Captain's Log

[Cptn Elias Moore 0]

Elias sat in his ready room, silently staring at his Enterprise model. He was pleased that it was still perched atop his desk rather than stuffed into a trunk aboard Transport M-7, on its way back to Earth. He was pleased that he wouldn't have to be handing in his resignation, not today at least. He was pleased that Connor and Montague had made the right choices and would now offer compliance--hopefully enough to keep Sergio from any further probing or, worse, a report back to Headquarters. His engineering mind couldn't help but draw comparison to a clutch warp core realignment--everything had been adjusted back to a suitable level of normality, an explosion narrowly averted. Now to just wait for the next crisis.

 

A voice over the comm broke the silence. "Captain, we've laid in a course for Kappa Persei."

 

"Notify helm to proceed." Elias answered.

 

Kappa Persei. There, he hoped, answers would be waiting. But danger would be as well. The location was given by Connor's supposed intelligence contacts... and Connor, for all of his manipulating, posturing, and hoodwinking at the instruction of his contacts, had himself been spectacularly duped...

 

"I'm telling you Elias, there is no Omega V office at Starfleet Intelligence. I know of some pretty hush-hush branches of the Intell division, but there is no Omega V."

 

Elias frowned at the image of Commander Sloan. The Starfleet Security operative was an old crewmate of Elias' from Venture and someone he considered a good friend. He'd chosen a desk life over any further advancement of his spacefaring career, but Elias could appreciate this; the last few years, Sloan had been one of his most reliable contacts at Headquarters. Though he'd been unable to dig up much information about the goings-on of the Admiralty (as much because of reluctance as incapability), his close contact with many aspects of Starfleet Intelligence made him more of an expert on the division than many Intelligence operatives. Any information he provided on Intell would be thorough and accurate. "So what is Omega V?"

 

"Beats me." Sloan replied. "I could make some inquiries. Maybe Intelligence has dug up the name somewhere... do you think that could be it?"

 

Elias shook his head. "No, Mike, my explicit understanding was that Omega V was an Intelligence branch. Clearly, it's not..."

 

"I would know about it if it existed, Elias. I'll pull a few favors and have some of the Intelligence archives looked up. If someone or something has been *posing* as an Intelligence agency, maybe one of the legitimate branches knows something about it. Could just be the product of someone's invention though, toward whatever aims. It would help if you'd tell me where you heard the name."

 

"I've seen some coorespondence with their signature." Elias said, glancing at the letter Westler and Grey had fished out of the computer. "But I can't say much more yet at the risk of implicating some... potentially innocent people." Elias wondered just who was sending encoded letters to his ship and just how involved Connor was. When the engineer returned from Defiant, Elias would bring up this 'Omega V' and make it clear that any further contact would cease. Hopefully, the discussion would reveal how much Connor knew about them...

 

Elias sighed and looked at the pad Connor had sent him, the letter of resignation meant for Omega V. He marvelled at the logic of recruiting Connor... a known vagabond with an adventurous streak and no compunctions about blatant disloyalty. How easy it would be for this Omega V to recruit him with promises of shady undercover work, top secret dealings, and other assorted whispers in the dark... a chance to feel unique and important even within the midsts of military rank. Whoever they were, they'd gotten Connor to advance their agenda, possibly to the detriment of Challenger's crew or even the entirety of Starfleet.

 

Elias rapped at the keys of his computer terminal, composing a message.

 

Mike,

 

I understand that the following comm address may lead to a contact within our mysterious Omega V:

 

Elias copied the string of digits attached to Connor's resignation letter.

 

Run a trace on it and let me know what you find. I know I'm asking a lot. I appreciate your help and I'll owe you one. By the way, anything from the Intelligence archives yet?

 

-Elias

 

He opened a secure command channel and relayed the message.

 

"Captain, we are en route at Warp factor 5. Shall I order shift rotation?"

 

Elias sighed to himself. Thanks to the Defiant crisis, it had been a good thirty hours since the last shift change. The trip to Kappa Persei would give the crew an opportunity to sleep. "Aye, order shift rotation. In fact, we'll run next shift on a skeleton crew; everyone is going to need some downtime."

 

Everyone, even him. He wasn't even sure if he could sleep, though, with everything on his mind. While the Connor and Montague situation had been resolved, at least to an extent, there were still forces pulling the crew apart. From unknown entities posing as Intelligence operatives to the questionable policies being exerted by Admiral Gardner... Elias wondered if he'd still need to do more to build trust and comraderie among this group of Starfleet officers. A glance at his Enterprise model conjured up the image of structural flaws that threatened a collapse...

 

"Yeah, I definitely need sleep." He said to himself. And with that, he got up and exited his ready room.