Getting Up To Speed (Part 2)

Posted on Fri Mar 21st, 2025 @ 11:56pm by Captain Patricia Cooke & Lieutenant Charlotte E. "Charlie" Yeager & Boso Gane & Oko Gane & Commander Katrina Chance & Lieutenant Commander Joseph Nixon & Lieutenant Commander Andrew Star & Lieutenant Akira Kogami & Lieutenant Pharos Ventari & Lieutenant Gabrielle 'Gabi' Shimoda
Edited on on Fri Mar 21st, 2025 @ 11:57pm

1,535 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Impending Midnight
Location: Officers' Briefing Room - Deck 1
Timeline: After 'Getting Up To Speed (Part 1)'

Previously, on Star Trek: Missouri:

Next through the door was one of the few longer-serving faces on the Missouri, Lieutenant Yeager, followed by two civilians who appeared to be Cardassian in physiology. As Charlie proceeded to take one of the remaining seats, the civilians approached Patricia:

"Will I-402 be joining us?" Patricia asked.

"Unfortunately not." The male responded. "She has requested not to be disturbed."

"Unfortunate indeed." Patricia nodded, motioning to the filling table. "Best to grab a seat before they're all taken."

And now, the continuation:

Seeing that the room had been filled, Katrina nodded to herself. Though she was just as new as many of the faces here, she had the time to receive her own private briefing, and to check the Missouri's database for even more information. Hell, she had foregone unpacking in lieu of preparing for this immediate situation. At best, she could unpack later. At worst, she would be dead, so it didn't matter.

As she approached the table, she spoke, her lips not moving in the slightest, her vocalizations almost completely monotonic. "Greetings. My name is Katrina Chance, I am your new executive officer, no you are not seeing things and I will answer all your questions later. For now, we have a job to do."

The commander tapped a control at the table, causing a disturbing projection to appear. A rather familiar, almost featureless, cube. "To make a long story short, a delusional artificial intelligence has taken control of a fleet of vessels, most of them Borg cubes. It intends to displace a planetoid from orbit and take it through the galactic barrier in order to trigger a reaction which could sweep civilizations away like leaves on the wind. The Missouri is leading a taskforce of fifty other starships to take out I-400's fleet and, hopefully, the AI itself."

"We suspect that this fleet is to serve as little more than tugboats, however:" Patricia added. "Thanks to some of your predecessors allowing I-400 to procure a massive amount of dilithium from System HW-35, intelligence reports suggest that I-400 might be building some kind of warp propulsion system for the planetoid itself:"

Andrew's hand shot in the air, "Science," he announced his department, "We are in talks with the Daystrom Institute Professors and other experts regarding propulsion systems. I will have a probability report published in the coming days." He paused for dramatic effect before continuing with "What we know is, a propulsion system to move a rock will hit every Federation domestic sensor given the engine size and fuel consumption to move a planetoid. Thank you," He finished wrapping up the Scenicen Department report.

Pharos gave a small wave of greeting to the science officer, then turned to the head of the table. "Do the intelligence reports suggest they're building this propulsion system, or that it's probably already built? If in progress, the fleet should have to time to make it there, but if it's done and presumably is capable of a high warp factor, then we'll need to intercept at the earliest opportunity. Our Quantum Slipstream Drive stands ready to get the Missouri there in short order, but I don't yet know how many ships of the fleet are similarly equipped with a QSD." The Ventari clasped his upper hands on the table in front of him. "If we use it, we might arrive with only a handful of ships to back us up until the rest of the fleet can catch up."

"Unfortunately, information on how I-400 intends to move the planet is sketchy at best," Katrina droned. "However there are several possibilities. But I believe the most likely one is that I-400 has found a way to reduce the mass of the planetoid sufficiently enough so as to allow it to be tractored by a handful of vessels. For those who are familiar with history, you may be aware of the Bre'el IV moon incident of the late twenty three sixties."

Joe leaned forward slightly, rubbing his chin as he processed the information. “So, we’re looking at a worst-case scenario where the planetoid is already mobile—or close to it. If I-400 has figured out a way to reduce its mass, that means it’s not just a brute-force tow job; it’s using something more sophisticated.”

He glanced toward Andrew. “Science, if you’re in touch with Daystrom, see if any of their theories on subspace mass displacement line up with this. If I-400 is pulling some kind of gravitational sleight-of-hand, we need to know how to counteract it.”

Then, turning to Pharos, he nodded. “If the QSD is our best bet for an early intercept, we need a battle plan that accounts for the Missouri potentially arriving ahead of the fleet. If we get there first, we might be looking at hit-and-fade tactics until reinforcements arrive. Any chance intelligence has pinpointed weak points in I-400’s control network? If we can disrupt its coordination, even for a short time, we might be able to stall its operation.”

At this point, Patricia loudly cleared her throat. What she was seeing before here was a department head overstepping his boundaries and bypassing the command staff.

"Commander; remember who gives the orders here." Patricia gave a stark reminder.

Katrina had been about to step in, but Patricia beat her to it just barely. Instead, she gave a simple nod. As she waited to see the man's reaction to being chastised, she thought to herself, "I may have to examine the personnel files more closely."

Joe thought to himself, Mental note - Ideas not welcome then replied. "Sorry perhaps I should have said I suggest that we..."

"If Missouri is required to preceed the fleet, it seems unlikely we alone could delay them enough by inflicting conventional damage," Pharos said, not entirely comfortable speaking up regarding a foe and situation that he had really only recently learned of himself, and had never faced personally. But, it was his job to at least offer the option; whether or not was used, wasn't up to him. "It might be more effective if we 'stunned' them, so to speak, and buy time for the fleet to arrive. Reconfiguring our photon torpedoes to generate inverse graviton bursts might keep them at sublight, but for something the size of a planetoid, we'd need to keep hitting them to maintain the field disruption."

Katrina nodded, listening to the ideas being floated before her and Captain Cooke. Perhaps they could be incorporated into her current plan. She tapped a control on the desk, causing a rather complicated graphic to appear. The planetoid, amidst a sea of colored lines. "The plan as it stands now," she began, gesturing to the hologram floating above the table, "Is dangerous. But I believe we can pull it off. There are two other starships in our taskforce which are slipstream capable. The Icarus and the Apollo. We will enter a corridor together, exiting at a specific point within the system, here," she said. With a gesture, the hologram shifted and revealed three small, jagged dots connected to the lines floating in mid air. "One ship will head towards Lazaro and enter orbit. That vessel will lower the shield facing the planetoid and use that opening to transport colonists. Once they have initiated transport they will reengage warp engines to maneuver to their new position, and another vessel will take its place in the same manner. We will use these pre-plotted warp jumps to keep I-400 off balance for as long as possible while we evacuate the colony, await for backup, or both. The maneuvers have already been pre-programmed into our computer system."

She looked around at the faces of those around her. No one needed to say anything, and she didn't have to be a telepath to understand that in all likeliness, everyone around her was thinking "My XO is some kind of psycho," or some variation of that sentiment. She clasped her hands together. "I recognize that many of you are new to this assignment. As am I. But we have something that I-400 does not. Creativity. Brawn will not see us to victory, and I believe we do not need to use weapons to stun it. It is our human nature which will carry the day." Once she finished speaking, she let her eyes gaze around the room at those present, taking in everyone's reactions to her little unintended pep talk.

Surprisingly, it was one of the civilians present at the briefing who spoke up first:

"When my sister and I first met I-400, she said she had what the Federation never will: Harmony." He explained. "She said that the Federation is discordant and disconnected. I'd say that this is our chance to prove her wrong."

"And indeed we shall:" Patricia declared, turning to Katrina. "The Icarus and Apollo are Vesta and Odyssey classes respectively, correct?"

"That is correct," Katrina affirmed in her monotonic drone. "The Apollo was recently refit, as well. While we can utilize their transporter rooms, we should also consider the possibility of using their cargo bays to increase evacuation capacity."

To be continued...

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