Season 1, Mission 05: Awakening

[Lance Krol]

"Aye Sir" Masters called out. He pushed a few buttons and the chimes of a communication going through sounded. He put in the request to the ship communications officer to get the Science Officer on the com.

Lance quietly sighed from his console. He still believed that just two ships wasn't enough to take down such a fantastically rich and resourceful enemy. Still, the captain's orders were final. Krol was still getting used to that - his civilian boss was a weasel, but even Krol could get what he wanted out of the little thieving git.

A voice drifted over from Masters' console he didn't recognize. A woman's - Krol started slightly. Since when did women get positions on the bridge? Starfleet was far too sexist for that. It took someone like Kathryn Janeway to get so far in the military. He risked a look over, and saw Masters talking to his console.

Of course, Vulcans never ran into sexism. They were always far too logical for that.

He got back to what he was doing, and vowed to make changes once he had overt power. He supposed it was healthy to have a reason to want to live the life he did - being constantly shunted up the chain of command. It made it easier to deal with.

[ThomasRiker]

Aboard the T'Kumbra, a Vulcan cruiser, science officer Inzjana stood at the science station going over the data coming in from a passive sensor sweep of the Cho'chek star system.

The T'Kumbra was assigned to investigate the Sigma 7 star system, uncharted by any of the major federations and empires of the greater galactic community, it was a veritable cornucopia of mystery and therefore it didn't take much convincing for Starfleet nor Vulcan High Command to sanction such a venture, even if it was mostly at the behest of Inzjana's mother; consul T'Vaal.

Inzjana had lost a best friend in that system, a renowned xeno-archaeologist Dr Andre Offenbach some fifteen years hence, so when asked to join the mission, she gratefully agreed - well as grateful as a Vulcan can be anyway.

On Sigma 7 they met an odd man who called himself Theta Sigma, who had been living amongst the ancient ruins, seemingly by his lonesome and after several hours of communication and after supposed fits of long and short term memory loss at various intervals, eventually told them of the pirate in the Cho'chek system.

After receiving a message from High Command to go to the Cho'chek system where they were going anyway to help support a Starfleet vessel designated the USS Churchill, the T'Kumbra set course best speed for their rendezvous. So here they are!

After the communications officer had accepted and routed the comlink from the Churchill's tactical officer, Inzjana opened the channel, "This is Inzjana, how may I be of assistance?" She asked.

Lance quietly sighed from his console. He still believed that just two ships wasn't enough to take down such a fantastically rich and resourceful enemy. Still, the captain's orders were final. Krol was still getting used to that - his civilian boss was a weasel, but even Krol could get what he wanted out of the little thieving git.

A voice drifted over from Masters' console he didn't recognize. A woman's - Krol started slightly. Since when did women get positions on the bridge? Starfleet was far too sexist for that. It took someone like Kathryn Janeway to get so far in the military. He risked a look over, and saw Masters talking to his console.

Of course, Vulcans never ran into sexism. They were always far too logical for that.

He got back to what he was doing, and vowed to make changes once he had overt power. He supposed it was healthy to have a reason to want to live the life he did - being constantly shunted up the chain of command. It made it easier to deal with.

Doctor Inzjana, I am Ensign Masters, ship's tactical officer. I've been asked to coordinate with you for our mission against the pirates. Does your Command staff have a plan on the matter or any new intelligence? LT. Krol is here standing by, he is an Engineer and will be working to coordinate the ships systems with yours." He muted the audio for a moment and In a louder voice for the benefit of the Commander, he announced "Channel established, I am making inquiries of planning and intelligence."

[Inzjana]

Doctor Inzjana, I am Ensign Masters, ship's tactical officer. I've been asked to coordinate with you for our mission against the pirates. Does your Command staff have a plan on the matter or any new intelligence? LT. Krol is here standing by, he is an Engineer and will be working to coordinate the ships systems with yours." He muted the audio for a moment and In a louder voice for the benefit of the Commander, he announced "Channel established, I am making inquiries of planning and intelligence."

Being the home star system of a band of pirates it was logical to assume that said pirates would have have laid several traps for would be interlopers and that is precisely what the crew of the T'Kumbra had in mind when multiple passive sensor sweeps were performed in the direction of the pirate base.

Although passive sensors aren't as efficient as active sensors, to latter may have been detected, even so the omnidirectional nature of a passive scan, did come up with several anomalies that could be contrude as traps.

Being Vulcan, Inzjana and the rest of the crew didn't come to this conclusion lightly, as many of those anomalies had the tell tale signature of antimatter on board.

What many people forget and the pirates were no exception, is that space is at near absolute zero and therefore any form of thermal energy or electromagnetic radiation is just as visible as a star, or a planet. Of course you can try and hide it by some form of heat-synch, electronic countermeasures and active masking; but unless it is within subspace itself, it can still be detected if you know what you are looking for.

Inzjana had spent the better part of her life researching alternate ways of FTL travel, including 'submerging' a vessel directly in to subspace. With a nod from Captain Solok, who was hovering over, near and around Inzjana and the science station, an extremely uncomfortable situation for any Vulcan; and could mean only one thing, Solok was interested in her.

The captain of the T'Kumbra had been passed over several times for admiral over the last twelve years, largely because no one liked him, including, but not excluding members of his own species. But this wasn't a popularity contest and after all he was a Vulcan, so after a quick glance from Inzjana as whether to go ahead with her plan or not, nodded in the affirmative. After all, it was previously discussed at length with LCARS presentations, including several models and simulations.

Inzjana turned back to her console and re-established the comlink with the Churchill's tactical officer, "Mr Masters, what we are suggesting would require some alterations to your warp field and main navigational deflector array," Inzjana paused for a moment readying her data for a compressed burst transmission and pressed the send key.

"Your engineers will be required to alter your warp field to generate a subspace resonance field...the navigational deflector will be used as a particle beam accelerator to generate a subspace rupture,

"Once the rupture is generated, the subspace resonance field will allow our ships to pass directly in to subspace," Inzjana informed.

"This is all within the capabilities of our ships engines, the difficulty will be in navigation, so before the transition your helm officer will be required to scan for any subspace transmissions coming from the base, or if your sensors are of a high enough resolution, scan the quantum filaments around the base looking for mass displacement." Inzjana concluded her lecture with another pause allowing the human at the other end of the comlink to process what she was telling him.

"Does your command staff accept this proposal," Inzjana asked, having already concluded that unless some form of logical, but drastic action was taken, there would be no possible way a mere two vessels could best a well established pirate base.

[Lance Krol]

Being the home star system of a band of pirates it was logical to assume that said pirates would have have laid several traps for would be interlopers and that is precisely what the crew of the T'Kumbra had in mind when multiple passive sensor sweeps were performed in the direction of the pirate base.

Although passive sensors aren't as efficient as active sensors, to latter may have been detected, even so the omnidirectional nature of a passive scan, did come up with several anomalies that could be contrude as traps.

Being Vulcan, Inzjana and the rest of the crew didn't come to this conclusion lightly, as many of those anomalies had the tell tale signature of antimatter on board.

What many people forget and the pirates were no exception, is that space is at near absolute zero and therefore any form of thermal energy or electromagnetic radiation is just as visible as a star, or a planet. Of course you can try and hide it by some form of heat-synch, electronic countermeasures and active masking; but unless it is within subspace itself, it can still be detected if you know what you are looking for.

Inzjana had spent the better part of her life researching alternate ways of FTL travel, including 'submerging' a vessel directly in to subspace. With a nod from Captain Solok, who was hovering over, near and around Inzjana and the science station, an extremely uncomfortable situation for any Vulcan; and could mean only one thing, Solok was interested in her.

The captain of the T'Kumbra had been passed over several times for admiral over the last twelve years, largely because no one liked him, including, but not excluding members of his own species. But this wasn't a popularity contest and after all he was a Vulcan, so after a quick glance from Inzjana as whether to go ahead with her plan or not, nodded in the affirmative. After all, it was previously discussed at length with LCARS presentations, including several models and simulations.

Inzjana turned back to her console and re-established the comlink with the Churchill's tactical officer, "Mr Masters, what we are suggesting would require some alterations to your warp field and main navigational deflector array," Inzjana paused for a moment readying her data for a compressed burst transmission and pressed the send key.

"Your engineers will be required to alter your warp field to generate a subspace resonance field...the navigational deflector will be used as a particle beam accelerator to generate a subspace rupture,

"Once the rupture is generated, the subspace resonance field will allow our ships to pass directly in to subspace," Inzjana informed.

"This is all within the capabilities of our ships engines, the difficulty will be in navigation, so before the transition your helm officer will be required to scan for any subspace transmissions coming from the base, or if your sensors are of a high enough resolution, scan the quantum filaments around the base looking for mass displacement." Inzjana concluded her lecture with another pause allowing the human at the other end of the comlink to process what she was telling him.

"Does your command staff accept this proposal," Inzjana asked, having already concluded that unless some form of logical, but drastic action was taken, there would be no possible way a mere two vessels could best a well established pirate base.

Lance didn't know what to think about the plan. Since he'd been basically pulled into this conversation over the fate of both their ships, thirty seconds ago, he hadn't had much to say which, ironically, was unusual for him. Now they were telling him to do the quantum physics equivalent of dumping the ship into a sea of acid with the shields powered down. Since he seemed to be involved, he was professionally bound to lean over and point out the obvious.

"Ma'am, subspace is not a nice place. If a tetryon was to make contact with the ship's hull, it would be essentially the same as a random amount of hydrogen bombs going off on the hull. Since this ship is a part of normal space, the only way we could maintain stable existence would be to erect some kind of absurd shield. Like you said, this is in the capabilities of an Intrepid class, but no ship was ever designed specifically for such work and it's fairly risky. What you're suggesting would get us a battle advantage and nothing else - should we risk two shipfuls of intelligent life just to get the drop on the enemy?"

Krol didn't enjoy playing devil's advocate, but most ideas dreamt up by other people didn't involve odds. Even vulcans often didn't realize how suicidal they were being - they weighed up the potential gains with the potential losses, and probability didn't come into it. Well, how could they be blamed? Such a thing as chance was too random to apply logic to.

[Taras Cadenza]

Taras tried his best, in direct contradiction of his own personality, not to listen to the conversation with the Vulcan. He buried his head in his own console. It was his job to fly, not to pry, after all.

After that particular thought process had subsided, he was startled by a new detection on the screen of the helm. Ah, should have expected that. Anyway, let's see... wait...
He raised an eyebrow, slowly, yet distinctively. He knew he should have been expecting something. It was just that the something that he had come across, wasn't exactly the something that he should have been expecting. He swiftly turned round to face the Commander, an expression of surprise on his face. "Sir... I have detected a base within the vicinity of the co-ordinates that we are supposed to be investigating... but here's the thing. It's not Pirate."

He paused, as he drew a breath. A breath that one makes when they often come across the unexpected.

"It's Klingon."

[cortez]

Taras tried his best, in direct contradiction of his own personality, not to listen to the conversation with the Vulcan. He buried his head in his own console. It was his job to fly, not to pry, after all.

After that particular thought process had subsided, he was startled by a new detection on the screen of the helm. Ah, should have expected that. Anyway, let's see... wait...
He raised an eyebrow, slowly, yet distinctively. He knew he should have been expecting something. It was just that the something that he had come across, wasn't exactly the something that he should have been expecting. He swiftly turned round to face the Commander, an expression of surprise on his face. "Sir... I have detected a base within the vicinity of the co-ordinates that we are supposed to be investigating... but here's the thing. It's not Pirate."

He paused, as he drew a breath. A breath that one makes when they often come across the unexpected.

"It's Klingon."

"Klingon?"

Cortez shot a confused glance in Thompson's direction, before looking back at the viewscreen.

"Lay in a course. Full impulse, Mr Cadenza"

[Inzjana]

Inzjana looked puzzled at her console for three reasons: First, who was speaking to her now and was he attempting to be humorous? Second, why were Klingons in this system? And third, why was she looking puzzled at her science station in the first place?

Deciding that it would be pointless to point out that subspace travel had been done for centuries by most technologically advanced species in the galaxy in the form of transporter devices and warp propulsion systems - in the form of a subspace fields, but mostly because of this new developement and also because she concluded that said person must have been making a joke.

Her captain knocked her out of her revelry with the usual 'check sensors, because the humans couldn't be trusted to get anything right' attitude many Vulcans seemed to still have. Which was logical she supposed, after all, humans were guided mostly from emotive states and were also still a young civilisation.

"Inzjana, confirm the presence of a Klingon base," captain Solok commanded.

"Aye Captain," Inzjana confirmed as she began to run an active sensor scan of five light-minutes from the T'Kumbra, in the direction of the coordinates the Churchill sent.

"Confirmed captain," Inzjana anounced, knowing full well that it was accurate anyway.

Captain Solok ordered the conn to follow the Churchill in, matching course and speed. Inzjana turned to her station and began analysing sensor data as they went.

[Kale Bridges]

"Klingon?"

Cortez shot a confused glance in Thompson's direction, before looking back at the viewscreen.

"Lay in a course. Full impulse, Mr Cadenza"

Reece returned Cortez's befuddled look. What was a Klingon station here. They were close to their border, but they were still in Federation space.

Reece looked at Masters and Mirwald, "Yellow Alert."

"What do you think? Klingons. Or Pirates with Klingon tech?" He asked Cortez. "After all, all the info we took from that last base, they probably could've built a base, let alone captured one."

[cortez]

Reece returned Cortez's befuddled look. What was a Klingon station here. They were close to their border, but they were still in Federation space.

Reece looked at Masters and Mirwald, "Yellow Alert."

"What do you think? Klingons. Or Pirates with Klingon tech?" He asked Cortez. "After all, all the info we took from that last base, they probably could've built a base, let alone captured one."

"I'm not sure"  replied Cortez  "But I'm sure we'll find out soon enough."

"Full ahead, Mr. Cadenza"

[ThomasRiker]

Reece returned Cortez's befuddled look. What was a Klingon station here. They were close to their border, but they were still in Federation space.

Reece looked at Masters and Mirwald, "Yellow Alert."

"What do you think? Klingons. Or Pirates with Klingon tech?" He asked Cortez. "After all, all the info we took from that last base, they probably could've built a base, let alone captured one."

Masters set the tactical board to yellow alert status. He watched as combat systems and shields began to either go onto active mode, or standmy mode. He glanced at Octavious, "If we fight, I have faith that we have the systems ready to handle it" he said matter of factly... He may not like the man's attitude, but he did his job. "Shields at full Captain, modulating sensors to look for any variances caused by cloaking fields, I would like to avoid being taken by surprise if at all possible." Masters said louder.

[cortez]

Masters set the tactical board to yellow alert status. He watched as combat systems and shields began to either go onto active mode, or standmy mode. He glanced at Octavious, "If we fight, I have faith that we have the systems ready to handle it" he said matter of factly... He may not like the man's attitude, but he did his job. "Shields at full Captain, modulating sensors to look for any variances caused by cloaking fields, I would like to avoid being taken by surprise if at all possible." Masters said louder.

Cortez nodded at Masters.

"Good job"

Taking a deep breath at what was to come, Cortez continued.

"Mr. Masters...open a channel with the station"

[ThomasRiker]

Cortez nodded at Masters.

"Good job"

Taking a deep breath at what was to come, Cortez continued.

"Mr. Masters...open a channel with the station"

"Aye Sir" Masters said, entering the commands into the board to open a channel. "Channel open"

[cortez]

"Aye Sir" Masters said, entering the commands into the board to open a channel. "Channel open"

The computer beeped to signify an open channel.

"Klingon station, this is the Federation starship Churchill. Please respond."

There was a short silence. Just when Cortez began to speak once again, the com channel flared to life.

"Federation?"  came a deep, resoundedly male voice. Cortez figured him to be Klingon. "We weren't expecting you for another two days. Your package hasn't arrived yet."

Cortez exchanged a glance with Thompson. Something was up, and he decided to play along to find out what.

"We...er...we decided to come early."  he replied.  "We can wait for the package."

There was silence on the other end of the line. Cortez took a deep breath. Had they bought it? Were they going to allow the Churchill to remain there or open fire? Questions rattled around in his brain until the growl of the Klingon's voice returned once more.

"Very well."  he mumbled  "Maintain present distance from the station and follow procedure. Che'pok!"

The channel closed abruptly. Cortez looked across at Masters.

"Ensign, I want detailed scans of that station. Co-ordinate with the T'Kumbra. And be discreet."

He turned to Thompson.

"What do you think?"

[ThomasRiker]

The computer beeped to signify an open channel.

"Klingon station, this is the Federation starship Churchill. Please respond."

There was a short silence. Just when Cortez began to speak once again, the com channel flared to life.

"Federation?"  came a deep, resoundedly male voice. Cortez figured him to be Klingon. "We weren't expecting you for another two days. Your package hasn't arrived yet."

Cortez exchanged a glance with Thompson. Something was up, and he decided to play along to find out what.

"We...er...we decided to come early."  he replied.  "We can wait for the package."

There was silence on the other end of the line. Cortez took a deep breath. Had they bought it? Were they going to allow the Churchill to remain there or open fire? Questions rattled around in his brain until the growl of the Klingon's voice returned once more.

"Very well."  he mumbled  "Maintain present distance from the station and follow procedure. Che'pok!"

The channel closed abruptly. Cortez looked across at Masters.

"Ensign, I want detailed scans of that station. Co-ordinate with the T'Kumbra. And be discreet."

He turned to Thompson.

"What do you think?"

Detailed scans, but being discreet... He knew what the commander wanted, but sensors just don't usually work that way. Masters began to reconfigure some of the sensors. He increased the passive scanners to the maximum levels, and put in place a few other things that would add a level of interferance that might mask them. He began the scan, sending results directly to the Commander. "Sir, let me know if you need more detailed than these, but it is hard to be non abtrusive with much more.

Masters to Izjana, We have been asked to scan the base discreetly, we are also in contact with them, for the moment they think we are someone else" he said to her, using a secure channel. "Let us know if you gain any information on your end."

[Kale Bridges]

He turned to Thompson.

"What do you think?"

Reece didn't take long to answer.
"I don't like it sir. The pirates appear to have dealings with the Klingon Empire. That can only be bad for us. But it does give an answer as to how they're so organised and well equipped. If they're being funded by the Empire...."

He didn't finish the thought, but it seemed obvious.

"Captain. I'd like to try and get a team on board that station." Reece said. "If we get to their computers, we can find out exactly what ships they've been trading with, and cross reference it with the pirate ships that we've seen so far."