Chapter 57:
Barnard's Star is 6 light years from Earth. The three space stations were combined into one large station near the only planet that could hold a ground station, which was also placed on that planet.
The three starships were doing a thorough exploration of the rest of system, looking at any rocks to find useful or unique minerals. So far it wasn't a particularly useful system, but would be a base helping with Starfleet exploration a further 6 light years away.
The space station was rocked by explosions. Inertial dampers take a fraction of second to react to sudden acceleration, so an explosion does rock the station and cause things and people to fly around a bit, generally not beyond safety levels, but minor injuries can happen.
Unlike in canon, where someone on the bridge would get reports, then talk to the one in charge, and then relay orders, altogether taking tens of seconds, the defense net reacts automatically in a fraction of a second. However, what it discovered was damage, and two personnel missing. Both were spell casters and in the same room. There was no sign of any boarding parties or devices left behind.
The defense net also, within a fraction of second, determined that an undetected ship or drone was likely responsible for the attack. The mine field engaged and targeted any anomalies, and some in random places, with special mines that disperse a large amount of material. The defense net could determine that two of the stations shields were out of operation, so the mines could not be used too close to that side of the station.
The magically hidden mines damaged, or at least hit, an enemy vessel. The tracking of the damage caused by the mines pinpointed the location of an enemy ship. An automatic and quick follow-up of torpedoes and drones were directed to knock out shields and damage warp nacelles. The ship design had its warp nacelles recessed, so the attack levels needed to be calibrated to reduce ship mobility without destroying the ship.
At the same time, the marines were ready to strike. They didn't need to assemble first, just all apparate to the correct coordinates fitted out for the mission with equipment that the marines on duty have with them at all times. The ones off duty were expected to be ready to deploy within a few minutes at the latest when the red alert sounds.
A strike team apparated to the location of the missing crew, using their magical trackers. The apparition was able to bypass the enemy ship's shields. The strike team stunned everyone in the immediate area, including the missing crew, and returned with the missing crew and 3 nearby enemy, and apparated back to the space station. If the ship were too far for apparition, then small drones would provide intermediate locations. The marines had their own spacesuits and the ability to provide an environment for several other people, who in any case would be put in stasis, even ones considered Starfleet personnel.
Immediately after the raid on the enemy ship, it self-destructed. It was determined after viewing the video that the mines and torpedoes that were launched could not have caused the ship's destruction.
All personnel, including the strike team, were scanned for weapons and explosives. The three captured enemy were revived, one at a time. However, the first quickly died. The others were checked for poisons, and it was determined that each had a poison capsule in a tooth. After those were disarmed, the other two were revived and magically interrogated.
"How did you destroy our shields?"
"Don't know much, I am just a guard."
"Why were we targeted?"
"We had intelligence that spell casters were aboard."
"How did you know that?"
"I do not know the source of the intelligence, they do not tell us, and this interrogation shows the wisdom in not telling us."
"How did you know who to target?"
"I wasn't doing the scanning, but I heard that they detected the use of wands."
"How did you decide to attack at that moment?"
"Your starships were far away in the same system, and limited to warp 2.9. We had enough time to disable your shields, capture spell-casters and get away before being intercepted. We also expected that Vulcans would respond within several hours, but we would be far away by that time."
"How fast could your ship go?"
"Warp 7.1"
"What were you going to do with your prisoners."
"Sell them to other Orions. They were going to have them do magical work for them. Also teach them everything they know about magic."
"Why didn't the Orions ever attack Earth?"
"The Vulcans would arrive before we could do much, and then they would be after us. They don't like us, but aren't in a full scale war with us either. If we attacked any primitive planet, or a newly contacted one, we would face the full force of the Vulcans."
"Does your government support these attacks?"
"The closest to that word for us, would be the Orion Syndicate, and yes, as long we don't bring down the full force of the Vulcans against us."
Starfleet leadership wanted to be present at the After Action Report, which would be conducted by Starfleet Marines Director Harry Potter. At same time he was given the rank of Director, Luna and I were also given rank of Director. Now Luna, I, and Dumbledore were each co-Directors of Section 31. It was decided that we no longer needed adult supervision since we were in our early 30s. Dumbledore would remain also as a director for the times that a certain age and gravitas could help with situations. Since the three of us never had a problem with coming to a consensus about anything so far, there was no provision for dealing with that, except majority vote and/or asking Starfleet Command to make a decision.
Director Potter set the rules on having the full Starfleet leadership present. "The purpose of a Starfleet After Action Report is to improve training, procedures and equipment. Any perceived failures in action are entirely my fault for not providing sufficient training. Anyone trying to blame any personnel will be ejected from the meeting. No names will be revealed of personnel involved, except for commendations. In the extremely unlikely event that there is any discipline to be done, it will be done privately, and not outside of the Starfleet Marines chain of command. No hostile or leading questions will be allowed. In fact, no questions to personnel except by me or their superiors in the Starfleet Marines will be asked. Any questions from Starfleet leadership will be to me only."
I'll start with the main lessons of this incident. With our new shielding systems, we got arrogant. In fact, the Orion pirates had extensive experience in taking over ships with the same type of shields, and understood how to destroy shield generators as the first action in an attack, followed by a quick use of transporters.
We also forgot that in canon, the same Orions were shown to use poison capsules in their mouths to prevent being interrogated.
In preparing for future confrontations with Orions we should also remember from canon that at least some of Orion females have an effect similar to Veela, but perhaps much stronger. We will need to study how to prevent non-magicals from being effected. Magicals already all study occlumency, but we do not know if that would be sufficient to shield them from the effects.
On the positive side we determined that we can apparate past the Orion's shields. We should assume that before self-destructing they sent out a message informing the other Orions of our capability. We should also assume that they will seek a way to improve their shields or procedures so as not be vulnerable to that again.
There will be one more recommendation at the end of the report.
Now to get to the actual After Action Report. Most of the relevant parts of the battle happened in a fraction of a second, without human intervention. Therefore those interviews will be by experts viewing the records. We will start, with those aspects that involved personnel. I will call witnesses by letter, so as not to have their names become widely known. Strike Team member A, describe the events that you were part of,"
"A" replied, "When the station shook, I deployed my battle load out before being called. A battle aboard the station could involve a hull breach, so I was prepared to operate in a vacuum, or in a hostile atmosphere, whether my mission would be on station or away. From my mission recorder, it was 3.6 seconds from the explosions to the apparition target and mission specification was communicated. A further 12 seconds followed during the communication, with an apparition time set 14 seconds later to ensure that the entire strike team would arrive in a coordinated manner, with the rest of the team of 4 arriving 2 seconds after me.
Immediately upon arrival I sent a wide area stunning and stasis spell using an enchanted device. Then the rest of the team arrived, and we attached port-keys to all sentient life in the area and left."
Starfleet India Director Bakshi said, "Director Potter, how did you ensure that the strike team would not be killed by an unknown type of anti-apparition ward?"
Director Potter answered, "As you well know, your group tested apparition past our new shields. We assumed that unknown shields had the same magical effects as the known ones. We also, based on testing knew that an effective shield would result in being bounced back, not harmed. Furthermore, the trackers themselves have data that is almost a complete correlation with the ability to apparate to that location. Finally, the first team member's tracker would indicate arrival, and status after arrival."
Starfleet USA Director Castillo asked, "Why stun our own personnel? Maybe they could help if there was a fight?"
Director Potter answered, "We wanted to act quickly. There wouldn't be time to evaluate if they were mind controlled. Also, they could be severely injured and putting them in stasis would allow delaying treatment until leaving enemy controlled territory. Finally, they could be panicked, and need to be handled before cooperating. We had time for none of these. Any delay in getting out gives time for the enemy to converge on our position, or automatic defenses to take effect.
Now to get to the recommendation. Every person, even civilians, anywhere not on Earth, should have a port-key on them, and not in an obvious location such as their badge. If we had that, we wouldn't have needed to risk strike team members to recover personnel.
Another minor area of review would be to deploy on-duty strike teams even faster. Perhaps a visual briefing could be faster and instead of waiting to coordinate deployment, whoever is ready first becomes the strike team leader, and instead of waiting for the one ready last, more strike team members than needed should be on duty so the correct number can be deployed faster. 29.6 seconds from detectable event to deployment seems like a duration that can be reduced."
Starfleet Chief Quahog asked, "Do we know how effective the Orion's shields were against our attacks?"
Director Potter answered, "We believe that ships operations were disrupted. The acceleration stopped during the attack. One analysis estimated that with 15 times the level of damage we could have destroyed or fully disabled the ship."
Starfleet Chief Quahog said, "Here is what I think we should do in response. Keep the prisoners in stasis until there is any further need for them. Give the full record of their interrogations to both the Vulcans and Tellarites.
Ships and bases should all be upgraded to be able to handle multiple ships of the same class. That means fewer ships and bases, but better armed ones."
Starfleet USA Director Castillo added, "R&D should devise a way to prevent the approach of unknown or known enemy vessels with what might be learned as being transporter range. Maybe further interrogation will get that information, or maybe the Tellarites or Vulcans can tell us. The range of the Orion ship otherwise tells us their preferred approach distance.
We also should consider keeping shields on at all times, except during limited times when they need to be off, and at such times careful scans should verify that there are no threats in the region first. This should be almost immediate, with an R&D project to determine what changes would be needed to run shields continuously. I remember seeing something in canon where shields were only raised when there was a threat.
Also, knowing that even higher technology civilizations are vulnerable to anti-matter based weapons, gives us a direction to scale up minefields.
We also learned that the region regards us as being under Vulcan's protection, and that we need that protection. We should advances our abilities so that we can credibly suggest joint patrols with our two allies, and hopefully future allies."
