(Access) Levelling Up

Posted on Tue Nov 10th, 2015 @ 5:06am by Captain Tim Williams

Episode: Lost Property
Location: USS Highlander - Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: MD01 1400 hours

Tim sat fiddling with one of the small models he had crafted together from bits of scrap metal he collected whenever his quarters or ready room ended up being trashed in one of the multiple (often combat-related) incidents that Starfleet ships always ran into as he sat watching the Starfleet command logo sitting annoyingly in the centre of his screen as he waited for his call to connect. The Highlander wasn't to far from Cestus III so that meant that he could get a real-time call through without too much trouble, but Tim and his ship had only been assigned to the 11th Fleet for a relatively short time, so he had no idea how long it would take for his new superiors to answer the line.

Eventually, the logo on the screen snapped off, and was replaced by the face of Rear Admiral Richard Gates, the 11th Fleet's Chief of Fleet Operations, and for now, commander of the task force that Tim found himself in.

"Captain Williams," the only slightly older man's voice came down the line. Tim had never met him before, but understood that before he had been promoted to Rear Admiral he had been a Commodore at Starfleet HQ on Earth, coordinating various other ships about their missions, including the former ship of a number of his senior staff, the Endeavour. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Afternoon Admiral," Tim said, putting his home-made sculpture down and sitting up enough to take his feet of his desk. He didn't quite know how far he could push the casual attitude with Gates yet, and since he was calling asking for something, he figured he would play it safe today. "I was hoping I could get you to give my security chief access to the patrol reports for the Klingon and Gorn regions. He has some suspicions around both of their current fleet movements and feels that the growing tensions there might just play into the hands of some of the enemies the Klingons have made over the decades a bit too nicely."

"Yes, that thought had crossed our minds here, too," the Admiral said. "Does your security chief have anything concrete to back up his suspicions? Or is he just operating on rumour?"

"Nothing yet, Admiral. That's why he wants to get access to the patrol reports. It might turn out to be just wild theories, and it turns out that the Klingons and the Gorn really do want to have at each other's throats just because they can't think of anything better to do with their time, but I think I'd rather have an extra set of eyes checking over the data and looking for anything more suspicious just in case."

Gates thought for a moment, looking over at something off-screen for a few moments before nodding. "Agreed. Your security chief will have his access within the hour. Tell him to copy anything that he comes up with to both myself and Captain Kayano on the Yamato. She's keeping an eye on the situation from the Klingon border, and will be the commander in the field if any of this stuff kicks off."

"Understood."

"And Captain," Gates said abruptly, before the conversation could be considered over. "I know that you used to be on the brass at headquarters. I don't know what you did to earn your demotion back to captain - I sure as hell hope that it was just a sincere desire to be out there in the centre chair rather than behind some desk on Earth - but if some of the rumours about you are true, you should know that there are limits to what I will tolerate in my task force. Do we have an understanding?"

"We do. And don't worry, most of those rumours about my are wildly inaccurate. Thanks for your time, Admiral!" With that, Tim closed the channel, not willing to get into a discussion about his brief time sitting behind that desk wearing that horrible commodore's uniform. Besides, as far as he was concerned, the rumours about him were wildly inaccurate.

Most of them were too damn conservative.