>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?
It proved nothing, of course, but it was suspicious. For intelligence of SpecOps operatives to go missing was bad, but not unusual. But for near-flag and flag-ranked officers to go missing was a rare event. To have SIX go missing... She wished she had the connections in intell to really do some digging on the Bajoran connection, and the missing officers. Why had this not been figured out yet? The only thing she could think of was someone who had power was covering it up so that it *couldn't* be figured out. It also made her paranoid, both for herself and Tyrus. She was a competitor, but Tyrus was probably seen as a traitor now in the Kettering camp. He needed protection. She had Torgash, her Klingon cousin. But Tyrus had pretty much burned his bridges and to her knowledge, had no protection. And if Kettering decided to try to force Lasiter from the CinC chair, having his brother threatened would be major leverage to get him to step down. She was exhausted, and tried to get to sleep. After tossing and turning for some time, she slipped into a sleep filled with strange, disturbing dreams. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my God.... I could be eating a slow learner! --Lynda Montgomery
