Post 11

Posted on Fri Sep 19th, 2014 @ 4:46pm by Captain Christina Curtis

Mission: Begin with a Bang
Location: Captain's Ready Room, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
Timeline: May 12th, 2155 - 0804 hours

Admiral Gardner had climbed out of his shuttlepod at precisely oh-eight-hundred hours, and had been led promptly by one of Discovery's officers to the lift shaft to the bridge, and down the very short access corridor to the captain's sanctum aboard the ship; the sanctum of the woman who he had just hours earlier ordered to get this ship ready to launch, weeks ahead of schedule.

"Admiral; welcome aboard," Christina said, as the older and larger man entered the cabin.

"Thank you Captain," Gardner replied. "Though I had hoped that it would be under far more pleasant circumstances and to our original schedule."

"What exactly are the circumstances, Admiral?" Christina offered the senior officer a chair on the room's couch, moving her own chair out from behind the desk so as not to talk to him over it and confuse the psychological superiority of the seating positions. "You were rather vague when we spoke earlier."

The admiral simply nodded at that. "We've got a situation brewing that I'd rather not discuss over a communications channel," he told her. "Starfleet's Intelligence division has strong information on a terrorist threat on one of our colonies - Deneva. It's a fairly young; we colonised it in the 40s to mine the system's asteroid belt and serve as a freighting-line base for the Earth Cargo Service."

Curtis nodded. "I'm familiar with it. From what I know, a lot of the ECS ships make regular stops there."

Gardner nodded. "It's becoming very economically important to Earth, and more recently diplomatically important as well. The Tellarites have recently set up their own complex near the main colony as part of our increasing cooperation with each other since the Coalition talks earlier this year. The planet is set to become a very vital part of our shipping and trading arrangements with our neighbouring powers."

"So what is the threat?" the captain leant forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together in front of her. A terrorist threat could go in one of two ways in her eyes; either aliens wanting to destabilise Earth's growing influence, or Humans wanting to evict the Tellarites from what they would consider a purely Human colony world.

"I take it you are aware of Terra Prime?" At Curtis' nod, the admiral continued. "Though much of their leadership and organisation was lost or dismantled after the Mars incident, there are still many of its former members and sympathisers at large. We have reason to believe that one of them is intending to set off a bomb at the Tellarite complex."

"No warning? No demands?" From what she knew of the pro-Human organisation and its former leadership, Curtis would have thought that the standard operating practices of the organisation would be similar to how Paxton had used the Verteron Array back in January; make the threat known, and give the aliens a time window in which to leave before carrying through with the threat.

Gardner shook his head. "None. We only have advance warning thanks to covert operatives and informants working on Deneva and our other colonies and shipping vessels. We believe that the intention is to take a far more aggressive approach to their anti-alien tendencies; a case of making Earth's colonies and territories too dangerous for aliens for them to want to deal with us out of fear for their own lives."

"Do we know who is behind this threat?"

"Luke Mosstaff. He was a small-timer back when Terra Prime was being run by Paxton and his ilk, and now apparently fancies himself as the leader of a resurgent organisation. His parents were on the ECS Bonaventure and were killed by Nausicans, which is when we believe he first joined Terra Prime. He was working with Paxton's mining corporation until a year or two ago, where he went off the grid - likely working on the cargo freighters Paxton used to ship his mine's produce."

"I take it our orders are to stop him, and bring him back to Earth for trial?"

"Yes. Alive is very much our preference captain, and discrete if you can. I'd rather this not blow up in the metaphorical sense as well into a diplomatic nightmare on top of it all. We don't know exactly when he plans to plant his device, but we don't believe he's yet reached Deneva."

Curtis nodded, her thoughts turning quickly towards the logistics. "We're still missing a percentage of my senior crew, sir, as well as most of our supplies that weren't due to be loaded until just before we launched. I still need a chief helmsman and medical officer, and I've not even spoken to General Casey yet in regards to getting some of his MACOs assigned to Discovery. Your signature will help push both of those along towards getting us to launch on the new date."

"Consider it done, Captain," Gardner replied, standing and being mirrored by Curtis. "But make sure you're ready to go when I give the word. We can't afford to have a disaster like this right now."

"Understood, sir," the captain replied. "We'll be ready."