Chapter Text
Captain Sintina Aurelia sat brooding in the command chair of her mighty Interceptor-class assault cruiser, which despite all its ferocity was sitting idle, parked in orbit above the capitol arcology of the Alshain Exarchate.
‘Evacuation detail,’ she thought sourly. ‘There’s a war just started, and I’m babysitting the Federation Embassy to the Alshain.’ It was an undeniably important assignment, made more so by the fact that less than twenty-four hours earlier both the Federation and the Alshain became aware that they were embroiled in a shooting war within the Briar Patch.
Thus far both sides had avoided spreading the hostilities outside the confines of the nebula, but rumor had it that while Starfleet was cobbling together a second flotilla from the depleted assets along the border to reinforce Task Force Peacekeeper, the Alshain were blockading the Nedric Strait, the most oft-traveled corridor into the interior of the Klach D'Kel Brakt.
Due to the exhausted Starfleet presence along the border, any one of several Federation colonies as well as three full-fledged member worlds might provide ripe targets for any potential Alshain reprisals. Once the second task force was underway, it was doubtful that Starfleet could field sufficient forces to successfully intercept an Alshain penetration into Federation territory. Starfleet Command had ordered a fleet-wide yellow alert for the first time since the end of the Dominion War and was drawing assets away from other theaters to bolster their numbers along the turbulent border region.
Independence had been dispatched to Alshain Proper in the heart of the Exarchate days earlier at high warp as an insurance policy against the Federation Embassy coming under attack by the presumably vindictive Alshain. Though experts like Admiral Covey had argued that the ruling class of the Exarchate would rather perish en mass rather than suffer the loss of face associated with an attack on a foreign power’s embassy on their homeworld, Starfleet Command had insisted on sending Aurelia and her crew to ensure the safety of their diplomatic personnel on the surface.
‘We should be leading the mission to rescue Picard’s task force,’ Aurelia fumed, trying to keep her attention on the task at hand. Currently her XO, Lt. Commander Windslow, was planet-side helping to fortify the embassy’s defenses. Portable shield emitters, phaser emplacements, and tactical drones were just a few of the surprises in store for any unfortunate Alshain troops that might try to storm the compound.
Aurelia knew that should the worst-case scenario occur, Independence had the punch necessary to keep Alshain forces in disarray long enough to evacuate a besieged embassy, as well as the legs to outrun any subsequent pursuit by the lupanoid’s Starforce. Nonetheless, she felt as the commander of one of Starfleet’s most tactically formidable ships that she should have been in the thick of things.
‘It’s almost enough to make me wish the furballs would actually try something,’ she mused darkly, watching the sunlight glint off the cluster of enormous arcologies on the planet’s eastern continent.
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