Time Signals
Posted on 18 Jan 2021 @ 9:32am by Chief Petty Officer Ozanna Isuri & Lieutenant Commander Roman Kavalar
Mission:
M1 - Emergence
Location: Loki System- outer ring
Timeline: MD 07 0830-
1992 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure
"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's episode of 'What's-that-missing-pixel?' Today's contestants are—"
"Oswalt, are you cracking?" The medic took a long drink of coffee and paged through the next screen full of imaging and data. "It's only day three. You'd never last on a full survey mission."
"— Nurse Roth! With out any bones to set he's forced to stare at the same readouts as the rest of us." Oswalt, the Bolian Flight Officer spun his chair around to Ops motioning at the Bajoran/Cardassian CPO. "Nerim Dylben, child of two worlds, but a man without a home...."
"Is he serious?" Roth repeated in the direction of the ship's commander.
She waved a hand at it, unconcerned. "Oh play along. Let him get it out of his system."
"—Chief Bigger-than-life Stillwell, whose mustache speaks for him."
From his place at Tactical, the greying man of mountainous proportions grunted.
"Don't encourage him, Stillwell," said Roth.
Oswalt keyed the comms button to the engine room. "but where would they be with out The incredible Mister Boltri?"
"Hey, yeah, Bridge. I'm awake, I'm awake." Boltri replied with some throat clearing. "What is it?"
The Betazoid woman in the command chair shook her head. "Chief, finish your nap. We need your eyes back fresh."
"And our fearless leader Chief Isuri. Together they form the crew of the USS Wasp!"
Smirking as he decided to play along with his crewmate, Dylben called up an Andorian Ice Rock intro and played it over ships comms. A few bars in, Boltri chimed in over the radio.
"Nice pick, DJ."
"Alright, 'fearless few'...." Layering on the sarcasm, Isuri spoke loud enough to be heard over the music as she worked through her checklist on the captain's display. "Let's rendezvous with the Fire Tigers, we'll examine the wave signal fragment from 0994."
"Probably just another reflection," Roth murmured.
"If our luck holds up," she agreed. "So far we've found nothing and that's exactly how I hope it continues. Keep your eyes peeled."
2 Valkyrie class space superiority star fighters blazed their way through the inky blackness of space, one fighter in the lead while the other sat to its right and trailed along matching course and speed. They were a matched pair the lead pilot and the wingman, a generic term that had passed down the ages and never been updated as the wingman didn't have to be a male but the term stuck nevertheless.
"USS Wasp this is Tiger 1 and Tiger 9, we are coming up on your position, ETA 1 minute. We understand you have something interesting for us to look at", Roman Kavalar spoke on the comms, his tone matter of fact and calm. In truth though he expected it to be little more than a signal variance due to environmental conditions. Whoever said there was nothing in space was dead wrong, there was a lot of things in space you just had to have the right scanning gear to detect it or if you were unlucky you wore it.
Flying with Roman as his regular wingman was Tiger 9 piloted by Ens. Jeddo Metz, call sign Choc Choc, Roman thought he had potential but he was still a little green around the edges with some of his decision making so kept him with him until he thought he was ready to be rotated out and Roman would get another new pilot to show the ropes to.
Nothing so far bar the Wasp on their sensors Roman mused, this was one of many patrols as was possible pushed out to try and cover the interplanetary space and then some of the OC. territory. What the fighters lacked for in sensor range they could follow up on closer inspection working in tandem with ships like the Wasp or if the OC had picked something up on the station sensors. Also as they were short of pilots and fighters, all pilots took turn, including himself. Which he didn't mind as it gave him a break from the tedium of trying to bring order to their part of the station.
"Good morning Lieutenant Kavalar, this is CPO Nehrim of the USS Wasp. Thanks for coming" At first there was the recognizable Ice-Rock music still playing in the background of the comm signal, but the music cut out while he was addressing the fighters, "We have a signal fragment that seems to be emmenating from Distant Orbital Object 0994, a non spherical planetoid of unusual proportions. 0994 appears heavily pitted, eyes needed on near approach."
“Understood”, Roman replied as the data transfer from the Wasp rolled down his screen. In the past on previous patrols similar signals or unusual sensor spikes picked up and then investigated, their cause had been many and varied but so far nothing that was cause for alarm, “Received coordinates and investigating, we’ll jump ahead Wasp and make sure the location is safe before you arrive”, Roman replied cordially before the two starfighters vectored away in a blast of impulse power, the flare of their engine ports marking their exit as they were absorbed into the darkness of space. Roman could have been more friendly with the Wasp’s crew but the Fire Tigers had done so many of these sensor investigations since they arrived, one more hardly got a rise from him now.
Comparing the coordinates with the starmap of Loki’s solar system Roman contacted his wingman, “Tiger 1 to Tiger 9, target is located outside Loki’s heliosphere, which means it’s unlikely any inbound warp capable starships would have even picked up the signal as they pop back into space a lot further in. Out there is the place where comets and meteors go and come back in on their elliptical orbits. Expect to see the failed building blocks of planets that didn’t quite happen or chunks of ice that are too far out to feel the warmth of Loki’s rays”
Ens. Jeddo Metz, “Acknowledged”, was all he said, sometimes the old man seemed to explain things overly in detail and he knew from past experiences, by replying with a question of his own it might mean a long lengthy explanation of the makeup of the outer solar system, including its Oort cloud and its composition. Something he could do without as he pulled a wry face at the thought.
.....Back aboard the Wasp, Issuri watched the two fighters jet out ahead and let them go beat the bushes. The sensor data compiled from the fighters. "Are you seeing this Nehrim?"
"Yes, ma'am." Everyone perked up in their seats. "It's not a reflection. It's a masked signal. Romulan. that has got to be booster device from a hundred years ago."
"A relic someone left on?" Roth suggested. Romulans had at one time been secretly active in the system. But that was a century ago.
"Or turned on." Said Dylben. "If my limited knowledge of Romulan numerical codes is anything to go by, it would appear the device is relaying a count down."
"What number are we on?"
The signal ran out right before their eyes.
"Zero."
Isuri stood up. "Put us through to the station! Obsidian Command, we've discovered some kind of count down signal in Romulan, relayed through a device in the outer ring of the system—"
"Chief... they can't hear us. The station's been scrambled with some kind of ionization." Stillwell said in his baritone. "There are multiple ships decloaking in system—"
"Shields up. Red Alert. Inform Commander Kavalar. Form up with the fighters. Full impulse on my mark." She watched the fighters whip around on the tactical display.
Oswalt was uncharacteristically quiet now.
"Mark"
One moment it was calm and serene and order was the theme for the day, the next chaos exploded on the scene as a frantic call from the Wasp shattered that calm. Roman caught snatches of the comms, it was Romulans, the Wasp was going to red alert, there were a lot of Romulans ahead. Hands moved quickly and automatically from the casualness of calm over his fighter controls, his voice calling to his wingman in a calm and clear tone, “Tiger 9 follow my lead, shields up and arm weapons”.
The Valkyrie fighters veered away from their original heading, the sudden change in momentum challenging their fighters momentum cancelling capabilities for a moment as they felt being pressed into their seats, the mere fact that Romulan ships were uncloaking implied they had been there as they approached, for how long? Multiple questions leaped to mind, were they about to fire on them, as far as he was aware a cloaked starship had to uncloak before it fired. Was it an invasion, how many ships were there. The Wasp closing on them from behind said it could not contact the OC. Roman spoke to his tactical systems officer, seated behind him, “Slip give me a tactical on the bogeys and coordinate with Wasp”
“On it bossman”, Slip replied, “Confirm we cannot contact the starbase, we have line of sight comms with Tiger 9 and Wasp. Weapons are hot”, this last part wasn’t lost on Roman that his TSO., Ltjg. Sebastian Geller was apprehensive that they might be going into a mismatched fight if he called it.
“What if …”, Roman thought, piercing blue eyes staring at his tactical display for a moment, “Hail them Slip, tell them they’re in Federation space and to identify themselves”.
“On it bossman”, came the reply. “Romulan ships identify yourselves, you are in Federation space”
In response they were answered with disruptor fire and the fighters and the Wasp bucked and weaved in evasive maneuvers.
“So much for talking then”, Roman said dryly noting there were too many bogeys to make a fight of it, making a quick tactical decision, “Wasp fall back to OC, we’ll cover you”, as he flipped his fighter one eighty degrees letting its momentum continue to carry it back away from the Romulans while it faced the threat with random thruster bursts to bobble the fighter about.
"Copy, Tiger One," came the reply from Chief Isuri.
The glare of the fighters phasers lit up the cockpit from outside as he proceeded to let off one second pulse bursts, as much to draw the enemies attention in his direction and take it away from the Wasp. Roman noted Tiger 9 was doing the same and this drew a nod of approval and the hint of a smile on his part. Another ten maybe fifteen seconds and they could turn tail fully and make use of their after burners and follow the Wasp getting closer to base so they could draw on its resources.
Stillwell was busy working phasers. He had three targets he was cycling through. While he did, one lone torpedo issued from the station and made it's mark against the hull of a refitted ferrengi shuttlecraft that the fighters had been laying into. The ferrengi craft fell back into the distance, having lost an engine and trailing a leaking atmosphere.
In spite of the one solid hit, Chief isuri was left wondering why there was so spare of a response from the station. "Nehrim, are they asleep?"
"Comms down, power out. OC is dark, save for below decks in Maintenance. Reactors are up."
The bulk of the attack force was being engaged by the Caelian, Exeter, and Pathfinder, making a corridor for approach to the station without engagement. One of the docking bay doors opened and from it began launching more Valkeries.
"There's some help!" Oswalt said, glad to see more of Kavalar's wing.
But the good news was suddenly eclipsed. Four Klingon Birds of Prey decloaked surrounding the station and as they did so, rows and rows of transport ships elicited from them, closing the distance to the station, and each one with some kind of grappling and breaching device opened and ready to latch onto the hull of the station....
(TBC)
