Storm Front

[Fleet Admiral E. Kross]

Note: All are welcome to participate in this RP. Set in 2410, all characters and ships should be appropriate to the era. Any questions, feel free to ask one of the Admirals. ~E.

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The conference room was dark as Fleet Admiral Evan Kross sat staring at the holographic projection of the Klingon front. His once dark brown, almost black hair, was now shot through with silver, and wrinkles had set in on his features. "They've pushed us back to Donatu," he said in his soft tenor. His black eyes, the only real physically distinguishing feature of Betazoids, glanced around the table. To his immediate right, his wife, Fleet Captain Elise Appleton sat, her blonde hair pulled back into a bun as she also stared at the holo projection.

Beside her, sat another woman, this one a striking, dark haired beauty, her Trill heritage denoted by the spots that ran along her forehead before disappearing into her loose, long hair. "We still have transports coming in, carrying refugees," she said.

"I know, Aly," said Evan as he regarded the Trill woman. "But there's not a whole lot we can do at the moment."

Sighing, Captain Alysandra Mercy nodded. "I know, but we're running out of space. And transports back to the core territories aren't exactly running on schedule."

Evan nodded and turned to look at the only other man in the group. Red of hair, and well built, Commander David Williamson wore the grey uniform of intelligence. "Any idea why that is David?" asked Evan.

Nodding, David leaned forward to rest his arms on the table. "The Orions are making a mess of things. Hit and run tactics. They aren't destroying anything, and casualties have been light. Its mostly just damage to slow us down."

"Guerrilla tactics," said Elise. "Coming from a band of pirates, that makes sense."

"Yea," nodded David. "Well, those pirates have cost us more than a few ships in head to head combat." He turned to look at Evan and shook his head. "Unless Command sends us reinforcements, the Klingons will overrun us, and the rest of this sector within another month."

Crossing her arms, Alysandra leaned back in her chair and shook her head. "They can't really expect us to hold here, can they? I mean, its Starbase 23! Right smack dab in the middle of what used to be the damn neutral zone."

"They expect us to hold," said Evan with a soft sigh. "I'll...see if I can't call in a few favors, maybe move a few dozen ships over from the Cardassian DMZ." He glanced around at the other three faces and nodded once. "We're all tired. Until tomorrow. Dismissed."

As the other two stood and made their way out of the conference room, Elise sat and watched her husband for a moment. "Whatever we're going to do...We need to do it soon."

Sighing, Evan nodded. "I know, my love. I know."

-----

Thump. "Damn it," swore the brown haired man as he rubbed at his head and glared at the console above him. "Piece of crap."

"Problem?" asked the blonde man standing in the doorway. Wearing the blue of the science, medical, and communications departments, Lieutenant Jamie Connor smiled at his lover.

Standing up, Lieutenant Commander Alexander Pierce nodded, as he gestured towards the console. "Yea," he said. "I'm the Chief Engineer, and I can't get this console to come back online." He shook his head as he fell into the chair that rested in front of the console. "And given that this is my office, where I'm supposed to monitor the core from, its kind of important."

Smiling, Jamie nodded. "Yes, well. When you're done trying to beat it to death with your head, perhaps you could look at the communications array? Its down again. And as the Chief Communications Officer, its kind of important for me to be able to...oh...you know...communicate with other ships."

Chuckling, Alex shook his head. "I'll get to it. This refit is taking longer than I expected."

"Of course it is," said Jamie. He gestured to the core that rested beyond the transparent wall that seperated the small engineering office from the rest of main engineering. "Its a Rivers Class Explorer. They built these things to last, but not necessarily to be easily upgraded."

Shaking his head, Alex just laughed.

[Avenger Dragon]

The Scylla was parked in orbit around Starbase 23, her hull descended from the venerable sovereign class, and bulkier with thicker layers of armor plating in an arrangement that showed the ship was meant to fight more than explore. In his office, Daniel Thomson shuffled through a series of Padds and set them on one side of the desk.

"transfer.... transfer... transfer..." He repeated, then stopped at a single padd and read through it. "Huh... commissioned, probably some new guy." he mumbled and set the padd off to a smaller stack.

"Admiral?"

The woman's voice threw him off as the ship's AI appeared standing next to him, startling him and dropping the padd which clattered over the edge of the desk and fell to the floor. "Damnit." he huffed. "can't you knock?"

The Scylla's AI, Demona, was visualized as a tall dark-haired woman dressed in the typical command uniform. Her expressions were blank as she spoke. "Starbase twenty-three is requesting we alter the percentage of ships being assigned to the fleet. They are reporting a shortage of slips that can accommodate ships larger than four-hundred meters given our current fleet roster and allocation."

Thomson's answer was quick and short"That's not my fault Starfleet's been building more of the bigger ships in the last eight years."

"Is that your response?" the AI asked.

Thomson shook his head. "No... tell them I'll take it up to starfleet operations. I understand what they're trying to say and I'll do what I can."

Demona nodded, a light chirp echoing through the office. "Done." She answered. "What are they trying to say?"

Daniel looked up with confusion on his face. He wasn't confused about the question, but the motive behind the AI asking him. "What makes you ask that?"

"Fleet coordination communications are one of my sub-processes. Understanding motives behind the decisions will help me anticipate judgments in future situations."

He raised a brow. "A starbase is designed to accommodate a certain number of ships, and docking space is a premium. Starfleet could make all the slips capable of accepting all ships up to seven-hundred meters, but there would only be a small number of them. Yet if they made them all for three-hundred meters or smaller, they can have several dozen ships, but nothing could accept the larger cruisers. So starbases have their slips built to the same percentage of starship sizes as the fleets they administer. So if a fleet is mostly miranda's, sabre's and such, they'll have more of the smaller-sized slips to make sure any ship coming in has a reasonable chance to park. Make sense?"

"I believe so." Demona nodded, and quickly vanished.

Shaking his head he muttered "Damn Holograms.." and rose from the desk, leaving the left over padds to be determined another day, and the lone padd that fell to the floor was given a courtesy kick under the desk to bang against the chair.

The bridge of the Scylla was subdued. Being parked at the starbase meant most of her stations were left unused, and many officers left with nothing to do but watch a blank monitor. Instead they had since been ordered to help with the supply transfer as the massive ship prepared for another tour of the federation front.

When he stepped through the doors, he took stock of the bridge, many of its stations were silent. Across from the turbolift, the science alcove was humming with life as the ship's Science officer, and first officer kept busy. Commander Ahrianne Karisto focused on the console ahead of her, her dark hair draped across her back. Rumor had it she could have chosen a career that relied more on her looks than her skills, if it wasn't for her.. unique personality.

"Status?" Daniel asked

The woman didn't look up. "We have four hundred more tons of cargo to bring aboard. The starbase is transferring via shuttlecraft. Engineering is four hours, fifteen minutes away from powering the warp core."

"Thanks" he anwered, turning to the tactical console. Where ahrianne was considered your typical human, the being standing at the tactical console was a complete contrast standing at two and a half meters tall, two officers wide at the shoulders, every muscle was massive and covered in fur, the Lyran was arguably the most intimidating officer in starfleet. And right now she was sharpening her claws. At six centimeters long, the admiral knew those were as retracted as she could manage.

"Tiger?"

Lieutenant T'garra glanced one more time across the console before returning to her claws, keeping them tidy and ready to draw blood. "All weapon and shield systems clear. Comander Yoran has an engineering team running a diagnostic on the armor regeneration system."

Daniel nodded, taking stock of the rest of the ship. While the bridge was calm and empty, all twenty five decks below him were surely going to be chaotic. "And where's the captain?"

Ahrianne glanced up from the console "We received eighteen new cadets an hour ago. The captain is making an inspection at the starboard airlock."

"crap." he muttered, already turning to the turbolift. "And today was going so well."

----

Main engineering was best described as organized chaos as specialists and techs ran their tricorders and spaners over every centimeter of the warp core. After the Scylla's first tour it was discovered the core was being overworked more than usual, and subject to stress-fractures if the housings weren't carefully monitored. The tall cylinder was gray and quiet. At the moment the heart of the starship was stopped, eve the dilithium mounts were removed for inspection, and in it's place a dangling pair of sickly green legs flailed about as the body performed barrel rolls inside the small chamber.

Outside of the chamber reading through another padd of information stood Commadner Vladimir Yoran, his russian heritage prominent in his face as he skimmed the last lines of the padd. "Alright buddy, adjust nozzle four to fourteen microns."

The figure in the chamber chirped and hissed at itself for a moment, spinning one more time and then let loose another shrill series of clicks.

"And that does it, come on out." Vlad answered. He looked up to see the insectoid wriggle himself out of the small chamber and drop to the floor where he vigorously worked on his shoudlers, popping them back into place and reached out to the engineer, clicking several times in sequence.

Vlad held up a small device, handing it back to the insectoid wearing a modified version of the engineer's uniform. No regular pattern fit the spindly, thin frame. When the unit was locked against the insectoid's neck, another series of chirps and screeches came out, soon followed by an artificial voice. "The chamber was acceptable. Looks good! I will start reinstalling the dilithium mount."

"Sure, when you finish that we'll work on the large injectors." he nodded to the insect and looked around the chamber. "Start up sequence in three hours people! Keep it up!"

-----

The cadets were wide-eyed when they lined up along both sides of the airlock. They had been waiting for almost a minute while the captain stood at the end, looking over all of them while they were all forced to look straight ahead.

One cadet flinched when they heard the sudden boot-steps approaching. Some had heard of the captain before, often referred to as someone too stubborn to die.

Jenifer Pax stood before each cadet, her face cold and unreadable as she looked at every detail of their uniforms. Each cadet had a moment to stare into the blonde captain's green eyes, seeing them filled with some kind of fire. "Your collar is wrong, fix it." she started with the first. "And fix your boots too, what ship did you think you were coming aboard? A civilian freighter? Maybe the blue-water navy on earth needs a cadet?'

Before they could respond, she was already moving to the next one, also criticizing them for any flaws until none of the cadets were spared. Just when she was done with the last one, Pax returned to the beginning of the line. "My name is Jennifer Pax, I am the captain of this ship, and you will serve her to the best of your abilities, although right now that might not be much. Check with the quartermaster for bunk assignments and duty postings. And damn it, don't make me throw any of you out the airlock for incompetence. The paperwork is almost not worth it anymore. Dismissed."

As the cadets scrambled out of the airlock corridor with their duffel bags, the captain remained at attention, waiting for the last one to leave before she afforded herself to relax.

Behind her was the faint sound of clapping. She tensed again, readying herself for a fight when she recognized the admiral. "Dan.."

"I'm just glad you didn't send anyone to sickbay this time." he answered.

She chuckled. "You have to scare them early, or else it won't work the rest of the time." She said an walked past him saying "now if you'll excuse me, i have cargo containers to watch. I heard a ferengi was involved with some of the shipments. I think they skimmed some of the materials."

Just when Jennifer was out of earshot and at the turbolift Dan shook his head. "Damn women..."

"Admiral!" Demona's voice announced. "You are being hailed by the fleet admiral."

Daniel took a moment to glance around the airlock, reaching one of the wall consoles and pressing against the single button to initialize the display. "Bring it through here."

Seconds later Evan's face appeared on the screen. "Danny, make any headway with the ships from the DMZ?"

"A few. I have transfers from other areas too. We'll have to trade out some of our current ships, but we'll come out with at least eighteen more ships after today, and a lot more... personalities to go with it too."

Evan raised a brow. "Personalities?"

"You'll see when you get the total list. I'll send what I have in a few hours"

The fleet admiral nodded. "Thanks. Just don't transfer so much personality to the fleet that i loose my hair. It's already going gray."

Dan chuckled, involuntarily running his fingers through his own hair, hoping it was all still there. "We'll be fine. I'll have the rest of the ships by the time the Scylla gets to the front."

"Good, we need them, and we need the Scylla up and running too, how long did that inspection take?"

"A damn week. For a thee day check." he growled in frustration. "We should have been back at the front yesterday, and now it'll be tomorrow morning. Damn.."

"Damn maintenance." Evan interrupted with a smile. "I know, and don't forget to send me what you have so far in transfers and we'll talk later."

He nodded. "Will do." he said, pressing the button to close the connection. He waited a handful of seconds before adding "Damn telepaths"