round 13 Lt. Richard Matthews; A Familiar Voice

[Sedrin Belasi]

((Starbase 118; Deck 507 - CSO Office))

Familiar Voice: Well now, here we are again. Still think I should be the one sitting there though.

::It was said with a laugh, even if what was said sounded a little biting - the friendly tone was enough to disarm Richard. Blinking dumbly up from the sea of paperwork that he was attempting to get through during his shore leave -holding up in his office for hours on end had seemed like a brilliant idea the previous morning- Richard found himself looking at a ghost.::

Grant: Sir.

Matthews: Grant!

::Okay, a figurative ghost of sorts. Hollie Grant had been the bane of Richard's carer when he had taken his posting on the Vigilant. While not his aid, Richard had worked directly alongside the first CSO during the Vigilant's launch. When said CSO had been relieved of duty almost immediately after they had gotten the ship into orbit - Relieved of duty wasn't the right term exactly- Richard had done his darndest to hold down the fort until Solor, the replacement CSO could take over. Somehow, during that time he had impressed the higher ups and made it into their good graces. Again, not actually officially becoming the chief's aid, because that position was already filled, but unofficially he'd had the job, and with that unofficial status had come a rather surprising promotion to CSO a short time later.::

::The real Chief Science officer's aid hadn't taken kindly to being shoehorned - and Richard had had to deal with the very efficient and capable officer's ire as he was offered promotions- effectively stepped over her on the way up the career ladder.::

Grant: Lieutenant Matthews, ::She grinned.::

::Of course, a few close calls and after a few years of working so close together, a truce had been called and a shaky friendship had formed. When the two had gone their separate ways, they had promised to keep in touch. Richard heading off for Earth and Hollie to her next big adventure in space - where she said she would have to babysit another chief science officer more than likely. They had exchange a transmission here and there, standard how do you do's, anything exciting explode today's? Last time they'd spoke Richard had been bragging about his new posting that he hadn't inherited this time from a dead colleague. Grant had said nothing about having time off or visiting 118 on business.::

Matthews: It's good to see you, don't get me wrong, but why are you here?

Grant: I'm reporting for duty, ::She handed him a data padd he hadn't noticed her holding.:: looks like we'll be working together again, do you already have an aid?

Matthews: I honestly don't know, just getting settled in, probably haven't met them yet if there is. ::He shrugged.:: The base is a little bigger than ops.

Grant: ::Laughing:: Good.

Matthews: ::Thumbing through the padd.:: So you're transferring to 118?

Grant: I've been here for a couple of weeks, overseeing the transfer of equipment and files.

Matthews: that makes 19.

Grant: ::Frowning.:: 19 what?

Matthews: Vigilant crewmembers that serve here now, T'Lia and Miz are on their way in, Octavi has been heading up the anthropological department for the past six months. Apparently, Stin married his girlfriend and is living onboard as a civilian - they had their first kid and he's doing the stay home dad thing.

::Hollie nodded in that way that said 'yes, I already know exactly what you are telling me.' Even if she hadn't known - it was the little things that used to annoy him about her. Okay, still did, not two minutes into a conversation and he was already running ideas of where to stick her next.::

::Good thing they were friends now! Or he'd order her to go help Vell do something.::

Matthews: Well since you've been onboard a while, I guess that means I don't have to show you around-

::He would have said something along the lines of 'so show yourself out then,' or 'which means you can leave now, so go on, go.' But the tell tale crackle of his comm badge coming to life silenced him.::

Mboma: =/\=Sir, we have the results back on the satellite.=/\=

Grant: What satellite?

Matthews: ::Motioning for Hollie to be quite.:: =/\= That's great Mboma, I'm on the way.::

::He got up, throwing Hollie's padd on the table with all the other ones. He'd get to it later - assuming there was anything there that needed his signature to. But more than likely who ever had ordered and oversaw the transfer before Richard got the job, had dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's. If not he would have been hearing about this a whole lot sooner.::

::It did beg to question what an officer who any CSO would kill to have serving with them was doing on a starbase, where she was not playing second in command to the science department?::

Matthews: Walk with me.

::like the Vigilant mock two and the Darwin -which thoughts of still made Richard go week in the knees- Starbase 118 boasted to a quite a few decks for the science department. Right now they were on deck 506 -506 and 507 being the main science offices where all the paper work and such was done. In total there were at least 54 levels for his department and Richard loved getting to visit everyone of them. It was why he had been making visits to each level when a minion reported something, as opposed to them just sending him a report to read.::

Grant: So? ::She asked following him down the hallway to the left.::

Matthews: A satellite of unknown origin was brought back from an away mission. It has relevance to the incident a few days ago, when the new command staff took over.

Grant: The freak ion storm and the attack.

Matthews: One in the same, we've been analyzing it since we got back - er after that whole incident with the riots and such.

Grant: What have you found?

Matthews: That's what we're about to find out.

((Starbase 118; Deck 548 - Holodeck))

::Having holodecks for the very purpose of work was a novelty. One that Richard didn't think he would be getting over any time soon. No more kicking people out and having to deal with complaints that their free time had been infringed on, or worse, demanding more time which then made other people want more time. Not that Richard had to deal with scheduling, but he did have to deal with the duty officers who made them, and those guys could be so uptight.::

Matthews: ::Strolling into the room:: What's the word?

::The order of the day was garage meets messy science lab. A facsimile of the satellite that they had brought back, stood in the middle of the room. Just a little off to the side was a bank of computers and monitors, with a lone science officer waiting for them at the station.

Mboma: Sir, a lot actually, ::He gestured to the holographic image of the satellite.:: The hardware wasn't too badly damaged. We were able to recover quite a lot from the satellite's onboard computer. It's just kind of usless.

Grant: Useless how?

Mboma: Well, we had thought that we could deduce the satellite's origins by looking at the programming. That didn't work - different computer languages went into programming the satellite's computer systems.

Grant: Meaning?

Matthews: That whoever did this didn't want to make it easy on us to find them. But I didn't think we'd track down the culprits that easily. My money was on the hardware.

Mboma: And you were right. ::He tapped out a command at the station, and the holographic image exploded into a 3D blue print display.:: We've got the trigger for the storm, a neutrino inverter.

Grant: Romulan Tech.

Mboma: Yes, and no, ::He smiled, and pointed to one of the monitors.:: See that's a neurtrino inverter, a real one, and that, ::he pointed to a second monitor.:: that is the one we found on the sat. You wouldn't notice by just looking, but the one on the satellite is a fake Romulan neutrino inverter.

Grant: It's a fake.

Mboma: It's real.

Matthews: Explain.

Mboma: It's a real inverter, made obvious by the storm we all saw, but it's not Romulan. During the scans we noticed the parts didn't match up. Some are significantly older and more worn than others are. When we looked closer we realized that most of the parts? Federation tech.

Matthews: Great, are we scanning the parts to see if they match up with any reported stolen?

Mboma: Already on it, nothings shown up yet, but we're only halfway through.

Matthews: And everything here could have been procured legally for all we know. ::Worrying his bottom lip.:: Send everything you've got so far to intel, we're turning this over to them.

Grant: What?

Matthews: The real fake Romulan device could either be a fake to throw suspicion on the Romulans. Or it could be real, but faked to divert our suspicions from the Romulans. Either way this falls under intels territory. They'll have an easier time of figuring this out.

Grant: That makes no sense.

Matthews: I know, most cloak and dagger stuff makes no sense to me either; it's why I hate spy movies. And why I'm washing my hands of this while I have the chance.

Grant: Just like that?

Matthews: Yes, of course I'll offer whatever aid the boys in intel might need, but this will fall under the chief intel officer's jurisdiction. Thankfully, I won't have to play CSI . . . again. ::Richard shuddered.::

Mboma: Don't worry sir, I'll handle this, aren't you scheduled for shore leave?

Matthews: ::Laughing.:: Yeah, just haven't gotten to that yet.

Grant: What? Richard Matthews not jumping at the chance to slack off?

Matthews: Quiet you. Alright Mboma, you got this, if you need anything I'm just a comm away, okay?

Mboma: Go already, I don't need to deal with you when you're tired and cranky later.

Matthews: Hey! I'm always a treat to deal with.

::Richard pretended not to notice the looks that Mboma and Grant shot each other. Treacherous underlings.::

Grant: Come on, if you're on shore leave then it's perfectly fine to catch up over dinner, wings? My treat.

Matthews: ::Richard nodded, his momma had taught him not to say no to free food, it was rude.:: And you can tell me why you're hear.

Grant: All in due time, shoptalk later, and hey is Kellan around? We have so much to catch up on.

Matthews: ::Following along after Grant.:: Yeah, yeah we do.

TBC:

Lt. Richard Matthews MD

Chief Science Officer

Starbase 118 Ops