Covert Operatives Operating Covertly

[Cassie Granger 0]

Covert Operatives Operating Covertly

 

The secret to successful cover is to be nondescript, to blend in. When you walk into a room no one pays attention to you, like the guy at the water cooler no one talks to, or the girl who's so into her work that she doesn't seem interested in anything else so no one is interested in her. Or her work. She's nice enough but won't ever get a date because she doesn't look, sound, or act... well... all that exciting.

 

One of the most successful agents in history was an unimpressive 5' 7" middle class office worker. His brown tweed jacket became an office fixture, a trademark that frequently earned him jibes, but it helped him hide three weapons and enough ammunition that, when used in conjunction with skillful defensive techniques, could hold off several assailants for two hours. He never took the same route twice, whether walking or driving, and he had mastered the art of doubling back so it looked like normal eccentric wandering. He was never caught.

 

But Cass was far from nondescript. Tall, fair, blonde, and just a little too well-built, her solution for Challenger's 1969 Apollo 11 mission was to hide everything by turning herself into a woman's-lib wannabe who couldn't quite pull it off.

 

Slicked back hair dyed mousy-brown, double oculars* and thick black-rimmed glasses, walking shoes and a conservative pants suit were a good beginning. Add to that a pocket protector with an assortment of colored pens and mechanical pencils, a slide-rule banging at her side and a clipboard in hand, and it not only did the trick but allowed her to carry a few things that might come in handy.

 

The oculars gathered and transmitted data, the temples of her glasses hid thin, sharp instruments and magnified the secure transmission from her ear bud, her walking shoes and pants-suit allowed quick, comfortable movement (a sprint or an extended run if necessary), the slide rule doubled as a blunt instrument and a few other things, and the clipboard hid Starfleet's thinnest padd, accessible only by her hands.

 

Cassie's cover would be Cassidy Ross, special assistant (aka secretary) to Dr. Jeb Goldstein, one of NASA's youngest and brightest aeronautical engineers assigned to Apollo 11. She'd studied his dossier for the last few hours but the final touches to her personality would come when they actually met: full deployment of a quiet, tentative voice and quirky actions like two-stepping around a corner while straightening her glasses with a finger-press to the bridge.

 

Ignoring the looks of the rest of the team, Cass put on her best secretary face, tested the finger-press routine, straightened her neck in feigned indignation, and nodded to Commander Murphy.

 

"Ready, sir."

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*oculars: contact lenses specially configured with nanotechnology to gather and transmit data to the user, easily configured to transmit data elsewhere.