Short on Intel

Posted on Sat Apr 7th, 2018 @ 9:38pm by

Mission: Alrakis Updates
Timeline: January 27, 2389

Several floors below the conference room, Task Force 72’s Intelligence Headquarters was abuzz with activity. Commander ch’Ralos, the Andorian who served as the Task Force’s Chief of Intelligence for the last year and a half, had never felt so humiliated. It was his job to know everything. He’d known about the Cardassian advance days before it happened. He’d been the one to discover the intel that the Cardassians and Romulans were starting and ready to end their war, even before the now-defunct Task Force 47 saw it.

But he hadn’t seen the Breen Thot travelling incognito over the border.

Had he become too arrogant? Did he miss something because of it? How was this possible?

On board the starbase, he had more than one hundred analysts at his disposal. He had several other agents along and across the borders. While the agents were trying to learn what they could, the entire Intelligence team aboard the base were digging through the last two months of intelligence. Surely there was something in this mess. Even if it were a single word, he had to find something.

After hours of searching, however, it was starting to feel hopeless. Taking a break, Commander ch’Rhalos retreated to his office for an ale. He was not one to drink, however, he kept a short supply of his people’s trademark beverage in a concealed cooler for moments like this. On his desk was a short timeline of events, from the Cardassian advance in October, the destruction of Deep Space Seven and the capture of Federation diplomats during the Tzenkethi coup in early December…

Taking a close look at the dates for Deep Space Seven and the coup, ch’Rhalos couldn’t help but feel that the dates had been interconnected. He’d always felt that way, even though it’d taken a couple days for the information to be confirmed at the beginning.

Something felt off about all of this. It looked like the Breen were being overrun by the Cardassians, but it’d stopped. Deep Space Seven was gone. The Tzenkethi, who’d been warming up to the Federation, suddenly overthrew its own government. There was so much strife and activity on the border, it was unnerving.

The worst of it all was that, with Deep Space Seven gone, the deepest part of the Inconnu Expanse had been obscured to him. These mysterious Ravagers had claimed possibility, but there was no way they could overpower an Immense class base. They had to have had help. Was it the Breen? The Tzenkethi? Who were the Ravagers?

ch’Rhalos took a deep swig of his ale, almost a quarter of the bottle, in one gulp. He’d been on top of his game, and now he was so, so far behind.

With the ale in his system, he took another look at the freighter’s logs and flight plan, correlating it with the sensor logs collected within the Federation. It had left five days ago, taking a leisurely stroll through Federation space to Starbase 72. It made this trip eight times a year, and it always took three and a half days. It didn’t make any extra stops, and there seemed to be limited communication coming from the freighter, aside from an unusual meeting before leaving Breen space.

How’d he miss that? Who did they meet with? He wasn’t just off his game. He’d become complacent, ignorant. The Andorian made a note to revisit this. Finally, he had a lead. It wasn’t anything conclusive, but it was something.

Sadly, he knew this just meant one thing. This discovery was but a minor piece of a much larger puzzle that he didn’t have any pieces to. ch’Rhalos fired off a message to Admiral O’Connell to both update him on his situation and to urge him to proceed with caution. Nothing was as it seemed.