Missing!
Posted on Thu Sep 12th, 2019 @ 4:27am by Ensign Lisa Creed & Commander Natan O'Donnaghue & Commander Curtis Thibideaux & Commander Daynah Ral & Lieutenant Day Smith & Lieutenant JG Rianna Repatha Thibideaux & Ensign Justin Flynn
Edited on on Thu Sep 12th, 2019 @ 5:06am
1,984 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Missing!
Location: Starbase 80 - Deck 161 VOQ
Timeline: MD001 15:00 hrs
The Typhon Expanse lays on the border between Romulan and Federation space. It is maybe most well-known for three events, the first being the U.S.S. Bozeman delaying a Klingon assault long enough to allow a Federation fleet to reverse course and intercept. It was thought at the time that the Bozeman and her entire crew had been destroyed. The second was the Enterprise-D being trapped within a time loop in which the Bozeman appeared and struck the Enterprise destroying both vessels. The third was years later when a Fleet of ships intercepted and attempted to destroy a Borg cube, they failed but gave chase, delaying the cube long enough for a second fleet to gather at Earth.
Shortly after the Borg attack a Celestial class star base was constructed with the mind set to protect and study the expanse. This base was named Star Base 80 and was positioned on the Federation edge and would be the jumping off point for scientific expeditions.
In 2388 the station was to undergo a major refit to bring her up to current fleet standards, a new commanding officer was chosen to lead the station forward in what will be the biggest exploration push since the Luna Program. To explore former Borg space within the Beta Quadrant.
The Valliant docked at SB80 after three weeks in-transit as she shook out the ship and the crew settled into their new home. Once docked though, the crew eager to stretch their legs and explore Star Base 80’s amenities. Those tired of the cramped quarters aboard were welcomed to take up accommodations in the Bases Visiting Officers Quarters. For the first three days, the crew’s paths didn’t cross.
SB80 is a big place.
On the fourth day Valiant received a strange signal. Routed through Commander O'Donnaghue's com-badge, a signal in old morse code was received.
There was plenty of work to do and Day had been cooped up in a Federation installation for far too long to take this opportunity to venture out onto the Starbase. She had been on the bridge when the signal came in. She wasn't familiar with morse code, looked at some of the work she had just done to make sure she hadn't triggered some sort of error in one of the computer terminals, but then she heard it repeat itself.
Three dots, three dashes, three dots...then a short pause, dot, dot dot, dash. dot, dash. dot, dash, dot, dot... another pause, dash, dash, dash, dash, dot. dot, dash, dot, dot. dash, dot, dash, dash. Then silence. The pattern then started anew.
Day turned to face the Security officer that had been on the bridge with her, "Are you seeing this?"
Lisa looked up from her screen as she responded," Yes I am," as she remembered from her Coms training she stated, " That's old Morse code, and if I am not mistaken someone is in trouble," as she knew this was going to be a search and rescue.
Curtis was a bit rusty on Morse, but the bridge crew pieced it together.
SOS VAL ONLY.
Opening the ship’s comms suite, Curtis contacted several of Valiant’s department heads and the head nurse and dispatched them to the Captain’s quarters to investigate.
Sitting in the containment field Commander Natan O'Donnaghue looked down at the explosives around him. He sat silently looking at the door. If he were to move there would be a big explosion. Being gagged up he couldn't even call for the person at the door. He hoped someone would just override the security code and come in. He had to go after Bella. No one else could, he knew, but he had to save his wife, he didn't want to loose her. He has been with her so long.
Justin, despite his talk with the XO, was still feeling guilty about showing up late for his first day of his first shipboard duty. He'd heard on the grapevine that Commander O'Donnaghue liked boxing, so using his charm, had been able to get hold a pair of handmade boxing gloves from the Klingon shop on the promenade. Finding the commander's location, Justin approached and pressed the bell.
Daynah had been exploring the station to it's fullest. She loved meeting new people and trying new things. A small part of her regretted that she would have to leave the station and head back out there. She received the summons and thought it rather odd that this would be something the Captain would want to discuss on the station and not have a regular briefing. Captains can be trying people sometimes. She thought as Ral gave her a mental kick for her comment about Captains.
Rianna was jogging through the same deck where Ens. Flynn and happened upon both Ens. Flynn and Cmdr. Ral in front of the captain's quarters. Stopping, something just didn't feel right. "Ensign, Commander, is everything alright?", she asked.
"No..." Daynah said flatly as she squinted at the door. "It seems that the Commander is in quarters. However, he is not answering the door. I fear that something may be amiss, especially after the call from Commander Thibideaux. We are going to need a command override to get in." Daynah tapped her comm badge and alerted station security to what was going on.
"Something is amiss as you say. I can sense his presence and his emotional state is agitated", Rianna stated. "The captain is betazoid is he not? Let me try to telepathically link with him", she added.
"You work on that and I will work on overriding the door. As soon as you can let me know what is going on in there and the Captain's state of mind." Daynah immediately went into control mode. As the senior officer present she had to keep control of what was going on.
Rianna opened her mind up and projected to the captain, Captain, can you understand me? We are here outside your door. Security is coming to overide the door. What is happening?
An indicator flashed and then a message played over the comm’s panel and Nosk turned to a solidly built human who was eating pre-packaged food rations. “Yo, Pavel,…looks like the Betazoid couldn’t help himself. Station security just received a message stating that the good Captain is in his quarters, but cannot be reached. And that the message came from one of the Valiant’s crew. I thought they were all supposed to be on shore leave?”
The blond haired human swallowed with a slightly pained look, the ration he was eating and turned. “They were. You’re sure that’s the gist of it. Maybe O’Donnaghue has something going on the side? Who sent it?”
“Looks like Ral, the science officer. I suppose that could track. The Commander’s getting a piece on the side and she came looking. Nothing we have indicates it but…,” the Ferengi gave a shrug as he pulled up Lieutenant Commander Ral’s bio. “She might be worth getting shanked by the wife.”
The Ferrengi showed his teeth and leered at the Bio and Pavel flicked the tech’s ear and said, “Focus, Nosk.”
The Ferrengi yelped but kept busy at the keyboard. “Okay okay. Want me to set off one of the charges, give them something to think about? Or blow O’Donnaghue’s charge, for that matter?”
Pavel thought about that and shook his head, “Not quite yet. Pull up our feed from their front door?”
The Ferrengi did as he was asked and an image of three beings, a male human and female humanoid and the aforementioned Trill appeared on the viewer.
“Run facial identification,” Pavel said.
“Computer claims they are also of the Valiant’s crew. The hoo-man male is the chief Nurse and the female is another Betazoid…the Chief Engineer.”
“I don’t think the Commander is likely to be having a tryst with three of his crew…that’s overly ambitious according to their bios,” Pavel said dryly, his mind processing.
“I told you we should have set a charge on that door, but noo…,” the Nosk groused, ducking automatically as he sensed Pavel moving to flick his ear again.
The blonde man then walked from the room, saying to the tech, “Monitor and I’ll be back.”
Curtis sat in the command chair, his mind sifting through the events as he knew them and chafing at not being able to do much of anything right now.
They…he didn’t know enough.
“Commander, incoming message from station control, ” Hasty Hastings said and he looked toward Valiant’s Chief of the Boat.
“Put them through.”
A bald human, physically fit with an intense look came on the screen and introduced himself. “Lt. Commander Elias Day, Commander Thibideaux. We just had an alert from Valiant’s 2nd Officer, Lt. Commander Ral? Seems there’s a problem with your Captain not being responsive? We’re dispatching Security and EMS…I thought I should let you know.”
Curtis raised his eyebrows and frowned slightly, remaining silent.
Day misread him slightly and said, “Science officers being what they are, I wasn’t sure if you’d been informed. Regardless, I wanted to keep you in the loop.”
“Thank you Commander,” Curtis said dryly. “I do appreciate you letting us know. I’ll keep an ear open to developments. Valiant out.”
Hasty cut the link and Curtis swore quietly. Turning to the Valiant’s bridge crew, he said "Everybody try something. Anything you can think of. Get me something we can use to narrow this down..."
Having the XO go over some of the information with the Starbase officer Day thought it would be a good idea to get an eye on the room as quickly as they could. The emergency message in morse code felt like a pressing enough matter to her to warrant such an action. She connected the network of the Valiant with that of the Starbase, requested access to a mundane subroutine that she knew she'd get automated access to, on the back of that request she sent in an encoded request that spoofed permission to gain entrance into the security feed. It helped a lot that she herself was a Starfleet officer, on a Starfleet vessel, using Starfleet protocols. The security feed of the room showed that it was empty, perfectly clean, nobody home, "Ehm. Sir." Day tried to get the XO's attention meekly, "That might not help, there doesn't seem to be anybody there." She frowned as she looked at the feed from the Captain's VOQ.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better about this. Take another, closer look at the data feeds if you please, Lieutenant.” Curtis stated, looking absently around the bridge. Finally he stood and started pacing.
As the XO responded Day her eyes flitted over the room, trying to take in as much details as she could, perhaps there was some clue there as to the Captain's whereabouts. Suddenly something jumped out, a tiny detail that she would've definitely missed if she hadn't been scanning the room so thoroughly. A tiny speck in the window, a star, that dimmed for a second before coming back. It seemed to repeat itself every ten seconds, "Belay that, Commander. My apologies. Someone seems to have tampered with the security feed."
Stopping, Curtis walked over to look over Day’s shoulder and remarked, “I’ll just bet they did. Good work Lieutenant. Try tracing that. Break it down and find out where it’s coming from.”
Walking back, he touched the comm’s button and stated. “Commander Ral, this is Thibideaux. If you haven’t broken into the Captain’s quarters yet, do so.
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