This is FNN

Posted on Wed Jun 30th, 2021 @ 5:03am by Commodore Loatha Targaryen & Captain Wilkan Targaryen & Galatea & Admiral Sakkath & Admiral Xeri Tei & Captain Ryan Walsh & Commander Ash Randall & Patton O'Sullivan & Lieutenant Commander Lily Snow PhD, MD & Captain Nathan Bishop & High Commissioner Jasmine Haynes

2,626 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Cheese
Location: Bridge, Starfleet One
Timeline: 2430-08-31, 19:25

The starboard door slid open as Admiral Luzol Targaryen and most of the gathered Senior Staff of Starfleet One followed her onto the Bridge. Commander Snow was already there, having remained on the Bridge during the briefing. Every workstation was manned and the alert indicators signaled that the ship had been raised to Yellow Alert. The mission profile had promoted that they were to remain as peaceful and unthreatening as possible. This would surely push things over the edge with the Romulans.

"Report, Lieutenant?" She crossed her arms. "Why are we at alert?"

The Cardassian looked over her shoulder, "Galatea?"

The recently restored holographic avatar of Starfleet One looked up from her workstation, "Admiral, we have intercepted a transmission on wideband subspace from the surface. Praetor Tei has addressed the population of the Romulan Star Empire."

"We went to alert for something so common?" She asked as she took her chair.

"Play the video, Galatea," Illio ordered as the Senior Staff started taking their stations.

On the viewscreen the image of Ni'Var switched over to a video playback of Praetor Xeri Tei standing at a podium outside of the Imperial Romulan Senate. Sakkath was not far behind, but what was most surprising was that there was such a massive crowd present. Vulcans stood at the base watching intently as the Praetor began her address, but the Romulans were the opposite. They were cheerful, boastful. She almost wished that the Sha'Moy virus was deployed in their midst.

She looked at the viewer and remembered the carnage of that day. She would never forget watching the terror as Vulcanis Lunar Colony erupted into pandemonium. She hoped to never see something like that again in her lifetime.

The Admiral sighed, "This is a great rally, Galatea, but I'm certain that..."

In an instant the world seemed to stop, taking the words from her as a fear erupted throughout the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise. On the viewscreen an orb of golden light erupted from the darkness and slammed into the chest of the Praetor of the Romulan Star Empire. The crowd erupted into screams as the Praetor, their leader, disintegrated before their very eyes in a flash of disgusting light.

The words were instinctive, "Red Alert."

Ash took over the main engineering station and queued a 6 second spool up of the Coaxial Drive for a quick hop out of Dodge of 30 light years if, and when, the Admiral called for it. The chief engineer wasn't going to comment on what just played out on the main view screen. What was there to say? They had a front row view of the beginning of a revolution and were going to be lucky if they survived what was to come.

"And this is how the Federation is framed into starting a war." Snow said turning back towards her console, as she continued to multitask what the Admiral asked her to do.

Patton raised them to red alert and went to work, preparing for whatever came their way. He, like the others had watched the screen and knew the inevitable was headed their way. He was determined to defend the crew he served with, with everything he had.

"Looks that way, Commander," Luzol sighed, "I fear that we are going to be made the scapegoats for this disaster. The leadership of the Star Empire was always dependent upon the support of the military, most likely Xeri lost it. Now we face the fall out. Helm, I want you to keep a firm eye on what's going on outside. I have a feeling we're going to be getting some neighbors out here."

The Admiral walked around the Bridge, "Commander Snow, with the situation that we currently are in I doubt that we need to hide our true intent. Bring sensors to full capacity and begin looking for our people. Let me know the moment that you have them."

"This is going to put the Romulans and Vulcans on alert," Snow said as she did what she was instructed to do. "Sensors are now fully operational." She stated. "Beginning scans."

"No time for subtlety any more, Chief. We need to find a way to penetrate that defensive screen," Luzol said as she returned to her chair. "Ash, Bishop, O'Sullivan - begin working on an option to get us through their shields."

Ash looked to Bishop and O'Sullivan and set up a side bar on her station to collaborate with the pair. The engineer kicked off the discussion by directing their attention to the possibility of a brute force transport using the main deflector array or, if they really wanted to be bold, use a sub-space transport.

“On it Sir.” Patton responded quickly. He went to work and looked at the engineer’s possible ideas and replies with a preference for brute force transport. If that didn’t work they could go with option two.

Bishop looked at Ash and Patton, "Okay Ash what are the pros and cons of using either a brute force transport or a sub space transport?"

"A pro of brute force is we can implement it almost immediately and stand a reasonable chance of battering our way through the defense system and completing the transport. The con is it will be detected, requires our main deflector dish and, if they react quickly enough, could be blocked." Ash replied, while she worked away at preparing a third alternative to get their officers back one they've been located.

"A pro of the sub-space transport is it ignores their defenses, completely and is undetectable. Cons are it will take a few minutes to prepare, requires a lot of power, and is inherently risky." The Chief Engineer added.

“Either option would work.” Patton agreed with Ash as he spoke. “My concern would be diverting all our power and possibly leaving us at risk as Comander Randall has said.” He sort of half smiled then. “We know from history those risks have at times been most successful, my priority at the moment is the security on board.”’

"Please transmit our log entries to Starfleet Command, Mister O'Sullivan, as I fear our side of the story is going to be of particular interest."

“Transmitting them now.” Patton replied and send their logs quickly. He waited a moment and spoke again. “They are completed Sir.”

"Anything out there, Commander?" She looked at Snow as she asked.

"Quite a bit sir." Snow said as she started to cycle through the various scanners.

Jasmine walked onto the bridge. She was approaching on behalf of the president, and to get a situation report. She could have asked for it over the coms. But she preferred to get it in person. When she saw, the unthinkable. Her eyes were focused on what the Admiral was going to do next. Her eyes said it all, 'protect the president. Get us out of here.' Jasmine knew no words needed to be exchanged between the admiral and her.

"We're doing everything that we can, Commissioner," the Fleet Admiral answered as she looked at the Chief of Staff, "but we can't leave yet. We still have crew on the surface. I don't leave my people behind even if the President orders me to."

"Protecting the president is this ship's primary function Admiral." Jasmine pointed out to him. Personally she agreed with her, but she had an obligation to protect the president. However with that said, the Admiral was not in her direct chain of command. And they both knew that. She was selective with her word choices.

"The President and the safety of the Federation are of top priority to me, Commissioner. Fortunately, Gruzy has already departed the ship." The Admiral crossed her arms and looked at the viewscreen. She had switched the image over to a tactical plot from the visual scans moments earlier. Looking at the panel her mouth dropped as alarms started to ring, "Report!"

"Sir have several Romulan Warbirds have moved into weapons range." Snow said. "I, also, believe that we have several cloak ships shifting orbital positions." She stated. "Most of the civilian traffic is now grounded."

The Deltan/El-Aurian hybird sighed at the sight of the Tactical plot that was being displayed, "Visual." Directly ahead of them the massive, new flagship of the Romulan Star Empire had decloaked and was staring them down. Named in honor of the ceremonial staff of the Praetor that was lost during the Romulan Supernova, the Debrune Teral'n was nearly twice the size of the Enterprise and had more firepower. In a direct confrontation it was more than likely that they would not win this time. She smiled inwardly at the thought that maybe she should have them try to hack the planetary defense grid.



"Start a tactical scan," the Admiral said to the Science Officer. "O'Sullivan, move over to work with Sciences. Get me a workable defensive plan. You too, Helm."

"Already analyzing all available data." Snow said as she continued scanning the area.

“Yes Sir.” Patton said as he moved over to science. “Let’s see what we can come up with.” He knew it was going to be tricky they were far outnumbered but that wouldn’t stop them.

“We need to find a way to distract the ships in order to rescue our people.” Ryan spoke up. “That is our priority as well as defense against those ships once that is achieved.”

"You may get your wish, Commissioner, I may just have to extract us from the situation." She looked at Galatea, "Open a channel to the flagship."

The hologram looked up from her railing mounted station, "They are not responding."

"I hate to suggest it Admiral, but staying here can cost us the entire crew compliment. I suggest that we get out of here, rendezvous with the President and jump out of the system while we still can. The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few." Jasmine suggested to the Admiral. She did not like the idea of stranding anyone, but this was about saving lives. What was to be gain, if all lives were killed in action or worse taken prisoner. She could not believe how cold hearted that sounded. She did not mean too. Since she took on her new role, she had a bigger understanding of the needs of the many, versus the needs of the few. And how to prioritize things.

"Commander," this time she was tactical in the usage of the Commissioner's rank when she was a Starfleet Officer, "you and I both know that if we leave we condemn those people, all of them, to a fate worse than death. Each of them has a lot of knowledge that makes them a tempting target. The Romulans would torture them at minimum, bring them to the point of death a dozen times over, and then start the cycle over again. Plus, Willian is down there. His knowledge of Starfleet makes him a very tempting target and a significant risk if left behind and the Romulans crack him."

Jasmine started at the Admiral for a moment. Then she simply nodded in agreement. The admiral was right, however with that said, someone had to play devil's advocate. It might as well be her. "I need a vehicle that can slip out of here, with the president." Jasmine said in a stern tone. The Admiral had his mission she had hers aswell.

"We're working on it," Luzol walked up to the Chief Engineer and XO, "Have any ideas?"

Ash looked to the Fleet Admiral and nodded. "We can get the President and Commissioner Haynes to safety. The Runabout I configured for that purpose when we lost the Spock is powered up and on stand by. It only seats 3 so it will be the pair of them plus a pilot. Space is limited because it is fitted with Slipstream 2, a phase cloak and my latest iteration of adaptive camouflage." The Chief Engineer responded. "Beyond that, we've a couple options for beaming our people out, brute force transport, sub-space or maybe both. In addition, if the monster we're nose-to-nose with, gets frisky we could put a quantum torpedo on her bridge with a sub-space transport and then coaxial jump with them in close proximity to finish the beast off." Ash added, helpfully. "Might take out a handful of the small war birds in the process. They're not really designed to handle the stresses on the periphery of our jump window." She explained, helpfully.

"All of which are going to plunge the Federation into war. Destroying their flagship, using the phase cloak because its in direct violation of the Treaty of Algeron; either would be the start of the war we're trying to avoid, Chief," Luzol pointed out after hearing it mentioned. She sighed knowing that their options were limited. She also knew that, after today, the President would be a lot less likely to look the other way as far as they were concerned. She wouldn't be surprised if all of them were reassigned elsewhere when all was said and done.

She tugged on her uniform and crossed her arms, sighing as she looked at the readouts on the screens. They weren't going to win this battle by force and, so far, all of their actions had merely gone toward making it seem as if they were guilty of the crime below. That left her with only one option.

"Stand down from red alert," she commanded as she approached the Center Seat. Sitting down, "Signal our immediate surrender to the Romulan Government, but we will only concede to Proconsul Sakkath."

"Can we get the runabouts out of the system in time to warn the Federation and by nature Starfleet?" Jasmine asked, waiting to see what the Admiral was going to do. They needed to get help, the runabout plan was a good idea. Slip them out, have the Enterprise cover their escape, and bring back help.

She sighed from her chair, fingers resting on the side of the built in keypads, "For right now, Commissioner, we would not be able to defend them. I have a plan for that once the surrender is ratified. Patton," she looked at the Security Chief, "deploy our log buoy and set it to home in on the nearest Starfleet Installation. Have it transmit our recent logs upon launch."

"I sure hope you know what you are doing?" Sarcastically stated Jasmine. ?She knew this would be career suicide for the Admiral, if this wild eye plan of his did not work. For the moment though she had no other options.

“Yes Sir.” Patton acknowledged. He went to work and soon the log buoy had been sent off already set for their nearest installation.

"Prepare to execute Starfleet Order 2005," Luzol announced to her Chief Engineer from her seat as she looked at the forward viewscreen. "Prepare to abandon the Enterprise. Snow, I want you to focus on getting the crew out."

"Aye, Admiral. Preparing to execute Starfleet order 2005." The Chief Engineer confirmed. "Coaxial is already spun up for a quick jump if you would prefer to execute Order 2005 a safe distance from the planet." Ash added.

"We're staying right here, Chief," she answered as she looked at the viewscreen and the ships approaching. "We're going to make an impression. Captain Bishop, have the Romulans responded to our surrender?"

The Chief Engineer nodded understanding. "Starfleet order two-zero-zero-five has been prepared. Vocal authorization and command level, secondary, confirmation required for standard execution." Ash advised, following the regulations behind order 2005 to the letter.

Luzol sat in the center seat and nodded, "Standby."

Galatea spoke up, "They're responding..."

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