To Be Or Not To Be

Posted on 17 Oct 2017 @ 2:04pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Greg Mitchell

4,423 words; about a 22 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - San Francisco, Starfleet HQ
Timeline: MD 20, 2017 hrs

[ON]

Lamar wasn't quite sure what he was doing on the 5th floor of Starfleet HQ's primary administrative complex. Well, he knew what he was doing -- handing over the official support craft logs compiled from the last three month's of Galileo's service -- but he didn't know why he'd been the one selected for the task. Probably because some pencil pusher lieutenant can't get off his ass and actually do some work, he thought to himself as he moseyed down the long corridor searching for the correct office.

Along the way, he passed a series of large double-doors that seemed a bit out of place to him considering the administrative nature of the building. He slowed his pace while walking past each of them, inspecting the door label and keypad of each one before finally coming to a halt. '05-238-A Command Simulator', read one of them.

"...Command simulator..." he mumbled to himself with a frown. Before he could activate his do-not-touch-reflex, his hand had reached out and tapped the keypad command to open the doors. A loud mechanical swish promptly ensued, and looking into the room, he was suddenly presented with the pristine scene of a starship bridge interior complete with working consoles. "Ohh..." he mumbled again, this time realizing what it was and oogling over the sight. It wasn't often that warrants such as himself ever stepped foot on a bridge, and Lamar'd always been fascinated with the operational control centers of starships. Without thinking further, he glanced left, then right to make sure the coast was clear, and stepped inside.

Meanwhile, having been recently given a clean bill of health, Greg was patrolling the HQ. He still had about a day before his scheduled leave to Illinois, and he wanted to get up and moving about. After a lot of convincing, meaning annoying his CO, he was cleared to do a patrol of the HQ Admin building, which he believed they reluctantly authorized him via the thought process of "this is Headquarters. What could go wrong?". But if he had to sit out another day, he was going to explode. He figured it would be good to get some patrol in before his next posting.

=^=Three-One, check in.=^=

Damn it Greg mumbled, and tapped his badge. "For the last time, dispatch, I'm fine. You don't need to check in every five seconds, over."

=^=Three-one, this has nothing to do with your condition. HQ check in times are stricter than Starships.=^=

"I have gone FIVE FEET since your last check in." Greg answered.

=^=...it seriously hasn't been longer than that?=^=

Greg sighed, "Tell CO that all is clear on the Admin wing. I don't appear to be seeing any issues near by." He walked up into the observation room of the simulators. He had never been in one himself before, but he heard from stories that this is where the bridge crew of the ships trained before leaving. The observation room was dark and shut down, the only lights coming from the actual simulator below.

=^=We do have a report of a domestic going on at quarters, if you feel you aren't getting any calls.=^=

While Greg wanted to get back to work, the last thing he wanted to focus on was a couple of cadets, madly in love, having a spat that would be cleared up well before he got there. He already had to deal with that enough in the past. "If Two-One can't get it settled himself, contact me and I'll back up. Otherwise, I'll continue patrol here. But thank you."

He passed the window and glanced down for a second at the room, with its simulated control panels, the view screen, the fake turbolift doors, his roomate poking around at things, a mop in the corner where the janitor...

Greg stopped. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then stepped backwards to be in front of the windows again. Sure enough, down below was his roomate Lamar Darius, another CWO3. He had little interaction with the gentleman before the attack on the ship, but he knew him well enough to know that was him.

"Dispatch, if you need anything else, just give me a call. Three-One out." Greg closed his COMM and walked down the stairs to the giant doors to the simulator, before opening them.

Inside the spacious room, Darius looked around wide-eyed. There were so many consoles and stations that his excitement overwhelmed his sense of purpose. Where to begin... he pondered, looking from duty station to duty station as his head craned around the replica of what appeared to be an older Nebula-I series bridge. As he walked further into the room, he reached down and let his hand run across the tops of the unpowered helm and operations consoles. The large main viewscreen was completely black, but it didn't stop Lamar from spinning the conn chair around and taking a seat in it.

He happily grinned when he felt the chair's cushions on his back, and he leaned into them to make himself comfortable. It was clear this was no holodeck simulation that would simply vanish in front of him; it was a full, faithful recreation of a starship bridge complete with all the nuances and details. He spun around in his chair to lock it into place in front of the console with his orientation now facing the main viewer. "Commander Darius, reporting for duty, captain!" he began to fantasize.

"So, is there any particular reason you are in the top secret area, or did you just get lost?" Greg asked, suddenly.

Lamar suddenly frowned, not quite expecting that reply from the imaginary captain in his head. And then reality crashed back on him and he realized the voice wasn't a figment of his imagination.

"You--wha...Ohh," he stammered as he spun around to face the music. His heart beat quickly at the thought he'd been caught in action by either some 18-year-old security cadet or a full-fledged Starfleet admiral. When he took sight of the familiar brown-eyed chief standing at the entrance, however, he couldn't help but let out a "ha" of relief.

"I got...lost?" he quickly answered, recognizing the man as not only his former assigned roommate, but also a crew member of his old ship. "You're Mitchell, right? Greg? Bunkmate?"

Greg forward. "Roger that. And you must be Darius. Sorry, i've been busy working overshifts or I would have gotten to know you sooner. That...and I was also in a coma for the last few months."

Lamar spun around in his chair to face the new arrival. "Well co'mon in man, hope no one saw you enter," he said, gesturing to the console seat next to him. "Yeah I read about you on the casualty report when we got on board USS Chaka. And I was there in the brig on that Klingon ship when they dragged you away...sorry that happened. How bad was it?"

"It was...it wasn't fun, thats for sure. What really pisses me off, though, was that I lost both my Bible and my music playlist. They can do whatever they want to me, but those were two things I'd love to have kept." Then he snapped out of his social behavior, "Wait, are you authorized to be in here?"

Darius was about to reply to the mention of losing personal items but the sudden questioning of his access level snapped his train of thought. Mitchell seemed like a good enough guy, and even though the two of them hadn't gotten to know each other on Galileo before her demise, he trusted the man. Hell, they'd been across the dark side of the moon over the past few months, and in comparison, a simple rules violation was cheesecake.

"No, don't think so. Probably not. No." Lamar answered with an IDGAF shrug at the end. "Are you?"

"Well the smart-ass in me wants to say yes, since I'm technically on duty." Greg smiled, reading the other Chief's body language easily, "The other half figures we'll all probably end up reassigned to other ships eventually, so I'll just let you being here slide as a point of respect, especially after...a lot of crap you all evidently went through."

That sounded like a fair deal to Darius. Although, the prospect of being reassigned to another ship and having to work with a whole new crew brought him a bit of sadness. He'd liked Galileo, especially the people who served on her, and the thought of going somewhere else made him shake his head. "Thanks. I hope they don't reassign us...it wouldn't be the same."

"Yah, but you get used to it after a while...unless your ship ends up in a combat zone a lot like my last posting." Greg stepped in the room and looked around. "I'm usually a military fanatic, but I don't know if I've seen this bridge before. What class is it supposed to be?"

That was a good question. Lamar wasn't intimately familiar with all the various Starfleet ship designs. The best he could usually hope for was to go with what he'd seen and where he'd been in the past, which only included the Sovereign, Akira, and Nova-classes. But there was a way to find out.

Rising from his seat, the red-collared warrant cast a light shrug to Mitchell before heading to the rear console alcove of the simulation chamber where the master systems display was located. "Uhh...looks like a Constellation-class?" he assumed from the diagram he was staring at. "Look here, four nacelles, single primary hull configuration, old school phaser banks like the Miranda and Excelsior," he pointed to the hardpoints on the monitor.

"Oh ya! I've heard of these things." Greg stated, "We barely, if at all use them now. But back during Kirk's time, it was a bigger thing. Even went through the 2360's for wargames."

"Let's have a look at the simulator programs..." he mumbled, reconfiguring the MSD to display the simulator's various options. A lengthy list of available training simulations quickly popped up and started to scroll down. "New Horizons, Gorkon's Revenge, Tholian Encroachment, Kobayashi Maru," he said out loud, listing some of the various pre-programmed scenarios.

"My brother is an XO on another ship. He's had to take the Maru test...we may want to avoid that." Greg laughed. "What's New Horizons?"

Lamar peered at the scenario description a bit closer and brought up the program details. "Uhh.." The more he began to read through it, the less interesting it sounded. "'First contact scenario evaluation for O-1 through O-6'," he started to read off. "'This simulation is designed for officers with aptitude in bridge operations, diplomacy,' blah blah blah," he continued. "Sounds boring."

"Sounds like something an Explorer type ship would take." Greg looked at the listings. "Is this one talking about Chancellor Gorkon? I thought he was a good guy?" He had remembered learning about the Chancellor during school. His approach to peace with the Federation after the Praxis explosion, in conflict with the more extremist Klingons who wanted to remain at war, was well known and after his assassination, his daughter proceeded to take over his vision.

"He's the one who Kirk killed, right? But then they discovered it wasn't really Kirk but some conniving Klingon that was his right-hand man?" Starfleet history wasn't the red-collared warrant's specialty, but the legacy of the Enterprise crew was something he'd made a point to remember.

Fortunately, Greg was a history buff, especially when it came to his Government. "If I remember correctly, a traitor in our government colluded with the Klingons so that they wouldn't have to make peace together. Ignoring the irony in that, the extremist Klingons and Starfleet personnel were outed due to a joint rescue by the Enterprise and Excelsior. I can only imagine how awesome THAT battle was."

A thought occurred to Darius when Mitchell mentioned an awesome battle. "I think this thing can run a program like that if we put in the parameters..." he looked over to Greg with a knowing look. "Unless you're gonna kick us out for not being authorized?" he teased.

"That requires me to do paperwork. I hate paperwork. Boot it up." Greg said, giving the go ahead. I mean, it's not like command is taking my patrol seriously. May as well screw around while I can.

Grinning gleefully, Lamar turned back to the console and started inputting some basic programming commands. The complexity of scenario creation was intense, however, and much of it was outside of his knowledge base as a former Marine-turned-Starfleet pilot. "Uhh, computer, recreate the historical battle between Kirk and the Klingons."

Less than a second passed before the console chirped. "There are 187 historical references to Captain James T. Kirk engaging in starship combat with the Klingon Empire," replied the computer with its calm and soothing female voice.

Darius turned back to Mitchell a bit wide-eyed.

"Yah, that sounds about right." Mentioned Greg, whom after their last encounter was still upset at the Klingons themselves. "Computer, the battle between USS Enterprise-A and Execlsior against unknown Klingon Bird of Prey piloted by General Cheng on Stardate...star....damn it, I never remember these. Something, something, 2293." Greg finally concluded to the computer.

A series of data-recollection chirps sounded while the computer attempted to narrow down the parameters that were verbally input. "Scenario 0107-Alpha," the lady voice verified. "Order of battle: Captain James T. Kirk, USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A and Captain Hikaru Sulu, USS Excelsior NCC-2000 against General Chang, Bird of Prey KB-5901. Difficulty level 97."

"That would be it!" Greg responded, before turning to Lamar, "And I feel as if I should warn you, Enterprise DID have a full crew compliment on this one."

Difficulty 97? Out of 100? Darius was always up for a challenge but this seemed a bit like suicide. "Uhh, well I guess if we plug in this Constellation-class...it might help our odds?" he proposed. The starship class was definitely more advanced than the old Constitution refit-classes. "I mean, do you actually know how to work all these bridge systems? 'Cause I can take the conn but that's about it," he admitted with a chuckle.

"...I've seen Crimson Tide about a thousands times. Does that help?" Greg stated. In truth, he had only seen bits and pieces of how the ships worked. He had the basic theory of flight control in space, due to his quest for learning every little thing that he could about things whenever he was bored, but for obvious reasons he had no idea exactly how it worked. "Speaking of, has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Denzel Washington?" Greg suddenly realized.

Crimson Tide? Denzel Washington? Darius gave Mitchell a blank look then shrugged and shook his head. "No...who's he? And what's Crimson Tide? A holofilm?"

"I...yah. It's an old movie from, 1995 I believe. It's a submarine movie." Greg rubbed his forehead, "You were never in the room when I watched it. I'm beginning to think I was born in the wrong century." He snapped back into reality, "Anyway. I wish this was a holodeck. We could get people to man the spots. As is...I don't know. I'm not good with tech. Do you think we can program the systems to run via voice command?"

"Computer, can you enable voice control for all bridge system functions?" Lamar asked. He nodded to Mitchell to indicate that it was a very good idea.

The computer's reply came almost instantly. "Voice control of primary and secondary bridge functions can be enabled."

Darius grinned then started for the helm console near the front of the large viewscreen. "I get dibs on the conn!"

"Well, I wanted to take the Captain's chair, but I wouldn't exactly know what to do. So I think I'll take weapons." Greg laughed, heading over to the tactical console. Looking down at all the complex buttons, Greg read over which ones fired what, and prayed that he wouldn't get it wrong. "And I'm just going to assume I know what I'm doing here."

Just as Mitchell was doing with the tactical controls, Darius familiarized himself with the layout of the old LCARS conn software. The bright green and blue buttons were a stark departure from the more streamlined pastel color themes, but he was quickly able to locate the controls for the thrusters, warp and impulse engines, navigational display. "We'll be fine, this Chang guy's going down." Lamar paused and frowned for a minute. "And what the hell kind of Klingon name is 'Chang', anyway?"

"I know, I've always wondered if he was part Chinese or..." Before Greg could finish, he heard the old fashioned alarm sound ring, the one that reminded him of older US Aircraft Carriers when they went to General Quarters. "Aaaand, it looks like they are dropping us right into it."

Dark red alert lighting bathed the bridge in an eerie darkness that was punctuated with pulsing strobe lights along the side bulkheads. The comm channel suddenly activated and a villainous voice sounded across the open frequency.

"I can see you, Kirk... Can you see me...?"

"General Chang?" mused a female voice from the back of the bridge, causing both Greg and Lamar to turn around, surprised and slightly guilty expressions on their face. There, sauntering towards the captain's chair, was Raven, the Galileo's babysitting hologram. Somehow her program had found its way into the holodecks at Starfleet HQ and ended up here.

"You should really stick to your chicken," she added before sitting down in the captain's chair. "Full power to the shields. Go to full impulse; evasive pattern gamma three."

Staring wide-eyed at the blue-collared woman who'd just somehow appeared on the bridge, Lamar's mouth moved to speak but no words came out. He was torn between the confusion of her arrival and the commands she was giving as well as the tension and stress he was now feeling knowing they were facing off against a simulated version of Kirk's nemesis.

"Wha...who are you?" he finally asked the dark-haired woman.

As the ship shuddered, taking a hit from Chang's disruptors, Raven looked back at Lamar. "Emergency Babysitting Hologram, Mark I, but you can call me Raven." As the ship shuddered again, Raven glanced down at a small screen in the armrest of the chair to see which quadrant had been hit. "Evasive pattern Beta three, now."

The inbound warning on the conn signifying an incoming torpedo caught Darius' attention. He rolled the Constellation-class on its z-axis in an attempt to deflect a portion of warhead's energy when it struck. "I'm not taking orders from you, you're a...babysitting hologram!" he retorted.

"Well, in that case, consider this a suggestion," replied Raven, her mathematical subroutines doing their best to triangulate the Klingon vessel's most likely position and heading based on the sensor readings of the incoming torpedoes. "Change heading to 138 mark 7, and concentrate power on the port shields."

"But one-three-eight is where they're firing from," he retorted. "We can't just go straight at him!" Or could they? Lamar didn't know much about starship combat theory but he'd been at the helm enough to know they'd take a significant beating if they tried to close the distance without cover.

"Exactly," replied Raven, brimming with confidence. Her program had contained a database of thousands of strategy games from across the continent, from chess to zhal'tarath. How hard could ship-to-ship combat be? "Arm the rear torpedo launchers, prepare for a full spread. Helm, are you familiar with the Picard maneuver?

Darius craned his head around momentarily to look back at her. "The Picard Maneuver?" What in God's name was she trying to do? "I know of it but I've never done it," he then admitted with a shrug.

"Well, now seems like as good of a time as any to learn how," replied Raven as the ship turned face to face with the origin of the torpedo and disruptor fire, occasionally shaking as they took a hit. At the same time as she was barking out orders, her fingers danced across the touch screen in her armrest at an inhuman speed. "I'm sending you some coordinates; I need you to do a warp jump to this location on my mark..."

The conn chirped when the holographic 'captain's coordinates came in. Darius snapped to his duty console just as another torpedo impact jolted the bridge and caused several EPS taps to overload and spray sparkling debris across the side of the bridge. He started to plot the course but suddenly stopped mid-sequence and looked back at her.

"This plot is right in front of us, less than 10,000 clicks!" he protested over the cacophony of simulated battle damage.

"I am aware of that," replied Raven in a deadpan tone as she stared into the viewscreen, alarms blaring around her. Fortunately, the shields were holding for now, and if her plan worked, all she needed was another few seconds of shields. "Mark."

It was insane. But also a simulator, so Lamar tried to calm himself down when he spun back to his console. Warp vector 141 y-plus 58, distance 10-k, he muttered to himself. Once the sequence was locked in, his hand reached out to forcefully tap the engage icon.

Almost instantly, the old Stargazer class ship was transported across the battlefield, for a split second appearing in both its previous and current location. That split second was enough to confuse the targeting systems of their Klingon opponents. A torpedo burst forward from Chang's ship, but his target was no longer in his sights -- it was right on top of him.

At point-blank range, a burst of photon torpedoes flew out from the aft launchers of the Enterprise, streaking towards the origin point of Chang's errant torpedo, one of which exploded as it slammed into the port wing of the cloaked Bird of Prey.

Suddenly, another burst of torpedo fire arced towards the location of the explosion. Having just dropped out of warp, the Excelsior was quick to get into the thick of battle, firing away at the stunned, cloaked vessel.

"Helm, take us forward, full impulse," called out Raven, barely able to contain her excitement. They were about to defeat the simulation on one of the highest difficulty settings. And, as much as she was loath to admit it, she was having fun commanding a holographic starship.
"Tactical, target that explosion and fire."

On the bridge of the Enterprise, Raven watched the screen as the Klingon vessel took hit after hit from the combined weaponry of their ship and tje Excelsior. The lightly armoured attack vessel was quickly destroyed under the combined firepower of the two heavy cruisers. But just as the main reactor was about to explode, sending pieces of the Bird of Prey off in all directions, the program stopped, an image of a Bird of Prey being consumed by a fiery explosion frozen on the main viewscreen.

A moment later, the doors to the holodeck opened, and a stern-looking female Commodore, flanked by two security guards, strolled onto the bridge. "I am Commodore Alexa Popov, chair of project Athena," she said in a voice that was none too pleased. "Identify yourselves."

The maneuvering, weapons fire, and explosions all created a cacophony of disorder that delayed Darius' reaction to the new arrivals. He spun in his chair then took sight of the flag officer before glancing back to Mitchell and the hologram-captain.

Standing up from the command chair, Raven looked at the stern-faced commodore, her legs shaking slightly under the her laser-sharp gaze. "EBH Mark I, but you can call me Raven," she replied.

"EBH?" asked Commodore Popov, raising an eyebrow. "A hologram?"

"Yes. Emergency..." Raven paused for a split second. "Babysitting Hologram."

"Emergency Babysitting..." Popov sighed as she trailed off. The very concept of an 'Emergency Babysitting Hologram' was preposterous, not to mention one seemingly capable of commanding a starship in combat. "And you two?"

"Uh, Chief Warrant Officer Darius, sir," Lamar answered before gesturing with his head toward the other warrant in the room. "And that's Chief Warrant Officer Mitchell."

Popov took a deep breath. "I see. Well, on the one hand, you are trespassing, as well as interfering with the production of our next-generation command simulator. On the other hand..." she sighed; as frustrated as she was, she had to admit that they had given her some valuable data as to the difficulty level. More than that, she was fascinated by Raven. "...I must admit, that was an excellent performance."

Lamar puffed his chest out with pride once he realized they were probably going to be let off the hook easy. "Thank you, sir. I did all the piloting. It's my first time with a cruiser like this...I'm used to shuttlecraft."

"Perhaps then a deal could be struck..." mused the Commodore. "I do require a small control group to test some of these simulations. In exchange, of course, for me turning a blind eye to this little matter of unauthorized access to this program..."

With a slight flown, Darius listened to the strange proposal. Of course he didn't want to receive a reprimand on his record, but it seemed odd to be suddenly approached for a new duty. "Thank you sir, but I -- we," he motioned to Mitchell, "already have assignments while we're here at the HQ. From 7th Fleet Command."

"I'm sure it will be no problem to get those assignments changed... this is the future of Command training, after all," replied the Commodore with a wave of the hand. "Oh, one more thing..." she added, looking over at Raven. "I'd love to examine your program..."

Raven paused for a moment, unsure of whether to allow some flag officer to go poking around in her data files. She thought for a moment then glanced over at Mitchell and Darius, not quite sure how to response. "I... er... um... you would have to talk to Mr. Butler about that..."

[OFF]

--

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC Saalm]

CWO3 Greg Mitchell
Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

EBH Mark I "Raven"
Emergency Babysitting Hologram
USS Galileo
[PNPC Voutilainen]

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