How the Kingdom fares...

Posted on 04 Nov 2016 @ 7:17pm by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Commander Korrath & Commander Paul Toddman & Lieutenant Commander Shelby Adams & Lieutenant Commander Arivek Zhuri & Lieutenant Claire Annette & Lieutenant Naomi Manera M.D., Ph.D. & Lieutenant Kina Hena MD & Lieutenant JG Alexandra DuQuesne

Mission: Episode One: Back on the Highway to Hell
Location: Observation Lounge, Bridge
Timeline: MD 3: 1700 hours

His conversation with the commander of the Delta Quadrant forces had led to one major insight and a host of other smaller revelations that prompted the Captain to call his senior staff together, with one notable exception. Given his chief scientist's reclusive nature of late, Captain Nathan Cowell has decided that the assistant science officer might as well fill in, so that he could have at least some measure of input from the department. The majority of the staff had already been on the Bridge, only the Doctor and the Chief Engineer required anything in the way of 'transit' time, but when the crew was all situated, the Old Man decided to cut to the heart of the matter rather than wait for any individual voicing of curiosity.

"I just finished a rather unhappy conversation with the man that runs this theater, and to say that hell broke loose is the understatement of the month. Seems that the Borg decided Starbase 900 and everything around it had to go, so they did what the Borg do best and laid waste to the place and took as many people they could before they left the place a smoldering hunk of space debris. This explains the scuttling of the transwarp portal and the lack of warning that came with it," Captain Cowell announced.

"..gods..." Alex muttered under her breath. So many lives.

Korrath was none too surprised. Something had to have happened for the transwarp gateway to of been destroyed. He did, however, take a moment to think about the brave men and women that had died to ensure that the Borg could not get through.

Kina's brow wrinkled in a mixture of sorrow, concern and anger. So may thoughts crossed her mind at that point, she couldn't decide which one to vocalize first, so she decided not to say anything at all, only off thoughts to those who died in the attack.

Shelby shook her head slowly as she lowered it and made a silent prayer on behalf of those lost.

Naomi managed to hide it during the announcement but the news disturbed her significantly as she thought of all those who had given their lives and perhaps even worse, those who had been assimilated.

Confused looks were more than expected based on the news, and even the frowns and head shakes came as no surprise as Nathan continued, "Seems they lost a good deal of ships and they've had a hell of a time getting in touch with some of the ones that weren't in the immediate area for the attack. This place is a shambles and there's not a whole lot we're going to be able to do to put things right for them... so we're not going to bother with that. Instead, we're going to see what we can't do to rally some people to the cause."

Capt. Cowell brought up the schematic of a planetary system that contained a wormhole, "This is the Aether planetary system. From what I've been told, this thing takes you from this neck of the woods all the way to a part of space that Voyager flew through a while back. In particular, seems like the Talaxians would be a good group to enlist to help the colony they've started on a planet they named Demeter to grow. No one's heard a word out of them since the wormhole was discovered, but it's somewhere near the exit point of the thing. I'm sure if we ask around nice enough, we'll get some hints."

"Sir, why don't we just grab all our people and get out of here?" Toddman asked, somewhat confused by the old man's plans.

"Because this isn't a rescue mission and it never was," Nathan responded to the Operations Chief, "Starfleet isn't giving up the place, they just want to know why the gateway went out. We have that information, now we have to make sure they're in a good spot and can hold out until we can report back and make more solid plans. Making allies is step one."

Korrath's eyes narrowed as he listened to the question and the answer. He didn't like it, but he wasn't about to make his views known to the entire crew. There was a certain decorum for a First Officer. Yes he was allowed to share his views, but this was quite a serious issue. A very political one, which Korrath didn't entirely agree with, hence why he remained silent on airing his views. But he did have something to say. "From what I understand, Voyager had little contact with the Talaxians apart from Neelix. How helpful do you think they will be?" Korrath asked. And what he didn't add was, with the old man's bedside manner, he couldn't see any talks being very productive.

"Well, if this Neelix character was a member of the Voyager crew for as long as he was, I'd say his opinion of them is higher than anyone else we might encounter. Since he left the ship to help his people find a home, it stands to reason if he isn't the one in charge, he's at least got the ear of whoever is. It'll be our job to convince them that Demeter is a planet worth settling on and use whatever resources they have to help the Federation stay afloat in this part of the galaxy. Shouldn't be too hard," the Captain answered the Klingon's question.

Alex was a junior officer, only present courtesy of her superior's current unavailability, so her presence felt more like a formality, a dot on the i, or a cross on the t. But she had a thought. Would it be appropriate for her to voice it? Well... To quote a famous captain, 'fortune favors the bold'... it might also be a poem. "Captain," she said, "Might I suggest we look at establishing trade routes through that wormhole, Voyager made several allies in her time in the Delta Quadrant and on at least one occasion even created something of a mini-Federation, it might be worth our while to look into those alliances and friendships to see any would be willing to help and to trade for needed resources?" That felt like a huge run-on sentence. She had to take a deep breath but made sure to do so as quietly and as professionally as possible.

"It's something to look at," the Old Man nodded, "Right in line with what might need to happen to keep the area afloat. Tell you what, since you brought it up, I'll make it your job to comb through the archives on the Voyager mission and find us some suitable candidates. I'll run it by the people in charge and see which ones they want us to tackle. Anything else?"

Alex nodded, taking notes on her PADD.

When the room had exhausted the questions fresh on their minds, Captain Cowell turned the screen off and continued his briefing, "Once we cross through the wormhole, the thing won't open again for about three weeks. That's our timeline, folks. If we miss the window, we'll be stuck on that side of the wormhole another three or four weeks before it's stable enough to open again. If any of you have been to Bajor... this ain't one of those nice wormholes that does what it ought to all the time. We're at the mercy of some weird phenomenon and it doesn't play nice so we can't screw around too much."

Alex looked up before the Captain could turn to the next officer, "Sir? Does that mean I won't be supplied with precise coordinates of our exit point? And if so, would it be possible to get a rough area of landing, so I know where to narrow my search for Voyager's allies."

"I'm not entirely sure where we'll come out at, so just brush up on the later part of their trip and we'll work backward from there," the Old Man replied.

Nathan turned to each person in the room in turn, "Commander Toddman, I want you to start working on a mass evacuation plan for the Talaxian people, should they decide to come with us. I doubt they'll have enough space for everyone if they've started a colony somewhere."

Korrath allowed his chair to go back to its usual position as he brought himself forward. "A mass evacuation?" Korrath asked. "I'm sorry, Captain, I may of missed something, but are you talking about the entire population or simply enough to start a colony?"

"La De Dah De, Every Body," Nathan said in a very pronounced accent, "From what I gathered from Janeway's reports, any dealings with the Talaxians would have to be done in an all or none fashion. Either we're packin' them all up and vamoosing or not a single one of them is going. And I really can't blame them, they are scattered to the four winds, kinda like what happened with my people and those damned Borg."

"Commander Adams, I need you to coordinate with Toddman as far as shuttles go, and work out a plan of action for any eventuality that might prevent us from using our transporters for the mass exodus, and just in general, since using both transporters and shuttles will maximize our evacuation times," the Captain said to the red haired woman.

"As you wish Captain," Commander Adams nodded.

"Mr. Pixels," Nathan turned to their holographic engineer, "I need you to get engineering teams designated and ready to deploy in case the Talaxians have vessels that are in need of repair or that can be salvaged to get ones in better shape up to snuff all that much faster."

Arivek simply nodded in response.

"Sunshine," the Old Man continued along the table, "from here on out, we're running at yellow alert until we've reached the Talaxians and have our convoy all the way home. I want your people ready to pull security details in whichever areas of the ship we have refugees. Also, I want you to get familiar with Hirogen fighting tactics if you aren't already. Reports indicate a fairly significant number of them in the region of space we're heading to and rumor has it Janeway pissed them off enough times that they may want to test the waters with us."

"Roger that," Claire replied, making a note on her PaDD. Thankfully she'd pulled up a lot of tactical data on various species in the area just in case. The Hirogen were second on that list only to the Borg.

"Doctor Hena," the Captain continued, "Have your people gear up for a humanitarian style mission, including teams designated for triage, infection control, and mass casualties. We don't know what the Talaxians have been around or been through, and it might be bad. I want to be ready just in case it is."

Kina nodded. "I'll run triage drills beginning as soon as the meeting is over, sir," she promised, already mentally running through what would need to be done.

"Miss Manera," Capt. Cowell turned to their counselor, "Might do you some good to brush up on your diplomacy skills, as well as getting your own department read in case the Talaxians need their heads put back on right."

Naomi nodded at her Commanding Officer. "I will look up the files by Voyager to be better prepared, I will also make sure the Counseling department is ready to provide any help needed.

"Now, unless anyone has anything else for me, y'all can get to it and we can set out," Nathan said, looking at everyone in turn.

Korrath turned his chair and looked round the room, at each of the senior officers, waiting for them to say something if anything.

Alex raised her hand, before realising this wasn't a class room and lowered it, "According to the Voyager log," she briefly held up her PaDD to indicate she just read it, "the Talaxian colony in question was housed inside a massive mineral rich asteroid, and they had a population of about 500 at the time. Now based on my quick calculations, given an average humanoid growth rate the population would likely exceed just over 560 now. Assuming Talaxians don't breed like rabbits, that the colony didn't take on any extra Talaxians, or other species, or any sickness, disease or resource shortage...." she trailed off when she realized everyone else was staring at her, "Just thought it might be useful to know." she smiled.

Nathan shrugged, "Better to over plan than under plan. But that's something to keep in mind as our low end threshold for how many bodies we'll need to plan for."

The Old Man looked around the room for a moment before announcing, "Looks like that's all then. Let's get to work people."