SD241811.03 || Joint Duty Log || V CO & T CO || "Bad News"

Posted on Sat Nov 3rd, 2018 @ 2:45pm by Brigadier General Jonathan Grey & Captain John Pentac

1,323 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Tremor Trouble
Location: Versailles
Timeline: Current

=^= CO's Temporary Office =^=

"Twenty-three SFC padds on the wall, twenty-three SFC padds..."

"Sir."

"Take one down, pass it around..."

"Sir."

"Twenty-two SFC padds on the wall."

"General." Lt Rogers insisted, raising his voice over the clattering sound of yet another message from Star Fleet Command finding its way onto the pile of padds at the foot of General Grey's desk.

The General peered over the top of the latest communique to stare at his yeoman. He'd only met the man a few days ago, and he sure as hell wasn't a marine (not with that ponytail), but his yeoman had quickly proven himself an effective assistant. Holding to his orders, even when his orders defied sense and reason, made for a very poor department head but an excellent proxy.

"Yes Lieutenant." he replied to the man, setting his latest padd down and clasping his hands.

"Sir, our sensor drones near YaDalla have reported that the tectonic instability has not abated. The accumulated stress on the average building has passed the level of tolerance most buildings possess. This means more building are falling, and more rapidly. Also, the Timmis has arrived on site and begun sending parties down to the surface."

"Good. Let's get the CO on the horn, see what he makes of things there." the General asserted, tapping a few keys on the console in front of him. It was the work of a moment to select comms, and ping the Timmis over subspace.

As always, the little spinning logo appeared on his screen as he waited. The visual was boring, but he'd learned all sorts of new tunes since he'd set the "default hold music" setting on his terminal to "shuffle".

The tiny little speaker on his desk played static for a moment, indicating an older tune, before plucking out a little ditty.

"The club isn't the best place to find a lover, so the bar is where I go..."

=/\= USS-Timmis ~ Sensor array lab /\=

The planned away mission with Cmdr Watkins to see how things are on the surface on Ya'dalla was well... a total shake up.

As John and Jane materialized within the Sensor Array Lab, he noticed that Jane was shaken to the core. He had to give her a little shake.

"Jane... Jane.." He was trying to make her snap out of it. "Commander!!" He shook her by the shoulders.

It took a moment or two before Jane could finally pull herself out of her catatonic state of mind. "I... I... yes?... Captain?" She finally snapped to it.

"You need to focus Commander... Jane.. there is trouble down there and you have to find out what is going on.." John tried to direct Jane's mind to give her some type of order.

She shook her head slowly and focused on the Captain. "Yes there is chaos down there... but its not natural... that I was told and the fear is palatable not just for the colony but also for the plants." Jane had a tear drop down her face.

"I understand but you have to see if there is anything we could do, ok? JAne?" John asked

"Ok... I will see if we could pick up anything on the sensors." Finally Jane had a smile on her face.

"Good girl.." John replied, but before he could add anything else his comm was activated.

He tapped the badge "Pentac here, go ahead."

"Sir, incoming transmission from SB99. Brig Gen Grey on the line Sir." The Comms officer informed Pentac.

"Patch it through to the Sensor array Lab" Pentac instructed

A few seconds passed before the Face of Brig. Gen Grey appeared.

"General Grey, Sir. How can I help you?" Pentac greeted the General. He knew he didn't look very clean ... well he was just on the planet that was falling appart.

"Captain Pentac." began the General, who almost pulled something halting the bobbing of his head. That music was catchy, and he was almost sorry the Captain had answered.

Focusing on the officer in front of him, the General noticed the dust on the man's shoulders and decided to cut to the point. "I'm told you've arrived on YaDalla, and I'm calling for a status report. First impressions?"

"That is affirmative Sir." John nodded his head in agreement and noticed some twigs falling from his head. "Our first run-abouts with supplies and engineering personnel has also been deployed."

He took a breather before continuing his report. "Myself and my Science Officer Cmdr Watkins have beamed down to the surface of the planet, or more correctly to where the Science labs were situated. We encountered some problems in the labs.... it has been destroyed. As we were heading out of the labs to find some other consoles to work from another tremor struck. Structural integrity of all the walk-ways within the tree line colony have disintegrated. We are in deep sh...., I mean trouble. " John blushed as he realized the slip of the tongue. Not nice to swear when a General is talking to you. He stood a little taller as if to apologize for his behavior.

He halted with his report to give the General some time to take in the information given in haste.

Grey stared blankly at the screen while he processed the deluge of new information, mulling over the implications. From what he'd been told, the tree-top facilities in the creatively-named "Trees" region had been relatively unaffected by the quakes. The trees may have been tall and strong, but they were still trees, and therefore subject to swaying. Anything built on them, therefore, had to be capable of withstanding movement, which made them better suited to handle all the earthquakes.

If they were starting to give way as well, this meant that any people taking refuge there would almost certainly be headed off-world like their city-dwelling friends. No shortage of incoming refugees for Versailles then. Grey snagged a padd and made a note to inform his department heads that the shanty town would need to be expanded.

Again.

"How is the integrity of the tree-top facilities themselves, besides the labs? Can they afford to wait until the capital city has been evacuated?" the General asked, trying to figure out where the fleet's focus needed to be.

"Sir, to be honest, I really can't say. SOmething tells me we are steadily running out of time at a far faster rate than any of us has thought of." John finally caught his breath. "My away-team can handle the evac of the TRee dwellings Sir. If we have to we will run the transporters until they smoke."

"Try not to run them that hot." replied the General, ever the pragmatist. The first half of the survivors might appreciate the quick evac, but the second half might not appreciate getting stranded down there. Besides, evac was when you left a crisis. Beaming onto a burning ship is not evac.

"In any case, have your people found time to perform an analysis of the problem? I recall the Timmis has a well-developed sensor package." he added, cryptically. Truthfully he hadn't read the Timmis' classified dossier yet, but he was sure he'd read something about their sensors being really good.

" Yes Sir we do. Cmdr Watkins is already on it...." John barely finished his sentence when his comm badge beeped.

"Watkins to Capt Pentac. Sir we have a problem."

John heard a fear in Watkins voice. He turned his attention back to the General.

"Sir, as soon as I have info I will let you know... Please excuse me as I think we might be heading into a situation that neither of us thought of.." John replied

"Very well. Dismissed." replied the General, gesturing.

"Thank you Sir." John replied and ended the connection.

Something in his gut told him things are going to get bad real quickly.


=^= End of Log =^=

Capt John Pentac
CO
USS TImmis

Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
CO
Versailles

 

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