Red Alert, Part III: Illogical Targets & Urgent Warnings
Posted on Sat Jun 27th, 2026 @ 6:22pm by Lieutenant Junior Grade T'lenn & Sub-Lieutenant Osirin Acainus & Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Commander Maxun Spello & Lieutenant Commander Dante Ambrogio
Edited on on Sat Jun 27th, 2026 @ 6:26pm
2,319 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Bridge
Timeline: MD 011, 1400 Hours
"I can understand how such a weapon might be useful short range, but can it be isolated to target an individual from long range, or would you expect a widespread effect?" She asked as she began adjusting sensors.
"With this weapon," he replied, 'the longer the range, the more dispersed the effect would be. However, with a
rifle, the range is extended."
"I'm neither a scientist nor an engineer, but my thinking is that someone skilled in those areas could use the base technology and adapt it. I was hoping you could test my hypothesis."
* * * USS Astrea Main Bridge * * *
"With this weapon," Osirin replied, as he took the weapon back from T'lenn, 'the longer the range, the more dispersed the effect would be. However, with a rifle, the range is extended."
"I'm neither a scientist nor an engineer, but my thinking is that someone skilled in those areas could use the base technology and adapt it. I was hoping you could test my hypothesis."
“What hypothesis?” Captain Johansen’s sharp authority punctuated her question as she interrupted T’lenn and Osirin.
Captain Johansen had just arrived on the bridge, her hair was pulled back loosely, noticeably darker around her temples where sweat had dampened her red locks as she ran from Sickbay. She caught site of the warbird on the main screen, Spello comfortably at the conn and Xalanth standing at tactical.
She positioned herself to keep an eye on the screen while she waited impatiently for officer’s response. The crisp air on the Bridge felt cool against her neck now that she had finally stopped running, though tensions were high. The warbird nearby was starting to answer the question of who - but how or why still remained.
“A sonic weapon, Sir,” T’lenn responded, as she already began to adjust the ship’s historical scans to look for anomalies as Osirin had suggested. “We’ve been unable to find signs of a breach, but a sonic signal would have been overlooked as innocuous.”
The Captain caught Spello’s eye for a moment before directing the pair to continue. “Keep at it. Dr. Siv was attacked, telepathically, we think. As was T’Varel. Both have telepathic capabilities - at least that’s how the symbiont, Siv, communicates. I don’t know if that means something. But if someone wasn’t on board, they got a signal over here somehow. Dr. Blackstone was the only one around when it happened.”
As the Captain walked into the well, she directed her attention to the Operations Chief, “Commander Ral, have we been able to pick up anything on board that ship yet?” She asked.
"Nothing as of yet. I believe there is some sort of field preventing any scans from penetrating that ship. We may be able to use the deflector to scatter their signal. This would give us a glimpse albeit brief into whatever is going on there." Daynah glanced up at the Captain as she spoke. The glance was brief and out of respect. Her console kept her attention.
"Do it," Remy replied, "Whatever they've been up to we need to stop it, or at least slow them down while we figure this out." As she responded to Ral, she continued walking and took her place beside Spello and waited for the situation update.
As the Captain reached him, Spello vacated her seat, quietly relinquishing Command to her. Remy nodded in acknowledgement, but remained standing for the moment, still waiting to hear reports from all stations.
"The last of our starfighters are now safely aboard," Jean-Baptiste reported with a hint of relief in his voice.
As soon as the words were said, the ship's sensors indicated that the remaining compliment of starfighters all launched again and were screaming towards the warbird.
Spello cursed, "What the hell?!" He quickly looked at his console, reporting what he saw rapidly. "Sensors are picking up over a dozen smaller signals launching from the warbird! Comm logs record that Lieutenant Williams ordered his starfighter pilots to launch and form up on him and his remaining wingman, with the goal of destroying...destroying the drones!" He looked back at Remy as he finished speaking.
"Tactical, give them cover," Remy ordered sharply. "Take out as many drones as you can before we lose any fighters.
The turbolift doors opened and Captain Philippe Auvray stepped onto the bridge, his hands clasped loosely behind his round trunk, and his nose slightly elevated as he took in the scene before him: a Romulan warbird on the view screen, senior officers tense and focused. His eyes fell upon Captain Remy Johansen and Commander Maxun Spello in their respective positions.
He strode lazily down the ramp and to the command well.
Without invitation, he seated himself to Remy's left, adjusting his uniform. Spello and Johansen had stopped speaking when he drew closer.
Dante shifted uneasily as Auvray stepped down into the well, shaking his head subtly as he gave the man a side-eyed glance.
"I trust this--" he motioned to the soft green glow of the D'deridex class warbird on the screen-- "is our culprit?"
Spello kept his comments to himself, guarding his features perfectly. In opposing this officer, who had zero starship command experience, he had no business inserting himself on the bridge, especially during a battle. All he was was a distraction. And distractions got people hurt.
Or worse.
Remy showed no reaction at Auvray's entrance either. She half-expected him to already be here when she arrived and had been ready to explain her delay. This was her Bridge, though, and she would not let anyone else command authority over it.
"Have a seat, Captain," she offered. "The port side seat in the command well is yours if you want it."
"Give us the Situation Report," Johansen ordered. "Has contact been made? I want a channel open."
JB bristled at Auvray's presence. He knew full-well the pompous security officer was an old friend of Admiral Spivey's and recalling their brief encounter on Barisa Prime brought back some hard-edged feelings. However, they were on the bridge in the middle of a crisis. There would be no room for feelings here.
"Customary hails have gone ignored since they decloaked, Captain." Jean-Baptiste reinitiated contact through his console. "I don't believe they're interested in talking--especially after destroying two of our fighters."
"Sirs, the Warbird is arming weapons." The crewman working tactical with Xalanth called out the urgent warning.
Dante pushed himself back away from the console he had been manning and stepped to the railing behind the command well and watched the viewscreen.
Behind the chaos, T'lenn and Osirin tried to drown out the noise and imminent danger so they could focus on their assignment.
“Perhaps the target was Dr. Blackstone,” T’lenn opined to Osirin as the sensors scanned for slight anomalies. “Another Vulcan. Dr. Siv seems to be an illogical target.”
As she spoke, the computer picked up slight incongruencies. Consistent, for twenty-seven minutes, but something that operating systems would not have perceived as a threat. Subsonic fluctuations passing through the shields were to be expected during interstellar travel. Shields weren’t impermeable, and various energy waves were consistently encountered, and if shields and sensors were too sensitive to fluctuations, the crew would chase ghosts consistently. However, these fluctuations were too patterned, too focused.
“I believe we have found your ‘rifle’, sub-lieutenant,” T’lenn commented.
Osirin almost shook his head, which to an Akadian was agreement, but he caught himself and nodded his head instead. "I believe that is indeed the 'rifle'. Now that we have identified it, we can develop a defense against it."
"It appears the fluctuations were present for twenty-seven minutes, twelve hundred hours and seven minutes through twelve-thirty-four and twenty seconds precisely," T'lenn noted, sharing the logs with Osirin. "An irregular pattern between Decks 7 through 12."
"We should inform security and operations to prevent another breach, as well as determine if there is a way to trace this signal to the outside source," she suggested.
"The Vulcans had a weapon that could render devastating telepathic attacks," T'lenn informed him. "Are you familiar with it?" She asked, aware that his people knew more about Vulcan history than most. "It could not be targeted in this type of manner, and it was believed that all of the remnants were destroyed."
"I have heard of the weapon, yes," Osirin replied. "Though I'm afraid I don't know a lot of the details."
"While I am sure that weapon would, as you say, be devastating to someone like myself. However, I don't think the weapon we are looking for has that same capacity." Osirin said.
Then he paused, "But of all the people on this ship, I am best equipped to deal with it. Or at least deal with the effects. My mental shielding is more than adequate
The look that T'lenn gave him could have been perceived as blank. In another context she might have challenged him. Instead she simply turned toward the Bridge crew, interjecting their findings into the chaos.
* * * Romulan Warbird Vindex * * *
Minatha watched the Vindex viewscreen with detached interest as Centurion Uvael finished the calibrations. "Fire when ready, Centurion." Even as she spoke she watched a trio of the Vindex' drones hone in on a single of Astrea's Starfighters.
"Disruptors will require a four-second delay," Uvael replied, looking up from his screen. "Firing!"
She felt a surge of energy vibrate through the bulkheads of the old ship as the Vindex' weapons built charge before firing. Minatha's eyes stayed on the viewscreen; watching the projectiles fly through the empty void.
Major Toval remained at Uvael's side, his eyes lowered onto a small screen which showed the more than sixty drones currently forming a wide net between the Vindex and the Federation vessel. It was fortunate that Astrea's starfighter contingent had decided to relaunch and engage them, giving them the time they required to repair the cloaking device.
Across the viewscreen, the distant shape of Galaxy-class starship was moving at impulse among the pale dust and fractured stone fragments of the Petrus Cluster. Sensor telemetry painted Astrea in shifting lines of blue light across Uvael's tactical display.
Green fire lanced outward from the Vindex. It crossed the void and struck exactly where they had planned: the lower forward shield quadrant. The translucent blue shell shimmered upon contact.
"Astrea's forward shield emitters are losing coherence," Uvael reported, slightly excited.
Toval looked over to his commanding officer where she remained seated serenely in her chair.
"Torpedo volleys are ready. On your order, Subcommander."
"Loose torpedoes; don't give them time to react," Minatha almost smiled but caught herself and gave a cold stare to the tactical station for a moment. Her voice was cold and detached, free of emotion. This was the expectation for the Commander of a D'Deridex among the Tal Shiar.
Uvael tapped a key on his console.
"First volley away," the Centurion announced.
On the viewscreen, four torpedoes in a tight diamond formation rippled across the Federation vessel's forward defensive grid. Shield emitters began compensating immediately, drawing power from adjacent nodes. The response was swift and completely expected from Astrea's systems.
The second volley of two torpedoes struck before the redistribution cycle could complete.
Several shield emitters overloaded simultaneously. On the tactical display, portions of the forward arc dropped from a solid blue to a gentle amber. The harmonics had lost all coherence and for a moment, Astrea's shield grid resembled cracked ice spreading across a frozen lake in winter.
The final volley followed the trajectory of its predecessors before diving at the last second only to collide directly with Astrea's main deflector.
Jopal leaned in from the operation station.
"Direct hit."
A stream of data began rolling in on the main viewscreen.
"Deflector output has fallen below operational threshold. Long-range targeting resolution degrading. Sensor field modulation disrupted." Uvael didn't even look up from his read-out.
Captain Remira Johansen
Commanding Officer
USS Astrea
Commander Maxun Spello
First Officer
USS Astrea
Lt. Commander Daynah Ral
Chief Operations Officer
USS Astrea
Lt. Commander Dante Ambrogio
Officer
USS Astrea
(NPC of Alexandra Blackstone)
Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea
Sub-Lieutenant Osirin Acainus
Mission Advisor
USS Astrea
Lieutenant JG T'lenn
Science Officer
USS Astrea
(NPC of Remy Johansen)
Captain Philippe Auvray
Senior Starfleet Security Liaison
Starfleet Security
(NPC of JB Dorsainvil)
Sub-Commander Minatha ir'Ra'tleihfi i'Liorae-sihaer
Commander Officer
PWB Vindex
Tal Shiar
(NPC of Alexandra Blackstone)
Major Toval
Executive Officer
PWB Vindex
Tal Shiar
(NPC of JB Dorsainvil)
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