's to match. Still leaves us with three needs. We have to get our hands on three Guardian uniforms, I have to look like I was trapped under wreckage at the blast site, and we're going to need to secure transportation to Medical One. We might be able to cover all three bases in one swing."