Day Zero

Posted on Tue Oct 3, 2023 @ 7:37pm by Captain Jason Faulkner

1,387 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Flashbacks
Location: USS Europa, CIC
Timeline: Date at 0000

The chatter in Europa's CIC had slowly grown quieter and more grim as the ship warped closer to the unnamed binary system where Shenzhou had run into a monster of a Klingon warship. When Admiral Anderson had first spoken with Captain Georgiou, everyone on Europa had assumed that her report had been in the context of her ship. Sightings of major Klingon capital ships were rare, but there were a couple known types that would certainly dwarf an old ship like a Walker-class cruiser. Then the first telemetry started coming in and people began to realize just what they were facing. This strange ship of the dead was bigger than Europa herself, one of the largest ships in Starfleet's lineup.

Jason Faulkner was too busy to be nervous. As the ship's deputy chief science officer, CIC was his home while the chief was on the bridge. He had a dozen sensor and communications analysts to juggle, plus another eight people from the admiral's staff. They were working not only with the ship's sensors but the feeds coming in from the ships that had already arrived to reinforce Shenzhou as part of the hastily assembled Task Force Europa. It was his job to take all the data they were reporting and turn it into actionable intelligence for the bridge team or the admiral.

"We've confirmed two battlecruisers, both BortaS Bir type, and another Qugh destroyer," Jason was saying to Commander Slarv, Anderson's Tellarite chief of staff. They stood across from each other at the central tracking table. "Twenty-five ships total, all known classes except that first battleship type."

"Troublesome," she said, looking over the data. "But a lot of these look like smaller scouts and raiders. We've got a decent number of heavy hitters of our own, and I'm thinking that this big ugly bastard isn't as tough as it looks."

"I agree it's probably more of a command ship and there's a lot more engine than I'd expect, but it's still Klingon. Also apparently covered in corpses."

"Lovely."

"What worries me more is that we've seen ships from multiple houses. This one here, for example, is in our database as the personal flagship of the head of House YaQ'To. Fourth Fleet has seen it around M'Talas, doing business with the Kyrin-Shulk syndicate."

"We're a long way from Orion space. I'll pass this up to the admiral. See if you can find out who he might be dealing with on the big corpse ship."

"Intelligence is sketchy on individual Klingons."

"Do your best."

"Yes, sir." Jason retreated to the rear science cluster and began giving orders to the specialists there. He didn't have a lot of hope there, given no one had ever seen that design before, but if the Klingons were talking with each other maybe that was an angle. "Luka, see if you can get me the comms officer on the T'Plana-Hath. They've got the best receiver array over there. Dig up whatever SFI has on Klingon encryption, too."

That plan went out the window a minute later. A series of alerts and status change flags went up across every board and screen at once.

"Weapons flash!" called out a sensor operator. "Reading phaser blink and photon detonations."

"We just lost telemetry on the Huascar - correction, now receiving an automatic distress signal!"

"Shenzhou reports the fleet is taking heavy fire!"

"Hey!" Jason shouted. Suddenly all eyes were on him, a deeply unpleasant feeling. "Voices down. We need to communicate clearly and shouting over each other won't help. Chiffy, make sure this is getting relayed back to the starbase. Scan, telemetry, the bridge is going to need to know where to drop us out of warp. Get them a good track of the battle and the stellar debris."

Despite their rapid approach, the display of the fleet swiftly grew less certain as ships shut down their long-range telemetry feeds. It was hard to say who was going dark to save power and who was lost to battle damage. It was only when they were almost ready to exit warp that they started to get a clearer picture of the situation, and even that was a confused furball. When the star streaks out the forward windows were replaced with the stars and the swirling accretion disc of the twin stars, a number of ships on both sides were visible, both as hulks and clouds of debris.

Slarv had stepped aside to confer with the admiral down on the bridge. "Faulkner, Anderson's going to try to talk sense into the Klingons' thick skulls while I get the fleet reorganized. Find out what other ships might be in range, especially any hospital frigates. I have a bad feeling about this."

"Yes, ma'am." Jason moved towards communications, only to stop as he saw one of the sensor displays. He leaned over the operator's shoulder to try to get a closer look. There was something wrong about what he was seeing but it took several seconds for the reason to register. "Why is there an eddy in the gas there?"

"Sir?"

"Get me a thermal register in arc one. See that? Something's disrupting the gas and debris ahead of us."

The entire ship lurched and Jason found himself on the floor. It took a second to realize he was bleeding from his nose. He staggered to his feet, nearly falling again as another shockwave ran through the deck. There was a hellish mix of green and orange lights coming through the windows as something split the saucer apart almost to the bridge like a blade wreathed in viridian flame.

A new klaxon sounded, one he'd only heard in drills, and a panicked voice called over the intercom, "Abandon ship! All hands to escape pods!" It might have been the first officer, but he couldn't say. A flatter computerized voice followed.

"Warning. Autodestruct sequence initiated. Ninety second countdown."

"Chief ch'Ifferan!" Jason screamed over the din. "Lead the way to the starboard pod bay!"

"Sir!" The Andorian grabbed some of the flag staff by the collar and hauled them to the door. The rest followed and the Europa's permanent CIC crew were close enough. The familiar corridor outside was dark and full of flickering lights, but the old chief petty officer knew the way by heart.

Jason did a round of the room to make sure no one was down or immobilized, then took a few seconds to kick open a panel on the ops table and yank out the flight data recorder. He waited at the door for everyone else to file out. Slarv was one of the last to stagger by, bleeding heavily from a head wound, and she started to go the wrong way.

"Lifeboats are this way, ma'am," Jason said, grabbing her by the arm.

"I need to get the rest of my staff!"

"There's no time, ma'am, that's two decks down. They'll remember their drills."

"Let me go!" Slarv jerked free and started limping away. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Jason reached forward and nerve pinched her, catching her as she went limp. The last remaining petty officer helped Jason carry her down the hall to the escape pods. Several hatches were already closed but ch'Ifferan was waiting by the last one. He helped load the commander inside.

"How many seats are left?" Jason asked.

"Just two! We need to go, sir!"

Jason bit his lip, but then the twenty-second alert sounded and that closed out any debate about waiting. They climbed inside and pulled the eject lever. The door slammed shut with bone-snapping speed and the pod lurched up as it exploded up from the dorsal hull.

There was a tiny window in the entry hatch, just big enough to admit the blinding glare of a warp core breach. The shock sent them tumbling amidst the rock and debris while the pilot tried desperately to stabilize them. Eventually they settled on the surface of an asteroid. Outside the battle raged with renewed fury, beams and torpedoes seeming to strobe in synch with his pounding heart.

"What the hell just happened?" Jason asked, finally having a moment to stop and be bewildered.

"I don't know, lieutenant," ch'Ifferan said across from him. "But I think it's going to get a lot worse."

 

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