Posted by Captain Calvin Marius (Captain) in Main Sim At the Imperial Palace

Posted by Gamemaster GM Kate (GMT) in Main Sim At the Imperial Palace

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) in Main Sim At the Imperial Palace
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
(Snip)

“Have a drink Calvin,” the King replied in a tone indicating the Captain was becoming annoyed with his guests. “There are no comms right now anywhere on the planet except between the general, the head scientist, and my general staff. We used to allow comms but that tended to frighten the populace more. There were some that tried to remove their loved ones from the hospitals and prisons but that only killed the healthy and did not control the harvesting. The Volians are simple and primitive. They eat. They reproduce. They hibernate. Your people are safe so come and enjoy the night.”

GM Kate

“Excuse me did you say you open up the prisons and hospitals for the Volians to attack?” A knot filled in Calvin’s stomach. He did not hear the King wrong but it was as if his brain was refusing to process that comment.

“Would you prefer we allow the Volians to just run amuck?” Clearly, the King was becoming irritated with Calvin’s line of questioning. “You are in a position of command. I am quite sure you do not just let your people do whatever they want when they want. That would be chaos. So we as those in charge control the chaos. Why put people in jail for years? They will never be rehabilitated and just drain the resources they are not contributing to make. By offering them up to the Volians they can pay back their debt to the Beltrans.”

“Do you think it makes sense to lock down communications between a starship and its crew on a diplomatic mission, without warning. You have no idea what my crew might think is going on, especially if they figure out there are masses of creatures killing the locals. A panicked starship could do a lot more damage then your citizens.” This man had no concern about his people, but Marius suspected he would be quite concerned if a Starship decided to star shooting up the place.

Calvin Marius CO

“Are you saying you can not control your own people? Do they not follow your orders?”

“Excuse me,” Calvin snapped in a tone rarely heard but by only the most dimwitted and incompetent crew. There was the politics of diplomacy however the verbose and coddling diplomats they had sent in three times prior had in Calvin’s opinion accomplished nothing. This was why they had sent him in versus another pure diplomatic crew. “This dinner is over.” Not every battle was won in the first strike. Only imbeciles took a hill to die on. Calvin would regroup and come back when he had more insight about what he was facing. Tapping his comm badge Calvin heard nothing but empty air.”

” I am assuming you did not come here like a lamb. Your last order to them was not to decimate a fledgling member of the Federation if they can’t speak to you every hour on the hour, correct?” His tone was condescending along with his mannerisms. “You were told to attend the reception, which was not going to be over until dawn, so I suggest you have another drink and enjoy yourself. This inconvenience will be over in a few hours. It always is.”

While Calvin didn’t expect this, more of a kidnapping sort of danger. His crew on the ship were given orders to be very suspicious given that every senior member of the ship was requested off. “They are well trained, but they are trained to protect lives. They are going to respond to an animal attack, severely.” He turned sharply.

Calvin did not need this man’s permission to come and go. He did not live his life by your liege to some pompous foreign king. “I think we are done here.” There was a reason Calvin brought down two shuttles. They could have stuffed everyone into one shuttle but then they would not have had a spare in case of emergencies. If his crew could not come to him Dad would show up in the family sedan and retrieve them. “Come on we are leaving Lieutenant,” he stated to Vanessa.

The ground suddenly shook hard enough that anyone not ready for it would run the risk of falling over. Some of the art that was not completely secured began to shatter as vases hit the ground along with less surefooted waiters caring the drinks. Several people let out shrieks indicating this was not something normal or expected.

GM Kate

Vanessa felt the shaking and immediately flailed out grabbing Calvin’s arm. The earthquakes later would be found out to be increasing from barely noticeable at 3.0 on the Richter scale when they arrived to a solid 5.0 with this last one. It was strong enough that without Calvin, Vanessa would have fallen over like numerous other Beltran’s in the room. She was not used to anything like an Earthquake. Boston was as seismically as a mountain. “Are we under attack,” she asked looking around. The two of them had just spoke of an attack. With the comms signals down it might just be more than an small earthquake.

Vanessa Slade CNS

Calvin had been in battle more times than he cared to recall. Unstable terrain was as familiar to Calvin as plummeting down in a crashing shuttle. His training took over and he stabilized his base enough that the risk of his falling over was minimalized. Reaching out he let Vanessa stabilize herself against him. “Not sure,” he responded to Vanessa’s question.

Calvin watched as a man in what could be assumed was a military uniform approached the King and his position. “What is going on,” he requested in a crisp tone that compelled people to answer even when they were not in Starfleet.

Calvin Marius CO

The man looked at Calvin and the King before deciding to address them both. “The Volians are not following their predictable course of action Sire. They are approaching the Capital. We are sending the military to surround the palace but it’s not going to be enough.” The man’s voice was pleading for the King to issue an order or impart some wisdom. Instead, the King shrugged, downed his drink, and walked away. Standing there holding the PaDD, the officer was visibly distressed. Calvin did not know the Beltran military ranking system but his years of military service told him this officer was green.

GM Kate

“May I,” Vanessa asked reaching out her hand for the PaDD the man was holding. She could tell he was scared. She was too but unlike this man, Vanessa knew her CO would not cut and run the first second danger happened. It probably would be the exact opposite. In a small corner of her mind, Vanessa imagined Calvin stripping off his formal attire only to find the man wearing a camo uniform and about to scream, Come on your meatheads do you want to live forever. Depending on the company the colorful metaphor would vary but the sentiment would be the same. Calvin would stand his ground and protect those that needed help.

Taking the PaDD from the officer, Vanessa reached out and passed the PaDD to Calvin while taking his drink to free up her captain’s hands. “It’s going to be okay.” Saying this was the easy part for Vanessa. She had zero doubts that Calvin would get them through this. What she was waiting for, like the young officer, was how Calvin was going to do it.

Vanessa Slade CNS

Calvin looked over the PaDD the young officer was desperately trying to get anyone to review. “What am I looking at,” he cut the point noticing that there was nothing on the screen important enough to warrant interrupting him.

The officer looked up at Calvin and began to report knowing no one else was going to be listening. Tapping a button on the PaDD, two images were brought up and overlaid. The first showed what looked like underground tunnels radiating out to points in a barren landscape. The other showed that the underground tunnels seemed to be veering off from those points and heading to the science station, the military installation, and the capital. Touching the PaDD again brought up old footage military footage.

On the screen was an image of a carnivore but instead of the typical apex predator, this creature looked like rat that was the size of a large house cat. The animal had short sleek fur that was so shiny it appeared almost leathery like one saw on a dolphin. The eyes were larger for its body but also tracked with a subterranean, nocturnal creature. The creature’s distinguishing weapons appeared to be extremely long teeth and claws. The schematic stated 46 cm (18 in) in head-to-body length and 23–25 cm (9.1–9.8 in) in height, with about 30 cm (12 in) long tails and about 4-5 kg (8-10) pounds.

The next image the officer showed them was a video clip of the last attack. It would become very apparent why the Beltrans were suddenly very concerned about an animal this tiny. At first glance, it looked like a bubble of mud percolating up from the ground. When one looked closer they would see it was not mud spreading out in a vibrating pool but hundreds of Volians. The sheer quantity coming through the opening was staggering. As the video panned out, the dozen of holes in the ground poured forth the same amount until the entire ground was covered and looked to me moving in a thick mat of squirming wiggling bodies. The camera panned back farther to see how the Volian’s attacked. Like some B flick horror movie from Earth’s past, the Volian’s washed over a person like a wave at the ocean. If one had ever seen the Earth horror flick the Mummy the scene would remind them of the carnivorous beetles decimating the hapless workers with their bodies creating a silhouette of the shape and then reducing it down to nothing before moving on. The speed and vast numbers of the creatures was the real threat. The Volian’s were a horde when they attacked making even the best marksman ineffective in staving off an offense.

“Oh my God tell me that was some kind of time lapse thing,” Vanessa asked. The idea of being devoured by a rat turned Vanessa’s stomach into knots. Maybe she was starting to understand why some Starfleet vets had aversions to things that seemed odd.

Vanessa Slade CNS

“Would you prefer it to be slower? The comment was not as sharp as Calvin probably intended it to be.

“I would prefer it not to happen at all,” Vanessa stated looking around the room as she took off her heels. Oddly enough Vanessa had the endurance of a long-distance runner. She ran quite a few marathons in her down time but she was not a sprinter. “Given a long enough lead time I might be able to out run them but yes I prefer long and slow to fast and immediate,” she quipped.

Vanessa had several years under her belt in Starfleet but she was as green as a newly minted cadet in some aspects. “Don’t worry. You are probably more of an appetizer to them and I have been through this before. I got your six.” Calvin didn’t have time to mollycoddle everyone but the truth was that this was probably the first time Slade had come into a situation even remotely close to combat. She tended to default to humor when uncomfortable so his platitude would do more than false promises in easing her mind.

The officer pointed to a small area with his finger indicating he wanted the group to focus on there. It was just a box however as the mass horde of Volian’s moved forward, a small distortion on the screen followed by a glimpse of blue skin was visible.

“The Volian’s can’t attack what they can’t see.” As the area cleared slightly, several more distortions were noticeable. It was easily inferred that the camera angles in the video clip were taken by soldiers filming the event from a cloaked position.

“Those behind the shielding are essentially invisible and if one remains still enough and quiet enough, the horde of Volian’s move on to another food and resource source.” The officer had the neutral tone of a general explaining the course of a battle to others.

“So what should we do Sir? The King is entirely confident that our defenses will hold but I am not.”

GM Kate

:So you’re an expert in asymmetrical tactics?”

“Um no but I can be a fast learner,” the military officer said with rapt attention on the only person in the room understanding the gravity of the situation.

Calvin however was and she despite her lack of experience was likely right. Now the earth tremors made sense. The tunneling was causing the ground to subside in various locations. “I am sure the KIng has some sort of bunker or safe zone to protect his hide. The way he talks about them they use wave attacks and our response to that would be massed fire or funneling into a kill zone.”

“Yes, and they have already absconded below. Those around here have no idea what is about to happen. They have been told it is a drill only.”

Thinking about his military plan she added. “Agreed but I am not sure anyone is going to be able to hold the line. Most try but everyone knows the end result.”

“Since they are ambushing us, the odds we can get either of those two things to happen are not in our favor. This becomes a non-problem if we can get in contact with the ship, two jobs get all our people together and elevated.... and get in contact with the Genny.”

Marius

“I will have our comms team work on breaking the static but the King,” she looked over her shoulder, “there is a strict order to ensure any communication deemed inappropriate not be transmitted. The static is aided by the weather but amplified by the battle platforms.”

GM Kate

“Beautiful,” Calvin muttered motioning for the officer to follow him. He needed to shore up the defenses and no one from the Beltran army seemed to care about fortifying the defenses. “They have to know what we are talking about to understand it is inappropriate. Use codes and euphemisms unique to the Federation or Earth. If we can get through.”

Moving out onto the Balcony, the officer handed him a Beltran comm badge. Half of commanding others was ensuring they had faith in their commander no matter what they were facing. “Beltrans, a few hundred years ago there was a terrible war on Earth. The defenses were crumbling and many felt they should leave. That was when the American Marines first showed up. The French were retreating and told the Marines that everyone was pulling back. Marine Captain Lloyd W. Williams responded with “Retreat? Hell, we just got here.” Calvin paused before beginning to belt out orders which everyone seemed to follow without question.

“Let barricade the staircases, the goal isn’t really stopping them but funneling them into single file. When the fur begins to fly stay away from the outsides of walls, balconies, windows and the like. Tunneling can lead to cave-in and the like. Earthquake rules apply until they expose themselves.”

Calvin Marius CO

Vanessa waited just long enough for Calvin’s orders to be carried out by those listening before she wrapped a hand around his forearm. Turning her back to the group hid the emotions on Vanessa’s face. She pressed her lips together tightly until they created a thin line for her mouth. “If we can’t get comms to the Genesis working, blocking the exits will trap us in here.” She was not challenging his authority but working through his command in her mind. Every Starfleet officer took the pledge and understood that their life could be laid down for the cause. Actually in the moment that it was happening, hit very differently.

“Are we going to get through this right?” Her faith in Calvin was unwavering. He was her commanding officer and any order he gave she would follow. This was not about orders though. This was about Vanessa experiencing her first combat-like scenario and feeling a little more than uneasy. She was not a security officer or a marine. She was a counselor and this was the first time she was being asked to be more.

Vanessa Slade CNS