Just after Crossroads began…
A star system located within the former DMZ, somewhere in between Klaestron and Setlik. The star system that was named Gerta, was colonized by the Federation a long time ago. During the Federation-Cardassian war, it had been targeted by the Cardassians. When the war ended and the demilitarized zone was established, Gerta Colony felt like it was cut off. Long story short, a few cells were born and organized their own attacks against both the Cardassians and the Federation.
Then came the Dominion. Then the demilitarized zone was removed, and while the colony is back in the Federation, the majority of the population have not quite forgiven them. While they do accept humanitarian aid and frequent supplies from the Federation, their cooperation is bismal at best.
The Gerta Colony was on the fourth planet orbiting the star; a typical M-class planet with two moons. Both have been the shield and protector of the planet over countless years, with very old, and very deep craters. One of those deep craters is on the southern pole of the first moon, the moon located in between the planet and the second moon. And because that crater is so deep, it is permanently dark. Furthermore, it is large enough to hide a small vessel. A Rhode Island-class vessel to be precise.
With the majority of her systems powered down or on standby, the illumination from Buran’s warp nacelles, impulse engine and deflectors are practically non-existent. The only light visible would be a faint cyan illumination from the ship’s viewports. The importance of cyan lights was to benefit the species on board. Andorian, Vulcan, Human and so on. Cyan was a low-intensity monochromatic ambient illumination, where a red illumination would make it difficult for Andorians to see and slightly bright and troubling for the Vulcans. In most cases, it’s not an issue but when a ship has been operating completely in the dark for several months, red lighting would have made things difficult for the Captain and Tactical-Security Officer.
The cyan illumination was also accompanied by a Dynamic LCARS Adjustment protocol; where essentially the console screens do not emit a broad-spectrum white light. Instead, the computer tracks who is standing at a station and shifts display frequencies. If the station was operated by a Vulcan, say the tactical station for the tactical officer, then it would shift towards a shorter wavelength. Or if a human were near a station, it would modify its contrast for scotopic vision.
All of this was essentially vital for the crew’s health, especially since the Emergency Medical Hologram has expressed his concern to the Captain nearly every day after they had been like this for three months or so. At least, that is what Varis Tali, Captain of the Buran, can remember. The Andorian often finds herself reviewing the orders from Commodore Maxwell more times than she could remember. Mainly, just the date of the orders.
Tali pushed herself out of her office chair and stepped into the corridor, traveled down the starboard side before she took a right turn at the T-junction. In the middle of the junction, there was a door to the left and a door to the right. Tali took the left one, as the right would have taken her to the Life Support Compartment. She didn’t need that. She needed the turbolift, which was brief as it brought her right to the bridge.
Tali went over to the starboard Mission Operations station, where her first officer, Commander Marcus Vance, would man every morning until he is too exhausted. He’s done this since his younger brother had been on mission. “How is Bob?” Tali asked as soon as she stood next to him, in a quiet, soft spoken voice. The importance of operating silently was extreme. If there was a New Maquis cell here, Ronin or not, they could not afford to be detected.
Vance sighed softly before he looked up at her. “Bob has missed his check-in again.”
Tali crossed her arms over her chest. “When he returns to this ship, you and I are going to have a long chat with him.”
Vance smirked. “I know. But perhaps he is making progress. Unfortunately, his last few messages were not exactly…uplifting or informative.”
“His check-ins have constantly extended by a day each time,” Tali reminded him, more for herself really. “Did we fail to compensate or is he adding another day now?”
Vance shook his head. “I don’t know. I just wish he would tell us more.”
Tali sighed softly. “Agreed. But we both read the information packet on the Ronin that the Commodore provided. If the Ronin are as cautious as he claims; then Bob has taken this job to extreme secrecy.”
Vance nodded his head. “Can’t risk exposing himself or the Buran. However, changing mission parameters was not on the table before he left the ship.”
Tali narrowed her eyes, frustrated that Leo Vance would take matters into his own hands like this. “Agreed. Again, you and I will have a long chat with him.”
Suddenly, there was a very faint beep at the station and a window popped up. In seconds, letters began to appear and formed into words and the words formed a sentence. A single sentence. ‘Sorry for the delay but I have finally made contact, so expect more delays.’ With that message, Marcus leaned back in his chair and ran his hands over his face.
Tali placed her hand on his shoulder. “We have not lost him yet. Unfortunately, his real mission has just begun.”
Vance pushed himself out of the chair. “Should we send the message to the Commodore?”
Tali saw the EMH walk through the door that led from the corridor. ‘Damn. He turned the holo emitters on this deck back on.’ She looked to Vance as the EMH approached. “Do it. Any message back from Bob, needs to go to the Commodore.”
“I’ll get O’Shea and Lin on it with the transceivers,” Vance said. “Good luck.” He then vacated from her side and disappeared into the turbo lift.
Tali sighed as she knew what the EMH was going to say. “I really don’t have time for this, doctor.”
“As captain of this ship, the safety of the crew are just as important to you as they are to me.” The EMH began. “So make the time.”
Tali could see that this was going to get serious, so she led the EMH back into the corridor for some privacy. “Look, I appreciate it that you’ve taken the role as the acting chief medical seriously but-”
“But nothing, Captain.” The EMH interrupted. “If you had left base with a chief medical officer, I would like to think their medical ethics and moral compass would have them standing right here before you with the same dilemma. But instead you have me.”
“Fine,” Tali caved. “What is it?”
“I have several cases of crew who have not been able to get any sleep,” The EMH reported, as he lifts up his left hand that had a PADD in it and holds it out to her. “Experiencing chronic insomnia, fatigue. There are those who are also having difficulties making decisions and trouble seeing. There is only so much I can do in sickbay, and I certainly cannot keep giving the crew medication to help them sleep.”
“Damn.” Tali normally does not use a Human word to express her frustration but as she read the report on the number of crew that were affected, she was quite frustrated. Over half her crew were having these symptoms. “What do you suggest, doctor? We have a mission and I’m not leaving one of my people behind on that colony without some sort of backup.”
“I know,” the EMH sighed. “Personally, I would like to thank you for granting me access to the mission and sensitive files. I’ve spent a long time reviewing them and going over many different scenarios if we don’t stop them. But the saying, needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few; or in this case, the one; takes precedence in this matter.”
“How many times did you run those scenarios?” Tali asked.
The EMH flared his nostrils and huffed. “Too many. Point is, I understand the mission. But we need to do something. Surely not every deck or room in this ship has view ports. Can’t we shift the light in those compartments to something more soothing for the crew? Amber for Humans, then-”
Tali raised her hand to stop him. “I will discuss it with Vance and T’Vek. I just don’t want the crew to think that they don’t have to remain silent.”
“I get it. The crew is new to this ship, and to you. Why would they trust the Captain and First Officer in keeping quiet.” Said the EMH. “Especially with how confidential this mission is. Although, an odd place to be discussing this.” He gestured about the corridor.
Tali smirked. “Deck one on this particular class is usually very quiet, all things considered. Plus, I forgot to mention, for the duration of this mission, only senior staff are permitted on deck one.” It was also the fact that Vance, T’Vek and her quarters were on this deck; not to mention the Conference Room, Comms Transceiver and Transporter Transceiver but one of those were shut down. The other was tied to the transceiver dishes outside the ship. No one needed to access them.
“Ah. That makes more sense.” The EMH then raised a finger. “Captain, before I forget. If you and the commander do find some compartments that the crew can go to, to rest. Please consider a new shift rotation. Six hours rest, four hours on duty. At least…” He paused for a moment. “At least until the crew’s health improves. Then I’ll recommend a different shift rotation.”
“Of course, doctor.” Tali smiled. “Thank you, for taking care of the crew.”
“Thank you, for listening, Captain.” He said before he faded out.
Meanwhile…outside of the ship…
“We finally got a message from Bob,” said O’Shea as he looked over the moon’s terrain, as he just made it over the top of the crater. “And what does the Commander ask us to do? Realign the damn transceivers.”
He heard the thrusters from Lin’s EVA suit before they cut out and she landed on the outer edge of the crater right next to him. “Oh come on, this is fun!”
“Fun?” He began to follow Lin as she immediately started to walk towards the three transceiver dishes that were about ten minutes away. “It takes us ten minutes to get up to the top of this crater using our thrusters. And another ten minutes by walking.”
“Man,” Lin started. “For a Chief Engineer, you sure do complain a lot. Didn’t you enjoy your EVA training at the Academy?”
“Hell no.” O’Shea retorted, until he started to hear static. “Damnit, Lin. Slow down! You’re reaching the edge of our very short range comms.” This damned mission, which limited a lot that they could do to avoid detection. Even the EVA comms were reduced to the minimum.
Lin started to slow down but not for long. “You need to pick up the pace. And how did you become Chief Engineer if you hated EVA?”
“I always found someone else to do it,” He explained. “And once I got seniority, I made one of my staff do it. I would rather tinker with the ship’s warp engines than be gallivanting outside the ship.”
“So much for leading by example,” said Lin. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
“Like hell,” he complained. “We barely walked twenty feet.”
He could almost tell by the movement of her helmet that she rolled her eyes. “Chief, remind me again as to why we need to do this? Why can’t we just establish a narrow beam from the ship’s communications array? I mean, it’s on deck one, could we not just aim it?”
“You know exactly why, Lieutenant.” But he knew what she was doing, so he decided to indulge her. “To avoid being detected, we installed three transceiver dishes in a triangle pattern to help triangulate incoming signals from either Bob or from the Essex. This also means that, unless we point the dishes in the correct coordinates, we won’t receive anything from anyone. As for the ship, we’re in a bloody crater of a heavily dense floating rock. For the ship to be able to receive or send messages, we would have to boost power to the Comm systems. That means increasing our risk of detection.”
“And because Bob has finally made contact?” Lin asked, obviously to keep O’Shea going.
“The Captain and Commander want to update the Commodore. And in order to do that.” He was looking at his feet for a bit while explaining, until he looked up and saw the first transceiver in front of him. “We need to realign them so we can send a message to the Commodore.”
“Right, so…” Lin pulled out her tricorder. “Which direction is Essex at or should we aim for Starbase Seventy-Two?”
“Long as Essex hasn’t moved from its coordinates,” O’Shea opened the control panel and started to the realignment. “Then we should be able to link up with it.”
“Then I will head over to the second one and realign it.” Lin left his side to the next transceiver that was about forty feet away.
