The Neutral Zone

Posted on 29 Apr 2012 @ 12:06pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA) & Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil & Ensign Im'er Mor'an & Captain (HoD) K'nara of the House of Torath (KIA) & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman
Edited on on 30 Apr 2012 @ 12:30am

3,884 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: Klingon Neutral Zone - USS Galileo
Timeline: MD 02 - 2330 hrs

[ON]

As time pressed on throughout the evening, Galileo traveled swiftly across Sector 029, pushing her engines to the maximum to reach her next destination. The past few hours had been full of preparation, with all stations and departments making final arrangements to secure the ship against any potential surprises.

So far the bridge shift had gone rather slowly for John. With the new upgrades in place there was very little in the way of a snagging list for the engineering teams to finish off, and so far nothing untoward had come up on sensors even being this close to the Neutral Zone. The captain's chair was beginning to feel more and more comfortable, in fact he was surprising himself how much he was enjoying his first command position, even though he was acutely aware he would always have plenty to learn before being truly ready for the big chair.

Tapping a few controls on the panel to his right, John saw from the sensor reports that they were getting very close to the Neutral Zone. As much as he would have enjoyed giving the order to cross himself, he knew that it wasn't his choice quite yet.

"Helm, take us out of warp, hold position twenty million kilometres from the border." He called down to the CONN, flying straight into the zone at maximum warp was guaranteed to rile the Klingons, and a shooting match was something that the Galileo would be keep to avoid

Dea input the command to take Galileo out of warp and to hold the ship where the Captain had asked. "Dropping from warp twenty million kilometers from the border." Verifying that they were coming to a stop exactly where they wanted.

"Mr Remington - begin continous scans of the region, if you see even a hint of a Klingon vessel out there, I need to know..."

"For the time being," Remington said, "there's no sign of activity."

Finally, with the basic orders covered, he knew it was time to hand the centre chair back to its rightful owner. Tapping another control on his soon-to-be-vacant chair panel, he accessed the internal comms.

"Commander Saalm to the Bridge"

Inside her ready room, the captain heard her XO's voice echo through the comm and rose from her chair. She grabbed a PADD from her desk and moved quickly out of her office and on to the bridge. Taking sight of her brown-haired XO, Lirha moved next to him. "Report."

"We're at the border with the Klingon Neutral Zone, holding twenty million kilometres from the border...no sign of the Klingons yet but I'd be surprised if they weren't hiding out there somewhere"

Lirha stood quietly as she gazed at the viewscreen, subconsciously analyzing each of the small bright stars ahead of them. The Neutral Zone itself was not so much her concern, as the territory technically didn't belong to either faction. It was a small strip of space no wider than a half light year, yet it was often populated with Klingon warships on constant patrol. Her concern was what would happen once they crossed it and entered Klingon territory.

"I agree." she replied to her XO, then tilted her head to the side for a quick stretch. "Well let's get underway then. No use in delaying the inevitable." she added. "Helm, plot a course into the Neutral Zone, full impulse. Engage."

Nodding to his CO as she returned to command of the Bridge, John turned on his heels and headed back to his own chair, feeling as the ship began to accelerate as the impulse engines kicked in a moment before the inertial dampeners could adjust, a feeling that he had gotten very used to after his length of service in the fleet.

"Aye heading into the Neutral Zone at full impulse Captain," Dea gracefully piloted the ship over the border. Keeping her eyes alert for anything unusual. So far Galileo had been met with relative silence on the Klingon side but she didn't expect that to last forever.

The Nova Class starship passed across the the border and headed for Klingon space. The minutes slowly passed with no sign of resistance, yet the crew remained on edge, uncertain of the unknown but ready for whatever or whoever lay ahead. Thirty minutes eventually passed and Galileo slowly neared the Klingon border when several consoles began to chirp in different alert tones. Lirha looked down at the small display built into her chair's armrest, and tapped several buttons to bring up the external sensor display. She watched as several vessels began to materialize on the screen.

"Captain, I've got two Klingon Bird-of-Prey decloaking ahead. Running extra subspace scans... No other bogies present. They're holding position." And they weren't flanking the Galileo. That was a good sign. It was a show of force, not a planned attack. Not yet anyway.

"Captain, we're receiving a message from the Klingon ship," Remington announced, "They are... demanding our course and authorization codes." He glanced back at the Tarkannan woman at the next station over. "Cadet?" He continued to monitor the sensors, watching for signs of attack from the Klingons.

"They well be sent momentarily," Mor'an said. She found the necessary codes and sent them to the waiting vessel. "Our course and authorization code are en route."

The sudden appearance of two Klingon vessels with so little warning had done nothing to soothe his nerves. Two bird of prey were more than enough to drive the smaller Nova class back over the border into Federation space, and with the sudden disappearance of the Petersham, Commander Holliday was loathe to take any chances.

"Lieutenant" He called out, turning his head towards the Tactical station "Once we've sent out our authorisation codes keep an eye on those vessels, if they look like they're powering weapons get our shields up and prepare to return fire, don't wait for my order"

"Understood, Commander," Kestra replied, concentrating on her console.

The Klingon warbirds waited patiently, observing the Federation vessel while they waited for instructions from Command. Despite their aggressive appearance, the vessels had not shown any signs of aggression and kept their tactical systems on cold standby. Finally, after several long minutes of waiting, one of the warbirds slowly came about and began to head back to the border. The second warbird engaged its impulse engines and maneuvered around Galileo, finally taking up an escort position above and behind.

"The Klingons have accepted our codes," Mor'an spoke from her console, a hint of relief coloring her voice. "They have assigned the IKS Na'vi to escort us."

"Typical Klingons....can't just trust us to get on with it..." John muttered under his breath. He may not have been keen on having to jump through hoops to complete his mission, but he was acutely aware that if the situation had been reversed, he would have insisted on assigning an escort just as much as any other officer in the fleet.

"They're hailing us," Remington said matter-of-factly, "shall I put it onscreen?"

Great, an escort, Lirha thought with a mental sigh. The captain nodded in reply, "On screen." she confirmed, then stood from her chair to face the viewscreen.

The large screen suddenly changed to display the murky interior of a Bird of Prey's bridge, with the captain/gunner's chair elevated in the middle of the dark and hazy room. Atop the chair sat a mid-sized Klingon woman dressed in battle armor. Her features were rugged and her ridges very pronounced, yet she could be considered very attractive by Klingon standards. She sat quietly, staring at Lirha for several awkward moments. The Orion captain nodded politely to her before speaking.

"I'm Commander Saalm of the Federation starship Galileo. We have permission to proceed to Sector 039." she said rather simply. Though usually an outgoing and talkative commander, Lirha preferred to keep talks short and to the point with the Klingon captain.

K'nara studied the captain of the vessel, as if she wanted to look through her. Her fingers itched to impound the ship, but she did not get to be assigned this mission because she was trigger happy. The General trusted her with this sensitive mission. ~Another female~ she thought. "I am Captain K'nara of the House of Torath," she said with typical Klingon pride. Many Federation officers knew that name, as being a major House in the Empire. "I will escort you, do not deviate from your course, or you will destroyed," she stated.

Lirha raised an eyebrow and glanced over at her XO, slightly incredulous at the lack of manners presented by the Klingon captain. She had expected at least some level of rudeness, but didn't expect it to be quite so soon. Keeping with their plan to avoid suspiciousness, the Orion captain swallowed her pride and turned back to the screen. "There is no need for hostilities, Captain, we will comply." she answered while forcing a friendly smile on her face.

K'nara dipped her head, apparently satisfied. A grin... or a grimace, depending on how you viewed it, appeared around her full mouth. Her teeth were remarkedly clean, but of course, one could not be certain from the distance. In any case, she seemed to have gone from threatening to fairly friendly in a split second, which was typical for Klingons. "In that case, we understand each other clearly, Commander," she said and mived her hand to cut the channel, but then halted. "It is curious that Starfleet would send an inexperienced officer such as yourself into Klingon space... Did Starfleet run out of Captains?" she asked, her grin now belied by the condescending lilt in her voice. Then only the screen went dark as she cut the channel, before the other woman could respond. Once the channel was cut, the game over, K'nara nodded to her XO to continue with his previous orders.

The viewscreen flashed as the transmission closed and reverted back to display the blackness of space. Lirha let out a sigh and rubbed her forehead in frustration as she realized she was now dealing with probably one of the most arrogant Klingon captains she had ever encountered. House of Torath..., she thought as she tried to recall the Empire's most recent political affiliations. She turned in her chair towards the blond intelligence chief. "What do we know about the House of Torath? That sounds familiar..." she said as her voice trailed off in thought.

"Yes, the Commander of the IKS D'ama that is from the same House." Evelyn's eyes didn't look away from the image of the Klingon vessel. "Information on K'Nara is limited, from what we do know, she earned her command by killing her predecessor several years ago. As far as we know, K'Nara has several successful engagements under her belt."

With the Klingon gone from their viewscreen, at least temporarily, John decided to turn his atttention back to the more pressing concern of keeping their ship's real mission suitably secret. He knew already that it was going to take every last ounce of strength from all of them to make sure that the objective was suitably met without giving too much away, or losing their ship on it's first journey out of the dock.

"Gotta love the Klingons...they have such a way with words" John joked, aimed not at anybody in particular, but loud enough for most of the Bridge crew to pick up on it.

"Lieutenant Orexil, whats your tactical analysis of the situation....the Galileo against two Birds Of Prey...who would you be betting on?"

Kestra swiveled towards him, her brows drawn together perplexedly. Tactical analysis? she wondered. Two cruisers built for full out interstellar warfare, full of trained and eager warriors, both with high-tech cloaking devices and disruptor cannons versus one tiny research vessel with five torpedoes? Maybe he was just tired. "Sir, with all due respect... One of those ships alone has eleven times the hull integrity that the Galileo has. If they got through our shields - which, realistically, would take only one well-placed disruptor cannon hit, we'd be completely defenseless. They outmaneuver us and can outstrip us in a race. We're in their territory. We don't know how many other ships are cloaked within hailing distance." She frowned, looking back at the console. "One on one, I could figure out a way to get around them; we've got range on them and that's something if we could maintain it - but not between two of them. And you know our escort isn't going to be left completely alone with us."

"That's Plan A out the window then..." John replied. The situation was as he thought, but it was nice to get a second opinion.

The news was a little unsettling to the Commander, he was not used to being in a situation where the raw firepower of his ship would be insufficient to keep the battle from going against him, but this, like many of the things he was learning during his tenure on the Galileo, was something that he was just going to have to deal with.

"Commander Remington - I imagine you know your way around a communications system pretty well? I want you and Miss Orexil to put your heads together and see if we can't come up with a way to even the odds in case this goes sour...I can't imagine it'd be easy for those ships to work together if they can't speak...some kind of jamming program wouldn't go amiss?"

John smirked as he began to formulate his plan, it was something that he had often thought about instigating when it needed to be a less...direct approach to communications jamming. The traditional methods may not have been the most discreet, but sometimes, they were just effective.

Kestra nodded, "Of course, sir. As long as we can test it discretely. They aren't interfering with our mission at present. I'd really rather not give them a reason to use us as cannon fodder."

"I think we can work something out," Remington said with a slight smile. Like the XO, he was not used to being on a tactically inferior vessel, but it provided him a new challenge.

Hopefully, that would give them enough of an advantage to at least slow the Klingons down if battle became the only opportunity, but at the very least he wanted to make sure there was a backup plan in place to make life a little easier. For this one, he knew just the man. Looking over at the control panel adjacent to his own XO's chair, he tapped on the comm panel.

=^=Bridge to Engineering - Chief you free for me to bounce an idea off? =^=

=^=Quinn here Bridge. You know how I love to bounce things.=^=

=^=Excellent...as I'm sure you're aware down there, we've just passed into Klingon space with two Birds of Prey keeping tabs on us....I want you and your boys to come up with a contingency plan in case we need to escape, something along the lines of knocking out their engines for a few moments in case we need to kick our baby into warp rather swiftly....think you and Miss Peers are up to the task? =^=

Quinn looked over to his assistant, then gave a large grin, =^=Aye, I'm sure we can come up with a trick or two, Commander.=^=

=^= Understood Chief, keep me apprised of any developments =^=

Closing the comm frequency again, he turned to his CO. For a moment he had to remind himself that this wasn't his command, and that a good XO knows when to hold his tongue and leave ship's business to the person in charge, however in this instance, John was hoping that Lirha would allow his superior tactical training to do it's thing.

"Just....a few precautions ma'am...just in case"

Lirha gave her XO a nod as she listened to him issue orders. She was impressed with his tactical mindset and his precautions were appropriate, she thought, considering the situation. One of the benefits of maintaining a well-informed crew meant they were knowledgeable enough about the situation to take the appropriate measures to ensure their safety, without her having to oversee every tiny detail. "Very good, Commander." she said, then looked at her conn officer. "How long until we reach Federation territory?" she asked.

"ETA is 39 hours at warp 7, Captain," Dea responded to her Commanding Officer as she checked data being fed to her console.

"Keep us on our original heading, warp seven." the captain ordered, "And try to keep us on course, Lieutenant," she added, "I would prefer not to be destroyed anytime soon." she finished with a grin.

Dea glanced at Lirha with a slight smile, "I do not want to be destroyed anytime soon either Captain." Checking their course. "Maintaining original course warp seven." At the moment they really didn't need any unexpected surprised. Being extra cautious Dea remained vigilant checking Galileo's course and speed as well as other information related to the ship's flight control functions.

Evelyn looked at her comrades on the bridge, especially the First Officer with a confused expression on her face. "Let me get this straight." she spoke up, "Our contingency plan is to jam their communications, and find a way to quickly disable their engines? Now would all of this happen before or after they decided to lock their weapons on us? For if we jam their communications before they even target us, they'll know we are doing it, so we'll be provoking them. If it's after, they don't need to be talking to each other when they're attacking us. As for the Engines, you have the same problem. That is a Chuq'Beh variant Bird of Prey, our shields will fail in the opening assault! Which means by the time we push the button to disable their engines, we'll be boarded."

"I have to agree," Remington added, "if there is any conflict between us and the Klingons... well, we should have some other plan in place that doesn't involve such a great threat to the ship and the mission."

"If anyone has any better suggestions I'd like to hear them!" John replied with a slightly aggravated tone to his voice. He was well aware of the tactical disadvantage that the small Nova class possessed, but hated having to be reminded of it every few moments. At the moment the best plan he had was centered around giving them a few seconds to jump to warp and escape back towards the safety of Federation space and the nearby starships.

"I don't intend for us to stick around long enough for a full on firefight, we just need a few seconds advantage to jump to warp and get the hell out of here before our heads adorn the quarters of that Klingon captain."

"I understand the reasoning, Commander." Evelyn replied as her gaze shifted to Holliday. "My first suggestion would be to make sure the moment we detect their weapons systems powering up we jump into maximum warp. But we need to be ready if between their weapons powering up and us warping out that they get in a few shots. So, my second suggestion is we divert power from the sensor array to the shield grid. Nova class vessels, have the most advance sensor systems in the fleet, which won't be need in combat. Third, in the cargo bay we have several transport inhibitors, lets place them in strategic locations on the ship, to prevent them from beaming in. Also the bonus is since they are operated independently, if we lose power it won't affect them." She then extended her hand gesturing towards the science station. "This is a science vessel, lets see what compounds our science lab has that can be used to our advantage. We can equip a few torpedoes with a container of ionized pyrosulfate and dilithium hydroxyls. We detonate the compound right behind us, it'll mask our warp signature and if explosion happens close enough, clock their Klingon's plasma vents disabling their warp drive for a few minutes."

"Very well, we'll make preparations. Miss Coleman if you would do the honour of liaising with Lieutenant Orexil to deploy our transport inhibitors, and Commander Remington and Mr Quinn should be able to help with arming our....special...torpedoes."

John was appreciative of the extra ideas being passed across to him. The intelligence officer might come across as being a little terse or imposing, but John found that often he appreciated her directness. The rest of the bridge officers were experts in their fields, and by now the XO was more than confident that they would keep their little ship together.

"Begin modifications to the torpedoes," Lirha began, having listened to the bridge staff deliberate possible tactics. "And prepare the inhibitors, but don't adjust our power grid. I don't want any fluctuations in our power matrix which might tip off a curious sensor array." she added, wanting her officers to play a cool hand and not get too overambitious. Though not the most well versed in starship combat techniques, the captain was well aware of her ship's strengths and weaknesses, and she intended to use every resource at her disposal to accomplish their mission.

"I may be able to help with the sensor power," Remington offered, "the modifications Quinn and I made has improved our power flow efficiency for the sensors and engines. With some adjustments I can make sure we are capable of transferring the power from the sensor boost directly to the shields before the Klingons have a chance to respond."

Lirha considered his offer for a quick moment before agreeing. "Agreed." she said, "I want senior officers to gather the required personnel and coordinate efforts. Send someone down to Engineering to notify Mister Quinn." she ordered.

"Well" John said, standing up from his chair and pacing around for a few steps in front of the viewscreen, looking out at the Klingon vessel that had become their escort through the Neutral Zone, hanging in space like a menacing predator, just waiting for them to make the slightest error

"We've got 39 hours to get everything in place....I suggest we get started"

Evelyn watched John rise from his seat and parade in front of the viewscreen, only to repeat the Captain's orders to move. Rising from her seat, Evelyn muttered, "Thank you Captain Obvious." She walked towards Orexil, "You and I will begin to work on those torpedoes."

"And the transport inhibitors," Orexil nodded.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lt Cmdr Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Lt JG Kestra Orexil
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Cmdr. Chauncey William Remington III
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

Captain K'nara of the House of Torath
CO IKS Na'vi

Cadet Senior Grade Im'er Mor'an
Red Squad Intern
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Evelyn Coleman
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Chief Warrant Officer Markum Quinn
Chief Engineer
USS Gaileo

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