What Lays Ahead

Posted on Thu Oct 18th, 2012 @ 11:53pm by Captain Benjamin Byrne & Commander Gaius Ra-Xialii & Lieutenant Kalin Jerome & Lieutenant JG Ethan Kessel & Lieutenant JG Patok Malroon & Petty Officer 2nd Class Sophie Blaise

Mission: Klingons on the Starboard Bow
Location: USS Endeavour - Observation Lounge
Timeline: MD08 1000hrs

Sophie entered the Observation Lounge a bit earlier than the others. She liked to be the first, so she had the opportunity to check the room and prepare it, if necessary. It also gave the others a short opportunity to check things with her before the meeting when they wanted to.

Commander Ra-Xialli entered quickly, giving a nod to Sophie and a small smile, after their conversation the other day, he felt like they had warmed to each other. In a purely professional sense, he countered. He sat down at the table next to the head chair and readied his PADDs. He was travelling heavy today, a lot he still had to come up to speed on.

Just as the Commander turned his attention to one of his PADDs, Patok stepped into the room. He approached the table and clasped his hands behind his back. He nodded to Sophie and then looked to Ra-Xialli. “Commander,” he acknowledged him with a stoic glance, “One has not taken an opportunity to welcome you aboard the Endeavour. Deepest apologies. One is Patok Malroon, the Chief Operations Officer, and is pleased that you have come aboard.”

"One is pleased to be welcomed, pleasure to meet you Lieutenant," Gaius said, duplicating the officer's inflection only to establish a common ground.

Lieutenant JG Kessel followed him in a few seconds later, and quickly found his place. he was not used to big meetings, but apparently the Captain had come to respect his opinion enougth to request his presence in the Official breifings now, dispite not being the head of Engineering. He gave a curt nod to the others as he took his place and smiled.

Lieutenant Jerome followed swiftly behind him, and took his place. He nodded to the assembled crew, and spoke briefly with his friend, and then turned his attention to the door, as it opened.

Benjamin was the last to enter the long room which spanned the entire back width of the bridge module on deck one, and moved immediately to take his seat at the head of the table, placing a small number of PADDs on it in front of him. "Let's get down to business then, shall we?" he said, giving a smile to the officers present.

Once settled into his seat, he moved closer to the table, clasped his hands atop it and began speaking to his audience. "First of all, some introductions, in case you haven't met either of them yourselves yet. Commander Ra-Xialii has transferred aboard to become our new First Officer after the departure of Commander Andorzai, and Lieutenant Zekkstrom has come aboard to replace Mister Madrat as chief of security."

Sophie nodded and smiled at the two men. She had met the first officer in person already, but hadn't had the chance to speak with the new security officer yet. Though a meeting like this was always a great opportunity to meet new people and observe how they worked.

Gaius nodded at his name being mentioned, just in case people hadn't noticed the darker man with the Klingon-like forhead and pure white hair sitting in the XO's spot. He smiled and looked to each person individually, putting names to faces.

Kessel smiled warmly at the mentioned names, though did not say anything as introduction were made.

"Now then," Byrne said, moving the meeting forwards. "In lieu of a chief engineer, I've asked Lieutenant Kessel here to represent the views of engineering. Now, as I'm sure most of you are already aware, Starfleet has ordered us into the region of space separating the Gorn Hegemony and the Klingon Empire in order to try and act as a buffer between the two races."

Gaius stood as the CO explained, moving to the flatscreen behind them and switching it on. The display showed the area where the Klingons and the Gorn had disputed territory.

"After the end of the Dominion war, the Gorn Hegemony have redeployed a majority of their military assets to key positions along the Klingon border. The Klingons are focusing their rebuilding efforts towards these sectors. There have already been a few skirmishes disputing territory. The Gorn need new worlds for Hatcheries for their warrior caste and military outposts, and the Klingons need more mining resources and ship building facilities.

"Them grabbing up resources leads us to believe that the Klingons could once again secede from the Khitomer accords. This of course is not good, we will lose our ally and be forced into the war to put a stop to it. No one wins," Gaius said, a tone of finality and sigh of defeat evident in his voice.

He continued, "This intel is available in your mission notes sent to you. Now our job here is hopefully to prevent the all out war scenario, because its really not going to help anyone," He took his seat.

"Relations between the Klingons and the Federation have been getting shakier over the past few years due to the Romulan situation," Benjamin continued, picking up where his new XO had left off. "So even without the Gorn thrown into the mix, we're going to find outselves in some very delicate situations, and most likely some very explosive situations as well. I need all of your departments to be at peak readiness when we cross our border into the region."

Kessel raised a hand to ask a question.

"So we are effectivley policeing the sector for signs of violence. Just us, the whole sector?" Kessel rolled his eyes. "Nothing too strenous then... I bet they're just going to love this. This is not going to endear the Federation to either side of this conflict in any eventuality; what ever the outcome is..." he paused. "I know that this is going to sound heartless, even cowardly - but do we really want to be putting ourselves in the crosshairs of two factions, just before violence spills over?" Then added: "I know this is maybe prematurely optimistic of me, but what are our long term orders if we actualy are able to prevent this conflict?"

"Federation rescources are stretched thin, policing so much territory is never easy. And personally I would rather than aiming at us rather than each other, we can only hope they wont pull the trigger," Gaius said, looking to the Lieutenant, "If we can prevent the conflict, we will render assistance to those worlds ravaged by the war, as best we can. Otherwise keeping the peace between the Tholians and the Breen," Gaius continued, answering all of the man's questions, whilst probably giving him new ones.

Kessel nodded, then sighed.

"Thank you sir, just one last question: Worse case senario - If this is too much for us to handle, what are our standing orders if this escalates into open war?"

"If war does break out, then our orders are to fall back to the Federation borders and prevent the conflict from affecting our colonies along the border," Benjamin answered sitting forward. "However, such a situation would be a failure of our mission. We are to act as a deterrent to the Klingons and the Gorn, along with the Jesop and the Catalunya. Starfleet has also assigned the Kanji, Monitor, Wintersmith and Edelman to form a continuous patrol of our side of the border, and ready to provide assistance should it be required."

Sophie kept to the background as much as she could and silently made notes. Most of her questions had been answered by the Captain before this meeting, but she did feel the same as Ethan. It was an important task they had, but no doubt very dangerous as well. There was so much that could go wrong it hardly seemed a reachable goal, yet on the other hand, if they did manage to keep the peace they would keep a lot of people safe.

"Captain, you mentioned assisting those ravaged by the war. How much destruction are we looking at on civilian worlds, and will we be assisting them during our time here?" Kalin said, his concern for the populace of these worlds clearly showing.

"Thankfully, as the conflict is still in a 'cold war' state, physical conflicts between the Klingons and the Gorn have been limited to skirmishes," Byrne answered. "There has been some collateral damage, but mostly it has been limited to a few casualties and structural damage. Any worlds we come upon that have suffered from any skirmishes, our orders are to assist where we can, but focus our attention in preventing future loss of life in the whole region, so we won't be spending months in orbit treating the wounded."

Byrne turned his attention fully towards the doctor now, addressing a specific question he felt the doctor wanted to know; "I want your medical teams trained and practised in rapid triage techniques, and I want you to make sure that you replicate all you need to be able to supply colonies with a few equipment that they might need, along with instructions on how to use it."

"We cross the border in three days," the captain said, drawing the meeting towards a close. "I want all of your departments ready for anything by then, and we will remain in a state of constant yellow alert from that point onwards. Dismissed."