Slashed and Silenced

Posted on Friday, 22 May 2020 - 4:25pm by Commander DeVala Victrix Ph.D

Mission: Operation: Recall
Location: Near the Paulson Nebula
Timeline: Unspecified 2393

The damage seemed more than superficial, but not as terrible as initially reported. Hull breaches had been left behind from when the attack on the starship had ended; however, it was still questionable who forced who to end it at all. Their Federation starship had held its own against the Orion vessels and the yet to be identified one, but they were practically adrift without weapons, barely enough energy to get them shields. In fact, Captain Appleton had made it a clear standing order. All power was going towards life support until the starship was right side up and bake to space shape. Minor explosions had left scars in the hull, the port side of at least one deck was being held together by emergency force field, about the only thing power was being routed to outside of life support systems.

The last volley of torpedoes was a nearly fatal blow to the ship. They were left practically dead in the water as the expression went. It was a deus ex machina that the wing of Klingon birds of prey arrived when they did. Communications had been jammed by a computer virus. Where the Orions got their hands-on sophisticated malware like that was a lingering mystery, but not one that did not come without a rational answer: black market. Someone truly devious and with some extensive knowledge of Federation ‘software’ and advanced computer programming had made developed it. How or why it ended up in the hands of the Orion Syndicate was not priority, but this hunt was over. The hunter had easily become the hunted.

It was not even the Syndicate we came out here for. I hardly doubt they were behind the attacks, but I suspect we may have encountered some of the muscle thought the man. “Captain, here’s the reports we received from Engineering” said his Yeoman who was among several others aboard the starship acting as a sort of courier pigeon, running back and forth delivering reports and relaying messages as the comm system was completely out. They could not communicate by ship’s inter comm let alone the ability to call for assistance. Hell, whatever they had gotten hit with rendered comm badges ineffective. At least for the time being. He looked over the reports and shook his head.

“You would think the Klingons would have stopped to asked if we needed assistance” said the Yeoman. He clearly had never actually dealt with Klingons that much. It had caused the Captain to scoff and then start to snicker and he shook his head reading the PaDD with Engineering’s report. “Something I said, Sir?” he asked the Captain.

Captain W. Chester Appleton looked at his young yeoman. “Klingons are going to chase those ships until they find glory for the Empire or pure exhaustion in their engines” Appleton replied. “We were just lucky the Klingons smelled the blood in the water and came for a fight; Klingons are not the type to stop and render assistance.”

“I suppose they do not” replied the Yeoman noting his over zealous mistake.