A Trap, Sprung
Posted on 16 Jan 2021 @ 6:47pm by Admiral Zavareh Sepandiyar & Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Commander Calliope Zahn
Edited on on 30 Jan 2021 @ 11:41am
Mission:
M1 - Emergence
Location: Obsidian Command, CiC
Timeline: MD07 0845
2724 words - 5.4 OF Standard Post Measure
The Admiral stood facing his own, albeit much smaller, version of the holo-table Corvus was on his flagship the USS Alexander. As she was sure she appeared to him, he appeared to be only three-quarters of a man, cut off on the table at about the knees or so, so it looked like he was standing in the table and about three times as wide. It made for an interesting spectacle and she made a note to have Calli shrink the magnification so that the next time someone holo-commed it didn’t look as if the great Wizard of Oz was looking down on them.
“Admiral,” Corvus greeted him. “You have good timing, sir. Engineering is just starting the process of powering on our reactors. We’re anticipating a fully operational station very soon. Hopefully the next twenty-four hours will be monumental progress,” she tried to smile brightly.
“Excellent news, Captain. That is not the purpose of this call, however,” he declared, bringing the brightness of her statement crashing to the deck plating. “I’m receiving Intelligence reports of significance for your sector that would indicate increased activity. Strategic Operations is concerned, as am I, that there are active players at work near to you that pose a significant threat to the station sooner rather than later. Are the Rangers still aboard your station?”
“Yes, sir. The Borderless is still docked.” Calliope confirmed, her brow knitting at the thought of them. Her 'discussion' with the Betazoid Ranger, Liv, was still freshly disconcerting to her. “Our Intel Chief has an arrangement with their captain. She promised us a debriefing. Is there something in particular we should be asking?”
“Tell them to connect with their colleagues immediately, if the intel briefings I am receiving are to be believed something is brewing now with quick effect,” Sepandiyar answered, looking to the woman he’d not actually met yet but presumed to be DeHavilland’s First Officer. He bristled internally at that thought, having put a fair bit of time and effort into making a list of select choices for DeHavilland. He looked back to DeHavilland, “Status of your shields and weapons?” he asked.
“Minimal power to shields, no weapons at the moment. I was working with our Chief Engineer on the power cycling plan. What to bring up first,” Corvus explained.
Calliope bit her lip to keep from commenting.
“There is nothing to work out, Captain. Put all your power to your shields and weapons. If there’s any truth to these reports, you’ll have defenses ready. If not, then nothing’s lost. Do it now,” he ordered sharply.
Corvus rolled her jaw, bristling at the overt micromanagement by an Admiral light years away, but turned to her First Officer, “Let Command Quinn know. Shields and weapons first.”
“Aye, Captain.” Calliope tried her best not to sound smug as she reopened comms to Engineering. “Zahn to Commander Quinn. Proceed to initialize defensive systems. Priority to shields and weapons.”
Corvus glanced slightly at Calli, brooding quickly that the Admiral would just wade in like that. “Anything else we need to be aware of Admiral?” she asked, trying to keep the bite out of that simple query. It was harder than she thought it would be. Was this how it was going to be once the Admiral has here more often? That she was really only the commander of this station when it suited him? Every order was up for countermanding? She sure as hell hoped not because, prestige of this command or not, she’d resign it in a heartbeat if it wasn’t really hers to have.
“Be extremely wary, Captain,” Sepandiyar replied with a shake of his head, taking off his glasses as if to lend to his sense of urgency. A light ribbon of feedback drew down his holo like a momentary connection interference; normal fare really. “It’s been a long time since Obsidian Command has been a power in this sector. The locals we gather aren’t too happy about it. They were enjoying the new normal. The return has flipped the ta-b- -- of-- the-,” the Admiral cut out. “Ca-n D- hear - m-. C-...” the feed flickered some more before finally winking out.
The little hairs on the back of Corvus’ neck stood up on end. She turned quickly to Calliope, “Get Quinn back up, now!”
Calliope was already concentrating on the communications panel, trying to adjust for the sudden loss of Sepandiyar’s signal, to no avail. “We have signal interference. Internal comms are also affected. I have no line to Engineering. Captain… it’s *not* a solar flare.”
“What do you mean? Intern-,” she stopped suddenly. The entire station shuddered. The station shuddered, that meant… “Red Alert! Find Captain Finn!” DeHavilland barked quickly, hurrying to the command terminal. Two steps before she got to it the power went out all over the deck. Terminals, lighting, everything was dead in an instant. The emergency lighting came on along the paths leading to the jeffries tubes. Corvus looked back at Calliope in shock. Together they stared at each other for a moment and then immediately turned and ran to the far side, to the clear bulkheads to look out at the space beyond.
At first, they didn’t appear to the naked eye, indistinguishable from the field of stars. But their fast approach grew from three…. No, Calliope counted four, vectors— cruisers and corsairs. Any one of them was hardly an issue alone, but together they formed a front no one would have expected to see all at once. The sheer variety of vessels made for some display. Two dated Klingon Warbirds, long since decommissioned by the Empire, a D’eridex cruiser the sort that would have terrorized the likes of Kirk and Spock along with the repurposed flotsam of the countless wars and conflicts that had engulfed the Federation over the last century. They could hardly have been one faction alone from the many opportunistic ones discussed over intel reports.
“Release the docking clamps on the Caelian and Exeter!” Calliope shouted. They were no doubt already launching without need of comms from the station. “Someone get me a scope!” She snapped her fingers at an Ensign. “The patrols should be on intercept before they come into transporter range.”
“If we have any fighters left, they need to launch now!” Corvus added to that, “Someone get down to the shuttlebay. Anything that can fly needs to be out there forming a perimeter and supporting the larger ships,” she said, pointing to a Marine Corporal who had a spanner in hand, just staring out the viewport in awe and fear. “You. What’s your name?”
“Peterson, ma’am. I’m with the Engineering company from Falkirk,” he said, as if he needed to explain his Marine coveralls.
“I need you to get to Finn. The Marines need to get moving now to defend this station.”
He dropped the spanner, “Yes, ma’am,” he fired back firmly, then turned and ran for the Jeffries tube entrance.
Calliope snatched the scope from the ensign as he returned. She frowned as she thought about how long it would take for each messenger to scale all of those decks and locate their queries. “Establish a message relay with Security teams between here and Engineering.”
The Ensign looked like he was processing what might be involved in that and nodded. “Yes Ma’am”
Calliope brought the binoculars up to her eyes and the auto focus worked out the details for her. It was too soon to expect to see a stream of shuttles pouring out of the bays below. It would take a few minutes to get the orders to the shuttlebay and a few more minutes for them to work the bay doors manually under back up power. “Scramble them, Cavendish.” Calliope willed them to be ready. Cavendish had good instincts and was aware of their heightened alert before the power had gone out. She wouldn’t let the pilots sit around in the dark, confused.
“Exeter and Caelian are disengaged and moving out. They appear to be coming around to intercept courses of the warbirds and the cruiser.” Calliope narrated. “Pathfinder and Hornet are engaging targets. They’re drawing off a wing of the attack fleet.” Calliope grit her teeth, thinking of the easy mannered Science non-com, Edgerton, caught in a firefight. It was more than he’d agreed to by far. The support vessels were outnumbered. There were other vessels enroute and due to arrive later that day. If they could only get a message out to tell them to let the lead out of their warp drives… “Torpedo bays. They can be run on auxiliary power.” Calliope shouted, pointing at the Chief Tactical Officer. “We need to scramble teams to the torpedo bays. Get someone from tactical on each team, deputize the rest of the team from other departments as needed. Weapons Free— fire on any enemy vessels they can lock on to manually.”
“There’s so many…” Calliope whispered in shock as she passed the binoculars to Corvus. “How are there so many?”
She took the binoculars and quickly scanned the battle, “We walked into this…” she said quietly, finally drawing them off her eyes. “This was all planned. We just played right into it,” she said, drawing a deep breath. This was not where she wanted to be. She wanted to be out there, on any ship she could leading the assault from upfront, not relegated here to an observer, watching the capital ships and their escorts moving away from the station.
“The timing is uncanny.” Calliope agreed, still in disbelief at the numbers. “An hour before and we would have still had some defenses. An hour later and we would be on the ramp up.”
The Exeter and Caelian looked to be successful in drawing the bulk of their forces away, the big D’eridex’s and the Warbird’s were moving off with their smaller screening craft following the bigger Starfleet vessels, but it was clear that the fight was evenly matched if not even a bit on the enemies side in sheer volume of vessels. Corvus continued to watch through the binoculars, zooming in close on the Pathfinder screening off the last of the residual escort ships towards the larger fight.
Edgerton had barely gotten them to turn away from the station when four ancient-looking Klingon Birds of Prey decloaked less than a thousand kilometers away from the station and almost immediately, smallcraft began streaming out of it. They streaked rapidly across the void, all with a strange looking apparatus on their bow that Corvus realized suddenly was a breaching device. She held her breath without thinking about it and felt the shudder through the station as twenty or more of the pods slammed into the hull.
The CIC crew had all assembled behind them, looking in disbelief themselves at the chaos unfolding. With no power, there was nothing they could do but look on in horror. “They’re not taking this station without a fight. We need to get down to it,” she ordered, pointing back towards the center section of the deck and then over to the command offices, “Everyone get to your emergency EVA suits. We’re going to take environmental controls offline on this deck and every deck we can on our way to the cargo bay the Marines are in.”
Calliope stood the longest as everyone went for the suits. The attack fleet had organized not just a front, but managed to pull defenses away from the station and bring in even more ships for boarding. There was nothing in intel reports that had suggested enough resources or cooperation between factions to make this possible. And even if there had been, how would they have prepared? Between the Marines and the support vessels, they had already called on every defensive resource that could be allotted to them. There was nothing left but to hold the position.
She shook the denial off and angled after Corvus to gear up. Calliope recognized that shutting down on their own terms was smart. It would concentrate the fight at choke points. It would slow down boarding parties if they hadn’t prepared for loss of environment. It would keep them from restoring access to the station from command decks. She was passed a suit and the prep drills took over as she checked it and slid in. It was slightly bulky. She pulled a sleeve over her hair and adjusted the suit straps to make up for it and tested the articulation of her fingers in unfitted gloves. It wasn’t great. A helmet was passed to her and Calliope held the bowl of it upside down, looking into it. “We should have gotten those EVA fittings.” She snarked.
Corvus nodded, trying to pull her hair back quickly behind her. She always preferred to take the time to make a braid of a small neck bun when she put the EVA helmet on but time was of the essence here. She got suited up quickly and while the rest of the crew were still fumbling with theirs, she went to the secure locker and punched in her access code, revealing the armaments inside. They were scarce throughout the station, but at that moment she was extremely appreciative of Captain Finn who had insisted that the CIC armaments be replenished first. She handed a hand phaser to Calliope. “Let’s hope we can get to the Marines before we need to use these.”
Calliope checked the settings and the power cell. How recently had Lance run his phaser quals? Hopefully he’d done so since academy training… he was never in the field. There were Marines all over Maintenance, working on his repair teams. Hopefully he wouldn’t even encounter any boarding parties. He would be fine. And the Refugees? There would be Winslow’s people making sure they were secure. Medical? Dr. Mazur’s family had come aboard early. Would they be safe? There was no way to double check on any of them. Just to believe it was in hand. Hope, hope, hope.
Pulling her helmet on, Calliope was satisfied with the sound of the latches making their connections. She turned to double check Corvus’ for her. “You’re good.”
Corvus nodded, bulky as that simple movement was, then checked her First Officer. “You’re good,” she said, moving away and making herself visible to everyone else. “Listen up!” she declared, waiting for everyone to turn back to her. Make sure your suits are checked by someone else. Grab a phaser and form up on the access,” she said, turning and pointing to the hatch. “Commander Zahn is leading us out. I’ll go last, kill the environmental controls and secure the deck. We’re moving through the Jeffries Tubes. So double check your footing and make sure your mag locks are engaged. I don’t want any accidents - it’s a long climb,” she continued directly. This was not how she intended to spend the first weeks of her new command, quite literally fighting for it tooth and nail. “Once we get to the main support shaft, we’ll go zero-g and transit the shaft in a free float. We stay together. Everyone pairs up,” she declared finally, pointing to Ensign Parmath, the jittery Science Officer that had managed to beat the rest of the department here. “You’re with me Ensign,” she said. Even through his EVA which made you look pale as it was, he turned another shade white. Any more and he’d be translucent. “Questions?” she asked everyone.
Moving through the formation at the access to get to the front of the line, Calliope double checked to make sure people each had found a partner until she realized she was the odd man out. She motioned to a pair of flight controllers at the lead. “Kuvat. Wiser. You're both with me." Calliope engaged the magnetics on her suit, switched on the helmet lights and eased into the crawl space leading the way to the descending ladders. "Let’s go.”