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Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [1100 hrs] New Stars

Last post by TWilkins - August 23, 2026, 11:30:08 AM

[ Sylvain Llewellyn-Kth | Stellar Cartography | Deck 15 | Vector Three | USS Theurgy ] @chXinya

Sylvain rounded yet another corner of Deck 15, this time with a hand up in front of his face, sluggishly using the edge of his thumb to scrub at the throbbing pain that was sinking into the underside of his right eye, a pain that had been making his day worse pretty much since it had started. The Ensign’s feet patted somewhat softly against the bulkhead, at least, softly compared to the flurry of engineering activity that seemed to be doing some sort of repair work on every molecule of the ship, buzzing and clanging and whirring on every subsection of every deck that he’d been on since he’d left his quarters that morning… It was not making his headache any easier to bear… In fact, the noise made him grimace as he walked, stumbling haphazardly as he dodged around the flailing legs of an engineer who was buried chest-deep in an access panel, a few flakes of pastry being jostled from the incredibly dry pain au chocolat Sylvain was holding in his free hand, and landing on the crewman’s outstretched legs.

Usually he’d be mortified by such a thing. Usually he wouldn’t have dreamed about walking around the ship with a four-hour old pain au chocolat dangling sadly from his hand, one that had dried out enough that he could probably bludgeon a Klingon to death with it… But in this case, he scarcely even cared about the flakes that had fallen on the person’s flailing legs, and nor did he care about carrying food around with him. Firstly, how inconsiderate did one have to be to take up half of the corridor with their legs without even putting a sign up to warn passing crewmen? Sylvain could have tripped and broken his neck. Secondly, he really wanted to eat that pain au chocolat; he’d been looking forward to it since he’d replicated it that morning, and yet four hours later, he still hadn’t taken the opportunity to scarf it down.

It had been a hellishly busy morning.

And Sylvain was tired.

Not just a baseline level of tiredness, where he hadn’t slept in twenty four hours, and might be prone to yawning on shift a couple of times… No, this was something else. Sylvain was unfathomably tired, the pain-behind-your-eyes kind of exhaustion that came from not sleeping for going on seventy two hours, and then having a terrible night sleep because he was anxious about not getting enough sleep… Even thinking was somewhat painful for him now, and whilst almost every other officer aboard the Theurgy was probably fueled with caffeine and adrenaline, Sylvain hated the jittery feeling that both of those things gave him; he didn’t know if it was his unique biology, or just a personal preference, but the last thing he needed was feeling wired when he wanted to feel calm.

So he’d opted for sugar and calories, and they were as untouched as they were four hours ago when he’d grabbed his pain au chocolat from the replicator. Of course, not the replicator in his own quarters, because it currently wasn’t functioning. So he’d had to trek down half a dozen decks to the mess hall on deck thirteen, just to grab his breakfast, then backtrack to the turbolift to go back to his quarters to eat. Unfortunately, the queue was so long that he’d not had time to go back to his quarters before he was due on a bridge, so he’d had to wrap it in a napkin and pocket it for the time being; he didn’t know what the Theurgy policy was for food at your station, but he assumed it was a hard no…

And now here he was, four hours later, still carrying around an unbitten pain au chocolat like he was on some sort of pilgrimage to a French bakery…

Still, he was at least moderately hopeful that he might finally be able to eat something once his next task got underway, though there was every chance it would be lunchtime before then…

Sylvain was on his way to the stellar cartography lab, with the goal of making a start on updating the Theurgy’s astronomical database with the new Federation star charts that the President’s entourage had gifted them. It wasn’t a difficult task by any stretch, but one Sylvain had delegated to himself in order to ensure that news about the territory changes throughout Federation space didn’t disseminate through the crew unduly; there was every possibility that it could cause a panic. After all, territory had been lost, planetary systems had been lost, and there would be a lot of questions that he, nor anyone else on the Senior Staff, were currently equipped to handle. They’d announce it through the proper chain of command once things had slowed down a little, and they certainly didn’t need rumours to start circulating before then…

In truth, Sylvain had also been somewhat hopeful that the time he’d need to spend waiting for the information transfer from his PADD to the Theurgy database, might give him a moment to eat his now desiccated pastry… Unfortunately for his stomach, he’d since found out that he was due to be working with an Ensign from the science department on the task, the officer who was usually assigned to Stellar Cartography, who was working on some standard repairs, a fact the department head had discovered only after Sylvain had assigned the task to himself… So now, not only would he probably need to pause the consumption of his breakfast once again, but he now faced the very real possibility that the unpleasantness of ‘small talk’ was going to be an imminent threat in the near future.

Such was the cause of the deep sigh he allowed himself as he arrived at the doors to the stellar cartography lab, taking a brief moment to steel himself, before heading inside.

Sylvain hadn’t seen all that much of the Theurgy during his time aboard, and whilst he’d noted that the aboreum had been an especially impressive sight aboard a starship, the sight of the stellar cartography lab was something that resonated far closer to his heart… It was an impressive room, large and cylindrical, easily spanning two decks in its height, with a three-dimensional display of the Theurgy’s current map of the quadrant spanning the perimeter of the room on each side. Constellations sparkled in the quiet darkness of the room, Sylvain stepping downwards through the doorway with a sense of blessed relief washing over him, as the doors to the deck closed behind him, sealing off the unnecessary levels of noise and light that had been assailing his senses since he’d left his quarters that morning. The silent darkness, lit by a soft underfloor lighting and the holographic depictions of various stellar bodies, proved to be an immediate salve on the headache that had been building behind his eyes all morning.

It was a beautiful display of science, and immediately he found the tension of the morning washing off of his shoulders.

Greeting him from within the room, past the stars, nebulas and planetary systems, was an Andorian, a handsome man with a strong-shouldered build and long white hair that fell down the back of his neck. He had one antennae standing proudly atop his head, whilst the second only reached half of the previous height, presumably either some sort of birth defect, or an injury of some sort; Sylvain didn’t want to assume, but given the regularity in which the Theurgy engaged in battle, the CONN Officer would have anticipated the latter… The Andorian had evidently already begun working on some sort of diagnostic to the EPS relays, given the whirring information that the computer was processing in the background, and he seemed to be biding his time by sitting at his workstation in a somewhat relaxed stance. It was a little casual by Sylvain’s standards, but right now he was too tired to care.

“Good Morning…” Sylvain announced his presence with about as much authority as he had left in his soul, taking a further few steps forwards into the room, and discreetly returning the cement-like pastry back into the pocket of his uniform; he resigned himself to the knowledge that he’d never get the crumbs out… “I’m Ensign Llewellyn-Kth, the new Chief CONN Officer aboard.” He politely introduced himself, not usually one to announce his rank so pointedly, but also concious that the Theurgy was a big ship, and that to a stranger, like the Andorian, he could have been any old oddbody. As he spoke, he plucked the PADD containing the new star charts from the non-pastry-bearing pocket of his uniform, brandishing it in the firmest grip he could muster as to not punctuate another first impression by throwing a PADD across a room. “I understand that you’re prepared to assist me in getting the new star charts from the Federation council uploaded?”

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0800 hrs ] Maybe By Next Tuesday

Last post by Ellen Fitz - August 23, 2026, 01:47:49 AM

[ Lt. Cmdr. Osric Vance | Turbolift, Deck Eleven | Starbase 234 ] Attn: Open | @TWilkins @Hans Applegate @RyeTanker @Nesota Kynnovan @Brutus @Stegro88 @chXinya @Dumedion

"Sixty light years in one jump." Brask had a PADD in each hand and was using neither. "On a core rated for a sustained nine-nine-eight. And the core is still aboard, Osric. It hasn't gone to slag. They've been running the thing for months."

"Item four on my list. Schematics."

"Item two on mine, and not schematics." The Tellarite turned a PADD around without offering it over. "Physical inspection. Disassembly authorized. Came down at—"

"Oh three forty-seven."

Brask's hands went still.

Vance had submitted nine items. Modest ones, built out of public technical summaries and some badly written repair requests the Theurgy had filed through Materiel. Sensor logs. A materials sample off nacelle plating that was not tritanium. Time with whoever had rebuilt their EPS grid, and a promise to touch nothing.

Twenty-two came back.

Item fourteen was the one he kept returning to. *Anyonic phase-variance emitter array, airlock installation — one (1) unit, complete, with control substrate.* No such device existed in the literature. What existed on anyonic phase variance was theoretical, some of it his own department's, and none of it described an emitter anybody had built. Nobody writes a line item that precise about hardware they have not stood in front of.

Trufant had the pallets braced against the rail and nowhere to stand. Twelve containment cases, factory seals still blue. The ensign's ears had gone the flat grey Tiburonians go without sleep, and he was working hard at not being noticed doing it.

Hessu-Nal came aboard at Fourteen with four crates of plasma floating behind him and his medical satchel held flat to his chest. He waited for the doors to shut.

"Two-thirds strength. Their entire senior medical cadre is dead, all of it, and replicator damage took their whole-blood and plasma stores. They've been bleeding their own crew into bags for six days to cover the gap."

Brask sighed. "That's in the Materiel filing."

"It's been in the filing since they docked and nothing has moved, so I've drawn forty units off station reserve." The Grazerite's voice stayed low and unhurried. "It isn't on anyone's manifest. I'd take it kindly if it stayed off."

Trufant's ears came back a shade.

"And I'll tell you the part I've been looking forward to since four this morning. Their EMH." Hessu-Nal's eyes half-closed. "A Mark Two, filed at commissioning, running as attending physician for months with no supervising officer and no library update since they left Earth. I can have the Mark Four diagnostic suite into that program inside a week. Cardiac protocols. The Ash'reem and Vulcan pharmacopoeia. Betazoid neurology. They'd have a competent doctor standing on every deck and it wouldn't cost them a gram of anything."

Tolan Vekk joined them at Docking Ring Two, three decks below where Operations keeps its offices. He carried nothing. The respirator sat close over the lower half of the Zaranite's face, and his eyes went across the pallets, across the plasma crates, and stopped on the deck indicator.

"Commander. Long night planned for the sciences."

"Long night for many departments."

Somebody's boot squeaked against the plating.

"They'll cooperate," Vekk said. "The pardon's under challenge in three delegations and Council staff are reading everything with the Theurgy's name on it. They know what a refusal looks like written into a record." The mask hissed on the intake. "It's a good position to be dealing from."

Four sets of orders, four departments, released inside a window narrow enough that they had to have been queued together. Every one of them carrying a Command authentication string out of the Science Division's Office of Applied Research. That office does not countersign for Medical. It has no business anywhere near Operations. Commander Reyva's name was on none of it, and the station commander was still deciding whether cooperation with these people sat comfortably beside a man's oath of service, and while he decided, his senior officers were riding down to the airlock with disassembly authority and empty cases.

Vance kept his voice under the hum. "Doctor. Item twenty-two. Same wording on yours?"

Hessu-Nal recited it without effort. "Sample, parasitic organism, host-extracted. Non-viable acceptable."

"And you're comfortable with it."

"I'd have written it myself if anybody had asked me." He shifted the satchel. "There is no treatment protocol. None, anywhere in the Federation. That casualty list runs to a hundred and eighteen names, and no physician outside this hull has ever had tissue under a stasis field."

"They'll refuse."

"Then I'll ask again."

Level Seven came up loud. Loading arms working, a deck chief calling the same berth number twice, and under it the lubricant and cold metal every docking ring in the fleet smells of. Dock crew stopped to look at the containment cases before they went back to it. The Theurgy's airlock stood open. Seal ring polished, deck plating scrubbed to bare metal at the threshold. Set flush into the frame, unlabelled, was a ring of emitter housings matching no Starfleet specification Vance had ever inventoried.

The crewman at the panel asked them to keep their hands clear of their sides and come through singly. Brask went first and complained about it. The field came up pale and passed him crown to boot. The panel gave one flat tone, and the Tellarite was aboard the ship he had come to open. Vance went fourth. The field was cold, or read cold. It found nothing in him worth reporting. He stepped over the threshold and made a point of not looking back at the housings.

Trufant brought the pallets through. Vance lifted the top case off the stack himself.

"Doctor. Main Sickbay, and you'll find their duty CMO before you find their EMH. Apparently, it's been deactivated." The man grunted in displeasure. "Brask. Main Engineering. You don't open a housing without their chief engineer standing beside you. If that officer says stop, you stop, and you bring it to me before you argue with anyone."

"You'll be busy."

"Lieutenant Vekk—"

"Operations center, deck one." The mask hissed. "Their inventory. And their star charts."

"Charts aren't on any of the four lists."

"No," Vekk agreed, and went.

Brask was already moving the other way with both PADDs up, half-listening to directions from somebody's junior engineer. Hessu-Nal went off unhurried, the plasma crates trailing after him.

Vance turned toward the science labs with an ensign, a stack of empty cases, and twenty-two items he had not written.

"Sir." Trufant's voice had gone thin. "What do we do if they say no?"

"Then we simply insist."

So basically we have official Starfleet headquarters issuing dismantle, disassembly, and pilfer orders for anything that isn't standard issue and to either take it off the ship or assess and fix on the ship, etc. It is up to y'all to figure out whether or not you want to comply or creatively dissuade. Tagged heads not so much because they have to be here but so they are aware and can ask anyone in their departments to handle it if they're in another mission that takes place at this time.

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Last post by Eirual - August 22, 2026, 04:13:28 PM

[Kelistina Kavot Droga | Crew Compartment | Shuttlecraft Maslow | Near debris stream of USS Cayuga]
Attn: @RyeTanker @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion , @Krajin , @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88 @Brutus & anyone else

Kel had taken a squatting stance behind the pilot’s seat. She had been standing, or rather leaning over the seat, to look through the viewport and had gotten a bit of an uncomfortable glance from said pilot. Being taller than almost everyone around her still felt odd and she often forgot about how her actions seemed more like looming over others. In this position she could see past the pilot’s shoulder out the viewport. At first, it was just small particles catching the nearby star’s light as they floated in space. Soon larger pieces of debris became evident. Kelistina saw what appeared to be a body and closed her eyes to say a prayer for the dead of the Cayuga.

Kelistina was certain that they would find the remains of the vessel soon. She had been hoping, like many others, that they would be able to rescue stranded crew, however, her heart felt a sorrow at the conclusion her mind came to, that none were left alive to save. She slowly stood, hunched over in the smaller vessel and made her way back to where she had let the tool kit she’d been given. She did not care to see any other lost souls. It reminded too much of what she had suffered. The pain of her planet’s destruction and death of everyone she loved never went away, right now it pulsed within her heart painfully.

The Zaroodian had kept her own space suit and had packed it for this mission. Better to be prepared and not have need, than to not have suit to fit to keep alive. The crew area was not spacious, but then she really only needed enough space to set her EVA on the ground and step into it. Her new shipmates had helped her modify the systems that would keep her alive. That at least was something she was thankful for. While she did not know how much more time it would take to get to the missing ship, she would be ready to perform her assigned tasks.

Now, all she had to do was wait for that time.

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Last post by Ellen Fitz - August 22, 2026, 02:52:38 AM

[ Corpsman Ehfva Feynri | Crew Compartment | Shuttlecraft Maslow | Near Last Known Coordinates of the USS Cayuga ] Attn: @RyeTanker @Dumedion @Krajin @Nesota Kynnovan @Eirual @Stegro88 @Brutus & anyone else

Up front, the compartment had been going through its theories out loud for the better part of an hour. Micro-asteroid depressurization, offered and closed. Solar wind, offered and closed. Then a passing mass with a well deep enough to walk a powerless hull off its coordinates, and that one stayed open long enough for somebody to put it on the comm. The Wolves came back over the top of it. Tachyon residue. Antiproton scatter. Something about the way the Savi's beams left graviton traces behind them.

Ehfva listened the way she listened to a ward at night.

The order came forward from the co-pilot's seat too low to make out clean: the probes, coming off their assigned pattern. Both ideas at once rather than one and then the other. Then the console tone shifted, and the deck tilted two degrees and stayed there, swinging onto a bearing that had nothing to do with where the Cayuga was supposed to be. They'd stopped hunting the ship. They were hunting whatever had killed her.

With the shuttle's fixed stores, plus whatever the Cattell and the Yellowstone were carrying, plus the Tesla's surgical kit if anyone could get to it, it was enough for a rescue. Nowhere near enough for a ship's complement. Nobody had said out loud what the ratio implied, because saying it would mean saying that the away team's manifest was built around a number somebody had already privately settled on. Which Ehfva knew from having been on the Cayuga was indeed a fixed number. The likelihood of anyone surviving the wreckage? Infinitesimal.

The knife reached the end of the mark and stopped short of finishing the stroke. She heard it before she understood it. The console pitch went up half a step and stayed. A string of coordinates, repeated with a different number attached. Somebody said particulate stream. The hull came around under her with enough weight in the turn that the light through the port swung across the bulkhead and across her hands and across the unfinished cut.

Ehfva stood, and went to the viewport. At first there was nothing. Then the star's light started catching on things too small to resolve, a thin, wide haze of it, all of it traveling in one direction. Nothing in open space travels in one direction unless something put it there. Frozen atmosphere. Insulation batting. Further out where the light was better, the larger pieces came up: a section of hull plating still carrying two thirds of a painted number. A door with the frame torn away around it, still sealed. Something long and pale turning end over end, flashing on every third rotation.

And other shapes. She'd worked shirtsleeve decompressions. She knew the silhouette a body made in the vacuum, the way the limbs set, how the smaller things run out ahead of the larger ones and spread. The Cayuga had been at general quarters when the Scions came through her. Some of her people had a hull between themselves and it. The ones who hadn't were out here now, running with the current.

She had known where everything was on that ship. Which lift was slow. Which biobed drifted two-tenths warm. Which corridor on Deck 9 you took at shift change if you actually wanted to arrive somewhere. Behind her the compartment had gone quiet. Ehfva put the bone in her thigh pocket with the design half-cut and wiped the dust off her palm onto her trouser leg.

[ Captain Hesskar | Command Deck | Salvage Tender Long Patience | Inbound, Cayuga Debris Field ]

The Long Patience was an MA12 hull, four nacelles, forty-one years off the yards at Ssellek and a decade out of Hegemony service, and Hesskar had bought her understanding that she would outlive him.

He'd found the Federation ship because nobody else had bothered to run the drift. But now...seven contacts. Four small Federation transports, one heavy tender, two atmospheric-capable fighters running quiet enough that he only held them because they were pushing active envelopes out ahead of themselves. Now two of their probes had come off a search spiral onto a bearing that would carry them across the leading edge of the field before he could reach it himself.

Hesskar's membrane came down and back. He put the tender on station-keeping and let the numbers build. His bays were two-thirds empty. The broker at Cestus III had contracted for tonnage and made it clear he would not pay for damaged goods. Nineteen crew, fuel for the return leg, eleven days of margin on the ledger and no work booked past it.

Against that, Starfleet didn't send seven craft and a fleet tender this far to bury anybody. Seven craft meant something aboard priced higher than the metal, and if something aboard priced higher than the metal, then his empty bays were no longer the largest question in this system. He could file a claim and be refused with great courtesy. Or he could sit at the outer edge of their envelope, let them spend the fuel and the hours getting the ship open, and take a position afterward with better information than he had now.

"One-quarter. Passive only. Nothing radiates." He tapped the display twice, dropping a marker on the outermost of the two probes.

[ Captain Sennika Vhaal | Deck 9, Frame 41 | USS Cayuga ]

The plasma torch went out and the corridor dark went with it. Sennika held up a closed fist in the dark until her helmet optics caught up and drew the frame edges back in for her, green on black. Her four cutters held station along the bulkhead, boots locked, tethers slack. Nine meters behind them, the hatch they'd spent the better part of a day getting through. Forty ahead, unopened, the core.

The alert came in on a beam narrow enough that she'd have missed it if she hadn't been sitting on the schedule since they boarded. Cutwidow and Redprice were parked cold in the belt, drives banked, nobody aboard either hull, scanning on a passive loop and reporting every ninety minutes. Rigging them to run crewless had cost her most of a season's take. She had watched enough colleagues get caught sitting in their own ships to consider it money well spent.

Two reports in the one pulse. A Gorn hull inbound, tender configuration, dark and slow. Seven Federation contacts, small craft, active, with two probes on a bearing that had stopped looking like a search.

"That's their own ship." Doreth's voice came flat over the suit link. "They came back for it."

"In shuttles." Sennika turned in place, slowly, and took in forty meters of dead corridor and the sealed doors down both sides of it. "Four shuttles carry what four shuttles carry."

Behind the bulkhead she had her glove on was a Federation fleet core with a buyer in Rigel who'd already paid her half and would want the half back with interest attached. Calling the ships in meant lighting two drives in a system with two fighters loose in it. Two small hulls against seven and a tender was not a trade she was going to make on a Tuesday.

"Torches off. Lights off. Everybody into the frame gaps and nobody moves for anything, including me." She clipped her tether short and put her back against the plating. "The Gorn will price her before he touches her. Starfleet will bring their own light and their own noise. Neither of them is looking for us yet, so let's not hand anybody a reason."

Doreth said something about the air budget.

"Then breathe less," Sennika said, and settled in to wait.

Of course I had to make it harder! You're welcome!

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 03 [ 1330hrs ] Back Channel Operations

Last post by Eirual - August 22, 2026, 01:53:52 AM

[Ens Mia Dunne | Docking Ring Two, Halkar Anchorage ]
Attn: @Ellen Fitz @Krajin , @Hans Applegate, @Nesota Kynnovan

Mia had almost shrunk back in her seat when the Freighter captain addressed them. She didn’t like him much, and trusted him even less, but this wasn’t her rodeo. One the gruff captain left, she turned to Cross. She, and everyone else had automatically drawn closer to hear him, as he kept his voice low so only those nearby would be able to hear.

She was assigned to ring three, which from what she’d heard was not going to be comfortable. Medical and science would work together, so at least she would not be on her own. She blinked as light reflected into her eyes for less than half a second. It was just something she found annoying, but that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

She nodded as she looked at the old style PADD she’d been given. They had nothing that would give away where they were from. It was a good thing she was good with older languages, this one looked like it was pulled from a Cardassian dump. But it worked and the list of goods was definitely on it.

She felt rather than actually heard the subdermal initiate, She put a finger to her ear in reaction rather than action, then listened to Cross further advise them on it use. She was a little more nervous about the implanted distress beacon. The way Cross was talking made it sound like he was expecting trouble. The only question was who would be the target, or would they all? If things looked like they were not going as planned, she would need to activate this before it got bad, or worse before she got dead, and she would really like to avoid that.

Next, they were testing their weapons. She constantly had to pull the selector back slightly to pull it from red to amber. She’s had to check over her partner’s weapon as well. That went a little better, and the selector wasn’t quite as worn as hers was. Finally, she disarmed it and stored it in a side pocket. No one really needed to know she was armed, although she figured that almost everyone on the station probably was.

Cross wanted them back by 2005. She set an alarm on her old PADD for 1950, figuring that would get her back in plenty of time. If she was in the middle of a purchase, she would have a few minutes to complete before she absolutely had to head back.
She shook her head when Cross asked if there were questions. Hell yes she had questions, but there was no way she was going to waste precious time asking, ‘what if’s’. They would just have to deal with it as they went. That’s was why they had the subdermal and the distress beacons implanted.

Once Cross ended the meeting, Mia turned to her partner and took a deep breath, “Well, lets see what miracles we can make.” Moving off the freighter, tapping the subdermal once she stepped to the side and waited till everyone was linked. She vaguely wondered if this was what it felt like being in a collective. She couldn’t hear their thoughts so probably not. She moved off towards the third ring, looking forelorn and abandoned, even though it wasn’t. I didn’t take long to reach the ring.

[Docking Ring Three | Halkar Anchorage]

She took a tentative step in and found her feet pulled by the gravity to what felt like the side of the corridor. It meant she would be forced to take wide steps across doorways. She almost wished some of the others, with longer legs, had gotten this assignment. She progressed a short distance before coming to the first shop.

OOC: don’t know if there is another science or medical officer for me to team with. NPC perhaps?

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 | 2200 hrs | The hunt is on

Last post by Eirual - August 21, 2026, 08:32:42 PM

[Ens Mia Dunne | Access Tunnel to Forward landing Strut | Vector 3 | Deck 31| USS Theurgy ]
ATTN: @Pierce , @Nesota Kynnovan

Mia had not quite made it to the one place she could stand when two things happened. First she was blinded by lights that suddenly came on, causing her to fling her arm up in reflex, and once more snagging her jacket on something, this time causing a small rip in the sleeve. Second, just as the lights dimmed she heard a voice calling out. Without thinking she picked her head up to see and immediately hit her head on the top of the tight tunnel with a loud clang, followed immediately by a loud, “Son of a Targ! That freakin’ hurts.” Mia was now pissed and hurting. She could literally feel the bump forming on her head. She huffed out a breath then kept crawling, “Yeah, in case you missed it, I am here. The deck is clear. Nothing a vole would want down here as far as I could tell.”

She crawled the final 2 meters and came face to face with a lieutenant JG. Mia shook her head as she inspected the torn sleeve, “No there really isn’t room to have a chat, except for here, and I’d rather just head up to Deck 30. And get that one done.” She frowned as she saw that no only had she torn the sleeve, but she'd put a nasty scratch on her forearm. "I am so going to strangle that man," She hissed as she pointed towards the ladder, "Let's get out of here before I start thinking of ways to really make Frost suffer."

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 03 [ 1330hrs ] Back Channel Operations

Last post by Ellen Fitz - August 21, 2026, 08:02:52 PM

[ Ghovek, son of Gharrek | Helm | Civilian Freighter *Merchant's Folly* | Halkar Anchorage, Triangle Region ] ATTN: @Nesota Kynnovan , @Krajin , @Hans Applegate , @Eirual & pertinent writers

The anchorage got uglier every year, and Ghovek had been coming here for nineteen of them.

Halkar had built it out of a gutted ore tender back when the Triangle still had ore worth tending, welded three docking rings onto the spine, and died owing money to four species. The rings were still there. Only two of them turned. The third had frozen at a list some decades ago and now housed whoever could tolerate walking on a deck that insisted, gently and permanently, that it was a wall. The hull plating had been patched in every alloy known to commerce and a few that were arguably not alloys at all, so the whole structure came up on the viewscreen looking like something assembled by committee, which it had been, and badly, which it also had been.

He liked it. But we wasn't going to say so.

The approach lane was thick. A Klingon merchantman sat athwart the beacon line venting drive plasma at everyone behind it, no house transponder, which meant a house that preferred not to be named. Two Ferengi shuttles pinned an Orion crew hauler between them, negotiating either a cargo transfer or a hostage situation. A Boslic freighter with her name painted over twice. A surplus Romulan tender with the raptor scoured off the bow, though the paint underneath remembered it well enough that Ghovek could still read the wingspan from four hundred kilometers out. Yridians on the outer moorings, always, sitting there doing nothing and charging for it.

Traffic control demanded a berth fee, a docking fee, a fee for the tug he had explicitly refused, and Ghovek paid all three while telling the woman at the other end exactly what he thought of her mother's business practices. She sounded pleased. Everyone did decent trade here as long as the insults were sincere.

He put the Folly on her mooring clamps himself, because he didn't trust anyone else with her and had told them so at length, then went aft to where his passengers were pretending they hadn't been listening to all of it.

He stood in the hatchway and made them turn around.

"Station clock says 1345. I break moorings at 2015. Not 2020. Not 2016." He held up a thick finger before anyone could open a mouth. "There's a Klingon convoy coming through the far side of the well at 2035 and I intend to be behind it, not in it, and the window doesn't wait on you or your credits or whatever arrangement you think you've got with me. You're not aboard at 2015, I undock with your empty seats, and you can explain to your people why you're buying passage home off an Yridian." He began past them, grunting as he went. "Bring your goods with you or don't bring them at all. I'm not sending crew down that ring to fetch crates for you. And if station security walks anything of yours back up my ramp, you'll be walking with it, and off it."

He turned to go, then didn't.

"There's a hot-cell dealer on the second ring sells relay stock that's ninety percent Cardassian scrap wrapped in Federation casing. Bald. Sweats. Calls himself Onnek." He shrugged with his whole upper body. "Buy from him if you like. I've made my money either way."

[ Lt. Cmdr. Cross | Docking Ring Two, Halkar Anchorage ]

Cross let the hatch cycle shut behind them before he started, so nothing he said went out into the ring.

The air here ran four degrees warmer than the freighter and carried the scrubber failure common to old stations, that flat mineral taste at the back of the throat. Somewhere below them a gantry crew was working with hand tools instead of tractor units. Cheaper. Slower. Loud enough to talk under, which suited him.

"Three groups." He didn't raise his voice. They came in closer to hear him, which was the point. "Engineering procurement takes the second ring with Ops. Medical and Science procurement, third ring, and mind the deck angle before you commit your weight to it. I'll be on the first ring with the broker."

He turned his hand over. The prosthetic caught the overheads and threw the light back at nobody in particular.

"Your list is already on your personal devices. Each of you has the portion your department would recognize on sight, because I'd rather you spend your time judging quality than working out what a bioneural gel pack is supposed to look like when it hasn't been sitting in a cargo hold at forty degrees for two years. If something on your list looks wrong to you, it is wrong. Walk away. We are not so short that we need to be cheated politely."

Fingers went to ears without his asking. Good.

"Subdermals. One tap opens the channel, two closes it, and I want them open from the moment you clear this hatch. Open means every one of you hears every other one of you, so the channel is not for conversation. Contacts, locations, problems. Nothing about the ship, nothing about where we came from, and nobody says a rank out loud where a stranger can hear it. If you need to piss without me listening to you, two taps, and two taps to come back."

He put his own hand out and turned it over, wrist up, and tapped the soft place below the heel of it.

"Left wrist. Distress beacon, subdermal, and it doesn't care whether your channel's open or closed. Press it and every one of us knows, and every one of us knows where you are. It is not a last resort. It's the first thing you do when a situation stops being a negotiation, before you draw, before you talk your way out, before you decide you can manage it alone. I would very much rather cross a docking ring for nothing than find out afterward that you were being polite about it."

He held his hand out flat, and one of his security officers passed him a weapon, and he raised it so the whole group could see the emitter ring.

"Civilian grade. Purchased, not issued, which means the detents are worn on some of these. Thumb the selector to the first stop. The ring reads amber. If you see red, you are one setting past where you need to be, and you will check it by eye every time you draw, not by feel, not by memory." He set the selector, showed them the amber, and handed it back. "Check your partner's as well. Now, before we split."

He waited while they did it.

"Understand what failure looks like on this run. It is not an empty cargo pallet. It's a body." He let them sit with that while the gantry crew hammered away underneath. "There is no enemy on this station. There are people who will overcharge us, people who will lie to us, and people who would very much like to know who we are, and none of that makes them our enemy. If someone decides to become one, you subdue, and you leave. You do not hold ground. There's no ground here worth holding, and every one of you is more expensive to replace than anything on your list."

He glanced up the ring toward the first-level concourse, where the traffic was already thickening.

"We break moorings at 2015. The captain means it, and I don't intend to test him on it. Be aboard by 2005 with whatever you've got in hand." His attention came back down to them. "Questions."

Haven't decided who, but I figured we could have some NPCs with us as well to use.

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 03 [ 1330hrs ] Back Channel Operations

Last post by Nesota Kynnovan - August 20, 2026, 10:53:39 PM

[Ensign Jaya Thorne | Civilian Freighter Merchant’s Folly | In Transit – Triangle Region]
Attn: @Ellen Fitz, @Krajin, @Hans Applegate, @Eirual & pertinent writers

Ensign Jaya Thorne hadn’t been entirely at ease since she boarded the Merchant’s Folly. For most people, the freighter was just that; a civilian freighter that hauled cargo from point A to point B, possibly with several additional stops along the way to maximize profit. For Jaya however, who had piloted a civilian freighter herself during the Dominion War and was experienced enough to look at the freighter in a different way, the Merchant’s Folly was something else. She knew that the Antares-class freighter was a sturdy ship if properly cared for. A stubborn piece of equipment that downright refused to die and took one from A to B without questions asked. The Denevan ex-freighter pilot could hear the hum of the freighter’s engines; that monotonous, droning sound of an overhauled, revised engine that was probably older than she was. The humming briefly paused every so often though and, when it did, the engine sent a soft vibration through the freighter’s hull.

It was a sign that the engine overdue for maintenance, but that hadn’t been the only detail that caught Jaya’s brown eyes though. She had noticed several reddish-brown patches of rust when the small team boarded the Merchant’s Folly and the Denevan Assistant Chief CONN Officer knew that rust usually formed in environments with excess air moisture. To see rust aboard a ship not only hinted at an issue with the life support systems, which should regulate the air moisture in the first place, but also hinted at a lack of maintenance altogether, given how the Captains she’d known back in her days wouldn’t have condoned rust aboard their ships.

The bigger picture made Jaya increasingly uncomfortable, and left her to conclude that the owner of the Merchant’s Folly, possibly the Tellarite, was serious financial trouble. It definitely made sense given that the Tellarite had made demands without asking questions, and it left Jaya with the unsettling conclusion that the Captain wasn’t unfamiliar with handling cargo without asking questions. The man was probably a smuggler at best, and Jaya considered the distinct possibility that the Tellarite wasn’t even the Captain at all given the fact that she’d hide her identity behind a figurehead as well if she were running the Merchant’s Folly as a peddler of illicit goods.

In fact, she’d done just that during the height of the Dominion War, and it was a bitter irony that wasn’t lost on Jaya. She had smuggled illicit goods, but she’d made sure to stay as far away from Starfleet as possible during those days; if you were engaged in the procurement and trade of certain goods that might lead to certain kinds of questions being asked, you didn’t want anything to do with goody two-shoes Starfleet.

So why did the Tellarite agree to help them?

That was the question which kept repeating itself in Jaya’s head over and over again. It was true that they weren’t wearing Starfleet uniforms, but that was beside the point. As Jaya looked at her own clothing, she knew that it made her stand out. She was wearing a tight olive tank top that accentuated her frame, an old-fashioned necklace with a piece of metal on it (something the replicator had named a dog tag, though Jaya had no idea what it had to do with dogs), a pair of brown leather arm guards and matching fingerless gloves, a brown utility belt with several pouches and a copper-coloured belt buckle, a disruptor pistol holstered on the outside of her upper right leg, a pair of dark brown cargo pants and brown boots that matched the colour of her utility belt, arm guards and fingerless gloves. While it made her look like a typical mercenary, at least according to the replicator database and what limited experience she’d had with mercenaries during the Dominion War, it all looked too… clean. Like this was her very first mission as a mercenary. Her bang didn’t match her buck.

And that’s what worried Jaya. Any smugger would have been able to look right through them. Still, the Denevan decided to place her faith in Lieutenant Commander Cross; the man handled himself with the calm posture of someone with a plan, someone who made absolutely sure that he was dealt a good hand before sitting down at the table. That’s why Jaya had tried to calm herself down by leaning backwards in her uncomfortable seat and trying to sleep. She had a feeling that she was going to need every minute of sleep she could get.

And it was that same feeling that prevented her from getting any.

Interregnum 02-03 S2 / Re: Day 01 | 2200 hrs | The hunt is on

Last post by Nesota Kynnovan - August 20, 2026, 09:47:56 PM

[Ensign Jaya Thorne | Forward Landing Strut Bay | Deck 30 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]
Attn: @Eirual @Pierce

Jaya had made her way through the Jefferies Tube, using her wrist-mounted light to navigate herself around the place until she found herself physically blocked by a hatch. According to the text imprinted on the hatch, it lead to a vertical Jefferies Tube that would allow her to descend down towards the bay of the forward landing strut. A grin began to adorn the face of the Assistant Chief CONN Officer and she tried to press the button next to the hatch in an attempt to open it, but to preciously little avail; just like most other things in the narrow Jefferies Tube, the small access console was deactivated and the hatch didn’t budge an inch. ”You stupid little…” As she muttered semi-annoyedly, Jaya banged her right fist to bang against the hatch in frustration.

Just as the Denevan Ensign was about to reach for the emergency clamp that was stored nearby, which would allow her to manually pry open the hatch, everything around her suddenly lit up in a very bright light. For a brief moment, Jaya thought that she’d kicked the bucket right there in that Jefferies Tube; having finally kicked the bucket at the tender young age of 31 and now on her way to meet her Maker. A part of her actually looked forward to that particular encounter and Jaya, always sassy, already had a couple of things she wanted to get off her chest when the lights suddenly dimmed down again. It left Jaya a little confused for a brief moment and a soft, disappointed ”Aww…” escaped her lips when she realized that someone had likely activated some secondary systems. Jaya figured that either Ensign Dunne and Ensign Tikia were responsible for that or, even better, the vole they were hunting. It meant that none of them would be far away at this point.

Aside from being able to see, another good thing about the situation was that the console next to the access hatch now lit up as well. Hopeful, Jaya pressed the button and awaited what would happen. Less than a second later, the hatch opened with an hydraulic hiss and Jaya slowly crawled forwards into a much larger section of the Jefferies Tube –a maintenance hub of sorts- which allowed her to stand upright. This section of the tube featured a ladder, as well as hatches at the top and bottom to allow for transit to other decks. Grateful that one of the scientists turned on the power, Jaya pressed the button to open the bottom hatch and peeked down…

…before instantly pressing her back against the far bulkhead, a shocked gasp escaping her lips as she moved away as far from the hatch as possible. Even though Jaya was never really bothered by heights, the sight that had greeted her beyond the hatch was one that instantly induced severe height anxiety nonetheless and the Denevan felt her knees shake ever so slightly as she slowly, carefully, peered down the hatch once more. Beyond the hatch, the ladder lead down to a catwalk that was narrow even in the best of circumstances. It was obvious that the catwalk was never meant for anything but maintenance work on the landing strut and, while it had a guardrail on both sides that prevented anyone from accidently falling down, it nevertheless showed that the landing strut bay was three entire decks deep; a very, very long way down if one was to go over the guardrail.

While she peeked down, Jaya took a very deep breath to regain her composure. ”Okay Jaya, you can do this. It can’t be any worse than that banquet you were forced to attend a while ago!” As her slight Denevan-accented voice left her lips, a small smirk appeared on Jaya’s face and it managed to accentuate the convinced look on her face. With that renewed confidence, Jaya unzipped her jacket and removed her combadge; pinning the small badge to her red-coloured undershirt before neatly folding her jacket and placing it in the corner of the maintenance hub. It was starting to get warm in the Jefferies Tubes and the height wasn’t exactly helping, and as a result the Denevan Ensign was already starting to perspire. She quickly wiped the palms of her hands on her black uniform trousers and, with a deep breath, began to climb down the ladder and towards the maintenance catwalk.

Once her feet touched the deck of the catwalk, Jaya immediately grabbed one of the guardrails and slowly looked down into the landing strut bay. ”That’s… a really, really… REALLY long way down.” The Assistant Chief CONN Officer could hear her own voice echoing in the distance and swallowed softly and nervously before she began to walk down the catwalk. It immediately started out wonderfully, with her snagging the right arm of her undershirt on the edge of the catwalk and leaving her with a slight gash in the side of her sleeve. Jaya figured that she’d best find Dunne and Sikia soon, and she’d definitely have a couple of strongly worded objections for the two eggheads.

Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Epi S: [Day 03 | 0900] Changing lanes

Last post by Krajin - August 20, 2026, 03:52:33 PM

[ Lt.Thane Va’rek ] | Central Intelligence Suite | Deck 5 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Pierce

Thane walked in as soon as the door opened and stood at ease in the room with his hands tucked behind his back. His tail tip gently twitched this way and that out of some subconscious habit. The Ferasan, however, seemed to be quite comfortable reading the woman telepathically, not probing deep into her mind and invading those thoughts. Just feeling out the surface thoughts and emotions. He was curious, was she the type who thought too loud, or was she quieter? She would see the Ferasan was armed, his phase-pulse pistol comfortably in its holster.

"Cola, please." Thane responded. He moved to sit down in the indicated chair and got comfortable. "Out of commission, yes, though thankfully temporary." He's keeping himself very professional here in both tone and demeanour. He was gauging her, how she behaved, her expectations. The telepathy was passively reading surface thoughts and emotions.

"Not sure about the honor side of meeting me, but it is a pleasure to meet you. I like to read the profiles of high-ranking officers on the ships I serve on. All standard for someone in security I think. Allows me to figure out who I am working with and their backgrounds. Yours just happened to be on the list. Though, yours has become more fascinating since you have called me up here to ask about it. Implies you have it protected or tagged. Meaning you have something about it you don't want people to find out." He said easily, watching her curiously.

"Which opens many theories on why we are having this chat. I am eager to see which one it is, ma'am."