Log Song, 26518-2237

[Felicity Song]

Personal Log, Cdt. Felicity Song, TSN 2nd Lt. Flt., 4th Lt. Div.
Stardate: 26518-2237

The Fleet Captain held the meeting with the N’tani, so they have their obelisk back now, and we have the ISN scientist, held in secure quarters, with no clue we’re not ISN. So we’ll see what we can find out, especially since the scientist seems relieved to be out of alien hands, and terribly grateful for the “rescue”.

And then there’s the TSN, by which I mean the Rebellion, who agreed to work with us at least for a while. They seemed keen to get Prefect Moritani out of Fenring, because he’d be a figure more people could rally around. We want to get Lt.Cmdr. Mundy out of Fenring. Word around the Mess Hall is that Cmdr. Matsiyan has been getting psychic images of her in some drug-induced hallucination. As in, they’re interrogating her and using drugs to do it, not that the Cmdr. … never mind. Anyway, so, to Fenring. But it wasn’t going to be that easy, or direct. So, while we waited for a plan of action to be finalised, we settled into simulations, and listened to the news.

The plan, when we were told about it, was pretty involved. We were going to make the capture of our Marines on Cerberus into an opportunity: our intel, or rather, the TSN’s, suggested that the Marines were going to be transferred to Fenring. All we needed (ha!) was a way to capture the ship they were on before it reached Fenring, and then use it as a Trojan horse. This meant we needed a way to change the course of that ship and its escorts, in order to intercept it more… discreetly. That was the TSN’s part, as they were going to disrupt the Gate system – there have been so many Gate disruptions lately, that one more would just be seen as yet another bloody nuisance, we hoped, rather than a fiendish ploy – using one of their operatives embedded with Imperial crews. That way, the ships taking the Marines to Fenring would have to divert through Krisenda System and WP60.

But wait! In order to get through to WP60 with our Gate codes no longer valid, we were going to try a rather risky slingshot maneuvre. Which meant needed access to a slingshot array, which the TSN Rebels had managed to secure, but in order to provide enough power to get all our ships through at the same time, they needed to get extra bioelectric power cells from the Kraliens in Antara System…

So our first objective was to secure the necessary components. With Oblivion gone, we had to take Excision (the Fleet Captain in command, Lt.Sr. Graybeard Eng.,Ens. Trueman Wea., Cdt. Avirson Helm, I took SciCom), Relentless (Cmdr. Aramond in command), and Invictus (Cmdr. Hall in command). On reaching the Antara subsector and scanning it, we found two bases, one of them a bioengineering base with manufacturing capability, so it seemed reasonable to suppose that would be where the bioelectric batteries were. Once that was confirmed by CIC, we distracted nearby ships while our shuttles launched, dropped our Marines on the base, let them do what they do best, and waited for them to return with the batteries, and much less ammo than they had to begin with.

We returned, and let the engineers loose with the energy cells. It was, in the Fleet Captain’s masterful understatement, “a bit of a last minute jury-rig”, which is why people don’t try this sort of stunt very often. I mean, alien retrofitted energy cells, TSN engineers working in a desperate rush without proper facilities, what could possibly go wrong?

Oh, and before I forget, the TSN/Rebel shuttle crew that collected the power cells from us also delivered a package of Hjocoa (ironic, really. But we’ll keep it for when we have Lt. Cmdr. Mundy back, she’ll need it.) and Harriet. So, I’m going to have a few words with her, and she’s going to tell me everything about her little adventure.

After some tense waiting, we received a message from the TSN: the slingshot catapult system had been configured and we should be able to reach WP60, then take position in a nebula and stay in hiding while we waited for the ISN ships carrying our Marine teams. Needless to say, our orders were to capture, not destroy the ship, as it would be our way into Fenring.

There was one officer change on Excision’s bridge, as Mr. Trueman went off duty and was replaced by Ens. Xansta. And then we were in WP60 System Sector 1, setting our ships in position in nebulas surrounding the Krisenda Gate. And waiting some more. There was speculation on the bridge about what forces we might expect. We didn’t expect quite as large a fleet as we saw jumping through: Nightmares, Gallus, Interceptors. A hell of an escort for one ship carrying a few prisoners, even if the prisoners were our Marines.

Then I (and the Science Officers on Invictus and Relentless, I have no doubt) noticed ISN Nemesis, which seemed to be a Gallu variant, and two Nightmares heading Rimward, separately from the mass of the other ships. And at that point Relentless was discovered, so was ordered to lead the fleet off Corewards. Invictus suffered a weapons system malfunction during combat, and relieved Relentless on decoy duty. Relentless came to join Excision, and we dealt with the two escorting Nightmares.

Then the sensor decoys of the other ships disappeared off our screens… I didn’t know the ISN had that kind of tech. At least, the consoles I had access to didn’t. Maybe it’s just the Nightmares? There’d been talk of some complex new e-war tech deployed by the Azure Legion scout ships, some sort of hologram that seems able to fool even our sensors. Meaning, the ISN’s own sensors. How reassuring. And while I wondered about that, Invictus sent her shuttles with a detachment of Marines to take the Gallu. I can only imagine the Marine’s enthusiastic approach.

The Gallu was secured, the imprisoned Marines were released, and we had our Trojan horse. The gate codes we were able to get from her will allow us to transit through closer to Fenring without attracting too much attention. And if we can find any of that hologram ghost ship tech on board, I can think of ways it might be useful as we approach Fenring.

In preparation for which, we set up a sim of the attack, with the best info we had: support stations, fleets, mine fields. We started the sim on the assumption that our decoy Gallu had docked, our Marines had gone on board the station, found Lt.Cmdr. Mundy and Prefect Moritani, and returned on board with them. Which are pretty big assumptions to make, but they’re not things we’re going to have any control over from our ships, so we took them as read. Then, as our transport ship undocked, the stations and fleets turned hostile. Our orders were to deflect the fleets and draw them away from the transport ship while it headed Rimwards.

Our three ships ran around keeping ISN ships engaged; but the transport ship was lucky to get as far as the border of the weapons platforms. It didn’t survive more than a few seconds in their weapons arcs. So, there’s some rethinking to be done. We may need to boost the trnasport’s shields; we may need to initiate the dash to intercept sooner; or we may need to weaken the weapons platforms. We’re all thinking about it. I’ve seen screen after screen showing the Fenring layout, in the Mess Hall, on people’s datapads, in the Officers’ Mess… we’re working on it. We’ll get them out.

[End log]

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