Luck, Strategy, Diplomacy (Part II of III)

Posted on Sat May 5, 2018 @ 3:35am by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Liam Reynolds & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & First Lieutenant Gordon Blue

2,284 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Victory Conditions
Location: DS5 Local Space
Timeline: MD 08 1100

Previously on Luck, Strategy, Diplomacy

Caleb turned back to his team. “We’re small an’ outgunned,” he told them. “But we’re quick an’ manoeuvrable. We ain’t gonna be goin’ punching up against the heavyweights. Tessaro, keep track of where ever’one’s at. Ah wanna know as soon as there’s an openin’. Helm, keep us right up on Svikari’s keister, right in her sensor shadow, if ya think yer up ta it. Use that bulk ta mask our approach. She’s the lineman an’ we’re the runnin’ back.”

Deep Space Five cut in with an all ship broadcast. Commanders Soran’s voice came across the radio. "Everyone is in position. You have two hours to defend or take the target. Begin."

And now the continuation

Solstice and McBride swooped forward, aiming to engage the Resolute and Manifest Destiny respectively. Challenger hung in space in front of the small asteroid where the target had been marked and slowly rotated to bear its primary phaser banks at Svikiri and Ararat hanging in her shadow.

“Time ta make the donuts, folks,” Caleb said. “Engage impulse. Helm, pull in behind the big girl. Let’s see how this lady sings.”

"Aye, sir," Amia replied, and moved up as suggested. She moved the ship closer, lined her up with a few tweaks, and then took her closer still. It was a manoeuvre that Cade would have been happy with, perhaps even proud. It wasn't an easy position to hold, given the buffeting they were getting from the impulse draft of the ship in front of them, but it was just a matter of keeping the helm adjusted with precision. Amia realised she was doing it without releasing her breath, and when she stopped instinctively holding her breath, she released it in a big sigh. She would obviously have to practice this a bit more, but it was very rewarding and fun. She finally realised what the appeal had been to her deceased husband when he had been alive, before he gave up the helm to be an executive officer.

The Galaxy class opened fire, shooting out an intense green line, the tracer beam to mark where the real phaser would have been. It pounded into the projected shield wall, illuminating the otherwise invisible field into the visible spectrum.

Annora watched her screen as the opening salvo of the exercise was fired. "Direct hit. Shields down by 10%."

Alanna wished she could see a real reaction to the hit, but she dutifully recorded the effect the weapon would have on the shields and on the space around them. Keeping Liam's comment in mind, she also checked comm interference.

Liam could sense Alanna was thinking about comms. He projected to her, "The shield wall puts out too much interference after sustained use. We have to be able to use that to our advantage."

"Yes, we do. As soon as the interference starts to build, we can piggyback a program on a comm signal and possibly breach the ship."

Monitoring interference for you now. he projected too her. Let me have your program and I'll do the rest


[Jeffery Tube Deep Space 5]

Sitting in the cramped space was not all that bad for a Ferengi who was not all that tall in the first place. It was always nice of the Federation to keep such tidy conduits. The Orions were a nightmare, and forget the Cardies. They shove wiring on top of wiring. The fact he was just two sections down from the main connection panel to the computer made it much harder for him to be tracked.

Two hours... mark, was the text he sent as he changed modes.

The half in advance was all that brought him here as he watched the monitor screen of the padd and the earbud listening to the computer recorder. Now he had to do a little more for the team. He began to run the algorithm for the codes. It was specific, and since it was not station command codes he would break these easy enough. It was just for offices. No one cared really about those entry codes.


***

Blue was monitoring the combat with interest. The major pieces were taking an early aggressive manner. Opening salvos exchanged, and the battle was organized chaos to anyone just coming into the field of view.

"First round casualties, Commander," Blue reported as he monitored the simulated damaged exchange.

“The USS McBride and USS Manifest Destiny have exchanged heavy fire; very aggressive exchange with full broadsides both ways." Blue analyzed the data streaming through. The lines of data below the avatar for the ships read the lowering of power, shields, and weapon capability percentage.

"Both ships have sustained major simulated damage. The Destiny is falling back to find cover. The McBride is more of an open target, with the Koxinga closing to complete the Destiny's work," he relayed. "McBride is vulnerable for the kill, and Koxinga is the advantage," Blue noted, as he could not do much.

Truth be told, the disabled ships were really just bait for their opposing ships to take off more out of pride. Being mutually disabled, Blue wondered what the two commanding officers were thinking. A slug feast this early was always ill advised. In a rugby match, this was two men who have a grudge fighting, the defender using his right to hit the charging team's member, but this was not Blue's fight. He would have allowed a little more squabbling before letting go. This battle was more of a close quarters brawl. The testing of weapon system potential versus experience and numbers.

"This will not take the full projected duration, ma'am, at the rate they are engaging. Both sides have the mentality of it being a test of weapons more so than tactics. In my opinion, they want to show what the newer guns and shields will get them. Call it a fleet brawl more than a war game, in my opinion, ma'am. Two ships in a quick pass considered disabled. They are, as Humans say, slugging it out."

“McBride got too eager, punchin’ above its weight class,” Caleb noted. “Though she did a good number. Prepare a spread of torpedoes. Let’s see if we can’t discourage the Koxinga from finishin’ her off. Fire when ready, but bug out if she tries ta retaliate. We’re just tryin’ ta shake ‘er up a bit.”

As he spoke, the Koxinga came about to give the McBride the full force of its main phaser bank.

Amia saw the Koxinga turn to focus on the McBride and took the offering up of a similar arcing turn to take full advantage of the open flank. With their own ship aligned ready, the next move was for tactical to just give them a full broadside to think about.

Anticipating becoming the Koxinga's next target, Amia kept the position just long enough for the volley to be fired and then flipped back on the arc she had made for herself so she was then going away in the other direction before the Koxinga could respond. If there was to be a response, then Amia could just increase speed and be already on the right course to run for it. She held her position for just long enough and waited, ready.

"Aye, sir, preparing full spread on the Koxinga," Annora, at Tactical, announced.

Calculating a firing solution on the Intrepid class ship, Annora decided on groups of two spread across the port side of the ship.

"Torpedoes away," she announced as she triggered the launch.

The Koxinga’s shields flared and various ducts vented, simulating the heavy impacts the torpedoes would have made. The Intrepid class slowly swung around, looking to swat the mosquito that had annoyed it. The impulse manifests glowed and then it began an attack run straight at Svikiri and Ararat hiding in its shadow, phasers charging to full.

"Commander, how creative can we be in our choice of defense?" Alanna asked.

“Consider this real, Lieutenant. What’s yer idea?” Caleb answered. “We ain’t fightin’ Queensberry rules heah. Gloves are off.”

"If we can simulate venting plasma from the nacelles and then ignite it, we might stop the Koxinga and gain a few seconds of surprise to launch a counter attack."

“Do it,” Caleb said. “We’ll see if it’s foolish enough ta follow through a plasma field.

Alanna nodded and set about the task of expelling pseudo-plasma. The computer quickly adapted to what she was doing. With a push of a button, the computer registered the plasma igniting in a very satisfactory explosion.

“They followin’, or turnin’ back?” Caleb asked. He was answered by a rocking of the ship.

On the sensors, Annora could read that the Koxinga had gotten caught in the leading edge of the plasma as it exploded. It was adrift with multiple system failures. It had only just barely avoided complete incineration. As it was, there would be massive casualties, and it was out of the fight for good.

Alanna grinned. It shouldn't have worked as well as it did. It just showed that no one was expecting anything out of the ordinary from these maneuvers.

“Good job, Lieutenant,” Caleb said with a grin of his own.

"Thank you," she said, although she was well aware that the other ship was being incautious. Still, it was nice that her idea worked.


[Corridors, upper level Deep Space 5]

The lone man, a Human by the look of him, was in a uniform from Ops with a tool case and padd. He stood outside the Special Operations offices, archive section. The tricorder relaying scans to his padd showed that everyone was in the main offices watching the war games like some sporting event. That was okay by him; just made it easier for him.

Codes? the text went out.

One minute, the reply came.


[DS5 Ops]

On the space station, Maritza allowed herself a small smile as Koxinga was forced to drift off out of the area of play. Her officers had had a good idea and made it work and taken out a ship far bigger than themselves. They were a credit to the station.

The monitoring station gave out pings. Leonora Dell looked up. "Challenger has just managed to scrape the Solstice. She's down to maneuvering thrusters, but isn't out yet."

Maritza nodded, and turned to the screen, which zoomed in on the limping Akira class that was spinning slowly to bring its stronger shields towards the Galaxy class that had wounded her.

And then the science station started to blink. "Ma'am, I'm detecting increased levels of gravimetric interference. Hyperonic radiation is spiking."

Soran frowned. Svikiri's weapon had been disabled, like all others, they shouldn't be detecting anything, unless of course the simulation accounted for that. "Verify if that's real, or part of the simulation."



[Offices of Svikari Project, DS-5]


The door opened slower than normal. The man moved in with his tool box and allowed the door to close behind him.

Could use company here. Big repair job, the text went out.

The plan had always been to use the text system; smaller footprint in the data flow, plus short and common words might add a challenge to the detection. A few typed characters are harder to filter than the size of verbal communications, and masked signals can backfire and stand out even more with the programming to hide them being a larger file for a computer scan.

Under twelve words in a data flow and under one hundred characters will be the hardest to get out. It may sound like kids playing spy, at the worst, but nothing to hint at stealing classified information. This seemed the best plan for their communications during the infiltration phase.

Ten seconds, the first reply came.

Counting down to zero, the operations man with the tool box opened the door just as a man in the Engineering uniform colors made a sudden turn and walked into the offices to take up station at the door.

"Let Jen in," the operations man ordered quietly. "I am hitting the hard copies."

With that, the man moved with his box of tricks away from the door.

The remaining four second countdown passed and a blonde female with short cropped hair came through the door in yeoman colors, holding a padd in hand. She continued past him. "Thanks, Dev." She winked. Her job was a small access panel on the far wall.

Dev was now glancing at his watch.

Trouble in the playground, the text came. The Ferengi monitored the feed. Teachers could call off game.

"You heard the man," the leader said. "Get your part lashed down. Hard copies are secondary."

Dev and Jen nodded.

To Be Continued

Commander Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer
DS5

1st Lieutenant Gordon Blue
Marine Commanding Officer
DS5

Lieutenant Liam Reynolds
Chief Counselor
DS5

Commander Amia Telamon
Chief Medical Officer
DS5

Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer
DS5

Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
DS5

Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Asst. Chief Security/Tactical Officer
DS5

 

RSS Feed