Enterprise Mission 02: "Intelligence Gathering"

Captain's Logs

Radm Thrawn

Stardate 20703.29

Stardate 20703.29 USS Enterprise Ships Log, RAdm Thrawn commanding. [Mission #02 [2007/episode 1] Log #01 - events 8–29 March 2007]

Our shore leave has been curtailed following the discovery of a satarran group aboard StarBase Alpha who were making enquiries about ways to gain access to the Enterprise via the restocking crews. The fact that this group had the ability via some very sophisticated body suits to take on whatever form they wished warranted an urgent departure. With our tricorders unable to detect any abnormalities with the wearers we have had to resort to the old fashioned blood test method to verify every crewmember, whilst a modern day test is developed.

After checking the skeleton crew onboard, we relocated the carrier to the San Francisco shipyards to take onboard our replacement fighters, shuttles, remaining stores, and the rest of our crew before departing for our mission.

Mission Parameters

Primary Mission

Undertake a standard patrol together with the obligatory intelligence gathering and long distance check up on our colonies along our path up to the explored limit of the Federation. It is about 40 Light Years from here along a straight line of 270 mark 12. Though Intelligence says that there is currently no significant threats or pirate activity, we have undertaken drills enroute under the co-ordination of Cdr Torgh CTO. Upon arrival our nearest neighbours will be the Ferengi alliance, the Tzenkethi Coalition and the Cardassian Union.

Secondary Mission

The underlying reason for the deployment of the Carrier to a relatively uneventful border patrol area is to deliberately attract a lot of attention from our neighbours. This is to remind the 3 main groupings that we take our borders very seriously even if they are quiet at the moment, but more importantly they will almost certainly have to re-deploy some of their assets from other parts of the border to keep us under observation, during which time the Federation will establish a new close-border [intelligence gathering] facility without disruption, which is long overdue for installation given the short distance between Sol and this part of the border. During construction it will be vulnerable, but if the Enterprise can distract them for long enough, the first our neighbours will see of the facility is when it goes online, making any subsequent covert sabotage near on impossible

Current Status

The ship has arrived at the patrol starting co-ordinates in the vicinity of 51-Pegasi, 40 LY from Earth on a vector of 270 mark 12.

It was a relatively quiet location free of stellar interference, which is ideal for the start of our deception. We don’t want the sudden appearance of the Enterprise in this part of the border to appear too obvious in the eyes of our neighbours across the border and so we will have to give the impression that we are trying to keep his location secret. By undertaking fighter familiarisation flights there should be sufficient comms traffic that will eventually be picked up and therefore encourage our neighbours to commence changing their patrol areas to try and find out what we are doing here.

Be too obvious a trap and they will wonder what else the Federation was up to – drip feed information and we should be able to draw them in with their undivided attention.

At Commander Torgh’s instigation we have commenced another emergency drill, but this time the bridge and fighter displays have secretly been configured to show a real hostile enemy approaching, with the appropriate feedback protocols into the inertial dampening systems. With the affected personnel unaware this is a drill, we will be able to ascertain the real effectiveness of the crew.

Log ends/..

Cdr Torgh

Stardate 20705.04

Stardate 20705.04 USS Enterprise Ships Log, Cdr Torgh commanding. [Mission #02 [2007/episode 1] Log #02 - events 30 March-18 April 2007]

The battle drill was very realistic and certainly put the crew through their paces; in fact it later transpired that the CTO had worked with one of our experienced power system engineers to simulate real effects on decks 1-5, so that the crew there would experience the types of damage and shaking about that they might experience during real events. Certainly the effects on bridge ops were very good, so much so that every screen was showing the battle simulation necessitating me to turn control of the ship over to Colonel Hampson in Strategic Ops for the duration of the simulation in case anyone tried to sneak upon us for real.

The drill involved a surprise attack by a Cardassian carrier and her two destroyer escort. After ignoring our hails and firing a rather inconsequential blast at us.

CTO/Helm manoeuvred the Enterprise directly between the two Cardassian destroyers, which lacked much in the way of side armaments as they concentrated on fore and aft weapons. Since the Enterprise had phaser arrays, they would be able to hit the destroyers on their way through, with a clear volley at the carrier.

Any confusion at the enemy intent was extinguished when they fired again at us, lowering our shields by 5%.

Diplomacy has its limits. I ordered the CTO into Full Attack mode, whilst sending a message to Star Fleet (on an exercise ship-recorded only comms channel) that we were engaging a Cardassian Attack Force after coming under fire. We also deployed our fighters with instructions to realistically react to any battle orders given by the Bridge due to the simulation.

Cdr Torgh let loose with a full volley at each of the Destroyers as Ensign Silran piloted them perfectly between them, and a few of their fighters that got in our way were easily squatted. Though outnumbered, it appeared that the attack force had been wrong footed by our deployment of a carrier as an offensive forward weapon rather than a rearguard fighter carrier. As our large ship cleared the two destroyers, leaving one a burning hulk and the other not too much better, the CTO opened fire with every forward-facing weapon we had at the Cardassian carrier and we watched as their forward shields went down with the phaser shots and eight torpedoes slammed into their hull. Though explosions were visible all around the front of the ship, damage analysis reports showed that it wasn't going down that easily which was confirmed when we were hit by phasers and 2 more enemy fighter squadrons were coming through to concentrate on the weakened targeted site.

Re-orientating the ship to present undamaged shielded sections to the incoming force, we opened fire yet again. Things appeared to be going very well when suddenly all power and comms failed to the bridge and emergency lighting came on.

Whether this was part of the simulation didn’t occur to us at the time – the FO, CTO & other bridge personnel were redeployed to the Battle Bridge (whilst our fighters provided cover), and I headed down to Engineering via the Strategic Ops Control centre and the flight deck to see how the crew were reacting to the Battle drill.

Whilst in Strat Ops I learnt of a body being found on the keel deck 37 (the lowest deck) which apparently had been laying there since possibly our departure from StarBase but engineering, security and medical were attending and the FO had been informed. Accordingly I added that destination to my list of areas to visit rather than heading there directly myself. Apparently it was a mystery as people had reported seeing the crewman alive on recent shifts and security were assuming that somehow a Satarrian saboteur had escaped our sensor sweep. Meanwhile the simulation was in full swing with the Battle Bridge now co-ordinating things, and random power fluctuations occurring throughout the exercising decks.

On visiting the flight deck control room I was able to see how they were responding to the exercise, co-ordinating the launch and receipt of fighters, and allowing all our pilots the opportunity to fly for the first time in a few weeks. It was during the visit when one of the controllers pointed out a detected power source near a parked fighter, and suddenly everything made sense. Alerting StratOps to a new suspicion that the simulation was a cover for sabotage we started to raise internal shields to isolate the fighter when it exploded, taking a major plasma conduit with it, severely damaging that area of the flight deck though not penetrating to vacuum, and the fighter control room incapacitating everyone inside.

Though we didn’t know it, the saboteur had further plans in motion. The next was the ships environmental control system.

Log ends/..

Stardate 20704.04

Stardate 20705.04 USS Enterprise Ships Log, Cdr Torgh commanding. [Mission #02 [2007/episode 1] Log #03 - events 18 April–4 May 2007]

I was placed in command of the Enterprise following several incredible events.

A saboteur on board caused an explosion in the hangar bay, during which Rear Admiral Thrawn was incapacitated, and then the saboteur caused damage to the environmental systems, which resulted in Captain K’Etana having some sort of respiratory failure. I can only hope that both recover quickly.

The saboteur was captured and interviewed but yielded little to no information of value. After this time they initiated some sort of personal suicide device, so I transported them into the transporter buffer for safe keeping, where they will stay until I am ready to deal with them. Unless their device contains a quantum Heisenberg bypass circuit, which I do not believe to be possible in such a device, then their self-destruct is averted for now.

I was given command by our Second Officer, the Chief Medical Officer, Commander Mike Wong. Mike is in sickbay fighting to save the Admiral and Captain K’Etana. I hope that he is successful, as I find that commanding this ship is somewhat stale. Many officers would be honored to command such a vessel, however it lacks the stealth, maneuverability, and excitement of a smaller vessel in my opinion. However as it is my duty now to command her, I shall do so. I have appointed Major Ryan as my acting First Officer, and have at present left him in command of the bridge.

I am concerned that there may be another saboteur aboard, and have ordered that anyone moving about be subjected to random blood screening checks; and also that anyone entering or leaving critical areas be subjected to these checks. It is my belief that we will quickly find anyone who is a threat.

The Enterprise has been moved into a star system, labeled on our charts only with the designation Gamma-504. It is uninhabited and I have ordered us to ‘park’ here until three things occur.

First, we are assured that there are no more saboteurs.

Second, any pending repairs are completed and the ship is returned to a fully operational status.

And lastly, the Admiral is conscious enough to inform me of what our actual orders are. Until this last, I have no idea what to do with this ship and crew.

This concludes my log entry.