Things Are Looking Up

Posted on Sun Dec 12th, 2021 @ 7:37pm by Commodore Keiben Haistro & Lieutenant JG G'Rani & Lieutenant Commander Junjie Han & Senior Chief Petty Officer Jonathan Stoun

2,885 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 4 - The Fires Of Hades
Location: Operations - Central Core
Timeline: Mission Day 14 @ 1500 Hours

ON

"And then, the two Naussicans grabbed me literally by the scruff of my uniform and tossed me and the other engineer from the bar. I stood up, brushed off my uniform, looked at them, and said, the Whiskey was watered down anyways!" Jon smiled remembering the bar fight. The diagnostic had been running long, probably due to the increased load on the computer core.

"Hopefully once we get some of the crews done with the major repairs, I can get them into fixing up one of the watering holes, I could go for another fight like that at some point."

Junjie listened in to the conversation as he waited on the computer for results.

"Don't worry yourselves too much, We'll get the entire station up and running, including the watering holes", Junjie shook his head.

"Chief what are the odds of hooking up and replacing the Cardassian computer with a federation LCARS and integrating it with the station's systems? So with your skill, you could have it done in say two to three days? If you could do that I'd be willing to part with at least a case of soju."

Jon was broken out of his thought by the request. "Well, the plan is to slowly start doing it a bit at a time, I would hate to crash the system. Any particular system you want to start with?"

Junjie gave a laugh. " How about speeding up the processor where the system doesn't lag so much. I know Cardassian computers are good, but it's lacking by Federation standards. That and it would make things smoother overall being able to keep up with the higher level of demand we're putting on it, That's where I believe we need the first upgrade, do you agree? "
"Among other things, I'll see what we can do, I'm sure everyone would appreciate it." Jon looked over everyone. "Maybe start with the backup systems, then we can switch things over."

Bobby wandered in having caught the tail end of the Chiefs Nassacian story. He wondered if he had weighed less at that point or if the alien had managed to fling him at his current weight. "Why were they upset enough with you to toss you across the bar Chief?" he asked to hope to have some more context on his story.

"Well, let's say that there was a disagreement when it came to a hand of cards, my buddy got accused of cheating, and the poor guy was maybe, maybe fifty kilos soaking wet. So, I stood up, and well, they stood up to, we couldn't come to an agreement, and well, across the bar I went, landed on the bartender, who was also Nausican, got thrown back across the bar" Jon smiled. "Picking myself up after that is probably easier than dealing with these computers."

G'Rani finally stood, her back starting to complain from all of the low-level work she had been forced into completing. Even stood in the engineering pit though she came to the waist off even the tallest officer in Operations.

"I have the ODN relays back online Chief. Check the diagnostics now, it should have picked up the scan rates!"

Junjie was hard at work recalibrating the sensors when he stopped and looked around the area, Something felt off. He shrugged and went back to work, several minutes later it happened again. " Hey, did anyone else notice a slight vibration in the deck plating? I thought I felt something, or is it just me? " or maybe I just need a Raktajino to perk myself up. he thought to himself, not sure if what he felt was real or not.

"I mean, not that I noticed really, a deep vibration thud, or higher frequency vibration like a sonic shower?" Jon turned his head a bit at the inquiry.

He thought a moment. " I would say more gentle like a sonic shower, except I was feeling it through the soles of my feet. " Junjie stopped and closed his eyes for several moments. " Huh.. That's strange, I don't feel it anymore. Maybe I'm just a little tired and need a quick break. How about we all take ten minutes and grab some coffee, we still got plenty of work to do before this place is up to specs. "

"G'rani, what do you think about the LCARS situation, if you were in charge of that project, what would you start with? Jon looked over to the Lieutenant.

"It would mean evacuating the station and having a support craft on hand. Deleting the installed operating system would take about two days, installing a federation OS would then take about three days but between that, we'd have to adapt the base code of the main computer to accept Federation software so I would say we'd be off the station around two weeks in total!"
She flashed a toothy smile at the others. "Not worth it in the long run given how the Cardassian interface is equal to LCARs."

"Yeah probably not, and figuring evacuating the station probably is not in the best interest of the Federation." Jon smiled. "Lieutenant, there is your answer." He paused for a moment while the sensor sweep finished. He squinted and turned back to Han. "You said like a sonic shower huh?"

"I would love a proper one of those right now. Or a decent bath," Minka commented. "Can I add that to my wishlist Chief?"

"If we're talking about a wish list", Junjie spoke up. "Then I vote for a soak in a hot spring followed by a hot pot feast and some soju. Come on, there's got to be more wishes than that. Let's hear some of them".

A console off to the side of the group started to announce something but no one was at the console. G'Rani expertly hoisted herself from the engineering pit and strode over to the science console knowing that as the superior officer in Ops Junie was in command. She slipped down into the seat and started manipulating the console.

"Lieutenant, sensors are sketchy because of the patch but I think we have a vessel incoming!"

Bobby was suddenly around her shoulder and looking at the console. "Can we get that patched to Lieutenant Verona?" he asked.

Junjie got up and went to the science station to look at the newcomer on the screen. " Damn this distortion! Increase the power output and see if we can get a better reading and...." Junjie showed some surprise when he heard the Comm channel beep. They're hailing us! On-screen! "

"If you mean for the tactical systems, they are over there with the Strategic Operations suite of systems!"
G'rani pointed to the area to the side of where Chief Stoun was sitting.

The view screen came on. A bright light directly behind the person provided a black silhouette that stood from the command chair, The silhouette was rather voluptuous as she stood. Her voice had a musical lilting tone as she spoke. "My name is Sare, Would you kindly tell me what you are doing here? " She inquired.

"I'm Lieutenant Han of the Federation...."

She cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "Yes, I can see you're with the federation! I am not blind. I'll rephrase the question. What the hell are you doing at my station? We laid claim to it a few months back and when I return, I find that Voles aren't the only thing infesting my station." She said with annoyance and anger creeping into her voice. "But I'll show some tolerance and give you a week to clear out, Otherwise things will get unpleasant. You and your federation are not welcome here."

"Let me patch you through to my Cap..." The viewscreen went dark and the ship vanished from the sensors. Junjie rubbed at his temples. "Just great! The Captain is going to love hearing about this!" He turned to the crew. "The interior of the ship's bridge looked Klingon in design, Were we able to get a decent sensor reading of the ship?"

"Scavengers maybe?" Jon had started to run sweeps but nothing had come back clear. "Little bit of this, a little bit of that, if they make a run at us, we may have some problems, weapons and defensive systems are still a bit of a work in progress, probably have a better shot of beaming over and fighting them hand to hand. I mean, if they had claimed it, they came out better than what we did when we showed up."

Junjie stroked his chin as he thought. "Ok here's what we know so far. The bridge of the ship appeared to be Klingon in design. The silhouette of the woman in charge did not appear to be wearing a Klingon uniform, and I've never heard a Klingon with a voice like hers. It was too soft." He thought a bit and replayed some of the conversations back and paused it. "A thought has just occurred to me. In the federation, gender doesn't matter to be a ship's captain. In the empire a female Captain is very rare, So we are unlikely to be dealing with Klingons. Scavengers have been suggested. Does anyone else have an idea or suggestions? I'd love to hear it."

"Lieutenant, if I may... The weapons systems are charged on that ship... She is no longer advancing on our position but she isn't retreating either!" G'rani was no science officer and operating the science station was somewhat alien to her but the readings didn't lie. "The Chief has already said we are no match for her right now!"

"My thoughts. They are getting our attention. Putting on a show while they are looking for something," Bobby said darkly.

"Looking for what though!" G'rani hissed knowing full well the station had been trashed when they had arrived. What could they possibly have needed or left behind here that warranted a good old-fashioned stand-off?

"I mean, they are probably betting that we don't have a backup yet, pretty bold to tell Starfleet to leave, trading guild member?" the engineer moved over to the tactical console. "I may be able to overload their systems with a targeted ion pulse, I mean as soon as their systems reset we'd be dead but, would buy us time."

"Send out a hail to the Cerberus, bring the station to yellow alert status, and standby with that Ion pulse", Junjie said with a calm even tone. He tapped his combadge. "Captain Haistro, This is Lieutenant Han. We have an unknown vessel holding at a range of one thousand kilometers. They are claiming that this is their station and want us to leave within one week, nor do they seem in the mood to talk at this time. Han out."

"Acknowledged Lieutenant. On my way!"

Junjie tapped his combadge again. "Lieutenant Han to Engineering, Bring up whatever shields and weapon systems you can in a hurry, we may need them soon. Han out. " He turned and looked to his team. "I don't know what good it will do, but something is better than nothing. We need to delay them for as long as we can before we use the Ion pulse, that's our ace in the hole for right now."

"With respect Lieutenant... Engineering is all around you on a Nor Class Station... Ops acts as Engineering!"
G'rani said knowing that most would be unaware of how a Cardassian design station operated. She stood and started moving from the Science console after instructing Matthews to take the seat and monitor the sensors intently before moving over to the Strategic Operations Suit. "Shields engaged and we have partial coverage. Habitat ring and central core. Transfer bridges one and three are not responding to commands, the generators appear to be offline."

Junjie smiled. " I think I have an idea that might work, But I need the science station to make it work. " He moved swiftly to the Science station. " Excuse me please. " As he took the seat and began to work quickly and checking the input data and the sensor strength. " Ok this is a short term solution and will only last a few minutes. If this is an older Klingon ship, I can do a pulse from the sensors and overload their readouts to make it appear that the station has just come online and is fully operational, We'll hit them with the Ion burst first so they won't be able to detect sensor pulse that will follow. When they recover they'll see a station that is armed and fully ready to fight, at least on their incoming data. " He said with a grin. " Stand ready with the Ion Burst, Let me know when your ready. "

"Aye." Jon moved his fingers over the control panel, taking a few moments to make sense of the Cardassian readouts. "Pulse ready on your order."

Junjie watched as the ship was targeted. " Alright....Stand by and...FIRE !!! " He watched as the ship went dark and started to drift. " Excellent shot Jon! If they're a decent crew they should be able to recover in about twenty to thirty seconds. Junjie pressed the button and sent the sensor burst at the ship. " Well we'll know if our trick worked on them or not very shortly. If it has, I'll buy each of you a drink. If not, it was good knowing you."

"Well, didn't say what size. Reading a few burst EPS couplings on our side of things and a few power grids burned out, but, so far so good." Stoun rubbed his head. "If they don't run we have can get a few shots in but it isn't going to be pretty."

Sare was surprised at the stupidity that these federation persons showed, they dared attack HER? " Report! Damages!! '' Sare called out trying to hide her annoyance and failing. The tactical officer called out. " No damage to report, we were hit with an Ion pulse. All systems coming back online. " " Ion? " asked Sare. " What did they hope to accomplish with that? Time to teach them a lesson for their ignorance. Power the disruptors and target....." MISTRESS!!! " Cried out the sensor operator. " Their shields are at full power and the weapons are charged and ready!! "

"WHAT? HOW?" Screamed Sare. She slammed her fist into the arm of the chair. "I WILL NOT BE DEPRIVED OF MY PRIZE!!" She looked at the screen seething in anger. "Cloak the ship and withdraw. But know we will be back, and then they will pay. And I shall exact my revenge on them with interest. You'll see soon enough." As the ship turned away and cloaked.

Bobby watched on the monitor as they suddenly disappeared. "I believe they cloaked sir. I'm sure they will be back though."

"Probably. Wonder what the play is." The engineer moved to the other console, "Dispatching repair teams to fix the damage."

Junjie let out a sigh of relief. "Well it looks like I owe you all a drink, that was some first-rate work that we can be pleased with. Heck with the bluff we just pulled off, perhaps we should form a poker team." He said with a chuckle. "The only bottle I currently have in my quarters is a bottle of Soju, which I am more than willing to part with, you all deserve it."

"My question..." Keiben stepped off the turbolift as it arrived in Ops. "Who are we firing at and with what are we firing exactly?"

Junjie turned around to face the Captain. "Sir, we were hailed by an older style Klingon ship and the crew on screen was backlighted so as only to give off silhouettes and hide their features. They said that they had laid claim to this station a few months ago and wanted us out, I said I would patch them through to you Sir but they cut off communication and armed their disruptors. We defended the station by firing an Ion pulse at the ship and knocking some of their systems offline followed by a sensor burst that gave them false readings of the station being fully armed and shielded, The hostile ship then turned, cloaked, and departed. Thankfully I can report there was no loss of life or damage done to either the station or the hostile ship. In hindsight there is one thing I should have done, I should have notified you sooner Sir. It won't happen again."

"I trust in your judgment Lieutenant... Well, as you have everything in hand I will go get some of the paperwork I have waiting to get started... Good work all! Let's keep a close eye for that ship in the future though Lieutenant"

"Aye Sir!!" Responded Junjie. He watched as the Captain departed and smiled. "Great job everyone! we survived another day, I appreciate your hard work, dedication and ideas. And I believe you have made us the finest crew in all of Starfleet, I don't care what anyone else thinks because I know it's true." He said smiling.

Keiben smiled to himself as he crossed ops, listening to Junjie and couldn't help himself...
"Let's not get too carried away Lieutenant... To much praise and they'll be wanting a pay rise!"
TAG (Final)

END

 

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