A Ship at Sea in Storm

Posted on Sun Feb 23rd, 2020 @ 10:30pm by Commander Tressa Brislan-Antilles & Fleet Captain Torilla Yamaguchi

Mission: Mission 5: Skyfall
Location: Various Locations - USS Venator
Timeline: 1000Hrs - January 19th, 2389

Lieutenant Commander Torilla Yamaguchi had called a conference of the ships senior staff as she was getting rather annoyed with the near constant issues plaguing her ship and crew so she had an idea to resolve that in mind, she'd call the USS Concorde for assistance, they were a large Starfighter carrier with lots of engineering and security personnel aboard along with plenty of equipment and supplies aboard, enough to bring the Venator back up to a hundred percent.

She would call Captain Kerrie Williams after the meeting and get it arranged as she walked over to where Commander Roebuck was standing. "Commander, you'll command the watch while we're having this meeting.. I want you to get some command experience on this assignment while we're.... having our song and dance with the issues aboard ship."

Roebuck nodded, "Yes ma'am."

"Alright then." and with that the taller then average woman turned and walked into the conference lounge as she caught him settling into her command chair as if he belonged there, a smile crossed her face as she realized that should anything happen, her ship would be in capable hands.

She didn't bother replicating herself anything to eat as she waited for the others to arrive.

Jack made his way back to the Bridge when he got the call for the conference meeting, he wondered what else was going on. He called over another Ops Officer to take his place and made his way to the conference room. As he walked in, he chose a seat and waited for the others to arrive.

Lee walked into the conference room after checking in on the prisoner he nodded to all that where there before taking his seat.

Torila was waiting patiently, raising three very intelligent children had taught her a fine regard for the value of patience as she watched her personnel all file in one at a time.

Zhao walked back into engineering and left instructions to get the gel packs replaced in the sickbay, then after receiving acknowledgement of his orders, he walked back out of the engineering block and headed for the bridge. A couple of minutes later he entered the ready room, tricorder and padd still in his hands. "Sorry, if I'm late captain. Just been sorting out a problem with the emergency medical hologram program. For some reason some of the neural gel packs were missing. They are being replaced now."

Alex walked in with a cup of coffee. She sat next to Lee and smiled at him. She looked around to see who was there and who wasn't.

Lee gave Alex a tired smile then reached over and grabbed her leg and gave it an affection squeeze.

Torilla smiled as she caught the gentle interaction between Alex and Lee as she sat down at the head of the table.

Maal walked into the room and gave a curt nod to everyone before standing against a far wall.

Saith finished her check of Security and her reports then headed for the conference room and the meeting. As she walked in she looked about the room, noting the faces before her. She glanced at Maal leaned against the wall and moved over to sit in the chair in front of him. He was one of two people she would trust at her back. She smiled at Captain Lee Pike and Alex. He was the other, the jury was still out on Alex but she briefly considered if she trusted Maal and Lee, she also probably had to trust Alex. But they hadn’t worked together much, and they hadn’t talked. This went through her head in the blink of an eye and she turned her attention to the head of the table.

Lee looked around the room as Saith stepped in and noticed one important person to what had happen lately wasn't there. He tapped his badge:"Pike to La Baron."

"La Baron here."

"You are wanted right away in the conference room Ensign."

Torilla knew that the Ensign had spent a few hours staring into the face of
the most deadly super weapon ever devised and thus she was willing to cut him some slack about it.

Anthony finally made his way to the conference room, now he had to explain everything he told to Commander Yamaguchi to the rest of the senior staff. Starfleet redundancy was beginning to wear thin on him.
Tressa took her seat quietly; the EMH program was still buggy.

Lee looked over at Anthony:"So what have you found out for us so far Ensign?"

"It's a Thalaron Bomb, and I highly doubt it belongs to the Romulans or the Orion Syndicate." Said Anthony.

"So who do you think it belongs to then Ensign?" Lee sat there listening.

"Well... Lets face it... someone placed the equivalent of a thermonuclear warhead aboard this ship. The fact alone that it did not set off the early warning systems aboard the base is scary enough, someone was on the inside... It has to be... " she turned to Pike. "When we get back to base.... find out whoever he or she is... and then run that bastard down." she growled. "But the one thing that keeps throwing me off..... why us and not the Gladiator or the Pegasus?" she inquired. "Thoughts... theories... I want them all. I don't care how outrageous you think they are...."

Lee looked over at Yamaguchi: "How do we know that one of the other ships didn't get something either."

Saith had been listening as the story was told, but there was something nagging her. As Yamaguchi finished her directions to Pike, Saith spoke up, “although it doesn’t necessarily have to be an Engineer that would make the most sense.” As people’s attention turned her direction, she felt nervous about espousing her theory. “Everything we have experienced here onboard ship has had something to do with Engineering; the aberrant readings, the wiring of the explosive, even the dead spots behind Security ended up being an Engineering issue. The easiest place to do all of this stuff from is Engineering, and therefore, it would make the most sense to pass yourself off as an Engineer. Are there any new Engineers that were overeager for more shifts?” this last question was aimed at La Baron.

"I'm a Scientist, not an Engineer." Said Anthony rubbing his tired eyes, "I'm more concerned about whoever is sending a transmission to the bomb itself. That's who we need to really worry about."

Saith felt the familiar flare of her temper and her color and her voice rose. “yes, by all means worry about the one we cannot get our hands on and not the ones we can. Usually, the little person can be coerced into giving up the bigger person,” she said testily. With a quick scowl towards La Baron, she took a deep breath and continued. “We have one person we can question, but this feels like a multi-person job. It would be an extraordinarily rare individual who could do all of these things so quickly and not be noticed.”

She looked at Pike, “like I said, it doesn’t have to be an Engineer, but that is where I would start. As for why us, maybe because we are the flagship of this particular team? It could be symbolic, or perhaps more. One of the first rules of combat is disrupt Command, Control, and Communication. Why take out a picket when you can take out a fence post. Besides if we were all in formation it might have been powerful enough to blow an entire whole in the fence. Cut off the head of the snake, etc.” She stopped and flushed a little as she realized she had been thinking aloud and rambling. Afraid she wasn’t making sense, she abruptly shut up. The she stammered quietly, “or not?” and ducked her head slightly.

Yamaguchi raised an eyebrow as she regarded the other woman. "No... you make an excellent point." she responded evenly, Saith had done exactly what Torilla had wanted, bring her ideas to the table. "So.... we know what we face... the question becomes.... how do we get rid of this Thaleron Bomb before it detonates?" she inquired. "I am open to suggestions."

Zhao just listened. He was an engineer, not a security expert. Yes, it was astrange that the ship seemed to be in a worse state than when it went into dock, but he had seen that before because of the incompetance of the lead engineer, not sabotage. He kept quiet and listened, building up a list of all the things found wrong with the ship.

Torilla meanwhile was keeping her own council on what she thought was wrong with this ship. "Alright... when we finish. I'm going to contact one of the ships in our group for assistance with our various issues." she explained.

Lee looked over at Saith:"Lt. I want extra security provied to guard all important parts of the ship. Get with Sgt. Maal there and you two coorindate the Marines to help."

It was all Saith could do to not roll her eyes at Captain Pike. Maal and she had already made those assignments, when this mission began! Instead she just nodded, “Yes, sir. Immediately.” But she gave a dark glance over her shouolder at Maal wondering how he took the order.

Maal gave her a look to suggest that Lee probably knew what she was thinking.

"Do we know when the bomb will detonate?" Tressa asked softly. "We can evacuate the ship in less than five minutes; will we have that much time if we cannot disarm it?"

Yamaguchi looked across at the Doctor as she shook her head, "We won't have time to scream before the bomb fries every life form aboard this ship."
she explained. "Which means we need to find a way to deal with this bomb
properly.... Ensign, do you feel up to it?" she looked at La Baron. "Keep in mind that the bomb probably has a few anti-tampering devices concealed within." Torilla commented.

"If you can prescribe an engineering team to tamper with the workings of the device, I'd be more interested in seeing who is feeding information to the device. With your permission of course, ma'am."

"Very well. Anything else?" Torilla inquired.

Saith stared at the ceiling for a moment, and then spoke again. “There has to be a reason this didn’t start right away.” She looked at Yamaguchi. “If there isn’t some sort of a timing device to begin the chain of mishaps, and our friend didn't do it, my best guess would then be that we were out of signal range. If that is so, the signal has to be close, or at the very least a relay station as to be close. If we could find it, we could maybe disrupt the signal. The problem with that is if the signal drops will it suddenly detonate?"

Yamaguchi raised an eyebrow. "Indeed... It could also be on a cloaked ship."
the older woman replied evenly as she paused. "We need to find a way to remove the detonator from the bomb and make sure it can't kill us..." she looked around the room. "Alright." and with that she began dishing out orders.
"Mr. La Baron, try and defuse that bomb, Captain Harrison, please give him whatever help he needs." she commented.

La Baron nodded. "Yessir."

Harrison nodded. "Yessir."

"Captain Pike, get with Engineering and deal with the ships problems please, I'll have some help for you both in a matter of hours." she commented.

Lee nodded:"Can do Captain"

Quan nodded, "Engineering will be right on it, Captain."

"Doctor, do you have any computer programming or communications experience?" she inquired, knowing full well that the Doctor was wasted half the time in Sickbay and Torilla know that this woman was a cut above the usual so she wanted to make her useful.

"I have communications experience but I am only passable as a programmer," Tressa said. "My staff are fully prepared in Sickbay so I can man the comm."

Yamaguchi nodded. "Alright, I need to know if the call will come in via coms....
I need someone with a delicate ear... Lieutenant Baratan, give her a hand please." she commented. "Alright... Questions and comments?"

Saith nodded her acknowledgement. She would follow up on Pike's order first, then swing around and help the doctor. Saith looked at Dr. Brislan. "I will meet you later. Let me know when you are ready, I have to check in with Security."

Torilla raised an eyebrow as the com system beeped. "Bridge to the Captain, sir, Lieutenant Soloman has collapsed, we're rushing him to sickbay now.."

"Understood. Dismissed everyone." Yamaguchi rose to her feet as she turned and walked out the door, her crew following her.

{Well, that is interesting} thought Saith, {I hope he will be alright. Although it will give me time to check up on our prisoner, before meeting with Dr. Brislan}. She stood as Yamaguchi dismissed the meeting. Turning and catching Maal’s eye she smiled a wry smile. “can’t wait til it gets intense.” She said quietly with a small laugh. “I am going to Security first and double check our patrols and prisoner. You?” She moved closer to him, to let others pass by them and out of the conference room.