/||\        -----------------------------------------
       / || \            Starfleet Command, Second Fleet
      /  ||  \             U.S.S. Coronado,  NCC-63100
   .-/   ||   \-.     Fleet Captain Brian Aldur, Commanding
   ./    ||    \.   -----------------------------------------
   .-_-. || .-_-.              Simulation Teaser
   .-_  \||/  _-.

 _______________________________________________________________________________
/ Simulation Teaser                                                             |
/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

 4 months, 13 days, 11 hours, 56 minutes.

 Fully one third of the monitors aboard U.S.S. Coronado had been programmed
 to display the countdown, which updated every minute.  For twelve days now,
 the countdown had been a grim reminder to the officers and crew aboard ship.
 Never once slacking in its duty, it had efficiently continued counting, and
 seemed destined to continue counting until it reached zero, unaware of the
 feelings of anguish, anger, frustration, and guilt it caused.

 The ships of Task Force 2.7 had become a blockade, and during that twelve
 days, had denied access to any ship approaching the Camelynian system and
 its raging civil war, no matter its registry or stated purpose.  Eleven
 freighters, two medical ships, four Orion Syndicate blockade runners, and
 six Romulan Warbirds -- all halted at the "border" near the outer planets
 of the system.

 It turned out that the system was surprisingly easy to blockade.  MajQa and
 Sullivans were all too efficient at running the blockade runners to ground
 and capturing them.  A tachyon net had been strung across the system, and
 three attempts to bypass it by the Warbirds had been grimly countered by
 Lt. Commander DuLac.  Had anyone asked, he no doubt would have explained to
 them that if he couldn't enter the system, he'd be damned if he let the
 Romulans in.

 Browning had been angry when DuLac had attempted to leave Sickbay three
 days after arriving there, frustrated when he attempted to leave on the
 forth day, resigned when he finally escaped on day five.  He declared
 loudly to those who asked (and not a few who didn't) that Camelynians were
 now on his short list of least favorite patients, possibly even ahead of
 other doctors and starship Captains.

 DuLac had made several attempts to get in to see the Captain -- all denied.
 The Captain was "too busy" with the paperwork resulting from the blockade,
 the endless calls from Starfleet wondering when it was going to be over,
 the even more endless stream of reports from the war.  The Dominion had
 begun hitting planets near the Task Force's position, little caring that
 most of them were neutral, and not Federation members at all.  Bianus,
 Berengaria, Daneb -- they were now all Dominion "protectorates."

 When he casually attempted to enter the shuttlebay, he had been suprised
 to find it completely locked down.  The same could be said of the
 transporters, airlocks, and escape pods.  The sensors could not help but
 register the high-energy subspace field surrounding Coronado, and on the
 one occasion that a Camelynian ship had approached the blockade force,
 Invincible had intercepted it well clear of the task force flagship.

 The countdown, oblivious to all of this, kept counting, ignoring the
 moral implications, ignoring all implications.  The computer models
 calmly predicted that in 4 months, 13 days, 11 hours, and some moderate
 number of minutes, all life on Camelyn would be destroyed.

\_______________________________________________________________________________
\ End Simulation Teaser                                                         |
 ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ

----------
Ross Glenn aka Jester
Fleet Captain Brian Aldur, U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-63100
http://www.ussrenegade.com/coro2400/