Dauntless Mission 16: "Luna(r)cy"
After a short visit to 'Tera' (Earth), our orders were hijacked by a Star Fleet Science Commodore and sent on the most glorious and honorable mission of... exploring some recently uncovered ancient ruin on the dark side of Luna, Earth's moon. While I felt this was a waste of time and resources for the mighty Dauntless, some of the crew seemed enthused by the mystery of some sort of microscopic robots we found in the relic. Things seemed to be getting more exciting when we identified the possibility of an invasion of these creatures into the Federation's home system in the asteroid belt!
And then, as luck would have it, just as we were about to go off and destroy the little things, Admiral Wueste, leader of the First Fleet, ordered us to use the Gate to go to Trill and attack a rebel ship, the USS Hera. We were told the Hera had been sent by the rogue Admiral Grayson to destroy Trill using the Kirk weapon, known as the Genesis device. We confronted the stealthed ship, boarded her, and ultimately learned NOTHING OF VALUE before she was destroyed and we lost our warp core.
In short, an utter waste of the resources of the Dauntless, and my command ability.
Captain's Logs
Capt Torgh
Star Date 21601.01
Star Date 21601.01
Captain Torgh Recording.
Our mission has been one of... annoyances.
First, upon departure from Earth, we were waylaid by a Science Commodore who sent us on an archaeological mission to Earth's moon. While there was some scientific interest to the findings from some of the crew, I felt it a waste of a perfectly good battle cruiser. Still, some of the findings were of interest, especially when we found some sort of living metal made up of tiny robots. It may prove to be a useful weapon in the future... one can only hope.
We were then sent on an emergency dispatch to Trill to stop an alleged madman from destroying the world using Kirk's Genesis weapon, or a derivative of it. We arrived to find a heavily stealthed light cruiser which appears to have several surprises. And the commander, a ch'Roshi, appears to not know about the rebellion. This means either they departed on this mission as a pre-emptive strike for Grayson without knowledge of what they were doing, highly unlikely, or left before the rebellion started and their mission was not what we were told by Wueste. Troubling if this is the case. It means either problems with the intel used to send us here, or Wueste was lying. Either way it does not bode well.
I, and I think much of my crew, are torn about where our loyalties should be. We swore an oath to Star Fleet, but if Star Fleet has itself given up on that oath then how can we follow them? If Grayson is right, then we are following traitors. If he is not right, then he is the traitor. I do not know the man, so I cannot judge him. I can judge that much is not making sense here. And I have opted, in that stead, to take a more independent role. Dauntless will, for now, act in the best interests of our pledge to the Federation, and our (my) conscience and sense of honor. And we will see where we end up.
Perhaps we will end up allied with the core. Perhaps with the 4th. Perhaps with no one. I suspect in any case many of the crew will be displeased, and we may face forced transfers to remove those who disagree with the direction chosen. I hope, for their sake, those who disagree do not choose to mutiny, for if they do I will have them executed.
Now I must go to this meeting with ch'Roshi and find out what Hera is doing...
End log.
Star Date 21601.07
Star Date 21601.07
Captain Torgh, Final Log
Begin log. This will, I suspect, be my final log aboard USS Dauntless. Perhaps in Star Fleet.
We returned to base. Mission failed. Well at least mostly. We stopped them from attacking Trill, but they insisted that they were not attacking Trill. We failed to recover the weapon. The Hera was destroyed. I lost a warp core.
And my First Officer has gone off with Thrawn on some damned fool's crusade... details of which I am unclear because Thrawn did not see fit to tell me!
When I report this I suspect I'll be forced to hand in my pips.
Oh well, my wife has wanted to return to the Empire for some time. Maybe I can get a posting on a freighter. At least Klingon freighters are armed...
End log.
Crew Logs
Tactical
CTO LCdr Debbie Prescott
Star Date 21508.13
Chief Tactical Officer's log
Star Date 21508.13
Lieutenant Commander Debbie Prescott recording:
There are time I begin to regret taking a field assignment. This mission is turning out to be one of those times, especially when compared to my last outing.
The orders we were handed, by Commodore Sally Solomon, weren't encouraging. Despite having a vast array of scientists, equipment, and vessels at hand in the Sol System the Dauntless has been selected to investigate an unusual discovery on Luna.
At first it didn't make sense for us to be involved, considering the fact we're in First Fleet territory. However, the Commodore's briefing seemed to shed light on our involvement. The unearthed outpost seemed to appear Klingon-like due to the similarities of the language on the outside.
I don't know if Captain Torgh was impressed, but I had the slight feeling he was at the very least intrigued. I could be wrong considering most of his emotions seem to give the impression that he's always angry.
The mystery that seems to be present is that the Klingons didn't have warp capability fifty thousand years ago. This newly discovered outpost matches that age. So the possibilities off the top of my head either say that the scientists were wrong in their examination, or we're looking at something from a different quantum reality.
While I'm sure our scientific personnel are going to have a field day with the outpost, I find myself in a position of being useless. I'm a tactical chief with more capability in the administrative requirements of my position. That's probably a result of my time with Tactical Command. If I could get away with my subordinates taking my place on the Bridge, I would most certainly have established it.
The engineering teams are working on releasing the clamps for the outpost, so we won't cut a slice of Luna's surface when we tractor the facility aboard. Perhaps when that finished we'll have a better understand and get this mission over with. Perhaps Star Fleet will give us an actual assignment.
End log.
Star Date 21508.25
Chief Tactical Officer's log
Star Date 21508.25
Lieutenant Commander Debbie Prescott recording:
So far this mission, I've only been involved in one specific task. The problem I see is that any crewmember could've taken my place it that instance. It's not that hard to tractor an object into the Cargo Bay. If done correctly the computer could've even done it all automatically without any interaction from us.
I find myself agreeing with Captain Torgh. If I hadn't been apart of our last mission, I wouldn't understand the reactions he's been showing so far. Despite his almost sarcastic comments to me, I'm a little relieved no one's taken any offense. Although, if they had I'm sure the Captain wouldn't have a problem with it as it would give him something more to do than standing around on the Bridge.
With this lunar outpost now secured in our cargo bay it all comes down to our science teams. We don't know how our human ancestors could've been on the moon all those years ago, so hopefully some light will be shed on it. Otherwise, it'll be back to staring at my console just hoping for a little excitement other than tractoring in equipment.
End log.
Star Date 21509.24
Chief Tactical Officer's log
Star Date 21509.24
Lieutenant Commander Debbie Prescott recording
I've got to say that thing seemed to really heat up. During our investigation of this ancient dome found on the lunar surface, we determined that signals were being received by something, or someone. The worrying part is that it's occurring deep in our territory, the Sol Asteroid Belt to be specific.
Knowing the restriction on the passageway, I strongly suggest to the Captain that the Dauntless not go into the belt. I felt that it would be better suited for us to take a runabout, or a shuttle even, to investigate. They'd have a greater manoeuvrability, and we wouldn't have to put the ship into any significant, and unnecessary, risk.
Torgh, however, declined to go with my opinion. I know he's wanting to experience a combat situation, but I think he's a little paranoid to think that there could be a cloaked warbird deep in our territory. Sure we didn't expect to find the mystery on the moon either, but that had been there for fifty thousand years. An enemy vessel this close would've have to trip some of our alarms at the very least.
As our investigation began to reveal some results one wouldn't normally expect, we received a Priority One signal from Star Base Bravo. We've been place under the temporary command of Admiral Wueste's fleet. We're now having to operate under the possibility of a military confrontation is going to take place. What that will be, I haven't the slightest idea.
The Captain received a message, for his eyes only I assume, and without any hesitation ordered the Dauntless to Yellow Alert. Our course was reversed and we're now heading towards the transwarp gate. I wonder what could've changed Torgh's mind so quickly. The initial thought of combat didn't make him seem like your typical Klingon. What will we find on the other side of that gate.
End log.
Medical
CMO Lt Samantha Rae Fritz
Star Date 21508.25
Chief Medical Officer's Log
Star Date 21508.25
Morgue – Autopsy Room
Upon the surface of the moon, we have discovered an abandoned station and a body. The victim, of whom is currently on my examination table, appears to have died of starvation. It is unknown at this time whether the condition was forced or voluntary. Victim is a young male, with an estimated age that baffles me... a body in this condition is to be carefully studied. Expired humanoid bodies take about eight to ten years to start decomposition... perhaps twenty for all evidence of tissue to decompose. However, this victim... still has skin... still has probe-able organs... including a brain which I am about to cut into.
My assistant for the day, a Science Officer who was tasked with studying the victim's suit, has currently gone to Engineering to run an errand for me. On the base of the victim's neck, I have found a computer... chip... implant. It's technology, far beyond what this man should have been able to access – well, the whole space station is beyond what the man should have been able to access.
A nurse has just informed me that the command team has ordered the entire mystery beamed aboard or tractored aboard the ship.
I can't wait to slice into the brain and see what I can find.
End Log.
Engineering
CE LCdr Isambard Eyles
Stardate 21509.14
Personal Log
Lieutenant Commander Sam Eyles
Stardate 21509.14
Well, we're still hanging around Earth. The brass decided that, despite having literal thousands of xenolinguists and archaeologists on hand, it would be best to send a heavy cruiser on a scientific survey of the Moon. There was an odd installation there, covered in what might have been proto-Klingon writing, fifty thousand years old.
I shouldn't complain. It's a vacation compared to the last excursion we went on. It's nice to be doing the whole primary part of our mandate, the exploration, rather than the blowing-people-up part.
Although it does speak to our archaeological expertise that rather than leaving the thing in situ and moving equipment down to look at it, we just ripped it out of the rock and dragged it to the ship. And then we nearly set fire to it. I have a new midshipman who'll need a few passes of a regenerator... I might need to have a pep talk with him at some point, too - I've always been so good at those.
Hopefully the data logs we're extracting will shed some light.
More later.
Stardate 21511.24
Personal Log
Lieutenant Commander Sam Eyles
Stardate 21511.24
The exploring part of the mission didn't go so well. Some form of primordial nanomachine started probing a Science midshipman and me, but luckily Fritz et al in Sickbay were more than up to the task of getting us clear. Had a chat with Dote... he's fine, out of his moping, and back on duty.
Also the old theory about the Moon being made of Earth-stuff ejected after a Mars-sized thing hit it might be false. The logs were full of weird s*** like that, that I would have scoffed at and dismissed if I hadn't been able to read them myself. SFSI is going to have a field day with this lot.
Unfortunately, we won't be able to take the time to properly go over them ourselves yet. There's a 4th Fleet cruiser aiming a Genesis device at Trill, and we're trying to hound them down. The Enterprise group is doing the same, and there're a couple of Marine ships here too.
The Hera is currently doing about 0.3c, so there there are some dilation effects. Thing is, they shouldn't be causing us the trouble they are - if we can do a strafing run at warp 8 without issue, sublight stuff shouldn't be a problem. Our computers are more than up to the task, and should have taken over the adjustments to a targeting solution if Tactical missed it.
She is an experimental test-bed, perhaps that's it. I'll run another intrusion sweep, just in case.
I hope Grayson burns.
More later.
Stardate 21601.02
Personal Log
Lieutenant Commander Sam Eyles
Stardate 21601.02
The Hera has heaved-to, and we're standing down to Yellow alert. But even if the phaser banks and torpedo rails are on standby, I'm keeping the capacitors charged. I don't want us to be caught on the back foot if Torgh can't talk them down.
You know, Captain Torgh, that famed Klingon diplomat. Smooth talker, softly-spoken, never a bad word to say. Yeah right.
The Enterprise battlegroup is hanging around, too. I'm not sure what side they're on in this, but I don't want to think about what might happen if they object to something we do. Couldn't see Torgh backing down, and they outclass us by a mile. Luckily, apart from the damage to our tractor control, we sustained nothing bad from the chase. Once all the running temps returned to normal, everything checked out.
Must make a note to check the targeting systems for Tactical, though. It's still weird how much trouble we had getting a bead on that cruiser.
More later.
Stardate 21601.07
Personal Log
Lieutenant Commander Sam Eyles
Stardate 21601.07
All the diagnostics on targeting scanners came back clean, so I suppose it was just the combination of our relativistic sublight velocity and the Hera's particular hull construction. I wonder what it would take to extend that Fleetwide? If it can defeat our own sensors, it should stand up fairly well to just about anything.
The comm array seemed to get a ping back through that encrypted link I set up to Taelor's team, but for the life of me I can't find it in the buffer. Now that we have a quiet moment, I've gone looking for it. The thought of it being some sort of counter-intrusion e-war malcode from the Hera makes me nervous, and...
Oh, sh-
Lt Robert Ballantyne
Stardate 21506.15
Engineering officers report.
Lieutenant Robert Ballantyne reporting.
Stardate: 21506.15.
Well after having some down time and returning to the home world of Earth, I figured that we would be heading back to StarBase Bravo before we were given our next mission.
However it seems that for some reason the powers that be decided that having the Dauntless in the Sol System was a good thing and decided to get us to help with a little mystery that has occurred on Luna.
From the information that had been passed on via Commander Eyles, it seems that some sort of dome has been found under the surface of Luna and the scientists say that it has been there for around fifty thousand years..... How could this has gone unnoticed for so long when there are cities on Luna and they have been there for before 2069
Ohh and to make things even more stranger, those scientists are saying that the structure might be Klingon in nature.
End Log
Stardate 21601.08
Acting Chief Engineering Officers log
Lieutenant Robert Ballantyne reporting.
StarDate: 21601.08
This mission was a hard one and we were sent to stop a Federation Starship from attacking the Trill home world with a Genesis weapon, we managed to stop the planet from being attacked but we lost the USS Hera and most of her crew.
I wasn't really sure if this was one of the starting event which will see the First and Second fleets go head to head against the Fourth fleet in regards to their breaking away from the main body of the Federation and trying to take over the whole running of the Federation and StarFleet Command, only time will tell.
As things were getting better and towards the end of the main part of the mission the Dauntless suffered a catastrophic failure of the main warp core ejection system as the main warp core went into melt down and it was down to Lieutenant Commander Isambard Eyles that we are still here today.
It is with great sadness that I have to report the Lieutenant Commander Eyles was killed in the line of duty saving the ship and crew from a possible warp core breach, he stayed in engineering to manually eject the ware core when the auto-ejection system failed.
The damage that had been caused by the heat build up had taken most of the trip home to fix, we only left the basic stuff for the base engineers to do while we are on shore leave…..the only thing that I'm not going to enjoy during this shore leave is having a conversation with Commander Eyles parents over sub space as its it needs to be done in a face to face manner and not by a written letter.
I have also heard that the Dauntless will be getting a new Command crew during this down time, so when we move out to start our next mission things will feel different with different people in command.
End log.
MidFelix Dote
Stardate 21510.8
[Personal Log, Engineering Midshipman Felix Dote reporting. Stardate 21510.8]
[Today was my first day aboard the Avenger-Class Heavy Cruiser USS Dauntless, CA-1553 under the command of Captain Torgh and Chief Engineer Isambard Eyles. I arrived by Shuttlecraft as the Dauntless was orbiting Luna, and proceeded to report for duty to Main Engineering. However, upon arriving, I was summoned by the Captain to Cargo Bay 1. There, I was ordered to bring an alien outpost which had just been retrieved from Luna to full power. With the CE absent, I proceeded to do so.]
[...Not long after this was achieved, the CE arrived on-scene, and we were ordered to extract as much data as possible from the ship. As we donned re-breathers and entered the craft, the Chief asked me to see what I could do about extracting the Hard Drives from the ship. With this intent in mind, I proceeded to enter the Computer Core of the ship, only to find it was in the middle of overheating. I panicked. I reported the issue to the CE, but instead of waiting for his reply, I attempted to interface with the computer system of the ship and issue an override command. I must have triggered some sort of anti-piracy safeguard, because it proceeded to blow up the terminal in my face and embed glass shard on my neck. I cannot remember very well what happened next, but I know that the CE entered the room and managed to help me on my feet, and I stumbled out of the craft.]
[However, the crisis was not over. Part of the computer core seemed to melt, and later analysis revealed that they were made of nanoprobes. They proceeded to "infect" the CE and a Science Officer. I can still hear the screams of the Science Officer in my head. She was crying, trying to get the things off her...]
[I... I know it was my fault that the entire thing happened. Had I not distracted the CE, he might have used the proper containment measures, and this entire fiasco wouldn´t have happened. They would still be healthy and well, and I would probably not be about to get the boot off the ship. Because, well, let´s face it: who would want to keep the officer that made sure the infection happened in the first place, even if it was accidental?]
[I joined Star Fleet because I thought I would become a hero. I thought I could become Montgomery Scott or Geordi La Forge. I thought that I would rise though the ranks, become captain in no-time, and be able to save everyone from the brink of disaster. I would dash in the last minute, think up some bat-**** crazy scheme that pulled everyone alive, and go back home a hero.]
[So far, though, the only thing I managed to do was become a danger to myself and others. I became a liability. I did not save anyone from danger. In fact, I caused the crisis that now has 2 people restricted in Sickbay. I keep telling myself that no matter what I did, or how I acted, someone would have become infected regardless of whenever I acted. But so far, I can´t convince myself of that.]
[What happens next is up to either the CE, or if he does not survive, the FO or CO. At the very least, I will probably get the boot. At worst, a court-martial. Right now, though, I am just locked in my room, staring out at the stars, and wondering where my entire dream went wrong.]
[End of Log]
Stardate 21601.7
[Personal Log, Engineering Midshipman Felix Dote reporting. Stardate 21601.7]
"..."
"I don't know what to say. Eyles is dead. He sacrificed himself to eject the warp core. What more is there to say? How much of a hero he was? How brave he must have been? I barely knew the man, yet... here we are."
"We are heading back to Bravo. The entire atmosphere here is glum. No one knows what will happen to us now. The media is going to have a blast. "Space disaster: Chief Engineer killed in the line of duty!". Extra extra, read all about it! Read all about it, you *******! READ ALL ABOUT IT! GOD ******* DAMN IT! No no no! This isn't happening. This is a nightmare. I... nothing happened, alright? Nothing happened. NOTHING HAPPENED! IT CAN'T BE REAL!"
"It... it couldn't have happened. Yet... we all know it happened. What else can I say? He is dead. DEAD. And no one could do a thing about it. I feel as though I could have helped, you know? But while logically I knew I could have done very little, the guilt is still strong. I feel dead inside, like someone ripped a piece of my soul out. And I barely knew the man. May it be because he was the only one who showed kindness to the damn rookie? Not try to push him around the entire place? I barely got mentored by him, if you want to call it that. But I feel like I lost an opportunity to get to know a great man... At least I am not taking it as badly as the others. Some of the engineers would break down crying while performing this and that task. Of all the crew, I think the Command and Engineering Staff are taking it the worst. For some, he was a fatherly figure. For others, he was the man who could fix ANYTHING, and save their hides. For me? He was a man who showed kindness to a newbie. A simple gesture, but as I learned thanks to our lovely command staff: that can mean a lot. And it did to me. I know this is nowhere near appropriate or lengthy enough to commend this great man, and I wish I had more time with him. But alas, this will have to do for the moment. We have to mourn, and move on. Somehow, I think that's what he would have wanted."
"As I am making this log, we are closing into Star Base Bravo by the minute. I don't know what I will do when we get there, nor what will happen once we do. I know nothing with certainty. With a civil war which would make the American one seem pathetic in comparison to casualties fast approaching, we are going to need a new Chief Engineer soon. No one knows who will take the position, and neither do I, but one thing is certain: We need to be on our feet, and be ready for anything. If his death has taught us anything, it was that no one is invulnerable to dying. Time is short, and we have to be ready to face the enemy. But first, we must mourn. If there will be a funeral, I will attend it: out of sheer respect for this man who inspired so many, if not for the fact that he showed kindness to me as well. We will all miss him. Sadly... I don't think he will be the last victim on this ship by the end of the hostilities. A lot more people are going to die. We just have to hope it ain't either us, or someone we care about.
"End log."
