"Holy Ship!"

Posted on 22 Feb 2023 @ 10:32am by Commodore Virid Salire & Captain Kennedy Harper & Commander Terry Walsh & Lieutenant Commander David Moreau & Lieutenant Commander Daxton Tolland & Lieutenant Commander Ashlie (Ash) Eider

1,551 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Dominion in Distress

“Report!” Salire demanded as he burst out of the turbolift.

The officer of the deck, a Bajoran lieutenant commander, motioned the Commodore over to the table. “Krutigtee reports a Dominion battlecruiser has dropped out of warp at the edge of the system and lost control. Life support, engines, and other critical systems are offline. Hasn’t responded to hails.”

“What’s its current heading?” The Anuran asked, arriving at the center table to see the system map for himself.

“It’s too erratic,” the Bajoran responded. “But course projections suggest it could either hit our shipyards within the next 30 minutes, or break atmosphere at New Bajor in 47.”

“Well,” Salire sized up, “sounds like we’ve got ourselves our first little crisis. Place the station on yellow alert, and advise the shipyards to do the same.”

Then to the room, he added, “Ideas on stopping this battlecruiser?”

"Are we talking firepower or rescuing the potentials still alive on that monster or both?" David asked as he pulled up a tactical analysis on Dominion battlecruisers and gave a low whistle. He pulled up the trajectory and verified the findings the Bajoran had said and began to plot various scenarios on his console.

"Tensions with the Dominion have always been tense," Virid replied. "And I'm not blowing a battlecruiser out of the sky without knowing why the hell it showed up like this. Besides, rescuing the crew might give our diplomats something new to work with."

Dax had entered the room at the same time as the yellow alert. The details were sparse, but then they always were. And that made crisis management a real pain in the ass. He sighed at the sketchy swell the day had brought them.

"Sir, between the station and the shipyard, we have a modest complement of Wallenbergs at our disposal," Dax cut in. "What say we mobilize as many as are flight ready and use the tugs to create a cross grid of interlocking tractor beams like a gillnet." He waggled his finger in the air with his eyes darted to one side as he quickly did the complex delta-vee calculations. "Yeah, that probably ain't gonna' stop it, even if the tugs run impulse at full burn, but they should be able to drag the breaker into a safer direction and maybe even slow it down a smidge." He looked around the room for general impressions before settling back to the Anuran commodore. "''Course, safer directions might be slim pickings."

Ashlie had been quietly monitoring as the others spoke. She did not like the direction that ship was moving and was trying to see if she could get them anything more specific. But finally, she spoke up, "Safer directions...honestly I'm not seeing one that would be easy. If we can't get enough push in some other direction, maybe? Even then, we'd still have to stop it after we get it pushed away from the current possible targets."

"Our first duty is to protect our people on the shipyards and on the planet," the Anuran Commodore simply said. "We'll focus on stopping the ship after we can make sure as many people are as safe as possible. And, if we can't stop the Jem'Hadar ship, then we need to minimize their casualties as well. Mister Tolland, how long would it take to mobilize the Wallenbergs and have them alter the Jem'Hadar's course. Also, Mister Moreau, do you think your SAR team could evacuate the Jem'Hadar? What would it take?"

"Your fastest ship, a dozen voluntolds from SAR, the willingness of the Jem'Hardar to be rescued and a bit of luck, Sir," David responded as he put together a team on his console from the personnel that had full SAR training and any specialties that might help on a runaway ship full of potential hostiles. "Two dozen if we don't gas the ship to knock them out."

Dax had been furiously finger wrestling his PADD. "I'm only able to reassign 6 of the station's 8 tugs to the runaway battlecruiser. The other 2 are mid-transit and can't drop their loads." A beep chimed from the PADD which softened his scowl somewhat. "I did just get confirmation from Control at the shipyards. They're ready to retask a dozen Wallenbergs just as soon as the order is given." He let out a sigh. "It's cutting it close but we just might be able to pull this off. Every minute's gonna count though."

The Anuran didn't hesitate. "Do it, Commander," he swiftly ordered the engineer.

"Wallenbergs away," Dax reported with a swipe of his finger on the PADD. "With any luck, a few of the others can cutback from their stall and join the line."

It had been quite a while since Terry had been transferred to the USS Altai for a Temporary Duty Assignment. Since he'd been back...over a month now?...he'd heard stories about the station's mixer that he missed and the half-Klingon woman who'd been filling in. He had a lot of catching up to do; which is why he was in his office going over some of the latest Wing reports when the Yellow Alert sounded. He grabbed a PADD before heading out the door to the Command Center.

It took a while for Terry to get up there. When he stepped off the turbolift, he caught the tail-end of a conversation about retasking some Wallengburgs. "I have two squadrons gearing up as we speak, Sir. If needed."

Commodore Salire glanced up at the newly arrived Squadron Commander, just long enough to acknowledge the man's arrival. Before he could reply to the man, however, he had something else to do. The Anuran turned to his Chief of Security. "The Malcolm Reed should already be on standby. None of our response ships have near enough evacuation capacity to pull all of the Jem'Hadar off. The station can help, but only if Mister Tolland can get the ship into transporter range. Your priority should be the command crew, and work your way down from there. If it winds up being too much of a danger, then get the hell out."

"Yes, Sir," David responded. "We can use the Wallenbergs to beam over most of them, too,": he pointed out. "My team can go in with transponder chips and start tagging everyone we see and get them off the ship if they like it or not."

"Get it done," the Commodore said with a nod. "Get your team out there before those Wallenbergs leave dock."

"I'm on it," the big man said as he tapped his combadge and began to issue orders quietly and selected his team.

Finally, to Walsh, the Anuran said, "I want you to take a squadron and rendezvous with the Krutigtee. See if you can retrace the Jem'Hadar's steps. An accident is one thing, but I want to know why a battlecruiser was heading this direction, and if we need to be concerned."

"Copy that, Commodore," said Terry. He then tapped his combadge, "Walsh to Starfighter Operations, I'll be taking the Gryphon squadron on a run. Have the Valkyries on standby to deploy if needed. Walsh out." All Wing senior staff and pilots were activated and followed the modified rotation as soon as the station went to Yellow Alert. Both the Gryphons and the Valkyries were already being prepped for whatever was needed. "If that's all Commodore...?"

"Go!" the frog ordered, glancing briefly over to the human commander. His eyes then snapped back to the master holographic display in front of him.

Turned and entered the turbolift. A little jogging and another turbolift and more jogging and he'd be where he needed to be...suiting up for a flight.

Looking over to the Chief Science Officer, the Commodore asked, "Miss Eider, we are most certainly going to need your help. Care to accompany Commander Walsh, or do you feel like you should stand by here unless something else should happen?"

Glancing over, Ashlie gave a slight nod. "I'm not staying behind on this one. I'll join."

Kennedy listened to the others speak, and while she was the current Dean of Education, she was former Securiy. "What can I do to help?"

"Just stick close, Captain," Salire ordered. "If anything, we might need some help figuring out what to do with several hundred injured Jem'Hadar."

"Will do," she said as she begin to contemplate what could be done with several hundred injured Jem'Hadar.

"Want that I should start clearing out cargo bays?" Dax asked. "Betcha' we got room to spare for triage cots and other Sickbay overflow if we consolidate some crates high and tight."

"Good idea, Commander," the Commodore remarked. "Captain, muster your cadets. The cargo bays in Arm 1 would be perfect for this effort, not to mention they'll be easy to contain should the Jem'Hadar try anything."

Kennedy nodded her head. There was nothing quite like hands on experience. "I'm on it, Commodore," she said just before taking her leave to get the cadets together.

Virid didn't nod or acknowledge. Instead, he turned back to the situation table in front of him. The clock was ticking, and he now had to trust his team to get the job done and save lives. And the clock was ticking.

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