Station Post #21. Wolf at the Door

Posted on Fri Apr 12th, 2024 @ 10:20am by Captain Shauna Callaghan & Lieutenant Commander David Wallace & Lieutenant JG Nic Covenant

Mission: TALES FROM THE MIDDLE STARS
Location: Starbase M-69
Timeline: Concurrent

On

With the Commodore, Chief Medical Officer and Ships Counselor away from the station the station felt empty. Until the strange alien ship approached the worm hole.

Then when it could not enter the ship decided to turn its attention on the station.

Ltjg Nic Covenant was the one who recognized the ship from the data Dr Williams had provided months ago.

" Captain Callaghan a large vessel, possibly from the Assul Empire is on approach. It appears to be in battle mode with shields raised." Nic warned.

Shauna had been finding a quiet day until now. “Red alert! Raise shields, inform any civilian ships out there to take cover behind the station, and get all civilians and families to the emergency shelters!”

As the crew were sparse Lt Salem jumped to tactical but still wore his Comm piece in his ear and directed the alert as ordered. Nic Covenant restrengthened the hull and shields as Lt Myar manned engineering while O'Neal was away with Captain Rivers and the Athena.

" No answer to hails Captain." Salem reported.

“No surprises there then” Shauna sighed. “Status of weapons and shields? How long could we hold out against an attack?”

Salem looked at the tactical screen then to Callaghan.
" They are formidable but I think our base cannons and torpedo tubes can hold them off. I did hail the Athena but no response from Captain Rivers yet."

Shauna nodded. “I guess we’re on our own for now, let’s see what they have in mind shall we?” She gave Salem a smile. “Let’s not make any threatening moves, I won’t start a confrontation but I’ll finish it if I have to.”


The Assul ship halted around seven thousand kilometers from the Base, which was the maximum distance from most vessel they encountered.. Then a surprise hail from the Assul rang out.

" Captain we are receiving chatter. The universal translator is struggling but I think we are being hailed." Salem reported.
Tag Capt Callaghan

David arrived in ops hearing the chatter on the comm channel, "Open the channel." he asked waiting for the channel to open he began to speak "T'ha ket'ho metcha nehi'hal, loch'plen chi hen sixxa nien." which loosely translated too This is spacestation six nine, can we help you?

Following those perimeters the translator replied.
[ Open the gate ]

"Looks like we have some guests.."David said "Their linguistic syntax doesn't have modern words for some things which is why the translator doesn't always translate the message properly, this is the first time they haven't opened fire for a miscommunication."

" Captain I have the proper signals that allowed our runabout to open but who knows what will happen if we do." Salem piped up.

David smiled, "Let's try to avoid an interstellar incident today.." his voice trailed off.

“Agreed Commander” Shauna nodded. “The gate was open until they showed up, then it must have closed. I’m not willing to risk them getting through.”

" I understand Captain." Salem replied.

The Assul ship slowed to its minimal weapons position and then fired two energy blasts across the stations bow

" Captain they just fired two torpedoes over our bow. They appeared to miss but have circled around and heading back to us." Nic Covenant reported.

“Looks like they want to play rough” Shauna shook her head. “Let’s give them a warning shot of our own, lay down a spread of fire directly in their path. I don’t want to hit them, just warn them.”

David began to look at the tactical display, "Aim for the impulse manifold's in the underside it should cause the main power to fail."

Salem nodded as he still stood at tactical. Targeting the manifolds he used the stations rail gun and hit the Assul ship dead on. Crippled the vessel slowly crept off but not before sending off a pacer buoy with a subsonic beacon. The buoy then ejected 12 large mines at the entrance of the worm hole.

“Did they just do what I think they did?” Shauna looked at Salem. “Are those mines!?”

" Confirmed those are at least a dozen mines. Sensors can not confirm the warhead yield. " Salem scanned. " They are moving away on impulse power."

Shauna looked towards David. “Can we blow them up without affecting the wormhole? I’m not going to let those mines strike our people when they come back out of the wormhole.”

David looked at his displays, "An Ion pulse should render the mines inactive or the the minimum fry all the electronics."

Shauna nodded. “Excellent! Do it now!” She could only hope that Sureth’s ship didn’t come out of the wormhole anytime soon.

Salem looked to Nic Covenant as both men would have to work together to make that happen as that required some quick engineering skills.

The explosion not only blew up the mines but all of a sudden the entire worm hole collapsed.

" Captain the worm hole has collapsed. " Salem reported

“Dammit!” Shauna stood hands on hips. “Alright, what about our people? Is there any chance they’d survive the wormhole closing if they’re inside?”

" Scanning .... short range debris of mines probably. Long Range scans only show the return of the Athena." Salem replied.

David was fuming at this point, there was no reason for the wormhole to collapse, "The local gravimetric fields are still showing signs that the wormhole is intact, a graviton beam set to a matching bandwidth of the wormholes resonance should reopen it, unless someone is screwing around with the stations systems." David finished entering his program.

" We could try the harmonic codes again?" Salem suggested.

“Thank you Commander” Shauna nodded to David, then looked at Salem. “Try the codes, let’s see if it works. I want our people home in one piece.”

Salem made the signal but the effect was nulled. After several attempts he had to report. " Non responsive Captain."

David looked at the readouts, after keying in several commands he looked at a readout, "We should stop, that last signal was inverted and now the wormhole is at risk of collapse."

Shauna nodded. “Understood, stop what we’re doing.” She sighed. “Keep a watch incase some miracle occurs, I need to contact Starfleet.” With that she headed for Sureth’s Office.

A few minutes later Shauna re-emerged. “Alright I’ve spoken to Starfleet, as of now I’m assuming command of the station. Starfleet have given us 48 hours maximum to confirm or deny the loss of our people, after which they’ll officially be recorded as lost.” She sighed and looked at David. “Commander Wallace as of now you’re acting First Officer.”

Salem and Nic Covenant sat up tighter in their seats at that statement given their lack of knowledge about Wallace.

David kept looking at the readings, he found something, "The neutrino patterns from the wormhole aren't affected, but what's happened is the mines detonating has saturated local space in a way that the wormhole won't open, there's a massive anti-proton build-up essentially clogging the exit point of the wormhole, so we need to unstop the opening," pausing as he looked up "and find out who sabotaged the deflector arrays." David said coldly.

“A saboteur?” Shauna gave David a worried look. “Okay So our job is two fold, we need to find a way to reopen the wormhole and find a saboteur...”

{tbc}

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