Where Do We Go From Here
Posted on Mon Jan 13, 2020 @ 4:28am by Lieutenant JG Scaliontis Lovok & Lieutenant Kivan Ta'Gas
1,320 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Doors of Perception
Location: DS5 - Main Engineering / Dyson Repair Yards
Timeline: SD 17 1730
"Computer, replay mobile sensor footage from Pangaea file 127-003, Station Day 11." Lieutenant Ta'Gas said as he leaned back in his chair and looked at the video screen.
The clip opened with a wide-out shot of an Officer running at full speed towards the exit of the cavern. As the sensor zoomed in for a closer view, it revealed Commander Soran. Seconds later, the pylon exploded just as she reached the exit.
She came flying through the cave transition portal into the cavern entrance, landing in a skid on the stone floor, a handful of marble chips flashing past as she came. She accepted the hand of a marine to get up. Dusting her hands down, the Officer was visibly counting the crewmembers around her, tallied the casualties from the lightly scratched to the seriously harmed.
Maritza looked around at her people. "Let's go home."
As the video cut out, Ta'Gas leaned back in his chair and sighed an audible sigh of frustration. Commander Soran had destroyed a portal and the Romulan core was buried. He had once again nearly been killed by that damn Pangaea portal, but he had nothing to show for it. What could have been his career-defining work, the Romulan Core, was now laying beneath tons of rubble.
He noticed the time on the chronometer. He spun his chair around to face the communicator. Since departing the station, Lieutenant Lovok had left Ta'Gas in charge of the Engineering Department. For the time being the major catastrophe had been the destruction of the Atlantis by the Xi'Cadians. . .or at least that was the official word. Ta'Gas had his suspicions, especially since the Xi'Cadians had never develop offensive technology that was on par with Starfleet. However, Cardassia was well known for their willingness to . . .share various aspects of their technology to client-races.
"Computer, open tight-beam transmission to Lieutenant Lovok, Dyson Shipyards." The Cardassian/Bajoran directed. He figured now would be as good as any other time to check in with the Chief and give a status update on all that he had missed out on while in warp onboard the Kangaroo.
< Dyson Repair Yards, Dock 1: Helios, Main Engineering - USS Helios >
Scaliontis was having so much fun getting his hands on puzzles and machinery he could actually understand then solve. The refit of the Helios was coming along nicely since a few shipments were delayed with materials and other such things the yards weren't equipped for.
Perhaps that's something he could look into now that he was here at the yards. Scaliontis was about to move onto the next task when a yard administrator approached him.
"Lieutenant you have a call from DS5." The command red uniformed Ensign said after attracting his attention by tapping his shoulder.
The Romulan rolled his eyes. "Oh what do they want?" He muttered rhetorically as he thanked the Ensign and headed into the Chief Engineer's office and tapped his combadge. "Lovok to Dyson ops, route the call to me here in the Helios' Chief Engineer's office please."
=^= Understood, redirect in progress Lieutenant. =^= Another voice said, Scaliontis had had a chance to meet everyone but he will while he was here. The computer terminal activated and Kivan's face appeared.
"Lieutenant, what can I do for you?" Scaliontis asked with a smile.
"I figured I would give my update directly as opposed to sending in a report." Ta'Gas said. "For the most part, things are somewhat returning to normal since we returned from Pangea." He started. "Although, we lost years of research and who knows how much information that could have been gained had the Romulan Core not been buried under tons of rubble." He said, the bitter very obvious in his voice.
The Assistant Chief Engineer shook his head. "We could have found a way to activate the portal without sacrificing the Core! There had to have been someway to carry out the same actions with the Core being connected to the station's subspace relay or the secondary tachyon emitter." He said, still not satisfied with how the entire mission had transpired. "But I guess there's nothing left to do now except figure out where we go from here. . ." He said in a resigned tone.
Scaliontis raised one eyebrow. Well this was interesting. "Yes, hindsight is a bitch." He said. "There could have been many complications to using the station's relay or emitter, distance, the planet's surface since the portals were underground and not to mention the atmosphere itself." The Romulan said as the specifics came to him as he thought through what their fearless leader must have already considered when she ordered the core be delivered to the portal chamber they were in.
"The other problem is we may have not been able to get the portal open and we would have lost our people to the other side." Scaliontis didn't want to think how that would have affected everyone. "Thank you for your report Lieutenant, anything else you would like to discuss?" He asked with a strained smile.
He did want to get back to work and it would be hours before the Kangaroo would ferry them back to DS5 that night, though there were limited quarters throughout Dyson's hulls. Not to mention the 2 ships docked crewless for now.
Perhaps he'd stay for a couple of days.
"Nothing much has occured on the station; however, we're on high-alert due to the destruction of the USS Atlantis by the Xi'Cadians three days ago." The Assistant Engineer said, shifting from something less frustrating. "The Atlantis had just left the station after having its tertiary communication node re-modulated. However, reports state that it was responding to a sensor reading on the Xi'Cadian border when weapons fire erupted and the ship was destroyed within minutes." Ta'Gas said in disbelief.
"I still can't figure out how a Xi'Cadian vessel was strong enough to destroy an advanced Excelsior-class vessel." He said. "Commander Soran has us on alert. It's only a matter of time before there's some kind of response." He added.
"I grieve for those lost on the Atlantis. Perhaps there's weapons signatures left at the battlefield you could try to get sensor data of from one of our long range sensor stations?" Scaliontis asked offering up the idea. "Does Commander Soran believe the Xi'Cadians will come to DS5?"
"It's possible," Ta'Gas said as he brought up a display from the battle. "From what we've been able to obtain, there was a signal exchange between the class-4 sentry satellite in the area and another source." Ta'Gas said, his brows furrowed in confusion. "I feel like there is some kind of connection between the attack and the exchange of information, but without more info, I'm shooting in the dark." He said as he looked up at the screen.
"My security clearance is nowhere near high enough to get more information about that attack. It sounds like something that a Department Head would be able to ascertain." The young Cardassian/Bajoran Engineer said as he reclined back in his chair slightly. "Unless of course. . .that same Department Head would be willing to share their access codes. . ." Ta'Gas said with a smirk.
Scaliontis narrowed his eyes. "I'm not transmitting my codes over subspace." He smirked back a moment later. "And I'm sure Commander Soran wishes to know more about the attack and her security clearance is higher than mine..." He trailed off leaving his colleague the what seems like one choice: going to the commanding officer.
Ta'Gas sighed in resignation. "Fine. . .I'll see what I can do." He said. "I'll keep you informed of any more problems on this end. DS5 out." He said.
Well that went well. Scaliontis thought and got back to work on the Helios refit.
Lieutenant (j.g.)
Kivan Ta'Gas
Assistant Chief Engineer
Lieutenant JG Scaliontis Lovok
Chief Engineer, DS5
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