Chapter Text
“Starfleet command to all starfleet officers. Order 00-00 have been activated. Repeat. Order 00-00 have been activated. A class 0 danger has attacked the federation. Contact your superior officer for more information and next orders. If there are no such officers near, your orders are: Reassure your own survival and survival of any sapient beings around you. Repeat…”
Runabout’s communication station continued loudly announcing to everyone inside. lieutenant-commander M’Ress, surprised by unannounced massage, tried to make the massage stop. Yet the massage stopped on it’s own after repeating the massage ten times over.
M’Ress knew no such order as 00-00. It could be that it was one of those new things created while she was absent from the space-time continuum, but there was a much bigger chance it was a simple prank from her coworkers. Contacting the Trident for confirmation of this order would mean risking being humiliated by some lieutenant. So M’Ress decided to search through runabout’s database for any information on such order.
“Computer, search database for order “double zero, dash, double zero.” Display all the information on the station 1.” M’Ress said out-loud.
“Order 0-0-dash-0-0 was implemented on star-date 52667.2. It was implemented for a situation class Omega. The order implements that starfleet admiralty was destroyed and the United Federation of Planets is and/or will be unable to regain control. Survived captains and admirals are ordered to rebuild command chains with all resources they have.”
“Thank you.” M’Ress said, stopping the computer, that was about to continue.
She was scanning through the documents on this order and it looked like a real one, but still… An order that says she have to reassure her own survival and survival of any sapient being around. It wasn’t that starfleet didn’t care about the lives of its people. It was that it shouldn’t happen. There should be no such need. If someone in danger it’s the responsibility of a captain to make sure they survive, or an admiral if there are a lot of them. The whole idea the starfleet command could be destroyed was unbelievable, but for the Federation to be unable to restore the control that was an outright fantasy.
It should be some sort of prank. Shiboline thought. There were people who didn’t like her, after all.
“Computer show all the interactions with the main computer, sub-system 11-G.” M’Ress ordered.
The computer easily complied showing the numbers and abbreviations. M’Ress tried to find any inconveniences in the lists, but here her being a fallen out of time person did its job. She didn’t know where to look and because of that didn’t know if anything was wrong.
The last time Siboline checked, way to the DCS-12 station would take only 5 minutes so M’Ress decided to get there first and then see if that was a prank or not. In her mind she already decided it was just a prank.
SHVWANK WUANK… wuank… wuan…
The runabout suddenly trembled and the sound changed from a normal humming of a warp engine to as if the shuttle got in a warp wave.
“Computer, what was that?” M’Ress asked with a bit of fear in her voice.
“An anomalous fluctuation in a warp babble.” Computer answered with its regular monotone voice.
“What’s the cause?” Caitian asked.
“Unknown.” Computer answered.
M’Ress, already seated in the pilot’s seat, was already looking at the data on the sensors.
As she was looking through the data she saw as situation went from normal to bad, and from bad to worst. The data showed a massive warp fluctuation. It was like a massive waive that threw the runabout a little off course. Luckily it only quickened M’Ress’s way to only one minute. Though she wasn’t so happy about.
There are several causes for such waives. But Shiboline remembered one: Massive warp-core explosion.
She pushed several buttons and the runabout exited warp per her commands. Immediately as the runabout exited the warp M’Ress started the sensor swaps.
The runabout was several thousand kilometers away from the planet, behind a small asteroid that was slowly coming to the planet. The station was where it should be with all 6 ships around it. The cities on the surface are glowing as usual and all 5 billion inhabitants’s life sines are detected by the sensors. Though there was something odd. There were no shuttles, no communication fuzz. It was quiet. The absence of shuttles could be explained by M’Ress’s unaccustomedness to the time when everyone uses transporters, but the quietness of communications… It was strange.
M’Ress pushed aside the fearful thoughts and said:
“Computer, contact the station.”
“Chanel established.”
“Star-base DCS-12, this is lieutenant-commander M’Ress, on the runabout Huver, I’m ordered to deliver the-” She looked in to the list of cargo. “-Caw- Cawde- Cawderii.” She almost broke her own tongue trying to say the name of the cargo, that captain Shelby believed was urgent to get to the station. “Requesting permission to land.” Feline finished her request.
It was quiet for several seconds, then a voice came through the speakers.
“Runabout Huver, permission granted. Land in hangar 6, platform 3.” The voice said.
“Understood.” M’Ress said, feeling as the little bit of fear she had fades away.
Her paws, that looked more like hands, moved across console activating the autopilot to the designated hangar.
As usually the shuttle moved slowly through space, by smooth line the autopilot gave it. The hangar doors opened as the runabout came closer. It slowly, with its own grace, moved through the shields that kept the atmosphere of the hangar from the space. The runabout shook a little as the engines changed from space to atmosphere mode. The spacecraft flew above the platforms 1 and 2 and slowly and softly landed on the third platform.
M’Ress walked to the cargo door, so she would complicate the unloading of cargo. With a push of a button, the door slowly opened and a small ramp showed itself to smooth the step. M’Ress walked on the ramp, but stopped before stepping on the floor as she heard a scream.
“Stop where you are!” A man with a phaser was standing in front of her, several meters away.
M’Ress immediately raised her hands and her eye automatically looked around. She noticed he was standing behind the platform, which meant he could be behind a force field. She also noticed two other men with phaser rifles standing behind some cargo containers. It took her one more second to see one more person standing in a shadow of another container.
“Identify yourself!” The person in front of her ordered. Judging by the insignia on his collar she could say he was in rank of a commander.
“Lieutenant-commander Shiboline M’Ress. The science officer abort starship Trident.” She calmly said, keeping her hands raised.
“Your command code.” He ordered again.
“Alpha-A-A-9-1-9-7-0-1” M’ress said without thinking.
“Computer?” The presumably commander asked in to the air.
“Confirmed.” A female voice of the computer answered.
“Tolel.” The ‘commander’ said to someone behind him.
With no more words, an Andorian woman showed up from behind one of the container. By the look on her face, Shiboline could say she was irritated by the situation. She opened her tricorder and scanned the Caitian.
“She’s clear.” Tolel said turning to the man.
“Lower the shield.” He ordered after a moment of thinking.
M’Ress finely lowered her hands and stepped on the platform.
“What was all that about?” She asked both the ‘commander’ and Tolel.
“Just a safety measure.” The higher ranking officer said.
“An over complicated one.” Tolel said reproachfully.
“Over complicated? Maybe. But also safer one.” He turned back to M’Ress. “Jonathan Morello, the commander of this station.”
“Pleasure to meet you commander. Even under such circumstances…” M’Ress said. “Anyway, why such precautions?”
“He got a little paranoid after the order. As usually…” Tolel explained getting a look from Jonathon that didn’t mean anything good.
“The double zero, dash, double zero one?” Shiboline asked. “I thought it was just a…” she stopped herself, thinking that the word ‘prank’ would be… inappropriate.
“A malfunction?” Tolel finished the sentence for her. “Yea, we thought so too, but Adrad, our chief engineer, says it came from starfleet command. So I believe it was some malfunction in the starfleet quarters.” Tolel said as if not noticing the commander slowly losing his control.
“The Lieutenant Tolel believes so. I on the other hand believe we should be careful, suspect the worst, and choose our next actions accordingly.” Commander Morello said. “And it includes you, leutenant-commander.”
“Me?” M’Ress asked in surprise. “What so you mean?”
“I mean, that under the the order 00-00 you are under my command and if the order is no malfunction I’m gonna need all people I can get and all ships I can get.” Commander said. His tone indicated that this decision was final.
“But what if it’s just a mulfanction?” M’Ress protested. “I’m needed back on the Trident.”
“If it’s just a mulfanction we will learn about it soon and you will tell your captain that I gave you the order to stay on the station.” Commander Morello said.
Oh god, no! M’Ress thought.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be the one suffering from consequences. All it will take from you is time.” Commander said and looked in his data pad. “What sis you say you were delivering? Cawderii?” he turned around on the three men who were standing near the cargo containers, talking to each other. “You two-” He pointed at two of them. “-get this cargo to the cargo bay 3. You-” he pointed to the third man. “-show lieutenant-commander M’Ress to the guest quarters. Now you-” He turned to Tolel. “We need to talk.”
As M’Ress was walking away from the scene, she heard as commander raised his voice.
Here go the troubles again.