Commander Jo Marshall - In Blood and Benamite (Part IV)
Jo Marshall
((Dockyards, Orbital Ring))
Metal and blood tended to taste similar when stuck in the senses, and impossible to spit out. Jo wrinkled her nose as she looked up to the colony planet veHrom’nagh turning slowly above her head, as slow as an old warship pivoting under its own weight. The orbital ring stretched out below her boots like a ribbon of forged steel, curling around the equator. Smoke drifted upwards in dark spirals from the far dock, blurring and smearing the clean lines the orbital ring made. It stank, too. Scorched plating and burnt insulation made for an acrid tang on the tongue, clinging to the air, to her hair and her uniform, no doubt. It likely wouldn't come off without taking some flesh with it.
Chunks of debris floated away from the orbital ring; some towards the planet, vaster chunks out into space, shards of the torus and ship fragments, half a shuttle, cargo containers, and dock sections and pylons. Jo felt a sinking feeling take over her in the pit of her stomach as she realised gravity felt an awful lot like a suggestion from where she was standing.
Teams moved fast. Klingon local enforcement officers in bold blood-red armour, Starfleet officers in clean black and gold, and none looking particularly thrilled to be there. Jo caught more than one glare—a sliver of bared Klingon teeth, a twitch of a curled lip, a hand resting a little too deliberately on the hilt of a daqtagh, an attempt at an unspoken boundary. Klingons had their own kind of theatre.
Stretchers thudded past, boots hammering in step. Tarps covered broken bodies, what was left of some. Those who retained the function of life and breath, lucky ones, were carried to medical teams who worked with a grim, steady urgency Jo knew all too well in crisis situations. Prophets, they'd been there before.
Tahlira and Vylaa were nearby, preparing themselves for the next stage of Federation involvement—for whatever was about to pass as "Joint Operations"—when Jo approached, she spoke quietly to the two of them. Not that she needed to. Everything happening around them was loud enough to cover it anyway.
Marshall: Looks like the party's started without us. ::She gestured towards the Klingon Security with a slight tilt of her head over one shoulder.:: They're none too happy we're here.
Of course they weren't. With their honour bruised and reputation threatened, Starfleet poking around in their mess only made it worse. Their Governor's orders had put them side-by-side, working hand-in-hand while his arm was in a figurative sling, but Jo could feel the rippling tension in the air, prickling sharper than the static.
zh'Tisav / Deyari: Response
Marshall: I'm not expecting them to help much. Can't be easy for them, having Starfleet come in to figure out what's happened. ::Bringing up her PADD, she tapped a few commands and sent another file through to both officers.:: The cargo manifests are interesting. Take a look. Tonnes of benamite have gone up in that blast.
A resource worth more than latinum, worth more than most ships in the orbital dock, evaporated in an instant with the rest of the docking pier. No one could "misalign" a containment field like that, and no engineer worth their space salt confused a maintenance run with blowing a half a dockyard to Sto'vo'kor. Not unless they'd swapped their brains for a brick. Answers were, undoubtedly, still buried in the wreckage.
zh'Tisav / Deyari: Response
Marshall: It's pretty unclear who lit the match, so to speak. All we know is the maglocks disabled and the containment ruptured. Security says they've managed to pick up something from the maglocks we should take a look at. ::She nodded again, this time further up the dock where vented smoke rose.:: It's not much to go on, but it's as good a start as we're going to get.
zh'Tisav / Deyari: Response