IKC FHew 7C6110
Stricken – Through appropriate channels...
by Soghla' Jared & HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Marie St. Helene
Post Details
As Marie emerged through the rear hatch, she saw there was only Jared and a single Klingon BeQ on the bridge. Pointedly ignoring the Klingon, she gave a cursory nod to Jared. She walked over to the viewport and gazed out. She saw then did a quick double-take. She saw an expanse of federation hull. A very CLOSE expanse of federation hull.
Jared seemed to notice her, and follow her gaze.
"What? Oh... yes. We're sitting under the Arcadia's chin. Inside the ventral phaser ring there's a bit of a tactical blind spot. We're too close for them to fire - not unless they want to risk detonating a Photon inside their own sheild radius. I thought it was prudent, just in case they figured out a way to detect us."
Marie quickly decided that something serious was going on here. She walked over the rack of consoles. Looking at Jared's terminal, she noticed he was in the Klingon files about the Federation. The screen in front of him was displaying personnel files on the USS Arcadia - in particular the file of someone called "Captain Daimon Rayne".
The screen to his left had tactical schematics on the Charleston Class starfleet battlecruiser. They were woefully light on details.
Suddenly, as she watched, the schematics updated - displaying more detail on the weapons loadout.
The third screen - to Jared's right - was vaguely familiar. After a moment, she regognised it as an uplink to a Starfleet system. Somehow, Jared had hackied into one of the computers on the Arcadia. Marie knew enough about creative computing to know it was a pretty low-level link - not allowing access to anything classified. Still, it was impressive. Given time, she could do better but then again she guessed, given time Jared could do better too.
She punched a few buttons for the second screen. It wavered, went blank then came up with schematics of the Arcadia's targetting systems. They were indeed in a blind spot.
Jared looked up for a moment, and then back at what he was doing.
"You see, I've known Ro for long enough to know he's pretty deliberate about who he puts in command. If he puts HoS in command, it means he's feeling particularly Klingon. Or he's been drinking. Or both. If he puts Hay'legh in command, it means he wants to sneak up on something, and know all about it by the time it knows we're there."
"If he puts me in command, it means one of two things. Firstly, he might just be wanting the FHew to be there when he gets back, and minimise the chance of it firing on a ship that he's aboard."
Marie waited.
"Second it means he wants me to figure out a solution while he's off acting Klingon and hoping to get killed in a glorious fight. That's kinda the option I'm banking on at the moment."
That would have been Marie's thought on the matter.
The Federation uplink bleeped, indicating it had found something Jared had been searching for - catching the little man's attention. Marie watched as he pulled up the low security communication files, and displayed the Comm-badge frequency for Cpt Rayne.
"BeQ, I'm sending you a comm-frequency. Open a channel to that specific frequency."
The BeQ touched a few buttons and then nodded.
,'. Hello? Captain Rayne? Are you reading this signal? ,'.
Arcadia's communications, both external and internal would only reply with static. No doubt damaged in what ever had caused this once glorious Federation warship to stand stricken and alone. Jared tried to re-route through the floating communications satelite and this time he got a result.
"This is Captain Rayne speaking, identify yourself"
"Good to hear your voice captain. This is Ne' Jared, currently in command of the Klingon vessel IKC FHew. We're responding to a distress call from your vessel, which... certainly seems warranted. May I ask... has your vessel been boarded by some enemy, or are you just badly damaged?"
The captain could easily hear that the voice was very un-Klingon.
"We have suffered extreme damage, due to an unknown incident. We have not yet ascertained what happened to us. But rest assured that this starship remains under Federation control and my command."
"I should make my position clear, Captain. I'm currently in command of the FHew, cloaked near your position. My captain and the bulk of our officers have boarded your vessle, beaming in to engineering and the bridge. Our captain has said it's in case your vessle has been taken over by some hostile force. But I think he might also be hoping to die gloriously in battle in the process."
"I thought in his absence I might try to contact you directly and attempt a less... Klingon approach. Perhaps between us we can prevent anyone getting hurt through lack of communication."
"We're Federation affiliated, if that's any comfort. The FHew operates out of Starbase 611, under Ambassador Haqtaj Matlh."
"Very well, see to it none of yours attacks any of mine. This vessel and her crew will protect itself."
"Uuuh... the only problem with that is that ALL the F'Hew crew currently aboard your ship outrank me. My ordering them not to fire would acheive about as much as me ordering YOUR men not to fire."
"At this point the two most likely outcomes as I see it are [a] that my crew would take control of your ship, and then when they're sure no-one has taken it over by force, tow it back to a Federation Starbase with a slightly smug look on their faces, or [b] that your crew will fight them off. In which case the most humane thing would probably be for you to execute them, given how that would end for them politically. A fight to the death is certainly what the captain will be hoping for."
"Either way, people could quite likely get hurt or killed. I was hoping if I contacted you, between us we might be able to figure out an option c."
"I'm already reading weapons-fire on your bridge and engineering section. Unfortunately my sensors aren't quite good enough to tell me who's winning at this point."
"You need to inform your Captain, Ne, that the Commanding Officer of this ship is alive and still in command. SHould any blood be spilled by your men, I will take that blood for your crew. I hope I make myself perfectly clear?" damion asked.
"I will be making my way to my bridge, you need to inform your captain that this starship is still fully in federation hands, and any loss of life of federation crew will be met as an act of war by the Klingon Empire"
Jared sighed.
"I can relay that message if you like captain, but I'll wager any currency you like that it'll just make them fight harder and then say 'that's exactly the sort of thing an occupying force would claim' afterwards. You get to know the Klingon mindset when you live with them a while."
"I don't really have a lot of authority in this situation, captain. I'm not contacting you to deliver an ultimatum - the captain doesn't even know I'm calling you. I just dislike senseless bloodshed, and hoped if I contacted you we might be able to figure out a better solution. Let you know that in THEORY we're here to help. But if you think it's better to just fight it out with our assault teams and see how it works out, that's your prerogative."
Marie busied herself underneath a console for a few seconds. When she emerged the sensors’ gain had been upped significantly.
"Oh... nice job!" Jared said cheerfully, muting the comms for a moment. "Now let's see... Captain's team is still active and armed, which means he's probably taken the bridge by now. Engineering doesn't look so good. Hope everyone's ok."
“I have a suggestion” she said. “Why don’t we just send both sides a message saying that if they don’t lay down their arms and start talking, we’ll blow them out of space? It’ll save complications, we’ll be rid us of some annoying Klingons and we won’t have to worry about towing a useless Federation starship anywhere. We can concern ourselves about what we tell the Federation later.”
Jared smiled.
"Funny."
After a moment he frowned.
"I'm assuming that's funny. Are you just talking hypotheticals, or are you actually plotting firing solutions?"
Marie stared icily at the strange little man. “Believe me, Jared, I do not joke in situations like this. I have conducted the necessary calculations, I have input the necessary commands. If we do not hear from Matlh within the next five minutes, I propo.....”
,'. Ro' to Marie. Beam us all back, and standby for cargo transport. Ghojol! ,'.
Damn, Marie thought. I was so close!. She cancelled her previous commands and input the data for a beam out.
by Soghla' Jared & HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Marie St. Helene
Post Details
| Title | Through appropriate channels... | |
| Mission | Stricken | |
| Author(s) | Soghla' Jared & HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Marie St. Helene | |
| Posted | Tue May 11, 2010 @ 12:58am | |
| Location | Bridge | |
| Timeline | While the captain is on the Arcadia |
Jared seemed to notice her, and follow her gaze.
"What? Oh... yes. We're sitting under the Arcadia's chin. Inside the ventral phaser ring there's a bit of a tactical blind spot. We're too close for them to fire - not unless they want to risk detonating a Photon inside their own sheild radius. I thought it was prudent, just in case they figured out a way to detect us."
Marie quickly decided that something serious was going on here. She walked over the rack of consoles. Looking at Jared's terminal, she noticed he was in the Klingon files about the Federation. The screen in front of him was displaying personnel files on the USS Arcadia - in particular the file of someone called "Captain Daimon Rayne".
The screen to his left had tactical schematics on the Charleston Class starfleet battlecruiser. They were woefully light on details.
Suddenly, as she watched, the schematics updated - displaying more detail on the weapons loadout.
The third screen - to Jared's right - was vaguely familiar. After a moment, she regognised it as an uplink to a Starfleet system. Somehow, Jared had hackied into one of the computers on the Arcadia. Marie knew enough about creative computing to know it was a pretty low-level link - not allowing access to anything classified. Still, it was impressive. Given time, she could do better but then again she guessed, given time Jared could do better too.
She punched a few buttons for the second screen. It wavered, went blank then came up with schematics of the Arcadia's targetting systems. They were indeed in a blind spot.
Jared looked up for a moment, and then back at what he was doing.
"You see, I've known Ro for long enough to know he's pretty deliberate about who he puts in command. If he puts HoS in command, it means he's feeling particularly Klingon. Or he's been drinking. Or both. If he puts Hay'legh in command, it means he wants to sneak up on something, and know all about it by the time it knows we're there."
"If he puts me in command, it means one of two things. Firstly, he might just be wanting the FHew to be there when he gets back, and minimise the chance of it firing on a ship that he's aboard."
Marie waited.
"Second it means he wants me to figure out a solution while he's off acting Klingon and hoping to get killed in a glorious fight. That's kinda the option I'm banking on at the moment."
That would have been Marie's thought on the matter.
The Federation uplink bleeped, indicating it had found something Jared had been searching for - catching the little man's attention. Marie watched as he pulled up the low security communication files, and displayed the Comm-badge frequency for Cpt Rayne.
"BeQ, I'm sending you a comm-frequency. Open a channel to that specific frequency."
The BeQ touched a few buttons and then nodded.
,'. Hello? Captain Rayne? Are you reading this signal? ,'.
Arcadia's communications, both external and internal would only reply with static. No doubt damaged in what ever had caused this once glorious Federation warship to stand stricken and alone. Jared tried to re-route through the floating communications satelite and this time he got a result.
"This is Captain Rayne speaking, identify yourself"
"Good to hear your voice captain. This is Ne' Jared, currently in command of the Klingon vessel IKC FHew. We're responding to a distress call from your vessel, which... certainly seems warranted. May I ask... has your vessel been boarded by some enemy, or are you just badly damaged?"
The captain could easily hear that the voice was very un-Klingon.
"We have suffered extreme damage, due to an unknown incident. We have not yet ascertained what happened to us. But rest assured that this starship remains under Federation control and my command."
"I should make my position clear, Captain. I'm currently in command of the FHew, cloaked near your position. My captain and the bulk of our officers have boarded your vessle, beaming in to engineering and the bridge. Our captain has said it's in case your vessle has been taken over by some hostile force. But I think he might also be hoping to die gloriously in battle in the process."
"I thought in his absence I might try to contact you directly and attempt a less... Klingon approach. Perhaps between us we can prevent anyone getting hurt through lack of communication."
"We're Federation affiliated, if that's any comfort. The FHew operates out of Starbase 611, under Ambassador Haqtaj Matlh."
"Very well, see to it none of yours attacks any of mine. This vessel and her crew will protect itself."
"Uuuh... the only problem with that is that ALL the F'Hew crew currently aboard your ship outrank me. My ordering them not to fire would acheive about as much as me ordering YOUR men not to fire."
"At this point the two most likely outcomes as I see it are [a] that my crew would take control of your ship, and then when they're sure no-one has taken it over by force, tow it back to a Federation Starbase with a slightly smug look on their faces, or [b] that your crew will fight them off. In which case the most humane thing would probably be for you to execute them, given how that would end for them politically. A fight to the death is certainly what the captain will be hoping for."
"Either way, people could quite likely get hurt or killed. I was hoping if I contacted you, between us we might be able to figure out an option c."
"I'm already reading weapons-fire on your bridge and engineering section. Unfortunately my sensors aren't quite good enough to tell me who's winning at this point."
"You need to inform your Captain, Ne, that the Commanding Officer of this ship is alive and still in command. SHould any blood be spilled by your men, I will take that blood for your crew. I hope I make myself perfectly clear?" damion asked.
"I will be making my way to my bridge, you need to inform your captain that this starship is still fully in federation hands, and any loss of life of federation crew will be met as an act of war by the Klingon Empire"
Jared sighed.
"I can relay that message if you like captain, but I'll wager any currency you like that it'll just make them fight harder and then say 'that's exactly the sort of thing an occupying force would claim' afterwards. You get to know the Klingon mindset when you live with them a while."
"I don't really have a lot of authority in this situation, captain. I'm not contacting you to deliver an ultimatum - the captain doesn't even know I'm calling you. I just dislike senseless bloodshed, and hoped if I contacted you we might be able to figure out a better solution. Let you know that in THEORY we're here to help. But if you think it's better to just fight it out with our assault teams and see how it works out, that's your prerogative."
Marie busied herself underneath a console for a few seconds. When she emerged the sensors’ gain had been upped significantly.
"Oh... nice job!" Jared said cheerfully, muting the comms for a moment. "Now let's see... Captain's team is still active and armed, which means he's probably taken the bridge by now. Engineering doesn't look so good. Hope everyone's ok."
“I have a suggestion” she said. “Why don’t we just send both sides a message saying that if they don’t lay down their arms and start talking, we’ll blow them out of space? It’ll save complications, we’ll be rid us of some annoying Klingons and we won’t have to worry about towing a useless Federation starship anywhere. We can concern ourselves about what we tell the Federation later.”
Jared smiled.
"Funny."
After a moment he frowned.
"I'm assuming that's funny. Are you just talking hypotheticals, or are you actually plotting firing solutions?"
Marie stared icily at the strange little man. “Believe me, Jared, I do not joke in situations like this. I have conducted the necessary calculations, I have input the necessary commands. If we do not hear from Matlh within the next five minutes, I propo.....”
,'. Ro' to Marie. Beam us all back, and standby for cargo transport. Ghojol! ,'.
Damn, Marie thought. I was so close!. She cancelled her previous commands and input the data for a beam out.