War Planning

Posted on Thu Jun 11, 2020 @ 1:16pm by Commander Caleb Ryan & Captain Maritza Soran & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Captain Lazanos Torena & Lieutenant Jason Haines & Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross

2,681 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Commander Soran's Office
Timeline: MD 05 0800

[ON]

Maritza looked at the assembled faces. On one side of the conference table sat her own staff, and on the other the key members of Operation Starcatcher. This was going to be...interesting. From the haggard to the neatly pressed, the old hands and the new. She set down her coffee. "Ladies and Gentlemen, some introductions." She pointed to the new comers. "These are the leads on the Daniels task force, Operation Starcatcher."

A Human woman in her fifties raised a hand. "I'm Commodore Stewart. I run Operation Starcatcher. For those of you new to this, we're from a cross operational task force between Security and Intelligence that focuses on the internal security of Starfleet. This is commanders Helige," Stewart indicated a Ktarian woman with mustard trim, "and Ch'escat," a male Andorian in Intelligence grey. The two made nods of greeting.

Maritiza indicated Caleb. "Thank you, ma'am. My XO, Commander Ryan, and these are my heads of security, intelligence, and our Marine detachment." Maritza indicated each in term, before pointing to the opposite end of her conference table. "And this is Jason Haines, former head of intel here."

Stewart got to her feet. "For the last three years we've been carefully pulling apart an extensive conspiracy within Starfleet run by one Caleb Xeod. In the last six months our investigations have gathered pace, allowing us to start making some very careful arrests, which has helped furnish more details. Caleb Xeod is a kidnapper and a murder that uses extortion and and fear to force others to enable his quest for personal gain. He's been very careful. At one point he'd even got inside Internal Affairs. But the net is closing. And we now intend to take him out directly. We have people in place to secure any vulnerable witnesses, and arrest co-conspirators, but you don't kill a hydra by chopping off its necks. You need to take out its heart. That means Xeod.

“He's careful, very careful. There's not much that might draw him out where he might make a mistake, but he's got a history with the Haines family, and we're hoping that you, Jason, would be prepared to work with us to lure him here, and bring him down in a way that he can't hurt anyone else while he's going down."

"Of course, Commodore," Jason said. "The man is a... the man needs to be stopped."

Jason had almost called him a bastard, but he figured he would be respectful for Captain Soran's sake. Despite what he thought personally, he wasn't going to be an ass in front of a flag officer. He was better than that.

Laz looked at Jason, wondering for a moment about him. Whatever the whole story was behind his disappearance and reappearance had to be a good one, but it’d have to wait. “Where are we setting up this op?” The sooner he knew the ground, the better he’d feel.

Annora had been aware of Jason's return, but hadn't had a chance to talk to him about his experience. When it had been revealed his departure was coerced, Annora had done some digging, but didn't get very far. With the re-emergence of the Earth First movement, she was glad to have something else to focus on. "Security stands ready to provide assistance as needed."

"Since Jason has reappeared here, it would make more sense to try somewhere local. If we deliberately move him to somewhere else, Xeod might smell a rat," the Commodore replied. "Where would you recommend? We'd need somewhere ideal for an ambush that can also trap a ship, and let us easily control subspace comms."

Jason thought a moment and said, "There is a small asteroid field near Xi'Cadia where Starfleet has a listening outpost. Given my work on the Geneva, it would not be a stretch from a personnel perspective to have me reassigned there as an analyst. They have a strong hand on communications, and the asteroid can hide fighter patrols. This is assuming he doesn't have anyone there or even a contact amongst the Cardassians or Xi'Cadians who would be willing to launch an attack on the outpost."

“It’s not a bad idea,” Laz mused. “But there are more moving parts than I like.” Laz searched the area Jason mentioned and pulled up a holo display to give everybody a look at it. “An asteroid field works for them as much as for us,” he said, looking at the images. “But if they don’t know we’re there, we have the edge. Is there any way to make sure Xeod makes this run personally?”

"There is no guarantee that he will take the bait," Natalie spoke up after examining the holo display. "This plan is relaying on a lot of hope that Daniels...Caleb Xeod will suddenly put aside all his instincts, intelligence, wisdom, and training to come after Mr. Haines in effort to get revenge." Natalie shook her head. "Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we should sit on our hands and wait for him, but I don't think putting Mr. Haines on an asteroid will yield results as quickly as we hope. If I was to put myself in his shoes, I would withdraw, observe from a distance, and wait for the opportunity to strike."

“We need ta sweeten the pot somehow,” Caleb mused. “What is it this Xeod really wants? Somethin’ personal.”

"Well, as it was explained to me by Daniels, or whatever he is calling himself," Jason replied, "the reason he was after me was because of my dad. So put the two of us together and the pot gets sweetened."

"Now, that's an interesting idea." Natalie nodded in approval. She leaned back in her seat, her mind going into overdrive as she thought about the logistics of the trap.

"So we convince Xeod that your dad is there, too," Laz said, still wondering what the story behind all that was. "Seems simple enough for two intelligence chiefs. We can post fighters on the nearest asteroids," Laz said, highlighting the ones that he was thinking about. "Powered down, this close to that listening post, it'd take a sustained sensor sweep to spot them. Whenever Xeod gets close, they can be up and moving fast. Do we have any idea what kind of ship he has at his disposal?"

"It is an Akira class," Jason said. "A bit old-looking on the outside, but a fair amount of upgrading done on the inside. I imagine some of it might be non-standard, so he may have some surprises to pull out of the hat."

The Andorian commander typed on a small pad, and then the conference table projector cast an image of an Akira above it. "The shield generators have been upgraded, and we're sure he's added at least one extra torpedo battery." The projection zoomed in on the deflector dish. "We know he's tried to source some unusual parts, high energy containment that would link to the deflector array. What for, we don't know. But if we get close to that ship, then you need to watch for surprises from there. But several of his known engineers were reputed to be quite...creative. If that's the only surprise, I'll eat my combadge."

The closest experience Annora had to the current situation was a sting operation early in her career. While she wasn't sure how well that experience would carry over, she did have plenty of tactical knowledge. "At the least we should bring the elder Mr. Haines to DS5 or an undisclosed location out of the public eye. Don't want Xeod finding out he's actually on Mars, as an example, when we want him to believe Mr. Haines is on Xi'Cadia. What's the plan for the starship? Are we wanting to capture it or simply blow it up? Either way, I think we'll need a bit more firepower than a couple of fighters."

"We would prefer to take prisoners wherever possible for intelligence purposes," the Ktarian Commander Helige said. "But our first priority is stopping Xeod." She gave a grim smile. "Other considerations are icing, not cake."

Commodore Stewart nodded in agreement. "Robert Haines is a definite sore spot for Xeod. One we've resisted so far, as it felt too obvious. But a father-son reunion..." She looked at Jason. "We can contact him, but it would be risky. It would be better coming directly from you."

Caleb gave a low whistle. “An Akira packs a lot of firepower,” he reminded. “It’s a straight up warship, not the usual Starfleet multipurpose platform. He could have his own fleet of fighters. The asteroid field would be to our advantage with smaller ships, more dangerous for the Akira, but not necessarily the fighters. Stealth would be our best bet, if we could somehow beam aboard without them noticin’.”

Maritza nodded. "We have fighters here too. They'd be at your disposal, ma'am." She turned to Jason. "You've been aboard. Would stealth be possible?"

"Only for a very brief period inside," Jason said. "Their internal security has a good response time, and the rest of the crew is trained well in either hitting the deck or being out of the way when there is an internal breach. If a team came on a cloaked vessel and beamed in, I would say you would have at tops two minutes before the energy signature was noticed, the team located, and a counter enacted. Now, with the transponder chip from the shuttle, we could possibly piggy back on the signal back to his ship and try shutting down the sensors by getting its transponder codes, if possible."

"I think that takes stealth off the table," Maritza decided. "You said not everyone on board is there willingly. Any chance of having some on our side if we board?"

"To be honest, I am not one hundred percent certain, Captain," Jason said. "I think the best we should plan for is there would be a small handful who wouldn't shoot us or sound the alarm. I am sure if they did help, it would probably be in passive ways. I only saw six unique individuals my whole time there, one of them being the individual who helped me escape. The other five who had guard shifts in the cells would not engage me in conversation, so speculation is all I have on this particular item."

“I’d just as soon not rely on help at all,” Laz agreed, glancing at Annora. She’d have similar, if older, boarding training as himself from her time with the MACO and now security. “Too many unknowns there. If we’re going to board that ship, the team who goes in will be on their own. They’ll need to move fast and they’ll need to be quiet, so I’d think a small strike team is your best bet. Five people at most.”

Caleb nodded. He looked at Annora. “Any update on that Dominion tech that’s been given’ our sensors fits?” he asked her. “Did Engineerin’ ever crack that? Could we work somethin’ up there? Sure would like even one of those things. Ya find any when ya raided Raddon?”

Annora wasn't keen on the idea of boarding the ship. The freighter crews gave them enough trouble, and now they were talking about going up against those with more training and likely more tech. "If we are to go onboard, I agree with keeping the team small. We'd pack less of a punch, but would remain more mobile. As for the sensor scramblers, my understanding is they were installed at key locations. I'm not sure if they would be repurposed for a strike team. My concern would be them using the blindspots to track us through the ship.”

“I agree, as soon as they know we’re there, we’ll be on a tight clock,” Laz observed. “Whatever we can do to give us a longer lead time before detection is worthwhile. If we install sensor scramblers when we board, maybe it’ll take them longer to spot us after they pick up the transporter signal? Turn that two minute window into three?”

"The Breen used EMP weapons in the Dominion war," Jason said. "Do we happen to have anything like that available that could get here in time?"

The Commodore shook her head. "It's a good idea, but we don't have the tech. We have a selection of mines, but those are not adaptable, but there is also the chance they'll be spotted too soon and Xeod will run."

"One question actually just popped into my head," Jason said. "Do we have any idea where he is? It's been eight months since I escaped. He could be in another quadrant, and it would take a month or more to get here."

Caleb glanced at the Commodore, who had been tracking this Xeod and seemed to know more about him.

"Not exact," Commodore Stewart admitted. "He was last seen heading for the Typhon Expanse. He left Jorrett five days ago. Just before you appeared."

"Please, give any other input," Jason said, "but it sounds like the offense is roughly planned out, but there are a few items we can't control in regards to snatching the target off his ship. So, now what about defense? If he thinks we are on the listening post, he is going to try and do his own snatch and grab, or in the worse case scenario, lob a few torpedoes into the listening post."

“Can we install some quick an’ dirty shields on the listenin’ post?” Caleb asked. “That solves the torpedo problem. There won’t be much more than maintenance space available, so small space, he won’t be able ta send a lot of personnel over. Those sensor scramblers could be useful in avoidin’ bein’ detected on the post. They wouldn’t expect it ta be manned, so a blank readin’ wouldn’t be suspicious. A few prepared defenses inside could deal with any beamed in party.”

"It can be done," the Andorian said. "We would also propose subdermal tracking beacons for emergency beam outs, and we also have a system that lets us deploy mines in a matter of seconds, making attempts to escape...ill advised. But beyond phasers, there is little we can do for personal defence."

“I know some tricks we can set up to give any houseguests on the listening posts a kind hello,” Laz said. “I’ll draw the plans up.” He looked at Jason. “Any information you can get me about the layout of that ship beyond the normal would be great, too. My people can be ready to move when the word is given.”

"I wish I could give you more information, Captain," Jason said. "As soon as I was on board, I was escorted to the brig, and when the breakout went down, I was too busy escaping to do any sightseeing. I would just go in expecting the unexpected."

The Commodore smiled at Jason's comments. "Under the circumstances, you've come out with more than we'd expect even for a trained intelligence officer, Mr Haines. For which we're grateful. I think we continue as suggested then. We shall dangle Mr. Haines, with suitable protection of course, out for Xeod on the Xi'cadian listening post. Let it be known that his father is en route to rendezvous. Hopefully this will bring his ship in close enough that we can find it and drop boarding parties on board. We then use mines and air support to stop the ship from going to warp before we've taken control."

“Good,” Caleb said. “Work up a plan of attack,” he instructed. “Let’s see if we can have it reviewed an’ approved by this time tomorrow.”

[OFF]

Captain Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer

Ensign Jason Haines
Live Bait

Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Chief Security Officer

Marine Captain Lazanos Torena
Commanding Officer
21st Marine Expeditionary Unit

Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer

Lieutenant (jg) Natalie Cross
Chief Intelligence Oficer

 

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