When she entered shuttlebay 42, Solaris hadn’t been expecting to see any ship at all waiting for her. Her previous interaction with the station’s intelligence officer had not given her good feelings. So when she did see a ship waiting for her, she was pleasantly surprised. She glanced over at T’liss, raising an eyebrow, having accompanied the engineer to see the ship before planning to go see Commander Kane. The ship wasn’t state of the art, or even very clean looking. In fact it was pretty rough all around. That didn’t bother her however.

“Reminds me of the Thrusters…” she commented, circling around the outside of the ship. T’liss nodded.

“It does bear a striking resemblance.” the engineer agreed, making her way to the hatch. The ship was only about the size of a runabout, and looked as if it were set up for smuggling and it did bear quite a resemblance to the ship that they had used on Starbase 234 when they needed to go somewhere and not look like Starfleet while doing it. They were completely different types of ship, but that didn’t matter. If you squinted just enough, they looked almost the same. T’liss popped the hatch open and climbed inside, Solaris following her.

The inside of the vessel was clean, but not spotless. Clearly whatever the ship had been used for had been emptied out before the ship was stored away for impound. While T’liss made her way to the cockpit, Solaris headed toward the rear of the craft, opening a few storage compartments just to see what might have been left behind. She glanced back as the ship’s internal power came on, bathing the aft space in a cool blue light and the air recirculators started up, with a quiet hum. She peered into another storage compartment, reaching in to pull out a bottle. She turned it over in her hands, eyeing the green liquid inside. She pulled the cap off giving it a sniff.

“Found some Aldebaran Whiskey…” she called out, moving back toward the front of the ship. She recapped the bottle and stuck her head into the cockpit where T’liss was already running diagnostics.

“So how’s it look?” she asked. T’liss looked up.

“Acceptable. Barely.” the engineer replied. She tapped a few controls. “The engines are not in the best of shape… it is as if whoever owned this ship prior did not keep up proper maintenance.” she added. Sol frowned.

“Will it get us to the station… actually better question… will it get us off the station?” Solaris asked, moving to stand behind T’liss and look at the screen.

“I would say yes… but that could very easily change.” she replied. Sol nodded.

“Right… well I guess beggars can’t be choosers…” she conceded. She set the bottle of whiskey on the console, and straightened up. “Give the whole thing a once over, and then transfer it to the Yamato… if we need to make some space, leave the Solo here and we can pick it up after we get back from the Badlands.” she ordered. The Solo was one of the Yamato’s two Danube-class runabouts and it took up considerable space in the ship’s shuttlebay.

“Understood, Captain.” T’liss said. Sol nodded, stepping out of the cockpit, and eventually out of the ship. She had another appointment.

The station’s intelligence section was quiet when Solaris entered. Stepping up to the small reception desk and security checkpoint Solaris spoke quietly to the yeoman on duty then stepped away to wait for her appointment time. She was prompt, so it didn’t take very long at all for her name to be called.

“Captain McLaren. What can I do for you?” Commander Kane asked. Sol turned, eyeing the man with a pleasant smile, for the moment. They were in public after all.

“Commander… we need to talk.” she stated simply. The Commander nodded and gestured for her to follow him. He lead her deeper into the intelligence section, past a couple empty desks and a few more that were occupied by other officers appearing to be not doing much of anything. They passed into an office that was nicely furnished but clearly underused. The Commander gestured to a chair, taking a seat at the desk.

“So Captain, what is it we need to talk about?” he asked. Solaris didn’t bother to sit, instead leaning on the back of the chair with her hands.

“So Commander, how long have you been with intelligence?” she asked. The Commander appeared confused for a moment.

“Almost five years.” he stated. Sol nodded, pushing off the chair for a moment.

“How many times, in that period, have you ever approached someone, anyone, with a mission this poorly thought out?” she asked him, stepping closer to the desk.

“Captain?” he asked.

“Commander… please… the less dumb you play the better this conversation will go.” she said. “So, let’s try again, have you ever approached anyone without any sort of mission plan?” she asked.

“Not to my knowledge.” he replied.

“So my ship is special then? Or do we just not rate the effort?” she asked. “Because you came to a ship that is weeks away from the target, without even the barest concept of a plan, and a whole mess of information that I’m fairly certain didn’t even get handed to one of those analysts out there.” she continued.

“Captain I-”

“No Commander… I can assure you… I’ve probably heard, and given, every excuse in my near ten years in intelligence. At any point did you even consider getting your own ducks in a row? Or did you just assume that I’d be ok doing your work for you?” she asked.

“No Captain. I did not assume that. I believed the situation was severe enough to warrant immediate action.” he said. Sol raised an eyebrow.

“I agree the situation is concerning, Commander. But it’s at least a week away… and it only took me a little over three hours total to review all your data and come up with a plan… you taking even that much time would not have meaningfully changed the outcome.” she said. She pointed back toward the door.

“Now I don’t know your staffing situation… but I saw at least a few people out there not doing much of anything and a few empty desks. If you need more people… request them. If you need resources, request them.” she said, fixing him with a pointed glare. “But if you ever approach me with this sort of mission and no plan again… you won’t know what hit you. I will not play around with the lives of my crew or the safety of my ship. Am I understood?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” the Commander replied. To his credit he didn’t flinch away from the red eyed gaze of the woman across from him.

“Good.” Solaris said, finally stepping around the chair to sit. Her face softened some as she let out a breath.

“I had heard rumor of an intelligence officer with white hair and red eyes, Captain. I didn’t think it was true.” the Commander said. Sol laughed.

“Those started back in my academy days… several instructors in my interrogation training didn’t quite enjoy the combination of my eyes and hair. I’ve heard it all. ‘Demon’. ‘Wraith’. Worked out ok for me… got passing grades.” she said. The Commander grinned.

“Sounds like you made a decent reputation for yourself out there…” he said.

“Only within intelligence itself… I keep a low profile otherwise.” she admitted.

“I apologize Captain… I should have done more before contacting you.” Kane said. Solaris sighed.

“Commander… if I had approached a captain with that little when I was Director of Intelligence on two-three-four… I’d have been embarrassed.” she said. “Unless it was an emergency, I’d never hand a Captain nothing and expect them to figure it out.” she added. The Commander nodded.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what plan did you come up with?” Sol shrugged.

“I plan on taking a small team on to the station… to steal back the disruptor before it gets sold.” she stated.

“You?” he asked.

“I’m the only one I would trust to lead this sort of mission… no one else on my crew has the training for it. I’ll take my Chief Engineer and Chief Medical Officers along as well. My ship will wait nearby, hidden. As best you can hide a Sovereign-class anyway. Once we get the disruptor, we’ll hightail it out of there… hopefully without any casualties.” she explained. The Commander nodded.

“Sounds like a reasonably good plan.” he said. Sol laughed.

“Oh Commander… don’t you know? No plan survives contact with the enemy.” she said. Now it was the Commander’s turn to laugh.

“I understand, Captain.” he admitted, nodding. Sol smoothed the hem of her skant, and stood.

“Seriously, Commander… if you need help getting this section up to full strength… let me know… I can probably grease some wheels somewhere.” she said. “We’ll call this one a mulligan and move on…” she added. Kane nodded, standing as well.

“Thank you Captain. I’ll be keeping an eye on your progress from here.” he said. Sol nodded, turning to leave.

“Don’t worry… we’ll get the disruptor back.” she said. Truthfully, she would have preferred to destroy it, but that wasn’t the mission.