Security Briefing

Posted on 23 Jun 2016 @ 11:37pm by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Ensign Xavier Hernandez & Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler & Lieutenant JG Catherine Cooper & Chief Petty Officer Sergei Andropov

2,831 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Risky Business
Location: Security
Timeline: MD 1 1300 Hours

=^=Di Pasquale to all Security personnel, report to Security Briefing room immediately=^= Camila called as soon as she left the bridge at the end of her shift. While technically she was off duty, everyone had been tasked to brief their departments as soon as possible and she couldn't have done that from the bridge. She grabbed a mug of Raktajino from the replicator and began to assess the ideas that her, Cooper, and Lieutenant Davis had gone over in an impromptu lunch time meeting in Security while she waited for the others to show up.

Joey, who was already close by, made her way to the Security Briefing room with Rico by her side. Since she'd gotten on board, and checked in with both the Captain and Chief of Security, she'd decided it was for the best to just dive in. There really was no sense in waiting for the following day to roll around. She entered the briefing room and offered Camila a nod. "Lieutenant."

The doors open and in came Samantha, "COB!, everything okay?" Samantha thought it wasn't long till she was back in security again.

Xavier came in with Pequeño a moment later behind Hanson. "Chief," he gave a nod to Camila and the other ladies in Security before he went to stand beside of Joey and Rico.

"Ooo, you're lucky I never had my nunchuckas or a batleth." Samantha joked at being snuck up on.

Xavier looked at the woman, but didn't comment as he went to take his place beside the Chief K-9 handler.

Cooper walked in,greeted everyone and on reflex paused by the dogs, she glanced at their handlers questioningly, "Ok if I pet them?"

Rico turned his gaze toward Cooper when she stopped near him and his little buddy. He showed no signs of aggression currently. "I would advise you allow him to smell you first, then when he is ready, he will approach. He will not attack, but Rico is a highly trained animal, and isn't your average canine," Joey stated.

Xavier hesitated. "I would prefer that you didn't, Lieutenant. Pequeño is still being trained and I don't want him influenced by anyone else. No offense?"

"Of course not..." She smiled, "I completely understand..." She said to Xavier, not waiting to through off the other dogs training. Then turned to Corwin and nodded, then held out her hand to Rico actually managing to stay still. Cooper was more of a cat person but tended like all animals, she'd been nipped more than once as a kid as she learned they needed gentle handling. It was actually one of the first lessons in patience she had been taught.

Rico sniffed Cooper's hand, then leaned forward to give it a nuzzle before righting himself again. Joey watched the interaction, which she was rather pleased with. Short, simple and to the point. "Now that we have that out of the way, perhaps we can let Lieutenant Di Pasquale have the floor since she summoned us all here? I'm guessing it's to do with our upcoming mission?" She moved to take a seat, then settled down and gave her attention to Camila.

Cooper nodded and took her seat, pleased she didn't get her hand bitten off.

Sergei wasn't sure what he had missed, but he walked into the department briefing room just as Lieutenant Di Pasquale was about to begin. He quickly sat in an empty chair, avoiding the dogs. He wasn't much of a dog person. Or a cat person, for that matter.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Corwin," Camila said. "The long and short of it is this: We are currently chasing the Chimera and the Cochrane towards a rumor of a Romulan Valdore class warbird that supposedly holds a Tholaran device in the Hadyn Nebula. They are going to beat us there, but the Powers That Be came up with a way to detect their warp trails. However, once we get to the nebula, we will be sensor blind, our shields will be gone and our weapons will only be a third as powerful. I know I've discussed these things with some of you, but now I want everyone to know."

"We are working on a device which can disable a person through the use of sound, and we are also working on a way to patch into their comm systems and a way to jam them," the Chief continued. "Two people are going to be going to the Chimera and the Cochrane. The first volunteer is Lieutenant Corwin for the Chimera. Lieutenant Cooper, I am asking you to be the second volunteer for the Cochrane. Please note that I said volunteer and this is not an order. It is likely to be a suicide mission for whoever goes."

And Joey had been preparing herself for it since she'd volunteered. She turned her gaze toward Cooper to see what her answer would be.

Cooper blinked once, twice and shrugged. "You can't just do your duty just when it's easy..." She said uncharacteristically serious then she drummed up a ready smile, "Besides, they've not met me yet who knows what can happen when I throw some wrenches into their finely laid plans..."

"Is that a yes, Lieutenant?" Camila asked, wanting to be one hundred percent certain that her Assistant Chief was volunteering.

"Yes Chief, I will go. We can't keep letting the bad guys have it all their own way can we?" She asked there was a kind of dark humor in her eyes but humor it was, most likely if she did get killed it'd be on the heels of some smart alec comment.

"You do understand that this isn't going to be a walk in the park, yes?" Joey found herself asking. "There is a chance neither of us will be coming back as we'll boarding enemy vessels. If we get caught... a number of things can happen. One... you are tortured until you die. Two... you die. Three... they brainwash you until you are Consortium, too. None of this is to be taken lightheartedly."

Cooper looked over at Lt. Corwin, and considered what to say, she disliked sounding harsh but Corwin's question required a proper answer, so she went for the truth, "I'm aware of that, shall I beat my chest? Cry 'Woe is me'? Perhaps hang my head and kiss my loved ones good bye? Just because I make light doesn't mean I am not fully aware of the the repercussions and I'll ask you not to judge how I choose to face death, just as I will not judge your choices. With what we are about to do we deserve that much consideration."

Corwin listened as Cooper spoke. She had to give the woman credit. Despite her previous behavior, she actually sounded like a dedicated Starfleet officer who knew what they were talking about. Whether she kept up with that, or not, was a completely different story. "No one is, or was, judging you, Lieutenant Cooper. I was merely addressing the fact at how dangerous this could be for both of us. I would like it if we both came back in one piece with our minds under our own control, which means we're going to need to keep our heads level and focus on what needs to be done. If you took offense to what I said, then I apologize, because it wasn't meant to be a dig at you... or anyone else."

Cooper shook her head, “If I was offended you’d would know, I’m not exactly shy.” She joked then grew serious, “I’m just pointing out a fact. I know my humor can be misleading sometimes.” She knew the officer was reacting out of her sense of dedication, Cooper tried to take that into account with her own reply, “I can assure you we’re on the same page, I’d like to come back in one piece and my own person as well and this mission will have my full attention.” She paused then admitted something she didn’t like talking about. “I helped my previous vessel survive a Consortium take over, this is not my first show.” She said, darkness flittered past her eyes as she let it go and drummed up a smile.

"Okay," Camila said. "You and Lieutenant Cooper go to one of the side rooms and start planning a tentative assault on the ships. The rest of us are going to come up with a plan of attack on this rumored Romulan ship and taking it out if it has a Tholaran device on it."

"Yes, Lieutenant," Joey said, rising to her feet before heading to one of the rooms off to the side with Rico in tow.

"Can do Chief." She replied with her personal motto and was on her feet and headed out.

Having listened to the information presented thus far, Andropov could tell that despite her youth, the Security Chief had a good handle on running the show. He also knew that the Black Hawk was, once again, in danger of not returning from a mission. The older he got, the less he liked missions like this.

Samantha had been on her feet for most of the morning and constantly looked at the K9 unit, she thought it had a bit of menace about it but she walked by and gave it a passing stroke before finding a chair. She sat down and watched the officers debate away.

"Okay, ideas for taking a Romulan ship?" Camila asked as she looked over the remaining personnel.

Xavier stood up. "Wouldn't we first need to verify that it's there, Lieutenant?"

"We have rumors and judging by the way the Cochrane and Chimera are going full out to get to that location, we have to assume it's true. Camila said.

Samantha stayed seated, "Well ma'ams, I will be firing manually. So I need to get on the holodeck and start practicing. It wont be a walk in the park, I haven't fired manually in years. Taking on a Valdore? well we need some schematics and technical data on the ship. Doesn't intelligence have anything at all? But initially, I think we need to know or estimate where their engineering section would be in the first instance. Would the ship have a resident assault force? Then maybe take the armoury so they can't get a hold of any hand weaponry."

Camila pulled up the schematics for a Valdore class warbird while she answered Hanson's question. "We have rumors, Chief Hanson," she said. "The ship has been there since the Romulans and Cardassians attempted to destroy the Founder homeworld during the Dominion War. It's most likely an empty ship, but if and when the Cochrane and Chimera get there, they will be supplying the crew. As for Tactical, if you have other duties as COB, attend to them first."

The display lit up with the Romulan Valdore class warbird with schematics under it.

Similar in deshttp://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/4/45/Valdore.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20050619062428&path-prefix=enign to the D'deridex-class warbird, the Valdore-type was a large, fixed-wing vessel. Ships of the class had a color scheme of dark-green or brown.

With a wingspan roughly 900 meters wide, the vessel featured a large section extending forward to create a down-sloped head shape. Warp nacelles were connected at the end of each wing with impulse engines mounted aft. The hull was marked by distinctive "feather" shaped plating.

Tactical systems

Ships of the Valdore-type featured several forward-mounted disruptor banks located on each wing and some on the forward section of the ship. It had at least one forward torpedo launcher able to fire four torpedoes for each recharge.

Main bridge

The command center of the Valdore-type consisted of a roughly circular room distinguished by several console positions.

With computers lining the rear bulkheads, a center seat or command chair and free-standing console were flanked by two additional stations.

Samantha saw the ships before but was far used to the bigger and more greener ones, the technological progress since Shinzon has grown immensely and the Federation, Klingons and even the Ferengi, seemed to have stopped. She would have thought that at least the Ferengi could have bought their own technology since they've come this far and match federation ships. "Very interesting" Samantha replied.

Deciding he'd been silent long enough, Andropov chimed in. "Lieutenant?" he said, his accented voice soft and clear. "Ship-to-ship tactics aren't my thing. Can't help you much with that. But, if we get a team on there, we can take it down. A squad of our people, some engineers or techs from ops, that ship is ours."

"Or at least not theirs," he followed up quickly.

"That's an excellent idea, Chief Andropov. Do we have any volunteers?"

Ensign Shep Hollingsworth, Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Ricardo Gutierrez, a Betazoid/Human hybrid, and Warrant Officer 1st Sali Barns stepped forward. "We volunteer, Lieutenant."

"Thank you," Camila said and nodded. "Anyone else?"

Ensign Xavier Hernandez stepped forward. "I'll volunteer."

"Not having sensors is going to make this hard," Andropov admitted. "Hard but not impossible. The more information we have, the better. What kind of intel can we get?"

"Science has been assigned to work on the sensors," Camila answered. "In the meantime, the Black Knights are going to be our eyes and ears."

Sergei didn't respond immediately. Instead, he thought about the way he'd form up the assault team. He knew that having some technical expertise would go a long way, He wasn't sure about the combat ability of the senior engineering officers. But he knew some of enlisteds had done turns in Security at various times in their careers. He'd have to make an effort to try to recruit some of them.

"Andropov, get the other volunteers together. You'll be in charge of the assault on the Romulan warbird if the rumors turn out to be true." Camila said. "Any other questions?"

Before Sergei could respond to Di Pasquale, the Chief of the Boat jumped in.

Samantha piped up, "Sorry but you have to know where you're going. There isn't any signposts and even then you'll need to prioritise as to what you want take a hold of. Since Romulan technology, seems to be similar to Klingon Technology and I'm only estimating on this. But going over the years, it seems that the Klingons developed the technology and the Romulans, seemed to have acquired it after. Never heard of a Klingon Agent but heard of the Tal Shiar. I suggest you make an estimate based on Klingon technology as to the probable locations of the areas you want to secure and then work from there." Samantha was not a fan of going in blind and many a Romulan soldier wont divulge where anything is and failing that; may even blow up the ship. "Just be prepared that if the ship becomes less of an asset to the Romulans and don't want the federation to have it. They'll blow it up."

How did she make Senior Chief without paying attention to briefings, Andropov thought. He was interested in how the Security Chief would handle the situation.

"Hanson," Camila said as she turned her attention to the COB. "The Romulans haven't had the ship since the Romulans and Cardassians invaded the Gamma Quadrant in an effort to destroy the Founders homeworld years ago. The only resistance we're going to have is a force from the Cochrane and the Chimera and hope to beat them before they get the warbird and Tholaran device working."

Samantha being an ex marine knows full well that a plan is only as good as the intelligence that was collected and the time it's valid for. With the timeframe that the ship is working to, anything could change, "well let's hope there's no surprises but I hope we're all good at a contingency plan or an escape plan."

"As long as everyone does their part, we won't have to worry about an escape plan," Camila said. "We need to stop them from activating that weapon."

"Oh we will otherwise, blowing up the ship might be the next option I would have thought. It'll be a strict timeframe we'll be working to add everyone would know and if they don't, we'd all will once we get on board." Samantha said.

"We might not all come back from this, but that's always a reality," Andropov said. "We all know what we signed up for."

"Get with Andropov," Camila said. "Dismissed."

"So true." Samantha said, "Indeed we did sign up. I have work, see you on zero hour." Samantha smiled and headed out.

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