Another Front of the War

Posted on 07 Aug 2018 @ 12:58am by Captain Akio Tachibana & Commander Juan Zamora (Dec [CDO]-Jan 2389 - TRSNFR to Gorn Dip.) & Commander S’chqenr T’Jedf Tolkath (Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Commander Rafe Cassidy (Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Deeli Kosu (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Lieutenant Commander Iria Taltos

Mission: Ka Hakaka Maikaʻi - The Good Fight
Location: XFY Operations Deck - Conference Room 3
Timeline: 0900, 17 Jan 2389 - Following "An enemy within? Pt2"

[ON:]

[XFY Operations Deck - Conference Room 3]

Akio once again found himself in the same room as the initial meeting once the Hawaii had docked with XFY. Yet, this meeting had not been planned and instead of launching an operation, it was passing on what would invariably be seen as bad, and shocking, news.

"Tolkath, you know the most about what is going on. I will let you explain the details. I have informed Commander Braxton of the basic situation; however, she does not have the full details due to the sensitive nature and classification," Akio explained.

"Understood Captain" Tolkath replied quietly. "I shall endeavor to be informative."

The Vulcan followed Tachibana to the table and nodded to the assembled Devonshire Command team.

Having seen how his new commanding officer handled people, Logan leapt to his feet as arrivals from the Hawaii entered, with polite nods, smiles, and quick words. "Good to see you again, sir. I took the liberty of also inviting the Devonshire's Lieutenant Hawthorne, CSO, in case his expertise is of use."

Hawthorne, a wiry man lounged back on his chair with a PADD and an air of disinterest, scrolled through data before him and barely lifted his eyes. "It usually is," he drawled. "With such a vague briefing, I promise nothing." Frustration, rather than disinterest, plagued his words; he disliked being dragged around by mystery, and he disliked more the notion it might have been a distraction for absolutely nothing.

"A worthless promise it is..." Deeli remarked the CSO's words in distaste "But do tell me why I am here and not in the XFY engineering bay to cut a deal on some of their luxury parts?" Looking at Akio with narrowed eyes. She would rather be doing some work on getting those parts that benefit her own projects, now she got dragged yet again to a pointless meeting that Hawthorne kinda supported.

"Lieutenant, you know full well why we are here," Akio replied tersely.

Juan walked through the door, his demeanor professional. He tipped his head to his counterpart on the Devonshire and offered a greeting: "Commander Logan, it's good to see you well" he said warmly.

"We're going to have to try some more friendly get-together at a less fraught time, or I'm going to start to think of the Hawaii as harbingers of bad news," Logan said with a wry sort of cheer, sitting himself down.

"We certainly don't want that." Juan quipped back.

Akio smirked at the XO's comment. Had it not been such a serious briefing, he would have retorted with his own jest. Yet the only thing racing through Akio's head was all the implications this had for Starfleet.

Iria had taken a detour to get a tall mug of hot chocolate. It had a peppermint stick melting in it as she drank it slowly. Any other time she wouldn't have walked in a room full of people with food or drink unless she was certain that they were also having something. She didn't want to have her stomach grumbling loudly though and she hoped she would be forgiven this once for the bit of selfish indulgence. She made a face as she heard Kosu's comment, upset about not getting parts for projects over the reason they were in the room. The Captain's retort was unamused. She took another swallow of the hot chocolate and looked up. She offered up her cheeky grin of greetings as she got closer to the folks she hadn't met yet. She held out a hand.

Hale had snuck into the room behind Iria. She heard it was an intelligence related brief and that she should be here. She took a position to Iria's left and shook her hand.

"Jordan Hale, Chief Intelligence for Devonshire," Hale said.

Iria looked up to meet the gaze of the Brown eyed woman she guessed that she was around 5'9 or 5'10, Iria's copper brown and emerald eyes twinkled slightly, "Iria Taltos I am an engineer from the Hawaii," she said with a cheeky grin she was so used to saying she was just from damage control, admitting to being more was harder. Plus if the Chief of Intelligence really wanted to know they could ask, or they would likely to go look up what they wanted later.

"Nice to meet you," Hale replied, wondering why Engineering was here. She scanned the room for Khaz from Devonshire to find her missing.

Iria smiled up at the intelligence officer as she noticed the taller woman was looking for another person, "I won't keep you if you have others to talk to, it was a pleasure to meet you as well." She said lightly.

"Oh, no. You're fine. I just heard this was an intelligence brief, so I was wondering why our Engineers weren't here," Hale answered.

Iria gave a slight, shrug of her shoulders, "I wish I could say I knew why they are not here." she wasn't sure she had anything else to actively offer up either but she would offer what she could in explanation if asked.

Hale sat silent and nodded, not wanting to speak ill of her own Engineers further and felt her aloud curiosity already had.

Braxton was the last enter, and looked a bit flustered...or as flustered as her deadened facial nerves would allow for. "Apologies. Some last minute issues cropped up that needed my attention."

Once everyone was seated Tolkath approached the viewscreen, tapped in some commands and brought up the Hawaii's sensor data.

"As you are aware Xavier was attacked by a Gorn fleet which did considerable damage to the station. We have recently discovered evidence that the ships forming that fleet, were not the only vessels involved in the attack. There were a number of cloaked vessels which also fired upon the station.

"Yesterday, Engineering Lieutenant Taltos was carrying out an EVO suit damage survey of the exterior of the central weapons array. Her tricorder recorded readings of weapons damage inconsistent with known Gorn technology."

He did not cover the fact that Taltos had then been detained by Xavier. Security leaving that part for Tachibana to disclose if he saw fit.

He continued. "The Hawaii then verified that data with a main sensor scan of the same area. The results were the same."

He tapped the controls and the screen zoomed in on a damaged, bent and burned exterior hull panel. Next to the image was a list of analytical data.

"This damage was caused not by any known Gorn weapon, but by a ship-sized Klingon Disruptor, fired through a cloak"

He let that sink in.

Logan cocked his head, brow normally somewhat furrowed by ridges of his Klingon heritage now in an outright frown. Hawthorne, on the other hand, had sat up and was wildly tapping away at his PADD, intense but not seemingly surprised.

Iria sat at ease in her seat though with all the folks around her at the taller end of height scales from, the Devonshire CO she guessed at 6'1" to the slightly taller first officer. Kosu was 5'4", or there about, Stevens was around 5''7", Commander Tolkath was same height as the Devonshire first officer. The Hawaii's first officer was she guessed an even six feet tall. The Captain of the Hawaii was around, the same height as his first officer. All in all giving the impression she was a kid at the big kids table with her mere four foot eleven stature. Still she had done what she felt was the best course of action at the time. The data hadn't matched up it needed looking at. So for the moment Iria kept quiet ready to speak up if needed.

Hale was on the edge of her seat as the Vulcan relayed the information.

"We informed Rear Admiral Banda prior to the latest O&I brief and she upchanneled the information to Starfleet Command. Diplomatic Corps is having a fit with this revelation. Orders are to pursue this line of investigation here while Captain Colburn, the Commander of Federation Forces for the Klingon Theater, pursues his own investigation in his AOR," Akio explained the follow-on actions thus far.

"Sir, this actually does raise some serious questions," Hale announced. "I was going over the logs on the Devonshire as we arrived as I was curious how the Gorn failed to completely destroy XFY when they seemed so close to accomplishing it. What I found was missing footage of the attack," Hale started.

She stood up and approached an in-laid terminal in the conference table and keyed some commands to show the "DATA UNAVAILABLE" screen when searching for the footage.

"Now, we are aware of a minority report that there were Klingon vessels that attacked XFY out of cloak. Yet no sensor data supported those claims and it only came from one eyewitness, another Intelligence Officer... Lieutenant Leticia Sanchez. She had been essentially demoted following her report and was seen as not credible. With this latest report though, I am even more confused how no one caught it before," Hale wondered aloud.

Akio once again felt the pangs of Captain Carson's words about leaks and incompetence. What was going on in this theater? Akio thought to himself.

"To focus on the science for a moment," said Logan in a cautious, level voice, "I'm not going to question the accuracy, but Klingon weapons are not necessarily as well-guarded secrets as the Federation's. Pirate groups, renegade Klingons; the odd ship here or there..."

"What the Commander means is that one swallow does not a summer make," Hawthorne interrupted, ignoring his XO's scowl. "Unfortunately for him, I happen to have a whole flock. A swoop, if you will." He finished tapping on his PADD, and pushed it across the table towards Tolkath. "Since we've arrived, the Devonshire has been assisting with clearing, navigating, and salvaging the debris. My personal priority has been accumulating and analysing all data gathered on the damage done to Xavier, explicitly because of the mystery of these non-Gorn assailants.

"Between the need to support the populace of Xavier and Devonshire's own personnel woes, I'm far further behind than I would like to be on this matter," he continued with a flash of irritation. "But you'll see, Commander, that I can provide a significant amount of data corroborating your findings in other parts of the battlefield."

Logan gave him a level look. "And you sat on this information, Lieutenant?"

Hawthorne opened his hands. "I thought I had the answer, but as professors of mine told me as an arrogant youth, 'nobody cares what you think.' I care about what I can prove, and if I'm about to accuse some significant force associated with the Federation's closest allies of an attack like this, everyone should care about having definitive proof."

Staying quiet for the most of this conversation, Deeli burst into laughter as she pointed with her thumb at the direction of Hawthrone "Is this guy for real?! Your ego is bigger than my own and trust me..." She pointed her finger at him "...mine is pretty big" Wiping off a tear "Oh I needed that..." She sniffles and looked at rest "But the man is right, the same conclusion was made by the Hawaii staff. If the Klingons are behind this ingenious attack, then it will have its scars on those that serve XFY and beyond" Looking at Akio "Now I know why it's confidential..."

Hawthorne raised his eyebrows and gave a humourless smile. "I'm sorry, did I get in the way of the lone visionary seeing the truth with their genius? I assure you, Lieutenant, answers come from hard work and study and if you trust anything else you're asking to become the victim of confirmation bias. This isn't ego. This is a fact of having had the time to conduct further studies." His voice had crossed the line of 'patronising' and was still accelerating.

"Oh dear yes, keep to your studies and let the grownup do the actual work" Deeli grinned and made a hush-hush move with both her hands "You're merely stating the obvious, every genius can see that" Deeli leaned back at the wall and giggled a bit at that.

Tolkath had not moved from his position by the viewscreen, his left eyebrow arched as he watched the various members of the two command teams start to squabble with each other. He took a long inward breath, finding inner calm, while those driven by their emotions bickered.

Iria sipped her hot chocolate as the peppermint stick nearly finished melting into it leaving red and white swirls floating on the surface of the hot chocolate. She wasn't going to tell anyone to grow up because she pulled enough childish things on her time to know it was best to keep out of it until there was a point she felt in agreement with voicing.

Akio enjoyed discussion, yet the banter had veered off course. "Lieutenants. I do realize this is quite the accusation and the sentiments of higher headquarters, including TF93 and the Starfleet Diplomatic Corps are the same. More proof must be given. Now, it sounds like there is a thread to be pulled from the missing station footage. Kosu, Taltos, work with the Intelligence Captain. As for the scientific proof, I think we can all agree that Klingon weapons were involved, yet as one of my former mentors would say, the jury is still out on whether it was the Klingons behind the attack."

As soon as Akio said that word, red klaxons blared and the computer voice announced "RED ALERT"

As the klaxon started blaring over the PA system, Juan's eyes widened just as his mind went blank. In a situation like this was he supposed to man the defense of the station? Or attempt to return to his ship? His ingrained training screamed for him to he helping to secure the civilians, but he had new duties now. What was he meant to do!? Under the strain of all these competing imperatives, a rare thing happened, he lost his control and just, froze.

Iria had finished her hot chocolate while the Hawaii's Captain had been speaking at the sudden blaring of the Red Alert klaxons she visibly winced, she really wished the klaxons weren't so loud. She frowned as she got to her feet she looked over to Kosu, "Should we head for the ship or stick around to help here?" She asked.

Seeing everyone in chaos and trying to get towards their stations, Deeli stayed calm and heard Iria speak up at her. Taking a deep breath and shook her head looking at Akio "We wait for our commands, as Engineers we can easily transport over towards Hawaii, but we might be needed elsewhere."

Tolkath tapped his commbadge -/\-Tolkath to Hawaii The station went to Red Alert, what is the ship's status?-/\-

-/\- Sir, we are at Red Alert and are tracking an unidentified ship on station's sensors approaching the debris field half a parsec out at high rate of speed and closing.-/\- Came the response after several beats.

"That came entirely too slow to my liking," Akio said already moving towards the door. "Get back to Hawaii and make ready for emergency station egress and combat! I will be there shortly. I need to make sure XFY is not going to fall apart. Hopefully their Ops Center has more information on our new arrival."

"Aye sir" Tolkath acknowledged. -/\-Tolkath to Hawaii Transport me directly to the Bridge-/\-. A moment later he was engulfed in the shimmer of the transport.

Simultaneously, Braxton stood straight up with a quick, if jerkingly stiff, motion. "Logan, Hale, Doctor. Get back to the ship." She called out to her assembled officers. "Hale, I want a liason protocol network set up between Xavier, the Hawaii, and the Devonshire as soon as possible...just in case our response needs to be more...critically coordinated."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," Hale turned her head as she exited the room, also curious what could be gleaned from the Ops center of XFY.

Just giving a nod as she looked at Iria "Come" Deeli spoke as she walked out of the conference room and headed towards the turbolift to get as fast as possible towards the docking port where Hawaii was stationed.

Juan quickly shook his head trying to clear the fog, there would be time to feel embarrassed later. Some direction from his captain proved enough to jar him out of his uncertainty, he had to get back to the ship, there were people counting on him, he had to MOVE. He tried to bring his hand up to tap his badge, it was like moving through glue, it seemed to take an eternity. then the combadge chirped, and all at once he caught up to the world. He cleared his throat and said: "Zamora to Hawaii, Beam me to the bridge." there was a light, and the walls of the station began to fade away.

Iria took a page out of Kosu and the Captain's books and walked quickly out of the room and down the corridor for the docking bay. She was pretty sure that folks where beaming in and the transporter technicians were being overwhelmed. She was actually glad to be moving on her own.

[Operations Center, XFY]

The scene was pure chaos. Akio spotted Neirbo with her hands full. He looked at the monitors and there wasn't much more information. The outlook was grim. He heard Neirbo shouting something about needing more defense systems online before she made a bee-line towards him.

"Sir, we need the Hawaii and Devonshire. XFY is not going to stand on its own," Neirbo almost begged, clearly at the end of her rope.

Hale had heard enough and already called for a beam-out.

"Say no more. If we fail, make sure you evacuate as many as possible," Akio said grimly. "Instruct your engineers to alter shield frequencies away from anything that gets through," Akio informed Neirbo, hoping the instruction made sense.

Braxton gave a sombre look at the former Science Officer. "Most of our Marine regiment is already deployed to this station to secure the relief efforts. Contact Colonel Malone and I am sure he will bolster the security of the station...just in case the Gorn get through and decide to board."

Neirbo nodded to the cybernetic commander, just as Hale's call for a beam-out was finished: Braxton could hear the transporter operator on the other side of Hale's commbadge ask for permission. The Commander of the Devonshire turned to her Intelligence Chief and gave a quick affirmative nod.

"Yessirs. Godspeed," Neirbo said before turning back to the crisis at hand on her station.

"Tachibana to Hawaii. Beam me to the bridge."


[OFF]

USS Hawaii:

Akio Tachibana, CAPT, SF
CO

JJ Zamora, CDR, SF
XO

Tolkath, CDR, SF
2XO/CSO

Deeli Kosu, LT, SF
CHENG

Iria Taltos, LTJG, SF
ACHENG

USS Devonshire

Francheszka "Frankie" Braxton, CDR, SF
CO

Jack Logan, LCDR, SF
XO

Theodore Hawthorne, Ph.D., LT, SF
CSO

Jordan Hale, Capt, SFMC
CIO