The Turn of the Tides

Posted on Wed May 5th, 2021 @ 5:52pm by Lieutenant JG Shaille Levine & Warrant Officer Koh Ottasu & Lieutenant JG Alistair Fletcher

Mission: Pathstone to History

"So how long do you think these negotiations will take?" Corinne looked up from the operations console on the bridge. "I'm looking forward to some down time, but I'm still contemplating going down to the surface. Surely it isn't that bad?"

Shaille laughed. "It's not bad at all, it's gorgeous. Seriously, some of the most amazing beaches I have ever seen anywhere in the entire universe, it's just not my cup of tea. Besides, Koh and I are planning some quiet holodeck time," she replied with a small smile.

"Oh, now that explains it all, you just want..." her voice trailed off as the console in front of her beeped. "That's odd, have we been notified of any changes to our docking arrangements?" Corinne asked, a confused expression on her face. "The docking access to the Dalacari station has been sealed on their side."

Shaille's fingers danced across the security console in front of her. "Open a channel to the station."

Corinne shook her head. "No response."

Shaille paused. "This doesn't seem like standard protocol," she said quietly. "It wasn't like this last time I was here. See if you can open a channel to Captain Laurens."

Another moment of silence before Corinne shook her head. "No, I can't get anything outside of our internal comms. Even our sensors seem to be jammed. I can't even locate any of our senior staff on the surface."

Reaching up, Shaille tapped her commbadge lightly. "Warrant Officer Koh Ottasu, please report to the bridge immediately." She glanced back toward Corinne. "Maybe this is some kind of drill? Maybe Koh will know something about it."

Alistair had been quiet at his station, mostly just staring off into space, ever since he'd been assigned to the Blink craft as OIC of the maintenance crew, he'd rarely had other time on the bridge or in main engineering. With the noise and sounds of things going on, he shook his head and buried himself into the data on his console, "Sensors are functional, I think you're right, Corrine, we've got to be being jammed... I'll work on cancelling that if I can."

"No!" The terse tone of Shaille's voice rang clearly across the bridge. "Until we know if this is an act of aggression from the Dalacari we shouldn't try and undermine them, especially not with the negotiations happening. For all we know, this could be a test. Alistair, run a diagnostic on our comms and make sure it's working." She drew in a sharp breath. "Corinne, try hailing the station again."

"There's no answer Lieutenant," Corinne replied. "I don't think our comms are malfunctioning, I'm sure our requests are being received, we're just being ignored."

Alistair checked the sensors and noted a small asteroid flying through space, well clear of anything and bounced a comm signal off of it even as he ran the diagnostic on the comms, then ran what he got back off of the bit of rock through his system, "You're right, we're transmitting, we're receiving, maybe half a percent of degradation that we shouldn't have, but they're working."

The turbolift doors swished open, and a familiary black furred rabbit made his way to the bridge. Slightly recovering his breath, as he might have been running to the bridge given Shaille's tone. "Reporting as requested." he responded, this was still business after all.

"Our dock to the Dalacari station has been sealed, they won't answer our hails and both our sensors and external comms seem to be being jammed." Shaille looked across at Koh, concern evident on her face. "You know what they're like better than anyone else here... Is this some kind of Dalacari security protocol or training exercise?"

Koh wore a smirk for a fraction of a second, "Dalacari don't do training exercises. It's pointless." a pause then caused the smirk to fade, "Everything's jammed? Nothing on comms or anything?" Now Koh started to look concerned.

He thought, and then shook his head, "Send someone to the docking port to greet the security officer when they arrive. This is a silent investigation." he glanced from person to person on the bridge, "They're jamming sensors to keep us from monitoring their drone traffic. Right now, there's probably double the number of drones outside then there were ten minutes ago. They jam everything, they disregard all hails, they pretty much close in like a ... oh what's the one with the shell? Moves slow? Snail." he was so confident.

"They snail up. Send out drones to gather all the data they can. Something has them spooked." he paused again, "Now, this protocol, it's a little our fault. Our, as in the Ts'usugi. We ask them to investigate everything on a problem or a matter before calling us in for aid, since it does take a while for our ships to arrive. We'd rather not divert a ship because of a sensor glitch. So now, Dalacari stations that get word that something is wrong go into full investigation mode."

Koh turned to Shaille, "I'll head down with whoever is going to the docking port. Like you said, I know the Dalacari. Also whoever is going, keep a cool head. This could be nothing, but they're very thorough. The station security officer at that docking port is going to be our best shot at finding out what's got them snailing up."

"I'll come with you. Allistair, you have the bridge. Corinne, keep trying to hail Captain Laurens." Shaille tugged at her jacket as she moved away from the tactical console and headed toward the turbolift.

"Aye, ma'am, I have the bridge." Alistair agreed, tapping some more buttons even as he shook his head, "Not that there's much to do here."