Pre-positioning

[tomcat]

The days passed and though tense, duty aboard the Columbia became quite dull. Cruising at low warp speed and doing nothing more than passively scanning, the crews primary job was to wait for the return of the data probes and to make sure the ship was nothing more than a hole in space.

In the labs, Tam closed the file on the prax tanimae. The data that had been collated would be delivered, by diplomatic pouch, to his homeworld of Trill for any further research, but for now the doctor had gleaned everything he wanted, or needed, to know. Except for a couple of cuts and burns, the sickbay had been very quiet. The ship was doing no research so little opportunities were arising that required the physician or his teams. Still, Tam worried about what could happen should the ship be engaged by an enemy. He hoped it would not come to anything like that and instead he and his associates would have a time to rest and relax until the ship was re-dispatched on more exciting research missions.

Six decks above the good doctor, Jess Townshend sat at her station on the bridge. She had been perplexed since grabbing the snippet of communication between the freighters and had struggled to make sense of it. She had begun to see repeated syntax in the code and was seeing a relationship - it would not be long until she cracked it. Her console beeped once as the sensitive antena that laced the light cruiser received a burst signal from somewhere out in space, but in relative close proximity.

Jess turned to see Mr. Stonn reacting at his station already from the contact, "Captain! One of the probes just transmitted its return."

It was the first of many.

Over the next couple days, the Columbia began to collect her charges as they appeared along her flight path. Grahm worked diligently alongside Ramos' men to bring the probes back on board and then to transfer the data core from each into the ship's main computer as well as a 'black box' that would supposedly survive the utter destruction of the starship. There had been no direct order given to Darkan or his cew as to whether or not the information could be reviewed, and so Stonn and the captain did just that.

With the retrieval of probe 11, things became very interesting. Darkan sat alone in his ready room calling up the many images that the probe had captured beyond the Romulan neutral zone when he saw something that chilled his blood. He paused the computer in its scroll and stared at the image. On his screen was a Constitution-class starship, or at least a ship that looked just like one, slung under a Romulan drydock.

"Impossible," the captain thought. Where did the Romulans get a Connie? And why by the coordinates displayed in the lower left corner of the image, was it sitting in a drydock on the Romulan-Klingon border?

While he marveled at the picture, his communicator beeped on his desk. He stubbed the button with his phone and heard Townshend's voice, "Captain, I think I have broken this code down enough to get a basic meaning... 'Chak-ruth accepts... await go'... that's it captain."


OOC: Matt I need a Knowledge: Politics (Klingon) or History (Klingon) TN 12 from you and any officer you may include in this information from Townshend.

[GandalfOfBorg]

OOC: Are we running the Knowledge skill groups like Lore skill gorups in LOTR?  If so, I cannot make this test.

"Do you have any idea what it means?" Darkan asks his comm officer.  If not, he will ask Stonn and Grahm to review the snippet decoded by Townshend and ask for supposition.  If neither can offer an answer, he will ask them to investigate further.

OOC: If not, then...
TN 12 Lore: History - (4+3)+6=13

[tomcat]

The message from Townshend was vague but the name Chak-ruth struck a note in the captain's memory. The Klingon government was made up of a group of loosely organized families, each vying for domination of the empire but control always falling in the hands of the strongest. The Chak-ruth were a formidable family and the Federation estimated they controlled a forty ship fleet but they were still low on the totem pole.

The monitor glowed before him with the image of the Constitution tied up to the drydock...

[GandalfOfBorg]

OOC: Spreading the wealth... err, delegating

If there were Klingons covertly or with the approval of the High Council working with the Romulans, this would be deemed a high priority threat by Starfleet.  To Jess, "Send all the sensor information obtained about the starship and drydock to Mr. Stonn and Ramos.  Orders are to determine if the ship is indeed a captured Starfleet vessel or a Trojan horse.  Then I would like you and Mr. Grahm to investigate the reference to the Klingon House of Chak-ruth for information about alliances between them and the Romulans and other prominent houses.  Senior staff meeting in three hours with preliminary reports."

This potential Klingon connection got Darkan on edge -- the last time he tangled with them, it wasn't pretty.  In fact, encounters with them never are.

[tomcat]

OOC: Forgot about Darkan's enmity for Klingons! This will make this episode even more fun! :D

[Edrahil / Tam]

Meanwhile, in Sick bay...
Doctor Tam goes over the duty roster. And sterilizes all the vials and other equipment. Again. And sits, and waits for the inevitable flood of casualties to come. Eventually. But for now, he just keeps organizing his equipment, and making sure things are still ready.

OOC: Doc's bored in sickbay all by himself ;-), with nobody getting injured... so I'm picking up a bridge-character as well, to interact in bridge-focussed scenes like this.

"Send all the sensor information obtained about the starship and drydock to Mr. Stonn and Ramos.  Orders are to determine if the ship is indeed a captured Starfleet vessel or a Trojan horse.  Then I would like you and Mr. Grahm to investigate the reference to the Klingon House of Chak-ruth for information about alliances between them and the Romulans and other prominent houses.  Senior staff meeting in three hours with preliminary reports."

"Aye sir," Townsend replies. She quickly transfers all the records to the appropriate people, then looks at Grahm and nods her head towards the conference room door. "Shall we get to work?" she asks, secretly looking forward to the idea of spending a few hours alone with him.

Townsend and Grahm move to the quiet of the conference room and Jess immediately starts calling up information on the computer, reading through information with Grahm, handing him any interesting passages, bookmarking the complicated stuff for further review later, and just enjoying the time spent with him, even if they're only exchanging a few words of small talk as they pore over the information.

OOC: Not sure what test you want here, let me know.

[tomcat]

OOC: Tests needed:

First of all, there is no tests necessary for the data to be transfered to the appropriate senior officers, as these are just simple tasks. The research required will require a series of tests that the test results will be added to each other for a grand total and time - I will then compare the grand sum to a DOS chart that I have written down and give you the detail of information achieved from that.

Townshend and Grahm

• Test 1: Computer Use (Retrieve) - +1 affinity from either character for Hacking specialty
• Test 2: Investigate (Research) - +1 affinity from either character for Computer Use (Retrieve) specialty
• Test 3: Any Knowledge: Culture (Klingons) or Knowledge: Politics (Klingon) - +1 affinity for either character who has either aforementioned skills

Stonn and Ramos

• Test 1: Computer Use (Retrieve) - +1 affinity from either character for Engineering: Structural (Spaceframes)
• Test 2: Engineering: Structural (Spaceframes) - +1 affinity from either character for Computer Use (Retrieve) specialty

What the tests can be defined as doing is as follows:

For Townshend and Grahm, they are retreiving confidential starfleet data from the main computer core and investigating the current political situation of the Klingon Empire drawing on personal knowledge as well.

Stonn and Grahm will be doing technical structure layovers to the grainy image to attempt to determine if the Connie is real or a red herring.

[Edrahil / Tam]

OOC: Tests needed:

• Test 1: Computer Use (Retrieve) - +1 affinity from either character for Hacking specialty

Townshend will attempt (Computer use +7), with +1 affininity from Grahms Hacking. Roll(2d6)+8: 2,2,+8; Total:12

• Test 2: Investigate (Research) - +1 affinity from either character for Computer Use (Retrieve) specialty

Grahm will attempt (Investigate +5), with +1 affinity from Grahms Retrieve. Roll(2d6)+6: 6,2,+6; Total:14

• Test 3: Any Knowledge: Culture (Klingons) or Knowledge: Politics (Klingon) - +1 affinity for either character who has either aforementioned skills

Townshend will attempt (Knowledge: Klingon Culture +5), with +1 affinity from Grahms Klingon Culture. Roll(2d6)+6: 5,3,+6; Total:14

I'm not sure I did understood Test 3 skills vs affinity properly, so you might have to recheck that one for me.

[tomcat]

OOC: You did it fine Chris... the affinity would be gained from either character if they had the same cultural or political knowledge of the Klingons.


The two officers spent the hours reading the monitors as data scrolled up and their eyes began to ache from the work, trying to glean some piece of information that could bring to light the meaning of the vague communique. Even Captain Darkan had to step in to help by allowing further clearance into the confidential files stored within the computer core.

So far what had been pieced together was that the imperial houses of the Klingons were fighting amongst themselves. Not that this was unusual, but there had been a hard economic period suffered by the empire and Starfleet had begun speculations of civil war. The three main houses that had greatest control of the empire were struggling to maintain control of the other four, but these four had become very adventurous in their ways and were beginning to defy the common laws. Reports had come in of Klingon incursions along the Neutral Zone by rogue warships that flew the banners of the lesser families, which gave evidence of the greater houses losing influence.

Lastly, Townshend scrolled up an article that added a chilling aspect - the Federation had just been told through diplomatic channels of the death of the lord of the Tal-Hok'nah, the dominating family within the Klingon Empire. Infighting was now being reported as the various leaders within the family vyed for the top position. The weakness this had caused had given the other families opportunity to make claims for themselves.

All in all, the two officers looked at the information before them and there was but two words that summed it up... pending anarchy.

[tomcat]

OOC: Shawn D. has informed me his computer has been down over the last week... so I apologize for the delay. I will have Stonn and Ramos' test rolls tomorrow and we'll move on our story. 

[tomcat]

While Grahm and Townshend made headway with the transmission, Stonn and Ramos worked diligently to try to enhance the grainy image of the apparent Constitution-class starship that had been taken by the probe. The Vulcan's fingers moved over his console and the ship's computer cycled through the digital pixels again to 'clean' up and refine what was starship and what was surrounding spacedock, and space behind that. The shadows were the hardest part, as the spacedock was far away from any star that could light the vessel.

As the image was refined, Ramos set about laying technical structural charts over the image in three dimension, the ship's computer rolling the blueprint so that it sat in the same manner as the image. The two officers, along with computer analysis, then compared the lines to see if it were a captured Federation ship or a mock up. Although the lines did not line up completely, the computer generated a 85.263% reliabilty percentage that the image was a true Constitution.

The captain's board meeting was scheduled to start in another twenty minutes and the two officers would have to try to help Darkan make decisions on almost a 15% margin of error.


OOC: Computer (Retrieve) and Engineering (Spaceframes)

Stonn Computer Use (Retrieve) test:
Roll(2d6)+12: 2,2,+12 Total:16

Ramos Engineering: Structural (Spaceframes) test:
Roll(2d6)+8: 5,5,+8 Total:18