A Valuable Asset Part 1
Posted on Wed Jan 18, 2017 @ 6:24am by Lieutenant Marisa Cheshire
Mission:
An Orion to Die For
Location: Orion Sector
Timeline: MD 3 || 1015 Hours
Marisa's assignment at Deep Space K-7 was over which just happened to coincide with a squadron of Valkyries that needed an overhaul at Utopia Planitia. Which meant she and her Squadron had a long flight ahead of them, mag locking to freighters and star ships that had more powerful warp drives to make the journey a bit shorter in a small single seater cockpit. They were 14 hours in this particular leg in when they got the new vectors from sector command along with a message from the man who was her CAG up until 7 days ago.
She pressed the incoming encrypted transmission icon on her communications panel to her right and an image of her old commander appeared, a handsome, young looking guy with light blue skin, white hair and a pair of antennae gently rotating around the air on his head, dressed in a red Star Fleet uniform with two and a half pips on his collar.
=A=Angel Three-Two-Papa this is K-7 command, how copy?=A=
"5 by 5 K-7." She replied before leaning forward to look at her navigational screen with a quizzical expression "I just got a redirect to the Orion nebula and a vector on a..." There was a moment while she read the beacon at the other end of her updated flight path "November-Niner-Niner-Two-Four-Five."
=A=Angel Three-Two-Papa, affirmative. You are to follow the updated flight plan to the USS Triumphant.=A=
Marisa dropped the formality in her tone as she looked back at her communications panel with an incredulous look. "What's this about Kade? If we break off from our ride that will be another day before we can get another one, which means I'm going to have a lot of grumpy pilots."
=A=Yeah yeah, I know.=A= the Andorian responded, also dropping his formality as he returned a friendly smile. =A=I thought they might like what I had in mind=A=
Marisa leaned back from the screen a little bit as she gave a thin smile to the Commander as she folded her arms. "Alright, I'm listening." she said back.
=A=So Fleet Net was chattering about an Odyssey kicking around Orion. And you know how these operations are; normal channels are filled location data and vectors for traffic control, but a big ship like that hanging around syndicate space causes my antenna to twitch. So I pulled a few favors from intel and -=A=
"Yes yes, you're amazing hot shot." Marisa cut her superior off with a quick condescending flick of her hand and a roll of her eyes "Get to the point, we're coming up on the nav beacon where Sec-Com wants us to change heading."
With an excited smile the Andorian lent forward towards the monitor. =A=They're going after Raimus.=A=
There was a pause between them as Marisa digested that name, looking forward at her navi-comp as though to confirm reality. She then turned back to look down at her communications screen, unable to shake the incredulity in her expression. "Are you sure?"
=A=Yes=A= the Andorian said with a quick nod and an excited chuckle.
"And you've cleared it with Sec-Com?"
=A=All the paperwork is taken care of, and the Triumphant has a hangar big enough to provide service if you clear it with the Captain.=A=
A smile crept up upon Marisa's lips "Are we still eligible for the pot on him?"
=A=If you bag him I'll make the trip to deliver it myself=A= he reassured her.
She looked forward, down her canopy at the Klingon Freighter that she and her squadron were hitching a ride on, her smile widening in to a predatory grin.
"Copy that K-7. We'll vector towards November-Niner-Niner-Two-Four-Five and assist with operations." She said, her voice regaining some of her formality to the Commander. "Angel Three-Two-Papa, out."
As soon as she closed the channel she was inundated from calls from the others in her squadron, no doubt ready to complain about the change in flight plan.
=A=Alice, Mobius. Am I reading this right? Leave our ride and vector on syndicate space?=A= There was clearly frustration in her wingman's voice.
Marisa smirked widely as she tapped at her gear controls and engines, powering up the systems for independent flight. "The USS Triumphant has a bead on Raimus. Lieutenant Commander Sheloss was kind enough to organise a change in flight plan."
=A=Oh damn.=A= Two said approvingly.
Taking a hold of her throttle as her ship continued to power up Marisa opened up her outbound coms to all ships in her squadron. "So what say you ladies and gents? Want to enforce some justice?"
The response was a unanimous and excited "Off with his head!" from every ship.
Marisa chuckled a little under her breath, shaking her head as her cheeks flushed slightly before flicking the coms to the standard frequency and hailing the freighter captain. "Rarmact, Angel Three-Two-Papa, We've got a redirect order from Star Fleet, so we'll be leaving you. Keep on heading until we're clear."
=A=Understood Angel.=A= the gruff voice of a male Klingon came over her headset =A=Q'aplaH.=A=
"Q'aplaH Rarmact. Angel Three-Two-Papa out." She then flipped back to her squadron's frequency. "Peel off in descending order and follow me in a Victor formation. Maintain visual separation." Marisa said as she set her engines to maximum warp and hovered her finger over the gear key marked as magnetized.
There was a clank as her ship became detached. She tapped the RCS thrusters up and began pulling away from the freighter. One by one her squadron did the same, peeling off the ship in a co-ordinated fashion. As they left the freighter's warp field their warp factor began to steadily decrease until the freighter was out of sight. They pulled their turn at warp and vectored in on the Triumphant.
=A=ETA 3 hours, 45 minutes.=A= another one of the pilots said as he joined the formation. =A=I really hope that we get a chance to stretch our legs when we get there, I'm going to get cramps.=A=
Marisa looked at the navi-comp for her ETA. In fact she wasn't sure if her eyes had left it. Sure she did a visual inspection of the ships to her left and right, kept an eye on her tiny MSD screen, but aside from that there wasn't much to do in the tiny cockpit on long flights aside from watch the time roll by, keep hydrated and try not to go crazy. 15 minutes, that's what it said.
=A=Alice=A= her wingman said over her coms =A=Are you seeing this?=A=
"Mobius, I don't know." She replied, looking at the Valkyrie to her left "What am I looking at?"
=A=Look at your scanner, I've got a couple of extra warp signals overlapping with 'Three-Two-Five.=A=
Marisa's eyes darted down towards the screen in question, and no doubt about it, there were a couple of additional signals circling the Triumphant.
"Looks like they're having a bit of fun." Marisa said with a wide smile.
=A=What do you want to do about it sir?=A=
"Accelerate to Emergency speeds, that should reduce out time to about 5 minutes and get us into communication range." she said, overriding the limits on her engines.
=A=And warp out like big goddamn heroes!=A= A third pilot said.
"Keep it mission critical here on out guys." She added in response to the outburst. "We're potentially heading into combat situation"
