LtCmdr Sky Blake, "At the institutional level."

[Deliera Jay]

((Conference Room, USS Veritas))


Rahman: Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve asked you all here because you are the senior members of the crew. In addition, Ensign Zhou is here because he’ll be taking on a new role I’ll explain shortly.

::The was a pause.::

Rahman: We’ve just received word from Starfleet. Astrofori One has been destroyed.

::As the strat ops officer when she first joined, Blake had made it her job to locate ships and starbases that could provide them with immediate assistance should worst case scenario happened. Ships like the Constitution-B, located in the Marchlands were just out of reach, too large to be able to operate at warp here in the Shoals - it'd be like what happened with the Astraeus. That left the closest responders to calls for help back in the Menthar Corridor.

::Sky took a deep breath, processing the information along with the rest of the crewmembers gathered. Kelrod, generally a composed person, was the first to react at high volume.::


Kelrod: WHAT? :: he said in a higher volume that he intended as it was both, he and Marcus who were surprised at the news. He looked at the others and recomposed himself ::

Rahman: The Tholians launched a surprise attack against the station. From what I’ve been told, the station was able to evacuate in time thanks to the sacrifice of two Starfleet vessels.

::Task Force 105, assigned specifically for a Tholian threat, was comprised of six vessels - four of which could get to the Veritas if needed. The Concordia and the Minerva were Veritas class, than you had the Solaris (Steamrunner) and the Stalwart (Defiant).

::The two Starfleet vessels would have been from 105.::

::It was a nasty kind of thing for her to do, but she was now hoping that it was the two larger ships that had been lost, not their closest supporters.::

Kelrod: I guess starfleet will regroup on DSX, it could be their next target.

Delano: Why would the Tholians attack now? A1 has been active for years?

Blake: So has the Montreal, which presumably didn't cross the border into their space and yet still got beat to a pulp for being nearby. Neither of these things make sense.

::She was still a little bitter about the Montreal.::

Anyone: Response?

Rahman: While the rest of the fleet regroups, we’ve been ordered to proceed at once with the Montreal to our next objective. What I’m about to tell you shall remain confined to the senior staff only.

::Ah. Here it is. Tai's "it's above my paygrade" bit of information he hadn't been eager to share.::

Rahman: Several weeks ago, a Starfleet cargo ship, the USS Artemis, embarked on a classified mission to deliver top secret cargo along the Tholian border.

::If a thunder cloud could have made its way above Blake's head, it would have now. Her eyes darkened, only growing more frustrated the more Rahman went on.::

Rahman: The ship however encountered a subspace eddy into their journey, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. The crew—made up of civilians—was rescued by the Montreal during their run-in with the Tholians earlier. The only Starfleet officer aboard the Artemis was its captain, Felicia Nickson, who remains aboard with us. Captain Nickson said that the self-destruct of the ship failed to initialize. As such, we’ve been ordered by Starfleet to find Artemis, recover the cargo if possible, and if not, then finish the job and destroy her. We can’t allow the Tholians to get their hands on the cargo.

Delano: And what is the cargo?

Rahman: Response?

::Ice seeped through Blake's words.::

Blake: You've got to be kidding.

Rahman: Response?

Any: Response?

Rahman: With Commander Mei’konda’s departure, I am immediately naming Commander Delano to succeed him as first officer. Lt. Commander Blake will be taking on duties as second officer in addition to her current role as chief of security and tactical.

::That was brave of them. Given her less than stellar attitude towards nonsense like what they were about to embark on.

Delano: I’ll have the new duty rosters ready for you as soon as I can. We’ll have some gaps to cover, but we should be able to manage.

::Still processing the information about the Tholians, Blake remained eerily silent.::

Rahman: In addition, with the operations position now vacant, Ensign Zhou, you will be taking over as our new operations officer.

Zhou: Response?

Rahman: I’m sure Commander Delano can get you up to speed.

Zhou: Response?

Delano: I’ve been keeping detailed records of the ship’s status since I took the job last year. I’ll make sure you have access to everything you need.

Rahman: All right, we don’t have much time. We will depart immediately to begin our search. Commander Delano, I want you to work with Ensigns Valoru, Teller, and Zhou along with Lt. Commander Moonsong on finding the Artemis. She’s a modified Odyssey class, but that subspace eddy has likely pushed the wreck wildly off course.

::Oh, of course. It completely throws away maximum mass legislation by the Coalition, too. For all they knew, it could be in Tholian territory by now.::

Delano: Understood.

Moonsong: Response

Zhou: Response

Rahman: Commander Blake, I want you to run battle simulations with your security staff and Commander Kelrod.

::Sky's eyebrows raised again, Kelrod opting to speak for her.::

Kelrod: The Tholians are known to operate mostly with small maneuverable ship combined with a few command ships. It will be tricky if they’re on full assault mode. If they get on board, we should use every trick we know. With their suits on they’re hard to take down.

Blake: They're not interested in hand-to-hand combat. They're Tholians - if they can't subdue the ship, if we don't surrender, they'll destroy us - because they have no use for us, none that I can think of at least. The only scenario I see them stepping aboard the Veritas is one where they're transporting us off one by one, and even then, that's a minimal, heavily armored crew that we're just not equipped for.

::Tholians aren't like Klingons or pirates. They have no emotional constructs, literally a "do or die" society. They don't honor good battles, they have no experience of mercy. A Tholian's idea of "mercy" is sending someone to a camp to work for the rest of their known life. The Veritas was not special, and chances were, they'd already encountered a Veritas class starship anyway after the battle of the Menthar Corridor.

::She needed a drink.::

Rahman: Response?

Blake: Okay. ::She ran a hand through her hair.:: I'm going to look into bolstering our shields as well.

Rahman: I’ve just received news that we’ll be getting a new officer, Ensign G’var, who will be joining Ensigns King and Knox as part of your department. Get her up to speed on what’s going on out here.

Blake: Will do.

:: That done, the captain turned her attention to their medical and diplomatic officers. ::

Rahman: I could use you two on the bridge with me to analyze further the situation with the Tholians.

Del Vedova: Response

DeVeau: Response

Rahman: All right, are there any questions?

Delano: I have a few, but it doesn’t sound like we’ll have those answers until we find the Artemis. Will Montreal be joining us, or has Starfleet ordered them elsewhere?

Rahman: Response?

Blake: Do we know who ordered the Artemis into the Shoals? Specifically?

::Even Blake knew that was an unwarranted question, that pure anger and frustration was now driving her. She wasn't generally a hot-tempered kind of person, but here they were again. Facing another Astraeus situation that had gone devastatingly wrong.::

Rahman: Response?

Anyone: Response?

((OOC: Backsim still open))

Rahman: Good luck, everyone. Let’s find this ship and hope the Tholians don’t try their luck on this side of the border. Dismissed.

::Those gathered got up from their chairs. Kelrod approached her as she was walking towards the door, still icy.::

Kelrod: We’ll have time to get ready ‘till we get to the zone.

Blake: That's assuming we find it at all.

Kelrod: I’ll have Holodeck 2 reserved for training during Alpha and Beta shifts, if you agree. This way we’ll have it to train the most of the crew.

Blake: Great. You do that.

Kelrod: Response?

Blake: No. At the moment, I'm not in a fit state of mind to be making decisions about my staff because I'm about to put a foot through a bulkhead for the *institution level of stupidity* I've just found out about.

::Because of the Artemis, the Montreal got away from the Tholians by the skin of it's teeth, and that was against a couple of *scouts* that it faced. Two Starfleet ships held off a fleet to evacuate Astrofori, and even then, it only bought the station a miniscule piece of time before it was ultimately destroyed. If they somehow get onboard this ship? That's it. That's the endgame to Blake. And it all could have been avoided if Starfleet hadn't decided they were going to stick an Odyssey class starship between the borders of the Shoals and Tholian space.

::All of a sudden, the attack on the Montreal made sense. Zhou said they'd been hugging the border when they'd been attacked. The same border the Artemis would have utilized to get into the Shoals.::

Kelrod: Response?

Blake: I'm going to go home, have a drink, and sort out that drill roster. Then I'm going to put in some requests to the Marshals to find out about *every* potential sighting of Tholian vessels, starting with Lieutenant na-Soldim's disappearance last month.

Kelrod: Response?

Blake: What you can do for me is override all holodeck bookings like you said. But it's not just for ship-board combat, it's for spacial as well. ::She stepped into the turbolift.:: If we're going to be blown to pieces by a Tholian ship, I intend to cause some damage first.


Tbc . . .

LtCmdr Sky Blake
Chief of Security
USS Veritas

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