The Happening (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 29 Jun 2017 @ 8:45pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Rear Admiral Harold Doolittle

2,474 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - San Francisco, Starfleet HQ, Doolittle's Office
Timeline: MD 08, 0845 hrs

[ON]

Doolittle had now reached the point where he was down to the central figure in this investigation - Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm, commanding officer of the late starship USS Galileo. She was scheduled to meet with him at 0900 hours and it was almost that time now.

The door chime sounded from within the room to announce the presence of Galileo's commanding officer. Standing outside the room's entrance in her Starfleet uniform, the Orion rear admiral tugged on the bottom of her uniform jacket to smooth the fabric over her curvy chest and hopefully eliminate any errant creases. She'd been waiting for this debriefing for over a week, during which the subtle tension had slowly grown and manifested itself into something more.

"Enter..." Doolittle called out when he heard the chime.

With her hands professionally clasped behind her back, the Orion rear admiral entered the room and allowed the door to swish shut behind her.

Hearing the door open, Harold looked up to see the person he expected - Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm. Slightly shorter than her younger sister but no less imposing because of the way she seemed to carry herself. She seemed to project an air of authority and that was something he could appreciate.

"Come in Admiral," Doolittle said as he rose from his chair and extended his hand across the desk to her. "A pleasure to meet you although I wish it had been under better circumstances." With the others, he had been a bit more officious and authoritative but she held a rank equal to his own and he felt that called for a few pleasantries in this situation.

Saalm took several steps forward into the room and extended her green hand to the other admiral in the traditional Human form of pleasantry and acknowledgement. "Admiral," she acknowledged with a respectful nod and a small, yet forced smile. Doolittle was, of course, a known name within the ranks of most Starfleet captains and OPM officers, but for Lirha, this was her first time meeting the man. His balding head and short frame seemed to radiate experience and authority while his blue eyes conveyed a sense of competency and devotion to duty within the Starfleet ranks. "It is a pleasure as well," she added. "I assume you have many questions for me, yes?"

"I do have several question for you indeed," Doolittle responded. "But first, please have a seat. May I offer you anything from the replicator?"

She shook her head lightly to decline the offer and her dark ponytail bobbed lightly across the tips of her shoulder blades. "Thank you but no," came her brief reply while she took the back end of the chair in front of her and pulled it out to sit as requested. She didn't have much desire for any food or drink at the moment, especially since she'd had an early breakfast in anticipation of this meeting. Pleasantries aside, she'd been more focused on her own personal logs, personnel manifests, and mission dates in the hours leading up to her arrival at the rear admiral's office.

"As you wish..." he said before glancing down for a moment to the PADD he held before once again focusing his attention on her. "I don't believe in 'beating around the bush' as the saying goes, so let's get down to cases. Tell me about your mission. Why were you in the Paulson Nebula?"

She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. "Galileo had just completed an assignment on Celes III, escorting USS Semmes to the planet and assisting with the colonization efforts," she began. "After departing the surface on stardate 68951.8, we set course for Starbase 234 for standard stores replenishment and personnel transfers. Our vector took us within several light years of the nebula during our trip, which is when we received a low-band subspace distress call. That was stardate 68971.0, about seven days after we'd left the Celes system. It was a faint signal but our Ops and Science teams were able to clear it up and determine its origin within the outer layers of the nebula. That's also when we discovered that the signal was transmitting on an old Federation frequency." She paused and gave a light shrug. "Our starship was the only one in the vicinity which meant we were obligated to assist. I ordered a course change to investigate the signal and render aid."

"What precautions did you take before taking the Galileo into the nebula?" Doolittle asked. "I know that sensors are not very effective inside a nebula but what about outside it? Did you make sure that no other ships were lurking anywhere near your area? What, if any, sensor sweeps did you order performed before you entered?"

Precautions. Considering the circumstances of the distress call's location, she didn't think there was anything she'd omitted in her initial preparations. "We maintained standard protocol for investigating such a signal," she started to answer. "That included both long and short-range scans of the surrounding areas. The crew was briefed and the senior officers and I devised a plan of action to help better locate the signal. The Paulson Nebula is classified as a H II region and we knew navigational sensors would be severely impaired once we entered. One of our junior officers -- Ensign Alexander -- proposed the idea of configuring and deploying autonomous mini-probes ahead of our starship to boost our nav data. I thought it was an excellent idea and instructed him to proceed."

"So you sent out sensor probes in advance, rather like cat's whiskers?"

Doolittle thought for a long moment. The idea they had employed had been a sound one - in theory. If only it had prevented what he now knew had happened. He knew what the answer would be to the question he was about to pose, but for the record he had to ask it anyway. "And just what were the results of the scans from those probes, Admiral...?"

"They were effective in locating the source of the distress call within the outer edge of the nebula." Lirha began to discretely play with one of her thumbs in her lap while she explained their entry into the dense, gaseous cloud. "We discovered the device that was transmitting was not a starship, but instead an independent beacon. Most likely launched from SS Recluse, the same vessel its transponder matched. When we located the beacon, I sent out a standard all-frequency hail stating our presence and intention to assist. There was...no reply," she said. "At that point, I ordered a narrow-band sensor sweep for any decaying impulse ionization trails -- anything that might lead us to the vessel itself."

"And what did those scans reveal?" was his next question.

"The freighter. We located its position and closed to investigate. When we arrived, it seemed to be adrift but the hull was intact. Our engineers revealed several heat blooms from its reactor compartments...a sign that there were possibly people still alive on the vessel. Transporters weren't an option with all the nebula interference scattering the targeting scanners, so I ordered Galileo to dock with the vessel and deployed search and rescue teams." Saalm vividly recalled the events in her head as if they'd just happened yesterday. What had happened next, caused her to let out a soft sigh.

"While we maneuvered into position, we continued to hail the freighter. But we realized our hails were not being received because they were being actively jammed," she revealed. "Ops determined it was multi-directional in nature. It was...at that time that I ordered the crew to Red Alert. And it was our first encounter with the general named Ko'raH of the House of G'Iogh."

The fact that she had been willing to bring her ship in to dock with something that was completely an unknown situation gave Doolittle reason to stop and think. Why risk your ship and entire crew on an unknown?

"I know I'm speaking with the benefit of hindsight now," he said slowly, "but rather than taking your ship and entire crew into an unknown, wouldn't the better course of action have been to send a shuttle or runabout with a boarding party to dock with the freighter? At least until you knew what you were up against?"

Inhaling slightly, Lirha nodded at the question to convey her understanding. She, too, would probably have had the same initial question for any captain serving under her operational command. "I considered it, as well as the use of transporters. But the Paulson Nebula's unique properties made it difficult. Ambient EM interference was so severe that it affected our transporters' targeting scanners and data links. The same with our auxiliary crafts' navigational arrays...none of them were near as powerful or sophisticated as Galileo's...even we were struggling to safely maneuver and find our way. I decided the use of transporters was an unsafe option, and the use of shuttlecraft even more dangerous. As you know, admiral, precision maneuvers such as docking leave no room for error. In my judgement, I felt my vessel was the best-equipped to perform such a maneuver considering our sensor capabilities."

"Given the same circumstances I would have probably done the same thing," Doolittle admitted. "How long after you found that the distress call was faked was it that you were attacked?"

She thought back to the encounter several months ago and tried to recreate it in her head. The sequence of events remained with her, but the concept of time had slowly eroded over the past many days. "Minutes. Maybe less," she answered. "Commander Wiggins hadn't even arrived at the airlock with his teams before we received the hail demanding our surrender."

"The reports indicate that you were first attacked by a B'Rel class warbird. What were the subsequent ships that attacked and how many were there?"

"At least four," Saalm remembered. "One battlecruiser and three Birds-of-Prey." It felt like it had been a lot more considering how quickly they'd overwhelmed her starship's defensive tactics."

"And how long after their initial attack did it take them to disable you? If you would, take me through exactly what happened, step by step."

"Less than a minute," she recalled. The battle had been intense, and much to her displeasure, had been completely one-sided. "Ko'raH -- the general -- demanded our surrender in a hail immediately after I ordered the crew to action stations. I refused. Such a demand was unwarranted and their unauthorized presence in Federation space was in direct violation of the Second Khitomer Accords." Saalm thought back to his reply to her refusal, or lack thereof.

"There was not much time to react," she continued. "The general quickly cut off communications with us and his task group took up attack formation. They began to fire on us and I ordered evasive maneuvers in an attempt to escape under the cover of the nebula. We started to take damage, first hull breaches on the mid decks, then main power went offline. The warp reactor and shields went offline when one of their warships destroyed our port nacelle. And then...they began to board us."

"How soon after they boarded you did you order abandon ship?"

"Five minutes. Maybe less," she answered. "Once we lost warp reactor containment and jettisoned the assembly, we were crippled. There was no choice but to get the crew off the vessel as fast as possible."

Doolittle looked down at the PADD he was holding and frowned a bit. Then looking back at Saalm, he fixed her with a direct look. "According to the reports, and based on what I've been told by some of your crew, you were reported as missing and some, including your own sister Nesh, thought you to be dead as they believed you had remained aboard the Galileo when it was destroyed. Please tell me how you managed to survive."

Lirha thought back to her order to abandon ship and the immediate sequence following it. Thoughts of ordering the self-destruct sequence and Alexander's participation flooded through her mind, and not in a pleasant manner. "I initiated the self destruct sequence with the help of Ensign Alexander. As acting Operations Manager, he was the senior-most officer left on the ship after I'd ordered the evacuation. With the raiding parties still on board, I couldn't let the vessel and its computer core fall into their hands." She paused for a short moment to reflect on what she remembered.

"After we both initiated the protocol, we made sure all of the lifeboats were off the ship. I remember...watching the timer count down and knowing it would be the end of my life, and those of my unborn children." She swallowed a small lump in the back of her throat as one of her green hands instinctively reached to her flat abdomen. "And then, I thought I died." she said bluntly, staring into Doolittle's eyes with conviction. "All I remembered was being consumed by bright light, and then everything went dark. When I came to, I was in a dark room on the colony. They told me I had been transported at the final moment before the auto-destruct charges had detonated, but because of my previous injuries during the initial attack, I was unconscious."

"So you have no memory of how you left the ship?" It was a rhetorical question and he did not expect an answer from her as she had said she was unconscious. But that begged for another question to be asked. "What happened to Ensign Alexander? Did he or any others of the crew opt to stay aboard the Galileo as opposed to being captured by the Klingons?" He had heard of this happening in other instances in the past.

She thought back to the young ensign and the courage he'd shown by insisting to stay at her side to see the self-destruct sequence through. It'd been a heavy weight on her shoulders ever since she discovered that he hadn't made it off Galileo alive. That she had somehow survived and he hadn't -- as a result of the Kreanans selective transporter targeting -- was very difficult for her to process.

"He perished with Galileo," came her soft reply after a long moment's pause. "A couple of the crew wanted to stay with me, but I ordered them all to evacuate. I...didn't think I would survive. That it somehow happened to me but not Alexander, is very hard for me to deal with."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

RADM Harold J. Doolittle
Starfleet Bureau of Personnel
Starfleet Command

RADM Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

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