Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor) in Main-Sim – Command Information Centre (CIC)

Posted by Commander Ryder Raauhl (Executive Officer) in Main-Sim – Command Information Centre (CIC)

Posted by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) in Main-Sim – Command Information Centre (CIC)
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Ensign Michaels was having a slow day, most of the maintenance was still underway and to keep himself from falling asleep by playing solitaire on the CICs holographic tactical bench, being the on-duty Operations officer sometimes could be rather dull, but things were about to change. From the communications console, a chirping began to sound signaling Michaels of an incoming message. He looked over to see if anyone was at the station but of course like it had been for the past two hours he was the only on-duty officer while the ship underwent its refit.

Walking over he tapped the command key which flicked the viewscreen to life, a woman with greying brown hair wearing an admiral’s uniform was staring at him as he stared back. “Admiral Curros” He said standing a little more rigid feeling the admiral’s eyes on him, he wouldn’t have put money on receiving a call from her today. Her call meant that either there was trouble or some to be some either way they were going to be going there.

“Ensign, who is the duty officer?” she asked but before giving the ensign a chance to speak she continued, “Fetch me Captain Cobb and Commander Raauhl, I have orders for them, this is the utmost importance do not dilly dally.” She sat back, her eyes piercingly green as the viewscreen went blank though the call was still connected and on mute.

=^=CIC to Captain Cobb and Commander Raauhl, Admiral Curros is on the horn for you and is requesting your presence Sirs=^= His hand fell back down from where he had just active his communicator and waited for their response which firstly came I the voice of Commander Ryder.

Ryder was relaxing in his quarters when the music he was listening to has he painted stopped the voice of Ensign Michaels resonating off the walls round him. =^=On my way, Ryder out=^= Was the trills simply response as he downed his paintbrush and began to quickly was his hands and face from flecks of paint. It didn’t take long and soon he was leaving towards the CIC.,

Commander Ryder
XO

Zachariah Cobb had been in his new ready room, reading. Before him on the desk lay several unencrypted PADDs containing information on the ARU, the RTF, the AARM and several other acronyms that hurt the man’s head to recall. It remained a colossal task for him to accept that such an essential and well-funded department had existed for years, right under his nose. And yet he had remained oblivious to all of it.

The comms call served as both an irritating interruption and also a blessed relief from such intense and dizzying study. Being sure to quickly re-encrypt the PADD’s before leaving them unattended, Cobb pushed himself up onto his feet, straightened his tunic and popped a mint into his mouth in case the ship’s counselor, Lt Synthi-er, was around and in a mind to evaluate his alcohol levels. Then, as presentable as he was likely to get, the man stepped out onto the bridge and clambered up the gantry and into his seat.

“Seems like I beat Commander Raauhl to the punch,” he commented somewhat smugly. “I’d say he owes me a good dinner for that, at least, eh Ensign?” Then, leaning forward and peering as well as he could from this distance into Michaels’ terminal screen, he added, “Admiral Curros you say? Well, best wait for Raaul to get here and then we’ll see what she has to say for herself.”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

Ensign Michael had cleared the situation table of his cards which he jammed in his pocket as the Captain addressed him, “Seems so sir, Commander Ryder is usually rather prompt he must have been busy sir.” Explained the communications operations officer.

The turbolift doors slid open with a soft “swoosh” and Casela and Fenrir stepped into the CIC. Casela turned to Fenrir, “This is the CIC Fenrir, and over there,” she pointed to Cobb, “Is Captain Zachariah Cobb and Ensign Michaels. Confirm and recognize.” Casela waited.

“Scan each of the stations and determine their use, both for the crew and yourself. Then we will find you a spot for when you are up here with me.” Casela then turned to look at Cobb. His thoughts were clearer, even if his emotions still weren’t sure of their mission. She couldn’t fault him for that, she didn’t like their mission either. Lt. Hampton said it best, they had all been sent here to be gotten rid of. Casela moved over to her “chair” on the command platform and took a seat. “Captain, Ensign, this” she pointed at Fenrir, “is our Artificial Artefact Recovery, KAI9. He is designated Fenrir.”
She saw the awaiting message and signaled Fenrir to silent observation.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS/KAI9 Handler

Cobb looked over at the metallic canine, an expression of deep concern settling over his face. “Is it…” he leaned in and whispered to Synthi-er, “an…anomaly? Is it safe to be on my bridge?”

Casela raised a single brow at his question, “No sir, he’s our KAI-9 AARM. His designations is Fenrir. He is perfectly safe to be on the CIC. I absolutely would not bring him down here if he wasn’t.” Casela was rather insulted that Cobb would think she would do so, but then everything about this mission was unsettling to Cobb.

Fenrir scanned the room, the layout forming in his mind as he registered the other two humanoid life forms in the room one registering a high level of alcohol content, the mech pup was about to say something but he had been learning constraint ever since he met GLaDOS the half borg humanoid, instead, he wandered off round to the ARU operations bench plugged himself in and began uploading and downloading his most recent data.

He felt it then. Unmistakable. This…thing had been scanning him. Assessing him. Gods be damned, it seemed that the counselor had acquired herself a bloody spybot! And was training it on her very own captain! Cobb cleared his throat then barred teeth at Fenrir, before turning away and discreetly reaching for another mint…

Fenrir made Cobb nervous! Casela waved Fenrir off. There was a message from command coming in and she didn’t want Fenrir to cause the Cpt to do something…rash. As before when they had been on the bridge together, Casela leaned in to whisper in Cobb’s ear, “He’s scanning you, Cobb, in order to recognize you. Hopefully never necessary, Fenrir can be sent for search and rescue if we, the crew, can’t get to you ourselves. It goes against his programming to spy on the crew he has been assigned to. And I don’t need a robot for that, I can do it on my own.” She pulls back just a bit to look him in the eye, but continues to whisper, “We had a nice talk during out tour captain. I gave you my word and you game me yours. I am here to support you in your position. I’m insulted you think I’d go back on my word.” Casela sat back in her seat and returned her attention to the CIC.

A few moments later, and the Turbolift doors at the front of the room whooshed open and GLaDOS stepped out, not saying a word but giving the other people in CIC brief nods as she stepped across the room to the ARU operations table and started messing with the controls to access some information and make some calculations. She glanced at the viewscreen and noticed the call being held, so she kept her mouth shut and continued to work.

Lt. Cmdr. GLaDOS, CSO

Canine spybot. Former Borg scientist. Nagging counselor. They were all present and accounted for. This was going to be an eventful meeting and no mistake. Zachariah groaned and ran a hand along his beard. What he wouldn’t give for a nice, cold tumbler of whiskey right now.

Ryder followed the chief science officer out of the turbolift and out onto the Command Infomation Center or more commonly referred to as the CIC or bridge for those still clinging on to normal Starfleet terminology. Looking at all the faces on the bridge and wondered if they had all be called here or if they were here by happenstance. None the less it wasn’t a bad thing, fewer people for him to back brief later.

Casela’s gaze snapped to and tracked Ryder across the room. Now there was a conundrum. She hoped he was up for whatever command had to say, because Cobb was still trying to figure out if he was going along with it or not.

The CIC was far different to was most Starfleet vessels had, for starters it was a four-tiered system, on the bottom floor was the holographic situation table, CO, XO seats flanked by four science consoles. On the next Tier in front of the Command Staff was Communications, Helm, and the viewscreen, and to their immediate rear two tactical stations. Within the two final tiers and almost rooms of their own was ARU operations, Engineering, and Operations, two turbo lifts front and read, an exit either side, and a Jeffries tube maintenance hatch back right.

Ryder took his usual spot at the Situation table, he preferred to stand in the center of the room where he left like he had a better watch of the crew as they worked. “What the emergency?” He asked, but before anyone in the CIC could answer the viewscreen flickered to life again Admiral Curros’s face materialising.

“Captain Cobb, Commander Ryder it is good to see you both settling into your new role.” She appeared to be typing and next to her a visual of a civilian Antares type starship, “This is the S.S. Einstein its a privatized science vessel and was on it way back here with a Newton-type artifact with unknown properties, we received this distress signal one day ago”

“Newton, right,” Cobb could be heard muttering to himself, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out what appeared to be a laminated crib sheet. “Artifact or object. Well, it could have been worse.”

=^= ARU Command, this is Ronan Lloyd of the SS Einstein, the artifact is not dormant as originally believed we have taken refuge in the Paulson nebula several of our crew have started to display signs of extreme head trauma and in some cases paralysis. All attempts to block the radiation which seems to affect the hypothalamus have failed and I fear that I too have become infected. The first signs of contamination that appear within the first hour are bloodshot eyes and sometimes bleeding of the ear. Please send assistance.=^=

“And then we received this just eight hours later” She flicked her hand and another clip played this time more distorted.

=^=”HELP US! WHY HAVE YOU ABANDON US!” The captain of the Einstein could be seen his eyes completely red, dried crimson running form his eyes. “I am the last one left, DO NOT FALL ASLEEP! We have drifted too far into the nebula and I fear we have been boarded! DO NOT FALL ASLEEP!”=^= the message stopped.

“All previous attempts to contact the ship have failed and now we’re sending you.” She held up a dainty hand to stop any protests. “I know your ship is still undergoing refit but I am told by the task force engineering chief that your ship will be ready by the time you reach the Einstein, all resources will be loaded to your ship with a small engineering team, continue the refit in transit.” She gave a small nod, “You are to leave immediately, recall your crew, report back what happened to the Einstien., and ensure you recover the artifact your new containment systems are already operational. Do not dilly dally.”

“Wait, you’re sending us out after this thing and you want us to take a team of sparks with us?” Cobb began to protest at the notion of shipyard engineers being left on the vessel whilst in transit. “Don’t you think that’s asking a lot above their paygrade?”

(OOC: I wasn’t sure if the Admiral had more to say, so apologies if I’ve cut her off below and please feel free to add more here)

But the Admiral had already signed off, it seemed, so with a heavy sigh, Zachariah turned to his team and, rising to his feet, focused on each one of them in turn.

“Lt Commander GLaDOS,” he began, his blue eyes locking onto the CSO’s mechanical orb, “Have you ever encountered anything like this before? If so then I want a complete history of contact and capture and any pertinent discoveries that followed.”

“Lt Synthi-er,” he now turned to look at the woman by his side, “I’d like you to work with medical on this one. So far it seems we’re potentially dealing with internal bleeding, possible narcolepsy and, I think it would be fair to say, extreme paranoia? Draw up a diagnosis and, on the offchance that there might still be survivors, a treatment plan.”

Then finally climbing down from his elevated platform to stand beside Commander Ryder, he sighed, “I don’t like the idea of these shipyard engineers being exposed once we reach the nebula. I mean,” he shrugged, “to tell the truth I don’t much relish the thought of any of us tangling with this thing. But the rest of us know what we’ve signed up for at least. Have Lt Hampton do what he can to keep them out of harm’s way, eh?”

Having watched Cobb be tired, drunk and a miserable old soul Ryder had to admit the Captain certainly turned into quite the leader when he wanted to be, or when the time needed him to be in this case and perhaps why he had been chosen for this job. “I will go see Lieutenant Hampton and inform of our departure and put out a Starbase wide announcement to recall all ship personnel. Things are about to get interesting.”

So, that was it. Their first official mission. Moving to the centre of the room, Cobb once again studied each person present in turn then announced, “Questions, comments, concerns. I know you all have them so let’s hear ‘em.”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

OOC: Made a small edit because I got GLaDOS’s rank wrong! :(

Ryder standing opposite the captain shook his head, the Trill was a seasoned officer with four lifetimes of memories and experience, he knew how these things went. It was just their job now to make sure everything possible to be completed was just that before they arrived leaving, no bolt let unscrewed and no room left unchecked, he knew the capabilities of the Levi she was a fine ship if ever did one sat sail but the idea she was being plunged into some of Starfleet most backwater missions made him pause for concern.

• Cmdr Ryder, Xo

“Fenrir can be sent to retrieve the artifact, but he made need a special container if this thing is sending out radiation and who knows what else. If we can retrieve any files from the Einstein engineering might be able to make a container to make it safe to transport. We might want to call Marine Capt Manhattan up here, sir. His team will be responsible for going to get the artifact. I spoke with him earlier, he seems to have a level head on his shoulders and knows what he is doing.” Casela looked over at Lt. Cmdr. GLaDOS, this was her area of expertise. “I know Fenrir’s purpose is to pick these items up for us, but you’re the expert. What do I need to know so he can do that job?”
OOC: Okay so now what are our different clearances? For both ARU and security?
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS/KAI9 Handler

=======================================================================================

Awhile later after everyone had dispersed and after Ryder had made his trip to sickbay the trill moved to the communications console and cleared his throat he always did have a flair for the dramatics, patch em through to the starbase and shipwide comms. He waited moment as the NE nodded to signal he was being transmitted live across the ship and the starbase.

=^=General Quarters, General Quarters

“Leviathan personnel are to commence immediate boarding procedure, I repeat all Leviathan personnel are to commence immediate boarding procedure this is not a drill. Security personnel are to begin stowaway drills, Operations to begin boarding checks at all entrances, All hands secure stations and prepare for the immediate departure of Starbase 237” =^=

• Commander Ryder Raauhl