Putting The Colony On Alert

Posted on Sun Feb 14th, 2016 @ 1:03am by Captain Li Hawke & Lieutenant Commander Antos Lev & Commander Adara Gunnar

Mission: Flight of the Valkyries
Location: Valhalla Colony - CO's Office

* Valhalla Colony - CO’s OFfice *

Cody, Adara’s adorable Boxer, whined and pawed at Adara’s knee. He had a mouthful of ball and a pleading look.

Adara patted his head, rubbed an ear and said, “Not now, kiddo. It’s raining, for one thing. And I have work to do. You can go out by yourself, though.”

Cody had the 24th-century version of a dog door: a collar that the computer could track, opening doors that the dog was allowed through and notifying Adara where he was. As her office door opened, admitting Lev, Cody dropped his ball and trotted out through the open door, past Lev.

“Afternoon, Commander,” Adara greeted him.

Lev watched Cody trot past with a smile, then took a seat opposite her desk. “And to you. I got the official word in today - the construction is done. They’ll be finishing some clean-up for the next week, then will leave us on our own. Tobin stopped cheering at that news long enough to tell me everything’s running smoothly.”

“Good, I like hearing that,” she said as she reached down and delicately picked up the drool-coated ball. She dropped it into a bowl of water on her desk with a grimace. “Ready for our 2 o’clock with Captain Hawke?”

“I am,” he answered. “I know she scheduled it for a convenient time for us but that would make it the middle of the night where she is. What’s she doing up at 4 AM? It makes me wonder if this isn’t something more than a casual check-in.”

“I think she’s just one of those who doesn’t sleep much,” Adara theorized. She knew that Li’s husband, Commander Sakkath, was out on a mission to rescue a stranded team. If it were Isi on that mission, she wouldn’t be sleeping very well, if at all. “Let’s just hope this is a check-in, though she might be curious whether we’ve had any other pirates or opportunists come through.” A month ago, the colony’s construction teams had been surprised to find that over half their supplies had gone missing.

“Any news yet on the rescue mission?” Lev asked. “That could be part of the reason for the call too. I suppose we’ll see. It’s about that time though. Coffee before we start?” He rose and crossed to the replicator.

“Ah, no thanks, Lev.” She shook her head. When he was back with his coffee, they chatted a moment, Adara remotely checked on Cody’s whereabouts and then her console chimed: an incoming call from SB900. She opened the channel, “Good morning, Captain Hawke.”

Li laughed at the greeting. “Hello, Commander Gunnar, Commander Antos. I’m not sure whether it’s morning or what you’d actually call this time. My assistant left here at 2200 hours and all but ordered me to go home. How are things going out there?”

“So far, so good. We haven’t yet needed to call out the Marines for any reason,” Adara said then looked at her secondary screen and grinned. “Well, other than as ball-throwers.” Two uniformed Marines were in the central courtyard, tossing a ball for the dog, who was running as fast as he could to catch the ball.

“I’ll take that as a good sign then.” Li could be seen drinking from a mug in the view screen. “Ours will be returning soon. Jackson reported that they have recovered the team and are on their way home. They should be here in about thirty hours or so.”

A bright smile lit Lev’s face. “That’s great news. They should be able to fully restore them, given the short time as drones?”

Li nodded. “The medical team here foresees no issues, so we are all breathing a lot easier.”

“Wonderful!” Adara smiled. “But that isn’t the purpose of this call, is it?”

“Only part of it.” Li reached for a padd and then began to fill them in on the sphere and the story of aros and her brother. “Commander Leroy and his team are working on it now to see what they can discover. We’ve sent out a patrol team that is moving out towards Krenim space to be an advance warning if they start moving this way. They departed several hours ago and may be stopping there for a brief layover sometime tomorrow.”

Knowing that the colony would be among the first targets of an advancing force, Adara frowned. “We’ll be on the lookout for them,” she said. “And we’ll make sure the Marines are aware of the possible threat.”

“Good. I am sending you a complete report on what we know so far and you can forward it to Captain Olex. I need to warn you though...the ship that is to arrive, the Kohana. It’s an Enaran ship but it’s been assimilated. Long story but it was done by Ensign Six to get some crew out of a jam. They will make contact in plenty of time before they arrive so that the Marines don’t mistake them for an enemy. They are travelling incognito so no uniforms, no markings of the Fleet whatsoever.”

“Understood,” Lev answered. “How long will they stay?”

“Likely no longer than twenty-four hours. They won’t need supplies, this is mainly so that the Intel staff can update you on anything new and they can have a little ground time before going into the farther reaches,” Li answered.

“We’ll make certain that they have the ground time they need. They can stop here for re-supply as well, if needed.” Adara made a note about the ship. “The Kohana. Got it.”

“Also, Commander Kh’ali has made contact with all our allies and put them on alert. The Divitian and Brenari ambassadors are on their way here. The Dendrian Order has been notified and Tor can contact them to follow up. They have offered to put their forces on patrol to assist you as needed.” Li stopped finally. “Any questions?”

“How certain are we that the Krenim will come after this thing? It sounds like they hadn’t gone after it when the Devorians had it,” Adara asked.

“We don’t know. As for why they didn’t? It’s our theory that they weren’t aware who had it until the Devore lost it and began a search for it. The uproar to find it is what alerted the Krenim as far as we can tell. The intel is sketchy but we have two people out that way.”

“Okay. If anything new comes up, let us know. We’ll be on guard for Krenim ships.” Adara glanced at Lev, “Anything else?”

“That should do it for now. We’ll inform Tor and she can update you once she knows more,” Lev answered.

“Very well. It’s good to see you two. Don’t be strangers. Hawke out.” The screen went dark.

Adara blinked then shifted the image of Cody and the two Marines to the screen. “War,” she whispered. “Let’s hope that can be avoided.”

Lev let out a long breath and shook his head. “Let’s hope so too. It would be tragic to lose this place so soon and have to evacuate the crew,” Lev agreed. “We’d better tell Tor.”

“And Tobin. He might want to consider building a shelter that could withstand orbital weapons.” Adara said. “Let’s call a meeting. In an hour?”

“Underground would be a good idea. We can use the rise just to the north of here so we can dig down without hitting water.” Lev nodded and rose. “One hour, I’ll put out the word.”

“‘kay. And I agree: underground. Perhaps line it with sensor blocks so attackers can’t see how many we have. We’ll talk with Tobin. Go, see you in an hour.”

“I’ll round up Cody when I comeback. See you soon.” Lev exited the office, off to inform the senior staff.

Adara put in a message for the Marine commander and made certain that a few others would be present as well. She then looked up in time to see Cody splash into their Fleet-created pond after his ball. Coming out of the water, Cody immediately rolled in a patch of exposed dirt. Adara laughed out loud as the two Marines tried to keep him from spreading the mud onto their uniforms.

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Captain Li Hawke
Commander Adara Gunnar
Commander Antos Lev