Change of Plans
Posted on Fri Aug 16th, 2024 @ 6:32pm by Captain Akeno Misaki & Lieutenant JG Runa Suruga & Commander Mashiro Munetani "Shiro" & Lieutenant Commander Raelyn Mckenzie & Lieutenant Commander Mark Johnson & Lieutenant Ileah & Lieutenant Luna Eclipse of the House of Martok & Lieutenant Justin Specter
Mission:
Return to Tyra
Location: Various
The doors of the ready room swished open and out walked a tired looking Akeno. She looked over to Luna who had been on watch and in command of the bridge. "Luna," she said. "Take the helm, get us out of the wrecks and put us in a safer position." She said simply.
"Aye, Captain, with pleasure," Luna stood, twisting her upper body with many 'CRACKING' noises before she walked to the Helm, nodding to her relief, sat down, and moved the ship to a safer location.
Once Luna had relieved the command chair, Akeno took her position and sat down. The center console between the command chairs began to rise out after she pressed the button to open it. "All hands, we have taken some Jem'Hadar on board. They are to be treated with respect. Their leader has agreed to co-operate, you are hereby all ordered to do the same to maintain peace."
She cut the channel off and dug her fingernails into her palms. "I want all the shuttles back aboard as soon as possible. Let them know that the threat has been dealt with."
[USS Phoebe]
Salvage and recovery operations had been relatively slow-going, given that Mashiro and Runa were trying to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves. This greatly limited the pool of equipment they could use in their operations, because if it gave off too much of an energy signature, it would be a dead giveaway to their location; as such, they had had to conduct most of their salvage efforts by hand, with only a set of low-power hand tools to assist them.
Right now, they were just getting back to the Neptune after lugging yet another body back up from Deck 8; while the lack of an artificial gravity bubble had aided in their transporting of the body, it still took them a full hour to drag it up through the Jefferies' Tubes (or what was left of them) and back to the shuttle bay. But now that they were safely back aboard the Neptune, they waited patiently for the cargo bay to re-pressurize before removing their helmets.
"Alright," Mashiro began, once she could fully take stock of what they'd managed to recover from this go around. "I think this should be our... eleventh body, if I'm counting correctly?"
The communications console began to beep. Runa moved over and accessed the message. "Sir, Captain Misaki is ordering all shuttles to return immediately. The message says that all danger has now surpassed," she explained.
"Then we've got no time to waste," Mashiro replied as she moved to join Runa in the cockpit. "Fire up the engines, Lieutenant; prepare to lay in a course for the Wayfarer."
"Yes sir," Runa replied as her fingers danced across the console of the shittles helm.
[USS Atlantic]
Ileah entered through the airlock, this was a tomb, she has the mission Spooky gave her complicated by the fact the Atlantic has some AI making things difficult.
She needed to get to the Intel Offices, to the stand-alone ComputerCore not connected to rhe Main Computer and the Secure Safe that All Intel people kept aside for those Special items and detailed reports filed so no Physical records could be currupted.
[3 hours later - USS Wayfarer Conference Room]
The Wayfarer had relocated to the edge of the debris field. All the shuttles had now returned, and the Jem'Hadar had been put up in quarters. It was going to take three days for another Starfleet ship to reach them and ferry their 'guests' back to the Gamma Quadrant.
Akeno paced in front of the large windows of the conference room as she waited for her staff to arrive. She couldn't keep still, she just couldn't stop thinking about how dangerous this situation really was. Three days was going to feel like an eternity, not just for her, but for her crew as well.
Doctor Johnson joined the captain in the briefing room. A concerned look in his face and his data PaDD in his hands.
"Captain" he greeted Akeno entering the room and moved towards his usual spot at one end of the table.
"Hello doctor," Akeno replied as she continued to pace inpatiently in front of the windows. Occasionally she would stop for a second and stare out at the floating debris field made up of Starship wrecks before continuing.
Mark eyed the captain and noticed her obsessed and compulsive walking.
"Do you want me to prescribe you something for...ehm...calm you down, ma'am?" he asked, before the room filled.
"It wouldn't help..." Akeno grumbled as she continued to pace back and forth.
Mark silently nodded.
"If you will ever reconsider, let me know" he told her.
Luna turned the Helm over to one of her reliefs, then headed for the briefing room.
"Captain, Doctor," Luna greeted quietly.
Akeno simply gave Luna a nod as she paced. She seemed to be attempting to wear out the carpet.
Raelyn entered shortly thereafter, with haste. She had spent the last while gathering any tactical information she could on the Jem'Hadar that she didn't already know. If they turned, she needed to be prepared.
A few minutes passed and Akeno was about to start the briefing when the doors to the conference room snapped open.
"Sorry if I'm late, Captain," Mashiro apologized as she and Runa quickly took their seats at the conference table. "What's the situation on the Jem'Hadar?"
Luna ducked in after the duo and quietly took a set in the back corner...a favorite spot as the acoustics were usually very good there.
The captain stopped pacing and instead of sitting down she leant against the edge of the viewports. She let out a long sigh. "So, it seems we have six Jem'Hadar guests aboard the ship. Starfleet is sending another ship to pick them up and take them back to the Gamma Quadrant."
"That means we've got three to four days with them on board," Akeno said to them all. "And no more Ketracel White. Which as you are all aware is... a problem."
"Hold up," Mashiro interjected. "You mean to tell me that you beamed six Jem'Hadar foot soldiers aboard our ship?!"
"We're no longer at war. Killing them would be a violation of treaty." Akeno replied.
The doctor breathed out "White is a chemical product, we might try to synthetize it...but I think I'll need at least to ..." he tried to find better wording "...have a look at how they are engineered" he finally said.
"That may indeed pose a bit of a challenge for us," Mashiro agreed, before turning to Akeno. "Do we know if the formula for Ketracel White was ever documented by Starfleet over the course of the War?"
"If I remember correctly the chemical formula was identified by Doctor Bashir on Deep Space Nine." Akeno told the doctor. "But formulating it was tricky, the replicators just couldn't get it right. During the war the Dominion set up entire factories for it's production. We are still unsure how exactly it is manufactured."
"Well, surely, there must be something in our database," Mashiro insisted. "Of the countless facilities we've raided during, or even after the war, surely one of them had to have turned up with the formula for Ketracel White in some way, shape or form, right?"
"The formula is known..." Akeno repeated. "Its just creating it which is the problem!" she added with a little frustration. "Anyways." she said. "We need to keep these Jem'Hadar occupied and alive until the other ship arrives. Thats not going to be an easy task, especially since most of them believe that we're still at war."
"Ah, this just keeps getting better and better..." Mashiro sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Couldn't do this the easy way, nooo..."
"I'm gonna try and synthetize some in the lab anyway" the doctor pronounced "The Wayfarer's sickbay is quite advanced, we might not have the means for scale production but we should be able to get ahold of some, just to be safe while we wait for the backup vessels".
"That's not a bad idea," Akeno said. She looked over at Raelyn. "We should double security around vital areas. Just in case"
Raelyn nodded. She had anticipated this order and she already knew of the threat of the Jem'Hadar without the white. "Already on it ma'am."
"It's not going to be an easy few days for us," Akeno said. "We should still continue with the salvage operations whilst we are here." She said as she looked around at her officers. "This just complicates things more. Now is your chance and only chance to voice opinions on these Jem'Hadar. I know all of us lost someone in the war. So speak freely if you have anything to say..."
"With all due respect, Captain," Mashiro began. "I don't think it would be wise of us to remain here- especially when the process for synthesizing Ketracel White is unreliable; one wrong move, and we've suddenly got six genetically-engineered killing machines wreaking havoc on our ship. Our best option would be to start making our way back to Federation space at max warp."
"And if we proceed back towards Federation space..." Akeno said. "And if these Jem'hadar do decide to act on their own. They will have the means to cause havoc across many inhabited worlds with this very ship. May I remind you all that one Jem'hadar is highly dangerous..."
"Look, I don't like it. But frankly, I'm not moving this ship. If we lose control of them and they decide to take this ship. Then we'll be fighting not just for control, but to stop them from restarting the war." Akeno told them. "Starfleet will not hesitate to blow this ship to pieces if it's considered a threat, regardless of who's aboard."
"Damn..." Mashiro muttered as she ran a hand through her hair. "There is just no clean way to do this, is there?"
"As a Starship Captain I need to be looking ahead. Honestly, I predict trouble. Especially when they run out of White. So we need to be prepared for every possible eventuality," Akeno told them all as she looked around the room.
"Well, if we have to consider that possibility," Mashiro sighed, "I would like to propose a complete and total lockout of the ship's flight control systems; if for whatever reason our guests regress to a feral state, then trying to fire up the ship will be the least of their concerns."
Akeno looked over towards Luna. "Luna?" She asked re-directing the exec's sugestion to her.
Luna had remained quiet, taking in what was going on...and trying not to let her Klingon side get caught up in the blood lust.
"I can do that and easy. It's simple to set up, but for anyone who doesn't know the code, a royal pain the ars! It'd take them a WEEK at least just to break the firewall. Only thing is, I've got this sinking feeling that if something goes wrong, someone's got a mind reading device. Now grant it, I COULD just be being paranoid..." Luna shrugged, hoping her fears were just her imagination running off at the wrong time.
Commander Johnson was going through the information at hand regarding the "White" when his attention got caught by the "mind reading devices" being mentioned. He slightly rised his eyebrow in amazement to then shake the idea away from his thoughts and getting back to his information gathering while attending the meeting.
Luna caught the look.
"With all the crazy we've come up against...I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to take us out that way! With all due respect sir," Luna clamped her mouth shut at how sharp her tone had come across as.
"Lets not get ahead of ourselves." Akeno said simply holding a hand up. "Anyone got any questions or suggestions. Trust me I could use some, because right now. I'm going to be honest, I can't trust any Jem'Hadar after what I saw them do to people I knew and loved in the war."
"Well, aside from the systems lockout that I mentioned, it may behoove us to find some way of monitoring their vital signs," Mashiro proposed. "That way, we can identify the earliest symptoms of withdrawal and implement preventative measures that will keep them from escaping confinement."
She glanced over at Mark. "Presuming, of course, that such a procedure wouldn't be medically intrusive."
Mark laid the PaDD back on top of the table "Well," he started "assuming I cannot implant any specific diagnostic kit on them..." he glanced over to Akeno almost helplessly since he basically knew the answer "...we can use the ambiental control system to retrieve basic data from them. It's not accurate and the level of data we can retrieve is way limited. Body temperature, humidity... little more. It can be used to monitor them. If they start sweating excessively, for instance, can be a sign of withdrawal...but that's not the only one and we are blind to most of the sympthoms without other means of monitoring." he concluded.
"Keep them under strict monitoring," Akeno said.
The Captain turned her attention to Raelyn. "Once they've all calmed down move them out of the brig into empty crew quarters. Somewhere away from any essential systems and away from the majority of the crew." She said. "Have their replicator deactivated and post guards at all times outside the doors."
Raelyn nodded. "Aye Captain. I'll make sure it gets done."
"As for everyone else. Inform your staff of the situation. When we move the Jem'hadar that section will become a 'no-go' zone unless authorised by myself, Lieutenant McKenzie or Commander Munetani. I am not risking anything going wrong." With that said Akeno placed both hands on the table and pushed herself up out of the chair. "Dismissed."
Posting by:
Captain Akeno Misaki
Commanding Officer
Commander Mashiro Munetani "Shiro"
Executive Officet
Lieutenant Commander Raelyn Mckenzie
Chief Security/Tactical Officet
Lieutenant Commander Mark Johnson
Chief Medical Officer
Lieutenant Ileah
Yeoman
Lieutenant Luna Eclipse of the House of Martok
Chief Flight Control Officet
Lieutenant Justin Specter
Chief Intelligence Officer
Lieutenant JG Runa Suruga
Operations Officer
