Engine room, USS Truckee

LT Rakes watched her console intently as the warp core’s output steadily climbed. The Truckee had been testing her warp drive for the past 3 days, and Rakes was getting pretty bleary-eyed. She didn’t mind the work, in theory, but the downside to being a tinkerer on a starship that’s operating as expected is that there’s nothing to tinker on. There’s only so many hours one can spend watching engine parameters stay green and steady before you begin to question your sanity. Come on, just get out of alignment, just a little bit… Kim thought to herself. But that’s probably not an opinion a fresh chief engineer should express openly, so when the warp core continued to tick up nominally, she just smiled at her staff.

“Engine room, bridge. Gotta put a hold on tests. Just got off the horn with the Advance, and they’ve requested we move up our rendezvous. We’re still pretty far out though. Chief Engineer, report confidence in accelerating to warp 8 without having completed testing.” The comms relayed Captain Beardsly’s message from the bridge. Rakes frowned, considering the request.

“Bridge, this is Lieutenant Rakes. All testing up to warp 5 has been well within nominal parameters. I must point out, that is in no way indicative of how the core will handle speeds above warp 5. That being said, I believe we can try it. I will stay on shift to monitor. We’ll try to give you advanced warning if something is going wrong, but we will cut power if things are looking dangerous.” Rakes stressed her words carefully. This was a potentially dangerous situation. Entire ships had been lost by skipping shakedown tests. Then again, if the Advance was in trouble, sometimes a little risk was necessary to save others.

“Captain, are we headed into a combat situation? We can shift gears and get into some passive testing of weapons systems on the way. Again, it won’t give us 100% confidence, but we don’t want to bring a bread roll to a gun fight.” Rakes suggested, immediately regretting her informality over ships comms. Kim knew Marcus wouldn’t mind that kind of laxity in person, but he might object to it in front of the entire engine room and bridge crew.

“We are not. However, that’s a good suggestion. Make it happen.” Beardsly’s voice rang out clearly from the comms. Rakes let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, then gave out a few orders to shift her staff’s priorities. Crewmen and a few junior officers moved with a purpose, picking up their diagnostic gear and making their way to get access to various tactical systems.

The readout on LT Rake’s display started to shift as the Truckee‘s helmsman hit the throttle. To their credit, they were ramping it up reasonably slowly, instead of punching it. Kim made a mental note to thank them for that later. Refusing to take her eyes off the console, Kim blindly grabbed at the air around her desk until she found her coffee tumbler. Her 8 hour shift had just gotten longer, and there was no way she could afford to get sloppy now.

USS Advance, passenger quarters

Commander Peldun Aldiib scowled to nobody in particular. He was alone in his quarters. He actually had nothing to be upset about, but half a lifetime of service to the Romulan Star Empire will leave its mark. In Peldun’s case, it was his near-permanent foul mood.

Despite his dour facial expression, Peldun was in a fairly good mood. The Advance had been right on time to pick him up from his mission, and was due to rendezvous with his new assignment the Truckee in about two days. Additionally, he’d just been informed that had been moved up to this evening, though the CO hadn’t told him why. His exact words had been “You’re a passenger, commander, until I deliver you to the Truckee. I’m not in the habit of briefing passengers on Federation intel.” Peldun thought that was a little unusual for the Federation-especially given his rank-but he had accepted it with a curt nod and returned to his quarters. He’d spent the last twenty minutes using his credentials to access the ship’s systems and figure it out for himself. Peldun raised an eyebrow.

USS Truckee, bridge

“Helm, ease us out of warp. No need to throw the e-brake” Marcus Beardsly ordered. The ship had handled maximum warp admirably, with not much more than a little shake here and there. Still, better go easy until engineering has a chance to finish their tests and diagnostics.

“Coming out of warp in 5, 4, 3…” the ensign at the helm announced. The streaking lights on the viewscreen jerked to a halt, and Marcus felt the inertial dampeners catch up a microsecond later than they should have. Everyone on the bridge reached out to steady themselves, knowing full well it would be a futile gesture if the dampeners hadn’t done their job. Close one.

On the viewscreen, Marcus noted the USS Advance was already waiting for them. Anticipating the captain’s next order, LTCMDR Bishop took the rare initiative and spoke up. “Hail the Advance. Put them on viewer when ready.” Marcus noted his temp XO’s initiative… maybe the old man had a spark of ambition after all. After a moment’s pause, the bridge of the Advance replaced the dark of space on the viewscreen.

“Greetings, captain Beardsly. Congratulations on your promotion. I remember my California…” the Selay captain wasted no time. “I’ll get right down to it. As you may know, we’ve been dealing with pirates for the past 60 years. Unfortunately, this ship is beyond aging, and we simply can’t compete with some of the, ah, wealthier organizations out there. There is a stolen Keldon-class cruiser out here, terrorizing the shipping lanes. The pirates are utilizing their cloaking device to attack without warning, leaving these merchants no hope of escape. We can’t face a Keldon alone. Frankly, I don’t think a California can either. But together, we could probably pull it off.”

Marcus Beardsly rubbed his chin and thought about it. A stolen Keldon? And the Cardassians hadn’t come looking for it yet? Maybe they didn’t know… His tactical officer interrupted his musings. 

“Sir, under nominal conditions, we’d be up for that challenge. But given we haven’t fully tested our weapons systems yet, I can’t guarantee our phasers will perform as expected.”

“Noted, thank you” Marcus nodded. He looked up at the viewscreen again. “Captain Ssismar, any thoughts on where we’d find these pirates?”

The Selay captain paused, clearly without an answer in the chamber. Then a face Marcus recognized from his crew files came on screen. Commander Aldiib had just walked onto the bridge of the Advance.

“I have a suggestion, captains. We can set a trap.” Peldun Aldiib paused for any immediate objections… or perhaps for effect? “The Truckee is the right size for a multitude of different types of freighters operating in this region of space. I suggest Mr. Bishop and Lieutenant Rakes work together to alter the Truckee‘s warp and transponder signature to disguise us as a freighter. We can set a course that takes us close to a nearby nebula, where the Advance will lie in wait.” Peldun Aldiib tapped at one of the unmanned, secondary consoles on the bridge of the Advance. A star chart with marked coordinates appeared on the corner of the viewscreen.

Captain Ssismar flashed a sour look at Commander Aldiib, then looked back towards Marcus. “Ah yes, the original reason for our meeting out here. We picked up Mr. Aldiib here from the Vail a few weeks ago. Please take him now.” Marcus wasn’t sure what was going on there, and made a note to ask his new XO about it later. In the meantime, they had more pressing matters to attend to.

“Well captain, I believe this plan is as good as any. You heard my tactical officer, we haven’t run more than minimal shakedown testing of our weapons systems post-overhaul. Still, I believe the surprise of dealing with two Federation starships instead of a helpless Bajoran freighter should give us an edge. Shall we get to work?”

To be continued…