The Tour Part III
Posted on Wed Aug 12th, 2020 @ 2:08am by Commodore Tyler Malbrooke & Major Cornelius Tremble
Edited on on Wed Aug 12th, 2020 @ 2:15am
1,568 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Episode 10 - New Home, Same Pioneers
Location: Starbase Sirius, Marine Country, Squad Bay 12
Timeline: MD004 1715 hrs
"Fine. We'll let the General and Fleet sort it out, Captain. For now, I do have duties to attend to so you gentlemen have a pleasant day."
Rhein saluted, then turned on his heel and walked back toward the control area.
Neil, an amused smile on his lips, commented, "Touchy..."
With a quick nod of the head Tyler indicated that they should move on. He could not resist a small smirk at the other Captain's expense. "Indeed, someone needs a thicker skin."
The next leg of their tour took the Pioneer officer’s into semi familiar territory for Neil. After a turbo lift trip and taking two ladder’s down, The Cure's commanding officer led Captain Malbrooke into a squad bay. Light’s were up and a quartet of beings stood around a centralized work table above which a holo map rotated slowly.
Neil and Tyler were met by a Lance Corporal as they entered. Neil returned the Corporal’s salute and challenge, telling them they had an appointment with Colonel G’rash. Neil’s eyes tracked the corporal for a moment, you didn’t see many Trill marines, before he saw movement and looked up. The Klingon wearing marine colonel insignia was waiving them over.
The two Pioneer officers approached and Neil’s contact began trying to autofocus as he looked about the bay. Neil blinked a couple of times and then shook his head slightly with the eye closed, causing the contact to go into sleep mode. Stopping a meter from the table, Neil returned the colonel’s salute and left the talking to Tyler, as senior officer.
“Ahh, Captain Malbrooke, good of you to stop by our humble shop,” the Klingon boomed. “I’m Colonel G’rash, son of Doss.”
Tyler punched himself in the chest in Klingon fashion. "Colonel it is an honor to meet one so distinguished in battle." Tyler thought it best to feed the Klingon's ego with well Klingon. "It is an interest of mine to get to know all resources that may be at my disposal. It seems that this is some shop that you have here."
The Colonel grinned toothily at Tyler and thumped his own chest, "Of course it is, Captain. And I feel exactly the same about having the Pioneer at my disposal." The Klingon's tone was even. "Welcome to the stomping grounds of the 258th Marine Special Operations Command. Let me introduce my exec, Lt. Colonel Ivan Shapero," G'Rash said, gesturing to a stocky, medium built, brown skinned woman wearing her hair in a bob.
Then the Klingon gestured to the others, "These are Major F'tar, who commands the 25th Raiders and Major Lum, who commands our 85th Reconnaissance Battalion." F'tar, the Andorian and Lum the human, both shook hands with the Pioneer Officers.
Marines and their pomp and circumstance never ceased to amaze Tyler. He did not fully warrant all of this ceremony, however, when in Rome he thought. "Please to meet you all..." Tyler began speaking and then turned his attention to Major Lum. "Major Lum, forgive me, but I am curious as to what exactly a Reconnaissance Battalion does. Is it similar to our Intelligence Division?"
Lum looked to the Colonel who gave a slight nod and then addressed Tyler, "Sir," he said with a slightly nasally voice. "There is some of that, but we feed eyes on intel to the S2. There are a lot of planetoids and bits of rock that we can't trust to sensor readings. The Romulans are very good at sensor masking, so the Battalion was deployed here to help with that. We also take unofficial surveys of various Colonies in and out of the old Neutral Zone, to get an idea of what's going on."
Colonel G'Rash spoke then, "That and the Federation Council was a bit leery of upsetting the Romulans and others by plonking down more troops. If we were to bring in, say Francis's Brigade they'd have a domesticated bovine of some sort."
G'Rash grinned then and said, "I think I got that right, didn't I Captain Tremble?"
Neil chuckled and said, "Aye sir. The short term is a cow."
G'Rash slapped his hands together with a pleased expression, "Yes. Exactly. A cow. So what do you think of things so far, Captain Tremble?"
Neil considered his words then said, "Well sir. It's all fine but I think what probably is Major F'Tar's Raider's must be getting overheated." He then grinned at the Andorian, "Sir, good to see you again. What do you have, maybe eight stealthed out in here?"
The Andorian glowered at him and G'Rash laughed again, "Very good, Captain Tremble."
F'Tar shook his head and called out, "Ok, Sergeant. The unnaturally clever Captain sussed you out."
A shimmering along the walls gave way to eight marines who cast off hoods and moved to stand at attention. "G'rash said, "Stand at ease Sergeant Myer."
As the Marines removed helmets and shrugged back what looked like wispy looking shawls, F'Tar said, "The latest in FMC stealth gear, Captain Malbrooke. Unlike the Jem ha Dar cloaks you might be familiar with, the chameleons are organic based. They trap in any stray signals and such things as scent and heat, letting our marines blend into to virtually any environment they may have to move through. Both the Recon and Raiders are equipped with them as needed."
Tyler was amazed at the perfection of the personal cloaking devices. What made even more amazed was that they could have them and they did not break the treaty. "We need to get some of those aboard the Pioneer..." He said with a laugh. "...It definitely seems that we are well prepared around these parts. I guess that goes without saying as this is the home of a entire Task Force."
F'Tar stared at Neil for a few moments and finally Neil responded by tapping the cheek below his right eye. "RED EYE, Retina Enhanced Device. When I came in, it tried to read something, then cleared."
He grinned then at the Major, "I think, Major sir, the fine print in the manual mentioned it would try to tie in automatically to sympathetic networks. It probably picked up the low grade Tingler's you all use while wearing Chameleons."
Meeting Tyler's eyes, Neil said. "When cloaked up, any use of com's might give things away. Instead they use a coded Morse on what normally reads as background radiation. The collar they're wearing has normal com's, working on sub-vocals and a small device that taps out the doc on spine at the back of the neck. The key is that old fashioned watch looking thing on their wrists."
"Xaxtadamned Tremble," F'Tar said with a grudging smiled, "You always were a few steps ahead." The Andorian met first the Colonel's then Tyler's eyes. "Admiral qualities in a Gunnery Sergeant who taught me the ropes as a butter bar."
Then the Andorian looked at Neil, "Not so much in a junior officer, Captain."
Neil chuckled and said, "Aye aye, major sir. I will write that down."
Tyler smiled and rather felt welcome by the banter between Neil and the other officer. "We are quite proud of our Captain Tremble. Is there any way that we can install this technology into the EAS that are already aboard the Pioneer? That is something I believe we should be looking into." Tyler said as he looked at both the Marine officers and Tremble.
Neil considered that and said, "It might be worth a try. If nothing else, getting rated and trained in the Chameleon's would give us more options, sir. I'll put in a request soonest."
"Now that we've went over that, we are more interested in the your Detachment's capabilities. Specifically the MARVAL-EAS," G'rash stated. "And to that, have either of you ever heard of Planet Designate Ahemait C310100-B?"
Tyler looked at Niel again and then shrugged slightly. "I can't say that I have. I mean I usually have Astrometrics and Commander tr'Hwersuil to fill me in on what I need to know in regards to planets. However, it seems that you have something more to tell us."
"We've picked up stray SIG-INT that shouldn't be there,"F'Tar picked up the briefing. "It doesn't have much atmosphere to speak of so we thought maybe the Cure would like to stretch their legs. The MARVEL-EAS would be much better for this kind of mission than Marines in standard EVA suits."
"And so", the Colonel picked things up, "We have Operation WACKAMOLE. We would like the Cure to infil and scout out what, if anything, is going on and shut it down."
Tyler glanced at Niel and then turned back to the Colonel. The Captain was not going to put his people in harms way without a briefing. He smiled as he sensed the adventure ahead. "Well Colonel, tell me more about this Operation..."
A Joint Post By
Captain Cornelius Tremble
Marine Commanding Officer/Second Officer, USS Pioneer
Captain Tyler Malbrooke
Commanding Officer, USS Pioneer
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