The Unexpected Succession

Posted on Wed Oct 4th, 2017 @ 11:07am by Lieutenant JG Sandra Garcia
Edited on on Thu Oct 5th, 2017 @ 12:37pm

Mission: https://wellington.pegasusfleet.site/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Bridge
Timeline: June 15, 2399 @ 15:25 PM

Ross emerged from his ready room, nodding at the Bridge officers on watch. "You sure you're good with sitting this one out, Commander?" Ross asked. He at least wanted to make sure she would be fine. It was usually not customary to leave the First Officer aboard for a formal reception, but in this instance....

"I think it's best, sir. My opinion was made quite clear in the briefing and I think that I would only serve to compromise the mission." Bowman said.

"I'm afraid I agree." Ross said. "I'll be back aboard this evening. Shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary, just some schmoozing. You're not missing much anyway. Enjoy." he added before pausing. "Oh, and Commander..."

"Yes, sir?" Bowman asked.

"Tomorrow morning at 0700, there's something I'd like to discuss with you." Ross said.

"Is everything all right?" Bowman asked, a little concerned but not overly.

"Just some administrative stuff." Ross said. "Good luck!" he said as he left the transporter room. A small smirk formed on Bowman's lips, which she quickly wiped away.

"Mr. Copeland, let me know when they're ready to depart." Bowman said as she assumed the command chair.

"Aye, ma'am." he replied.

T'Lar was at the tactical station watching the read outs and scans. "Commander, all scans of the surrounding area are clear. No unauthorized ships in the immediate area sir...", she said.

Bowman turned to the tactical officer. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Nice to see we don't have any unpleasant surprises."

"Are we expecting any, ma'am?" Garcia replied from the Ops console.

"Not so much a matter of expecting. A person just has to be alert. You never know what could happen." Bowman replied. "Especially with this screwup of a mission." She paused before turning to Lawson, sitting in the chair opposite the XO's. "And now, I suppose we just hold position and wait."

"If there are any problems Commander Muller and her squadron are on standby," Lawson said to Bowman. "They can be scrambled in less than three minutes." He thought for a moment. "If you think there could be any problems, I can order a fighter escort for them."

"I don't anticipate any, but I'll certainly take that idea into consideration." Bowman said. "We never know if there's Klingons or other kind of disruptive elements out there."

"No anomalies or oddities in the area, ma'am. They should make it just fine." Garcia replied.

"I'm sure Holt ran a thorough pre-flight." Bowman added. "It's also just a 5 minute shuttle ride." She was calm and in control. Almost eerily so.

"Captain's Yacht to Wellington. Pre-flight is complete. Requesting clearance to depart." Ross said.

"This is the Bridge. You're clear to depart. Good luck, Captain." Bowman said, almost in a friendly tone. She thought to herself he probably would be a bit confused by that, but in view of recent events it didn't hurt her cause to be nice. After all, she suspected she knew what the 0700 meeting was to be about tomorrow...

"The yacht has left its bay, Commander." Garcia replied.

"Ms. Bishara, Ms. Garcia, continue to monitor the yacht until it reaches its destination." Bowman said.

"Aye, ma'am." Garcia replied.

"Understood, sir", T,Lar said, now switching scans on the yacht's systems. After completing the scan, "All scans show the yachts systems are nominal sir", she added.

Bowman looked towards Operations. "Send a message to the Dalacari outpost that they can expect them fairly soon."

"Aye, ma'am." Garcia said.

Copeland had an uneasy feeling about this... Commander Bowman seemed almost too calm with Ross off the ship. Even smugly content. As best he could tell, Ross was going to be firing her ass tomorrow morning.

"Everything all right?" Garcia asked Copeland.

"Just a nagging feeling about something." Copeland said.

"You may not be wrong. "Lieutenant, are you seeing any strange fluctuations?" Garcia asked as Bowman's interest perked up.

While Garcia and Copeland were talking, she observed a power fluxuation in the yacht's engines. "Yes Garcia, I am...it is in their engine core...I got a bad feeling about this...", she said watching the readouts vigilantly. 'This is not good. A mission of this much importance, I would do an emergency beam out about now, but the damn things are out how convient...wait...", she thought. "Commander...", she never finished...

Garcia had placed the yacht up on the main viewscreen, and at that exact moment, the Captain's yacht exploded. "Oh my god!" she said, placing her hands to her mouth. Copeland simply looked numb as he saw his sinking feeling confirmed.

Bowman looked on, expressionless. "Ms. Bishara, scan for survivors."

T'Lar was in fact already looking for survivors, even though he knew there were none. "No Commander, there were no survivors, I am sorry...", she said.

The engineering officer ran horrified from the bridge. "I need to report to Commander Meru. Excuse me, ma'am." she said.

Bowman sank in her chair. She looked on calmly, though still at least a little saddened by the loss of life. "I will inform the crew. Mr. Copeland, get a shuttle out there to begin retrieving bodies, debris and--"

"Ma'am, the explosion seems to be taking on a life of its own. Flames and debris are likely to intercept us." Garcia replied. "They're heading in the station's direction as well."

"Raise shields. Red alert." Bowman called out as the lights suddenly dimmed. "Commander, prepare to scramble the fighters to patrol just outside our sensor range. Make sure there's no other hostiles in the area we overlooked. Mr. Copeland, back us away."

"I'm on it Commander..." Lawson answered, then tapped his combadge. =/\= Lawson to Muller. Alpha Squadron is active. I say again Alpha squadron is active. Assigned pilots man your fighters. When launched, four to fly patrol outside of sensor range, two to fly combat aerospace patrol over Wellington, flight pattern Tango Delta 4 - 3. Acknowledge. =/\= Muller's reply came back almost immediately. =/\= We're ready CAG. =/\=

"Aye, ma'am." Copeland replied. "Engaging reverse thrusters."

"Commander..." Lawson called out to Bowman. "Alpha Squadron is ready to deploy on your order."

"Deploy." Bowman said.

Lawson nodded in acknowledgment, then called Muller once again. =/\= The order is given, Kat. Get 'em out there... =/\= He didn't wait for her answer because he knew that she and her fighters would be moving already. Almost immediately he saw the fighters appear on the viewscreen before streaking away from the Wellington as they headed for their assigned areas.

Now she got a little agitated with her previous thought about the convenience of the whole thing..."Commander, this was no accident. With the notice of the yacht's engines being involved and the importance of this mission, I believe it could have been avoided by me doing an emergency beam out of the delegation including the captain. However, due to the fact that our transporters were conveniently, and I say CONVENIENTLY, disrupted, I would say it was well planned and thought out to be just an accident. We should therefore have all sensitive areas of the ship, most noticeably engineering, being patrolled and posted in those areas immediately. You also should make Commander Bartlet and the Commodore aware of the events without delay", she said, as her hands skimmed her console.

Garcia turned to the command chair. "Commander, I'm getting reports that Marines are deployed in critical areas of the ship."

Bowman considered the Lieutenant at tactical's theory. Perhaps she was correct... "I will inform them immediately. Providing of course they didn't see it from the station windows."

"So fast?" she asked. "Bridge to Major Lo'Mah. Your men are at high alert. Why?"

"Lo'Mah here, Commander. We were just told what happened. My men are deployed." Lo'Mah said.

"Coordinate with Security for protection and maintain high alert. Bridge out." Bowman said, almost calmly. It was unclear if she expected this, or if she was simply numb from the shock of watching half the senior staff be blown to pieces."

"Ma'am... the flames are approaching us.. I don't think backing up is going to work." Garcia said.

"Keep the shields up." Bowman said. "No matter what the cost. Make sure we have shields."

"Engineering won't be happy, but I'll do my best." Garcia said.

Watching her readouts, she cringed for a moment. 'This is not good...damn it', she thought to herself. Moving her hands evet so slightly she got the same results again. "Commander...you are not going to like it, but shield strength is down to 48 percent. This is due to the failure of the ships systems steming from the current outages shipwide at this point", she said.

Bowman let out a curse in Cardassian without thinking. "A Galor class wouldn't have this problem." she said aloud. "Divert all necessary power to those shields, Lieutenant."

"Yes ma'am. Routing from non-essential and propulsion, though we're not having a lot of luck. If this doesn't hold, we may have to blow out our phaser banks."

"Seems an unwise idea at the moment." Copeland said.

"Let me calculate the strategy, Ensign. You just keep flying this thing." Bowman called out.

"Shields now down to 42 percent and dropping still. Unless we can get them up we are going to be hurt", she said calmly...but she was actually anything but calm.

"Ma'am, if we're not going to get partially blown up ourselves, I need to route from the weapons array."

"Do it." Bowman called out. "Commander Lawson, inform the squadron that we're near defenseless and to take a defensive position around the ship once their scans are complete."

"Muller and one of her fighters are patrolling around us as we speak commander..." Lawson said, before calling the squadron leader once again. =/\= Cobra, when the scans are completed, Commander Bowman has ordered a recall of the fighters to a defensive position on the Wellington. =/\=

=/\= Understood. Wilco. =/\= was her only response. It was a short and simple message but Lawson understood it completely. Wilco was an archaic pilot's term that was given in response to an order. It meant 'Will comply'.

"Shield integrity is restored." Garcia said. "We've lost most of our phaser array, and--"

"Engineering to Bridge" Meru said. "Commander, whatever the hell that was just took out most of our remaining power. At best, I'm only going to be able to let you run these engines to Warp 4. I sure hope we don't have to jump out of here in a hurry."

"Understood, Engineering." Bowman said. "Get everything back up and running as soon as possible. Just get it done. Bridge out."

"What the hell caused it to explode that way? A ship that small shouldn't generate an explosion like that." Copeland asked.

"If I remember my ships specs correctly, a warp core breach would cause an explosion of that magnitude Copeland", she said. " Commander, confirmed, shields have been restored but...", she never finished as the shock wave hit.

The wave rocked the ship, but did not cause any immediate damage. The Dalacari outpost was spared any damage as their shields compensated for what clearly must have been a local phenomenon they've seen before. "Open a channel to the Dalacari station." Bowman called out.

"Too late. They're hailing us, ma'am."

"On screen." Bowman said, as she sat back in what was now her chair.

"Wellington, what the hell just happened?" Jason asked in a concerned and yet authoritative tone. "We got rocked hard down here and I just saw what looked like the Captain's Yacht explode."

"Confirmed, Commodore." Bowman replied matter-of-factly. "It exploded and generated a huge wave of flame. We blew out more power trying to shield ourselves from it."

"Damn it." Jason replied. "No survivors?"

"No, sir." Bowman said. "They all died. I'll send a team out to extract the debris and the remains."

"Proceed. I'm sending Commander Bartlett back. In the interim, I'm placing you in command of the Wellington until the end of this mission. Commander Bartlett will serve as your First Officer." Jason said.

Bowman swallowed her shock at the last statement, and sat motionless. Jason noticed her silence and broke it. "Is there a problem with that order, Commander?"

"No, sir. We'll await her shuttle." Bowman replied. "I'm sorry, sir. There's just a lot on my mind. On all our minds."

"Undoubtedly so. I only knew your Captain for a matter of hours and from what I saw he was a fine man." Jason said. "His loss is an enormous one. Stand by for further orders. Myers out."

Waiting for Commodore to finish, T'Lar spoke again, "Commander...should I have security dispatch the patrols and have them stationed in engineering and key acess points as I previously suggested?", she asked again.

"Proceed. Inform Lieutenant Barnaby he will be coordinating security operations with the Marines." Bowman said. "I will brief Commander Bartlett when she arrives."

"Understood sir", she said and made the necessary comm to Lt. Barnaby.

Lt. T'Lar "Viper" Bishara
Tactical Officer
USS Wellington

Commander Olivia Bowman
Executive Officer
USS Wellington

Lieutenant JG Sandra Garcia
Operations Officer
USS Wellington

Ensign Paul Copeland
Assistant Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Wellington

Commander Harold Lawson
Commander Aerospace Group (CAG)
USS Wellington

Commodore Jason Myers
Task Force Commanding Officer