NationStates Jolt Archive

IDF's peace treaty with Cardassia was nothing more than a chip used to buy more time before and delay the upcoming war with the Dominion.

The Cardassian War was a victory for IDF, but it still came at a price. In order to ensure a quick peace before the Cardassian entry into the Dominion, some colonies bordering Cardassia had to be given up. The colonies only had a total of 50,000,000 people, but they were angry people.

They had been abandoned by their government and wanted to fight both them and the Cardassians. They formed a group they called the Maquis.

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A pair of aging Oberth class vessels, the ISS Grissom NCC-20 and the ISS Oberth NCC-11 departed Deep Space Nine for the Badlands to investigate some activity in the area.

The 2 tiny vessels were primarily used as science vessels. They were each over 100 years old and nearing their innevitable decommissioning. The fact they were functioning in the role of science vessels was amazing.

The pair of vessels slowed to impulse power as they entered the plasma storms. The vessels went to yellow alert and raised shields to protect themselves from the plasma streams that could destroy a vessel.

The Oberth's scanners picked up a faint signal from a rogue planet within the dense field. The 2 vessels moved in on them. Both vessels had large sensor pods and some probes. It was decided that they would send out a probe to scout ahead.

The probe's readings indicated there was some sort of structure out there. The 2 vessels moved in cautiously. As they were nearing the base, a phaser beam struck the Grissom.

The vessel's shields absorbed the hit and the vessels went to red alert. The attackers were in 4 fighters that were similar to Starfleets own fighters. The vessels were painted with the colors of the Maquis.

The 2 Oberth vessels each only had a pair of phaser emitters and a single photon tube for self defense. In open space, targetting scanners would make the fighters easy pray for the phasers. The plasma storms interfered with targetting scanners though and gave the fighters the advantage over the 2 scouts.

The Oberth class vessels couldn't make evasive maneuvers around the plasma storms. The fighters had no issue though and each broke off to make passes at the vessels firing photon torpedoes and their own phaser arrays. The Oberth class vessels were simply out of their element. They were science vessels, not combat vessels.

Aboard the bridge of the Grissom, Captain Estevez was assessing the situation.

"Our shields are down to 60%," reported his chief engineer. The news got worse as the helmsman tried to avoid a torpedo and strucka plasma stream. The entire vessel was hurled thorugh space. It's shields collapsed and every person aboard the vessel was hurled off the deck. One of the fighters made a pass and fired its phasers straight through the vulnerable hull.

The center console on the bridge exploded in an orange flame as the bridge began to burn. "Computer, activate fire supression systems!" ordered the Captain. The computer was unrespnsive though as the Mark XX Computer core had taken a hit.

"Engineering, damage report!" called the Captain as another shot took out the lighting. "Shields are down, hull breaches across multiple decks. That last shot took out the main energizer. As soon as we run out the battery, our hull integrity will fail."

The vessel took another shot and a portion of the aft engineering hull broke off the vessel. "ABANDON SHIP!" ordered the Captain. The emergency power systems powered the alarm gong as white strobes blinked throughout the vessel. The crew of the Grissom got aboard escape pods and departed their vessel, which lay dead in space. It would only be a matter of time until she likely broke apart as a result of losing her integrity fields.

The Oberth kept on fighting. She had taken some hits, but had destroyed a pair of fighters. It would be a close call for her.

Deep space probes launched centuries prior had charted the general location of the Badlands. The fact that the area was essentially one giant plasma storm, it was eventually decided as a great place to field test the new T'empec class destroyer (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12248470&postcount=35). Thus, that is why a trio of T'empecs led by a fourth, the ISC T'empec herself, were close enough to detect the weapons discharges that had resulted during the battle between the IDF Oberths and the Maqui fighters.

"Maintain comm silence," ordered the Captain of the T'empec, "until further orders from myself, no ship in this fleet will so much as burp over the radio. With the standard emergency exceptions, of course."

The Captain's of the other three destroyers replied with a brief affirmative before all four ships banked towards the battle, rigging for silent running en route. Estimated time of arrival was in five minutes.

OOC: Hmm, now this could prove to be an interesting first contact. I predict that future Trinity Blood and IDF international relations may be turbulant. Though, as we both utilize our own take on Star Trek tech, we may have unique items we can offer the other.
Oh, and you can ignore the bit about 'shields' in the stats I linked to for the T'empec class as I don't have them, yet.

OOC: I would love to have first contact here.


IC:
The ISS Oberth was now fighting only 1 fighter. The remaining fighter had a skilled crew and was dodging the phaser fire from the Oberth.

The fighter bore in on the port quarter with phaser hits on the now unshielded dorsal saucer.

The rear console near the turbolift exploded sending an ensign in command red flying forward. He wasn't going to make it.

"Engineering, what's the status down there?" asked the Captain.

The Chief Engineer tapped his comm badge. Around him, men were spraying extinguishers and working to keep the power on despite all of the overloaded circuits that had exploded. "We're barely hanging on down here. Dorsal shields are down. Our port impulse engine is destroyed and we have hull breaches across decks 2 through 4 along the saucer section. There is a breach on the upper engineering hull in deck 10. We can hold out for now, but we can't take another torpedo hit.

The vessel took some more phaser hits. One of them heavily damaged the main energizer. Without the main energizer, power from the warp core couldn't be converted into usable power for the vessel's power systems. All she had left were her auxiliary generators and the impulse drive's fusion reactors.

After struggling to hit the final fighter, a pair of phaser beams struck nimble fighter. She exploded in a shower of sparks.

"Stand down from red alert," ordered the Captain. The bridge was a wreck. Of the 8 crew assigned to the bridge, 1 was dead and 2 were critically wounded. The rest of the bridge crew had minor wounds. Across the vessel, it was determined there were 15 dead with 13 critical cases. Most of the remaining 52 crewmembers were wounded to some degree.

The Communications officer had established communications with Starfleet. The ISS Defiant and ISS Galaxy were en-route. The Defiant would get there first so Dr. Bashir could take on the most critical cases. She wasn't big enough to deal with the survivors of 2 vessels. The Galaxy could treat the rest of the wounded and then transport the rest of the survivors to the nearest IDF Starbase.

The Oberth had contacted 6 escape pods from the Grissom. It was determined that 48 out of a crew of 80 remained alive with some of them critically wounded. The last few shots that the Oberth had taken prevented her from maneuvering to pick up the escape pods. The Oberth was dead in space. She would barely be together long enough for the 2 rescue ships to arrive.

Her fusion reactor had some leakages from some shock damage and was taken off-line. The auxiliary generators functioned, but damage suffered by the warship prevented her from getting the power to some of the necessary systems such as propulsion.

Discovering the wounded Oberth after coming around a plasma column, the Captain of the T'empec wanted to attack and take the damaged alien vessel for study by Trinity Blood engineers at the Monac Shipyards. However, his first officer and the rest of the bridge crew were able to reason with him and convince him that a more peaceful form of first contact would be more appropriate. Thus, the four destroyers formed up bow-to-bow with the Oberth a few hundred kilometers distant.

After a minute of staring time, the other three T'empecs veered off to collect survivors from the escape pods of the Grissom. Their transporters came in very handy during this operation. Though, after bringing as many survivors aboard as they could safely handle, they then used their transporters to transfer survivors to the least damaged escape pods so they would have to take as few trips towing them to safety as possible. One also dropped a marker buoy so they could find their way back much faster for the subsequent trips.

As that was going on, the T'empec rotated in place and backed towards the Oberth and latched on to the edge of her bow with grappling hooks (OOC: No tractors yet) and engaged her impulse engines in an attempt to tow the disabled Oberth as close as possible to outside the Badlands where it was safer from any further damage dealt by the plasma storm itself.

A few moments after towing began, the T'empec broke radio silence and sent the Oberth a databurst containing all known and unclassified languages so the comm officers of both ships would be able to configure the universal translators better when official channels were opened. Also included in the databurst was a basic animation that transcended the language barrier and explained what the Trinity Blood ships were attempting to accomplish.

Aboard the crippled Oberth, the message was recieved. "Comms, send them our thanks," ordered the Captain. "Sent a message to the Defiant and Galaxy explaining what is going on so they aren't surprised when they arrive here in 15 minutes."

The order was carried out. 'Who are these people?' wondered the Captain. They are obviously a group worthy of honor for they had braved the plasma storms and possible attack by the Maquis to rescue men from the Grissom. The Captain of the Oberth would be sure to meet with the leader of this group at a later date.

The crew of the Starfleet vessel had no idea what the 4 vessels out there looked like. The sensors that provided the image on the screen were destroyed and there was little visibiity from the viewports while the vessel was in the Badlands.

-------------------------------------------

The ISS Defiant reached the area and was broadcasting a message to the 4 Trinity Blood vessels expressing thanks and explaining that they were here as part of the rescue mission. It was also hoped that they would establish a dialogue here. Captain Sisko was experienced at such missions. He had established first contact with many new races in the Gamma Quadrant. Outside of the Jem'Hadar, he had had good experiences in doing so.

The Defiant was able to pick up the 4 Trinity Blood vessels on its scanners. Dax noted that they were very similar to Klingon B'Rel class vessels, but they had some major differences. Sisko knew that such vessels had become common among many Alpha and Beta quadrant powers so he took no special note about it.

The three T'empecs dealing with escape pod survivors silently beamed said survivors over to the larger Galaxy* without so much as a word. Once their payload of survivors were aboard, the destroyers dissapeared into the plasma storm.

The T'empec, however, continued to stoicly toe the Oberth onward. Though, she did alter course to come alongside the IDF ships.

Then, without warning, a short-range broadcast was sent out to the IDF trio of ships from the remaining Imperial craft. It contained another language packet before an audio only message, in Andorian of all things, was sent:

=/\=Where do you want her?=/\=

It was short, terse, and to the point. However, as per standard procedure, the Commander serving as First Officer of the T'empec was utilizing various stimuli to see how these people would react.

OOC: *I'm assuming she's one of the Galaxy class varients, correct? If so, is she a I (TNG), II (AGT-F), or III (DW)?
TNG is self explanatory, AGT-F stands for 'All Good Things - Future' era and DW is Dominion War era.

Pulses in the dark

A blossom of blue light, like a speck, a star, shone in one direction, creating distinctive lens flare effects, before twisting back on itself, opening a tunnel that rapidly widened to a blue-black tunnel that stretched to a dark point. A flash of light flickered in the depths of the tunnel.

Small asteroid scree twisted and melted, flaring to fluid as the energies of the jump point found it. Larger rocks bubbled slightly, but were left mostly intact as something massive swept by. An orange-yellow hull covered in a mottled pattern fell through space, four forward sweeping prongs made up the prow of the alien ship, and a bulbous roughly cone shaped body with forward sweeping, aerodynamic points that bore sensor and effector probes on their tips capable of detecting remote sources of electromagnetism and even influencing them.

As quickly as it had formed, the of the jump point dissipated into the nothing of local space, leaving the starship it had delivered orphaned. A conning tower structure at the peak of the ship showed the only signs of habitation, row after row of glowing windows, three decks high.

The vessel had no name of its own, and nothing that could truthfully be called a crew. It was at once its own person, and nothing. Its passengers were at once part of the crew and entirely superfluous to requirements and labour, serving no purpose aboard the daily life of the Vorlon vessel.

Vast glowing engines at the aft of the vessel, also not strictly required, glowed brightly as it began to move deeper into the asteroid field the Marquis inhabited. While the ship lacked any apparent energy shielding, the plasma-lightning of the badlands somehow did not touch it, as the electromagnetic effectors warped charge and power flow to calm the gasses around the new arrival, as other systems reached out for the shrouded planet below.

OOC: C’tan here! Why not… I’ve been keeping an eye on IDF’s threads for a while, with an eye to doing something with Vorlon Prime (http://www.nationstates.net/Vorlon%20Prime) (which can’t post, hence this puppet) in them. It’s my intention here to set up something of a sub-plot interacting with the mysterious and powerful (though not overwhelmingly) race expanding its alien interests in the same areas. As such, this ship is actually a chance encounter, a far ranging vessel out on its own, a survey ship; though this one is a battlecruiser (consider it about the displacement of a GCS battle section, but more powerful, about equal to a GCS, in all).

Even I’m not sure what this ship will do; it might take it upon itself to attack the Marquis, as they would offend its sense of morals. It might be attacked, and defend itself, or make peaceful contact, or do something stranger and more unusual. It should be quite detectable, as it’s affecting the environment around it. It might be taken as some kind of new Marquis trick, and fired upon from beyond visual range, given that… Up to you.

Obviously, if required, I’ll delete this post.

OOC: Hmm....well, Mr. Vorlon, the 'Eye Of The Empire' (I really need to design and build that thing IC'ly one of these days) is upon you. Don't forget, I've got three ships unaccounted for in this thread.

IC: The three T'empecs that had off-loaded survivors of the destruction of the Grissom to the Galaxy and left to try some live fire target practice in the same asteroid field the Vorlon battlecruiser had arrived in. The Captain of the lead destroyer, upon watching the impressive entry of the biotech craft to real space, kept his wing of craft just inside visual range, close enough to get some good scans but far enough way that they, hopefully, wouldn't be considered a threat to the larger(?) ship.

OOC: I'm heading out this weekend, will be back to post on Sunday

The Vorlon vessel detected nothing, for now, its senses were focussed ahead, and deep into the badlands. The cruiser was three times the length of the T’empec class, and its organic nature, was far from obvious, its outer layers resembling plastics more than skin, its inner layers were not especially responsive to sensor scans, essentially solid inside. It continued on course, oblivious, for now, to the environment around it.

OOC: The Eye? :eek:

Why do I get the feeling it may be productive for you to avoid the Vorlons? This ship in particular...

OOC: @IDF: Alright. Until you get back, I hope its alright if Alkesh Naranek and I continue our little encounter.
@Alkesh Naranek: Its a little construct I've been planning. Not yet decided if its to be a ship or station or something else entirely. As for staying away, perhaps, but the current Trinity Blood Prime Directive is to obtain, preferably through peaceful means, anything and everything that will proove beneficial to the Empire.

IC: The three Trinity Blood destroyers kept their offenses off-line while their defenses were only active so as to help prohibit damaged caused by enviromental factors within the plasma storm. It was after the three T'empecs had been shadowing the Vorlon craft for a few minutes that they got the Captain of the lead ship got the bright idea of hailing them.

Thus, the following was transmitted in all known, unclassified languages:

=/\=Alien ship, please identify yourself and state your intentions here.=/\=

The ship slowed, its acceleration dropping to zero, friction in the dense medium slowing it quickly, shifting it over onto one side. The ship began banking and rolling to bring itself face to face with the alien ships, and it observed.

It filtered through the languages until it discovered one it knew. Then it converted it into one it liked.

The answer came back in, of all things, Welsh.

“I am that is. My intentions are Kail.

“Who are you?”

Not that they were likely to know, but even by Vorlon standards, this answer was strange.

=/\=This is a T'empec class destroyer wing out the Trinity Blood Empire here for shakedown purposes. Be aware, we have recently found out the locals are having hostilities amoungst themselves.

Are we to take it that Kail is the name of your vessel or you personally?

We mean you no harm. So, how does a face-to-face meeting sound to you?=/\=

The reply was sent in Welsh as would be all future communications.

The response of the Vorlon ship was even more cryptic than its previous message had been.

“Yes.”

From the side of its body, seven objects shot, six of them smaller versions of the carrier vessel, without it forward prongs, in the same yellow-orange pattern. They took up positions around – two up front, two behind, one above and one below – the seventh ship, which was quite different.

It was composed of a blue crystalline material, and propelled by a moderately complex, distributed gravitic drive built into fins on its sides. The majority of its interior was cargo and fuel space – what its fuel was couldn’t be determined by sensor probeª. It too lacked shields, and it could be determined that it carried a single life form, who read as human.

The fighter escort was necessary, in fact, not for protection against attack, the transport itself was moderately armed for its size, but to protect the diminutive long-range vessel against the plasma storms of the badlands with their effectors.

The large mothership rotated on its centre of gravity, and its engines blazed, as it began to power off deeper into the Badlands, beyond the firing range, eager, it seemed, to be off. The tale of hostilities among the locals was apparently interesting to Kail.

The flotilla of little ships closed, and the crystalline flyer transmitted a message, it was of the face of a man with light skin, blue eyes, a thin straight nose, long clean wavy brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He spoke English, surprisingly. “Flyer to T’empec. I presume you want someone to come aboard to discuss… matters? I can dock with your vessel, or come aboard if you have facilities for landing shuttle-craft.”


ªTranslation: I don’t know what powers these things!

The small shuttle bay of the lead T'empec, located between the nacelles on the aft end of the ship, slid open to allow the incoming shuttle to land. Once the hatch had slid open, the one Type 0 shuttle pod (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12248174&postcount=22) contained inside slipped out as there isn't very much room contained in the destroyer's hanger.

=/\=We have launched our shuttle pod to allow room for your shuttle to land. If you feel you won't be able to fit, then external docking would be the only option. Unless you are willing to allow us to transport you aboard.=/\=

The launched shuttle then rotated and docked with one of the other T'empecs. At the same time, the lead T'empec rotated so the hanger was easier to access for the Vorlon shuttle.

OOC: Assuming your shuttle's small enough to fit. By your description, I'm assuming its based on the small version of the Minbari Flyer, correct? If its much bigger than one of my shuttle pods (if I recall the episode correctly and judging from the ammount of space left for a hanger in such a compact hull), you'll have to dock, howaever, or beam in.
As for what powers Vorlon ships, my research says something called a Hyperspatial Tap. If you wish, I can give you the only link I have regarding B5 tech.

The Vorlon flyer docked, just about small enough – they came in a few variants, and this was an old and compact one. It was, nonetheless, a tight fit. Its occupant exited via a hatch at the front. He was dressed in a simple blue robe of coarse material tied about the waist with a rope, and wore simple, light sandals. He didn’t look like he had any business being in space, and indeed, he looked like he belonged leading some kind of bizarre cult in a backwater town.

The automated fighter craft peeled off and arced back, entering a loose formation near the T’empecs.

The occupant had little clue quite what was meant by transport, in that context, in any case. It was a technology unknown to the Vorlons, and a technology they would abhor in any case, even were it capable of working upon the Vorlon creatures themselves, and not just their servants.

OOC: Yeah. This ship is actually Minbari; and would presumably use some variant of fusion. B5tech.com (which has some scaling I’d call… ‘dodgy’) suggests it’s a hybrid fusion-antimatter power supply. The Vorlon ships use a hyperspace-related ZPE style system of unknown properties. The Vorlons don’t appear to have an equivalent ship – their idea of a shuttle appears to be Kosh’s ship. :p

OOC: Luckily, the one part of ST tech I'm RPing as ahead of my general 22nd century tech level is the whole forcefield for hangers thing. Thus, no need to repressurize and depressurize every time I want to open the doors.

IC: "Welcome aboard our little ship," greeted Captain Fuller as an Ensign blew the VIP tune on his bosun whistle.

OOC: I know, short and not the best I've done, but I'm too tired to think up anything more.
Oh, and I'll TG you that link.

OOC: I have no issues with you guys continuing. BTW, the vessel is an original variant Galaxy class, although she will soon have a refit which will add the extra phaser nacelle phaser arrays seen during the Dominion War.

IC:
Sisko was quick to respond to the helpful crew of the T'empec. "We need her towed to space station Deep Space Nine. It is in the Denorios Belt in the Bajor System near the mouth of the Bajoran Wormhole. We can tow her ourselves, but I'd like to extend an invitation on behalf of IDF for you and your vessels to visit any time in hopes of fostering diplomatic relations among our people."

Sisko had Dax run some scans of the crippled Oberth in order to get a picture of the damage done to the vessel. Her exterior didn't look well at all. It was covered in black sorch marks. There were obvious hull breaches and a portion of the after engineering hull was missing. Scans of the vessels showed that her interior wasn't much better. Given the amounts of damage suffered, she would likely be designated for scrap after O'Brien and his engineers looked her over at DS9.

Aboard the Galaxy, medical crews worked on the wounded survivors of the 2 Oberth class vessels as the vessel also traveled towards the advanced medical facilities aboard DS9.

The representative from the alien ship smiled, “It is a pleasure to be of use,” he said, “And now, a question; who are you?” He emphasised the question; to him it was not a question, it was the question.

Meanwhile, the Vorlon ship continued to probe the depths of the Badlands. It seemed highly likely that it would encounter the Marquis soon. None could tell quite what would happen when it did.

OOCness: I take it IDF wants to play the guerrillas too? Otherwise, it’d be a bit naff. ‘Kail’ might do anything, depending on what people say to it. It’s not exactly stable.

In fact, it’s a screaming loon.

OOC: I have no issues with you guys continuing. BTW, the vessel is an original variant Galaxy class, although she will soon have a refit which will add the extra phaser nacelle phaser arrays seen during the Dominion War.

IC:
Sisko was quick to respond to the helpful crew of the T'empec. "We need her towed to space station Deep Space Nine. It is in the Denorios Belt in the Bajor System near the mouth of the Bajoran Wormhole. We can tow her ourselves, but I'd like to extend an invitation on behalf of IDF for you and your vessels to visit any time in hopes of fostering diplomatic relations among our people."

Sisko had Dax run some scans of the crippled Oberth in order to get a picture of the damage done to the vessel. Her exterior didn't look well at all. It was covered in black sorch marks. There were obvious hull breaches and a portion of the after engineering hull was missing. Scans of the vessels showed that her interior wasn't much better. Given the amounts of damage suffered, she would likely be designated for scrap after O'Brien and his engineers looked her over at DS9.

Aboard the Galaxy, medical crews worked on the wounded survivors of the 2 Oberth class vessels as the vessel also traveled towards the advanced medical facilities aboard DS9.

The response, also in Andorian and audio only, was quick in coming:

=/\=Names are different. Galactic co-ordinates relative to galaxy center requested.=/\=

Meanwhile, space suited figures with tinted face plates had beamed over to the Oberth with med kits and engineering cases. The 'medics' went about their buisness of rescuing those that were trapped under debris as well as venturing into the sections with hull breaches to set up portable emergency forcefield generators to help hold the plasma storm from getting inside and doing too much more damage.

OOC: Interesting. So you are going from Galaxy Is to Galaxy IIIs. You going to ever have the three-nacelled Galaxy II dreadnaugt in your fleet?

The representative from the alien ship smiled, “It is a pleasure to be of use,” he said, “And now, a question; who are you?” He emphasised the question; to him it was not a question, it was the question.

Meanwhile, the Vorlon ship continued to probe the depths of the Badlands. It seemed highly likely that it would encounter the Marquis soon. None could tell quite what would happen when it did.

OOCness: I take it IDF wants to play the guerrillas too? Otherwise, it’d be a bit naff. ‘Kail’ might do anything, depending on what people say to it. It’s not exactly stable.

In fact, it’s a screaming loon.

"I'm Captain Artimus Fuller, commanding officer of this T'empec class destroyer of the Empire Of Trinity Blood," he replied, "interesting choice of opening question. You know why we're here, so, if you don't mind, why was your vessel in the area?"

OOC: 'Kail' will find that those in Trinity Blood know how to treat their guests right.

The representative frowned briefly, “Empire of Blood? That doesn’t sound very…” he broke off, whatever he’d wanted to say, it didn’t matter, he seemed to suddenly remember something, “Never mind. The ship is here because we detected something of interest from hyperspace. It may have been the skirmish, or something else. We believe there to be something of interest in the nebula. Do you have any information on local inhabitants? You could say we were responding to distress.”

Oh, yes, something of interest indeed. He wouldn’t, didn’t even know to, say what, but the mind controlling the ship that coasted through the Badlands had its own suspicions. It would see them through.

"The name 'Trinity Blood' is in reference to how the blood of the founding three united in peace. The three founding sub-nations of the Empire ended millenia of conflict when our nation was founded all those centuries ago," replied the Captain almost defensively, "as for the locals, the most we got when we found them in the middle of their little skirmish is some sensor recordings as well as a few educated guesses. It appears the main power in the area had two ships of a class apparently designed for science purposes and not heavy combat against several apparently fighter sized craft. We do know that the last of the science ships destroyed the last fighter just as we got with in range to do anything to help. The T'empec stayed behind to see about gathering more intel, in part," a pause for breath, "we were also able to assertain both sides utlize some form of shield technology."