Bre'el Comms
Posted on 08 Dec 2017 @ 10:37am by Captain Akio Tachibana & Lieutenant Commander Darren Marian (Dec-Jan 2389 - WIA-TRNSFR to XFY Medical) & Lieutenant Nimh Ahressa (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR, Bre'el Dip. Msn.) & Lieutenant Tyler Fallon (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR, Bre'el Dip. Msn.) & Lieutenant Junior Grade Jula Danz (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR, Bre'el Dip. Msn.)
Mission:
He ho'omaka hou 'ana - A New Beginning
Location: Bridge - Deck 1
Timeline: 27 Dec 2388
These new watches were wreaking havoc on Ahressa's circadian rhythms and just general well being. Also, her bones. Then again so had the standard duty shifts, because she was not used to any of them in any of the standard manners.
Nimh was used to sleeping when she could, eating when she could and mostly working all other times. Maybe on occasion she'd relax, indulge herself. Maybe.
So when she entered the Bridge at 07:00 she was still working the creaks out of her joints. Her hair was braided into a bun today, several small side braids gracing the sides of her head, also tucked into the bun.
"Morning everyone," she greeted as she stepped onto the Bridge, projecting a raring-to-go attitude. "Anything to report?"
The Junior Officers were conducting turnover with their counterparts. Section 1 was one of the more undesirable shifts... on watch from 0100-0700 and then work from 0700-1300.
"The only thing was this communication, ma'am," the Ensign at OPS reported as he passed a PADD to Ahressa.
Message follows and was received by OPS around 0300 via audio:
"Bre'el IV to USS Hawaii, we do not want any part of this war. Please keep your distance."
Message repeats.
"This message came in four hours ago, Ensign Lees." Ahressa's eyes narrowed as she read the communication." Her tone went very formal and cold. "Why was this not reported to Command immediately?"
Lees swallowed hard. He didn't want to rat out the Officer of the Deck (OOD), yet his eyes betrayed him.
"Ma'am, a decision was made to just log the incident since the senior staff was coming on shift soon," Lees tried to explain.
Hearing the discussion, the OOD, a LTJG, strode over to the OPS station. Currently, LT Nimh was the senior most officer as the Captain had not reported yet. He wanted to make sure everything was fine with turnover and to see if she wanted to take the bridge until the XO or Captain arrived.
"Lieutenant, why was this communique not reported to the XO and the Captain when you received it?" Ahressa turned to the OOD then, her eyes hard.
"Ma'am, we did not want to wake up the Captain nor the Senior Staff over a vague communication, especially when you were coming on shift so soon," the LTJG responded.
"You are aware that we are flying best speed towards Bre'el, geared for war, right? So, what logic were you following when the message that keeps repeating, 'stay away, we wan't nothing to do with you' kept coming in on a repeat cycle? Tell me, was this a broadband communication, or was it aimed at us specifically?" Ahressa waved the PADD a bit as she clamped down the urge to yell at the Lieutenant.
The Lieutenant was just a pilot. This was his first shipboard posting and did not even consider the implications the Operations Chief was now discussing.
"Ma'am, it did not seem like a threat, if that's what you're inferring. At our speed, we can still adjust course if necessary. We have not fully analyzed the message yet; however, from our initial assessments it seems directed at us. We just thought this was a standard warning due to the war condition. Like, declaring neutrality," the OOD attempted to explain although he could almost see the Bajoran's eyes become more piercing with every word. He knew just by her look he messed up.
"Even if that is the case, Lieutenant, you notify Command immediately, is that clear?"
The OOD straightened up, "Yes, ma'am."
"Danz, get the Commanders up here, now and your Chief. They will need to hear this immediately." Ahressa ordered. "I have the Bridge, you are relieved Officer of the Deck."
The young man was in for a dressing down later. Now they needed to address this concern first.
"Aye, ma'am." Jula nodded. "Danz to Captain Tachibana, Lieutenant Marian and Lieutenant Fallon, please report to the Bridge immediately."
"I stand relieved," the OOD saluted Nimh and departed as fast as his legs could carry him. Ensign Lees took the opportunity to also depart.
"Tachibana to Danz, on the way," Akio replied. He was conversing with some crew in CIC and observing the setup.
"Waiting on the lift. Be up in just a minute Danz." Tyler replied as he waited for the lift to arrive.
Akio hated to show up during shift change, even though he knew he was the Captain now. Based on his experience, he just felt that showing up during shift change caused all sorts of headaches as the crew was apprehensive that command's eyes were watching and Akio also felt like he had to jump in. When he was XO, he had to basically keep his mind in reports and ears closed to prevent jumping into business he didn't need to be involved in yet.
Akio felt it was much better for all parties if the Captain arrived just after shift change. Plus, it allowed him to converse with other crew and for Akio to just get the latest report as opposed to a developing report throughout shift change.
"Captain on the bridge!" a Lieutenant announced as Akio entered.
"As you were," Akio said as he strode over to Danz and Nimh. "It sounded urgent, is everything alright?" Akio asked, relieved that the bridge crew seemed intact. Red alert was not sounded so he was concerned there was an incident with one of the crew members.
"Sir," Ahressa had been leaning over the Ops station, studying the communication analysis and had turned to face Akio as he stepped onto the Bridge. "We've received a communique from Bre'el IV you're not going to like." The bajoran spared no time and handed the man the PADD with the message.
Darren had been in his office filling out reports on their journey thus far when the call to the bridge came through. Moments later he stepped out from the turbolift and walked to where the Captain and OPS chief were standing. "What's going on?" he asked, glancing concernedly at the other two officers.
Akio handed Darren the PADD that Ahressa handed him as Tyler also joined the group.
"This message came in over four hours ago, Lieutenant. Why weren't we notified?" Akio asked as he started scanning the bridge for the OOD or some officer from section 1, yet the previous shift had already turned over.
"The message was not interpreted as hostile and was as such logged for my review when I took the shift." Ahressa explained.
"It might not be overtly hostile, but I'd say its a pretty clear warning. I'm getting a sense of an implied 'or else,'" Tyler noted after studying the message.
"I expect a verbal counseling at least," Akio stated to the two senior Lieutenants, as he paused to look up who was on section 1 watch last night "for Lieutenant Junior Grade Dougherty, who was the OOD, and Ensign Lees who was working Operations. This is a training issue on our part, Lieutenants, and for the junior officers, it is a failure to recognize a potential threat, and Operations should have pressed the issue and not have fallen into groupthink."
Darren felt shame flood over him as he saw the message. How could this not have been reported? He straightened as he turned to Commander Tachibana. "Captain, I will find Lieutenant Dougherty as soon as we've dealt with this and personally make sure he gets a refresher course on proper starship procedures." He looked over to Nimh. "I also assume you will handle the people in your department who are responsible for this oversight, Lieutenant."
"I don't think it is a matter of process per se, rather knowing what is and is not important to route up," Akio commented.
"I fully agree with you, sirs. However, I cannot fully blame the OOD nor the Ensign. They are trained to assess clear threats and order of importance along a clear scale," Ahressa offered, "this is hardly a clear scale and not an openly threatening message. Should they have connected the dots? Yes. But that is also a matter of experience, which currently we have and they don't."
"I don't expect this to be the last instance of inexperience, unfortunately. We must do our best to prevent these instances despite the age old problem of passing down experience to juniors," Akio lamented.
Akio felt like he kept his temper in check pretty well, yet could still see slight embarrassment in the eyes of his Bajoran OPS Chief and XO. Just being the senior officers, Akio recognized they were taking responsibility for the failures, a sign of leadership.
Darren shook his head. "This is absolutely unacceptable." He raised his voice so the whole bridge could hear clearly. "Now hear this: Mission critical information such as the report received here will be reported immediately to command officers no matter the time, is that clear? I don't care how late it is. This is a starship, not a kindergarten." He knew this shift wasn't responsible for the mishap that had occurred, but the fact that it happened showed an obvious flaw in their crew's understanding of proper procedure. He made a mental note to send a memo to all departments later requiring special training for proper incident reporting.
Akio appreciated an XO like Darren. It was common leadership training and expected that the XO was the enforcer of the Captain.
Ahressa however felt that Marian was perhaps over achieving in his command display. In her mind, both Dougherty and Lees had understood where they had made their mistakes. It was quite clear in their expressions.
"Sir, judging by the spike in embarrassment and tension I felt on the way up in the turbolift, I think it safe to say that Lieutenant Nimh has addressed the issue sufficiently already. Further discussion of the topic with the Lieutenant and Ensign would be, what humans call 'beating a dead horse'?" Tyler offered.
"I will leave that up to the discretion of LT Nimh and LT Marian. They know my expectations and I am not sure what was said to the previous watch section before I arrived. As long as a verbal counseling is given on this matter, I am satisfied," Akio explained. He appreciated Tyler's observations, yet Akio was not sure if he needed a command parrot aboard the ship.
"Turning to the substance of the message, what are our assessments overall? Is it a threat, should we change course?" Akio asked in succession.
Darren looked again at the contents of the PADD before answering. "Sir, we still have a day before we reach Bre'el. I recommend we immediately open diplomatic channels and begin negotiating. Of course, by law we can't technically force them to help us if they aren't willing. But we can try to reason with them, make a case as to why this conflict affects them."
"We have less than 20 hours," Akio commented to ensure the officers kept perspective. "That does sound prudent. Lieutenant Nimh, please relay a request to speak with Bre'el IV's government representatives upon our arrival."
Ahressa nodded.
Darren paused and thought. "It's odd that they would want to withdraw like this. Surely they realize that if, space forbid, the Gorn arrive in their sector they likely won't respect 'neutrality'. I wonder if there's something more going on here we aren't aware of."
"Or if the Gorn visited the system before us," Akio hypothesized, following the XO's thinking.
Darren nodded, glad his conjecture hadn't seemed too far out of line. He could sometimes tend to be too skeptical since the incident aboard his last assignment. "Perhaps we should check with Starfleet Intelligence, sir, and see if they've noticed anything odd from Bre'el?" He wasn't sure if that would be any use. It seemed like any pertinent information would have already been shared with them. "At any rate sir," he continued, "I advise we enter this situation with the ship at a heightened alert status. I doubt that there will be any threat, but this situation feels very fishy to me. I recommend we exercise extreme caution going forward."
"Good points. Once we're within an hour of arrival, go to yellow alert," Akio ordered. "I think at this point we're beyond the information gathering phase and we must seek guidance from Command."
Thomas would have already alerted us if this was actual. Which makes me think...fake? Or entirely recent that we're the first ones to pick it up? Ahressa wondered. "Sirs, I'd like the opportunity to analyze the message further. Determine authenticity, and why it was suddenly directed at us specifically. I've managed to confirm, before you arrived that this was aimed specifically at the Hawaii, not on a broad band frequency."
"Granted, Lieutenant. Please report your findings at once, and do not be afraid to utilize Lieutenants Salmon or Kosu depending where your investigation takes you," Akio allowed.
Crossing her arms on her chest, she decided to hazard a thought, one she could get away with with her non-classified history and not raise too much suspicion. "Didn't we talk to Bre'el recently, kosst, to simply arrange this stopover? This is either fake or something's happened in the last ten or so hours. Otherwise we would have known about it."
"Our orders do not make clear that our stopover was pre-arranged. We are just to contact the government. I would posit that it is apparent if we ever did have permission, it was thus revoked, or Command simply assumed we would be allowed port call rights based on Federation status," Akio assessed.
Again, Akio felt the Hawaii was being sent into an area ill-prepared.
"XO, you have the bridge. I am going to see what Command has to say about our message," Akio concluded as he strode to the Ready Room.
"Aye, sir," Darren nodded.
"Still it must have been recent, otherwise HQ would have informed us." Ahressa mused. "I'll get the message analyzed and let you know the results," she said to Marian.
"Sounds good, Lieutenant. Thank you." Darren walked to the center chair and sat down, before moving to his own chair and pulling his console forward to begin his own research.
"At least the weapons are calibrated should the need for them arise." Tyler shrugged as he took his place at Tactical.
OFF:
Akio Tachibana, CDR, SF
Commanding Officer, USS Hawaii
Darren Marian, LT, SF
Executive Officer, USS Hawaii
Nimh Ahressa, LT, SF
Chief Operations Officer, USS Hawaii
Tyler Fallon, LT, SF
Chief Tactical & Security Officer
Jula Danz, LTJG, SF
Assistant Chief Tactical & Security Officer, USS Hawaii
