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COMC Ironside
| | Posted on Monday, July 22, 2002 - 09:27 pm: | |
Tarndare Station had changed in the last six months. Dramatically. Whether it was due to the Pfhor’s campaign against Reor and Meyer, the unrest that continued to grow around the region, or simply because the Pfhor felt it was time to expand and conquer again was unknown. But, like Deep Space Nine in the 2370s, it had now adopted a military function alongside its merchant one.
Hunters and Hounds patrolled the corridors and the promenade. The ‘birdies’ strutted to and fro, either on leave or on business, pushing around the local population. S’pht quietly hummed by in their exoskeletons, moving from computer terminal to computer terminal.
Sitting in a dark corner of what was unmistakably a seedy bar was a quadruped with two large, normal arms and two smaller seemingly useless appendages in the chest. It slowly sipped the concoction from the misty tumbler in front of it, watching the patrols walk by. It had been doing so for off and on for the past three days since its arrival – whether or not it did business on the station or was simply passing through, the bartender didn’t care. But he was occupying a booth when he should’ve been at a stool at the bar.
The bartender walked over and took the glass from the quadruped with one of his six hands as soon as it was empty. In the warbly, chirping language that the Hegemony used, he asked the thing for payment and after receiving it, walked back off without offering another drink.
The quadruped rose and exited the bar shortly afterwards. It wasn’t there for drinking anyhow, and it had been ready to conduct its mission at least a day earlier, but spending the extra time seemed prudent given the territory it was in.
As it exited the bar, as if his exit cued them, a Hunter and Hound patrol emerged from a side corridor and turned to begin patrol of the promenade. As they headed off, the quadruped took a brief and unnoticeable glance around before slipping down the corridor.
Unseen and nigh-silently, the quadruped quickly traversed the corridor and entered another, making several more confusing turns throughout the station before reaching a computer access terminal in an isolated corridor. It approached…and clumsily bonked one of the knees of its forward two legs on the wall.
Jeremy Ironside, or at least his holographically altered representation flinched slightly, and the Colonel cursed himself for not practicing more with the holobelt and the representation that had been chosen by the mission team before his departure. He took an ever so brief moment to chide himself before detaching a small device from his belt.
Savant’s examination and subsequent report on the computer systems of the Pfhor had yielded a wealth of information that Ironside was now praying was accurate. Otherwise, he was in very big trouble.
After attaching the device to the computer terminal’s access port, he extended a data cable from the belt and quickly began accessing the station’s internal computer core. Hidden by the device from both the internal security systems, and hopefully from the S’pht, he quickly began nabbing as much information as possible on the Hegemony and the local space that was in the database. After he retrieved it, he began the dangerous part.
Hacking was not Ironside’s specialty, which was why Savant had given him the device she did. Whether or not it was up to the task of hacking into the Pfhor warship docked to the station would soon be apparent.
Ironside looked at the chronometer on one of the useless holographic arms protruding from his chest. He had monitored and timed the Hunter patrols down to the second. The things were ruthlessly efficient, and he was beginning to reach the dangerous point where the next patrol may pick him up if he exited the area too quickly.
The device attached to the terminal beeped once, quietly, and signaled it was now pulling data from the areas that Savant had deemed most likely to yield effective intelligence. Quickly, the several miniature computer cores integrated underneath the holographic representation of Ironside began to fill with the data.
Then something bizarre happened. While the display screen rapidly flashed with the data it was siphoning from the Pfhor warship, a series of symbols that appeared to be some sort of language quickly appeared, overlayed on the flashing data. Ironside froze and glanced down the corridor. He looked back at the screen just in time to see the symbols morph into…. English.
It read, verbatim: “stop hide you us cannot for all time.”
Ironside moved quickly, stopping the transfer and disconnecting the device in a flash of movement. For a moment he stood there, standing at the computer screen, staring while his mind worked overtime trying to figure out what just happened.
Then the text disappeared and was replaced by the symbols again, which promptly morphed into English.
“Not caught. Defenders will free us from bondage”
The Colonel didn’t wait for another message, within a minute he was back on the promenade, behaving as he had for the past three days on the station. Several minutes later, an asymmetrical shuttlecraft departed the station and exited the area, dropping back to sublight outside the system just long enough for it to disappear into the small craft bay of the cloaked S.R.R. Sienov Temarr.
*** Elsewhere ***
“Commmme to papa,” Admiral Marshall grinned ferociously as the Pfhor transport recovered from the docking bay section of the Pfhor warship that had been seized in the last battle was tractored into position next to the U.S.S. Vanguard.
The last thing that the research teams on the vessel had been able to sink their teeth into had been False Matter: something that was unusual and unambiguous in its own right, and something that was not easily fully understood.
But that was months ago. Now they had something new, and likely incredibly useful to deal with.
Marshall turned around from the bay windows at the crew assembled in the lounge. Team leaders from the various research departments sat, PADD’s in hand, eager smiles across their faces as the tractor beams released the transport and set it into formation with Vanguard.
“Okay, folks, here’s the deal: We have a fully intact and likely fully operational Pfhor starship sitting next door and we’re going to find out what makes it tick. What hurts it, what helps it. What it runs on and what runs it off. What scares it and what it loves. What…” Marshall trailed off for a second, realizing he was rambling. He cleared his throat.
“Martel, you’re on propulsion. Kalten, energy generation and distribution. Kurik, structural integrity, layout, and crew support. Sephrenia and her team will take sensors and electronic warfare.”
Marshall turned and grinned at the last team leader, “Bevier, you get the fun stuff. The weaponry. If at all possible, I’d very much like to know if we can take one of those primary weapons and mount it in place of the Phaser Lance.”
Bevier blinked, “Sir?”
Marshall didn’t respond per se, he just tilted his head slightly and gave Bevier one of those mischievous little grins he gave.
Bevier sighed, “Aye sir. We’ll do our best.”
“Darn tootin’. False matter torpedoes are all well-and-good for destroying those beasts, but I want something I we can use to dissect them and leave’m floating in space for us to grab.”
The assembled crew sat there looking at the Admiral for a moment, not quite sure whether the Admiral was done or not.
“Well? Get to work people! Move it, move it, move it!”
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