SD241812.22 - Plot Log - "Oh Good, Klingons." - Part 1
Posted on Fri Dec 21st, 2018 @ 7:19pm by Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
Edited on on Mon Dec 24th, 2018 @ 5:42am
1,066 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
The Sincerest Form of Flattery
Location: Versailles
Timeline: Current
=^= Operations =^=
"Impressive."
"Thank you General."
"I'm still really, really angry."
"Oh. Uh, sorry, General."
"Don't be. It's not your fault. Speaking of which..."
The General's yeoman, a ponytailed man named Lieutenant Rogers, looked up from the padd he was reviewing with one of the other men.
"I'm sorry sir, the Admiral is still in conference."
Grey touched his face in exasperation, closing his eyes to suppress the growing headache. Placing both hands together, he gestured to the engineer beside him.
"I have had all of ten words from that woman. She calls, tells me to let you guys rip my Ops centre to bits, and hangs up. Doesn't tell me why my people can't handle this upgrade. Doesn't tell me what the upgrade consists of. Just to restrict access to Lieutenant rank and above, and not to let my people touch anything until 'stage 4'. What is stage 4, anyway?"
"Sir, stage 4 is after the secure elements of the upgrade have been completed. Your people have license to maintain them, but the upgrades themselves have to be initially implemented by a crew with a security cross-index of 7.9 or higher."
"My people don't have that?"
"No sir."
"Why not?"
"Well, sir, your people do technically qualify, but your CEO is a Klingon so she's disqualified automatically. They can't be trusted after all, uh..."
The man retreated sharply as the General rounded on him, eyes wide with sudden rage.
"ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS IS A *SPECIES* THING!?" he screamed at the man, fury making his fists tingle as they clenched at his side.
"Security to Ops." whispered the Yeoman into his comm badge, eyeing the situation. He'd been assisting the General for over a month now, and he knew that if the engineer was foolish enough to push this, his CO was going to go right for the man's face.
After a second thought, he added "Medical to Ops."
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" the General continued, spitting with anger. The pink mist was fogging up the corners of his vision, obscuring the people staring at them, and leaving only a narrow tunnel with this piece of filth at the end of it.
"Sir!" shouted a Lieutenant monitoring sensors on one of the few consoles still intact. "Klingon vessel uncloaking inside the perimeter!"
*That* got the General's attention. His head swiveled around at speed, turning his red face towards the Lieutenant that spoke.
"Klingon? What?" he asked, breathing deep to try and get a grip on himself. The adrenaline was still flowing through his veins, and he could feel his heart hammering away inside his chest.
"Confirmed, sir. Negh'Var class, two hundred thousand kilometres away."
"Shields up! Charge weapons too."
"Yes sir. Should I deploy fighters and rally the fleet?" asked the Lieutenant.
"It's just one ship, Negh'Var class or not. Unless he brought friends, I seriously doubt..."
"Additional contacts!"
The General sighed at this, partly at his own stupidity. A fleet officer should know better than to tempt Murphy, especially when Klingons were involved.
"Have the fighters prepare to deploy, and signal the fleet to be aware of the situation. Do not pull any of them from patrol duties. This might be a diversion."
"Yes sir." replied the comms officer, typing a message into her console.
"Additional contacts have finished uncloaking, sir." continued the tactical officer, prodding the buttons on his console. The viewscreen flickered to life and displayed a map of the surrounding area, showing the station at the center and a series of dots around it. Civilian craft were either fleeing to warp or taking cover behind the station, while the six Akira-class ships nearby took up formation in front of the station.
"How many?" asked the General, watching a collections of red dots appear on the viewscreen, with a Klingon symbol underneath to remove ambiguity.
"Approximately seven Negh'Var class, twenty-three Birds of Prey, and an unknown number of K't'inga and Vor'cha class, sir. They keep dropping in and out of cloak, sir, so I can't get an accurate count."
"So basically it's a medium-sized fleet. Wonderful." the General remarked, dryly. He was still royally cheesed off at the specism from earlier, but the men needed a cool head at the helm, or at least someone able to pretend he had a cool head.
"Tactical analysis?"
"We have the advantage, sir, so long as they intend to board us. They'd take too many losses for a ground assault to succeed. If they plan to blow the station up, and don't mind taking major losses, there's a non-zero chance a focused effort could breach the shields and detonate one of the warp cores. Especially since life-support is over-taxed providing air and heat for the refugees."
"Can we fire weapons?"
"Photons yes, phasers....no. We'd lose shield strength every time we fired. The station simply doesn't have capacity for all these people, sir. We'd be down to minimal life support on all decks just to keep the shields up if they attack."
"Sir, the lead ship is hailing us." announced the comm officer.
"On screen."
The viewscreen flickered again, replacing the strategic display with the bridge of a Negh'Var battleship.
Amid the smattering of scowling, ridged faces on display, sat a single Klingon who seemed somehow less angry than his contemporaries. A pair of piercing, blue eyes stared directly into the viewscreen, and alighted on one man in particular.
"General Grey." announced the Klingon. "Klingon Fleet Command sends its congratulations on your promotion."
"Thank you, General Bok." Grey replied, meeting the eyes of his counterpart. "My congratulations as well, on yours. I understand you slew your predecessor in combat, and took command of Strike Force K'tang. This is they, I presume."
"You are correct." Bok replied. "The commanders all swore their loyalty to me. They will serve me until they die an honourable death in combat against a worthy foe."
"A shame we are not enemies, then."
"Indeed."
For a moment, the Klingon General's statement seemed to echo throughout Ops. The junior officers in the room dared not breathe, except for the one that was hyperventilating into a hastily-replicated paper bag.
"So, now we've cleared that up, how can I help you?" asked General Grey, cutting to the chase.
Bok smiled, without mirth.
"We should discuss that in private."
=^= To be continued... =^=
Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
Commanding Officer
Starbase Versailles
&&
General Bok
Fleet Commander
Klingon Strike Force "K'tang"
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