Jinx, Part 1

Posted on Mon Mar 2nd, 2020 @ 10:49pm by Captain Wilkan Targaryen & Galatea & Commander Nathan Hawkins & Captain Nathan Bishop & Commander Ash Randall & Commander Sherwin Porter & High Commissioner Jasmine Haynes & Lieutenant Commander T'Lisha "Hawkeye" Bishara & Patton O'Sullivan & Lieutenant Commander Chire & Lieutenant Commander Lily Snow PhD, MD & Lieutenant Sonden & Petty Officer 2nd Class Corvus Hannah & Zoey Parker & Lieutenant Dylan Blake & Cadet Senior Grade Anthony Porter

2,561 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Genesis
Location: Main Bridge, Starfleet One
Timeline: 2430-01-06, 17:35

Galatea stood at her workstation carefully reviewing the reports that were coming in. 20% of the ship's company had already reported to Gateway Station for Shore Leave and they were feeling it. Crew productivity was down with the deficit and the others were waiting for the time to leave for R&R. She may've been a hologram, but she couldn't help but sigh. If something went wrong they would have trouble responding. With the Admiral and their party off the ship they would have a lot of trouble if something went wrong.

Almost as if she were a jinx she that was the moment that the shit hit the fan. Her sensors alerted her to it before her eyes could, but she had to look. The screen before them was a rather boring look at the station only moments prior. Now it was alive with activity. Explosions erupted from the hull of the station, debris and flotsam flying out into the void as atmosphere vented. Her fingers rushed over the display, "The Dominion vessel has fired on the station!"

Bishop hadn't left the bridge since the encounter with Weyoun. So when Galatea made her announcement he had a birds eye view. "Battle stations! Galatea lock into the President's party and beam them back! He looked at the helm officer, "Undock us, get me some maneuvering room. Then raise shields and get Weyoun on the line!" He ordered.

"The Dominion are flooding subspace with antilepton radiation. Communications and transporters are now inoperable from interference," the hologram explained from behind the Captain's Chair.

“Permission to head to the Spock,” O’Sullivan spoke immediately. “We will disembark and try to beam the party to our ship!”

Galatea interrupted, "The interference would make it impossible for even the Spock to recover the..."

The ship rocked as the inertial dampeners struggled to recover from another explosion. The hologram typed on the workstation as her own voice interrupted from the overhead.

"Collision alert."

"Portions of the station are starting to break up. The Dominion vessel has fired its Heavy Disruptors. Gateway Station is severely damaged," she typed, "Structural integrity is failing."

"Bloody hell!" Lily said in a very icy and british tone as she walked off the turbolift. She walked to another station and fired it up. "Lets hope that this just someone trying to sabotage these talks and not the opinion of the Founders in general."

"Go!" Bishop told O'Sullivan even though he was acutely aware that their chance of success was low, they had to try. "Get us away from the station and lock the forward phasers on the Dominion ship, Give them something else to fire at. Get our shields up as well."

A few minutes later.

The next lift up was Jasmine's. She had just beamed back to the ship, and raced to get to the bridge. She knew her place was at the tactical station, she glared at Paddy, as he walked by. Still annoyed he got the XO role. "Charging up weapons, sir." Jasmine called out, as she got situated at Tactical.

Galatea adjusted the readouts on her workstation, her fingers struggling with keeping up with the demands upon them as the ship registered another impact. "Direct hit to the Engineering hull; we have damage to several aft decks, Sir. Repair time estimate is 3.6 days."

"Not now Galatea. But deploy repair teams to patch the damage." Bishop replied as he turned to look at Jasmine, "Jasmine target the Dominion's ship weapons array along with their engines. I don't want them going anywhere."

"O'Sullivan," Hawkins swatted his pin upon exit, "Prep the Spock for immediate departure."

“Yes Commander,” Patton hurried off to make certain the ship would be ready quickly. He planned to have transport locate the president and transport him over if ordered.

"Repair drones have been dispatched," Galatea announced as she rounded the corner of her workstation and headed to the nearby Mission Operations workstation. She typed quickly on the wall mounted panel, "We have to find a way to overcome the antilepton interference. Commander Snow any ideas?" She said over her shoulder to the officer at the next workstation over.

"Already working on a few." Snow said as her fingers flew over the console.

T'Lisha had just been relieved when all hell broke loose. Hearing the call for the Spock to prepare for launch, "Commander you want me to fly the Spock or my fighter? I need to know now", she said as she made a move for the turbolift.

"No time," the avatar answered. "We need your expertise at the Helm of Starfleet One."

As she said it the ship shook from impacts from the Dominion Battleship's Heavy Cannons. Consoles ruptured with sparks from the damage as systems overloaded. Galatea herself shimmered as her program lost cohesion momentarily.

"Commander Haynes, you are authorized to fire on the Dominion ship. Let them know who their dealing with." Bishop replied as he spoke to T'Lisha next. "T'Lisha get us some maneuvering room."

"Aye Sir," Jasmine said, as she got her target lock on the Dominion Ship. Then she opened fire, per his instructions. "Commencing Attack pattern Beta 1." Jasmine called, waiting to see what Bishop's next set of orders, was going to bee.

It didn't take T'Lisha long to move the Galaxy class ship away from the station. Using a battle tactic she brought SF1 put and had het facing the Dominion battleship affording Jasmine perfect firing solutions.

"Hit them with everything we have. Let them know and remember the name Enterprise." Bishop replied to Jasmine. as he used Starfleet One's former name. The name he was the proudest over.

As Starfleet One navigated, Galatea could feel the impacts against the shields. It was like a heavy rain impacting and tearing at the energy field that surrounded the vessel, gradually wearing it away. She grabbed the railing of her workstation, feeling herself losing the fight. "Shields are about to fail," she warned as another impact tore at her outermost layer. The regenerative field was beginning to break down.

The heavy cannons fired again, this time slamming into the central structure of the station. Alarms blared as the display switched from a total view of what was going on beyond to include an overview of the health status of the dinner party. Among them was the President himself, who was showing diminished lifesigns.

"Randall to bridge." the chief engineer called.

"Go ahead Ash." Bishop replied to the CEO even as the ship shook from the Dominion's heavy cannons.

"We're diverting more power to shields and getting things buttoned up here in engineering for a prolonged brawl. If we have some room to maneuver, we should endure, but we have to hurt that battleship in a big way to make it want to leave the field. I'd like to recommend we blind that big bastard with a flash torpedo at the same time we use a low yield, tachyon war head to neutralize the antilepton radiation so we can get our people off the station and then use a few of those Quantum torpedo with the rodinium cores, we cooked up to use against the Preserver Juggernaut, on it. Plant two of them in the same spot on it's shields, one-two-like, and the second one is going to blow a hole through that ship the Spock could fly through." She rattled off, quickly. Ash was, keenly, aware she wasn't privy to what was transpiring on the bridge but, what the heck, a suggestion couldn't hurt. Everyone thought she was nuts anyway.

"That is a good idea." Snow said from her station. "I have the location of the primary sensor cluster." She stated as her fingers still flew across the panel.

"Excellent work on the shields and we should have room to maneuver shortly." Bishop answered as he listened to Ash's recommendations. When she had finished he glanced at Jasmine. "You heard Commander Randall's recommendations. Make it so."

"Randall Out." The Chief Engineer responded.

"The President's life signs are not registering sir, recommend we send a security team to his quarters, to confirm what our sensors are telling us, in the mean time I have ordered the armory to recalibrated the torpedo to Randall's specifications." Jasmine called out, she was curious to see what the commander was going to do with the news of the President.

"Make it so Jasmine. Find the President and get him to safety. Good work on calling the armory about the torpedo." He added.

Then she hit her combadge. "Sickbay, incoming injured." She stated as she finished her adjustments to the transporter system. She had modified the transports into a sub-space transporter. Once the first cycle complete the second started. Just as the cycle complete, her console exploded. This sent her stumbling backward as the whole transport array went down.

Galatea knelt down next to Commander Snow, grabbing a medical tricorder from beneath the Mission Operations console, "Medical teams to Main Bridge." It took only a few seconds for the medical team to join them. A young Antican took over for the hologram, beginning the emergency treatments of the Science Officer.

"Well that is an experience I don't wish to repeat." Snow said feeling the blood on the side of her face as she touched the raw flesh.

"Let's skip infecting the wounds," the alien medic said as he activated the dermal regenerator and injected the Commander with a hypo.

Bishop threw a quick glance in Lily's direction and sigh of relief escaped him as he saw she was alright.

The Enterprise rocked with another impact, "We're experiencing a Coaxial Drive Breach. Engineering is estimating a 2 point 3 minute window. Commander, we have to begin evacuation procedures." She knew the truth. If they would eject the core and, somehow, the Dominion would stabilize it then they would have given their greatest enemy one of the biggest technological advances since the war. If they would acquire it then there was no telling what would happen. The Dominion would become unstoppable.

"Gateway Station to Starfleet One," it was Captain Bakti.

Bishop wondered what the station would be calling about and realized whatever the reason it couldn't be good. "Go Gateway."

"Dominion troops have invaded the station. They have killed Admiral Luzol and taken the President captive."

T'Lisha's heart stopped! This cannot be happening, she could not believe this...."No! This is not real", she yelled.

Bishop felt his blood go cold at the news of Admiral Luzol's death and the taking of President as a captive. it made him more determined to see to the destruction of the Dominion ship. However his thoughts now turned to the ship. "Have the crew get to the escape pods Galatea. I'll stay behind. We won't eject the core. I'm not giving the Dominion anything but the back of my hand."

The AI nodded at the command and started typing on the keyboard. She turned to make the formal announcement when the viewscreen caught her attention. She herself appeared on the screen, face stern, "Simulation complete."

Jasmine grinned from ear to ear. She had been briefed prior to the simulation. Her meeting with the President and Admiral's. She was very proud of the crew, and how they did.

Her systems immediately updated with all the available information, the truth having been secured from even herself. "It was all just a test?"

Bishop saw and heard the announcement that what they had just experienced was a test. He sat back in the command chair, physically drained as the adrenaline bled off. "Son of a bitch." He muttered to no one in particular.

T'Lisha's face drained of its color, "A bloody simulation, son of a bitch", she said softly.

The image on the screen was replaced with that of the Admiral, the confines of a small office aboard Gateway behind him, "I want to thank you all for taking part in this training exercise. I know that it was unannounced and caught everyone a bit off guard, but the reality of this situation is that's exactly the scenario that we're going to face if our diplomatic mission goes south. We need to all be prepared for any eventuality, and the risks of our President and government facing genuine harm increase with each passing moment. Do your best, that's all I ask, and thank you for your efforts here. I look forward to reviewing them," the recorded message ended.

Bishop let his head fall back against the chair as he turned to look at Galatea. "Super. The Admiral is going to review our actions and realize he needs another crew."

Looking at Bishop, "Maybe not sir. He may jist be testing us out because of our proximity to the Dominion warship and the need to reassured that we are at our best. But....that was not cool to do unannounced," T'Lisha stated.

The Rorworr Tactical Officer turned his seat, his ears dropping as he spoke with his superior, "I don't thing it'll be that bad. Starfleet has done the Kobayashi Maru for centuries. This exercise was no different," the translator struggled with the yips and yelps of the canine like alien.

Galatea walked away toward the aft section, her positronic synapses still struggling with the truth. She hadn't told him, she didn't know this was a simulation. They had made her think it was real too. "How could he do this to me?"

"You may well be right." Bishop replied to the tactical officer as he got out of the command chair and walked back to where Galatea stood. "See Galatea? I told you that you were a full fledged member of the crew. This should prove it. Don't take it so hard. For what it is worth. I'm sure the Admiral has his reasons. Primarily that being he wanted honest actions and reactions from the crew … including you."

The AI stood there, processing the information and still having problems with coming to the same conclusion, "Something is wrong though. Since I was relegated to this role I have felt my worth diminish aboard this vessel, almost as if the Admiral has questioned my continued usefulness." She thought of their long history together, "Perhaps he is considering a change... perhaps I am." Officially she maintained a duty shift that had long since expired, "I believe I will return to my realm. I have a great deal to consider." Before she left though she looked at Commander Snow, "I am relieved that your injuries were simulated, Commander. I only wish mine were the same."

"Galatea." Bishop called to the AI. "Don't take this so.... personally. The Admiral had his reasons for both running the simulation and keeping all of us in the dark. He wanted honest reactions. No hedging or hesitating if we knew this wasn't real. He has a great deal of confidence in you. So do I, so does every member of this ship. Please don't discount that. Oh and a piece of free advice, talk to the Admiral. Let him know how you feel. It won't change what happened but it may prevent it from happening again. Keeping your feelings bottled up does no one any good least of all you."

The representation of Starfleet One's artificial intelligence nodded, "I'll keep that in mind and I'll speak with him." She only hoped that it would do any good.

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