Welcome Aboard

Posted on Sun Aug 29th, 2021 @ 5:46am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Finchley Kerr

Mission: Gamma Quadrant
Location: Ready Room

Captain Kaylen Rhenora was in her ready room finalising the command recertifications with a freshly brewed cup of coffee when her door chime rang. With most of the crew on leave she hadn't been expecting anyone.

"Come in" She called, swivelling in the high backed chair to see who wanted to chat.

The Ready Room doors opened, and Finchley walked through them and towards the Senior Officer seated. As he approached them, the well lit room made his head feel like a thousand tiny spears were jabbing at his eyes.

Though still hung over from the previous evening, he was trying his best to not let it show as he said "Excuse the interruption Captain, I'm Commander Finchley Kerr, your new Chief Strategic Operations Officer, I wanted to check in with you and give you my transfer orders" he finished, offering the PADD he had in his hand to Kaylen.

Her keen eyes were drawn to the bloodshot eyes and the wince at the lighting levels, a wry smile crossing her lips.
" Welcome aboard Mr Kerr, please why don't you take a seat. Would a reduced lighting level make you feel more comfortable?" She offered.

Being glad of the offered seat and reduced lighting, Finchley gingerly lowered himself into the seat opposite his new CO, replying "Thank you for the welcome and the seat Sir, and yes, reduced lighting would be very much appreciated...by about eighty percent I think" he tried joking.

"It must have been some gathering at Quarks" the Captain couldn't help but smile sympathetically, she call recall the days of big nights and painful mornings all too well. The crew were off duty and even though he was reporting for duty, he was still technically off duty for 3 days. Who could blame them for blowing off some steam.

"Computer, reduce lighting by 80 percent" the lights dimmed instantly and she rose, heading to the replicator and returning with a black coffee and some toast.

"This should help" she placed the mug and plate before the new officer and returned to her chair with a wry smile.

"Thank you Sir, that's most kind of you" Finchley replied, meaning both the dimming of the lights and the coffee and toast.

"Yes, Quarks was certainly a bit of a do" he answered regarding Rhenora's question, I'd completed my final recky tour in the Gamma Quadrant with the Patterson, so myself and some of my friends were having a goodbye bash. One drink led to another and before we knew it we were in the holosuites very drunk, but having a whale of a time. I met up with some of the Sunfire's crew and that's about as much as I can remember towards the end of the night" he finished

" Sounds like it was mostly definitely a memorable night" She chuckled, keeping the volume down so as to not aggravate his head further. " So I have your transfer papers, and your profile, tell me - did you request this assignment or was it offered?" She asked inquisitively.

"I asked for it Sir" Finchley replied "The Patterson got re-assigned to other duties, but I felt the Intelligence reconnaissance mission we were on was only half completed. We'd done a lot, don't get me wrong, but when we had the skirmish with the three Hideki Class ships, we knew we'd stumbled on something new. Unfortunately, we were quite badly damaged and had to come back for repairs. I couldn't believe it when I heard they'd pulled the ship from going back and had re-assigned her, but then, I couldn't believe my luck when I heard the Sunfire was going back to the Gamma Quadrant...so I requested a transfer here."

"I see" the Captain listened without judgement, everyone had their own unique stories and their own reasons for transferring between ships. Some chased the excitement, some chased the exploration and others just wanted to do good.

"Well you're in luck, we should be heading back to the Gamma Quadrant as soon as our repairs are complete. It should only be a few days. We had a run in with the Jem Hadar and a rough trip through the wormhole, so much that we couldn't do the repairs on our own." She explained.

"Can I ask what happened to cause the run in with the Jem Hadar Sir? Finchley asked.

Rhenora drew a breath, recalling the events that had transpired.
"From what we can understand, there was a Bajoran ship containing the survivors of New Bajor, and it appears a rouge element of Jem Hadar were not happy they had survived the extermination of the planet during the war"

"You attempted to rescue them and got attacked by the Jem Hadar?" Finchley asked, his interest now piqued.

" Correct, there were three rouge Jem Hadar ships, we took quite the beating in the process but we managed to successfully rescue the freighter with all hands. Our return to the Gamma Quadrant after these repairs will be to better ascertain the state of the Dominion, to see if this was indeed a rouge attack or if they are preparing to go on the offensive again" The Captain explained, sipping her coffee and watching Finchley's reaction.

"That's interesting Sir, the Patterson encountered Cardassian Hideki Class ships" Finchley replied "and with you now telling me you encountered Jem'Hadar fighters, that can't be a coincidence. I have a hunch there's more to this than meets the eye. I can pull up the Patterson's co-ordinates if you wish, and if you don't mind cross referencing them with the Sunfire's co-ordinates, we can look and try to ascertain if there's a pattern?"


" Good thinking there Commander" The Captain replied as she activated her desk monitor and pulled up a Gamma Quadrant star chart, cross referencing the Sunfire's logs and pinpointing the location they had come across the Jem Hadar ships.
" Here, they were lurking in this system trying to flush out the Bajoran freighter" She pointed to one of the systems a few days at warp from the wormhole.

Finchley quickly contacted the Captain of the USS Patterson and got permission from them to get the co-ordinate details from the ships encounter with the Cardassian Hideki Class ships.

"If I may Sir?" Finchley asked, gesturing to the desk monitor so he could input and overlap the Patterson's information on the star chart.

"Thank you" Finchley replied, moving round the desk. Once inputted into the start chart, the Patterson's encounter showed up as a Starfleet vessel insignia. Standing back, he looked in shock to see how close they were to the Sunfire's co-ordinates.

"Captain, my gut instinct tells me this is no coincidence, Cardassian and Jem'Hadar ships in such close proximity to each other, trying to flush out a Bajoran freighter" Finchley said "my questions are though, if they're attacking a Bajoran freighter, what was it that was on the freighter that they wanted and how did they know where and when it would be there for them to attack it?"

Then another disturbing thought struck him "Sir, also, is it possible there were Dominion Fifth Columnists on New Bajor?"

"From the conversation we had with the First, he was not too happy that they evaded the destruction of New Bajor and he seemed intend to 'finish the job'. Whilst we have intelligence that the Dominion have been quiet since the war, we are also aware there may be rouge elements" the Captain explained carefully.

"The Intelligence we had when the Patterson was sent out was that a few ships managed to get away, included onboard two of them were remnants of the New Bajor government" Finchley said "we were trying to ascertain if this were true or not, unfortunately we were attacked and couldn't finish the mission" he finished.

"We didn't detect any other vessels, but then again we were surprised to find one Bajoran vessel let alone any more. Perhaps when we re-enter the Gamma Quadrant we can take another look around, and hopefully not get our butts kicked again" the Captain mused, making some notes on a padd. "Do you have any further detail on these two ships?"

"What we learned were that they were two Antares Class carriers Sir" Finchley began "We've no idea if they were the older sub-light carriers, or if they were the upgraded warp capable ones. Even if they were the warp capable ones, we're only talking warp two, maybe three, but that's it, tops. My hunch is that they set off for a rendezvous that'd be reasonably close to where New Bajor was. It's a very long shot Captain, but we could try and see if we can trace their engine signatures, they'd be very distinctive if they were the sub-light ships. My concern though is, if we have Jem'Hadar ships and Cardassian ships fairly close to the wormhole, for me, that means they have a base close by. This could be a much larger mission parameter than were thinking...have the Dominion reformed and created a base, and where have the New Bajor government officials gone?"

" All questions that need answers and are within the scope of our mission extension. As soon as the repairs are finished we are due back in the Gamma Quadrant." The Captain started, pulling up a star chart of the space nearby to the wormhole exit. " We encountered the Bajoran and Jem Hadar vessels here, where are you suggesting we start looking for the other two?" She handed the padd over - keen to get some good intel and get back on the road so to speak.

Finchley looked at the star chart. His mind calculated a number of possible permutations for the Antares Class ships to take.

"Well, given that the Dominion ships most likely came through the wormhole" Finchley began "the escaping Antares ships would have known there was little point in heading that way immediately. They'd need to wait it out for a while, so given that their warp speed if they have it would be slow, that ion dust cloud would be where I'd head" he added, pointing to the chart.

Then a horrifying thought struck him "I'm going to be honest Sir, I think the freighter you encountered was a sacrificial lamb, it makes sense. Fill the freighter with those who are heavily injured, even dying, but wary enough to guide the ship towards the Cardassians and Jem'Hadar. They attack it, giving the other two ships time to get away and hide out. For me Sir, I think that the ion dust cloud area is where we should be heading when we return to the Gamma Quadrant."

Rhenora pondered for a moment before Ronson appeared quietly with a fresh cup of coffee, placing one in front of the new officer as well before vanishing.
" We'll check out the ion cloud when we get to the Gamma Quadrant. However the Bajoran's on the freight we rescued were healthy - just terrified as one would be being hunted by the Jem Hadar. We can have a look for the other two ships whilst we are there"

"Thank goodness they were healthy" Finchley replied, as he gratefully accepted the coffee "I'm actually quite keen to get started" he finished.

" We'll be on our way as soon as the repairs on complete - I think Captain Kira's last estimate was 24 hours" The Bajoran advised, pulling the last repair estimates up on the screen. As soon as we're signed off we're good to go. It will be good to have you on board to assist us with this mission" She continued, taking another sip of the coffee. "Ronson's been playing with the blends again I think" She muttered.

"I look forward to serving here Captain and getting to know the crew" Finchley replied "If there's nothing else Sir, may I be excused so I can get with some of my department and go over the schedules for departure and also shift rotations?"

"Of course, you'll find the current roster and leave arrangements on file, I'm sure you'll find them adequate for the immediate time being. Glad you are joining us" she rose and extended a hand in the ancient earth custom that the Federation had adopted. She watched as he rose also, shaking her hand and heading briskly for the door.

OFF

Captain Kaylene Rhenora
Commanding officer.

Commander Finchley Kerr
Chief Strategic Operations Officer
USS Sunfire