We Have Work to Do

Posted on Sat Apr 25th, 2009 @ 11:33am by Captain Vorn Krace & Commander Acle Walex

Mission: Dark Discoveries
Location: USS Iapetus - Bridge
Timeline: MD5 1125hrs

=/=Commander Walex report to the Bridge.=/= Vorn said, as he stepped out of his ready room, tapping the badge on his chest.

"What is our systems status?" he asked Lieutenant Biggins at the Ops console, leaning on it as he did to view the data himself.

"All systems are coming back online, Captain. Propulsion and weapons are still running through the automated diagnostics, and the Warp Core injectors are still locked out; Engineering will have their hands full with bringing the drive back online." William cringed slightly as he relayed the bad news.

"How bad is the damage to the tranceiver array?"

"It's pretty bad from the readings I'm getting as systems displays are coming back online. We'll need to use the industrial replicators to produce the parts to replace it."

Vorn exhaled as he thought about it. "Tell the Lieutenant to get his Engineering teams working on the warp core, and getting that back online. We can't afford the delay it's going to cause us. I want you to work on the tranceiver. You have my authority to take five of the engineering crew for it."

"Yes sir." William replied, as he stood and made his way to the turbolift, stepping in just as Acle stepped out and another Ops officer took the console.

Acle stepped onto the chaos that was the Lincoln's bridge. Technicians crowded the bridge, opening panels and peering into consoles. To the casual observer, Acle's face was as expressionless as was his norm. To those close to him, however, Acle's eyebrows were in a decidedly violent cast. On his waist rested a phaser.

Acle made his way to the captain, dodging a crewmen who was making his way to the turbo-lift. Upon reaching the captain, Acle joined him.

"Sir." Acle said, awaiting the captain.

"I trust you've heard about Peter?" Vorn said, only awaiting a second for an answer, which was a curt nod from Acle.

"We can't afford the time to go after them now, we have bigger priorities at the moment. And as he destroyed our main tranceiver, we can't send a message to Starfleet Command, and I can't imagine him leaving us the option of using the long-range communication suites in any of the shuttles either. One thing I do need though is an Acting XO." He looked pointedly at Acle, making the unspoken request known.

Acle paused for a moment, not immediately answering the captain. One of his own department members, a trained intelligence operative, had just went AWOL. A man that he thought that he had trusted had just endangered his ship. Acle was the Chief of Intelligence aboard this ship and he had been caught with his pants around his ankles. His first instinct, highly tuned with intelligence training, was to find someway, anyway, to track the two down.

Acle visibly took a breath, then said "You have it Sir."

Acle had sworn oaths that had nothing to do with intelligence gathering, interception, or counter-intelligence. He had sworn an oath, first as an enlisted member of Star Fleet to defend the constitution and people of the United Federation of Plants against all threats, foreign and domestic... Then he had become an officer and sworn an additional oath. To serve those men that were underneath them, to support them and defend them. It was to these oaths that he was sworn to obey, even unto superseding his others. He had no other choice, but, to set his anger aside. Not cast it away, surely not that.

Acle turned his full attention to his direct superior. His face was once again expressionless, seemingly carved from stone.

"I know how you feel Acle." Vorn said, looking his friend in the eyes. "And believe me, noone is filled with more anger towards Peter than I am right now. But we have a job to do."

"Captain!" Vorn turned to face the man who he knew was Petty Officer John Slice, the Operations relief Officer. "Sensor resolution is returning; I'm picking up a shuttle out there, off the port bow."

"Identify." Vorn ordered.

"It's not from the Iapetus, sir." The Petty Officer replied, seemingly informing first of all that it wasn't Peter's shuttle before informing of anything else. "It's registered as a Starfleet Academy vessel, badly damaged. It looks like it has been under attack, Sir."

"The 'Guarded', perhaps?" Vorn asked, looking at Acle briefly. "Send Chief Eagle and Lieutenant LaToon over there, with orders to beam survivors immediately aboard when they're stabilised."

Acle raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps. We know them to be armed and willing to commence hostilities. Why though, is a Starfleet Academy tagged shuttlecraft out here? We are in the theoretical middle of nowhere. Acle stood up, moving to the operations console.

"Petty Officer... I want an immediate record of that shuttle craft pulled up. Crew Registry, Docking Logs, Flight Plan, everything. Access local data logs that were downloaded to the Main Computer before we lost long-range communication capability. See if you can find anything."

"Aye Aye Sir." Slice replied before his fingers began to fly across the board. A frown appeared on his face as he viewed the data that he was pulling up, or lack thereof. A moment later he replied "I do not have any records on the shuttle's registry numbers. Nothing about this shuttle was deemed important enough to be enclosed with the latest information dump we have Sir."

Acle frowned, but, nodded. "Thank you Petty Officer. Good work anyway." He walked back over to the captain and said quietly "Sir, I wish to be with the good doctor and engineer when they visit the craft."

Vorn shook his head after a moment's thought. "We've got too much to do over here, in the wake of the systems shutdown. I'll make sure the Chief has orders to bring the shuttle aboard; you can examine it's database then."

Acle nodded "Aye Captain." He stood to one side of the bridge then, and accessed an unused console. He pulled up the damage and diagnostic reports from throughout the ship and skimmed them quickly. Satisfied that he was aware of the majority of the ships concerns, which was mostly systems performing diagnostic tests with the exception of the transceiver, Acle accessed the main database and began reviewing security logs and command control logs. He was going to make sure that this did not happen again.

---------------
Captain Vorn Krace
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Commander Acle Walex
Acting Executive Officer
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Iapetus