Scuttle Butt

Posted on Mon Jun 1st, 2020 @ 7:52am by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Ensign Michael Sloan & Lieutenant Commander Lukas Carter & Major Samuel King & Lieutenant Aurelius Davis & Lieutenant Min Seong & Lieutenant Sovar & Lieutenant Samantha Leyton

Mission: Mission 3 - 100
Location: Deck A - Situation Room
Timeline: Day 29, Month 2, Year 0 09:00
3166 words - 6.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Beth hated this type of meeting where she pulled all her senior officers from the duties that they were needing to do especially with only precious time hiding in a nebula to lick wounds and try to allow the crew to rest from the daily tactical alert they were on every time the Vrav appeared.

Beth hated this one more because she had been keeping a big secret from most of the senior crew that only Sovar, Martinez and Seong had known about other than the two Brig Officers and Darru. It was impossible to keep it any longer when she was getting daily questions about Sloan and his condition especially as it had been noted he was not in sickbay. It needed to come out as she needed someone other than herself to think on how to handle it as the man could not be kept locked up forever.

The woman had waited for everyone to settle before she stood up. “We have a situation on the ship that I have been trying to downplay until we have a better understanding of it all but it is impossible to ignore the scuttlebutt that is rampant on the ship. We need to talk about Sloan and what has happened to him.”

"Exactly what has happened to him, Captain?" Samantha spoke up with a worried tone in her voice. Commander Sloan had been fair to her from the limited interactions that they had together. She recalled their initial meeting in the Armory when she had reported aboard at Earth. "He's not really a traitor, is he, ma'am?"

Aurelius had been in sickbay when Michael was brought in but he let Beth explain, he didn't think anyone would believe anything unless it came from her lips. He wasn't quite believing it himself if he were honest.

Sam stood by one of the bulkheads, his arms folded and with a stern look on his face as he thought about his man being some sort of spy all along. "I heard he had green blood... and I do not think Vulcan's are prone to violence." he injected into the conversation.

"He can't stay in the brig forever - I raised this when we first arrived out here. It isn't a permanent solution," Lukas said. "We need to know what happened to him, so we can decide what to do. We need to set a fair standard now."

"We do not know what happened to him, who he really is or whether he is traitor or not," Beth said standing up from where she was sat trying to answer all the questions they had. It was hard to explain that at some point potentially Sloan had been replaced or that Sloan had never existed and he had been put into Starfleet as a mole for those who marched under the raptor's wings. She had been thinking about the perfect words in English for days to describe the situation they have currently with Sloan. "I will be really honest here all we know is that the Vrav undid a genetic procedure that revealed him to not be wholly human. In that procedure, they have revealed a persona underneath the man we have known for six months is not at all friendly. He is currently in the Brig until we know more and what to do about it all for our protection and his own."

"Give him to the Vrav. Save us all the trouble." Samuel huffed half-serious.

"Oh most absolutely not," Min gave the Marine a severe look. Joking or not, she was going to shut that talk down before someone more serious decided to agree with it. "Regardless of his status, he is still a patient under my care. While the Vrav may have had their intentions, I cannot pretend to think they did not negatively affect him in some way. Genetic procedures could undo a man's psyche, regardless of his race. And we are all in the same situation currently. We cannot forget that."

Sovar had been sat like a statue, thoughtfully listening to each person in turn as they spoke but remaining silent himself while he weighed their options. "The individual in question is a liability. Given limited resources and the nature of our return voyage, I believe it is most logical to remove him as a potentially destabilizing element. We can detain him in a medically-induced coma until a suitable Minshara-class planet can be located at which time he can be provided the tools and resources to survive alone."

"Simply because he is neither human nor Vulcan?" Min pointed out. "Have we given him a fair chance to defend his position? Lieutenant Commander Carter is right, regardless of who or what Commander Sloan is, he is still a member of the crew aboard the ship - and still a patient of mine, might I add, so I have multiple reasons to object to simply 'removing him from the situation.' - We must set a standard. He may have absolutely no idea who or what he truly is, but he came here with us, and I have no reason to believe his whole personality changed simply because the Vrav found something we could not."

"The individual posing as Commander Sloan," Sovar said, making sure to correct the doctor's assessment of the person in question, "attempted to attack both myself and Commander Leroux while being questioned. By both his rhetoric and his actions, he is a clear and present danger to the safety of the ship and crew. He should be interrogated and removed from the ship. He is one, who poses a danger to the many. Are you suggesting that we should compromise the safety and security of this vessel to accommodate your conscience, Dr. Seong?"

The news hit Ensign Martinez like a phase pistol to the gut. "Are you saying that the Commander isn't Human?" Luis asked, unable to hide the shock from his voice. "That the man I served with on the Valiant to defend Earth from the Xindi. That that man is not on our side?"

"I'm aware." Min replied tersely, "But might I remind you that he did still undergo genetic torture. I am not certain if the procedures on Vulcan, but we tend to have a little more understanding when it comes to the mental duress someone could undergo during a traumatic experience such as this." She narrowed her eyes at the Vulcan sitting across from her. "The man currently in our brig, unless you can tell me this man was replaced after our original incident, is the Commander Sloan we left Earth with. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, he is the Commander Sloan that we have served with throughout this whole event. Whether he is human or not, he is no less part of the ship as anyone else. Simply 'removing him' because he lashed out under questioning is a severe course of action. What were the circumstances? Setting the standard of throwing someone off a ship simply because of this series of events is for all intents and purposes going to lead us down a very dangerous path. What if he were to be picked up by the Vrav and utilized against us? Or another, more malicious race?"

"You are correct, doctor. I had not considered the security threat to the ship if the individual in question was interrogated," Sovar said. He nodded to the doctor in thanks and turned to Commander Leroux to amend his suggestion. "I believe we should submit the individual to court martial. He will no doubt be found guilty and summarily executed."

“Enough,” Beth said simply but it was forceful enough that the room descended into silence allowing everyone a moment of reflection despite the word execution having been just used. “Ensign we do not know who he is, if he was swapped at some unknown point for this pretender or if Sloan has always been a sleeper agent like it appears this man is.” It would hurt and be a shock to anymore who had known the man for as long as some had. The thoughts of some of the men in the room though sentimental towards the crew was not how Beth would carry on her command especially after what had mistakenly happened with the Vrav. “Commander Carter and Doctor Seong are 100% correct I am not kicking him off the ship. That is not what Starfleet is about. I will not have any more actions like that on my conscious or anyone else’s.”

Sam shrugged a little at the comments made by Leroux. Whether his comment was taken seriously or not was not really something that bothered him. The concern became the man and what he was capable of. The safety of the ship and their crew being paramount given the lack of resources they found themselves having. He found himself having little input into the conversation, he was not Starfleet but was obviously part of the ship and crew. "We should be wary that if he is a sleeper agent and has been activated that he does not attempt the mission he was set out to do. He may have been triggered prematurely but he is still a danger."

Were they really talking about execution and sleeper agents? Ensign Martinez had grown up in one of the last Central American countries to follow the rest of it's neighbors into this new United Earth. Dictators and purging dissidents were still in living memory. Speaking up, the Acting Chief Armory Officer asked, "Are we really discussing execution? Capital punishment is against United Earth law." He shook his head, "I understand that he may be a danger and that there is a need to keep him in the Brig, but we do not execute prisoners for outbursts."

"If need be we can modify the holding cells to be more...accommodating of long-term sentences," Lukas added.

"It will not be happening," Beth assured lowly. "We can end that conversation now. Doctor Seong has informed me that Sloan is now lucid enough to talk to now that his injuries have healed. We need to interrogate him." Beth was under no illusions that some of the people in the room could no longer be trusted alone with their prisoners but she would catch up with them separately.

Aurelius had been fairly silent so far, watching the others react to their fears. "I would like to sit in on that." He said, finally speaking. "And no, we must stick to our ideals even out here. He's still a member of this crew, even if he's locked away at the moment for his protection and ours. We have to find a way to live with him."

Min frowned. "But that would not make him a constructive member of the crew, and if we need everyone to be as constructive and working toward our goal as possible... would we not need to find a way around this? The assumption is made that he is absolutely malicious, where we do not know that for a fact." She leveled a gaze toward the Commander across the table. "Ma'am, I feel like there is not enough information for the staff to go on to make a sound decision. We need to be able to let him speak his case, once he is absolutely of sound mind - lucidity or not is not the matter at hand. We do not have a mental health professional aboard the ship, nor do I make any pretense to be an expert at it." She gave pause, frowning. "As I have not had the correct moment to speak with Commander Sloan, I request that I speak with him before I make any judgment on my own."

"I agree about the not enough information which is why I was asking for volunteers to interrogate him to gather the information we need but I will back Lieutenant Sovar's warning that he is dangerous and was more than willing to injure us both when he was discovered. Thank you for volunteering to interrogate him. Pretense or not, none of us are experts at the moment in anything. This is uncharted territory with a man we have all grown to respect. Can anyone go with the Doctor?" Beth wanted to give the option of volunteering before she assigned it to someone in the interest of the safety of the ship.

"I will participate in the questioning with Dr. Seong and Lieutenant Davis," Sovar said, nodding to the two in turn. He might not see eye-to-eye with either one of them, but it wouldn't impede his dutiful participation in a necessary exercise. "It is imperative that we expand our working knowledge of the detained individual to better understand his motives and capabilities, as well as finding a way in which we can all... cohabitate."

"Thank you. I have asked the Brig Officers to let me know when Sloan is awake and I will inform them to let you both know." Beth took her seat and sighed. This was not something she knew of anyone facing in centuries since the time Earth had been at war with each other and it was easy to change who you were with accents and change of hair or clothing, to actually rewrite DNA and rework someone into a completely new species was a scary idea. Who else could be affected? Who could even step in temporarily at Executive Officer until this was all fixed?

"I will post some MACO's alongside the Brig Officers." Sam interjected. "Having those that served under Commander Sloan stand by him now can rise to a conflict of interest due to emotional attachment and cloud judgement. My team can be impartial and ensure the safety of all, including Commander Sloan." Sam was not heartless, he just simply often sawt things for what they were. He still had hope that everything would work out.

"Thank you Major for making your Marine available for this. So the second part of this meeting. It's been a month now since we ended up here. How are our departments doing? I want everyone to be aware just in case we need to look after that department or look in on the crew there." She truly wanted to hear the in and outs. She knew she had scheduled meetings with everyone individually to discuss what changes they needed but it was good to have some honesty.

Glancing to see if any of the real department heads wanted to take the lead, Martinez decided to go first when no one else jumped. "Armory is standing ready. We have been looking at different matrices to polarize the hull, simulations show that we have increased the defensive output against those kinetic projectile by one-point-eight-percent." It was not a huge improvement, but it may just be enough to prevent the Atlantis' destruction from an unlucky shot. "We have also found a work schedule that will better allow us to keep watch over vital portions of the ship and be ready at battlestations, with the help of the MACOs. Outside of that, we are struggling with losing our Chief."

Samuel nodded to the mention of his teams. "Yes we are assisting the armoury and security teams as best we can at the moment. I am aware the loss of a commanding officer (Sloan) can affect the very strongest of people and we are working together to form a better joint unit. Despite what has happened the unity between our departments has improved as a result and I myself understand a bit more about ship operations than I did before." he finished opening the floor up to others.

Beth nodded at the two men knowing she still had individual meetings with them both but for now it felt at least they were taking the potential joining of departments together in their stride. It would make things easier for them in the long run but it was relieving to hear that the first steps had already begun. "Leyton?"

Samantha sighed. "Flight Control is fairly well. Right now, I believe only Ensign Livingston and myself are the only qualified and capable Flight Control officers left. I am recommending others aboard the ship be trained in flight control should anything, unfortunately, happen to either of us. Also, I've assigned Ensign Livingston as the primary shuttle pilot to give him more experience unless you, captain request otherwise."

"I potentially have plans for Livingston but for now more experiences will not hurt with our shuttlepods. But we can discuss that more this afternoon." Beth did not want to get too much into the details there and then,

"The science department is continuing to assist engineering with repairs to our laboratory facilities. As well, we are recovering from the loss of four scientists whose expertise were a valuable asset. We will suffer greatly as a result of their loss," Sovar said. "In addition, we continue to analyze data regarding the alien aggressors and this region of space. This process is slowed by the personnel shortage. If possible, we would benefit from the reassignment and training of personnel from another department in order to carry out the more menial tasks of the department to alleviate our experts of the burden."

"Medical is fine," Min stated curtly. "We have not sustained major losses, but all I can say is much of the same everyone else has stated. Having a field medic training would not hurt, just in case, as I cannot expect myself nor the remainder of my staff to be everywhere at once."

Beth nodded. Medical was the only department to have sustained minimal damage, Science had been almost destroyed by the sudden loss of scientist. "Reassignments were being discussed by myself and Sloan before his change and as of yet Major King has been of help when and if he can around it. Before our meetings later on today, I would like everyone to think about how you need to change your departments for extended operations in the way of what is no longer useful or needed to what is a priority. I also would like to know what personnel you need urgently to get you back to strength,"

"If there is nothing left to say I will see you all later on," Beth said thankful that had gone well, so much better than what she had hoped for. it had left her reflective and considering just how much she had to do before the meetings started at eleven hundred.

OFF:

Lieutenant JG Samantha Leyton
Chief Flight Control Officer
NX- Atlantis

Major Samuel King
MACO Commanding Officer
USS Atlantis

Lieutenant Aurelius Davis
Morale Officer
NX- Atlantis

Ensign Luis Martinez
Acting Chief Armory Officer
NX Atlantis

Lieutenant Sovar
Chief Science Officer
NX Atlantis

Bethsabée Leroux
Officer In Charge
NX Atlantis