~\\_
\\\\_
`\\\\\ -----------------------------------------
|\\\\\ Starfleet Command, Eighth Fleet (OOC)
\\\\\|__.-~~\
_--~ ~~/ Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone"
/~ _-~~~' Embarked on U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901
('-//////-// Rear Admiral Tebrun Lora Kor, Commanding
////// }}-) -----------------------------------------
/////~ Simulation Report
_///~ Stardate 240209.09
`
_______________________________________________________________________
/ Simulation Teaser |
/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
=/.= Flag Quarters, U.S.S. Coronado, 0110 ship's time =/.=
Timor had almost killed him. It came that close.
"Enora Jokala Vok. Zin Kor Nassa Sayan. Za'ud Vazist," Tebrun Lora
Kor said, voice calm, steady, and relaxed. "Timor rijer hĉda.
Timor rijer hĉda." Slow repetition of the phrases, almost by rote,
almost hypnotic. Again and again and again. Patience was the best
tactic, persistence and an unwillingness to give up almost as good.
Fortunately, as the Trill Admiral continued, it became easier and
easier. "Zin Kor Nassa Sayan. Timor rijer hĉda. Timor rijer
hĉda." Exhaling slowly, Tebrun Lora Kor allowed himself to relax.
Done. Finally.
It had taken almost three hours, but Kor had finally pacified the
Timor host. He'd never had to work so hard or so long to end a Rite
of Emergence, but then again, Kor had never allowed the Rite to
remain active for so long before. In the end, Timor had been almost
rabid... almost impossible to control... had all but taken over the
Tebrun host, if truth be told. Only calm patience and persistence
had allowed the symbiont to bury the former host's memories. Timor
was still there, of course, but was now again just one part of the
general background noise of Tebrun's thoughts rather than an almost
physical presence. Back to normal.
Lora Kor exhaled, then blew out the two candles, pushing himself
slowly to his feet as he did so. Wincing and rubbing absentmindedly
at his lower back, he looked around the room as if seeing it for the
first time. He frowned. Timor had started redecorating Lora Kor's
Flag Quarters aboard Coronado, but that could be undone easily
enough. Still looking around the room, Tebrun exhaled again, this
time a bit shuddery. With the Rite of Emergence active, Tebrun had
never noticed the changes. Or more likely, he had had bigger
problems than the decor.
"This above all, to thine own self be true," the Admiral said,
smiling a tired smile to himself. M. Night Shyamalan's excellent
2018 parody of "Hamlet" had been one of the Vanguard Movie Night
selections the previous evening. Lora Kor had suggested the movie
himself. "Computer, lights."
In the end, though, along with his knowledge, Timor had taught him
one important thing. To thine own self be true. Tired, back and
legs aching from sitting still for so long, but still very calm,
Lora Kor walked to the replicator. It didn't take long at all for
the computer to produce what he wanted. Apparently, requests for
this particular item were becoming quite common among the Defenders.
----------
=/.= VADM Brian Aldur's Office, Crystal Palace, the next morning =/.=
Aldur had at least agreed to a table and some chairs in this office
in addition to the desk, but his facilities on Crystal Palace
weren't much less bare than his facilities on Reor had been. The
ever-present sword hung on the wall behind him, but other than that,
the one concession to formality was the enormous hardwood desk the
Camelynians had insisted he take. Lora Kor was on the far side of
that desk, going over the mission briefing Aldur had given him.
He finished reading through the PADD, then looked up, almost but not
quite chuckling. "Admiral," he said, "this is a little crazy. My
compliments."
Aldur almost smiled, but didn't. "Do we have sufficient control of
Masada to do it?" The Vice Admiral, in his most formal voice, had
immediately rejected the thought of calling the ship U.S.S. Masada,
and therefore giving the ship a commission in Starfleet. He hadn't
even done that for Blackrazor. Charlie Theron had been all too
happy to pick up the slack, and now the enormous Pfhor cruiser and
its attendant destroyer were at least semi-officially part of the
Reorsan fleet.
"I'll see to it that we do, Admiral," Lora Kor promised. "We're
coming to... some kind of understanding with S'buuth," he said. "I
think the only thing that brought him back to us in the end was the
chance to meet the Jjaro."
Aldur nodded. "To meet one's God," he said... and was his voice a
little wistful? "It must be quite an opportunity for him." Then
Aldur's voice hardened a bit. "This will be very dangerous, Rear
Admiral... if the Jjaro's motives are at all in conflict with our
own..." Aldur left the rest of the sentence unsaid, but Lora Kor
easily understood the meaning.
"We're becoming dangerously close to the philosophy of S'buuth's
Overlords in this, Admiral," Lora Kor said. There was no rebuke in
his voice, but there *was* almost a question there.
Aldur leaned forward. "Tebrun, I'll see the S'pht freed both
because it is the right thing to do, and because it will weaken and
demoralize the Hegemony so much that it might be decades before they
recover," he said. "But if S'buuth wants to live to see it happen,
he needs to understand our rules and our structure." Aldur paused.
"You might even tell him that," he said, then shook the topic away.
He pointed at the PADD. "I assume there won't be any problem
putting Coronado or Vanquish where they need to be?" he asked. His
voice was still a little hard.
Lora Kor shook his head. "Shouldn't be a problem," he said, "but
that's the part that's a little crazy. I'll tell Captain Daren it
was your idea."
That broke the spell; Aldur chuckled, and relaxed. The older man
had been considering what to do about Lora Kor's somewhat reckless
behavior of late, and was glad that he seemed to be settling back
into the job. "If you can't handle the responsibility, I'm used to
the buck stopping at my desk, Mister," Aldur said with faux
seriousness, then smiled slightly. "I won't keep you from your
duties, Admiral," he said, dismissing the younger man.
Lora Kor nodded, stood, and turned to go. He was two steps toward
the door, when Aldur's voice, sounding a little forced, a little
strangled, stopped him. "Tebrun?"
Tebrun Lora Kor turned around, about to ask if Aldur needed anything
else, when he realized that the Admiral wasn't looking at his face.
Aldur was looking at the cuff of his uniform jacket.
The Starfleet uniform jacket has a small band of department color at
both wrists. Tebrun's jacket had slate grey bands. Pinned on
Tebrun's right sleeve on that slate grey band was a small golden
pin, a little less than two centimeters across. An eagle, wings
spread, head and claws down, falling on some unseen prey. Once upon
a time, it had been the logo for part of the Starfleet perimeter
defense forces. Now, it was the unofficial logo of the Defenders.
It was decidedly not an official part of the Starfleet uniform,
though more and more of the golden eagle pins were appearing, on
enlisted and officers of higher and higher rank. The pin had a
simple meaning: those that wore it believed Reorsa and the other
allies to be members of the Federation in absentia... that the oaths
they had taken as Starfleet officers applied to these allies far
from the Milky Way.
Aldur stared at the pin on Lora Kor's sleeve, then raised his eyes
to look at Tebrun's face. The Rear Admiral was calm. Tebrun didn't
say a word, but had he, he might have asked calmly, "If this isn't
home, then why did I put myself through working with Timor? Why did
I almost die for this place?" He didn't say it, because Aldur
didn't question.
The older man exhaled then nodded, seeming almost resigned. "Thank
you, Admiral. That will be all," was all Aldur said.
----------
The Flag staff aboard Crystal Palace shared a Yeoman, Sunlight-on-
Meadow, a young and enthusiastic braid. Many joked that with four
people of Admiral's rank or equivalent and their total Flag staff of
sixteen to assist, Sunlight needed all of her 28 spare limbs to keep
up with the work. At this particular time, though, her job was
simple: wait for a visitor to Vice Admiral Brian Aldur's office.
When the man arrived, she stuck a pair of cords into Aldur's office
to let him know.
"He's here, Admirals," she said, keeping three eyes on the new
visitor and four on Aldur and the other man in his office.
Aldur glanced at the man already in his office, Rear Admiral Todd
Marshall, and smirked, very slightly. Marshall buried his own smile
and stood up from the chair he'd been using, turning to face the
door, leaning against the front of Aldur's desk. Aldur, seated
behind the desk, nodded. "Thank you, Sunlight... send him in," he
said to the Yeoman.
The braid nodded with two cords, then nodded again using three cords
facing the new visitor. With a murmured thanks, Rear Admiral Dev
Wallace passed the braid and entered Aldur's office. Sunlight
closed the door behind the man.
Short, stocky, and dark-haired, Wallace was of a physical type with
Aldur, but was the same age as Marshall. Both Wallace and Marshall
had been officers under Aldur's command twenty-five years prior and
couldn't have been more opposite, then. Marshall had been cocky
almost to the point of arrogance, a practical joker with a towering
self-confidence in his abilities. Wallace had been quiet, reserved,
almost joyless... serious beyond his years, and hiding the fact that
he'd been a senior member of Section 31 from his Captain.
As the men had aged, their personalities had become more similar
than either of the two was likely to admit.
Marshall walked over to Wallace with what could only be disapproval
on his face. He almost snorted, then spoke as if Wallace had
interrupted a conversation. "As I was saying, Admiral," he said to
Aldur, passing behind Wallace, "the man's conduct was reckless.
Dangerous! He knowingly and willfully endangered the lives of the
people under his command!" Marshall orbited the much-shorter
Wallace like a prosecutor badgering a witness. "Oh, I have a pretty
good idea how this one got his flag," he said, indicating Wallace's
rank insignia with a sniff, "and I'd bet that bribery or blackmail
was invol--"
Wallace, for his part, probably hadn't heard much of the speech.
"Reckless!?" he nearly shouted, actually sputtering. "Reckless?
Hello, pot! My name is kettle! I brought Panache through with
solid evidence of what I'd find on the other side. YOU," he said,
pointing an accusatory finger at Marshall, "threw YOUR ship and YOUR
crew over a cliff, hoping there'd be water at the bottom of it!"
Wallace turned to Aldur. "Admiral, you can't possibly belie--"
Then Wallace got a good look at Vice Admiral Aldur's face. While
Aldur's face was expressionless, his eyes sparkled with uncontained
amusement. Wallace turned back to Marshall to find the younger man
facing him with a smirk, arms crossed.
When Marshall told the story later at parties to the great amusement
of listeners, he allowed that he'd deliberately provoked Wallace,
but then again, Marshall had always been able to prick Dev Wallace
in the most sensitive spots.
At the outrage that threatened to erupt on Wallace's face then,
Aldur actually chuckled. "Good morning, Admiral. Welcome to M64,"
he said to Wallace, indicating a chair. Marshall laughed, clearly
pleased to have gotten the other man's goat. Wallace looked
inclined to grumble, but did sit, and Aldur turned to Marshall.
"Todd, let's bring Dev up to speed on the Pfhor as quickly as
possible, please. Though I'm loath to admit it, he has much more
experience with advanced political intrigue than you and I put
together ("That's for damn sure," Marshall interjected with another
grin at Wallace), and Mithras knows that he's probably got some
insights into the Hegemony in that area that we could use."
\_______________________________________________________________________
\ End Simulation Teaser |
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone" Staff:
Commanding, TG 85.3: RADM Tebrun Lora Kor (Jester)
S-1, Group Adjutant: LCdr. Sieven Drexler (Brad)
S-2, Group Intelligence: LCdr. Kariasa Ma'Aru (Kari)
S-3, Group Logistics: Cmdr. Savant (Savant)
U.S.S. Coronado Crew Roster:
Commanding Officer: Capt. William Daren (Daren)
Executive Officer: Cmdr. Darek Smith (Aggie)
Marine Commandant: Col. Jeremy Ironside (Fraser)
Raptors Squadron Leader: Lt. Colonel Thomas Wayne (Masters)
Chief Tactical Officer: Lt. Kyle Marcy (Marcy)
Assistant Tactical: Ens. Tamarith (Tamarith)
Flight Operations: Lt. Caring-Thoughts (Alffred)
Science Officer: Lt. Kathleen Hammond (Kath)
Science Officer: LCdr. Isamu Dyson (Isamu)
Company Commander: MCpt. Jacob Prescot (Shadow-FjP)
Flight Leader: 1Lt. Andrew Stylus (JadeFalcon)
Flight Leader: 2Lt. Mikhail Petkovic (Archyyt)
Chief Engineer: Cmdr. Zunite Oswald (Sonya)
Assistant Engineer: LCdr. Jack C. Farley (CCC)
Chief Medical Officer: Lt. (JG) Jason Vogel (Thompson)
Assistant Medical: Lt. Lauren Dyson (Natty)
Civilian Liaison: S'buuth (rev)
On Extended Leave of Absence:
Assistant Engineer: Lt. Aramis Skylooker (LewisSharp)
Positions Available:
None!
------
Jester
Rear Admiral Tebrun Lora Kor
Commanding, Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone"
embarked on U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901
http://www.jestertrek.com/coro2400/