The Fourth Seal

Posted on Sun Jun 6, 2021 @ 8:40pm by Admiral Alan Markus & Captain April Dragon & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Commander Cullen Walker & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant Arashi Tanaka Mr. & Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Lieutenant JG Ardal King & Senior Chief Petty Officer Samantha Summers & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit

2,763 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Archangel
Location: Bridge
Timeline: 0523 Hours

Two sets of turbolift doors opened simultaneously, one depositing a tightly-bound thunderstorm, and the other spewing a barely restrained hurricane.

"Camille and AJ are missing!" Nicole said, rushing around to the main bridge seat.

"What??" Penny said in alarm from the center seat. She immediately sat up straighter and hit the comm panel. "Yellow Alert. Captain and First Officer to the bridge."

"We can't raise shields while we're docked," the officer at tactical warned as he moved to let Lt. Tanaka take his station.

"Prepare to disembark, but wait for the Captain's orders," Penny said, turning as the turbolift doors opened again.

The Captain exited the turbo lift, “Report.”

Coming out of the ready room, Walker listened to what was said.

"Lieutenants Levesque and Taggart have been reported missing, Captain," Penny said, walking quickly to her station and sitting down in the now vacated seat, bringing up internal sensors. "Our transporters weren't activated, and only one airlock has been in use over the last few hours."

“Missing?” the Captain echoed sharply. “What do you mean they are missing? Who activated an airlock? There’s no need for an airlock to be used...”

"That was me," Nicole said, her voice strained. "They left the ship at 0518, I was in my quarters by 0520, and came from the airlock. They didn't pass by me."

The Captain turned to look at the Doctor, eyes boring into her as she said, “and you left the ship for 2 minutes because why...exactly?”

"I was seeing a friend off," Nicole said, wringing her hands. "I don't know how they could have gotten past me, and I went back to my quarters right away." She looked at the Captain, distraught.

Walker tapped his comm, "Walker to King."

Responding groggily, "Go for King."

Walker answered. "Be prepared for a full forensic sweep. You will get locations shortly." He wanted scans on Medical settings, Science settings, and Security setting. He was willing to go overboard for his crew.

The response came back, "Yes, Sir."

Looking at Penny, "Sensors pick up an offsite transport?" He sent a locked transmission to King's tablet. He showed it to the Captain, so she knew he was sending King to Taggert and Levesque's quarters to scan. Then he sent it.

Penny checked her boards and shook her head. "Sensors indicate an energy signature, but not one I recognize. Could be a transporter, but no indication where it went." She looked at Arashi for confirmation.

"No, nothing triggered anything security related. No transports or anything related." Arashi said. He was angry but didn't show it. He was getting emotional and it wasn't helping him at all. He remembered something his father told him as a child. "Get too angry and you will never find a solution to your problem." He had said to Arashi. Arashi took a deep breath and relaxed.

"When you have something, send the location to Tanaka and King." He wanted them to be able to have a crime scene. He looked at the Captain.

Arashi had gotten to his station. He was a bit nervous as he had never dealt with something like this. He was trained to support away teams and research teams, or whatever, but an anomaly that literally kidnaps people, not in his wheelhouse at all. But he was security and something had breached what he called home so he was bound and determined to find out about whatever did this.

"Captain," Penny said getting an alert, "Admiral Markus is requesting to come aboard. Also, the Castelnaudary has arrived and is holding position outside the station, along with the Saint George.

“Denied.” Kennit snapped. “We have missing personnel, no one boards and no one leaves.” A pause, then she added, “activate internal sensors. Additionally I want an anti-photon pulse initiated at random intervals no longer than point zero eight seconds throughout the ship via the backup holographic emitter interface. The pulse is to remain active until I expressly state otherwise which means no holographic functions will be available onboard. Do it now.”

"Aye, Captain," Penny said, setting up the pulse. She set the pulse on a rotating deck plan, randomizing the time and locations. "Pulse established. Holodecks are offline and EMH is in protected memory," she said.

Even now in this day of warp capable starships, many civilians still thought of deep space as a vacuum, devoid of anything, but they were wrong. In truth, space was full of matter. Gas molecules, ice, dust, which was why starships used fields generated by the deflector dish to clear the vessel's path as it traveled, otherwise even a tiny speck of dust could cause devastating damage to a ship traveling at warp. The typical gas density of interstellar space was one atom per cubic centimeter (cc). A cubic centimeter of air in a normal room has about 10^19 atoms in it. The interstellar medium is not uniform in density. Although on average its density is one atom per cc, a nebula for example could have densities up to a million atoms per cc.  

“Continue internal scans to identify that anomalous energy signature. Additionally I want a complete deep scan run on the space immediately surrounding this station extending out to a maximum range for known Transporter systems to lock on and beam personnel away. Specifically look for disruption in the trajectory and paths of all molecules of gas and dust in the area. Cross reference all motion to that of all ships including our own, any disruption which cannot be tied to recent traffic identify it and track its origin and its heading...” Kennit ordered.

"Oh....kay," Penny said, trying to figure out how to do that before she wound up being the only one left alive on board. She started writing the algorithms as she called to the station to disengage. The response came back "request denied." She frowned and repeated it. It was again denied. Knowing they had little time, she discreetly accessed their controls using her codes, and overrode their lockouts. The mooring clamps disengaged, and she tapped the helm.

Summers buried her head--or as much as she could of it--into her screen, trying hard *not* to be noticed.

As the ship disengaged from its moorings and approached the bay doors, they opened slowly, as if emphasizing the amount of space they now had to keep an eye on. Hanging nearby were two Federation ships, facing the station and waiting patiently.

Penny set her newly-written program to work and began scanning the surrounding space. Tracking their progress was easy, as was the ships in front of them. The rest of space in their scanning range though? That could take hours.

As they came to a stop, her boards lit up again. "Captain," she said, "Admiral Markus is hailing us from the Saint George. The Castelnaudary is hailing as well."

Not masking her irritation, or dislike at the mention of the Castelnaudary, the Captain answered with a curt “On screen.”

The viewscreen changed to a split view. On the right was Captain Edwards in her command chair, legs crossed, face calm and a tad confused. On the left, Captain Dragon sat in her own chair, but the focus was on the red-faced Admiral standing in the foreground, arms behind his back and looking down at them in anger.

King came on the bridge. He had run from each set of quarters to the airlock in question. He saw the view screen on. He stood up on two legs. In this case, he wasn't being aggressive, but overtly present. His species communicated not just in barks and growls, but in nonverbal and body language.

Walker looked at King and held out his hand for the padd. He reviewed it. It was the compiled data from three settings on the tricorder and a statement about what he smelled, in the unusual for quarters. The DNA scans were tabulating and would be on the tablet by the time he offered the padd to the Captain. He had sent King in because of the species trait of the nose. Two adolescent humanoids. It was also the scan data from the transporter energy and decay rate in the area he scanned.

The Captain accepted the PaDD but before she could review its contents Admiral Markus spoke.

"Captain Kennit," he said, "my children are missing. My people have searched the Castelnaudary, as well as the Saint George. You, however, are not allowing anyone on board and are now attempting to leave. I'd appreciate an explanation."

“Two members of my crew are missing.” She answered, her tone of voice conveying little. “They did not exit the ship via the quarterdeck hatch to the station, nor were our transporters utilized. Internal sensors detected an as-yet-unidentified energy signature which originated outside this ship and dock.” She paused, and said, “Transmit the sensor data to Admiral Markus.”

Penny already had it queued up and hit the button quickly.

Markus' eyes shifted rapidly as data scrolled across his vision, the rest of the bridge crew making do with screens. Captain Dragon leaned back and whispered something to her tactical officer who nodded and began working his console. His eyebrow raised slowly and his posture changed.

Continuing, Kennit said, “No ships which were present at the time of their disappearance and the coinciding energy signature have departed, therefore in order to scan for evidence of a cloaked vessel entering and departing from this region we must get clear of the station dock interference so that a complete deep scan of the space immediately surrounding this station extending out to a maximum range for known transporter systems to lock on and beam personnel away. Specifically we intend to look for disruption in the trajectory and paths of all molecules of gas and dust in the identified area. Cross reference all motion to that of all ships including our own, which would disrupt the natural movement caused by the natural effects of gravity, stellar winds through the sector and so on. Any disruption which cannot be tied to recent traffic would indicate the potential presence of a cloaked vessel as well as its course as it approached, and whether or not it’s still in the area or has departed and if so, give us its initial heading.” Kennit answered, sounding almost like a Starfleet combat tactics professor at the Academy as she spoke. “In order to facilitate the task, it would be prudent to order that all other ships currently present maintain their current positions so as to not further disrupt a potential wake trail. Due to the concentrations of interstellar dust being slightly higher than normal in this region as a result of the supernova explosion which created the pulsar two sectors from our present location, we should find evidence of its passage.”

"Markus to Ops," the Admiral said, tapping his combadge. "General broadcast. All ships in the area to come to a full stop and none are to approach the station until further notice."

"Aye, Sir," came the reply.

Markus looked at Kennit. "Who is missing? When did they vanish?"

“Lieutenant Lévesque and Lieutenant Taggart,” she answered in a short, curt manner. This conversation was wasting time better spent on scanning the area and further analysis of the ships internal sensors in her opinion.

Markus' brow furrowed. "Why them?"

Penny's board went off and she looked up. "Um, the computer found a path of disturbed space. It's headed right for us."

Immediately the Captain barked out. “Yellow alert. Raise shields!” In this situation, she’d rather err on the side of caution than be caught unprepared. “Identify the incoming vessel.”

The viewscreen showed a Federation ship drop out of warp and take up position away from the other two starships. "They're hailing," Penny said.

“On screen.” Kennit replied.

The face of a concerned Napean replaced Captain Edwards on the viewscreen. "This is Lieutenant Commander Opun, USS Rosenberg. Sorry to interrupt, but I believe you kidnapped our Commanding Officer?"

Markus raised an eyebrow, looking at Kennit.

Never one to mince words, Kennit’s reply was one word. “Bullshit.”

"Respectfully, I disagree," Opun said. "You have him in your brig, I assume, since you took him without his consent. So, I can have a communications beacon scream all the way back to Earth, alerting them to the rogue Starfleet captain shutting down stations and abducting Captains--which I'm sure will go over so well after the recent dust ups--or you can hand him over."

Her expression cold, the velvet soft tone of her voice none the less conveying both bored irritation and a very deadly warning Fleet Captain Kennit answered. “ Ahhh. You are here to whine over Captain Beechwood’s arrest. He has been transferred to DQ8 pending judicial proceedings for obstruction of official investigation and tampering with evidence. Charges filed under my authorization as provided by Article 14, Section 31 of the Starfleet charter, specifically paragraph §007.01 which grants personnel with this designation full and absolute authority during times of dire emergency and extreme danger to the Federation as deemed such by the agent the use of extraordinary measures as required in order to preserve the rights and privileges of the Federation and its citizens at all costs.”

Her expression conveying both the sense that she was quite bored with Commander Opun, and quite willing to add a list of charges against him (if he was fortunate enough), she said. “My authorization code is being sent to you now.” she added, entering the data into the comm panel at her seat and sending the verification to the other officer. “Now then. You are to hold position and remain in that position until given the all clear. Your arrival has further disturbed a possible crime scene and further disrupted our efforts to obtain vital evidence regarding the abduction of Admiral Markus’ minor children from the station and personnel from my ship. I strongly suggest, you do not push me further. I am already feeling rather cranky at being dragged back into the galactic sewer.”

On Opun’s computer displays, Kennit’s full authorizations given to her by her role within Section 31 glowed softly, confirming what she’d told him about her level of authority.

Her tone still calm, she said “Lieutenant Naroot, please continue your scans. Every moment wasted dealing with that moron is time the abductors of our crew mates and Admiral Markus’ children have to get further away.”

"Haven't stopped, Ma'am," Penny said.

"Agreed," Markus said, tapping a few commands onto the arm control of the Captain's chair. A few moments later, the sound of a transporter sounded, and Beechwood appeared on the bridge in front of Lieutenant Commander Opun.

"Admiral," Beechwood said, looking surprised. "I'd like to thank you--"

"Stow it," Marus said. His voice was hard, clear and sharp as a diamond. "Now order your ship to turn its sensors on and scan every cubic centimeter around you until you have helped us locate every path a ship has traveled. We have no more time to waste."

"Yes, Admiral," Beechwood said, nodding. "Scan the sector for--" He stopped as his eyes widened in surprise. His mouth moved as if he was saying something, but the words were lost over the whine of a phaser that was quickly drilling a hole in him.

He dropped to the ground as Lieutenant Commander Opun lowered his weapon. He sat down in the center chair and crossed his legs. "Since time is of the essence," he said. "Allow me." He pressed a button on the arm of his chair.

The viewscreen flickered as the lights on the bridge went dark. The channel to the Rosenberg was cut and they got a view of the Castel, Saint George and even the station going dark.

"Power levels dropping throughout the ship!" Penny said, her hands flying over her boards. "Attempting to reroute."

Suddenly three ships appeared behind the Rosenberg, flanking it. They were barely discernible from the darkness around them, but they were clearly facing down the Federation ships.

"The new arrivals are hailing," Penny said.

“On screen.” Kennit said, growing rapidly weary of those two words.

A woman appeared on screen. She was sitting in a small cone of light on a dark brown chair, or possibly throne. She had her legs crossed and a comfortable, superior, attitude that was in no short supply at that moment. "Hello, Darling," she said sweetly, looking towards the Admiral.

 

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