The Third Sacrament (Pt 1)
Posted on Sat Mar 1st, 2025 @ 11:22pm by Lieutenant Gabrielle 'Gabi' Shimoda & Petty Officer 3rd Class Gavin Ralston
Edited on on Tue Mar 11th, 2025 @ 11:02pm
1,571 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Impending Midnight
Location: Pierre's Patisserie, New Jersey, Earth
Timeline: One Week Ago
ON
A bustling café. A coffee that has gone tepid. An old handlebar-moustachioed prat who took too long to turn up. Such things were to be expected in this line of work.
“Thanks for meeting me,” That same hairy, grumpy old prat mumbled in his hushed, exaggerated Cockney accent. Gary, or Gazza for those not into the whole brevity thing, took a seat across from her.
At the next table, a couple canoodled. To the other side a breakup unfolded between Klingons. It was chaos by candlelight.
Apathy was returned by Gabrielle Shimoda. She choked down a vile, lukewarm sip of her black coffee. She checked her compadd. Fifteen messages from the boss. “Captain Wallace wants to know where I am.”
“Hey, look, I’m a busy guy,” Gazza shrugged. Two could play at the game of indifference. He held a finger up. “Just a sec.”
Shimoda watched as the old man tried to remove his coat while seated. It was like watching a rat trying to escape a bucket of water. She pursed her lips and gripped her coffee cup ever so slightly harder.
“Ahh—one moment!” He grunted. He struggled. A final sigh of relief from under the jacket. “Ah. Got it!”
Calm breaths, Gabi.
“So!” He emerged from under the jacket, his hair ruffled and his eyes wild. “I’ve got a job for you.”
“Okay,” Shimoda replied. The rapidity of her blinks increased-- just a little.
“Okay,” Gazza mocked. His face lit, twisting into the grin found on a wolf in the henhouse, “Not just ‘okay’! This one’s a bit juicy. Just in, actually. Lemme see, here.”
Gabi tapped the table as she watched him produce a notebook and start flipping through it. An ingenious affectation. Better than a phaser in the face like last time.
“You’ll love this,” The old man muttered. He licked the tip of his thumb as he leafed through the pages. Finally, he found it. He read it aloud, squinting at it like it was written in Iconian, “A Vulcan warp theorist, name is Doctor D’Pan… heh… the guy sounds like a pizza. Heard of him?”
“No.”
“Interesting guy.” The eyes set back in his weathered face darted starboard, the Klimasz woman beside them playing a bit of tonsil hockey with her Bolian suitor. He cleared his scratchy throat and continued. “Won some engineering prizes. Seems like he’s doing the long-haired Vulcan kolinahr thing. Long story short, he’s trying to bring back the old ringship design… and it seems like he’s done it a little too well.”
“I see.”
“Mmm. The USS Ulysses was out near the Neutral Zone borderline and tracked his telemetry. He ended up out near Galorndon Core.”
Gabi shot forward, her eyes flashing with interest. Just as quickly, she sat back in her seat. She forced another mouthful of java and cocked her head coolly, “Concerning.”
“I’ll say! I want you to head out there to check it out. Rescue him if you can. Destroy the evidence. You know.”
“The usual.”
“The usual.”
“Gary,” Gabi sighed, “I’ve got a lot on, I—”
“I’ve already cleared it with Captain Wallace,” Gazza interrupted. He slid an isolinear chip across the table, “I’ve got an old shuttle sitting in Earth Spacedock, ready and warming its engines with your name on it. I’ve also got a… friend to join you. Grease monkey. Nice guy. He’s already been briefed on the situation and is studying the specs as we speak. Everything you need to know is on here.”
“Wonderful…”
“Pack your things, you ship out in two hours. And I don’t need to remind you—”
“If I foul this up, the Federation’s never heard of me.”
“I’m glad you remember. Watch out for those sneaky Romulans, too, they’ve—holy fu-!”
Gazza was interrupted by the body of a Klingon man slamming onto the table between them. Cold coffee flew everywhere as the humans stood and stepped back and exchanged wide-eyed glances. Shimoda and Gary braced for a knife fight. Instead, two powerful slaps ended in a passionate kiss.
“Time to go, Gabs!”
“Agreed.”
“What’s with all the kissing in here? Anyway. Smell ya later, kid! Godspeed!”
|Shuttlecraft Prieto, Docked at Earth Spacedock
|Subsequently
Her life packed up into a backpack she had slung over her shoulder like a hobo’s bindle, Gabi had ditched the Starfleet uniform before boarding the shuttlefs. She opted for something nondescript- dumpy, dark and plain. It was as if she’d stolen Gary’s outfit; a dark hoodie, dark pants and a long overcoat. Brown instead of black. Black was rather dramatic.
The outfit was like camouflage against the bleak and dusty interior of this spacegoing jalopy. From the entrance of what most would hesitate to call a spacecraft, she trudged past a spartan bunkroom, which blended a hint of cheese to the humid, warm and stale air of the vessel that already smelt like the floor of an old bar. Onwards, she went past a tiny cargo bay, a bathroom which was ironically squeaky clean, and then found herself surmounting a pile of tool cases that had been dumped in the already cramped hallway.
Over the hill, her eyes darted between the cases and the cargo bay. “Missed it by that much.”
She pushed through to the vessel’s cockpit. She stepped into a musty and cramped control room where standing up was a challenge. In the pilot’s seat she saw a pair bulky leather boots kicked up on the helm console. Whoever it was, they didn’t observe safety protocols, which still applied while docked.
When the chair didn’t turn, she cleared her throat.
Sure enough, the chair spun around. A young man sat there, caught off guard, mouth agape. “Oh! I didn’t see you there.”
Gabi looked down at her outfit.
“I’m Jarod Ral,” The boyish partner in crime started. He moved forward, outstretching his hand, “You must be Lieutenant Sharona.”
“Shimoda,” Gabi corrected.
“Oh! Of course. Shimoda!” He grinned. He offered a handshake again. “Petty Officer Jarod Ral.”
“Pleasure.”
“Maybe later?” The remark hung in the air for a moment like a bad smell. An awkward chuckle followed when he saw the Lieutenant’s confusion.
“Sorry, I’ve… I’ve already made a mess of this.”
“How could you tell?”
“Funny you should ask.” He tapped his temple with a confident grin. “I’m from Betazed.”
“Is that so?” She moved past Ral and into the cockpit and scrutinised the controls. “So, this is really what Gary has seen fit to provide us with? It looks like it wouldn’t reach full impulse.”
“I sense your disappointment. But,” He smacked a structural pillar with gusto. “She’s got good bones!”
A wall panel across the room popped open.
“Is it meant to do that?” Gabi asked.
“No.”
“I don’t think this will do, Petty Officer,” Gabi stated. She gave the cockpit another visual onceover, “This ship is ancient. Frankly, I don’t even recognise where it comes from.”
“She’s an old Talarian design. Thought she’s had a few modifications here and there; somehow, she runs LCARS 3.1 from the year 2312, can make it to Warp 5 and has a sensor-reflecting hull coating. I applied that myself.”
“Impressive, Petty Officer,” The hint of a suggestion of a smile appeared at the corner of Gabi’s mouth, “That may help us if we come across the Romulans.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Ral replied, his hand moving to his mouth as though he was going to bite his nails. He caught himself and began to rub the back of his neck. “Uh, by the way, the top bunk collapsed at one point, so there’s only one crib. So, we may need to hot bunk.”
“I’d prefer not.”
“Top and tail?”
“No.”
“There’s a chair in the corner of the room we could take turns sleeping in… or…”
“Let’s… just… cross that bridge when we get to it, Petty Officer. Right now, I’m concerned with us getting underway. Have you commenced preflight checks?”
“Already done. She’s hot to go.”
“Good. What can you tell me about the defensive systems?”
“Basically non-existent. She’s got a Mark III shield array that some guy stole from an old Starfleet shuttle. No weapons to speak of, aside from some low-yield mines.”
“Transporter?”
“Yes. But you don’t want to be beaming down to Galorndon Core,” Ral warned. “Those storms are a great way to get your transporter pattern scattered to the wind.”
“Agreed. We shouldn’t need to worry about that.” She gave the cramped, grimy and very brown surroundings one last look. She had resigned herself to the situation. “Well, I suppose I’ll stow my gear and leave you to get us underway. I’d like to study our orders and mission specifics to formulate a plan. Set a course for Galorndon Core. I’ll relieve you at the conn in two hours, I’ll discuss anything further with you at that point.”
“You got it,” Ral grinned. He started for the pilot’s seat, and then thought twice about it. “This is going to go fantastically, Lieutenant, I can sense it!”
OFF
Posting by
Lieutenant Gabi Shimoda
Starfleet Intelligence Field Operative
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