Chapter 20: Suspicion
July 2410
In the wake of the repulsed Tal Shiar/Elachi attack on the independent Rhi System, most Republic Officers found themselves celebrating an important victory. But not all; back at the slowly growing headquarters facility on New Romulus, the newly recommissioned RRF Subcommander Kirina t’Nalah was about a month into her cross-training for military intelligence field work. While the Star Empire and the Tal Shiar had been content to let Kirina work in research and development, the fledgling Republic was interested in more immediately tangible results. Her medical expertise was considered secondary to her experience working on secret projects.
Kirina hated every second of it. Even before she was trained to see such things, it was clear as day to her. For all the studying that she was doing, the instructors were studying her. She repeatedly requested transfer to a clinical position, away from the cloak and dagger of the intelligence service, but her requests were each denied. After all, she wouldn’t need months and months of training for a purely medical position, and then they wouldn’t have all that time to watch her, to determine where her true loyalties lie. She could even see it in the other students. She wasn’t trusted. They were afraid of her.
After a while Kirina stopped bothering with the requests. She accepted that she was always going to be an outsider. She let them watch her every move, and even began to welcome it, in the hopes that one day she’d rise above the suspicion. She went about her training with as much interest as she could muster. And so, over the course of the next year, Kirina became something new. Training for the Republic, she spent her days practicing her marksmanship, and learning the art of espionage; she spent time perfecting the mask that was her face, and learning to lie, and to act, and to influence; and she learned how medicine could best be used as a weapon.
She excelled in her studies, and before long, her attitude began to change. She dealt with her displeasure over her situation by finding little ways to keep herself entertained. She played pranks on her peers, she dyed her hair to the horror of the traditionalists, and she made snide remarks at every opportunity. But despite appearances, she never stopped watching, or learning. When it came time to prove herself, she shocked the evaluators by dropping the playful persona and completing her training mission in close to record time.
After nearly two years of disappointment with the Republic, when it finally came time to receive her first real assignment, she expected nothing less than an uninteresting posting where they could keep a careful eye on her. What came, instead, was her turn to be taken by surprise. She was appointed the Chief Medical Officer aboard the RRW Vathos. She couldn’t understand it. After being denied over and over again, they’d finally given her the clinical position she’d been asking for all along.
But she knew it was too good to be true. The assignment came with strings attached: when Republic Intelligence came calling… she would answer only to them.