"Day Off."

[FredM 0]

"Fear not those who argue but those who dodge."

- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach, 1905 A.D.

 

"You are not telling me something I don't already know," Meve said in a voice that was clearly not calm but pretending to be. The Andorian shifted in his chair ever so slightly and glared at the screen before him, as if daring the individual he was looking at to jump out of it. That other person was Vice-Admiral Andrea Pines, a face one rarely wanted to see on subspace. It was not because the woman of forty-five years in age looked as if she was still twenty, nor the fact she had at one time held a reputation as being someone who sometimes got a little too friendly with those under her command. The issue was no one ever wanted to have to talk to the Chief of Starfleet Intelligence. The expression "no news is good news" took on a whole new meaning during such encounters.

 

Rear Admiral Frederic Meve was in the middle of one right now. While still waiting at the airlock for the Rixian Ambassador and his delegation to step foot onto Aegis, a white haired crewman had personally delivered a padd to Meve. It's contents had been a simple sentence reading "SFI COMM, 16:07. PRIORITY ONE." Just the words someone wanted to hear when about to participate in a first contact situation.

 

When the hour long conversation had started, the former CO of Aegis had initially thought urgent information had been discovered about what happened on Cardassia IV. Such was certain to come, as whether or not most people realized it, there were at least a few covert operatives within the Cardassian government. Their exact number Meve had never known, at least that was until Pines had told him thirty-five minutes ago. It was at that point the true purpose of the encrypted signal, which was likely being transmitted via a relay station no one knew existed, became clear. There was trouble within the Prime Minister's Office...just not the type Meve had expected.

 

"Yes, I am positive Fred...I've got over sixty damn people over there and when most of the top agents are reporting the same things...," she had said with a look of genuine concern on her face. "You handled it the best you could, given the time concerns. However, we are going to have to perform an immediate extraction," she had continued. Disaster had occurred. Somehow, less than ten hours after the situation on Cardassia IV, someone within the Prime Minister's office had become suspicious. According to Andrea, it was likely that Aegis' response was not what they had initially anticipated. It had caused concerns among some, with several internal government officials looking into any recent database searches performed by the Federation station. Here, a small bread crum had been found.

 

Buried within a database, a search entry time stamped and coded showed a Federation computer terminal had accessed cargo manifests for Empok Nor. This trail would have been deleted upon discovery, but the operative who was performing the search had been forced to have someone else monitor his work. The result had been a lack of time and opportunity. It had prompted further digging into why someone would be looking at cargo manifests. Another twelve hours later, with the help of a security camera showing the time of his shuttle's urgent departure from Cardassia, someone had put it all together.

 

The Office of the Prime Minister of Cardassia's Provisional Government believed it's former liaison to the Federation, Representative Colao, was alive and had given specific details beforehand as to the day's events. "We're actually surprised it took them that long to put it together," Admiral Pines had said, "in the old days, the Obsidian Order would have had the data in a few hours. Even then, we wouldn't have likely known about it until after the fact." Luckily, it was not the old days.

 

Several operatives had sent coded messages home, with confirmations coming shortly thereafter. The Prime Minister's Office was planning to force a group of supply ships to dock at Aegis, claiming their purpose was to refuel before heading to Cardassia IV. In fact, the ships were being turned into high powered sensor arrays. With no Cardassians assigned to the station, and almost all civilians having fled home in the aftermath of the attack, the goal would be simple. Locate any Cardassian lifesigns aboard the station and attempt to identify their identity.

 

"If he's found, the Prime Minister will be able to turn all the evidence pointing to him around. Colao will become the person responsible for the entire mess. It will be a public relations disaster. They'll be able to claim the Federation was protecting him, thus giving more power to the radicals. Next thing, we'll have a repeat of what happened on DS9 when we first took over. That's something we simple can't afford," she said firmly. The only alternative was clear. Representative Colao, the only person who had intimate details of what had been planned by the Prime Minister and could be the only link to the truth, had to get out of dodge.

 

The only question was to do it without anyone noticing. The Cardassians certainly couldn't detect it, rumors would fly if he showed up amongst station personnel and of course there were the Rixians who would likely flee in horror at the sight of a Cardassian. "And to think," Meve mumbled, "this was supposed to be my day off."