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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Epilogue: Sit Rep After Hell [ Day 03 | 2130 ]
Last post by Ellen Fitz -T'Less arrived first of the second wave. She moved to her seat without needing the seating configuration to orient her — she'd either reviewed it in advance or assessed the room in three seconds and drawn the correct conclusion. Both were consistent with what he knew of her. He gave her a nod that carried the weight of the sit rep she'd compiled, and she returned it without ceremony.
Pierce came in behind her. Cross knew what she chose to show him, and he had catalogued the distance between that and what she likely knew. He filed this as normal rather than adversarial and indicated her station.
Ida zh'Wann came through the door and Cross's attention went to her antennae before his eyes did — old sha'mura habit — then settled on her face and stayed there a half-second longer than it should have. She moved correctly. Took her position with the precision of someone who had earned it. None of that changed what her presence meant. Akoni was dead. Cross had known this. He had filed it and had not taken it back out, because there had been no functional moment to do so and there still wasn't. He looked at Ida zh'Wann and felt the absence of Kai Akoni like a pressure differential in the room and said nothing, because nothing he said would make it smaller.
Rel entered, spine straight, eyes controlled. Cross read him the way he read everything he hadn't fully catalogued yet, noted that the man looked like he'd rather be in a cockpit, and found this understandable.
Hathev came in without announcement.
She never did.
Cross's hands, clasped behind his back, did not move. His weight did not shift. His eyes went to her once — location, bearing, status — then returned forward. Everything he didn't do with his face after that was a significant amount of effort he would not be acknowledging to anyone, including himself.
Lok came in last, unhurried, carrying the FAB's numbers the way he carried everything — like a man who had been doing this since before most of this room learned to walk and had long since stopped being impressed by conference tables. He found his position without being directed to it.
Cross looked at the empty chair that should have held Natalie Stark.
"Commander Stark is with the President," he said. "She'll join when she can. I'll give her the highlights." He left no space for commentary on this arrangement. "We'll proceed."
He scanned the table once — not for effect, but because he wanted confirmation that everyone who was supposed to be here was here and seated and pointed in the right direction — then clasped his hands behind his back.
"CONN."
Every head in the room found Llewellyn-Kth with the collective efficiency of people who had sat through enough briefings to know exactly what that word meant for whoever came after it. Cross watched the ensign register this, stand, introduce himself, and collect his knee against the table edge in the same approximate motion, and filed all three events without expression.
“Thank you, Commander.” Sylvain began, making a move to stand, though hesitating as he appeared to second-guess himself, before haphazardly continuing to rise to his feet, a soft thud sounding in the room as his knee appeared to collide with the edge of the table. “I-i'm Ensign Llewellyn-Kth, the new Chief CONN officer, for those of you who haven't met me yet...” He paused, straightening himself up and trying to present himself as professionally as possible, his pale face adopting the slightest twinge of red as he spoke.
"I’ve run CONN activity reports across all three vectors, and the most immediate material concern is the loss of four of our shuttles, with five more severely damaged. A further three shuttles were damaged when the Romulans boarded the ship, but it's mostly low-yield disruptor burns, so we should have them up and running again within the next few days.” He paused, taking a small breath. “As for the more severely damaged ones, we’ve tractored them into Shuttle Bay one, pending an engineering assignment, but it looks like it'll be quite resource-intensive to get them back in working order.” He shot a somewhat furtive glance towards the Chief Engineer before he continued. “That leaves us with only four functioning shuttles as it stands, so we’re going to have to be quite frugal with how we assign them until we get the repairs completed on the rest.”
“Moving on… Navigation. We’ve taken damage to our secondary navigation sensors on Vector One, the primary navigation array on Vector Two isn’t far off needing a complete rebuild, and the Stellar Cartography sensors are completely misaligned.” He paused once again, pale finger gliding deftly along the side of his PADD. “We’re making a temporary fix by rerouting Vector Three’s navigation array through the main deflector, but it won’t be enough to compensate if we run into any sort of spatial phenomena. Even a subspace eddy could cause us some real damage if the computer can’t map it.” His finger flicked across his PADD, to bring him to the next section of his report. “We’ve also got some sort of malfunction in the inertial damping system; something is causing the ship to think that impulse speed is threatening the structural integrity, but all internal scans confirm we’re not in danger. We have a team working on finding the source of the error as we speak, but between that and the navigational issues we’re having, I can’t recommend that we head anywhere in a hurry; we could risk doing more damage to the hull than we’ve already got.” His mouth opened to deliver a final point, and then closed again, hesitating somewhat. Something processed behind his brown eyes, and then his mouth reopened, clearly having decided that whatever he had to say, was important for the Senior Staff to hear.
“The President’s entourage also gave us some updated Federation star charts, which I’ve been cross-referencing with the information in the Theurgy database…” He paused, referring once again to his PADD. “… and there are some rather alarming discrepancies between the two.” Sylvain took another brief pause, sending a copy of the map to display on the conference room monitor, so that the rest of the Senior Staff could see for themselves. “There have been notable changes in the borders of several species that neighbor Federation territory. We’ve seen expansions from the Tholians, the Sheliak, the Breen, the Tzenketh, the Kzinti, and the Talarians. There have been incursions into both Federation and Cardassian space, and entire systems seem to have been absorbed into their respective territories. There’s nothing in the charts to indicate when these changes took place, or why they occurred, no mention of any wars or diplomatic exchanges; the Federation has even lost territory in the Beta Quadrant to the Shackleton Expanse, which doesn't really have any explanation that I can think of...” He paused once more, glancing over at the display as though it meant something more personal to him. “I don't really know what this information means to us, I just thought it was something that we should be aware of, given how long the Theurgy has been without any updates from Starfleet…” He turned towards Cross, somewhat bashful looking, given the amount of time he had spent talking, and gave the man a small nod. “That’s all from me, Commander.”
The report itself was competent. Cross listened the way he listened to everything — tracking the numbers, flagging the gaps, noting where approximation had been substituted for certainty and whether that substitution was honest or evasive. Four functioning shuttles. Navigation rerouted through the main deflector. Inertial damping throwing false structural warnings that nobody had located the source of yet. He did not write any of this down. He did not need to.
Then the star charts went up, and Cross went still, the way he did when something required his full attention rather than his operational attention, which were different things that felt different from the inside. Border expansions. Tholians. Sheliak. Breen. Tzenketh. Kzinti. Talarians. Territory absorbed, systems gone, no corresponding diplomatic record, no indication of timeline. Federation losses in the Beta Quadrant to the Shackleton Expanse, which was not an entity that acquired territory through conventional means.
He looked at the display for three seconds longer than he looked at most things. The Theurgy had been running in the dark for a long time. Cross had known this in the abstract. The abstract had just become considerably more specific.
He gave Llewellyn-Kth a nod when the ensign turned to him, brief and direct. "Noted, Ensign. Well done." He let his eyes move back to the star chart for one more second, then pulled them forward. "Engineering."
Frank took a sip of his scalding hot coffee. At this point, it was more of a ritual than something that would keep him awake. It had been a very long day and it still wasn't over. The closest thing he'd gotten to any sort of rest was the funeral service for those that they knew were dead at the moment. It was still a long and terrible list. It wasn't likely over at this point yet since they weren't sure who was going to make it or not from the wounded list. Those would be much smaller affairs though.
He waited till he was called on to give a status of the ship.
"It's bad, but could be worse. The hull has sustained a significant number of micro fractures, several dozen blown out windows that have forcefields in place, and one major breach on vector three where a romulan boarding shuttle was connected to the ship."
He flipped a button and the page changed. "Over system capabilities are within tolerances. Weapons, and engines are ready at your command." He flipped a page and kept going as his mouth turned into a grimace. "I would advise that we keep the amount of fighting to a minimum. Though the major combat systems are intact and being brought back to full capacity, the shield system took a beating and will need several hours to repair. It can operate, but won't hold out for long. The boarding of the ship is where the majority of the damage is going to be dealt with." Another PADD flip. "Our side and theirs were fairly liberal with the use of their weapons and in some cases, explosives. We have damaged ODN and EPS relays all over the ship, along with the accompanying computer systems. If the majority of the effort wasn't allocated to removing various hazardous bodily fluids, I would redirect the efforts to restoring the data and power systems." The Chief Engineer checked the numbers again. "So far the damage survey has counted on average 15 damaged EPS relays, 8 ODN junctions, 45 interface units across every deck. There's also damage to the lsolinear and Bioneural data storage systems that will necessitate replacement and testing. Re-routing systems are working for the moment, but the ship is currently working in spite of the damage since data packets are being rerouted, but this is causing a slight degradation to computational processing and communications speeds as other systems have to take up the slack." Chief Arnold tried to keep his sense of being miffed at having his shiny repaired ship in such a state of disrepair, but it was fair to say he felt he had the right to be slightly salty about the whole affair. The Chief looked up and saw a slight glazed look over take the others and he let out a grunt of irritation as he decided he's made his point and moved on.
More flipping. "The other area of major concern is the FAB. The bulkheads held despite multiple major explosions inside the hanger decks. There is wreckage still littering the flight areas and flight operations at this time are limited. Launching, recovery and servicing operations are major concerns with damage still being surveyed at this time. There's about a dozen wrecks littering the FAB. We barely have the space at the moment for the storage of the surviving fighter complement till we can get all those wrecks cleared out. So that leaves the question of whether you'd prefer we salvage the ships or just dump them out into space? I have our people going the wrecks for sensitive and dangerous technology, so maybe we can get something useful, or at least easily dump all the hazardous parts out of the ship soon."
Another flip. "Casualties amongst the engineering staff are not heavy, but are still significant with over a dozen dead and an equal number wounded and not likely to return to duty soon." This was the tough part. "Assuming we can find the necessary non-replicatbable materials, I'm estimating repairs out of our own resources will be at least 4 days." The ice blue eyes of the engineer looked into the Commander Cross as he would not flinch from his conclusion, especially after what he'd heard from the President. "None of these repairs are going to be as solid as if they came from a starbase, so some of the systems are going to be less durable. It would help if the Starfleet task force could transfer personnel and materials to assist in our repairs? It would save a lot of time to have ready made components."
Cross listened to Arnold's report the way he'd been listening to all of them — tracking numbers, noting the gaps between what was said and what was implied. The engineer didn't dress it up. Cross appreciated this.
Hull micro-fractures, blown windows on forcefields, the Romulan breach on Vector Three. Weapons and engines functional. Shields degraded and needing hours he didn't currently have to give them. The interior damage was the longer problem — EPS relays, ODN junctions, interface units across every deck, the bioneural and isolinear storage systems flagged for replacement. The ship was routing around its own injuries like a man favoring a bad knee, and at some point the compensation would cost more than the original damage.
The FAB numbers landed and Cross's eyes moved briefly to Lok, who was already looking at Arnold with the expression of a man listening to someone describe his living room on fire. A dozen wrecks in the flight areas. Salvage or dump. Cross filed this under decisions with resource implications that required Lok's direct input and moved on.
Arnold looked at him when he got to the conclusion. Didn't flinch from it. Four days minimum, assuming materials. Repairs that wouldn't hold like starbase work. The ask for personnel and components from the task force was framed as a recommendation, not a request, which was the correct way to frame it.
Cross nodded once. "Noted on the task force transfer. I'll raise it with Commander Stark." His eyes moved across the table. "Medical." Cross looked at Leux. Leux looked back at him with the expression of a man who had written the report, knew exactly what was in it, and had no interest in performing surprise at any of it. "Doctor."
Leux picked up his PADD and read in one of the most tired sounding voices of the meeting thus far.
"Acting CMO Report: Medical staff has been reduced to approximately 2/3 strength, with the entire senior officers cadre either KIA or placed in stasis. Vi-Nine is functional, and carrying a significant patient load. LT Leux has assumed the CMO's duty role temporarily. Vector 01 (V1 Battle Clinic) damage: minimal – repairs ongoing. Utilized as an extended ICU/UCU. Vector 02 (Main Sickbay) damage: moderate – critical systems affected include decontamination chamber, primary holographic table, blown/destroyed EPU conduits to consoles A3, A7, B4, B8, B12. Two biobeds, main replicator, and Vi-Nine’s secondary recharge station. Repairs ongoing. Utilized as a primary care facility with minor injuries attended via the first aid station at reception. Wait times improving, but remain longer than optimal." He took a breath, heaved a sigh, and continued reading. "Vector 03 (V3 Battle Clinic) damage: severe – almost all critical systems are offline/destroyed. Utilizing what we can as a secondary aid station. Repairs ongoing. Ongoing treatments and damage to replicator systems has hindered on-board supply of plasma, platelets, and blood; until all systems are operational, a donation drive has begun to restore back-up supplies. As humans hold the majority demographic, all blood-type donors are needed, but universal donors and receptors take precedence. Morale concerns – medical is working around the clock to catch up with treatments post-battle. Primary concerns based on observation/cases tended thus far: sleep deprivation, malnourishment, lingering psychological trauma. In essence – while repairs are needed, it behooves us not to work ourselves to death. Medical staff requests LT. Ryn remain detached from engineering repairs to medical facilities." He finally glanced up and found Cross's eyes before adding. "End Report."
Leux delivered it clean. No editorializing, no softening of the numbers. Two-thirds strength. Senior officer cadre gone — KIA or stasis. Vi-Nine carrying load. The vector breakdown went up and Cross tracked it: V1 functioning as an extended ICU, V2 running primary care with the damage list that made Arnold's engineering numbers feel optimistic, V3 stripped down to a secondary aid station on salvaged systems. The replicator damage had hit plasma and blood supply, which meant the donation drive wasn't a suggestion — it was a logistics problem wearing a morale hat.
The morale assessment at the end was the part that would not appear in most CMO reports, which was why it was the part Cross intended to keep. Sleep deprivation. Malnourishment. Psychological trauma presenting across cases. No surprise there.
"Lieutenant Ryn will be detached to medical facilities," he said. "I'll clear it with Engineering." His eyes moved to Arnold briefly — confirmation, not a question — then back to Leux a moment before he looked to Frost. "Science."
"Science." Frost straightened under scrutiny. The report was on his PADD but he didn't look at it. "I'll begin with personnel, because the rest of it needs that context first." He kept his voice level. "Five dead. Tyreke Okafor — synthetic biology, nutrigenomics, organic electronics. Asra Tek — warp theory, Daystrom-caliber work." A beat that was shorter than it felt. "Kizra Tos and the Tos symbiont. Nara Nueva. Cir'Cie." He set the PADD down. "I didn't know any of them. I want to be direct about that, because it would be easy to stand here and perform grief for people I never met. What I can tell you is that I've read their files and their work, and the losses are significant beyond the personal." His jaw tightened. "Okafor in particular. If I'd had six months with him, we might already have answers we're still looking for."
He picked the PADD back up.
"Facilities. The majority of Science is functional or in the process of becoming so. The exception is Xenozoology, which experienced a power loss during the fighting that resulted in a catastrophic containment failure." He said this with the careful neutrality of a man who had chosen, consciously, not to lead with it. "Most specimens have been recovered. We are currently missing one vole." He looked up briefly. "Lieutenant Junior Grade Kerina and Ensign Dunne have been assigned to assist the Xenozoologists in retrieval. I expect a resolution shortly. The vole is small. The ship, relative to the vole, is not."
He flipped to the next section.
"Hydroponics sustained significant damage. We lost a substantial portion of the current growth stock." He paused. "Among the losses was a specimen that had shown preliminary indications of therapeutic potential in individuals affected by Infestation. Early stage — nothing peer-reviewed, nothing I would have staked a treatment protocol on yet. But it was promising enough that losing it is not simply a botanical casualty." He set the PADD down again. "Our botanist is also gone. Hydroponics is currently being maintained by Crewman Jensen and Crewman Kane, both botanical technicians. They are doing the job. I want that noted. They are doing a job that is not theirs by rank and they have not stopped."
He looked at Cross.
"In response to medical." The words came out with the clipped precision of someone who had rehearsed not saying them and then said them anyway. "I have been awake for approximately forty-eight hours. I am, by any reasonable clinical definition, a liability to my own department, and so is anyone else who has been awake and working for that long or longer. I concur with the medical recommendation to rest and recuperate to avoid further damage." His eyes moved briefly, involuntarily, to Leux.
Cross nodded, thanked Frost for his time, then he looked to their resident "cowboy diplomat." He'd personally had little interaction with her up to this moment but her reputation certainly preceded her. "Diplomacy."
Enyd set her PADD flat on the table and did not pick it up again. She had written the report herself, which meant she knew what was in it, which meant she did not need to read from it, which was the only advantage she currently had over her own exhaustion.
"Diplomatic Corps." She kept her eyes level and her voice even. "Staff strength is at roughly half. We lost personnel in the battle, and we've had transfers in that haven't fully oriented yet. What we have is functional. Whether it's adequate is a question I'll answer after the next seventy-two hours."
"The D'ravsai Coalition." She turned her head slightly toward the display. "The President has sanctioned trade routes through the Neutral Zone as a soft-presence measure while the Coalition consolidates. We are not establishing official diplomatic ties — that's off the table for now, and I think that's the correct read. What we're doing is building a door before we knock on it." She paused. "Initial reports from personal contacts of the Romulan bioengineering specialist who defected to Theurgy prior to the battle, Hirek tr'Aimne, indicate the Coalition is already gaining ground among the Romulan population. That's the good news. The less good news is that there are early whispers of disconnect from some of the Reman groups — fracture lines appearing before the structure has fully set." She glanced briefly at Pierce. "Intelligence may have more granular data on that. From a diplomatic standpoint, trade is where we start and where we stay until the ground tells us otherwise. I have made some recommendations to the President regarding current personnel who may do well with the soft presence, and I will forward those names to you." She briefly looked apologetic, as if it just occurred to her that she'd put the cart before the horse but she continued her report before the emotion fully settled.
"The Klingon alliance." Her tone shifted slightly — still even, but careful in a way the previous beat hadn't required. "Chancellor Martok, as a personal favor, sent a friend to discuss the state of the alliance directly." She did not elaborate on the personal side of that conversation. "What came out of that conversation is that Martok is holding, but he's holding against significant internal pressure. Several of the Houses are reading this new alignment with the Romulan factions as something close to a betrayal — not of treaty, but of identity, which is considerably harder to argue against." She set her hands flat on the table. "My official recommendation is that we continue to provide reassurances where we can, but that the heavier diplomatic lift needs to come from the President herself, not from us. Bacco has officially recognized the Infested threat and welcomed the Theurgy back into the fold — that carries weight Martok can use with his Houses in ways that our word alone cannot." She inclined her head toward the PADD. "My personal recommendation is that we share any intelligence on combating the Infested with Martok directly and then step back and let him handle his own people in his own way. He did not get to be Chancellor by needing someone to hold his hand through a political crisis."
She took a deep breath and slowly let it out, pushing slightly back from the table before continuing. "The pardon." The word landed the same way it had in her head for the past eighteen hours — necessary and complicated in equal measure. "To this point, the Infested have used every step forward as raw material. Every alliance, every public statement, every moment of apparent progress — they find the seam, and they work it. This pardon is visible, and it is politically thin, and it has put a target on the President's back from two directions simultaneously." She kept her eyes forward. "There is still no large-scale method to scan for Infested. No reliable way to combat them at scale. We don't know their numbers or if they are growing. What that means in practice is that how we respond to official orders in the coming days — how we are seen to respond — will determine more about how our allies receive us than anything Bacco said at that podium. We cannot afford to give anyone a reason to revisit the word traitor. The pardon bought us standing in some circles and further condemnation in others. Only time will reveal which circles feel what towards us."
She looked down the table toward Pierce, brief and direct.
"The Dewitt intelligence out of the Akh'Terel Veil — Commander Pierce will likely have more to say on this, and I'd ask her to elaborate further." She brought her eyes back to the center of the room. "What I can add from the diplomatic side is that I received corroborating information through a private channel from Doctor Marlowe, reporting along much the same lines — coordinated alignment among the Orion Syndicate, Tzenkethi, Kinshaya, Gorn, Tholian, Cardassian True Way, and Breen elements, all of it oriented against a Federation they are reading, correctly, as fractured and distracted." She let that sit for a half second. "Dewitt died getting that data out. Marlowe is still on the proverbial, or literal, front lines of this unrest and can be called upon for further insight should we need it. I think we owe both of them the courtesy of treating what they sent us as the strategic context for everything else on this table, not a line item at the end of the report." She looked at Cross. "That's what I have, Commander."
Cross nodded, letting a brief silence fall over the room as everyone ingested and wrestled with the reports up to this moment before moving on to the next report.
