The Classified Mission

Rashad was sitting at her quarters after another day on duty.

The ship was now in the Beta quadrant for its main mission for the next few months and was, at least officially, on a complete communication blackout vis-a-vis the Starfleet Command. However, without anyone's knowledge she continued making her daily reports to Officer 0001, as she had come to know Rear Admiral Beard.

Her reports were always routine, as she was somehow still unable to find whatever evidence of disloyalty or treason against Captain Devore. Thus, Officer 0001 always seemed displeased with her performance. Realizing that nothing could persuade her superiors in Section 31 of the Captain's loyalty to the Federation, she continued to monitor all his logs and whatever incoming or outgoing communications he had. Still, there was nothing...

By now she knew most things about the Captain's past and that he had indeed "ruffled some feathers", as the Human's would say, at the Starfleet Command with his investigation into the disappearance of his wife who is believed to be MIA. Little did the Captain know, but as his intuition turned out correct, his wife, was indeed remained. Unbeknownst to Devore, she had been an officer with Starfleet Intelligence Science Directorate. Rashad had discovered via the StarFleet database, that even once she and Mrs. Mitchell-Devore had even served together. Mrs. Mitchell-Devore was captured by the Dominion, but escaped using her Intelligence SERE training. She even managed to 'borrow' a Jem'Hadar shuttle that she landed on the StarFleet Directorate's front lawn. Upon her return, however, she was ordered by her superiors to keep her survival from her husband, and, being an Intel officers, she had to afford a higher loyalty to Starfleet than to her family. It remained unknown why Sierra Mitchell was ordered to abandon her husband. What became obvious to the Romulan-Bajoran is that it was somehow connected with Section 31 with which she was herself now commissioned.

It also somehow became obvious that whatever had happened between Captain Devore and Officer 0001 had been of a personal nature. It also hadn't helped the matter that on his first Command assignment Devore was forced to make a command decision that resulted in the death of Lieutenant Matthew Beard, the only son of Admiral Beard.

Unable to rest, because gamma shift finishing at 08:00 and not being used to sleep during the day, the Intelligence Officer decided to go over the latest observations of the Chief Science Officer, Lieutenant Chu Barker, on this Quadrant. While her theoretical knowledge of the Quadrant was extensive, the Romulan-Bajoran still desired to know more.

"Computer." She ordered. "Access the latest Science logs."

<Authorization Required.>

"T`Kul beta 4-6-2."

<Authorization Accepted.>

Instantly the logs appeared on her console. She quickly scanned through the irrelevant parts, and than came onto something interesting that rose her Vulcanoid eyebrows.

*Hmm... *USS Utopia*? .... Very INTERESTING... Wasn't it mentioned somewhere that the ship was on a classified mission for the Starfleet Intelligence Science Directorate ?*

She initiated a secondary communication lock down of her quarters and logged into the classified SI database.

*Hmm..* She thought as she read through the never officially released documents relating to the *USS Utopia*'s mission. "Computer, unlock these quarters, T`Kul beta 4-6-2."

<Authorization accepted. Complying... The secondary communication lock down is disabled.>

The moment her quarters were unlocked, her combadge chirped.

[Devore to Lieutenant Rashad, you are required on the Bridge.]

"On my way," Responded the Romulan-Bajoran, taking her PADD and tricorder and heading out of her quarters.

Entering the turbolift she ordered. "Main Bridge!" However, while the doors swished closed there was a few second delay, and she thought she saw a faint shadow of a figure standing right next to her. Rashad's acute sense of vision thanks to he Romulan-Bajoran heritage allowed here to pickup a glimpse of something that immediately forced her to take a defensive stance. She turned on her tricorder and was about to attack the shadow, when it suddenly disappeared. She looked at the tricorder readings: they showed nothing.

*Oh my...* thought the Romulan-Bajoran as the turbolift started moving. *There may be another operative on board this ship, and I cannot even tell the Captain, as that would blow my cover... Whoever that person is, he or she must be using one of those advanced, but 'nonexistent' personal cloaking devices- even in Starfleet Intelligence. Hmm. Something isn't right here, certainly weird !*

Within a few moments she reported to the Bridge. On the screen of the main viewer, right in front of the USS Leviathan was a magnificent vessel. It looked quite gracious on the viewer, yet it also looked apparently abandoned... Immediately Rashad realized that it was the *USS Utopia* - the ship so advanced for her time that she had been sent on the covert SI mission, and then suddenly disappeared without a trace somewhere in this part of the Beta Quadrant...

She looked at Lieutenant Barker with her Vulcanoid eyebrows risen and then shifted her gaze to Captain Devore. "This is *USS Utopia*, sir. We have to investigate this sudden reappearance with extreme caution. I cannot tell you what her last mission was, since that information is classified, but I can tell you that there are going to be a lot of questions to be answered..."