<USS Avalon> "Federation vs. Coalition" Pt. 3

“Federation vs. Coalition” – Part Three
by Commander Javan Sierra
& Lieutenant Caine Reilly McKinsely



Confirming his prospects, Javan activated the weapon system. "Keep a lock on them and prepare to initiate evasive maneuvers - pattern gamma." Bringing the targeting sensors online Javan locked onto the position of the craft and it visibly moved under the targeting scrutiny. Powering up the torpedo launchers an almost sadistic smile washed over his face, "Target acquired, you bastards." With a quick flick of his wrist he launched the torpedoes.

Ensign Sykora looked out the window and watched the blue arrays of light sail across the looming blackness of space and impact an invisible target which flickered into view momentarily, "There would've been no way to see that little detail if they were moving. Keep firing!"

"Now, Caine," Javan said as he launched another barrage of weaponry at the transparent foe. It was true what the ensign said; they got lucky this time. A few more seconds passed and Javan had the phaser array powered and targeted on random arcs in case they lost the target lock on their opponent. "This is going to get interesting really fast."

Upon hearing Javan's command, she immediately began evasive maneuvers and firing as she went. It was weird that Caine had spent her whole life hating fighting and war yet there she was, firing on an enemy. Of course, everything seemed different when one was in a battle for his or her life. "They’re moving," she called to Javan. Even as she was firing the weapons she kept the scan up for the metal, hoping that they wouldn't lose their enemy behind its cloak.

Javan had to hold onto the console as somehow, upon some merit of technology that hadn't been invented, phaser fire and torpedoes erupted from oblivion and impacted the Aero Shuttle. This wasn't going to get them anywhere; the cloak was impenetrable as far as the sensors were concerned. "Everyone on the transporter pad, now." He tapped the console and realized that the cloak in itself was acting as the shields. "We're going over there."

The entire crew tensed even more at Javan's words. It was one thing to fight the enemy on one's own turf or even to go out and face them on a neutral battle field; it was a completely different story to beam aboard the enemy’s ship and fight on their ground. But everyone had faith that Javan knew what he was doing, so they all moved quickly, getting from their seats to the transporter pad. Caine took a deep breath as she looked over at Javan. At his nod she pushed the buttons and was immediately transported over to the UCS Tempest, along with the rest of the crew.

"I set the course of the Aero Shuttle back to re-dock automatically with the Avalon," Javan motioned into a corner that was blackened. "We're on our own unless we access their transporters or Avalon takes charge of the battle. My first thought is to split into two groups. You three go to engineering and attempt to sabotage their cloak, engines, and their weapons. Caine and I will head to their computer core and get all the information we can."

"Aye, sir," Sykora nodded and the trio silently slipped off into a Jefferies tube. For the most part, from what Javan observed in the first moments of being on the vessel, the layout was almost identical to Starfleet design. The decking, the wall plating, and the schematics seemed to have come from Starfleet.

Without a word, Javan turned and walked down the corridor with his phaser compression rifle slung over his shoulder. "Let's go, Caine, we got some information that we need to collect."

Standing there for a moment, Caine mentally thought about what Javan said. Quickly she grabbed his hand and stopped him from moving away. "Javan, you know as well as I do that collecting information goes against the Temporal Prime Directive. We could end up totally screwing up our time with anything we might learn. Plus, we can't know the future. I mean, granted, knowing it would possibly save it, but we can't do that. We can't go steal their information." Caine hoped that this made sense to Javan. She knew that getting information could definitely aid them in their fight but it had too many consequences and went against the rules of Starfleet.

"Caine, don't lecture me on the rules of Starfleet." Javan walked into a turbolift with ease and was surprised that there was no fighting to be had. Javan knew that whenever an agent finds himself in the future that certain roads are supposed to be taken to find out about the Section in the time that the agent is in. This timeline, no matter how far in the future or who was looming around him at all times, was no different than the others. "Are you coming or not?"

Caine looked at him warily. She didn't like this and she definitely didn't like how Javan had just snapped at her, but she knew that it was stress and pressure getting to him, so she didn't let it bother her. "You know damn well I'm coming but I had to say what I had to say, you also know that." She stomped into the turbolift next to her lover. "I just hope we don't find out anything that could mess with our minds and cause problems once we get back home."

With the doors closed, Javan had to begin thinking about his position and the secrecy behind it. He remembered Acacia and what had happened when she found out who he really was. Shaking off the chilling thought, Javan charged his weapon and aimed it towards the door. As he thought there was a Cardassian standing there when the doors hissed open. Firing, the man fell backwards and landed on the floor dead. "Deck Nine, Men's Wear." Smirking slightly he stepped out onto the deck silently and motioned for Caine to follow him.

Slightly disturbed at how easily Javan could kill, Caine stepped out of the turbolift and around the dead body. "This ship is designed very similar to ours. That's really good, we'll at least know our way around for the most part," she spoke quietly, charging her phaser but hoping they wouldn't run into much other trouble on the ship.

Nodding absently, Javan continued on. Marching around a corner he spied what he wanted on the door and it hissed open. Javan saw the worker that was sitting at the console working diligently, but knew that she'd be no threat to the existence of their mission. Waltzing up behind the woman, Javan shouldered his rifle and looked down at her. He knew that she didn't know they were behind her, but that made it all the easier. With one quick motion, after placing his hands on both sides of her head, Javan snapped her neck and she fell harmlessly onto the floor. "Access the personnel records, Caine, download them to a PADD."

Mouth falling to the floor, Caine grabbed Javan's shoulder and turned him to face her. "You know we shouldn't be doing this, but I’m only saying that for the record," she said as she pushed the dead woman's body out of the chair and sat down. "All personnel files or just certain peoples?" Caine asked, her fingers already flying across the console, making it seem to the crew of the ship that she was just a person who belonged on the ship doing their work.

"All of them. I've got something else to research." Without thinking about it Javan sat down at the other chair and accessed the timeline of important historical events that the computer had logged. After a little of searching about five hundred years in the past, he found it. His eyes widened and for a moment he felt displaced from everything else around him.

Stardate 0408.20 - Section 31 Discovered and Eliminated

Less than five months from the time they had come from.

"Shit."

Caine was quickly downloading all the personnel files when she suddenly had the urge to specifically look up her and Javan's files. As her fingers moved to bring them up, she heard Javan curse from his seat. Fingers still hovering over the buttons, Caine turned to look at him. "What's wrong? Have they located us already?" she asked, her heart pounding even harder at that thought of actually being caught on the ship. These people would probably torture them and then kill them.

His arm was over his screen. "No, it's nothing. Nevermind."

A bit more confused and curious, Caine turned back to her work. She bit her lip and fought with herself over looking. It would just be so easy: the push of one simple button and her and Javan's futures. Closing her eyes, she pushed. The information was now displayed on the screen right in front of her, all she needed to do now as open her eyes and look; it would be so easy. So simple and yet she couldn't open them but neither could she close out the file. She sat there fighting her temptation, not sure of what to do then.

Reading the files, Javan was oblivious to Caine's predicament. The Section had been infiltrated by one, Julian Bashir, and from there the cascading stones toppled the secretive network. There was mass chaos that ensued and people on Starfleet vessels across the quadrant were arrested and court-martialed. A resistance force had been set up to battle the conspiracy. The all ex-operatives alleged they weren't part of, but it was useless. What a way to go, Javan thought.

Finally deciding to look, Caine opened her eyes and looked at pictures of herself and Javan, their files right next to each other on the screen. She scrolled down slowly and gasped in surprise as she read about her marriage to Javan. Smiling she peeked over and looked at him, his shoulders tense. With a huge grin, Caine turned back to the screen, wondering if they had children. But instead of finding children, Caine found something more disturbing.

"What the hell?" she said under her breath, as she read the information over and over again. "Section 31, he can't be, no, this is wrong there must be a mistake." After reading it the fifth time, Caine realized that no matter how many times she read it, it would still say the same thing. Javan was a Section 31 agent and not long after their marriage he was arrested and imprisoned for life. In utter shock, Caine flopped back in her chair and just stared at the screen. Any happiness she might have felt over the idea of her and Javan getting married was quickly replaced by shock, anger, fear, and sadness. "This can't be right," she muttered again, shaking her head as she just stared at the screen in front of her. "It isn't fair."

"What?" Javan said over his shoulder. He was still engrossed in his own pursuits to care about much else.

"Life sucks, that's what," Caine replied sharply, even though she knew it wasn't any use to talk to him. He was totally engrossed with his work and this wasn't the time or the place to talk about anything personal. But Caine still wanted to talk about it – she felt almost betrayed. She had poured her heart out to Javan and told him the truth about her past but he hadn't even once mentioned this. Some things were starting to make sense now.

"What have you found out?" Javan leaned over and peered over Caine's shoulder to see what she was looking at. They had better get going soon, he figured, since they hadn't seen much of anyone since transporting on. "Anything important?"

Caine was trying to decide whether or not to mention it to him. "Yeah, I found something important to me, not the mission though. So don't worry about it." She didn't know that he was leaning over and could see the screen, instead she just scrolled down farther, trying to find more information about Section 31 and Javan's involvement in it.

Perking slightly, Javan's instincts took over and he moved back to his own console. Tapping into what she was looking at, Javan found himself face to face with a picture of himself. Scrolling quickly through the text he downloaded it into a PADD with all the other information that he had found and stood. "Let's go, I'm sure that Sykora and the others have rendezvoused with us at the evacuation point."

Grabbing the PADD that had downloaded all of the personnel files, she quickly closed out of files. Moving to the door, Caine tucked the PADD in close to her body with the arm she wasn't using and gripped her phaser in the other hand, ready to fight what ever came their way as they moved out along the corridors.

They leaned into the hallway and found it desolate as before. Within mere seconds they were on the turbolift again and heading back the way they had come. Stepping out into the corridor once again they were bathed in solitude. "What the hell is going on around here?" They saw their group up ahead.

"We dropped their cloak, sir. Their weapons are off-line. And their engines will take at least a day to reset after all the messing that we did with them. We're good to go, sir." Sykora had a smile on her face that made Javan smirk, but he was still unsettled every time that he looked back at his girlfriend. “In addition, we’ve secured a direct transporter line back to the Avalon.”

Caine moved behind Javan, feeling very uncomfortable with the knowledge she had acquired about him and not totally sure yet what she was going to do about it, if she would do anything. The one thing she did know truly, was that there was no way in hell she was going to tell anyone about Javan, she knew it would be wrong to keep it to herself, it would be betraying the Federation. But what was more grieves an act to her then betraying the federation was betraying her love, her Imzadi. Caine's lips would be permanently sealed about Javan's true job.

As Javan tapped the communication badge on his chest he got a shot of pain to his head and realized it was a Betazoid thing. Something was wrong and he knew that it was with Caine, but he knew that he shouldn't talk to her about it until they got back. They had information. They had the way to change things.

They had the future.

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