Slow Approach

Posted on Fri Sep 13th, 2024 @ 11:03am by Dex Revaro & Lieutenant Commander Ben Gray & 1st Lieutenant Iria (eh-RI-ah) & Marshall Price & Llhran s’Vrenak

1,338 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Prologue: The Fall
Location: Bridge, USS Bermuda
Timeline: MD001 - 0730 Hours

Staring out his window Captain Saul Meridius watched the brightness of space, the stars, and the galaxy stream passed his window. Starfleet had sent him and his crew on an errand he felt was truly beneath them. In his mind the prisoners on Calypso VII made their choice when they committed their crimes.

The Calypso VII high security penal colony was full of some of the galaxy's worst. Murderers, rapists, immoral scientists and generally the mentally unstable. Sure they would try and treat them, 'cure' them, rehabilitate them but most of them were there for life and Saul felt they made their bed. He would quite happily evacuate the staff and pick up equipment but if it were up to him he'd have left the inmates.

Saul looked at the ETA on arrival. Still a few hours to go yet and he decided to leave his rather comfy chair and walk onto the bridge. The doors of his ready room swished open with their usual soft glide and the noise of the bridge now filled his ears. Approaching his chair he looked over to the first officer, someone he'd served with for a few years now. "The sooner we get this over with the better. This is not what we should be doing..." he grumbled.

Amira--or Commander Fayed to everyone else aboard USS Bermuda--leaned her head slightly towards her CO, her expression suitably empathetic to his displeasure at this particular set of orders. "I couldn't agree more, sir. It's days like these that test your resolve." She paused, and her expression took on a mischievous look as she lowered her voice. "Captain...we could just disobey, turn left, and heads toward Risa. It would be such an inexplicable decision, I'm certain we could get in a day or two at the beach before Starfleet 'cottons on.'" She would have continued but her sultry laughter caught up with her outrageous suggestion. "The sooner we get this over with. I spoke with the ChEng...he thinks he can get another point five out of the core. It could cut our wait time down?"

"Tempting Amira." Saul's eyes softened and his harsh demeanour lightened. "Maybe there's an ion storm we need to avoid or we detect Dominion forces." he stroked the stubble on his chin. It was light and gave him a distinguished look alongside his salt and pepper hair. His healthy tanned skin gave him the look of a man who'd spent a lot of time in the sun, and someone who looked after himself. "It depends on how we are getting on with the make shift cells in the cargo bays. What's their status? he asked his first officer.

"Well, of course, that is currently running about an hour behind schedule. I've allocated additional hands to get cell construction back on track. I'll tell the ChEng that his warp core is safe...for now." Amira smiled a slightly lopsided grin, well amused with herself. The humor diffused the calculating, shrewd gaze. Saul was settling in. Suck orders or not, they would do as they were told...and right now they were being to told to evacuate a prison. It was the 'right' thing to do. Well, why didn't it feel right? Commander Fayed turned her attention back to view screen, and for a moment her deeply brown eyes were lost in thought.

"The timeline will keep, captain. I don't want to push the crew on this anymore than what we're doing."


Saul nodded and looked to one of the forward stations, "And no trouble with the power consumption, Commander Gray? Will the cells hold for the duration of our trip to Sa'Sona?" Meridius asked his operations chief.

"Yes sir." Gray replied as he looked up from his PADD. "I've dedicated a significant portion of our output to field integrity. I've also worked with maintenance to put in some fail safes just in case."

"And security? How are we manning that area?" he asked his security chief. They had talked about closing the deck off to anyone other than prison staff and ships security but he wanted to hear what had been set up as they closed in on their destination.

The elder Andorian sat a little straighter upon being addressed, his antennae alert and his watery blue eyes resting upon Meridius.

"V'he have taken v'harious precautions, z'her." His thick, lowland accent laced every word. He was a fairly recent recruit to Starfleet, having transferred directly from the Andorian Defence Force just prior to the war, but having served for over sixty years in the former he was an exceptionally experienced hand.

"Z'he whole deck v'hill be seal-t. I ha'ff extended z'he duty rota for my officers. Z'hey will be on double shifts until z'he prisoners are disposed of." His lip curdled on the word 'prisoners'. He had always broadly believed in the spirit of the Federation's ideals, but to waste time saving such reprobates... his people had a saying: they were 'trading the thunder of battle for the silence of snow.'

"Z'he marines... I am still negoti-hating v'ith their CO in order to exp-hand our provision of guards."

"If the Major gives you any trouble just let me know, Commander. I served with his father and I know a few tricks to get him to comply." Saul smiled a little slyly. "But keep at it. I don't want a report of any of our 'guests' having a walk around the ship at their leisure."

Pete tapped the controls to verify their trajectory as they traveled through warp before turning in his seat towards the rest of the bridge crew. "I can always do a few laps around the system, get us lost in a nebula, whatever would help." He offered wry. Like most of the crew, he wasn't thrilled with playing chauffer to a bunch of thugs. He wasn't looking forward to the front lines either, but these bastards didn't deserve a free ride to safety while their fellow officers were risking their lives for these lowlifes.

"Stay the course Mister Talbot." Saul commented towards his helm officer. They all seemed to be of similar mind, maybe that's why they worked so well together.

"Anything to worry about on sensors Kraro?" she asked the officer at the science station. They were a Bolian, preferred not to be gendered, a hard worker and a valuable member of Commander Woffiv's team. The grumpy Tellarite was not on bridge duty at the moment but knew he'd echo their sentiment about their current mission.

"Nothing of interest captain." Kraro replied. Behind you could hear them press a few buttons on the console before adding, "Rigelian freighter is moving along a similar route to us. A nearby system is suffering sun spots but we are clear to proceed."

"We'll meet in the conference room at 0900 for a briefing folks." Saul spoke. "There are a few prisoners I want to discuss in more detail, some of the more 'notable' coming on board." he glanced at a PADD and shook his head at some of the clientele. "Warden T'preth will be joining us via subspace link for familiarity, if you can say that about a Vulcan."

"Oh the good warden decided not to join us on this little cruise?" Talbot asked from his seat at the front of the bridge.

"They will be joining us when we pick up their staff and the prisoners." Saul replied with an arched brow. They wouldn't arrive at the planet for a while yet so subspace link was their way of communication.

Rising from his chair he gave his uniform a small tug to straighten it out. "Commander, you have the bridge. I'll be in my ready room." he commented to Commander Fayed. "I'll be looking over the plan for the transport of prisoners and more into whom we'll be inviting on board." he began to move. "Don't crash my ship Talbot." he said as he walked by and into his ready room.

 

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