Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 4: Tugged
3.4
Tugged
Over the years of occupation, Star Fleet had developed a very comprehensive technical manual for the Deep Space 9 space station, originally named Terok Nor. This was due in no small part to the efforts and copious notes of Chief Petty Officer Miles O’Brien, which had been compiled largely by Rom, prior to his ascension to the post of Grand Nagus.
This manual had been uploaded to the U.S.S. Beagle and then to the probes that had been sent to seek out Dolnok Nor. The launch of the mini-probe into the suspected denatured space surrounding the station had gone smoothly and there were only residual readings of any subspace anomalies.
The dogfish was a small robot, approximately the size and shape of a chihuahua. Its computer was sophisticated enough to now contain the DS9 technical manual. The robot had set about first replicating a few hundred copies of itself using materials present in the incomplete space station. This small army of robots set about bringing the operations center and the promenade online and exploring the station, cataloguing the strange damage - melted holes, weakened and collapsed superstructure, and lots and lots of dead bodies that had been mummified in the absence of oxygen. Nearly a hundred cardassians. Hundreds of bajorans - who had evidently arrived and died as slaves.
The dogfish broke into three schools, remotely tasked from the Beagle. The engineering task group folded their legs and used magnetic repulsion to weave their way to the power core of the station. The ops task group remained in the operations center, crawling all over the various stations and trying to bring heavily damaged cardassian computer systems online. The casualty task group spread out throughout the station, locating and photographing the dead bajorans and cardassians for later identification.
The probe that had carried the father dogfish to the station had travelled at high warp and arrived 26 hours ahead of the Beagle Task Force. Given the large number of dead and the nearby inert ships, 3 cardassian tugs, a Galorn-class cruiser and 5 large shuttle craft, Commodore Yui Song ordered the task force to orbit the station at the distance of 50,000 kilometers, far outside of the detected area of subspace instability.
Because they were constructed from local materials, the dogfish were also flying, walking collections of the spare parts needed for repairs and most of them were disassembled by the others in order to integrate their components into the station’s power plant and into the control units in the operation center. Where at one point there had been well over 200 dogfish, only about 16 remained. But some sections of the station now had power, including the operations center.
“I’d like to take the Beagle in there, grab one of those cardassian tugs and bring it out.”
Captain Howard was seated on the throne-like captain’s chair in the U.S.S. Beagle’s triangular bridge, the first time Commodore Yui Song had seen him there. He had just updated her about the progress of the schools of dogfish on the station.
Commodore Yui was seated in the captain’s chair on her own bridge - a far less ornate affair. She found it odd that the vulcan bridge had been designed to create such an intimidating, regal effect around its captain during communication. It seemed at odds with the impression most humans shared about vulcan esthetics. She smiled, suddenly realizing this was why Skip Howard so rarely initiated communication from his own bridge. He preferred to report in from his office.
“How long will your ship be in the danger zone?” Yui asked. “And is there any way our ships can help if something goes wrong that will not increase the risk for the entire task force?”
Skip Howard didn’t hesitate. “There would be nothing you could do but come and get us, which would mean that you would be facing whatever we face. But that would be mitigated if a lifeline type maneuver could be employed. Dutch tells me we can go in there, capture the tug with a tractor beam and pull it out of there in 30 minutes, which tells me we can probably do it in 20.”
“And why is it more advantageous to have your ship do this than the Mako?” Yui asked.
“Time and the probability of success,” Howard responded. “While the Mako is by far the more powerful ship, when it comes to towing, the Beagle has a far more powerful tractor system. It latches faster and is rated for much greater mass than Star Fleet standard. That primary tug is really massive and would be the most valuable for us to pull out of there. Especially if we can access its records. We can see where this station was supposed to be going and why, or at least how it got stopped here.”
Captain Rhonda Carter was monitoring this conversation from her own bridge. Once again, she had placed General Krank at the ops station on her bridge. She finally spoke up: “If we have to go lifeline, who is the anchor and who goes in?”
Commodore Yui responded without hesitation. “Mako has a much stronger tractor system with a much longer range. We go in. Escort holds the door for us.”
“That ma…” Carter got no further in her sentence as she slid, senseless out of her chair. General Krank responded more quickly than the rest of her bridge crew, coming out of his chair and catching her as she slid toward the deck. Carter’s new bolian first officer, Lt. Cmdr. Zizira Gross, stepped up from behind, cradling her captain’s head, protecting her from injury.
At that same moment, the medical alert sounded on both the U.S.S. Escort and the U.S.S. Mako. Reports from Escort’s and Mako’s crew sounded at the same time and were carried into the ship communication between all three ships:
“Commodore, this is Dr. Lucius Moorman, Trader Pel has collapsed in the galley. I am en route…”
“Bridge, this is Chief Roman Hess, we have a medical emergency in engineering… Lieutenant Kresid has collapsed and lost consciousness…”
Commodore Yui turned to her communications officer at ops: “Clear internal traffic and reroute and cancel the alert.” She returned her attention to the split view of the two other bridges on her main viewscreen:
“Captain Howard, I think this situation impacts your mission to retrieve the tug…”
“It does, Song,” Howard responded, leaning forward in his chair. “The retrieval mission just became critical and urgent… I would like to go right now, sir.”
3.4