SD241812.03 || Plot Log || "Calamity and Ruin"

Posted on Mon Dec 3rd, 2018 @ 11:34am by Brigadier General Jonathan Grey & Lieutenant Colonel Kya'shina Tenatha & Lieutenant Commander Ky'La De'Lenn & Lieutenant Commander Richard Groves

2,774 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Tremor Trouble
Location: Versailles
Timeline: Current

=^= Senior Officers' Conference Room =^=

A long table sat in the middle of this room; Starfleet's best effort at a luxury table resulting in the same discount cheapness that permeated most everything else their interior decorators came up with. Somehow the ship hulls and power systems were a work of art, but the furniture always left something to be desired. Like warmth, or taste.

General Grey sat at the head of the table in one of the oversized leather-style black chairs. He could almost see the huge backrest towering over him, and the General almost felt like some diabolical Count; sniffing a decanter of Bourbon in his hilltop castle while lightning crashed overhead.

He wished.

Lieutenant Rogers stood behind and to the side of the General, his eyes pinned to the padd in his hand. A live stream of messages entering the General's office had their summaries routed to his padd, and he was carefully monitoring them for anything his superior needed to know about.

So far, it was the usual stuff. Officer A has reported for duty. Officer B has officially departed. Officers C-through-Z are celebrating their birthdays, and want to invite the General to their parties.

Rogers allowed himself a small smile at this. As if the General had time for parties.

Arriving at the door, Richard tapped the control panel allowing him to gain access. He wondered why it hadn't automatically opened, but remembered as part of his security protocol he deactivated that specific protocol. His reasoning was that it would at least slow any escapees down.

Groves stepped across the threshold and into the large conference room, he noted that name plates had been set out at each of the positions - his was the furthest away from the Commanding Officer. That can't be good he thought to himself. He rounded the edge of the table to his assigned seat, look for a replicator to grab yet another serving of coffee from.

"General. Nice to see you again." he nodded, standing with his hands on the back of his assigned seat.

"Likewise." replied the General, putting his hands together on the table. "Take a seat, the others will be here soon."

Kya'shina had been almost relieved that she could leave her sister behind as she attended this meeting, since Dene'thala still wasn't in the best of moods--really, when had she ever been--but the colonel just didn't have time for the melodramatics. She had a meeting to attend.

Reaching the briefing room, she stepped up to the door. Tapping the panel, she stepped inside. She saw the general already seated and came to attention with a salute. "General," she greeted formally. "Commander." She nodded at Groves. She was glad he was here, since she did want to mention the behavior of his personnel on the brig level. When appropriate. For now, this was the general's party.

With his boss on the surface, he was next in command so, Anthony grabbed a PADD and walked to the conference room. He tapped the pannel and stepped inside. Nodding to the others he came to attention as he saw the General. "Cmdr. De'Lenn is planet side. I am Lt. Anthony Vargas, Engneering Department", he said.

Groves raised from his seat, having decided he needed a caffeinated beverage to keep him alert, as he rounded the bottom of the table, he nodded to Vargas

"Lieutenant, best not to crowd out the entrance. Take a seat." He pointed to the seat that had been assigned for the Engineering Representative. Groves was glad see an engineer here, he needed to review the operation of the security sensor net with them.

"Yes sir", he said and took the seat that was for the engineering department, getting a cup of coffee as he went. Sitting down he nodded to the other officers that were there and sipped his coffee as he waited.

He would not have to wait long, as a thick crowd of department heads and senior officers arrived in short order. Filtering patiently through the door, the group made their way to the relevant chairs and sat down. As almost every chair was filled, and no doubt the rest would be arriving soon, the General cleared his throat and leaned forward.

"Alright. Thank you all for coming on such short notice. We're all busy as hell with the YaDallan crisis, including the increasing number of refugees, so lets get started. First, I'd like to thank everyone for their hard work with the refugee arrivals. Despite a number of hiccups, nothing has exploded yet, so I'm calling this a win." the General declared, giving an approving nod.

"Next, Commander Groves has organised a briefing on the status and movements of the refugee fleet...what?" he asked, annoyed at the padd his yeoman was suddenly holding in front of his face.

"I apologise, sir. Admiral Tock is insisting you review these protocols and respond asap." said Lt Rogers, blandly.

"You don't *look* sorry." the General grumbled, taking the padd without malice and glaring at the wall of text.

"Following orders, sir." Rogers explained, equally blandly.

"...Ok, this'll take a while." said the General, scrolling through the padd's contents. "Commander Groves, why don't you go ahead and start your briefing?"

Groves acknowledged the request from the Commanding Officer. “Yes, Well... I’ve received an update from Captain Nixon of the Alliance. They’ve been ferrying survivors from Ya’Dalla. They had a particularly unusual incident, where they where sent to pick up a ship full of children who had been taken from the Ya’Dallan surface. My understanding is that the Captain will conference in soon to update us himself.”

Richard flicked his finger up the padd, scrolling the screen downwards. “Urm... So, our biggest issue so far is a heavy spike in reported crimes. Some things are mediocre... he took my bag, she stole that from my plate... a few others a little more serious.” Richard pointed with his forefinger to the Marine at the table, “Colonel, maybe you’d like to brief the team on your incident?”

Vargas listened intently as Cmdr. Groves spoke. He wondered if engineering had things missing as well. He noted it down on his mini'PADD.

Kya'shina nodded once to the chief of security before beginning to speak, her expression bland and solemn in one. "Two young women used an engineering hatch to break into my office, though I'm convinced they had no idea whose office it was. They were just breaking in. Young, I would say mid-twenties at most, skinny and seemingly desperate. They had a few tricks up their sleeves to escape, though nothing that caused harm or seemed intended to. I prevented their escape and they're in holding now." She nodded back to Groves, who she had already briefed on the insolence of Ensign O'Poly.

"Yes, They're in central holding at the moment. They've been assigned council and will appear in the Civilian court next week on theft charges." Groves nodded back to the Marine CO, "And, I'm going to have words with that moron, O'Poly."

Looking down his PADD, Groves moved onto the next item, "We're going to begin integrating the Ya'Dallans into the greater Versailles population in the next few days, so, I'm going to increase the Civilian police presence in the Market & Promenade areas. We've received a bit of a push back from the Resident's on their introduction. I just don't want anything to flair up."

"Good idea." said the General, handing his signed padd to Lt Rogers and consulting some typed notes on another padd. "On that note, before this meeting started I was contacted by the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Promenade Merchants and Families Association. They have both written to me to express concern over the influx of filthy, backwards, thieving.... OK, I'm not reading the whole list, but you get the gist. Basically they're xenophobic hatemongers that don't like the refugees. And they represent over two thousand merchants and their families on Versailles. Expect them to become more vocal in the days to come."

"Also," he continued, "the YaDallan refugees elected a spokesperson during the first wave of evacuations, and another during the second wave. Both of them have also asked to speak to us regarding the somewhat...unfriendly welcome from more than a few of our good citizens. Naturally they picked the two most pea-brained fools I've ever come across, so expect them to become more vocal too."

"My idea was to throw both pairs into a room and let them sort it out between them. However," here the General glanced briefly at his yeoman, "I have been advised that letting them tear each other apart won't work in the long run. So instead we're trying to keep both groups seperate and calm via mediators and diplomats. Which will be far more entertaining, I'm sure." he added, drily.

"In any event, some of our dial-ins have more pressing demands on their time, and I'm keeping them waiting. Go ahead Commander, put your Captain on."

With a fuzz and a buzz, the holocommunicator at the far end of the table kicked into life, the hum of the rooms holographic emitters added to the cacophony of background sound.

In the centre, appeared a Starfleet Captain, his red command stripes contrasting against the grey of the uniform... and his hair.

"Good Afternoon, General, My apologies for being late." As the image stabilised, the Captain was able to pace around a narrow segment of the room. "I can confirm that all ships have now left the Ya'Dallan system... anyone who was going to evacuate has done so. It doesn't look good for the structure of the planet, there has been mass tectonic eruptions across it's surface. The atmosphere is degrading at an impressive pace. There are still a few rag-tag criminal elements plundering what they can from the surface, but at this time they're risking their own futures to be honest."

Anthony Vargas' eyebrows went up. Had his boss found the real reason for the crisis on YaDalla? He had to find out post-haste. Excusing himself from the meeting, he nearly ran to engineering to call De'Lenn.

The General's eyebrows shot up as well, watching one of his subordinates leave without being dismissed. The door closed behind Vargas before the General could cut off a biting reprimand, so he cocked an eyebrow at his yeoman instead. Lt Rogers, getting the gist, took a note of the event and forwarded it to the CEO. No doubt the young man's department head would be clipping his ear for the indiscretion.

When she returned from YaDalla, of course.

"No more evacuees at all? I'm surprised. The last I heard, there were still many refugees struggling to get off-world." remarked the General, turning his attention back to the holographic Captain. "If the civilian ships won't go back for them, that's their call, but you can't tell me the Starfleet ships won't go back for them. Don't these ships have shields?" he snarked, annoyed at his own immaturity.

=^= Meanwhile, in Main Engineering... =^=

Vargas pulled up short as he rounded the corner of ME, sliding into three engineers. "Damn! If the boss was here...man she would be chewing your asses up and spitting them out. You know what she said about standing still!", he said, shaking his head. Entering her office, Anthony commed Arianna on the USS Baron. =/\= USS Baron, this is Versailles station, Lt. Vargas here, please patch me through to Lt. Cmdr. De'Lenn, CEO of Versailles station=/\=

[USS Baron]

=/\= Versailles Station, USS Baron here, patching you through now=/\= came the response.

With the console lit up, scaring the daylights out of jer, Ky'La exclaimed, "WHAT the....Vargas what....wait you know about YaDalla? ", she said, more calmly.

"Yes boss but there are still those trapped in the tunnels and others still on the surface. All the other ships have evacuated all they could. I know you're gonna chew my ass out when you get back, but this was to important for you to know about.", he stammered.

"Calm down Anthony. I will take care of it. Just make sure you keep the kiddies in line. Be in touch, De'Lenn out", she said closing the console. Looking at Johnathan as he shook his head. "Now what?", he said.

De'Lenn's eyebrows went up, "Wait...I think I can get the rest of the people off the planet. The CEO of the USS Timmis and I are friends. Maybe I can get her to ask the CO if they would come to get the rest of the population off the planet before it goes." Johnathan nodded and put a call in to the General.

-/\= USS Baron to Brigadier General Grey, This is ACEO Johnathan, sorry to bother you but De'Lenn has a possible solution as to get the rest of the population and anyone else that is currently planet side.=/\= and waited for a response.

"General Grey here." said the General, pushing buttons on his terminal to make the comm channel audible to the others in the senior officer's briefing. "Our new CEO has a plan to evacuate the rest of YaDalla quickly." he added to the others in the room, catching them up.

"General please forgive me in ordering Cmdr. Beetman to grab her ass and all personnel that the Baron can hold and get away from Ya'dalla. Basically and simply put, the core is unstable, hence the original beginnings of the quakes. The drilling and weapons factory information that the lawyer gave us only strengthened its death throes. Currently Jonathan and myself are headed to rendezvous with the Timmis and the USS Algonquin to aid in the evacuations. I can only guess that Starfleet is dragging its feet so I have been in communications with the XO, Cmdr. Wolf and the CEO, Lt. Cmdr. Mo'Bri of the Timmis, who in turn enlisted the USS Algonquin to evacuate the remaining population, and the plunders, and get the hell out of there before she blows. Believe me sir I am not one to give orders but in this case it must be done as fast as humanly possible. We will inform you when we are close to home with our precious cargo", De' Lenn said as she studied the Generals tired features.

The General, blissfully unaware of how tired he looked, took a moment to absorb the deluge of information his CEO had fed him.

"Wait a moment Commander, 'blows'? As in, the planet? Are you telling the planet is going to blow up? That's not normally something that happens after an earthquake. Or drilling. As for the weapons...what kind of idiot tests planet-destroying weapons on an inhabited world?" he asked, incredulously, before giving his head a brisk shake to clear it. Fault could be determined later.

"Carry out your plan with all speed, Commander. We can investigate these weapons later. When a planet isn't about to explode."

Not looking from the face of the General, Ky'La keyed in the hail to the Timmis and Algonquin, =/\= USS Timmis, USS Algonquin, this is Cmdr Ky'La De'Lenn of Versailles Station, as you are aware, Ya'dalla is about to destroy itself and you are requested...no...ordered to finish the evacuation of Ya'dalla and beat it to Versailles Station with your evacuees. Please inform the station when you are approaching. The station is handling am enormous amount of people and will need time to accomodate them. I will be arriving momentarily at your location. De'Lenn out =/\=

Wolf did not waste any time in ordering the Timmis and Capt. Rochelle of the Algonquin to Ya'dalla to finish the task of evacuating the rest of the population and the pilligers. Ky'La, along with Jonathan had already boarded the Timmis were already on the bridge with Cmdr. Mo'Bri, manning the engineering station, the final evacuees were on board and both ships were hell bent for leather out of the blast area just as Ya'dalla tore herself apart from the inside out. The home of the YaDallans had gone the way of the heavens.

=/\=Versailles Station, USS Timmis and USS Algonquin are incoming. USS Baron is on our heels, requesting docking proceedures=/\=

"Roger that Timmis and Algonquin. We'll have three berths ready for you when you arrive. Safe travels."


=^= End of Log =^=

Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
Commanding Officer
Versailles Station

Lieutenant Commander Richard Groves
Chief of Security
Versailles Station

Lieutenant Colonel Kya'shina Tenatha
MEU CO
Versailles Station

Lt. Cmdr. Ky'La De Lenn
Chief Engineering Officer
Versailles Station

Lt. Jonathan Williams
Asst. Chief Engineering Officer
Versailles Station

Commander Timber Wolf
XO
USS Timmis

Capt. Rochelle (npc Lynda)
Captain
USS Algonquin

 

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