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Posted on Sunday 4 September 2016 @ 00:54 by Lieutenant Commander David Tan

Mission: Old, New Ship
Location: Tactical Information Center, USS Merlin
Timeline: MD7 - Twenty Three Hundred Hours
940 words - 1.9 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Earlier that evening:

David had been ordered to take over in the Tactical Information Center. He had left the Bridge and gone down to Deck 5 - TIC ....

They were playing a very dangerous game, and one that could possibly lead to all-out war ! ... They had sent a shuttle down to the asteroid where the Tri'Jema had crashed. It was hoped they could get in and out before either of the other parties could arrive. Alas that was not to be the case. The Merlin had been given no option but to dispatch fighters,both to protect the Merlin herself, but also the crew on the shuttle en-route to a landing beside the fallen vessel.

Despite attempts at diplomacy, both the Vulcan's and the Romulan's insisted that the Merlin depart the area and leave the Tri'Jema to them. He or his Deputy Operations Officer had failed to notice the relevant fact that neither party had claimed ownership of the vessel and it made him nervous, more because he wasn't sure if the Vulcan's would assist if it came to a fire-fight with the Romulan vessel. It was only a matter of time before someone would need to fire, even if only as a deterrent, Little did he realise the effect firing would have on everyone.

Even as the Merlin's fighters opened fire, he still held out hope that it wouldn't escalate into open warfare, thankfully, and despite the fact that they had destroyed 3 of the Romulan's Scorpion fighters, and effectively turned around the shuttle known to possibly hold a number of Romulan Teth Koros, the Romulan version of Earths Commandos, the Romulan vessel S'Trak held back on firing on the Federation Star Ship. He could imagine the scene on their Bridge but knew now that their Commanding Officer had won out and held firm on not wanting to start a war this day ....

Current:

It was almost 23:00 hours going off the chronometer over the main screen in TIC and he had ordered a shift change while it was relatively quiet. He had asked Lysia to stay on with him, he trusted her opinion and her insight, though he did tell her to go freshen up and asked her to bring him a strong black coffee. As TIC had not been asked to stand down it was clear there was still an element of uncertainty in their situation. The 3 ships, still holding their triangle formation but with the Merlin stil moving away slowly. They were almost 600,000 kilometers distant now, but were continuously scanning each other as if hoping to find that one piece of information that would give them the upper hand. He had ordered sensors remain on both the Vulcan and Romulan vessels, as well as on the Tri'Jema.

With the away team back aboard, he wondered vaguely how much information they had been able to gleam from the stricken vessel, and if any of that information would give them a clue as to why 2 races claimed ownership, yet neither had backed down .... He stood up, feeling a twinge in his aching muscles. Stretching his aching back he hadn't realised how long everyone had been working, not only in TIC, but on the Bridge, in the deployed fighters, and on the surface, risking their lives every moment they were nside the Tri'Jema.

"Ensign Case, I'm taking a break, I'll be back momentarily, shout if you need me."

~~~~~

Back from the bathroom he took the offered cup of coffee from Lysia, who had returned while he was away.

"Any thoughts on where we go from here?" she asked, eyeing the view-screens and taking in the information presented.

"I think it's only a matter of time before the Romulan's send that shuttle back. They either have something on that ship they are desperate to get back, or there is something on there they want to get their hands on before the Vulcan's can snatch it from their greedy fingers. Either way, we simply didn't have the time down there to do a thorough search. We were lucky to get what scant information we did in the time we had."

"We could have called their bluff you know." Lysia said speculatively, sipping her coffee.

"Oh?"

"Well, not that I'm a Command Officer, but it crossed my mind, that once our shuttle was away from the Tri'Jema we could have played a little 'poker' with our opposite numbers."

"By doing what, exactly?" David asked wryly.

"Well, personally, I would have locked weapons on the Tri'Jema and then told both parties to move out of firing range or we'd destroy the thing ourselves, so whoever had whatever on the thing would loose it, and the one trying to get at it would be out of luck completely. You never know, they may have fallen for the threat." she said with a shrug.

"I doubt either would have fallen for it to be perfectly honest." he said, shrugging, "Besides, they knew that we wanted to know what was going on over there, despite our disadvantage, they would know we wouldn't have destroyed the crashed vessel out of spite, or just to stop them getting at it. I think our bluff would have been called. It would have bought us time though, maybe the few moments we needed, maybe not, we'll never know unless the Captain has plans to turn us around at some point."

He dropped back into his seat, Lysia taking hers slightly below and to his left ... He wondered what they would do next, leave the Romulan's and Vulcan's to it .... Or ..........

OFF:

Lieutenant jg. David Tan
Chief Operations Officer
USS Merlin