Stirring up the flames

Posted on 03/18/2012 @ 10:08am by Fleet Captain Allen Samji & Lieutenant JG Montgomery Scott III & Lieutenant JG Danik Brie & Commander Karen Schmidt & Lt. Commander Grok & Lt. Commander Kletan Rexil & Lt. Commander Hugh Michaels M.D. & Lt. Commander Ja'hark & Lieutenant Jorga & Lieutenant John Vanhook & Lieutenant Koral
Edited on on 03/18/2012 @ 11:26am

Mission: Azimuth Horizon: Crusade - Chapter 4: Operation Horizon
Location: Starbase 10
Timeline: 87171.3

Starbase 10 had not seen such a flurry of activity since the Borg Invasion. All of its hundreds of decks accross its kilometers-wide expanse were alive like a beehive with added tasks, material and personnel. Within its huge confine, the ships of Lotus Fleet were just as busy gearing up for the momentous challenge they were about to face, crews feverishly working at readying the vessels and brushing up on training while senior officers refined the last details of their mission in long, tense meeting sessions.

It was no different in the vast command center of Lotus Fleet's headquarters. The only place that seemed quiet and calm, like the very eye of this storm of life and activity and apprehensions, was the starbase commander's ready room.

Sitting in his vast office overlooking the whole control room, Fleet Captain Allen Samji was reading a report on the station's readiness. All civilians from the base had been moved to safety out of the sector and all was in readiness for any emergency evacuation of the entire remaining Starfleet personnel if things came to worse. The five hundred shuttles needed to secure the corraling of the anomaly in its own subspace pocket was almost complete. And there was that new research report from Lieutenant Syntron of the Artemis regarding a way to... cool down the anomaly itself? This was worth a more extensive study and he sent orders to this effect, along with the Vulcan's data, to his own chief of science, Lieutenant Commander Kletan Rexil.

But there was more to consider in this last hour of readiness. There was also a flurry of last minute transfers from the Artemis that had him frown for a moment. Captain Kheren had ordered all but fifteen percent of his crew off his ship; being tasked to offer himself as the enemy's prime target had prompted the Andorian to act so that casualty risk would be minimal; and his ship might be the oldest of the fleet, but it was in fact quite able to function efficiently even with such a reduced complement. Samji understood his reasoning, that of a man more preoccupied with saving lives than winning battles. So apparently did two of his senior officers, chief engineer Montgommery Scott III and chief of ops Danik Brie, who had elected to step down and serve here on the base of operations. So did no less than four hundred and ninety-one officers of the Artemis. Now, Samji could count on almost five hundred of the very best first-hand experts on the anomaly in all fields of science, engineering, Starfleet operations, tactical and medicine, here at the center of operations! This was some good news he welcomed heartily.

But still, a hundred and fifty-one of the Artemis most junior crewmembers, obviously inexperienced and frustrated by this order, requested transfer to other ships... although one of them was certainly not an inexperienced, junior officer; Commander Michael O'Conner, none other than the executive officer of the Artemis!

Samji could not fathom why the man asked to step down from his prominent responsibilites and go back to the subservient role he had assumed on his former ship. Fear? Lack of confidence? Loss of faith in his own ship or commanding officer? Disagreement over command decisions? Or... what? Whatever the reason, Captain Kheren had approved the request and Captain Summers had accepted the transfer, shoving down to an assistant position his current chief engineer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Shar Noor, to welcome back his former executive officer and chief engineer. With a sigh, the starbase commander confirmed transfer approval, confident that his two captains knew what was best for their ships as well as for Commander O'Conner... and the mission at hand.

However, he summarily rejected all the one hundred and fifty-one ship-transfer requests of the rest of the crew and reassigned them all to the base as relief crews. He was certainly not going to disrupt the other ships with an overflow of disgrunted, hot-headed, impulsive or unfaithful junior crewmembers! This blatant lack of faith in their captain was the sure sign that they may just not be proper Starfleet material. Their records and basic training and oath of service would in fact be seriously reevaluated the days after this operation.

If there ever were to be days left after the operation...

Then, a call interrupted him. it was the distinctively stern but classy-sounding voice of his Exec, Karen Schmidt.

"Fleet Captain Sir..."

"Yes, Commander?"

"I think you better come down here, Sir."

Samji lost no time to join up around the situation display at the center of the command well; all his senior officers were already there, and their faces all shared the same frown, whatever species they belonged to. They were all looking at a holographic tactical map of the tri-border region where at one end flashed a blue dot representing Starbase 10's location, in a light blue triangle topped on one side by a green area and at the bottom by a red area. Each of those were lined with little blue points representing Starfleet surveillance outposts along the two borders.

And, a light year distant from the starbase's location, according to the given scale, also equidistant to the two borders, there was a golden dot of flame over a parsec in diameter. They all knew all too well what it represented:

The Azimuth Horizon anomaly.

Before the starbase commander could state the customary 'report' call, his tall, stately second in command said:

"We have a situation, Sir."

Tapping a few controls, Schmidt then brought up a new flashing dot; dark green, slowly moving around. As they all looked at the display, the woman reported:

"This unidentified signal has been quite accidentally located equidistant to both Starbase 23 and Starbase 157 by their astrometrics sensors as it moved at high warp along the Neutral Zone. The tachyon grid we deployed there did not."

"Since exceedingly few natural phenomenons move faster than light, it immediately attracted attention as you may have guessed," chimed in the Trill Chief of Science Rexil, his skin spots seemingly more vivid than usual on his pulsing temples. "One probe was sent from New Providence around the Jouret star system and, before they lost the signal, it transmitted this..."

The image zoomed vertiginously fast towards the dot and, at first, it looked just like a field of stars; then there was some kind of ripple effect, barely discernible. A moment later, an ominious dark-green bat shaped spaceship flickered slowly into view... then, there was a sudden flash of light from one of its wingtips that blinded everyone and the image disappeared, returning the display to the original tactical overview.

In the thick silence that followed, the low, gruff voice of Starbase 10's Intelligence chief Lieutenant Commander Ja'Hark, in typical Klingon abruptness but distinctively tempered by Starfleet decorum, was heard:

"This confirms Starfleet Intelligence reports, Sir; this Scimitar class dreadnought has been identified as the only one the Romulans still have: the IRS Shavok, flagship of Admiral Tomalak, Commander Kraetaek, Imperial Hero commanding. Although crewed only by Romulans, Intelligence beleives this ship is in every aspect identical to her sister ship, the prototype IRS Scimitar, once used by former Praetor Shinzon... including the thalaron generator."

A cold dread now shook everyone's spine accross the vast control room.

"So... they broke the Treaty... they are declaring war..." whispered Hughes Michaels, the chief medical officer of the station.

"Oh they are much more clever than that, Doctor," then said Lieutenant John Van Hook, the chief diplomat on Starbase 10. "Still reeling from their civil war, they would not risk direct confrontation with a stable Federation with harassing Klingons at their back. Our chief of flightops has found out their trick... Lieutenant Koral?"

The oddly-named Vulcan tapped in turn a few controls and a thin shimmering line appeared from the slow-moving point back towards where the green and red areas met at the point of the blue triangle formed by the delineated Federation Space. his almost monotoned voice nevertheless fell heavily on everyone's ears.

"We received a border report that Klingon outpost 11 fell to a sudden Romulan attack a week ago, led by a dreadnought according to the same reports. Using long range sensors from successive Starfleet assets along its trajectory, we have been able to manage a satisfactory approximation of its course from Romulan space."

Now, they all could see that the Romulan warship had flown around Jouret star from between both starbase 23 and 157, following but not encroaching the Neutral Zone itself until it went by Klingon outpost 11, then seemingly turned sharply towards Starbase 284, round Lambda Hydrae... and then the reconstructed path disappeared into Romulan territory bordering Klingon space.

Lieutenant Commander Grok, Samji's trusty Ferengi chief of ops, voiced what they all suddenly understood:

"There is no Neutral Zone treaty between the Romulans and the Klingons; they crossed into Federation space through the edge of the Klingon border... and so never broke the Treaty!"

"Which does not stipulate anything about being into one another's territory..." completed starbase's chief engineer Marksus Sangliar, with a typical Tellarite snort. "Clever devils these pointy-eared, green fiends... as always."

"And if you think that's the worse of it, you are all damn fools... gentlemen," now chimed in the chief of strategic operations in the same characteristic Tellarite gruffness as his darker-hued compatriot Sangliar beside him.

"Show me you're not the worst of us, then, Lieutenant Jorga," shot back Samji with an almost dismissive tone, well accustomed to the peculiar show of respect through verbal abuse of his officers from Tellar Prime.

"Hope you tall folks can still hear anything with the thinner air up there... Sir. Well, it seems that, as we saw on the probe transmission, they have some problem with their cloak; probably resulting from damage suffered during the outpost attack; so after encountering the probe, they tried to hide themselves by going through the edge of the Paulson Nebula... But both us and Starbase 23 are extensively studying it on astrometric sensors and so recorded their passage there. Simply put, so that even you people can understand; we now know how they intend to stop the Federation from interfering with their intended plan of destroying the anomaly... Koral?"

Called again, the Vulcan activated another set of buttons and produced this time another shimmering trajectory line, this one going forward to show the estimated destination of the briefly detected warship.

All but the Vulcan Koral and the already knowing Jorga gasped. It was clearly obvious that the Romulan warship was not going for the Azimuth Horizon anomaly.

"At their current estimated speed of warp 9.9, the dreadnought will cross those twelve light years from the nebula to Starbase 10 in thirty-four hours."

It didn't took that many seconds for Fleet Captain Allen Samji to react.

"Mister Grok! Alert both the Alsea and the Artemis; they are to launch immediately to intercept that ship!"

 

Comments (3)