Alpha Shift was mostly uneventful, save for the tense return of the away team that Rhys was a part of sent to recover their new Hazard Team leader. An emergency had been declared with their passenger being wounded and requiring immediate attention.

Apparently the subject of their mission had been wounded in a bar fight and the injury hadn’t been discovered until they were well underway. Commander Ket hadn’t yet updated them with the outcome of the surgery but Cat knew that Lieutenant was Captain Mason’s sister, and being a Llanarian like him, she’d have better odds at survival than most people did.

But while most crewmen would be happy for an uneventful shift, it wasn’t the case for the officers of the Canterbury. As she stood watch on the bridge, she observed the crew and she sensed an air of tension among them. She could understand that. Their Captain had been abducted, their XO had been transferred out all of a sudden, and now the two people tasked in leading them were complete strangers.

And as she watched them do everything they could to look for the missing Captain Murphy, their frustration only mounted as the seconds ticked by. They were all professionals though, falling back on their training to do their jobs well and conduct themselves properly, but some more than others couldn’t quite completely hide the way they felt about the lack of headway in the search.

As the shift ended and they handed over the watch to the next shift of watch standers, Catriona sent two messages. One was local, specifically for a certain Chief Helm Officer. The other was off ship, and not exactly standard comms, especially with the protocols she used but security shouldn’t have a problem with it since it was done openly through the general comms exchange.

While she waited for the reply to her communications, she went ahead and had some lunch. The mess hall was still pretty crowded considering the Alpha shift people from all the various departments would be descending here to put some food in their belly. While she was a little peckish, she wasn’t particularly hungry and felt that it was better to let the crew eat first before she grabbed her own meal.

She took that opportunity to talk to the mess technicians and review what they had available in terms of ingredients and facilities. Sadly, she wasn’t surprised to find that they didn’t have much in terms of what she was used to on the Cherbourg.

Being a diplomatic vessel, the dining facilities on her previous ship were much more diverse, with actual kitchens where meals could be prepared by experienced chefs to suit the diet and palates of their guests. For most people, replicated food was already more than suitable, but in her experience there was always those that preferred something more natural, and being able to serve real fresh food was something that had given them an edge in negotiations more than a couple of times.

But the Canterbury was a long ranged explorer, in essence an advanced science vessel. She already expected that there wouldn’t be much in the way of preparing real food onboard, but at the very least it did have cold storage facilities, though limited, and a single kitchen with barebones equipment.

That actually made Cat happy. It wasn’t state of the art but it didn’t need to be. She could make do with what was already here and what she brought with her onboard, and anything else she needed she could always acquire, either from the engineers or from her contacts outside.

She smiled and ran her hand across the smooth countertop of the tiny nook in one corner of mess hall. Yes, this shall do nicely indeed. She thought about a certain Bear of a man and hoped he didn’t have any allergies or dietary restrictions.

Suddenly the PADD in her pocket began to chirp, indicating an incoming call. There wasn’t anyone else around so she felt comfortable receiving it where she was, raising an eyebrow when she saw it was an audio only call rather than video.

“What’s the matter?” She asked with a smirk. “Suddenly shy to show your face?”

“The hell would I be shy about?” The gruff voice on the other end of the line grumbled. “I may not be as pretty as you but I do alright. I had no choice. Looks like there’s some kind of odd issue with the comms. The usual way wasn’t going to work, our talk would be garbled as hell. I’m already pushing the bandwidth of the system just to make sure we can understand each other.”

That had Catriona curious all of a sudden. “Considering the kind of equipment that you have, I’m surprised you’re having trouble. Is it something on your end?”

“No, I don’t think so. The shop monkeys have been telling me there’s something else that’s giving us trouble recently whenever comms are involved. It’d just be my luck that some kind of subspace anomaly suddenly spawned to ruin my week.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“A day? Don’t worry, we’ll get it fixed. Now, what can I do for you? I don’t suppose you called me all the way from where you are just to catch up.”

The comely blonde smiled at that. “You suppose correctly. I’m involved with something new this time and I need some things from you.”

The voice sighed. “Of course. Wait… this isn’t going to get Starfleet Security trying to hunt me down is it?”

“Not unless you’re planning on trying to shortchange me.”

The man sounded offended. “You know I’d never do that.”

“Good. I need two different things. I’m sending you a list and I hope you can get those ready for me as soon as possible.”

There was a moment’s pause as the other person was likely reading the message she sent and let out a low whistle. “Seriously? You know what kind of things I normally deal with, right? Why are you-”

“Because you always deliver and you deliver it well,” Catriona answered before he could even ask.

“It’ll take a while to get all of these together. Some of these are easy, and I have a couple of friends of a friend who can deliver, but the others… these aren’t exactly something you can pluck from a nearby asteroid field. And then there’s the shipping costs…”

“I heard you had a setback with the negotiations with the Navorans, and from what I heard the Supreme Arbiter is already quite partial to your competitor.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment followed by a deep sigh. “At this point I’m not even surprised how you know that. I don’t suppose you know how to get on the Arbiter’s good side, do you?”

“It so happens I do,” she said cheerily. “And from what I heard what cost you the initial evaluation was a tiny but significant mistake. If you get me what I want, I’ll help you get what you want, just like always.”

“Alright, I’ll take care of it. The usual procedure right?”

“Please and thank you.”

“What about the other thing?”

Catriona’s smile faded a little as she grew more serious. “I need information, and I can’t have any blowback.”

“Why do I have a feeling you’re going to ask me for something more troublesome than your first request?”

“You know me so well.”