> >Kettering called after him, "Lasiter!" in his most authoritative voice. Which
> >Lasiter stopped, turned, saluted, then turned and left. Walking only a meter past
> >Kitanya on his way out, and then on past Rear Admiral Jora. For her part, Jora
> >could nto hear, but picked up the emotions. As Lastier
passed her, and Kettering's eyes (and those with him) moved up past her, they saw a
large smile on her face. Large, contemptous, and full of laughter.
Her anger flared, but she said nothing. Kettering was more than she had even
anticipated. She had thought him to be a predator, but she had been mistaken.
Predators do what they do because they feel it necessary to their survival. It may
not be a good decision, but it was what they thought they had to do. Kettering was
more than that. He was malicious,
conniving, and greedy. He enjoyed the pain of others, and that made him the most
dangerous being in all of Starfleet. She wanted to be there when he fell, just to
make sure he and his pig were stamped out completely, their figurative heads cut off
and the stumps burned.
But as Tyrus left, Kit knew that much of Kettering's respectability went with him, and
that was comforting. It would leave him without the advantage of numbers, but the
core that remained would be even more desperate and more dangerous. On Earth, Hitler
came to power in the same way Kettering proposed, and with Hitler came his band of
thugs that perpetuated atrocities unrivaled in almost every other civilized world.
Kettering would do it on a galactic scale.
What concerned her most was that Hitler had concocted some of the problems that led to
his legal dictatorship of Germany; when people are afraid, they want strong leaders,
they want protection, and they'll pay almost any price to get it. If Kettering's hand
was in any of the problems the Federation
faced...
She talked to a few people politely afterwards, but watched the serpent before
leaving. It was going to be a long week, and she doubted she'd get much sleep that
night.
She went home and tried to sleep, but it eluded her. Finally, she got up and started
investigating Kettering and possible connections to either the felinids, the
Vanasians, police actions, or anything else that could be used to instill fear in the
Council or the citizens and would make him, as
an aggressive-talking proponent of protection, look like the 'savior'.
After several hours of digging, cross referencing, and reading Kitanya had come up
with surprisingly few bits of information. She learned that Kettering was friendly
with the Bajoran Ambassador (and many of his staff). That Kettering had served not
one or two, but three consecutive tours either on Bajor or in the areas immediately
surrounding Bajor. Of course this was only interesting because the Bajoran delegation
was one of the top, if not the chief, power weilders in the Federation Council, and
rumors of illicit activity. The Ambassador and his top aides were rumored to be
involved in some serious shadow activity- organized crime (smuggling weapons, banned
technology, drugs, etc.), corruption (while nothing sticks, the theory is that they
'own' several officials throught the Federation, some even in SF Command.), and
extortion. There was also something else odd, not illegal just odd. Kettering was
widlely known throught the fleet. He had many friends, but also many competitors and
to one extent or another enemies. Nothing new here. But wait... Some of Kettering's
competition in the fleet had gone missing. In fact all told about 6 had gone missing
in the past 8 months. Starfleet did have a dirty little secret, that officers were
dissapearing. No one knew exactly why, but their dissapearance was carefully covered
up, so the other powers in the quadrant didn't get any funny ideas. However, this was
one major worry that Starfleet Command was facing- the loss of top teir officers
(Captains, Commanders, even a few Admirals). This was another reason that all
Admirals were requried to have a security contingent with them at all times. Kitanya
remembered hearing Brennan grouse about them before. Could Kettering, some how be
involved with this?
{thoughts?}
*****
Chris
GM- SPD & JSOC
