SD241904.22 - Plot Log - Grey - "Collision Alert" - part 2
Posted on Mon Apr 22nd, 2019 @ 2:42pm by Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
1,370 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
The Sincerest Form of Flattery
Location: Versailles
Timeline: Current
...Last time...
General Bok admitted that the technique for identifying mimics only worked some of the time. When pressed, he confessed that the plan, if unable to refine the detection process, was to attack and disable Versailles, capturing the station by disabling shields and weapons.
However, in planting the devices to do this, his forces found several attached to the auxiliary power supply.
Before this could be explored in detail, the red alert sounded!
With the Klingons 5 minutes away from attacking, our General now races into Ops to figure out what's gone wrong *this* time...
...and now...
=^= Main Operations =^=
"Report!" barked the General, marching into Ops with bodyguards, and the Klingon General Bok, in tow.
"Sir, a transport ship we've been expecting is emitting a lot of powerful energy readings. They say it's just a fluctuation in their reactor, and they're stepping it down just in case, but the Klingons won't let it near the station."
"Of course." growled Bok, his eyes never leaving Grey, "The transport could be a trap."
For his part, Grey was trying to absorb the latest crisis while at the same time process the imminent invasion. Pre-empting it by warning his people would likely cause Bok to set the devices off early, so he opted to keep quiet and try to figure a way through this.
"Agreed." he replied, eventually. "We need to get the crew off that transport ship and into a holding cell."
Still unhappy, Bok gave a brief nod.
"Very well, I'll instruct my people to-"
The Klingon's remarks were broken up by the sound of another alarm, and cries of dismay from the staff monitoring the transport.
"Sir," cried an Ensign manning the sensors, "the transport is breaking up!"
"Damn, we took too long. Warp core breach?" Grey guessed.
"N..no, sir. No explosion detected. The ship just....imploded....I think. Some kind of energy surge before it went, and now it's....a gravity surge?"
"Route all sensor data to Commander Jessen. Maybe she can tell us what we're looking at." Grey ordered, stepping over to the woman on sensors and peering at the wiggles on her console. Seeing only gibberish, he pushed a button and pulled it up on the monitor.
"Ok, we've got an energy surge of some kind, followed by a gravity surge. Anyone?"
The room was immediately abuzz with chattering and theories, and Grey was about to shout at people when General Bok finally stepped forward.
"This is the energy signature for a Romulan Warbird releasing the singularity at its core, and using it as a weapon. Though this is...many times larger."
The room was suddenly silent.
"That," said Grey, "that's a black hole."
"And now," said the Klingon, "it is unleashed upon us."
All eyes turned to the screen, which now showed a view of the Klingon fleet. A cluster of ships near the center had already turned to face outward, and even at this distance, they could see the glow of the engines straining against the sudden gravitational pull.
"General Bok," presumed the Ensign, who quailed a little when he turned his gaze on her, "the databank says the gravity well, once fully formed, will exceed the engine specs for most of your fleet."
"She's saying you need to-"
"I understand the situation." Bok interrupted. "I need to contact my fleet. Consider our....'other' affairs on hold. For now."
"Good. Yes. Comms." said Grey, gesturing to the Lieutenant manning the comms console and signalling for her to allow the klingon to send a signal.
As Bok instructed his forces to move away from the growing ball of blackness, which was already gaining trace rings of matter from shredded space debris, the other staff in Ops were already tackling the next problem.
"General Grey, sir, they're not going to make it. The Klingon ships in the middle, sir." the Ensign insisted, pointing to the craft on her monitor which were inside of a growing red ring.
"Order all ships to get within transporter range if they can. Evacuate those ships. General Bok!?" Grey shouted across the room. The Klingon seemed furious at having to take help, but he swallowed his pride and nodded anyway, passing a similar order to his own vessels.
One by one, the Klingons ships were ripped apart by the merciless, inexorable gravitational shears that pulsed out from the dark heart of the black hole. Some went with a puff and a crunch, and a few went out with a bang, crippling other ships in the process.
Those craft at the outer edges struggled to get to safety, burning their engines to get far away from the point where the gravity would overwhelm their drives. More than one ship saw its drive stack burn out, with their crews forced to beam away before the craft could tumble into crushing, shredding oblivion.
"Can we predict how big it's going to get? Will it affect us?" Grey asked the Ensign manning the sensors, watching over her shoulder as the gravity well on her screen continued to expand.
"No sir, but...it appears to be moving. I can't say for sure, but I think it was aimed at us."
"Thrusters. Move the station out of the black hole's path." said the General, snapping his fingers at a crewman off to one side. The man pushed a few buttons...and the lights flickered. Several display screens went blank at the same time, and Grey felt a tremble come through the soles of his feet.
"Multiple detonations!" shouted a Bolian, pulling an image of the station up on the circular, holographic table at the centre of the room. An outline of the station grew in size, before nine lines stretched out in all directions from it. At the far end of those lines appeared a map of nine areas of the station, with nebulous red blobs indicating just how much damage had been done.
"Damage report! What systems were affected?!" shouted Grey, unable to tell much from the detailed maps. They were engineering diagrams, and he was no engineer.
"Primary power is offline, sir! Shields, weapons, deflector control, basically everything except life support."
"We need those thrusters! Without them we're screwed. Do we still have auxiliary power?" he asked, making eye contact with General Bok.
"Yes, sir! They got a few intersections, but it looks like they missed a bunch of them. I can give you minimal power to thrusters."
"Do it!"
"Yessir."
"All right, do we have enough juice to escape the black hole?"
"Not even close, sir. At this speed, we've got about half an hour before we start losing big pieces, and about an hour before the central tower is affected enough to disrupt auxiliary systems. I'll use a curved orbit to buy time, but we're going down the drain unless we get power back."
"General Grey to Commander De'Lenn. A bunch of big blasts just took out main power. You've got thirty minutes to restore main power before bits start getting eaten by a black hole, and thirty more before the central tower is compromised."
"Damn!" he realised, comms channel still open. "Why didn't I see it before!? The way those mimic agents called you the primary target! They've been planning this since the start, and they knew you're the only one who can repair the station fast enough!"
"Take all the people you need. Use all the Security teams you need. Stay safe, and get that power back. Grey out."
After taking a moment to think, the General tapped his badge again.
"This is General Grey to all senior staff. We have a black hole inbound on the station, and main power is down. We need to coordinate evacuation of the civilians onto every ship we can get in the next half-hour. Stay strong, get to your posts, and do not use the escape pods!" he added, as one of his officers held up a padd with reasoning. "The gravity of the black hole is already too powerful for their tiny engines, and you'd just fall in quicker."
"Good luck to us all."
=^= ...to be continued =^=
Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
Commanding Officer
Starbase Versailles
&&
General Bok
Fleet Commander
Klingon Strike Force "K'Tang"
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