Season 1, Mission 10: Standstill

[Connor Price]

=/\=Krol to Price=/\=
Very good, transport him now.
=/\=Out=/\=

Lance stared intently at the space station. It was derelict and the life support systems had been rebooted especially for the occasion. What if the pirates planned to vent the station?

Connor nodded at the order, made sure the diplomat and Salas were ready and swiftly beamed them off the ship. Once the transport was complete, he returned to the bridge. "All done." He reported, resuming his previous position.

[Kirok]

"Very good. Mr. Price, take Mr. Jameson down to the transporter room please. We'll be staying on the ship and ready for combat." Lance brought up the physical scans of the pirates and kept them on the main screen. It wouldn't really do any good to know where they were, but Lance allowed himself one useless little idiosyncrasy and that was knowing where everything was.

Kirok gave a silent nod in response.  Without a tachyon detection grid to warn them of cloaked ship, they would have to rely on their visual sensors to tell them of other ship activity in the area.  He made some changes on his touch screen devise so that he could listen in on subspace frequencies.  If there were cloaked ships out there, more than the five they saw, maybe they would communicate with one another.  If so, Kirok would be ready for them.  "Lt Commander, of the five pirate ships that we see, have you encountered any of them before in previous mission?" Kirok asked, trying to get an idea of just how big the pirate's fleet was.

[Lance Krol]

Kirok gave a silent nod in response.  Without a tachyon detection grid to warn them of cloaked ship, they would have to rely on their visual sensors to tell them of other ship activity in the area.  He made some changes on his touch screen devise so that he could listen in on subspace frequencies.  If there were cloaked ships out there, more than the five they saw, maybe they would communicate with one another.  If so, Kirok would be ready for them.  "Lt Commander, of the five pirate ships that we see, have you encountered any of them before in previous mission?" Kirok asked, trying to get an idea of just how big the pirate's fleet was.

"That big-ass warbird-looking thing is the Event Horizon, we discovered that one a couple of weeks ago during a mission on a prison colony. The rest we've probably seen before, I don't differentiate between individual warbirds. If this is all there ever was chances are we've run into them all at some point, which means they all know us. That can be really good or really bad. No middle ground."

Lance paused a moment. "Bring up shields, but not weapons. We want time to draw our gun if they try to snipe us."

[Joval]

"Aye sir" Joval says as he taps out a short sequence onto the console raising the shields "Shields up sir." he says as he looks up from the console. "Shields running at maximum power." Joval looks towards the captain for further orders. He then looks towards the view screen at the ships it showed. He had never seen the type of ship before, so he did not know what exactly they were capable of. He did know however that no matter what happened that the captain would get them through it.

[Tsira Vex]

The Flight Control Center on Deck 10 was buzzing with activity in preparation for the meeting between the Federation and the pirates. The Search and Rescue team would be on call throughout the entire meeting, in order to get the Federation diplomat out of the space station at any time if necessary. Tsira Vex was among the team members who were going through thorough preparation for a SAR operation. She stood along the port wall of the command center and checked the energy cell on her phaser rifle. She had been assigned to the primary SAR team when she came aboard. Whenever SAR operations were prepared there would be a primary team which would be ready to use the transporter, and a secondary team ready in a shuttlecraft in case the transporter buffers were blocked or disabled.

Once the team had readied their rifles, sidearms, medical supplies, and dampening devices, Vex reported that the SAR team was ready. On larger starships, like the Galaxy class or Sovereign class, the SAR teams would deploy directly from a transporter room, but on the smaller craft like the Intrepid class, the Engineering department would do a direct transport from the command center.

Vex to Cadenza
The SAR teams are ready to deploy at any time in order to retrieve Mr Jameson.

[Raymundo Salas]

Materializing on board the station Raymundo and Mr. Jameson were standing at one end of the stations habitat rings. The station like most Federation  space stations was mushroom shape, this one had four disks circling its boarder. For living quarters, offices, or anything else the crew would need the space for. Being modular in design they were easy to swap in and out as need dictated.

Jameson looked around, "Where is the other party?" he asked, "Were not even in the agreed meeting place." running a hand through his hair, the shaking his head trying to straighten it again.

Raymundo figured this would be his response and replied, "We felt that it would be safer to beam in outside the meeting place, to prevent any possible countering of the pirates."

"Well in that case." he said. "Lets go to where we are suppose  to be, you can go first so if the pirates have some 'countering' you will be the first to know." he gave a half laugh.

Walking through the doors he went down a curved hall toward the inner area of the station. after a few turns he came out of the crew quarters into the public area. Up ahead there was a curved lounge along the outer wall of the station. it had some panoramic windows giving Ray a good look at the pirate fleet up close, circling just outside that was the Churchill. The decor was rather dated but a few chairs and a old table made form real wood had been set up in the center. Siting at the Table were the pirate leaders, and spaced just far enough throughout the room were some guards. Ray made sure to keep his hands clasped behind his back and away from his holster, least there be any confusion.

[Kirok]

"That big-ass warbird-looking thing is the Event Horizon, we discovered that one a couple of weeks ago during a mission on a prison colony. The rest we've probably seen before, I don't differentiate between individual warbirds. If this is all there ever was chances are we've run into them all at some point, which means they all know us. That can be really good or really bad. No middle ground."

Lance paused a moment. "Bring up shields, but not weapons. We want time to draw our gun if they try to snipe us."

Kirok studied the Event Horizon for a moment and then looked down at his screen.  He touched the device to create a split screen which would allow him to do two things at once.  He left the subspace frequencies program running on one half of his screen and started going through the sensor logs from previous missions on the other side of the screen.   He tagged the big-ass warbird in his system as the Event Horizon, then he started comparing the remaining four ships to those they had encountered on previous missions.

[Connor Price]

"That big-ass warbird-looking thing is the Event Horizon, we discovered that one a couple of weeks ago during a mission on a prison colony. The rest we've probably seen before, I don't differentiate between individual warbirds. If this is all there ever was chances are we've run into them all at some point, which means they all know us. That can be really good or really bad. No middle ground."

Lance paused a moment. "Bring up shields, but not weapons. We want time to draw our gun if they try to snipe us."

Connor cleared his throat. "That isn't a good idea. Even raising shields could be seen as an aggressive move by these pirates, and it demonstrates a level of distrust we could do without showing. We shall have plenty of time to raise shields the second we detect a target lock. I'd recommend setting them to raise the moment such a lock is detected." He said. So far he had not been impressed with Lance's conduct on the bridge. The informal language, lack of thought behind actions and general passiveness irked Connor greatly.

[Taras Cadenza]

The Flight Control Center on Deck 10 was buzzing with activity in preparation for the meeting between the Federation and the pirates. The Search and Rescue team would be on call throughout the entire meeting, in order to get the Federation diplomat out of the space station at any time if necessary. Tsira Vex was among the team members who were going through thorough preparation for a SAR operation. She stood along the port wall of the command center and checked the energy cell on her phaser rifle. She had been assigned to the primary SAR team when she came aboard. Whenever SAR operations were prepared there would be a primary team which would be ready to use the transporter, and a secondary team ready in a shuttlecraft in case the transporter buffers were blocked or disabled.

Once the team had readied their rifles, sidearms, medical supplies, and dampening devices, Vex reported that the SAR team was ready. On larger starships, like the Galaxy class or Sovereign class, the SAR teams would deploy directly from a transporter room, but on the smaller craft like the Intrepid class, the Engineering department would do a direct transport from the command center.

Vex to Cadenza
The SAR teams are ready to deploy at any time in order to retrieve Mr Jameson.

"Thank you, Crewman... standby." replied Taras to Vex's communication.

He was more engrossed on what was going on around him. He had hesitated in saying something. But he had to remind himself. He was the acting first officer of the ship. At least until Commander Clarke returned.

He had a duty to call him out.

Connor had already started it, but perhaps Cadenza could put it more... rationally. More on his level. He knew Krol better than most people on the ship after all. He spun his chair around to face the Captain.

"Lance, I have to agree with Connor. I suggest we lower the shields immediately. Or at least set them to the lowest possible power setting. This is a negotiation, not a skirmish..." he began. "After all, as Connor said - mistrust. People thought the same thing of the Klingons about 100 or so years ago. But look now. Naturally, this is different to an entire race, but the psychological theory is the same. We should take a risk... a big one, I know, but one all the same. As far as I can tell, none of the pirate ships are in any sort of tactical position to fire and cripple us. So... we should lower our distrust of them to an extent. Let's not brandish the shield... Not yet, anyway."

And kindly refrain from using the word "ass". He tacked on mentally.

[Kirok]

"Lance, I have to agree with Connor. I suggest we lower the shields immediately. Or at least set them to the lowest possible power setting. This is a negotiation, not a skirmish..." he began. "After all, as Connor said - mistrust. People thought the same thing of the Klingons about 100 or so years ago. But look now. Naturally, this is different to an entire race, but the psychological theory is the same. We should take a risk... a big one, I know, but one all the same. As far as I can tell, none of the pirate ships are in any sort of tactical position to fire and cripple us. So... we should lower our distrust of them to an extent. Let's not brandish the shield... Not yet, anyway."

And kindly refrain from using the word "ass". He tacked on mentally.

Kirok looked up from his duty station and looked toward Conner.  "Lieutenant Price is likely correct about his assertion that the pirates could see this as an act of aggression.  But it is also logical to conclude that they already knew that we did not trust them and would likely put up shields as a standard operating procedure when we are encountering them.  We are, in fact, one lone Federation ship among at least five pirate ships and have good reason to defensive" he said.   Then he looked at Krol and added "I would not suggest dropping the shields, not without some plausible explanation to them, as it would likely convey our inner debate and for lack of a better word, confusion, to the pirates." 

[Connor Price]

Kirok looked up from his duty station and looked toward Conner.  "Lieutenant Price is likely correct about his assertion that the pirates could see this as an act of aggression.  But it is also logical to conclude that they already knew that we did not trust them and would likely put up shields as a standard operating procedure when we are encountering them.  We are, in fact, one lone Federation ship among at least five pirate ships and have good reason to defensive" he said.   Then he looked at Krol and added "I would not suggest dropping the shields, not without some plausible explanation to them, as it would likely convey our inner debate and for lack of a better word, confusion, to the pirates."

Connor glared at the crewman. "Yeah, good idea, crewman." He said sarcastically. "Leave the shields up, and cause the negotiations to go..." Here he paused, biting back an earthy phrase "...Bad quickly. It's easy enough to raise the shields if we detect aggression. It's about protocol and trust. You. Do. Not. Raise. Shields." He said, putting emphasis on the last words. "We are here for peace and co-operation, not war." He was disappointed in the young crewman. He would have expected a security crewman to be at least trained in basic negotiation techniques, and to be able to follow a line of reasoning.

[Kirok]

Connor glared at the crewman. "Yeah, good idea, crewman." He said sarcastically. "Leave the shields up, and cause the negotiations to go..." Here he paused, biting back an earthy phrase "...Bad quickly. It's easy enough to raise the shields if we detect aggression. It's about protocol and trust. You. Do. Not. Raise. Shields." He said, putting emphasis on the last words. "We are here for peace and co-operation, not war." He was disappointed in the young crewman. He would have expected a security crewman to be at least trained in basic negotiation techniques, and to be able to follow a line of reasoning.

"With all due respect, Sir, but I believe that you have mis-understood me" Kirok said stoically.  "I did not suggest leaving the shields up.  I said that we should not lower them until we are able to present a plausible reason for raising them" he added.  He looked down at his duty station and looked at the scans of the area, taking his time so that his last statement could be properly digested by everyone.   "There are some stray asteroids in the area that I could argue as being too close to the ship.  Our shields have been designed to repel asteroids.  We could say that we raised the shields to repel the stray asteroids, if we needed to" Kirok suggested.   He looked back up from his station and looked from Price to Krol. 

[Connor Price]

"With all due respect, Sir, but I believe that you have mis-understood me" Kirok said stoically.  "I did not suggest leaving the shields up.  I said that we should not lower them until we are able to present a plausible reason for raising them" he added.  He looked down at his duty station and looked at the scans of the area, taking his time so that his last statement could be properly digested by everyone.   "There are some stray asteroids in the area that I could argue as being too close to the ship.  Our shields have been designed to repel asteroids.  We could say that we raised the shields to repel the stray asteroids, if we needed to" Kirok suggested.   He looked back up from his station and looked from Price to Krol.

Connor very slowly raised his hand to his eyes. "Moron." He muttered under his breath, though this was directed at Lance. "Makes sense." He said to Kirok. "My apologies. I would suggest you find an excuse to shut off the shields. Immediately." He said, wondering about Lances lack of reaction during this exchange.

[Joval]

Joval looks from Kirok to Lt. Price. He was reluctant to lower the shields but he had been given an order to lower them. "Aye sir lowering shields" he says as he taps in a short command into  his console. "Shields down." he says he then quickly puts another command into the computer making it where if they are targeted by the pirates then the shields would automatically re-engage. He just hoped that the pirates didn't try anything.

[Lance Krol]

Joval looks from Kirok to Lt. Price. He was reluctant to lower the shields but he had been given an order to lower them. "Aye sir lowering shields" he says as he taps in a short command into  his console. "Shields down." he says he then quickly puts another command into the computer making it where if they are targeted by the pirates then the shields would automatically re-engage. He just hoped that the pirates didn't try anything.

Lance sighed and placed his head in his hand, quietly, while nobody was looking. Sitting down in the centre chair, he elected to remain quiet since nothing he could say would sound anything better than petulant. He almost said "Get me some orange juice," but figured that wasn't the kind of thing a captain ordered his subordinates to do. He wondered if asking for coffee would have any different of an effect.

"Stand ready for battle and keep the transporters locked on the Executive but do nothing that can be detected by enemy sensors," he decided, lamely.

Then he got a message.

=/\=Jameson to Churchill

The pirates are offering a prisoner exchange to start the negotiations as a 'sign of good faith'. You're to take the prisoners on another of our ships, the U.S.S. Valiant, and bring them to a location about twenty minutes from here at maximum safe warp. Clear?

=/\=Over=/\=

Lance sighed and tapped his badge.

=/\=Krol to Jameson=/\=

Very clear, sir. Just give me time to relay the order.

=/\=Out=/\=

"Okay, you all heard the man. Price, I want you in engineering," for more than one reason, "If we get into a combat situation I want every spare engineer on hand for damage control where all the sensitive equipment is. Recall Mr. Salas, we're not leaving him behind. Mr. Cadenza, we'll be given coordinates to go to. Go there. Pretty simple. Everyone else, business as usual. Can the most senior officer in every department within earshot of me right now relay the mediocre news to the rest of their department please?"

He stood up and called "This could be the end of our troubles! Let's not get this one wrong!"