Tales of Starfleet
Ghosties and Goulies
Part 3
by Phillip Barlow
(p.barlow@ic.ac.uk)

Ghosties and Ghoulies Part 3

The Director sat in his office, reading the report for the fifth time. The implications of it were extreme - he knew that if the situation were not remedied, quickly and quietly, it would cost him more than his position. What was even worse was that, on this occasion, no one was at fault. Even the state of the art sensors on a Prometheus class starship suffered in the middle of a nebula, and with energy emissions that small...the emissions had been lost in all of the background 'noise', so that no one had noticed them. It was only when the sensor logs of both ships had been downloaded for the standard monthly intelligence analysis that they had been noticed at all. Now though, he would have to ensure that the source of the energy emissions did not give up whatever secrets it might have. He touched the communications panel.

"Creighton," he said.

"Yes Director?"

"What is the status of CS1 and CS2?"

"Both are in dock for their six month maintenance checks." 'Damn,' thought the Director. That left him with limited options; the two Prometheus class chase ships were ideal for this kind of mission - they were large and powerful enough to overpower most nosy visitors, but small enough to do it without being noticed. He could send one of his Pathfinders, but that would be dangerous. The Prometheus at least was known to exist. His Pathfinder ships were of a class that was supposed to have never gotten off the drawing board. That was not an option; nor was sending one of his big ships. All that left were the small Antwerp class patrol vessels. They were reasonably well armed but, if caught by something bigger, well, it would be a short battle. But, he had no option.

"Get me the operations commander."

The Casper had been making good time back to the Kranix nebula, until it had crossed paths with a pair of marauding Tholian scouts, apparently on one of their random territorial claims. It had been six hours since they had intercepted the Casper and forced it out of warp. Now, Soton was conversing with the Tholian commander for the fourth time, attempting to extricate the ship from its current predicament. As he spoke, Kavanagh threw a bemused look across the bridge at Richards, who in reply simply shrugged her shoulders. It was at this point that both the ops and tactical consoles started beeping.

"Captain," said Kavanagh. Soton turned to Richards and made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

"Mute," she said.

"What is it Commander?" asked Soton.

"Sensors are detecting four vessels entering the sector on an intercept course. They appear to be two more Tholian scouts and two war cruisers." Soton raised an eyebrow at this. The presence of war cruisers indicated that the Tholians meant business. Evidently the delaying tactics of the first two scouts was a ploy to allow more muscle to arrive and remove the Casper, since it would have needed at least a dozen scouts to match a Cheyenne class starship. Turning to the screen, Soton saw that the Tholian commander had ended their conversation.

"Hail the Tholians."

"No response. They've set up a subspace dampening field; communications are useless." Kavanagh looked at Soton. "We're cut off."

"Battle stations."

One of the war cruisers, together with two scouts, was directly behind the Casper, while the other two scouts were hitting it from each side. Although the shields were holding well, and they had managed to hit each of the Tholian vessels, it was only a matter of time before the shields were overwhelmed. The firepower of the scouts was small but, given enough hits, would cause significant damage. That, combined with the fire of the two war cruisers, which were each as big and almost as powerful as an Ambassador class starship, would eventually prove fatal.

"Shields at 42%, no 4 torpedo launcher disabled, starboard phaser array damaged." The damage reports gave little cause for optimism. Soton had tried every tactical manoeuvre he could think of and it still wasn't enough. The simple fact was that, in this situation, the Casper was the worst of both worlds - she didn't have the power to hit her attackers hard enough, or the manoeuvrability to get out of the way fast enough.

"Captain," said Kavanagh, "I'm detecting a large cluster of warp signatures heading this way." The ship shook again.

"Where from?"

"Directly ahead sir. They're right on top of us." Kavanagh switched the screen to show the space ahead of the Casper, currently occupied by one of the Tholian war cruisers. There was a flash behind the Tholian ship - which cleared to reveal a squadron of Federation starships cruising into the area at impulse. With a Sovereign class vessel at its head, accompanied by a pair of Ambassadors, three Sequoias and three Chimeras on its wings, the squadron immediately began laying in to the Tholian ships. The firefight did not last long, as all six Tholians jumped to warp as soon as they were out of range of the Federation ships weapons.

"Captain, we're being hailed."

"On screen." The image changed to show a stout, middle-aged human male wearing an Admiral's uniform.

"This is Admiral Hardy Rolland aboard the USS Sovereign."

"Captain Soton, USS Casper. I appreciate your timely intervention sir."

"Our pleasure. Can we provide assistance?"

"Thank you, but we have only minor damage. We'll be under way in an hour."

"In an hour the Tholians could be back with a battle group. We'll escort you as far as you're going. Where is that by the way?"

"The Kranix nebula, to rendezvous with my first officer." Rolland appeared to frown at this.

"Captain, I'd like to speak to you in person. Please transport aboard the Sovereign immediately."

"May I ask why?"

"You may ask," replied Rolland, "but I won't tell you over an open channel. Please come aboard the Sovereign as soon as possible."

Freeman sat at the desk in the captain's ready room, staring at the blank monitor screen. In the six hours since he, Krastit and Stanyx had seen the sensor data collected from the Liberty Bell, he had turned the Gumdrop into a hive of activity. To begin with, he had ordered everyone on board to begin a second inspection of the entire ship, this time checking every system thoroughly. The first inspection had been to check whether the ship was in a fit state to make a starbase. Now though he wanted the ship ready for the possibility of going into combat. To that end, he had placed special emphasis on checking both the phasers and photon torpedoes. Concurrent to this, he had sent Krastit and his small team back to the Liberty Bell, together with a vessel containing 10m3 of anti-matter, which hopefully could be used to reactivate the ship's warp core. Although it was more than 200 years old, the Liberty Bell would have an advantage if it came to combat in a nebula - although it had no shields, its hull would be protected through polarisation, unlike a contemporary vessel, which relied on shields that would, in a nebula, not function.

"Stanyx to Freeman."

"Go ahead."

"Inspection of the weapons complete sir. Our torpedo inventory is down by three, but other than that weapons are fully operational."

"You've run diagnostics?"

"Yes sir, using both the main computer and a tricorder." This seemed to satisfy Freeman.

"Very well. Has Commander Krastit reported yet?" Freeman didn't expect an affirmative answer; he would only call them when he had successfully completed his task.

"Not yet sir."

"Very well, maintain rediness. Freeman out." He sat back in the chair, steepling his fingers in front of him. He now had one ship ready. With Krastit's expertise he would hopefully have another. Now all he needed was a plan..., which he could begin to formulate once he knew who he was facing.

He had evidently fallen asleep in the chair, because when the red alert klaxon sounded, Freeman's head jerked forward. At first he thought he was dreaming, until he felt the ship shake. As it settled, he jumped up from the desk and bolted for the door separating the ready room from the bridge.

"Report!"

"A ship came out of the nebula about 1000km to starboard and just started lobbing torpedoes at us," replied Stanyx.

"What's your make on it?"

"Sensor data is poor. I can tell you it's smaller than we are."

"Then what are you waiting for? Shoot back!"

"Weapons lock is inoperative due to the nebula," said Stanyx as the ship shook again.

"Scan for the torpedo's trajectory and use that!" The screen was focused on whatever was shooting at the Gumdrop; due to all the static discharge however, all that could be made out was a vague square shape.

"Torpedoes ready."

"Fire!" A pair of torpedoes were released from the Gumdrop and streaked towards the other ship. Although one missed, the other struck amidships, which brought a pause in the ship's attack. Without waiting, Stanyx launched two more torpedoes while simultaneously bringing the phasers to bear. This time both torpedoes missed, but the strafing by the phasers again hit the other ship. However, there was still fight left in the adversary, as it opened up with its own phasers, searing at the Gumdrop's prone starboard profile. This caused a violent shimmy.

"Starboard EPS grid just went down!" shouted Stanyx over the commotion. "Auxiliary power coming on line to compensate." This was a serious concern - with power distribution on the starboard side down, the port EPS grid had taken over supplying power to the entire ship, something which could well cause an overload. 'As if there wasn't enough to worry about,' thought Freeman as the Gumdrop shook again. Then, he noticed something odd on the screen. The other ship appeared to have stopped firing at them, and instead appeared to be shooting at something else. Not only that, but the something else was shooting back. It was then Freeman realised it was the Liberty Bell. Krastit had not only got it moving, he'd also got it firing. Through the static, Freeman saw the Liberty Bell enter the picture. Before the other ship had a chance to shoot, Krastit opened up with the phase cannons and torpedoes.

"Commander, sensors indicate the other ship's weapons and engines are down. Commander Krastit is hailing us."

"Open a channel. And see if you can lock a tractor beam on that ship," said Freeman. Stanyx began examining his console closely as Krastit's voice came over the speakers.

"Well Commander? I told you we could get her working."

"Mr Krastit, consider me impressed." Freeman broke off as he saw the Gumdrop's tractor beam grab the other ship. "Mr Stanyx, prepare a boarding party. Mr Krastit, I want you there too." Freeman got up to see Stanyx already moving for the turbolift. "Ensign T'Mek, you have the bridge."

The Casper was at warp 8, in formation with the Ambassador class USS Forrestal on one side and its sister ship, the Constitution on the other, directly behind the Sovereign. As soon as Soton had returned from his meeting with Admiral Rolland, he had ordered the ship into the formation before retreating to his ready room. There he had remained, laid out on his couch, going over the meeting with Rolland in his mind. Rolland, it had turned out, was a senior officer with Starfleet Intelligence, who had been given a fleet of starships to take into the Kranix nebula. Twelve hours behind the formation containing the Sovereign was another, much larger group of ships, led by Vice Admiral Sh'varik aboard the Sovereign's sister ship Yamato, together with a third Sovereign, the Arizona, five Akira class carriers and 20 other ships of assorted types. Clearly, Starfleet considered this a top priority; the tiny number of Sovereign class ships in the fleet meant that to have even two participating in the same operation was unheard of. The very thought of what Soton was taking the Casper into made him uneasy.

"Computer," he said. "Play 'Song of India'." Over the speakers, the first few bars of 'Song of India' began playing. Soton always played this when his mind was unfocused - its soft waves of muted trumpet allowed him to find his centre. It was just as the focus was beginning to return that Soton noticed a change in the ship's vibration. Looking out of his ready room window, he saw that the ship had slowed to impulse. He was about to call the bridge when his door chime went. "Come," he said. The doors parted to reveal Kavanagh.

"Captain, we've slowed to impulse."

"So I noticed. I assume there's a good reason."

"Admiral Rolland wanted to wait for the other ships behind us to catch up before we enter the nebula." Soton said nothing, merely nodding absently. "I notice you're playing 'Song of India'," continued Kavanagh. Soton looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "You only play that when you're troubled." The remark was greeted by silence. "Captain, what is going on? Unless there is some major combat expected, Starfleet would have no reason to put three of our five Sovereign class ships in the same place at the same time." Kavanagh thought Soton would remain silent, and was about to press the matter when his captain got up and moved to his desk, turning off the music as he sat down.

"Take a seat Commander," said Soton, proffering the chair opposite. "You are correct in the assumption that there is 'something going on'. Starfleet expects trouble, which explains the presence not only the men o' war, but also the five carriers. However, logical as it would be for me to go into with you what exactly the situation is, I cannot. I, along with the captain of every other ship we are in company with, am under strict orders from Admiral Rolland. That situation may change but, until it does, it will have to be sufficient to me to say that you, and the rest of the crew, should expect trouble." Soton took Kavanagh's silence as acceptance. "Was there anything else Commander?"

"No sir," replied Kavanagh, who still looked uneasy.

"Very well. Carry on." Kavanagh turned to leave before Soton called him back. "Mr Kavanagh."

"Yes sir?"

"Take the ship to yellow alert, as a precaution."

"Aye captain."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope."

"The entire crew was dead?"

"Yep."

"And they were human?" Freeman couldn't believe what he was hearing. An entire crew of humans, numbering fifteen in total, crewing a ship that in theory should only be in Starfleet service, attacking a Federation starship, then committing mass suicide when their position became untenable. Freeman was looking over Stanyx's preliminary report of the ship. It was certainly an Antwerp class courier, but with some major modifications. For a start, it had no passenger space whatsoever - all of this had been taken over by either machinery rooms, containing enhanced power generation and distribution equipment, or by torpedo magazines. The number of torpedoes it had on board wouldn't have appeared out of place on a scout ship patrolling the space lanes for nine months. Then there were the phasers. The power usage would have drained an ordinary Antwerp class vessel, hence the enhanced power distribution.

"So, what did you get from the computer?"

"I couldn't get into the computer," said Stanyx. "They had security programs inside security programs which would take me months to crack."

"So, what are you saying?" said Freeman. "You can't tell me anything?"

"I didn't say that. They seemed to have left the ship in standby mode. I tried to get in through the bridge command console, but all I kept getting was this." Stanyx handed Freeman a PADD. On it was an icon, not unlike the one that appeared at the beginning and end of a transmission from Starfleet. However, although this had a blue disc within a pair of silver olive leaves, instead of there being the stylised star chart, as on the Federation's crest, in the blue disc here were four letters.

"X, X, X, I. What does that mean?" asked Freeman.

"Don't think of them as letters. I did that at first. Then I thought of something else." Freeman looked at them again. 'XXXI' he thought. 'Thirty-One? What in God's name does that mean?'

To be continued…