Lt Jovenan – Ides of March dawns on Romulus
Jovenan
((Turret, Ki Baratan, Romulus))
((OOC: Jovenan doesn’t pay attention to all the conversation downstairs, so I’ve omitted some of those lines. Please remember the tags in Gila’s sim. Also, I know that Ides of March was yesterday. Let’s pretend the title makes sense anyway.))
It had been nearly miraculous that they had been able to cheat their way past the guard post. But, as much as she would have wanted it to, their mission had not ended there, and they were spiralling towards either a failure or one of the most heinous act Starfleet had ever committed. As the wide skyline of Romulus spread all around her behind a transparent dome of the turret, Jovenan studied the screen of which she understood only a little and hoped to find the right buttons to press.
Jovenan: There are plenty of ships on the orbit or approaching the planet. Let’s see if we could ::click:: Oh, we get identification information of each vessel! Do you know what kind of a vessel the Senator would be using?
Adea: I imagine some kind of diplomatic vessel - perhaps there was one that left an escort in orbit? Look for a vessel that broke away from a well-armed pair or trio of ships before starting to come in.
Nodding, Jovenan focused again on the maps, produced apparently by combining data from several sensors on the planet and in the orbit. Tracing with a finger, she tried to find ships that would be travelling with obvious armed escorts. Before she could do that, she had to address one more issue to Genkos, seated next to her studying the weapons system.
Jovenan: We’ll also need to cut the connection to the planetary defence command network and breach the firing control lockout. And, um, there’s also the thing… Do you happen to know how to shoot this thing, sir?
Turning her eyes to him, she noticed that he had given her a grin. Jovenan couldn’t tell if it was a confident or cocky grin.
Adea: Sure thing, it’ll be like falling off a log. ::he called down:: Sadar, Gnai, how’s the frame job going?
Falling off a log? Jovenan wasn’t sure what that expression meant. Perhaps she’d need to rehearse her Betazoid more often as well. Hopefully it meant the task was easy, though falling off from anywhere was no doubt negative. Focusing on the sensor readings again, she kept an ear open for the reports from the lower level.
Gnai: Progressing well, sir! The Romulans will certainly believe that this was a Dominion attack. ::quietly, to itself:: Hopefully.
Sadar: I’m working on a solution to our door-issue, Sir.
The two junior officers seemed to have everything under control for now. Jovenan wished she could have said the same. Finding the correct ship would have been so much easier if she had learnt any of the Romulan alphabets. Was that one d’Deridex class? Probably not, but it was also the only class she remembered by name. Ugh, why did the ship have to move? It would have been so much easier to just pinpoint a location on a map she had already studied before.
Adea: Fabulous, now see if there’s a way to disconnect the planetary defense network. Perhaps a few cables that can be pulled out?
Gnai: ::calling up to the second landing:: Was that an order to Lieutenant Jovenan?
Hm?
Jovenan: I don’t think we can do it from up here, at least not easily. The hardware seemed to mostly on the lower level.
Adea: Response
Sadar: Beyond breaking into the turret wiring itself, we have few access points down here, Sir, but we’ll see what we can do.
Nodding – despite the others likely not seeing her from the other landing – Jovenan resumed with her task of finding the Senator’s vessel. Her only information of his vessel was that it was supposedly approaching Romulus, though she wasn’t entirely sure if they should trust Romulan news reporting to be accurate. His envoy might even keep their cloaks up for as long as they could. For as distrustful (not paranoid; their suspicions were well reasoned as the history had revealed) the Romulan Senate was when insisting all ships approaching them to identify themselves, Senator Vreenak must have countered them with paranoia only to follow such orders and not a centimetre more.
She rubbed the point of one of her fake ears. She barely registered the weird pressure on her skin as caused by the prosthesis applied onto her face.
Jovenan: Ugh. I don’t think any of these ships matches what we’re looking for, unless they’re trying to float around the orbit to fool us. The Senator’s vessel might still be under cloak for all we know.
Adea: Response
Gnai: ::turning its speakers up to call to the second level:: Perhaps opening panels could better sell the lie that this was the Dominion. The Dominion are likely unfamiliar with the technological systems outside of the Gamma Quadrant?
Jovenan peeked from the second level down to the Ensign, or rather its suit, still donning the robotic disguise.
Jovenan: Yes, sounds good. Just don’t pull out anything important until after we’ve hit them!
Adea: Response
Turning back to the screens, Jovenan’s eyes caught something. She had run through most dots that she had figured might represent the Senator’s ship, yet now, not far from the edge of the sensors’ reach, a few dots had remained uninvestigated. For a moment she wondered if she had simply missed the dots, omitted them from being looked on by some lapse in her judgement. But then she realised that the ships must have appeared there when she hadn’t been looking – they had decloaked.
Jovenan: Sir, look at this. ::points:: These ships decloaked just a moment ago. One smaller shuttle, with flight plan to Ki Baratan, and two larger, um, warbirds I think, following its course but staying behind. Could this be our… our target?
Adea: Response
The mental alarm level rose in Jovenan’s mind as the Commander’s words hit in. The entire mission, the entire future they knew relied on their actions in the next few minutes. They would complete their objective, or they would fail and suffer the consequences – either way, a few minutes, and the die would be cast. And they still had much to accomplish should they wish to avoid the dystopian future of Dominion controlled camps on Betazed.
Jovenan: ::to downstairs:: We’re going to need the firing controls as soon as possible now!
Adea/Gnai: Response
Sadar: ::grumbles:: We should’ve replicated tricorders… ::pulls open one of the loose panels:: Security and Network Connection, Security and Network Connection, Security- Aha!
Jovenan kept tracking the shuttles movements. It had slowed its speed, but it had also broken the orbit and was already in the upper atmosphere making decent into the sky above them. Her heart was racing, the anxiety, tenseness and the ever-present moral voice beating her head from within.
Jovenan: Target entering the firing range in less than five minutes!
Adea/Gnai: Response
Sadar: I’ve found something that looks like a Communication interface. Considering the lack of a personnel element, it likely links this turret to other Defensive infrastructure in the city.
Jovenan kept staring at the dot moving across the screen, Romulan numbers running lower as they measured the vessels altitude from the ground during its decent. She pressed buttons she barely understood, trying to convince the machine to focus on the shuttle with an equal intensity she did.
Jovenan: I’m not sure if I can establish a lock on the shuttle. I’ll keep trying, but you might need to shoot with only the targeting sensors.
Adea/Gnai: Response
Sadar: I wish Lieutenant Yellir was with us right now… ::loud voice:: Standing by to disconnect. ::to Gnai:: Ensign? Please see if you can locate any failsafes. We should make sure the turret can’t compensate when I manually disconnect it from the other nodes in the system.
Adea/Gnai: Response
The dot moved across the screen and entered a bubble around their current location. Jovenan wished the officers on the lower level had had the time to find the way disable the lockout.
Jovenan: Target in the firing range! We have only a few minutes fire the shot or they’ll reach the shields around the Government Quarters!
Adea/Gnai/Sadar: Response
As soon as the communications and other connections to the defence network were disabled, the turret’s own systems reacted as one would expect a ship computer to do when gaining damage to a critical system; the slightly green hue of the lights turned bright, pulsating purple, and the alarm klaxon rang almost deafeningly loud. Red alert, no matter the species and culture, was always enough to cause a heart to skip a beat. No doubt the security outside the door would hear the alarm as well and act accordingly.
On the screen, the sensor readings also disappeared as they could no longer reach input by the planetary grid, leaving Jovenan and Genkos mostly blind. However, new screens lit up with data, seemingly from the gun core that had begun to whirr in anticipation of fulfilling its purpose.
Jovenan: We have the weapon’s control, but we’ve lost the sensors!
Adea/Gnai/Sadar: Response
Raising her eyes off from the screen, Jovenan looked through the transparent dome into the city. Over the circular citadel in which the Hall of State stood, in the sky, a vessel broke through the thin layer of clouds.
Jovenan: There!
Adea/Gnai/Sadar: Response
After following the vessel with her gaze, Jovenan looked down at Genkos, sitting on the control chair. She wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, to show support at the task, difficult in multiple meanings of the word. She opted to let him focus without her distraction.
It was all up to a single shot now.
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11