Starfleet HQ: CIC

San Francisco, California

Earth


─•~:~•─


Jack couldn't believe how busy everything was.

Sure, HQ was never exactly the home of tranquility, but this was something completely different.

All around the S1, there were Marines and Starfleet Officers running to and from every direction.

Armed Sharkies from every division stood guard as Fishies loaded up supplies and provisions onto dozens of portable transporter pads set up in every corner of Robert April Square.

Shuttles, fighters, and hundreds of heavy cargo freighters were flying in every direction in the skies above Jack. Some of them were on their way to join up with Home Fleet, now floating directly above HQ.

Others were making their way to Mars and the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, where every last ship was being scrambled to make ready for the upcoming offensive.

Hours after Jack had returned to Earth from the hulk of the Romulan Warbird Irix, still floating between Earth and the Moon, things started happening quickly.

Jack took a moment to look at a large QC monitor, just as the FNN news desk came 'on the air'.

"This is FNN News Desk, with the latest news from the galaxy and beyond," the announcer said in the broadcast, while the horns of the theme tune played like it was any other day.

Once the opening graphics finished, Sylak T'von, that famous Vulcan newscaster, came on the screen.

"Gentlebeings of all worlds, we interrupt your normal broadcast schedule for breaking news this hour. FNN has now confirmed the earlier broadcast from the morning show. The Red Ball Express was attacked and destroyed, by a Romulan Warbird."

Sylak sighed before continuing, "At this time, reports from Starfleet confirm that there were no survivors, and although Starfleet has yet to comment publicly, sources have told us that this was not an accident. We are being told that the President's office will be making a public statement within the hour, and FNN will be there for live coverage."

"We will now take a short break for a message from our sponsors. Remain tuned to this channel for further developments as they happen. This is FNN News Desk," Sylak concluded, before the images changed to holo advertising for the Terra Nova Terrorisers' home opener later that month.

Jack looked around at his fellow Marines. Among the lost souls on Europa were fifty Vulcans who had become the first among their people to join the Bootnecks. Jack's Vulcan brothers and sisters.

I owe it to them to find out who did this, and then send that bastard to hell, Jack swore to himself.

Jack walked through the double doors of the main building to head for the turbo-lift that would take him the armoured Combat Information Centre.

He had been summoned there by General Castle, after Mark had made a brief stop at Beaufort to organize the few bootnecks still at Camp Nath waiting for orders.

Jack quickly walked past the reception desk, but found his way blocked by a Fishie S.O

"Hey, what are you doing here?" the young SO asked Jack, holding one hand up and keeping the other on his rifle, "No civic tours today."

Jack realized that he wasn't wearing his MDU.

S1 had no real rank or position within the Marines. The closest explanation he would give someone who asked was that he served as General Castle's XO, but even that didn't fully cover his responsibilities.

Officially, Jack fact checked the General's paperwork, drafted plans, and operations, and offered a second opinion on any planning sessions he was ordered to attend.

Unofficially, Jack was Mark's eyes and ears anywhere that he couldn't go himself officially.

As a result, Jack rarely – if ever – wore his uniform.

Today, he had opted for a leather jacket and blue jeans.

To the untrained eye, Jack probably resembled any other civilian wandering around HQ and wondering what all the fuss was all about.

"Relax Crewman, I'm supposed to be here. Jack Marshall, but you can call me Jack."

He wouldn't be able to back that up.

He had no dog-tags or other form of identification.

The only things he had on his person that would identify Jack as a Marine were his wrist-comm, and the assault phaser he was carrying – concealed – in the small of his back.

"I don't care if you're the second coming of James Kirk, you're not getting in this building without some kind of ID. Now turn around and-" the SO started saying before being cut off by a woman.

The woman was in her fifties but looked no older than forty-five to Jack's eyes. Her blonde hair was tied back in a tight bun, and her blue eyes looked focused and calm.

But more importantly to Jack, she was wearing a Rear Admiral's bars on her uniform collar.

"What's going on here, Crewman?" the woman asked, in a tone that suggested she was not in patient mood.

The SO immediately snapped to attention and let his phaser rifle hang loose across his chest, "Admiral Nechayev, Ma'am. I was just preparing to escort this civilian out of the building."

Nechayev walked to up the SO, snapped the light clasp holding his phaser rifle to his chest and seized the weapon into her hands.

She quickly checked the display and the safety catch and choked on her breath in disgust, "And how exactly were you planning to escort a Marine from the building with your safety engaged and power setting on stun?"

She tossed the rifle back to the SO and pointed at the door, "Now go find something useful to do, and don't let me catch you standing around here again!"

While the SO couldn't move away fast enough, Nechayev looked at the S1 and smiled, "Hello Jack, It's nice to finally meet you in person. Mark speaks pretty highly of you."

Jack quickly fired a salute to the Rear Admiral, "Thank you Ma'am!"

Alynna laughed. The Marines were always so serious, except when alcohol or violence was involved, "Come on Jack, I'll walk you up to the CIC, Mark's waiting for you."

As the pair stepped into the turbo-lift, Jack recalled all the stories he had heard about Nechayev. Cedrul Mihan, the Captain of the repair ship Vestal had ranted about her maverick ways several times on the bridge, back when Jack was still a Fishie and serving as his head of security.

The angrier the Captain got, the more Jack had wanted to meet the woman in person.

"So, you're the General's aunt?" Jack asked, trying to stay casual.

She laughed again, "Well, not by blood. I just spent a lot of time at his house back when Mark was growing up. Don't they have aunts like that where you come from?"

"Terra Nova. And I wouldn't know to be honest, Ma'am. I was the only child of a married couple of only children. I had a grandfather on my mother's side, but he was a miserable old drunk, so we didn't see too much of him except on Christmas."

"I don't think I've been to Terra Nova before. Isn't the planet just one big city?" Alynna asked.

"Pretty much. There's not a lot of big parks or forests like there are on Earth. Most of the houses have little green spaces or private golf courses though. And the third moon has a nice lake resort that you can book time for. My father took us there every summer."

I wonder if dad's cottage on Lake Trabia is still open, he thought.

Maybe, after this mission was done, he'd finally take up fishing, as Mark had suggested he do numerous times.

"So, your dad owned a cottage, did he?" Alynna asked again.

"He owned a lot of things, actually. Andrew Marshall was, is still actually, chairman of the board for NERV Industries. Has his hands in everything from Dilithium mines to shuttle races. Built it from the ground up from a little rental shop he owned across the street from our house. My mother, Cynthia, started working for him as a computer specialist and caught his eye, and a few years later they had me." said Jack.

"I think he always imagined I would eventually take over the company from him, but I wanted to see space instead, so I joined Starfleet when I got old enough to challenge the entry exams. He was pretty happy when I got Enterprise as my first posting though, so I guess it worked out in the end."

"And then you ended up Vestal. I cried when I heard about Risa. Vestal was supposed to transfer over to Hell's Own with me, after your shore-leave. She was a good ship." said Alynna quietly.

"That she was, Admiral."


─•~:~•─


The doors of the turbo-lift opened, and Jack stepped into the bustling CIC room with Alynna following close behind. Most of the consoles that coordinated Starfleet had been moved to the other side of the room in order to set up chairs for the sea of Top Brass present for the briefing.

Jack looked around and witnessed dozens of Captains, Commodores, Admirals of every stripe and more important people talking amongst themselves or going over PADDs.

There weren't very many Marines in the room, but one stood out immediately to Jack.

Major Rain Kaimeao walked up to Jack and punched his shoulder, not hard enough to hurt but enough that Jack felt it through his leather jacket, "You're rather late, S1. Our fearless leader is having a conniption fit over you right now."

Jack rubbed his shoulder, "Major. Sorry for being late, there was an SO in my way, but the Admiral here prevented me from being kicked out altogether."

Rain fired off a salute and a much more pleasant smile to Alynna "Rear Admiral Nechayev. I'm Major Kaimeao, OC-Spec Ops for the bootnecks. Thank you for retrieving my wayward S1. I fear he's been lost since the first day I trained him at Camp Nath."

Alynna returned a friendly nod to Rain.

She still wasn't quite used to saluting Marines yet, even though most officers in Starfleet had begun – slowly – to adopt the practice, "It was my pleasure, Major. My nephew Mark always said you were incredibly good at finding lost things, I guess your skill rubbed off on me."

Rain bowed, "Except for the S1 of course. If you'll excuse me, Madam, I do have my own affairs to attend to. Mark has reserved seats for both of you at the front."

As Rain turned and went to a nearby console, Alynna took Jack's non-punched arm and walked him to their seats, "She seems nice."

Jack couldn't help but laugh, "You should see her when she's not being nice. The first time I met Major Kaimeao, she shoved a shuttle pilot into the side of a Raptor so hard that the guy broke his shoulder blade. But she's the best shot in the whole Corps. Everything I know how to do I learned from her."

As the pair sat down in their leather reception chairs, Alynna put a look of curiosity on her face, "What's the story with that penguin toy on her holster though? I thought you Marines were pretty strict when it came to duty uniforms."

Jack again laughed, "Private First-Class Mr. Pingu. He goes wherever she goes, no exceptions. It's standing orders for anyone in the Squirrels or Ninjas. He was a toy that belonged to a little girl me and her rescued a while ago. I heard the Major ended up adopting her too."

Alynna smiled, "That's actually really cute."

Before either Jack or Alynna could continue, a Bolian LC stepped up to the raised briefing podium and switched on the amplified QC, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the briefing will now begin. Please rise for the CNC."

Alynna and Jack both stood and put their hands behind their backs, as did every other officer in the room.

Moments later, from the large double doors to the north, Douglas Mitchell walked in briskly, followed behind by Mark and Leftenant Virnas.

Mark and Mitchell both looked stressed out and focused in the same measure, while Virnas looked his usual Liberated Romulan self to Jack's eyes, his implants hard at work running programs and simulations about God knows what.

Mark and Virnas took seats beside the podium while Mitchell synced his comm-badge to the QC speakers, "As you were. Before I start, can everyone hear me alright from here?"

The group of Officers nodded or murmured in agreement as they sat down.

Satisfied, Mitchell continued, "Good. Let's get settled in. We've got a lot of material to get through and we don't have a lot of time to do it. I think most of you know General Marcus Castle by now. I've asked him to take part in this briefing, both to detail the FMC's part of our operation and for his insight as an expert in Romulan tactics. His old company helped to train the Republican Navy in 2398."

Before Mitchell could continue, Captain Shelly Weight, who had taken over Voyager from Janeway, was on her feet, "Admiral Mitchell, are we now at war with the Romulan Republic?"

Mitchell shook his head, "I won't go as far as to call it a war, yet. The Federation doesn't start wars. That's been true for almost five hundred years, and I won't be the one to break that tradition. But I also refuse to allow us to be assaulted without a response. For now, we'll call this an aggressive police action."

"Okay, that brings me to a few updates from the diplomatic front. The Federation Council has formally issued a condemnation of the attack to the Republic. Under the Emergency Act, President McClair has been authorized to take any action she feels is necessary to maintain national security and to apprehend these bastards."

Mitchell hit a switch on the podium, and the display on the north wall showed a financial breakdown of the staggering amount of trade between the Federation and the Republic.

"Further to that, the Council has suspended trade and commerce rights for the time being. Republic shipping that's cleared customs will be impounded once they arrive at port, and incoming freighters will be turned back, for now with a subspace warning.

"President McClair hasn't decided to pull ambassadors or expel citizens, yet, but that option isn't off the table either. Fed-Sec at Langley will take care of that, if and when the time comes. Just consider yourselves informed for right now."

"The President herself just spoke to Proconsul D'Tann about an hour ago. As expected, he swore down that the Rommie Puddle Pirates had nothing to do with it. She gave them twenty-four hours to find the bastards responsible and hand them over to us to stand trial."

"So far, his response is that he's very sad that it happened, offered us medics and engys for help, and that if his boys find the bastards first, they'll stand trial in a Romulan court for Romulan crimes," Mitchell said, reading off his PADD.

"That's not acceptable to me, and it shouldn't be to anyone else in this room. We look after our own. So, my intention is to collect these murdering bastards ourselves, and since we don't have any idea what, if anything, they have to protect themselves, we're going in force. The idea is to take them alive, but I won't lose sleep if they decide to get cute and opt for a trial by photon torpedo."

A Bolian Commodore that Jack didn't recognize stood up.

He was wearing a yellow operations collar, which Jack found strange.

He had expected only Starfleet Tactical to be present for what was clearly a war planning session.

"Do we know who is responsible yet, Sir? Or how they were able to get past Home Fleet's tachyon grids?"

Mitchell shook his head again, "No to both questions, Commodore Chellix. All we know right now is that the Warbird was one of the handful of drone ships the Republican Navy operates, and thanks to your SCOE people for confirming that."

"As for getting past Home Fleet, the head of FMC Military Intelligence on my left here has found gaps in our grid that got missed by every last person in R&D that set them up. I'll be damned sure to get those closed in short order."

Mitchell stopped for a moment to take sip from a short glass of water before continuing, "Both the Puzzle Palace and our own Intel people have generated possible leads that Imperial Romulan State agents might have hijacked the Warbird. Whether or not they had Republican help is still an open question."

"In either case, the end result is that D'Tann has either lost control of his military, or our next stop after we pick these bastards up is Golandan Core."

"For the moment, my orders from the President are to proceed under the assumption that we will not have any support from the Puddle Pirates. Whether or not that means we simply fly past them, or shoot our way through them, depends on how the next twenty-four hours go. We've planned for either scenario, but it's the second we'll be discussing right now."

Mitchell turned on the massive holoscreen on the west wall to detail his plans and continued, "And now on to the nitty-gritty. As of two hours ago, I've issued a fleet-wide yellow alert that will move to red if and when the shooting starts. Except for Ark Royal's battle group at DS9 and anyone too far out to make a difference, I'm reorienting the entire fleet to point at Romulan space. Every combat capable ship within a day's travel of Earth is on the way to Mars as we speak."

He continued, flipping the image to a fleet design, "Task Force 57 will be our initial striking force. At this time, I'm committing half of Home Fleet, the entire Fast Carrier Task Force, and combat support elements of 2nd and 8th Fleets. General Castle will be adding what he calls Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group to TF-57, the details of which are in your handouts. In the event our opening move gets pushed back, I'll be organizing a second task force next week."

Mitchell flipped the image to a numbers breakdown, "So in total, that's six hundred Starships and just under eighty thousand Marines for the first push. Initial recon flights along the border are showing that the Rommies seem to be moving for a general mobilization, but they also seem to be taking their time about it, and they haven't concentrated in force anywhere just yet."

"What that means for us is that in the event they decide to make an issue of us coming in, we have a very narrow window of opportunity to take their fleet off the board, and I intend to fully exploit that window."

Behind Jack, Captain Zelina Bakay of the battlecruiser Avalon stood up next.

The young Ukrainian Captain definitely stood out from the otherwise sharply dressed group of top brass around Jack.

"Are we certain of those movements, Admiral Mitchell? The Romulans do like to play tricks with their cloaks, nyet? Our window could very well be a trap for us," she asked.

Mitchell sighed, "We're as certain as we can be, Captain Bakay. But I understand the skepticism. Unfortunately, if we're going to control the tempo of operations, we won't have time to start playing bouncing games with tachyon detectors. I've attached three Hoovers to TF-57 for extra sensor coverage, along with Kitty Hawk and her drones,but obviously it's going to be a bit of a balancing act getting through the Gen Three cloaks. And I take full responsibility for suggesting that the Republican Navy upgrade their cloaking tech."

"Before today, I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say that we never seriously contemplated having to fight the Romulan Republic."

Jack agreed silently, even though his instincts as a Marine told him that he should have a plan for every eventuality, no matter how impossible it seemed.

The Romulans and the Federation had played a two-century game of brinkmanship over cloaking technology. For every advance the Imperial Navy made in hiding their ships, Starfleet worked equally as hard to break through it.

Many people had assumed that the game was over when Hobus exploded and the Treaty of Algeron became a worthless piece of paper, but D'Tann had shocked the entire galaxy when his Republic Science Academy had developed a completely new generation of cloaking devices from plans recovered from the wreck of the Scimitar.

Jack's mind went back to Romulus.

On only his second mission as a security officer onboard the Grey Ghost, Jack became one of the few serving officers who had witnessed the Predator in person.

Scimitar was a beast, one that nearly blew the Grey Ghost apart where the Cardassians and the Dominion and even the Breen had failed to do so.

Her cloak was all but perfect and had the added danger of allowing Scimitar to fire her vast amounts of weaponry through the cloak.

If it hadn't been for Deanna Troi and her Betazoid Telepathic abilities, Jack may well not have been sitting in this room a decade later.

According to intel briefings he had written for Mark, Jack shuddered when he remembered that the Republic had built a second Scimitar class Warbird as their flagship, the Courser.

Courser may have been green in colour rather than the intimidating black of her sister and lacked the deadly Thalaron generator of her predecessor, but she was equally as well armed and also equipped with a near-perfect cloak.

Mitchell stepped back from the podium and motioned for Mark to replace him, "Okay, that's it for me right now. I'll turn the floor over to General Castle to discuss our operational tactics and strategy."