SD241904.26 || PLOT LOG || "Jinx"

Posted on 26 Apr 2019 @ 10:37pm by Captain Mallory Thorne

1,182 words; about a 6 minute read

=/\= Begin Log =/\=

Captain Mallory Thorne sat in the command chair of her ship as it cruised along at its patrol speed, running all sensors and keeping an eye out for trouble of any sort. So far, they hadn't found anything, which was ultimately good but also rather...monotonous. Still, it was better to have a tactical vessel that wasn't needed than to need one when you didn't have it. Of course, that was when she realized she was sounding like her mother...

At least it was in her head instead of coming out of her mouth. She still had time before that happened... She hoped.

"I've got all of the initial department head reports, at last," Sy spoke from the chair next to Mal's. The last report had just made it to her message queue, unsurprisingly from Engineering. When did they ever have time for paperwork? At least, even less so than other departments, or so it seemed. She didn't mind the monotonous state of their shift thus far, it gave her a chance to catch up completely. "I'll have a summary for you by the end of the shift, if nothing gets in the way."

"Why do I have the sudden feeling that you just jinxed us?" Mal asked her first officer with a wry smile.

"Did no--!"

From the Operations console near the viewscreen, Lt Koree glanced over his shoulder with a look that made it clear both woman in the center chairs that Sy had indeed jinxed it. "I've got something on sensors."

Sy perked up a little more straight in her chair. "Define...something."

There was a pause of several moments as Koree reviewed his console, tapping to manipulate and vary the sensor functions to get the most information before replying. He pushed it almost far enough to earn a word from the command chairs, but he replied just before they got to that point. "I'm picking up weapons fire. I am unable, yet, to identify the ships but there appears to be one large vessel and several smaller ones attacking a single craft."

Mallory exchanged a look with Sy. "I guess it's not staying that way," she said simply, before looking forward again. "Lieutenant Beryl, set course for that ship. Alert the flight deck for a potential scramble."

"Take us to yellow alert. Put all the departments on heightened alert," Sy picked up smoothly, as if they'd been running the ships together for years. She let go of the jinxing jab for now, they had more important things to do.

It took them a few minutes to get closer. There was a tense anticipation in the air, and quite some nervousness. It was the kind of nervousness that usually could only be found in a crew that hadn't been together long yet. It'd pass. They'd get better at it. For now, they'd have to deal with it in whatever way they could.

Koree had a knack for putting his command team to the brink, he again waited until they were about to speak to give additional information. "The vessel under attack appears to have a Romulan signature, but our computer can't identify the ship configuration. The attacking vessels are a jumble of signatures and configurations. I'd give them a raiders tag."

"Pirates attacking a Romulan ship in this area of space?" Mallory repeated thoughtfully. She wondered what was going on, but she determined to lend aid to the ship under fire. "Send the order to scramble the wing and let's do something about those raiders, eh? Hail the Romulan vessel and make it clear that we're lending support."

After several moments, the officer at tactical behind them replied, "They aren't responding."

Mal frowned. "Perhaps something happened to their communications systems. Well, target the raider vessels and see if we can make the message obvious."

Watching the exchange of fire between the raiders and the Romulan ship from the console in her armrest, Sy squinted her eyes as she noticed something. "Put the tactical analysis on the viewscreen," she ordered as she got to her feet and approached said screen.

"Look at that," she spoke after a few moments during which she actually tilted her head. "Those raiders are attacking randomly. I don't know if it's on purpose or coordinated. But the Romulan ship is compensating at an incredibly fast speed. I haven't seen many Tactical officers who are capable of that. If any. Ops, search through all known non standard databases and get me a damn identification of this ship."

"Yes, Commander," Koree replied, although his voice was now slightly tense since the Odin had come under the attention of some of the pirate vessels attacking the strange Romulan ship. Namely, the largest of the group of marauders broke off and came to give the Nebula-class a not-so-warm welcome just as the fighters launched from it to take on the full pirate group. The pirate vessel wasn't as powerful, but it had strong enough weapons to make the Odin feel it.

"Return fire," Mal ordered. "Evasive maneuvers as need, Lieutenant Beryl. I don't feel like dealing with them for long."

The ship shook from the incoming fire, and Sy returned to the relative safety of her seat. The immediate attack on their vessel seemed under control, so she continued to focus on the tactical layout on the viewscreen. "What do the scans of the Romulan indicate? The pirates don't seem to do all that much damage to it."

Koree muttered something under his breath as he tried to keep him composure. Minimizing the database search for the unknown ship configuration, he focused back on the continuous scans he was running. And frowned. "Actually, Commander, they don't indicate very much. Besides the obvious hull configuration, none of the scans - conventional or otherwise - seem to penetrate it. I can't even tell you how many life forms are aboard or how many phaser banks there are."

Sy was on unfamiliar terrain with the thought she was having, and leaned closer to the CO. "Where do you stand on Away Teams into non secure territory?"

Mallory blew out a breath. "In this case, in favor. I want to know what's going on inside that ship and if they need any aid. Let's dispatch an away team to investigate and secure, send medical team after them if it's needed."

Sy glanced over to the consoles behind her where their Security Chief had been quietly but capably running his side of the operation. "Lieutenant Kerr, assemble a team and get over there as quickly as possible. Arm yourselves and double up on members."

“Good luck, Lieutenant,” Mal said with a single nod as he left the bridge. She turned back to the image on the screen just as the ship gave a little shudder again. Outside of the Odin, the Berserkers were unleashing their rage on the various pirate ships, who were all putting up more of a fight than had been expected.

So much for monotony.

=/\= End Log =/\=

Captain Mallory Thorne & Commander Sybille Gallet

OOC: Order notes incoming later today!

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