Distress – Distress call
by HoD Ro' Matlh & 2nd Lieutenant Zorc Dat'oxo & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Ne' Michelle "Mike" Young & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Marie St. Helene

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Title   Distress call
Mission   Distress
Author(s)   HoD Ro' Matlh & 2nd Lieutenant Zorc Dat'oxo & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Ne' Michelle "Mike" Young & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Marie St. Helene
Posted   Wed Sep 07, 2016 @ 6:24am
Location   IKC FHew
Timeline   15 hours out from Du'hop System
The FHew was running again; though as her engineers will tell you, that is only a marginal difference from disintegrated into rust. The nanites that had been re-purposed from Borg originals by the Vetus Computer Jeeves worked hard to maintain a serviceable level of power and structural integrity.

The Battle of Tengchah was behind them now, and Jared was half way through a ballad to commemorate it. They had returned to Federation space, though they kept close to the Klingon Border. News of the ongoing Gorn conflict did nothing to raise spirits. Reports from within the Federation of negative sentiment growing towards the Empire was making each meeting with their "allies" more strained.

It was evening, and apart from the three crew on the Bridge, the rest of the occupants had been left to their own devices.

Dat'oxo sat at the small desk in the shared quarters, he allowed his men to have the rest, he was going over a few notes for the official journal of his service. He had finished the latest entry and while he had a rare moment to himself he jotted down some thoughts.

"may' ghaH maj quv." [Battle is our honor.]
"maH qab Hegh poSmoH." [We face death openly.]
"'oH Daq Suv je Hegh. [We fight and die]
"qab jagh Da Hegh." [Face enemy with death]
"mang [way] tu'ta' Daq Hegh je quv. {Warrrior's way is found with death and honor.]

The words were what he believed; the teachings of Kahless and many other warriors passing wisdom through the ages. The Humans have a warrior that seemed to be with the heart of a Klingon; it was in their book of Bushido called the Hagakure that Dat'oxo studied the human warriors: 'The way of the Samuari is found in death' was the opening of their philosophy. It was the words of a true warrior. This human book came into his possession; with the Book of Kahless Dat'oxo sought the ways of the warrior.

In the Hagakure is said that The Mighty Samuari were 'retainers' to their masters; to be Masterless is to be what they called a Ronin; while the Samurai could kill a man to test the sharpness of his blade a Ronin was lower than a peasant. It is said a Peasant can urinate upon a Ronin without fear; and in Bushido it is said one must be a Ronin several times before he is a true Samurai. Dat'oxo could understand the system: humility is a good trait; to know one can fall to the darkest depth motivates one to stay in high standing.

This is the source of his meditations for the evening.

Tell was playing her music really loud in engineering whilst working in her lab concocting a new musical instrument out of the damaged parts of the hull left from the previous battle. She thought it might make an interesting guitar, now if she could just find something fine for the strings.

Tell stopped every now and then to dance around the cargo bay playing an air guitar. She might have to grow her hair long again so she could swing it about like she saw the old rock groups do. Now what was it called? Headbanging, that seemed a good thing to do in time with the music. She calculated on how long it would take to grow her hair. Then went back to her guitar making, turned the music up more and started to sing again.

Marie could not settle. The anger she had felt earlier had subsided somewhat once she found relative privacy in her quarters but her nerves were still on edge. She was worried that the Gorn would return any moment; she was well aware that they still held a military advantage over the meagre Federation forces along the frontier and licking their wounds was not a Gorn trait. She had a feeling that she had won some respect from the Klingons for her leadership in the battle – not that they were like to say so – and she would now be burdened with living up to that respect. She feared 'Ro would dump even more leadership tasks on her; she was a quartermaster – it was all she had ever aspired to – and here she was, responsible for the lives of others.

None of this sat easily on her shoulders.

She tried sleeping but sleep would not come for all that she felt exhausted. She paced her quarters in an effort to tire herself even more but it did no good. She considered drinking herself into a stupor but if the Gorn came... if she had to lead troops in battle again....

Eventually she decided it wasn't important enough. If they came, they came. She went off to the galley to find some bloodwine. If there was someone there, all the better; if there was not then she would drink by herself.

Things were normal, at least as normal as they could be on a Klingon ship. Anyway, Germite had some free time. He decided he would use his free time for sleep, since when things happened as they inevitably would sleep would be the first thing to go.

Mike was busy organising the Medical Bay, alphabetising as best she could. She had just sat down after finishing for a moment to herself. She pulled out her datapad and pulled up a book. She had been meaning to read this one for some time now.

Tag: I would like each of you to put in a piece about what you do in your down time. This could be on your own, such as Tell playing her music, or in a group, such as practicing sparring with an NPC or another player.

Suddenly the relative calm was pierced by the yellow alert klaxon.

,'. All crew to action stations! ,'.

Dat'oxo was out of his chair in a flash. The blood was pumping only slightly higher enough to not be relaxed as he took the Rifle from his bunk; the only weapon not readily upon him. The door opened as he stepped out into the corridor, ordering his two men to the operational stations while he moved to the bridge. His men would be at Engineering near the door out of the way of the personnel ready to protect the heart of the ship. Another man to the armory to assure it was ready to dispense weapons before Red Alert then he would be to a place to repel boarders should it come to that.

Dat'oxo strode to the Bridge and the Tactical Station; he would man it until replaced, it would also give him the time to prepare the weapon systems and know what the status of all armament would be. The weakness of a vessel is in where they cannot fight, the Shielding would also be a note as the weakest of those is where often the enemy find entrance and to be ready with his men might save the ship from being taken.

"Mang DIchDaq vaD veS."[ Marines ready for war.] Dat'oxo gave the proper announcement of his status while manning what he could.

Tell heard the Klaxon above everything else and shut the music off immediately. She headed to the Bridge at top speed. Now what the hell is going on? She kicked the door leading onto the Bridge with her boot. The damn thing still stuck after all this time despite countless repairs to it.

She entered the Bridge and then pushed two Marines out of the way of the Engineering section. "Will you move out of my way," she told them impatiently. Just how many Marines did they need? Tell checked the engineering station: everything was ready for what ever Ro' decided to throw at them. JaqwI' was down in Engineering while she took up her post on the bridge.

"Engineering ready, Cap'n."

Damn!” Marie swore in Federation Standard then in the French dialect used on Nouvelle Nouvelle Caledonie. To round it off, she tossed in some Klingon expletives for good measure. The bloodwine had finally begun to take the edge off her uneasiness and now this. “Damn those Gorn to hell and I don't care which particular hell it is. Belay that: the worse the better!”

She banged down her mug and rose unsteadily. It could be a long walk to the bridge if she wanted it to be but recent events had installed a some sense of duty in her. She hurried out.

Germite sat up in his bunk, it seemed like he had only just fallen asleep. No matter, what little rest he had would have to do. Historically, his action station had been the med bay, but since they had a real live Federation doctor now, he had gone there less and less. He had been aboard the F'hew long enough that he had a good feel for most of the jobs on the ship. He headed to the bridge to be ready to step in as needed. He arrived and found the bridge crowded, so he carved out a space in the back and waited to hear what was going on.

The Bridge was frantic. Ro' was standing next to the Human pilot Bruce Air.

"How long?" he barked a query.

"15 hours is best I can do on these engines," Air replied. "12 if you don't want a return trip."

Ro' ground his teeth but accepted the restriction, "!5 hours then."

He turned to the assembled crew, "We have received a distress call from the colony in the Du'hop system. It is a Klingon Colony, just outside the Empire's space and in the Triangle. They have been established for just over 200 years now."

He nodded to the science station, "Play the recorded message."

A Klingon voice came on above static and crackle. The message was short and desperate.

"A Borg cube has entered the system. Send help!"

The message cut off and Ro' growled, "The message is sent out in Federation, Romulan and of course Klingon. The colony has some defences of course, but nothing against a Borg cube. After the fleet losses at Tengchah there are precious few vessels in range to give assistance and even fewer that can provide any sort of tactical support."

He turned and sat down in his Captain's chair, before continuing. "So we are going to war with the Borg."

"Again," he added after only a moment. "We have one recorded kill of a Borg Cube, let's make it two."

"Um..." Bruce interjected, "Last time we fought a cube, it was with the Borg's help, and it was a damaged and barely functional ship. We also had a large fleet to support us..."

"You have a point to make, Mr Air?" Ro' snapped.

"No, sir," Air turned back to the Helm.

"Make preparations to engage the Borg, on the ground and in space!"

Dat'oxo smiled to himself; a sly and evil grin that showed his teeth as he started to check the harmonics of the shielding and had to think of the rotation of weapon energy weapon output? If the ship were to go into combat he would be ready. There was also a small thing of ballistic weapons having some effects on Borg; it was not able to adapt to it as well as with energy weapons. He thought of getting some engine plasma for warheads; kinetic force for two, maybe three warheads might do the trick as well?

Marie noticed what Dat'oxo was doing. She walked over to him and leant in close. “You're a fine Klingon warrior,” she said. “I've seen you fight so don't take this wrong. Tactical is yours now but be careful; it has its own fits and ...idiosyncrasies. I...wish we had time to go through it but we only have until we hit that Cube. It probably won't be enough.”

"We will get -to -know -ourselves." Dat'oxo said in slow Common and look to her eyes as he spoke. "We will keep you safe; shared battle tends to help warriors find how to fight together. 'A warrior should not say something fainthartedly or casually, he must set his mind before hand.' These are the words of Kahless to those whom follow his teachings as I do." He nodded to her with respect. "Though I always welcome help of those with knowledge and experience in matters."

Marie sighed. He's a Klingon warrior alright: all catch phrases from Kahless as if the Great One said something about every possible situation.

“This is a D12 warbird, a skirmisher at best,” she said, speaking almost as slowly as he had. “Here's what you know about it: a single forward torpedo tube and linked Type 6 Disruptors on the wings. From there, you know nothing. Let me give you a crash lesson. There's a second launcher in the hold. Those disruptors have been augmented. They'll out punch any Type 6 you've ever come across. Add to that the optional extras like Wave Integration, Amplitude Compression and Concurrent...”

She noticed Dat'oxo's face was going blank. “Oh, I do apologise,” she said, “Am I going to fast for you?”

“So as I was saying, it has Concurrent Point Mitigation as well. That will do for now with the hardware. We also have a Vetus on board; he's the Science Officer, you can't miss him. Don't ask me how but we've also got a Vetus computer. I think he came with it. It helped with the augmentation but used Borg nanites to do the actual work. All that makes for a ship unlike any you've ever seen.

She returned the steady gaze measure for measure. “Still think you're ready to run Tactical? Think again because I've been on this bucket for more years than I care to recall and I still don't fully know my way around it. So let's just stick with the basics for now, shall we: enough for you to clear out the enemy without blowing us up in the process. And, please, let's get on with it....”

"You will tell me I cannot run something you still do not fully understand?" Dat'oxo said slowly shaking his head. "ANd lecture others as though you are an expert?" He gave a sympathetic smile. "There are no enemy to clear out and Klingons learn quickly, it should not be that hard, follow the power outputs and they go to weapons of all sorts." HE shrugged. "Or was that an Order to occupy myself with useless human type ...." He thought of the word. "l-o-l-i-g-a-g-i-n-g?"

"Have a care, Zorc," Ro' provided without turning in his chair. "I made Marie Tactical officer when she blew up an entire Asteroid base with a single shot. Do not reject wisdom, regardless of its source."

Tell walked up to the helm and Bruce Air. She had heard his remark about her engine and didn't like it. "You got something to say about the engine on this ship Mr Air?"

"Not while you're in earshot," Bruce jibbed. "Mind you, Starboard RCS is still sluggish."

Tell was about to unload a mouthful on the junior officer when she caught the glint in his eye. He was winding her up. Bruce knew his stuff, and trusted Tell to know hers.

She looked Bruce squarely in the eye and then patted him roughly on the shoulder. "Remind me to tell you all about being sluggish one day." she smirked

Mike's head snapped up as the klaxon sounded. She saved her spot and put down the data pad before moving calmly towards the bridge. She arrived and reported to Ro'

"Where do you need me Captain?"

"We are going to be expecting many casualties on the ground. We will need a fast an effective way to determine if they are infected or not. If not, you can treat them. If they are..." Ro' let the sentence hang while looking at Germite. The human field medic had a respectable reputation amongst the crew of doing what needed to be done.