Combat Readiness Pt.1

Posted on Mon Jun 14th, 2021 @ 3:54am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Lieutenant Commander Sandra "Phantom" Risa & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Lieutenant Chester "Duo" Maxwell & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant JG Avarak

Mission: Gamma Quadrant
Location: Gamma Quadrant

The Sunfire hung in space as though a child's toy suspended by a thread, still and unmoving as the crew conducted repairs. The Captain knew that it was mainly the engineering crew working on the warp core which left most of the crew free for other 'tasks' so to speak. The Captain had one such task in mind. This was a new ship to most of the crew, and some of those crew were new themselves. She wanted to get a baseline for where everyone was at. No time like the present.

"Attention all hands, prepare for combat drill Kaylen Lamda 3. Begin at the signal of red alert" the captain closed the ship-wide communication. Only a handful of her most trusted officers knew what the combat drill was. The rest would have to react to sensor readings, holographic intruders, and other decoys.

Savar gave her a subtle nod from the XO's chair. His dark eyes cool and unreadable. "An excellent suggestion Captain." He said softly for only here to hear.

Down in engineering, Lieutenant Kla'ren began to prepare. First, he tapped on his console to put up a force field around the warp core. "Alright folks we don't know what's in store for this simulation. However, if weapons are needed for this drill, please aim away from the core, even though I put up the field." Kla'ren ordered his engineers.

With the crew shaken up from the wormhole transit and the ship a little worse for wear, Avarak was surprised to hear that a combat drill was imminent. Combat, however, seldom comes when one is fully prepared and rarer still at a time of one's own choosing; the timing of the drill was quite logical.

"Well this ought to be interesting." Giving a tilt of his head a little, then Dean looked down to his console. Making sure to set everything into simulation mode. "Shields up, weapons charging and being loaded."

Shit! Shit! Shit! She monologued silently to herself as she began quickly pacing about the floor. She didn't know where to go or what she should be doing. Her first goal was to avoid eye contact with anyone carrying a phaser. Her second goal was to retrieve her targeting orb from her quarters and hope it would work as expected.

Duo had finished his meeting with the Captain moments before and was standing at the Mission Ops 1 station. He logged into the console and pulled up the Internal Sensor Net and mirrored the Tactical Sensors at the station and then configured them for the proper simulation so that they would show the holographic ships and intruders that would no doubt be coming soon. The butterflies began to accumulate in his stomach. They always came before combat, real or simulated, despite being in Starfleet for decades now and so many shipboard actions he had lost count. He reflected on the benefit of having the Security role separated from the Tactical role on this ship. It would allow him to focus on a specific task with his focus.

The Kaylen Lamba 3 scenario was pretty much as rough as it got. It revolved around the premise of being surrounded by hostile ships and being boarded, the crew having to simultaneously try to escape the ships and fend off the intruders at the same time. Rhenora found it a very good test of metal and training and used it when 'breaking in' a new ship and crew to see where the limitations and training gaps were.

"All hands, red alert, begin the scenario. All hand weapons on training mode" she ordered through the comm. Three ships appeared on the main viewscreen, Jem Hadar in appearance. Rhenora steeled herself for phase two when the boarding parties would been into decks 1,8,10,15 and 18".

"I already did and sent the signal for that, Ma'am." Dean smiled just slightly. Kla'ren already has forcefields in place around the core, and security lock off fields in all sections ready."

Shortly after the comm announcement, dozens of holographic Jem'Hadar began to flood engineering, firing their fake weapons. Thriss unholstered his own phaser he was using for the scenario and began to fire at the Jem'Hadar, downing 4 of them, while taking cover in between the times he fired. He quickly got up to send a casualty report, but not before being fired upon. This time, he got hit. However, he managed to fire on some of the last holograms. Unfortunately, reinforcements would be inevitable.

Bonnie was hurridly moving through the corridor from engineering when a pair of Jem'Hadar soldiers materialized in front of her, scaring her. She reacted by palm striking the first one in the nose and then immediately and profusely apologizing. As she backed away, someone shot the second one in the back with a phaser and then tossed a phaser to Bonnie.

Her eyes wide, she eeped, then fumbled the phaser in her hands. When she finally got a grip, she closed her eyes and fired. When she peeked, she had realized she had shot the soldier in the foot and he was now hopping around in pain. The person who had tossed her a phaser was laughing for a moment, but then took aim and fired. "Next time, try keeping your eyes open, and aiming." She blushed and then took off running for her quarters.

Savar studied the reports flooding into his station. "Casualties reported on all decks Captain, heaviest on those decks where Jem 'Hadar boarding parties have been reported." He continued on, "Dispensing medical teams to those decks."

"Deploying countermeasures. Tachyon fields to disrupt the Jem'Hadar's cloaks. Securing all access. Including the Jeffress tubes. Force fields in place and holding." Dean glanced to Savar, "I'll drop them as necessary."

"Risa, scramble the fighters, Ensign Bowers, take the Con" The Captain ordered, eager to see the capabilities of the new fighter squadrons this Akira class boasted.

Savar's fingers flew across his console as he read and took in the information. "More Jem'Hadar are coming aboard Captain and splitting into multiple groups to overwhelm our defenses. Especially desks 15 and 18."

Just then the ship lurched violently from several phaser hits. "Shields are holding but down to 63 percent. Mr. House, reroute power to the shields."

"Already done. Shields on an angling precognitive algorithm to try and predict where to put more power to certain shield arcs. Also..if you want me to. Anyone got a big round shield with red, white and blue, and a star on it I can use? I can take care of those Jem'Hadar." Dean smirked. Not figuring anyone would get the old reference.

As the ship lurched, Bonnie was tossed against the wall just outside her room, landing upon the floor abruptly on her butt. Another bruise for the collection. Shaking it off she stood up and entered her room where her targeting device was stashed. Since she didn't know where else to be, she opted to make her way to the primary core on deck one and defend it from intruders. She pulled out the ball, twisted it to on mode. Once it booted, she tossed it in the air where it hovered. "Target mode, stun, target, Jem'Hadar soldiers." It chirped and with that she moved for the core.

Duo's console began displaying the intruders. He began coordinating the Security teams to the decks where they had materialized. A priority message flashed on his screen, "Intruders on Deck 1, Observation Lounge." Duo took the hand phaser stored at his console and proceeded to the Observation Lounge. As the door hissed open it revealed three Jem'Hadar inside. Duo got the drop on them and downed two before they could react. The third returned fire. Duo managed to dive behind the conference table. They exchanged several volleys over the table. After the second shot, as Duo was taking cover under the table, he could see the Jem'Hadar's legs, he took aim and shot him in the knee causing him to drop to the floor. Duo phasered him center mass. Duo stood headed for the Bridge Turbo lift.

=/\=Security Team Rho to Deck 18, Security Team Epsilon to Deck 15=/\=

Duo entered the Turbo Lift, "Deck 18" he ordered. Hopefully, the reinforcements and the Engineering Crew could hold the fort. Deck 18 however was undefended. It housed environmental controls, anti-matter storage and back up shield generators. It wasn't a typical target of boarding crews and that peaked Duo's curiosity. Left unchecked, the holo Jem'Hadar could cause a lot of damage in there.

Under normal circumstances, Aurora would have been assisting where she could given the scenario, but as it was she was on the bridge merely visiting whilst on maternity leave. Remaining in her seat she merely observed the crew going about their duties with a mind to prepare a report for Rhenora on the mental awareness and stresses of the drill.

As soon as her relief slid into her vacated seat, Sandra was off the bridge in the lift headed for the fighter deck barking orders. "Phantom to Alert 5 launch squadrons. Two CAP and third close fighter protection of mother", she said racing down the corridor pulling on her helmet. Skidding across the deck, coming to a stop in front of Phantom 1, she mounted and gunned the throttle taking off. She scared the hell out of three of the mechanics as she flew two meters over their heads out of the open deck into space, spinning like a WWll fighter. Banking sharply, she took the lead of her Alert 5's and stayed in position. "Risa to Mother, all fighters deployed and on station", she said coolly.

While combat was an area that had much of the crew in pandemonium, not much changed at the science station. The science officer's job, when on a bridge watch, was, among other things, interpreting sensor data and while an important part of the science officer's job was providing technical and scientific solutions to the Captain, the exploitation of an enemy was also a job shared by Ops. However, Avarak believed he had found something that could prove useful, after all.

"Captain, I am detecting what appears to be an instability in one of the Jem'Hadar ship's warp core. A phased tetryon beam could exacerbate that instability and cause a precipitous drain on the vessel's power." Reported the science officer.

[To be continued]