Kalkarindji - Five Seven Nine & other gossip

Posted on 2024, Mon May 6th, @ 6:56am by Outpost Captain Savage Ivanov & Commander Nordic Volkov & Civilian Black Element
Edited on on 2024, Tue May 7th, @ 12:36pm

1,508 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Getting Ready (Character Development)OUTPOST
Location: Kalkarindji

"Is he crazy?"
"If he's not he is bloody darn close."
"I thought they had limited the number of splitters."
"They had."
"Cost?"
"No, experienced people who can train. They've got plenty of chair sitters who want to command, but a lack of experienced people who can train."
"Does Mad know?"

Savage rolled his shoulders and widened his hands. "From what I've heard AT hasn't caught on, that if he wants to fly high and take the next step, he has to work with Mad."

"Gawd, could you image Ward getting command of a five, seven, nine or whatever follows?"
"No." Ward doesn't have the mind needed. He's too by the book."

"Any idea how they're going to split? I mean the designer in me, liked the challenge. Taking one ship and splitting it into three wasn't really a challenge. Until Mad got involved, and then it went to hell in a handbag. If they don't overcome what they had to overcome in the current one, then they are going to have to duplicate everything times five, seven, nine or thirty two."

"Come on. How the hell... Thirty-two?"
"Depends on what her prime function is. Evacuating a planet takes a lot of space. Tactically splitting one into three sounds okay. One into five, seven or nine works on the design board, if you're willing to make the division element into different shapes. But you've got large elements of wasted space. You just can't have them sit or click together and hold. You could do a thirteen or seventeen split, if you had one or two larger divisions and went down to different size elements. But unless you had a warped mind, able to fit the puzzle together, and to stop a hostile element from taking out vital elements she'll fall apart."

"Surely, even SF wouldn't try something that big."
"They've got a team trying to split a station."
"Split a station, for what purpose?"
"I have no idea. You take something 113's size, splitting it isn't a problem. Gaining an increase in speed is another element entirely."
"Are you actually serious?"
"Dead serious. They've got some teams, going through ideas that were done on film, and seeing if whomever came up with the idea wasn't onto something everyone else missed."

"What were those animated shows that had vehicles change into robots, that we used to watch?"
"Transformers. Autobots. Voltron. Cars or animals, that joined together, turned into a robot and fought as one. Power Rangers. GForce."
"I'm retiring if someone decided we all had to wear lyrca one piece jumpsuits and wiggle our arses while we fought battles with plastic swords."
"Trust you to think of that."

"On another note. Have we heard anything about the explosive cloud?"
"Whoever is behind it, has gone to ground." Savage answered. "They still expect them to keep targeting starbases and stations, but no one knows why."

"We get anything else from Duncan?"

"USS Crazy horse and her crew were recovered from Tkon. However the mind melds that were there aren't." Savage sipped his whiskey.
"What?"
"The race that took in Pike have moved on. SF are a tad bit unhappy about them going walk about." Savage glanced up when silence met his statement. "Apparently Starfleet thought they understood, they couldn't just up and move without giving notice."

"Are you serious?"
"Totally. Seems they weren't willing to follow SF's orders." Savage shrugged. "What, you asked."
"Yeah, we asked. What else you got?"
"Six SF ships had their crews kidnapped. The six ships were found drifting. No damage. No battle damage. SF are investigating, but the crews are gone. Someone got onboard, stole the crew, took nothing else, and vanished. No files, no records nothing. SF have towed the vessels back, looking for someone to take on the investigation."
"What about this portal that keeps appearing?"
"Which portal?"

All eyes turned to Savage. "Apparently, it appears, then disappears. Some reckon it's a gateway, others are coming up with alternate ideas."
"Wasn't the Yackandrah....." Savage shot Nordic a glare and Nordic fell silent.
"Wasn't that the ship Black was on?"
"Yeah." Nordic stated. "All I was going to say was that people were quick to link any portal to the Yackandrah."
"People should stop grasping at straws."

"Well, there's a few other options to keep them occupied."
"Such as?"
"Three Borg cubes appeared, the first appeared fifteen days ago, with a sphere, and two other unknown, unseen, Borg craft. Some idiot teens boarded and the footage they took has gone nuts. The second appeared half destroyed with a further nano size shrapnel field, that some expert says would be the amount you'd get from another cube. The third cube appeared two days ago, surrounded by hundreds of Borg, floating in pieces. SF have quarantined the cubes. Word has it, that some SF idiots are asking if they came from where the Yackandrah went."

"Actually, I don't think that's going to help." Coolac announced from the door. Tossing the padd she held towards Savage, she poured herself a drink.
"Did you message Black?"
"Jason was doing it." Coolac answered.
"Someone want to fill the rest of us in?"
"Twelve days ago the USS Dauntless disappeared in the same area as the Ruddley." Coolac stated. "Four days ago the USS Maidenfern, well what was left of her appeared with the remnants of the USS Blossom. No survivors." Coolac complied.

"How much longer?"
"Can't answer that." Savage rose to his feet. "However I can send some additional willing bodies her way."
"Better do the same to 113." Nordic suggested, as Savage disappeared from view. "You get anything else?" Nordic asked Coolac.
"Three luxury cruise liners heading out from Earth aren't responding. No one has linked them to the Yackandrah, the Dauntless, Ruddley, Maidenfern or Blossom, or the Borg Cubes... yet."
"Souls?"
"Between the three, eight thousand, three hundred and twenty one." Coolac sat down, as Jason came through the door. "You get her?"

"No. Had to leave a message through her sleeve. Halo's responding to some SF ship, which got attacked. Oh, and four other SF vessels have been reporting missing. Two civilian vessels out of Mars carrying members of a religious cult are also not responding. It's been eleven days since the SF vessels were heard from. The two religious cult ships have been silent for eight days. A beacon relay recorded some noise, matched to weapons fire. One of the SF ship's was heading towards 113, with a bunch of bigwigs onboard."
"You get ship names?"
"USS Solugel. USS Bisolvon. USS Eomol and the Starfleet Holographic Transporter Fexofenadine. Someone wiped their last journey logs. Solugel, four hundred and fifteen crew. Bisolvon two thousand and eighty-three. Eomol, six hundred and ten. Fexofenadine one thousand three hundred and thirty-eight crew and forty-seven SF bigwigs. Sixty-two diplomates."

"That's one hell of a lot of crew. You sure they weren't load?"
"It would have to be something important for SF to bring a holo out of the vault."
"Why would they have such a large crew?"
"They wouldn't." Jynx Ivanov answered. "Fexofenadine was the last holo transporter built. She runs with eighteen crew. Take eighteen from the total number, and you've got an evac job, or resettlement. The fact most Holographics's use alternatives to standard weapons, changing their shape and appearance to stay out of view. She has two tubes, and three twin banks. Use the tubes or the banks, you lose the power to go full holographic. Internal and external work separate. Your job is to keep those you're transporting from realising they're not in their natural element."
"How long?"
"Sixteen years, and change." Jynx answered. Fexofenadine was his last command, before he went black. There wasn't anything he didn't know about holo's especially this one.

"Who were they?"
"Three thousand survivors who survived an attack. They were lucky, they got SF Marine assistance. They lost their men. Survivors were all female and pregnant. They spent a hell of a long time in the Fex, till a new home was found for them." Jynx answered. "We were lucky we had the SF marines we had. It went bad. I doubt we, would've survived, if we didn't have who we had. That was one hell of an eye opener."
"So, who did you have?"
"No idea. You work a holo, you don't get the full story. Never saw a single bit of flesh from the marines. What they wore kept their gender from being identified. Voice modulators altered their speech when they spoke, and that wasn't very often. We came onboard once our load was already onboard. Two operators work the internal holographic. They go out of their way not to be seen. Not everyone can work a holo. You must be able to deal with only getting tiny bits of information. You never get a full story."

"What SF marine unit goes black?"
"What SF marine unit, lives black?"
"No idea. Someone call the Warlord and updated Deeton and Q?" Jynx asked.
"Yeah Bronx, was doing it when I left."

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