From: Lord Ihcalam (swiften_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Sun May 18 2008 - 19:06:37 PDT
"The Tzenkethi Ambush"
Location: USS Vanguard NCC-20200
Scene: Deck 01 – Main Bridge
Stardate: 2423[2.8]0518
======================================
The smoke curled around the room in odd patterns, glowing as the red of the
alert lighting reflected off its semi-translucent state. Every odd moment or so
a shower of electrical sparks would erupt from a damaged console. The smell of
burned insulation plastic metal and flesh was thick in the air causing the few
who still lived to choke on the thick stench.
As Aaron tried to regain footing and take his seat, he slipped and crashed back
to the deck. Feeling the wet deck below him he brought his hands up to see they
were covered in the green that makes up Vulcan blood. It was part of the
remains of his chief of operations, Lieutenant Tvek. He knew that the
Lieutenant wasn’t the only casualty this day, as he looked around the ruined
bridge. It seemed that he was the only one mobile, his less than full adult
stature having saved him from being crushed by one of the 5 overhead support
beams that came crashing to the deck after the first shot.
He tried to clear his head, but everything was still fuzzy. He couldn’t focus
on his surroundings, or what had happened. He just knew it was sudden and
nobody had been prepared for it. It had come from nowhere without warning. At
first everyone was settling in for another duty shift and then he was
surrounded by his dead or dying crew. Escort duty always had potential to be
hazardous, but nobody expected to be attacked in the alpha quadrant. In fact
they were the only ship escorting the 5 transport ships. No other resources
were deemed necessary. The Dominion hadn’t come through the wormhole yet as far
as they knew.
"Computer" he coughed. "Send a general distress call to all Federation or
allied ships." He groaned as he was met by silence. Apparently the computer was
offline. As he blacked out once more, he heard the turbolift doors open by
force, and swore he saw borg dressed as dragons enter the bridge.
====
Later
====
He awoke to find the glaring brightness of a sickbay overhead light searing his
eyes. He groaned in pain, his entire body felt like it was on fire. "What the
hell happened?" he muttered, mostly to himself, though if anyone that heard
could answer the question as well he wouldn’t turn them away.
"Calm yourself Captain. We have taken your wounded and are treating them. Your
ship is in tow, its heavily damaged but salvageable."
"Who are you where am i?"
"I'm Commander Devin Ross, Chief medical Officer on the USS Altamaha. You are
in my sickbay, where you’ve been since we got your ship's distress call."
"I don’t remember sending one. Oh I remember, I thought the computer was down
it wouldn’t respond."
"As I understand it captain, only the vocal processors were destroyed. The
Computer still heard your order and transmitted its call. We arrived less than
three hours later. Now rest Captain, the Carrier group CO will be here soon to
speak with you."
"Can I get some water?" Aaron asked, not really comprehending what was going
on."
The doctor nodded and went over to the replicator. By the time she came back
the youthful captain was out once more.
====
Later Still
====
"You need to wake him doctor."
"I will not, he needs his rest. The man shouldn’t even be alive!"
"And yet he is. He has to tell us what happened here."
"I don’t know" Aaron said butting into the argument. "Vanguard was escorting
the Fletcher, Kidd, Abatan, Kiawa and Ute to Starbase 9. They were carrying
supplies for Gateway to be transferred over at the base."
"Kidd and Kiawa made it to Starbase after dropping their cargo containers they
pushed the engines to make it out of the area in once piece. Abatan and
Fletcher were completely destroyed. Ute was wrecked and her crew abandoned the
ship in escape pods and shuttles. They were actually patrolling in the fighters
that were supposed to be sent to Gateway, protecting your ship. They must have
driven the attackers away."
Aaron looked at the deck, hearing about the loss of life and equipment. "At
least two of them got away. What about my crew Captain?"
"Your bridge crew is dead, looks like they targeted the bridge specifically.
Your other casualty rate is 30% dead, 50% seriously injured."
"The sensors on the Vanguard should have recorded something even if we weren’t
fast enough to avoid being hit."
"The computer core was heavily damaged."
"The flight recorder then."
"You have one?"
"All ships are being equipped with them again. If the hull is still intact the
flight recorder should be as well. It takes a flag Officer to gain access to it
though. Its in the main superstructure, aft compartment deck 5."
"We will retrieve it Captain. Perhaps there will be answers we seek there. In
the meantime we are holding position here until a tug can come and tow your
ship back to dock for repair."
====
3 Days later
====
Aaron had been released from sickbay and allowed to attend the hearing that was
convened over the loss of 3 starships, leaving a 4th heavily damaged. The
flight recorder was played, with the first shot; the disruptor blast tore
through Vanguards shields, and caused the bridge to explode around the officers
there. With the Vanguard out of commission for a few minutes, the attacker
picked off the transports, was working on the Ute, when the surviving ships
dropped cargo and transwarped from the area.
Fleet Captain Janet Vesuezhe looked over the attendees. "It seems we have a
traitor in our midst. Those weapons were tuned specifically to the shield
rotation rates of all the starships. Captain Williams can you add to this
information?"
"As the escort vessel, Vanguard had access to the rotation frequencies of all
the transports. This was done to aid in transporting crew and supplies between
the ships without lowering shields."
"yes, proper procedure. One we might have to end."
"The transports did not have access to Vanguards frequency. The spy had to have
been on my ship, in the dock master's staff at either Starbase 9, DS1, or one
of the operations or engineering officers at Utopia Planitia. On the Vanguard
only myself, my XO, and my transporter chief had access to all ships numbers."
"Your Exec was killed, during the opening volley. You were severely injured."
She stopped talking for a while, while a dark eyed man in medical teal
whispered into her ear. "Mister Calvert here says you are being truthful here,
and are hiding no culpability in these events. Furthermore we detected no
transmission from Vanguard alerting anyone to your status. And given the
difficulty even I had in retrieving your recorder, I seriously doubt anyone
altered the data.
The USS Heylor and the USS Scott will arrive within 9 hours to tow Vanguard and
Ute back to dock. Ute will be scrapped im' sure, the damage was too extensive.
Starfleet Engineering is already mobilizing to get Vanguard up and running
again. For now this hearing is adjourned.
====
3 Days Later
====
Aaron was once again in a briefing room, and once again the subject was the
attack that had crippled his ship and destroyed 3 others. "Ladies and
gentlemen, Sector Intelligence Commander, Commander Genera Donaldson" the
Scott's CO introduced the Officer in all black.
"I must tell you up front, this meeting is classified." The woman with red hair
stated. "Intel has come across some disturbing information. Further analysis of
the Vanguards black box, and her recovered computer files has lead us to a
disturbing conclusion. The Tzenkethi were the ones who launched the attack on
the convoy. They have since been rumored to have allied themselves with the
Dominion against the Federation but the government denies any involvement."
"Is it known HOW they got our shield codes?" Aaron asked.
"Currently we have narrowed the leak down to someone on Starbase 9. there's
only 20 or so on the station that could have gotten that information, we are
looking into it Captain."
"What will Starfleet's response to this be?"
"We will send a reserve unit to the area to patrol and keep an eye on them.
Also the Corps of Engineers are developing mobile weapons platforms to line the
border. And our Starbases in the area will be on full alert keeping tabs on
them."
"And they won't be punished for attacking us?"
"I sympathize Captain, but a second war is not what we need at this moment. We
will barricade them in, and isolate them from the rest of the quadrant. Once
the Dominion situation is dealt with then we can see what bug crawled up their
asses again."
Aaron wasn’t pleased with this declaration, but what could he do. His ship was
in shambles, and the Commander was correct. The Federation wasn’t able to front
two wars. Finding out more about their involvement would just have to wait.
====
Col Bret Maverick
USS Patriot NCC-5781-A
====
V Adm Adam Heyting
Public Relations Office
====
V Adm Nathan Hathaway
Chief of Starfleet Engineering
====
Maj Hunter Williams
2/5th Regiment Commander USS Vincennes
Task Force 44, Group Shadow
====
The entirety of pain, the finality of death,
and out of the darkness he is born - All Mail is ©1999-2008
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Nov 19 2008 - 03:11:29 PST