RP Log: Hur'k Mission Briefing
| Roleplay Log | |
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| Participants: | |
Location(s):
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Stardate:
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| 2024-12-28 18:29 | |
- Conference Room - Deck 1 <USS Phoenix NCC-170100-A>
- This large compartment is specifically designed for senior staff meetings. The focal point of the space is a large mahogany table surrounded by ten high-backed leather chairs. There are three viewscreens, a large one on the aft bulkhead, and two smaller ones to port and starboard. The forward bulkhead is primarily transparent aluminum, with a stunning view down the front of the saucer section.
Moqz arrived early and has already taken a seat, two in fact, as he uses one to rest his feet on. He was also twirling his d'k tagh, but stows it as others arrive.
Hwiamma comes in and grins at the Klingon. "You might need to move those feet of yours."
Worthington arrived ahead of the Rihannsu and some of the other fleeters. He moves to sit next to Shulon at the table.
Hauser arrives and smiles at the gathering before taking a seat near the middle of the table.
Shulon smiles at Moqz, liking his style, but given the location he elects not to sit on the back of a chair or the table. He does leave the head of the table open though, for when Tink arrives.
Castillo enters the conference room, offers a nod in acknowledgement to everyone present, and moves to join the table next to Hauser.
Ryu walks into the conference room and sits down at the table
Alue files in with the others and steps to one side of the door.
Moqz somewhat reluctantly removes his feet from the second chair. He nods at Hwiamma and smiles at Tink. "It is time we get this mission underway."
Svetzvani joins the party. She glances around the room at all the faces. A party, indeed. "Hello, everyone," she says as she moves to a chair at the table.
Worthington smiles at the assemblige, salutes Svetzvani, and takes his place at the table. "It is good that we are all here. I echo councilor Moqz's sentaments. It is good to get this mission started."
"We meet again, as promised," Hwiamma says to Svetzvani with a smile.
Hauser grins warmly at Svetzvani. "Hi again, Counselor! I mean Admiral."
Shulon decides against sitting at the table, leaving the chair open for Moqz if he wants to put his feet back up. Instead he sits on the window sill, his antennae listening about the room.
"I agree," Tink says as she gets settled. "And we'll be able to do that soon. Jiemba Anewan will be joining us soon. In the mean time, we should go over the details of the mission." She eyes Moqz and says, "We're agreed that this is to be a peaceful contact, if possible. No one is going to go flying off to battle as soon as we encounter the hur'q, if we encounter them."
Moqz growls assent.
Worthington nods as he watches the expressions of the Klingons and the Romulans present.
Hwiamma hides a smirk from the Klingon, though possibly not from everyone. She nods, rather diplomatically, at what the diplomat has said.
Alue remains by the door to observe and to be on hand for the more senior officers in case she's needed.
Ryu listens to the conversation as she sits back in her chair.
Svetzvani notes Hwiamma's nod, then turns to Shulon. "I've agreed that both the Klingon and Romulan deligations will be included in any meetings regarding the progression of the Hur'q mission," she says.
Shulon nods and smiles, "Absolutely", he looks around at those assembled, "We'll be as transparent with them as we can be with everything Hur'q related." His antennae curl, "To that end, James and Jessica have both had first hand experience with the Hur'q ships. If we want to start with that debriefing?"
Hauser smiles and speaks. "I gathered a lot of the initial ship scan data during our first contact encounter when the Lexington was lost. Simply put, they're nobody to mess with. Their ships are highly engineered for structural strength, and their weapons, as Commander Worthington will no doubt confirm, are worse than just about anything that we, the Romulans, the Klingons, or the Dominion, have going."
Worthington nods to Shulon, getting to his feet. "With your leave captain," he says, tapping on a padd and an uplink device. "What you are about to see are several encounters with the Hur'q, from before we knew what they were, up and through the destruction of USS Lexington." Images of several ships appear, fuzzy at first. "These are long range sensor echos seen at New Bajor, Dozi, and Karemma. They appeared to be monitoring Kestrel's movements, though they did not approach us at that time." He pauses, showing another image. "Our meeting on Karemma revealed a nervous population that seemed to be under the control of someone, which had seceded from the Dominion. We can now say with reasonable confidence that the Hur'q were involved in these events." An image of a Hur'q cruiser rising from Karemma is seen. "This ship departed for Callinon, where we were told a Dominion sensor relay was located, after our departure from Karemma." The image switches to Callinon and a destroyed Dominion satellite. "This is what we found upon arrival. We sent a team to the surface here, and our shuttle lost power. This was our first contact with their energy dampening technology." Another image is seen, one of a battered Dominion battleship and another ship, rising from the surface of Callinon. "This, our sensors called, a Fridyat Ravager. Small, heavily durrable, and known to possess energy nullifying weapons that can knock out reactors with a single hit." The Ravager is seen chasing the Dominion ship away. The scene then cuts to another view. "Stakoron," he says. "We went with USS Lexington here to meet with the Dominion. I will go into further detail in a minute about what they told us, but this is what occured. The Hur'q are called by another name in the gamma quadrant, the burrowers, and this is why." A Fridyat ravager appears and starts engaging the Dominion ship, then switches fire to Lexington. Another cruiser seems to emerge from beneath the surface of Stakoron II, then disgorges a swarm of small craft. "Note, none of these ships registered on our sensors at all until they appeared. They were hiding there the entire time." The Lexington appears immobile as the swarm of ships ramms into it again and again, battering its armor down until the ship explodes. "Those ships appeared unmanned and controlled remotely. These are the kind of tactics we have seen the Hur'q use. Notably, Kestrel was targeted, but not fired upon, leading me to believe that actively scanning the Hur'q provokes a response from them. Jessica, could you tell the assembly about the Dominion device we incorporated into Napier's reactors to escape Callinon?"
Svetzvani watches the display and winces, then turns her attention to Hauser.
Shulon says, "We will have standing orders aboard that we are to conduct no active scans of Hur'q ships. James and I concur, based on previous encounters, they really don't like being scanned."
Castillo leans forward to watch intently as Worthington provides his briefing. She turns her attention to Hauser as the commander finishes with a question directed to the engineer.
Alue watches wide-eyed.
Hauser nods. "We were stuck on the surface, without power, and we had worked out that it wasn't a natural property of the planet causeing the power drain. We had to work with the Dominion, quite literally." For some reason, she tips a brief smile at Shulon as she says, "I was down in the Napier's engineering crawl space with the Vorta working to get a device they provided us to gang into our systems. The device was able to partially suppress the power dampener, and it allowed us to restart our matter antimatter reaction. I later discovered that it wasn't something we should permanently affix to our engines for good reasons, and I later took it to Antares on Captain Anewan's orders." A beat. "That was the mission on which we lost Lieutenant Eiessa Monsu, and so, we learned that Hurrq technology has definite power drain potential at distance."
Hwiamma says, "An impressive device. Why could you not make it a permanent fixture in Starfleet systems?"
Worthington nods to Hwiamma's question. "I'll let Jessica go into specifics, but for one, Dominion technology is radically different from our own. They use polaron based power sources for example. Getting those systems to play nice is part of the problem, but as I recall, that was only part of the problem," he says.
Moqz growls, "The Hur'q do not fight honorably."
"Maybe not," Tink says. "But it looks like they win more often than not."
"Because when I later had the chance to study it," Hauser says, "I found out that the part of the thing that let me restart the Napier's matter antimatter reaction was only one part of the story, almost a side effect. If I remember right, if you implant that device and switch it on, especially on a ship of ours that's working right, it would suppress parts of the normal systems energy flow and cause damage I can't really predict. So, it worked in that situation, but not good to just drop it in and switch it on like that, you know?
Hwiamma nods slowly. "Thank you."
Shulon says, "To be blunt, the Lexington was the toughest ship Starfleet had, or has ever had, and the Hur'q took it out quickly. We'd lose a lot of lives if we tried to fight them."
Alue looks somewhat uneasy, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
Moqz smiles, "It would be a glorious battle, but we must determine a defense, even I acknowledge going in knowing you will lose is no way to proceed."
Ryu continues to listen as she makes notes on her padd
Worthington nods. "Not to mention, the whole reason we are all here, one of the reasons anyway, is there's still a lot about them we don't know. If we can find a peaceful solution to this, we could save a lot of lives, and not just Starfleet lives either." He looks to Moqz, then to Hwiamma. "Both of you know my past and training. I've killed in the line of duty, I've risked my life, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. If I thought fighting was the only way to resolve this crisis, I would not hesitate. I do not think it is the only way, and I think we stand to lose a lot more than we would gain from attempting it. Especially, as confusing as it may seem, the Hur'q are both victims and victimizers all in one. They brutalized the Klingons in the past, they have conquered worlds, but their own planet was devistated by the Dominion who attempted to turn them into slave soldiers before the jem'hadar. One thing we all should take away from this is that we do not have the whole story. It is hard to properly judge the situation as it presently stands."
Moqz looks to slam his fist on the table as Worthington calls the Hur'q victims, but Worthington followed it up with the assault on the Klingons. His hand comes down slower, resting on the table, "They pillaged many Klingon worlds. It is this that brings me here. I want to recover at least some of those artifacts."
"I'm hopeful," Tink puts in. "That we may be able to recover those artifacts through peaceful means." She tilts her head to one side and asks, "What types of artifacts are we talking about, anyway?"
Moqz growls, "The Sword of Kahless is one. Stolen a thousand years ago."
"And we," Hwiamma says, "for our part, want to know why an entire squadron of ours was lost. If we choose to explore what you call the Gamma Quadrant, we will do so, and we expect not to be attacked. So."
Intercom< Captain Shulon says, "Jiemba, come on down to the conference room."
Shulon smiles, "Which is why we have a diplomatic team aboard. So we can try to talk with the Hur'q." he nods to Moqz, "Try to get artifacts returned." He nods to Hwiamma, "and answers about missing ships." he looks towards James, "We're going to start in the Stakoron system, where the Lexington was lost. The last known location where the Hur'q were seen."
Ryu looks to Hwiamma and says "Ever since we first encountered the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant the Dominion have treated the entire Gamma Quadrant as their territory, it shouldn't be surprising the Hur'q would also treat the Gamma Quadrant as their territory."
Svetzvani nods to Ryu. "As we might if they started sending fleets of ships through to our side," she adds to Hwiamma.
Hwiamma touches the corner of her mouth with one shaped nail and smiles at Svetzvani. "Great. We'll just tell anyone who does that that the Romulan Empire owns the quadrant." She winks.
Ryu nods and says "Ever since the Dominion War has ended passage through the Wormhole has been restricted"
Moqz growls at Hwiamma, "The Empire disagrees. But I would agree to the Klingon Federation Alliance." He chuckles.
Shulon says, maybe trying to change the topic, "We have little experience with the Hur'q energy nullifying technology, nor a defense. We should pool everything we know to come up with one."
Worthington nods to Shulon. "Agreed," he says. "Until we have a defense, we are incredibly vulnerable."
Ryu rubs her chin and says "From one of my previous hosts memories didn't the Breen have a energy nullifying weapon on their ships?"
"They did, and Starfleet eventually designed a defense against it that is built into our ship hulls." Chill says, "If the Hur'q weapon were the same, the Lexington would have been protected. It wasn't."
Moqz growls, "The same is true for Klingon vessels. Century old craft are still vulnerable to the Breen weapons."
Ryu nods and says "Perhaps comparing the Hur'q's Energy Nullifying weapon to the Breen's to see whether the Hur'q's is merely the same weaponry but an improved version would give us something to work on for a solution, we could adapt the solution we found to the Breen's weapon to the Hur'q's weapon"
Svetzvani sits back, watching the conversation in progress.
Shulon says to Ryu, "I think that has been looked into. But I don't know the results. Dig into it, see what you find."
Worthington considers. "We have to get a sample of that weapon first, or good enough readings on it," he says. "We have no idea if the tech is even in the same ballpark."
Hwiamma says, "So, we go to Stakaron. A Hurrq ship shows up and refuses to talk. Then what is our action?"
Hauser grins. "If they start shooting, we run with dignity and try again elsewhere."
Worthington nods, considering. "If we get hit by one of those weapons. If we lose our reactors, we are toast. There are over 2500 people on this ship," he says.
Shulon smiles at Hwiamma, "I would say we convince them to talk, but my meaning might be misinterpreted. But, we need to give them something they want or need. If we can." He nods to Hauser. His antennae curl towards Worthington. "We don't have enough information yet. So, that too will be our mission. To learn as much as can."
Hwiamma says, "And we are taking both our admiral friend here and Captain Anewan, who I have met before of course, along?"
Moqz sits back again, starting to get bored of the back and forth. "We will do none of that if we sit and talk all day."
Shulon nods to Hwiamma, "That is the plan. The last of the new crew assignments are already aboard." He nods towards Alue. "And we stocked up at Spacedock before coming here with supplied. The Phoenix is ready. It was just a matter of getting you all here to discuss." He smiles, "James and I also talked about going to Stakoron first, if there are other suggestions I am open to them."
Worthington looks to Shulon. "I still believe Stakoron is the best place to go sir," he says. "USS Sutherland saw some kind of heive ship launch from there, and even if the hur'q are no longer present, there may be evidence of what they left behind, if anything."
Moqz growls, "We should find their homeworld. It is likely where they took their spoils."
Hwiamma stands and, making sure her uniform is just so, heads towards the door. "Thank you for the brief," she says to the admiral and the ship's captain. The Star Empire looks forward to our findings." She heads out.
Moqz watches Hwiamma dart out and chuckles.
Worthington looks to all assembled. "Finding their homeworld is a good idea as well. There are other reasons for going there. Knowing where it is, that is not something we do at this point. We will need to find out. The Dominion could tell us," he says.
Shulon nods, "Finding and talking to the Dominion is also something we talked about doing."
Moqz rises, "I will ride into battle with you." He too excuses himself.