Five
Stardate 59223.2, March 15, 2388; USS Aegis, Earth Orbit
"Captain on the bridge." zhNon said, as Theus stepped out of the turbolift.
"As you were." He said with a half-smile.
His crew returned their attention to their stations. And he walked over to the dedicated mission operations console behind his command chair, where his first officer was posted.
"Report."
"All decks report ready, sir." zhNon began. "The last of the crew and supplies were loaded a few minutes ago, and all preflight checks show green."
"Good."
zhNon handed him a PADD, and walked along side as Theus took his center seat.
"Also, we've received several successful test pings from Earth Space Dock for your holo-communication emitters."
"Emitters?" Theus asked. "I didn't request a holo-comm system."
zhNon tapped a few controls on his arm console, and brought up the work order. At the bottom, it was signed by Captain Gregory Williams.
"Well that explains that." She said.
Theus suppressed a curse. "I guess Starfleet's newest, Adjunct for Relief Operations in the Romulan sectors prefers more than face-to-face contact."
"Yes sir." She said, and zhNon remained at his side.
"Was there something else Commander?" Theus asked.
zhNon cocked her head slightly. If she was trying to appear stoic, the movement of her antennae betrayed her. She paused, and seemed to mull over her words before leaning in closer.
"Not entirely the worse choice as far as uniforms go, sir, but blue?"
Theus was expecting this question eventually, and was almost surprised that it took his first officer this long to ask. During their shore leave, he had chosen the fourth design, of the Sierra line of uniforms for his ship. It appealed to his sense of minimalism in color; while still maintaining the sleek, modern, and stylish design that was currently in fashion.
The officers wore square, silver pips. As was also the color of their commbadges, although raised with division insignias on each. Theus was informed from Admiral Harris that he had a lot of freedom in the style of dress for his ship, and himself personally. However, he was required to wear a badge with a command division star in the center. That didn't deter him from proudly displaying his passion.
"Old habits die hard." Theus answered her, and she nodded. "Now if you would Commander, take us out."
"Aye sir." zhNon stood tall. "Helm, signal space dock to get underway."
"Space dock has cleared us for departure." Mok said.
"Excellent, clear all moorings and umbilical struts. Ops, seal all hatched and retract all docking gangways."
"Ship sealed." Carver reported.
"We're free of Space Dock controls. Navigation at your discretion." Mok said.
"Give me exterior illumination. Ahead thrusters until we've cleared the outer hatch, and then engage one half impulse."
Inside the maintenance yard of Earth Space Dock, the USS Aegis came to life as its power levels increased, and more flight systems were brought online. The impulse engines blazed a bright crimson as the ship slid smoothly out of the confines of the space station, and out into the Sol System.
"We're clear, engaging impulse engines."
Earth and Luna soon fell away, as the ship accelerated to over thirty-seven thousand kilometers per second.
"We're clear, sir." zhNon said.
"Good work Commander." Theus said. "Bridge to Engineering, how're we looking down there?"
Smoother than an Orion's females b-"
"I'll take that as a confirmation the engines are at peak performance, Chief! Concise reports worked for our former captain, and they'll be more than adequate now." zhNon spoke, with unhidden heat in her voice.
Y-yes ma'am. All engines are nominal, warp power at your discretion, Commander, er…uh, Captain." The Tellarite stammered.
Theus smiled. While he may still have had a lot to work on with his personal relationship with his first officer, a performance of her duties was not one of them.
"Helm, set course for supply Outpost-63, warp seven." Theus said.
"Aye sir, course plotted and laid in."
"Captain, I've just received confirmation via subspace that the Vesta is on schedule to rendezvous with us." Carver reported from Ops.
"Very good Lieutenant. Helm, engage."
Captain's Log, stardate 59432.1
After several days at high warp to reach Outpost-63, we are finally within range of the former Romulan Neutral Zone to begin our mission. I will admit a bit of frustration at having to be tractored to the region with the help of the Vesta's quantum slip stream drive, but the bruise to my ego will heal nicely with the comfort of being able to save lives.
The crew, for their part, has performed their duties with a professionalism that should be commended. The Aegis is a new ship, and with the added systems, personnel, and new commanding officer, it would be understandable if there were areas that they were falling short of. But with the uneventful travel time, everyone including myself has had an opportunity to begin settling in. Everyone except the MACOs."
"It took only three days for our first official fight?" Theus asked his security chief.
"Technically four, sir. Ships clocks just began alpha shift. And it was more of a bout, a sparring match." Goritan replied.
"I think the more important matter is why they were dueling in the first place?!" zhNon asked in frustration, and shook her head.
The trio were on deck two making their way toward sickbay. Theus had been awoken to a call from Goritan; who himself had been awoken, about a physical altercation that had taken place down on deck four, in cargo bay three. Initial reports had said it was nothing serious, but a call from the chief medical officer garnered the attention of both the captain and first officer.
"Doctor Utan?" zhNon said, as they entered sickbay.
"Back here." Came a female's voice.
Theus had already toured his ship multiple times before their departure, but was pleasantly surprised to see the departments in action. With the increase in size of the São Paulo class, came an increase of interior space. After the lessons learned from the Dominion War, Starfleet equipped escort vessels with more advanced sickbay systems. While not all were larger, they all had more advanced equipment that made them on par with any surgical facility on any larger starship. The Aegis had the best of both, a sickbay that was modeled after the Prometheus class ship, only without an internal medical laboratory.
"How's the patien…Great Ancestors!" Goritan shouted.
Theus and zhNon were equally as disturbed as they walked in on their CMO mid procedure. On a bio bed sat a young enlisted crewman, who was holding the doctor's foot in his lap as she stood above him on the bed. Her other foot was being used as leverage, as she pulled on an almost fifteen centimeter claw from his collar with a pair of gripping forceps.
"Almost…got it!" She shouted gleefully as she tumbled back, forceps and claw in hand with a large squirt of crimson blood arcing out from the gaping wound. "Okay, that's that worst of it, nurse take over." She said to her assistant.
"Doctor, report please." zhNon said sternly.
The middle-aged woman wore her auburn hair up, thankfully so as she was dabbing blood from her coat and neck. She had a warm, rotund face that accented her large, black eyes. Eyes with iris that were also completely black.
"I know what you're thinking, and he's going to be fine." Utan said.
"You read my mind." Theus said.
"Captain!" Utan said dramatically. "Aside from it being a breach of Starfleet ethics; and serious faux pas in Betazoid culture, I personally would never read your thoughts without your permission."
"Well you have it now."
Utan focused for a moment, and then grinned embarrassingly. "That's an Earth expression. Oh, you are a clever one, sir."
Before he could say anything, the door to sickbay opened and Lieutenant Noor entered. He was being followed by another MACO who was limping. Theus stared for a moment, and couldn't help but noticed how incredibly young he looked.
Although Theus knew mentally that the injured MACO's culture defined maturity and age different than Humans, it slightly bothered him. By any measurement, he was barely a post adolescent. But his rank and service stripe indicated he was not a fresh recruit.
"Captain." The Punjabis Lieutenant said, in an agitated voice. "Corporal V'Riss has something he would like to say to you."
The Caitian's tale flicked lazily behind him. His ears were folded back against his sandalwood colored fur, while his whisker drooped. "I would like to apologize sir. For wasting your time, and the resources of the medical team." He said, and finished with a low growl, looking crestfallen.
"Doctor." Theus said. She took the young corporal to a bio bed when she noticed; just as her captain, the quick bandage that had been applied to his foot. Theus turned back to Noor. "What happened?"
"V'Riss and Crewman Debis are bunkmates. When he woke up this morning for PT down in the gym, he taunted Debis about not being…hard enough." Noor finished carefully.
"Apparently Debis knows how to grapple, and V'Riss challenged him. It ended as such sir."
They were dealing with a serious matter, but Theus still had to keep himself from laughing.
"Lieutenant, are you saying that my crewman was seriously injured because another one of my crew; an experienced non-commissioned officer at that, became too aggressive during morning exercise and broke one of his claws off into his shoulder?"
"Again sir, I apologize." Noor said.
Theus was annoyed, but at the same time relieved that there was no malicious intent.
"Goritan, with this new information can we consider this matter settled?" Theus asked.
Goritan nodded. "I will still have to conduct a follow-up investigation sir, verify claims and such, but I don't see the need to file any formal charges."
"Good. Well then, shall we proceed to start the day?" He said to his bridge officers.
"Actually, do you have a moment sir?" Utan said returning from working on the MACO. When Theus nodded she continued, "Sir, it's been almost a week since we've launched. I understand there've been matters that required your attention, but we need to schedule your physical. I need it to certify your competency for command and-"
"Of course doctor." Theus said. When everyone within sickbay stopped talking and stared at him, he asked, "What?"
"N-Nothing, sir." Utan said in a surprised tone. "When would be a good time?"
"You don't seem busy now." He said.
zhNon stepped forward this time and said, "Run a detailed neurological scan while you're at it."
"Already on it, Commander." Utan said sounding even more shocked.
"Don't you all have work to be doing?" Theus asked. "zhNon, take the conn and prepare us for entry into RSS-2398."
"Aye sir." She said, and left with a smirk.
Bridge
"Entering system RSS-2398, sir." Mok reported.
"Slow to impulse." Theus said. "Goritan, began sending hails on all subspace frequencies, let anyone who's out here know our intentions. Ops, anything on sensors?"
Carver worked her console methodically before summarizing. "There's a lot of junk in this system, sir."
"Junk?" zhNon asked.
"A lot of debris and rogue objects. Most likely from a relatively more violent formation in comparison to other systems. I'm detecting at least three dwarf planets with irregular orbits, an abnormally dense Kuiper Belt, and evidence of planetary discharge from impacts."
"Confirmed." Contreras said. "Sir, I've been conducting scans on the planets within this system. The star is a G-type, slightly older than Sol by a few million years. Intel was correct that only two of the planets have rock surfaces, but they're too close to the sun to support any type of life."
"Is there anything remarkable about them?" zhNon asked him.
"As far as composition, negative ma'am. But the second to closest planet has been, well it's been cracked open."
"Elaborate." Theus said.
"Sir, I was picking up debris trails from the orbits of the planet. While I could understand planetary matter being destroyed and ejected from the proximity of the sun, I also picked up traces of elements that shouldn't be in an atmosphere at all. Yttrium, Europium, Thulium, Promethium. The list goes on."
"Are those elements dangerous?" Goritan asked.
"Not at all Lieutenant." Theus said. "They're what humans used to call Rare Earth metals. We still use a lot of them, but once we began exploring space we found others that were more valuable. They're essential to the production of most advanced technologies."
"Which begs the question of why and how high enough concentrations were found in the atmosphere." zhNon said.
"More importantly Commander, who exposed them to the surface?" Goritan asked. "Any legitimate mining operation wouldn't have been remotely careless with their blasting or excavation."
"All good questions, luckily we'll have plenty of time to search for answers." Theus said. "Ops, send out a series of probes, starting with the outer most gas giant and working their way in. Have them all focus and survey one planet at a time. With the amount of moons each one has, this could take a while."
"Aye sir." Carver said.
"Helm, lay in a course for the fourth gas giant." zhNon said from her mission ops console. "Captain, I'm detecting over twenty three moons orbiting the planet. With its proximity to the sun; and number of rocky satellites with potential resources to exploit, I believe that will be the best place to start looking."
"Agreed. Take us ther-"
A bright, sickly green energy bolt crackled against the armor of the ship's starboard side and sent it veering to the left. Inside, the crew barely had time to hold on as they tried to stop from falling from their seats.
"Red alert, shields up!" zhNon shouted.
"Report!" Theus demanded.
"Incoming disruptor fire sir, energy signature matches known Romulan weapons." Goritan said. "Nothing on sensors, they're using their cloak."
Another blow to their ventral side.
"Sir, shields are down to eighty-nine percent. Armor at seventy." zhNon said.
"Defensive pattern Beta nine-three, try hailing them." Theus said.
"Sir!" Goritan shouted.
Everyone focused on the screen as a Dhael-class Romulan Warbird de-cloaked in front in them. It began to disappear almost as soon as it was visible, but not before firing.
"Incoming plasma torpedo, point blank range!" Goritan reported.