((Irrawaddy, Cockpit))

The day after the Accords were signed, Commander Wong and Lt JG Singh found themselves standing watch on the little ship that was still technically considered Captain Tyler’s command ship for the mission. The Blythe would require 2 ships to haul it back into orbit, which made it even more of a miracle that small B’rel class Slivin had been able to slow, let alone halt the descent of the plummeting ship. The vessel towing their new assignment out to them would then assist in the recovery of the Blythe.

“So where are you from Lt?” Wong had a seat after grabbing a coffee. The Lt would be continuing on with Wong and Mee IH heading to their new assignment, and Wong liked to get to know his people.

“Uttar Pradesh sir. Just south of a little town called Ferozapur. And you sir?” Singh joked, in fact that area of India consists of urban sprawl that took up almost every flat piece of land that wasn’t owned by the government.

“Hong Kong is where I was born, but we moved around a lot. Sometimes I was with my father on Starfleet, other times the family lived in Paris, Rio, Altair 4…so why did you join Starfleet?” Danny continued as he checked the routine status reports from around the Expanse, it appeared as though other ships in the fleet were meeting similar faces to the Blythe, at least 3 other vessels had been lost, crashed, or declared missing.

“Honestly sir, to have some space, and be alone.” He noticed a look from Wong, who took it as a hint that he was anti-social.

“Dont get me wrong, I love my family, but I have 5 sisters and 3 brothers, and nearly 30 first causing, a dozen aunts, another dozen uncles. Don’t even get me started on how many great aunts I have. And we all live within a few dozen miles of each other back home. I guess, I sort of wanted some anonymity.”

Wong nodded, it was an understandable desire in his case. “Well, our new assignment has a crew complement of just 80, so after a couple of weeks, no one will be anonymous to anyone else.”

Singh chuckled “My upbringing might give me an advantage in that case. I was never easy to find when playing ‘Leopards and Goats’(An Indian variant of hide and go seek or ‘tag’) with my chums.”

“Indeed…so, forget our ranks for a moment, were you happy in your new role as the Comms Officer, because it might be worthwhile to spin that position off from the tactical department on our new assignment as well.”

“Oh yes Sahib, loving the job, it gives me a connection to the wider galaxy and fleet around us. And the job itself keeps me busy, there is always something to transmit or receive. Plus, I get to know what is going on before anyone else, which is a solemn but exciting role to fill.” Singh admitted.

“Interesting perspective. I never really thought about it like that. Well in a few days we’ll see where Starfleet is sending us…are you still monitoring the comms that were coming in for the Blythe? I know most have been rerouted through the Soval, but I did get one yesterday that was specifically to me, and it had been routed through the Irrawaddy here.”

“Yes sir…and yes sirs, I did see that message?” Singh replied, having seen the message from Starfleet Internal Affairs that was forwarded by the 4th Fleet JAG.

“Oh you did?”

“Yes sir, saw the message, not the contents, as with all encrypted comms.”

Wong weighed his options. The message didn’t say he couldn’t talk to anyone about the investigation of the Captain. And if couldn’t enlist help from other members of the crew, whoever Tyler had pissed off would succeed in railroading their kind, humble, carving and generous CO.

“So, it looks like the Captain may have gotten himself into a bit of trouble, but I suspect that there might be some impropriety involved in the charges they’re seeking against him. I can’t go into too many details but, it’s serious.” Wong offered.

“I understand sir. What can I do to help Captain Tyler.”

Wong smiled, he wasn’t expecting that response either. This young man who had run away to Starfleet to get away from his overbearing family was just full of surprises.

“Hmmm, well, first things first, we need the records from Blythe’s Blackbox, that might help exonerate the Captain on some of the more serious charges.”

Singh nodded and went to work on his console.

“We recovered that data a few days after the crash sir.” the comms man replied

A thought dawned upon Wong, that was only a week ago now. And somehow Starfleet IA was forwarding charges to a Grand Jury? That was fishing in itself.

“And when was the Blackbox data sent back to command?” Wong bit his lips as he though.

“Uh that would have been early the next morning as I recall” Singh though back to those chaotic first few days a before the Soval arrived.

Wong added another day for the message be processed and to make it into Internal Affairs hands. That left only 5 days for IA to put together the case against the Captain. There had to be holes and Flagship in their case that he could expose.