Arriving at Starbase 42

[Amanda Rose]

The Federation won its war with the Dominion by the thinnest of margins: the Dominion retreated through the wormhole, leaving their allies in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants to foot the bill. The Cardassian Union is still in turmoil following the small scale civil war that saw the Dominion occupation there ousted, and Bajor is now a full member of the Federation Council. Captain Sisko is missing in action, leaving Captain Kira to watch over the wormhole form Deep Space 9.

Still recovering from the aftermath of a interstellar conflict that saw the battle lines reach as far as Earth in its darkest days, Starfleet is scrambling to shore up its borders and assure its allies and member states that its business as usual. New exploration initiatives are put forward, and a massive rebuilding and modernisation scheme is put into play to replace the ships and starbases lost during the conflict. But with this scheme comes a elements of thrift, of using the resources at hand to fill the gaps.

Enter the Midway Station, a old Regula 2 class Starbase recommissioned during the war to act as a staging posting and supply hub for the raiding parties of the famous 8th Fleet. Situated in a star systems whose soul strategic assets is its location roughly halfway between Cardassia and Bajor, it was left abandoned following the attack on Earth. But now its time has come again to stand on the wall and become a beacon of Federation security for a sector of space still scarred by a bitter war.

Midway was abandoned in a hurry and with little care for its moth balling. Its antimatter reactors are cold dead steel, most of its living space is open to vacuum, and its main computer is missing: to say its a fixer upper is a understatement. Fortunately Starfleet saw fit to send out the replacement staff with a helping hand, in the form of the USS Allen an Oberth class starship on loan from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers.

Outwardly, like any Andorian, Zuub showed no emotion. However, her antennae stood stiff and rigid, excitement nearly too much to bear. This was to be her new home for the foreseeable future and she just wondered at all the potential beings she could meet.

From afar, she wondered at the wreckage and her mind wandered, debating if anything interesting was left behind by any who might have plundered the station. If there was, she knew that she would have to play with it until something more interesting came along.

[Sjet]

Stardate 2380.20.2
Pillex Star System
The Coming Thing...

+++

“What...is that thing?”

That was a good question.

It looked like a flower pot overturned on a small set of empty muffin tins. Being seen in the wan light of a distant and feeble sun, not even the brilliantly banded and colourful gas giant of Tangerine could do anything to make the still distant space station look pleasant. Even without magnification on the view screen the hull was clearly dented and space worn, with a number of exterior duranium panels missing and exposing the underlying space frame. Even the hazard to navigation beacon was no longer transmitting, and it ran on a dedicated solar cell.

And massing in at a cool half a million tons of metal orbiting Jupiter’s chemically inebriated brother, it most certainly needed that beacon working.

“That is Starbase 42. Wellington class, you don’t see many like that anymore.” said Captain Jake Sjet of the Federation starship USS Allen. He stepped across the small bridge of his vessel and stood next to the viewscreen, running a hand lightly over the image as the Oberth class starship drew up behind the station’s orbit.

“Its that old?” came the off hand snark of the helmsman, a ‘Gary’ something or other with something of a reputation as a ladies man.

“Not particularly. Wellingtons were modular stations they threw together in a few weeks during the Dominion War: quick and easy to set up and modify for their particular purpose. Refueling, repair and triage: they made for excellent forward operating stations for the fleet. Starbase 42 here has the honour of being the stomping ground for the 8th Fleet.” Captain Sjet said with a wry smile “I’m sure Admiral Harrington would be heart broken to know her old billet is in less than pristine condition.”

He turned, and got a response from his operations chief for a question still on his lips.

“No power signatures of any kind emanating from the station: no batteries, no capacitors, not even the low level hum of antimatter containment fields….and that would be because scans detect the AM pods were ejected.” the operations chief worked his controls for a moment, before continuing “Reading multiple small hull breaches in the lower Specialist Modules and Main Hub. Mostly micrometeorite impacts. Detecting small pockets of breathable atmosphere scattered throughout the structure, but habitability is a bit on the chilly side at minus 112.”

“Centigrade or fahrenheit?” Sjet asked with a raised eyebrow.

“At those numbers does it matter?” Helmsman Gary snorted “Permission to put us in a two hundred kilometer ahead orbit of the station, just in case something falls off and hits us in its wake?”

“Permission granted.” Sjet nodded, and looked back to the operations chief “Rouse the commander of the 82nd Construction Company: tell that Tellerite that he and his Starfleet Corp of Engineer passengers are about to get the mother of all renovation jobs, and the first thing I want off my ship are those spare anti/matter pods we hauled all the way from Antares.”

“Flying those things through The Shoal, even shielded...make a man pucker up just in case.” Gary muttered, before adding “If you’ll pardon me saying so Sir?”

“Pardoned and seconded.” Sjet muttered.

The Shoal was the loosely agreed upon name for the sector of space that Starbase 42 squatted in. Some of the worst fighting of the War waged to and fro within an area as small as a thousand light years to a side. Starfleet had pulled its muscle back towards Earth during the Attack on Sol, and just in time to. Not a week after the withdrawal a series of subspace detonations were recorded as happening within that sector of space, the result of a massive and prolonged area denial campaign by a Dominion now shaky in its power. Sub space weapons were banned for a reason everywhere in the civilised galaxy because their destructive potential paled in comparison to the warping effect they had on the local environment.

Old nuclear weapons had fall out.
A subspace bomb warped space time in ways they were still trying to figure out names for, let alone theories on what they did.

The result was that local gravity fields and subspace eddies turned into event horizon strong gravity cliffs, with roving subspace tears that prowled with sadistic ease as though hunting for unwary ships. A starship could travel through the Shoal at full warp and be okay, but given that any number of hazards could appear at any time and gobble up a ship without warning. This left most shipping in The Shoal Sector capped at Warp 3 as a wreckless top speed.

The fact it was still the quickest route between a rebuilding Cardassia and prosperous Bajor and its wormhole, meant Starfleet wanted to put the porch light back on, on a fort left to rot in the middle of Indian country.

Helmsman Gary had not been pleased to crawl the last hundred yards, turning a trip from Antares that should have taken two weeks into a near month and a half long cruise. A cruise on a ship loaded to the deck heads with engineers and supplies, as well as a balky pair of anti matter storage units that would fail utterly if anything worse than a breeze tickled their containment fields. All in all Captain Sjet had had worse assignments, but in all fairness it wasn’t the Caltiki Ambassadors fault his atmosphere was mostly methane and sulphur.

And then there was the replacement skeleton crew of the Starbase that had been shoehorned into every cubby and draw on board. For the most part they’d kept to themselves...well apart from one or two of them but from all appearances it had all been consensual. Probably.

“I want that Bajoran and his psych ward off my ship.” Sjet grumbled at the view screen “And onto that Thing.”

He turned back to his bridge crew.

“Summon the crew of the Starbase to the mess hall.” he said, before adding in a diffident tone “And please send a request to Captain Santra, and see if he can find it in his busy schedule to assemble with his crew there as well. Though it would be funny to have him beam over there sans an environment suit because he missed the meeting.”

TAG-All of our crazy compliment of neer-do-weels. We’ll meet in the mess hall, mingle for a bit, and then its over to the station where i am sure there will be no blood leaking from the walls or small children tempting us to play with them ‘Forever and ever’.

Boy, I could have worded that sentence differently.

[Aoife]

"You're joking, right?" Emerald stared at the floating pile of rust and debris with something akin to horror in her eyes. "And we're supposed to live in that? Where exactly?" The science officer shook her head slowly. This was going to be the sort of nightmare that chased you up and down the hallways of the worst boarding school you could imagine, all the while cackling with glee. She'd have asked what she had done to be sent here.

Except that she was pretty certain that she knew.

"Fine," she muttered, tousling her hair. "Let's see how long I get stuck here."

Emerald leaned against the window of her quarters, watching the station grow bigger. Her reflection stared mournfully back at her, brown eyes wide and somewhat sad, white hair spiked from the number of times she had tousled it over the last couple of hours.

It was a relief to be called to head to the mess hall to find out just what the plans were for getting them off this ship and onto the floating palace ahead of them. She gathered up her things, checked her hair (can't be bothered with fussing with it, might as well get them used to the fact it stuck out in all directions most of the time all by itself), her uniform (not as rumpled as it might have been. So therefore acceptable), and snagged a cup of coffee to take with her (what? you didn't want me awake? Shame on you). Time to find out what was what..

[Nevian]

Having acknowledged the summons, Sai'tain adjusted the collar fold of his freshly fabricated uniform and left his quarters.
The corridor was moderately busy, not as busy as it would soon be once the crew of the Allen had their assignments and then the hard work for the rehabilitation of Midway Station would begin.

The scents of humanity filled the corridor as the slim vulcan moved toward the briefing. Their many layered odours had long ago ceased to offend and now sometimes signalled a welcome to the start of an interesting day.

He had no need to glance down at the PADD tucked properly against his duty jacket, the occasional glimpse from a monitor or viewport a reminder of the work required on the mission, schedules and manifests clear in his mind from weeks of meetings with the senior staff of the Engineer Corps, their social grumbles about hazards of the Shoal passage an early complaint that had eased off to acceptance a few weeks into unstable area. Oh, yes, those labels needed updating.

" Ami, " he subvocalized, "Reminder, change document headings from Shole to Shoal. "
" Acknowledged, Cmdr. " the personal program responded, " Further detail, the Allen's computer finished processing the stress loads for the warp core supports. Tolerance exceeds requirements by 27.62 %. "
" Acknowledged. " silently

Aloud, " Mess hall. " as he entered the lift and stood aside, a single nod of greeting to those he recognized as the doors hissed softly shut. He waited, on hand on the safety rail as the compartment moved up decks and shifted laterally, relaxed patience about him in a soft boundary.

For all the faint lines of age on his face and greying hair he still retained the vigor of a young Vulcan and probably would for another 30 or 50 years. Years of dedicated conditioning had kept him fit, even in addition the natural gift of strength and speed of his species. There had been time on the voyage to train and practice with the few other practitioners of martial arts on board the Allen.
He found some degree of satisfaction, the time on board had not been wasted.

[Sjet]

"Hold that turbolift!"

The gruff voice of Commander Gantz was accompanied by the almost locomotive grunting as a pudgy hand shoved it way through the closing turbolift door. Sensing the intrusion the door slid back open, revealing the rotund and pig like Telleritie in command of the 82nd Construction Company. Usually Starfleet's Construction Companies were dispatched to oversee major refits and overhauls of Starbases and major installations, or in more recent post war years a lot of nation rebuilding. The allocation of even a single company of two hundred men and women of Starfleet's Engineering Corp to the Shoal Sector was a major investment by the Powers That Be.

Of course if anyone had tried to get to know Commander Gantz, they'd want him as far away from them as possible.

"Chief Sai'tan." grunted the Tellerite in greeting, as he punched the control panel to send the turbolift car off towards the mess hall. For a moment the usually argumentative alien seemed ready to hold his tongue. But given the slight wiggle his snout gave right before a particular enjoyable bout of scathing fury erupted from his mouth, this was not the Vulcans day.

"I was informed that you've been tasking the ships computer to provide you with stress loading data on the warp corp of this ship." he said in a tone of voice that was not quite a snarl "I would suggest, from one engineer to another, that you should perhaps focus your attention on the stations you have been charged on maintaining instead of worrying about the state of the USS Tim Allens warp core. Unless of course it is a Vulcan pass time to waste time?"

TAG-Sai'tan. Tellerites love to argue, not because they are pig headed, but because they enjoy vigorous and well thought out debate. This makes them excellent politicians and philosophers, but poor conversationalist.

[Nevian]

" Perhaps you should have read in more detail, Cmdr. " the vulcan replied calmly, " it was a stress load analysis on the Midway station's support frame."
Not even a twitch of eyebrow. One might assume he was not bothered by the confrontation.

[Sjet]

Commander Gantz's snorted again,seeing the Vulcan's raised eyebrow with a twitch of his snout.

"A useless simulation to run seeing as we do not know the current condition of the station." the Tellerite informed with a sardonic bent "Perhaps your Vulcan mind has somehow been able to ascertain from mere observation of the stations exterior the amount of internal damage that has occurred? Starbase 42 was abandoned during the War, and by all records it was an emergency evacuation. No time for a proper mothballing of the stations anti matter reactor."

He fidgeted a moment, before with a hiss the turbo lift cars door slid apart to reveal the corridor leading to the mess hall. Gantz stepped out, but then sootd in the way of the respectable looking Vulcan engineer.

"Just you remember that is it MY engineers who will be over seeing the work to bring the station back up to code. You can theorize and speculate as much as you like, but it will be my assessment of this station that will see it rated for sentient habitation. Not the opinion of a lecturer still dust covered fro the class room."

TAG-Sai'tan. I think you've made a friend.

[Nevian]

OOC: please do not force expressions on my character that were not used.

IC:" Our data is 12 weeks old, Cmdr.", Sai'tan returns calmly, " We've discussed projections in 17 meetings over the course of the last 8 weeks. When you passed my course in Applied Fabrication you noted the use of advanced projections and contingency planning saved 23% in overall effort."

[SabrinaPandora]

With a start the polar blue eyes snapped awake. As per usual, the first thought racing behind them was panicked disorientation.

This was not unusual for Talla P’Trell. She could not remember how often she had woken up dreaming that she was one place and awakened in another. She still suffered from reasonably regular nightmares, exacerbated by stress. There were still stutters and stammers and starts in her vocal expressions, in the high-pitched nasally squeak in which she spoke. It was an undisguised outward expression of her inner anxiety. Said anxiety born of neurosis, born of a lifetime of relatively terrible experiences which she took entirely too much to heart, as she did all things. Which then damaged her so that she could become that much more unstable, thus adding another neurosis to the pile- that of the fact that her psyche was steadily eroding to the multiplying neurosis.

Which, horror of horrors, could cost her the most prized center of her life- her job.

She’d been fired before. Dismissed from her position and cast aside. Picked up again, rebuilt by an ambitious intelligence operative with a moneymaking agenda. Then her psyche had been rebuilt and put through years of therapy, now dropped off here at a remote starbase that was likely a death sentence. Why she thought that she had no idea, but the thought was there. Which made her wonder how she knew that yet did not know where she was right now. So she just focused on the part that made her perennially fevered brow feel cool.

It was a job. Her job. Duties. Places to be and things to do and schedules to organize and meals to plan and training schedules and joy of joy someone to give her orders.

Of all of those things, that was what she wanted most... though now she at least understood why. Talla P’Trell was possessed of a nigh-psychotic aversion to responsibility, due to how often her life went disastrously when she made her own decisions. Thus so long as she had a commanding officer, she had someone to default to ask what to do. Talla was quite fond of being told what to do, though she did to her credit invent an enormous amount of busywork of her own to keep her occupied. Like all good drones would. And of course there was the incessant and precise record keeping, which was just so satisfying to her clockwork mechanical heart.

It was not an actual clockwork heart, of course. It was a Jarvik 27, standard top of the line artificial heart, which she’d had installed after hers had stopped while performing zero G maneuvers. Gravityless environments still made her perspire. At least she wouldn’t have to go crawling around creepy dark old vessels, as that was still quite triggering for her. The memory of the time she had suffered multiple cardial infarctions while searching the Jacintha, a haunted derelict Antares class starship was still a strong memory for her, and traumatic. When mostly out of phase ‘ghosts’ had stopped her heart she had managed a call for help, then arrived DOA on the transporter pad.

Talla still did very much not like spacewalk, she did think. It still creeped her out and she dreamt of it in nightmares, always waking with her artificial heart pounding in her chest.

Sitting up, Talla’s coldsuit lay next to her, plugged into a power conduit and long since recharged. She was comfortable in her Starfleet issue white sports bra and boyshorts, which meant that she was currently refrigerated. Bulkheads, metal walls... and frozen meat. She was in a refrigeration unit again. From time to time she would curl up in a freezer when she was afraid or sad. her habit was hiding in dark places when she broke down or when she needed to cry. The gymnasium was where she headed when she was angry, pushing herself against resistance training and flowing katas that cleared her mind and gave her body and soul unity and purpose.

The little lieutenant had no idea where she was, nor why she had been upset to seek out a freezer. besides, she had taken off her coldsuit, and she only did that off-duty. Wherever Talla was, she still could not recall how she had gotten there and she had no idea what year it was, she realized. Why the security smurf would remember the year struck her as odd, then she realized that McCray had interfered with her... dropped her off for therapy on Tantalus, sent her to deliver a message, help someone who was impersonating her- no, Smurfette, the pseudonym under which she participated in illegal brawls for money when she was on leave.

Now she was here in a freezer somewhere. She could feel the thrum of engines beneath her taught rump, that gentle vibration common to starships. At least, she thought so. The freezer unit had a forcefield she could ‘see’ with her antennae, so it was reasonably modern at least.

“Crew of the Starbase report to the mess hall,” came through the ship’s comm and Talla’s comm badge, and she scrambled into action. Grabbing the main bodysuit of her coldsuit, the blue-skinned Andorian woman began wrestling into the bodysuit with a practiced ease. Pressing her forefinger to the small screen Talla checked the time on her left gauntlet: 0232 Federation standard time. Her holdout phaser was still secured in her right gauntlet, as well as her backup comm The little slender ushaan-tor made for her tiny hand by a lover long dead fit in its compartment in her bulky left boot, and her minimal medkit fit in her left.

The nervous little Andorian was suited up, which meant that she was ready for duty. Now she realized she had no idea where the mess hall was... but usually they were near the galley. And if one needed a refrigeration unit on a starship, it could usually be found there.

Opening the door cautiously, she broke the seal, then sniffed the warm air. The scents of various cooking food, not toxic gas met her senses... that was a good sign. Feeling out with her antennae, they rotated forward as she peered slowly out from the opening freezer door.

One of the midshipman paused in rehydrating 20 pounds of potato flakes to eye her curiously.

“The, um, the mess hall would be this way I think?” the polar pixie stepped cautiously out of the freezer, pointing toward the laundry. The somewhat bemused crewman chucked a thumb over his shoulder behind him, the opposite way.

Closing the freezer door behind her, Talla P’Trell began making her way across the kitchen, slowly at first, then her feet picked up momentum as they fell into a long-strided with her short legs military march, her usual form of locomotion. Which brought her up quite short as she entered the mess hall, large eyes blinking rapidly. Apparently she was the first to arrive- her preference for any meeting. Early, ready and overeager.

Marking the exits, taking mental measurement of the room, noting the bolted down furniture and unfamiliar bulkheads, the tiny tactician- all of 150 cm in her booted feet- took in the situation as she continued to wonder just where she was and how she had gotten there.

It would not matter. Someone was coming who would give orders. They were on a starbase? It felt like a ship, an old ship maybe. But someone was in command, and Talla was here and she had her uniform and the two shiny pips on it and there would be danger and people and adventures and misunderstandings. That was life in space, and she was in space again. That meant she would have a crew to serve and protect.

Those polar blue eyes gleamed as she slid into an ‘at ease’ stance and waited, antennas turning and moving independently, taking it all in. The security sprite had no idea where she was, but she was practically beaming as she waited to find out.

[Nevian]

Sai'tan paused, recalling precise details while maintaining eye contact with Gantz.
" Starting on page 12 of the mission brief, the crew of the Bajorian vessel, " Forgiving Hand of the Prophets", scanned the station on their way to Cardissa Prime to deliver non replicateble relief supplies. That scan was forwarded to Starfleet upon their clearance of the Shoal along with the routine sensor logs of the Shoal's subspace conditions.
The upper level decision to rehabilitate Midway Station processed in 5 days."