"Murphys Godsmack"

[Kansas 0]

05.12.09

USS Agincourt NCC-81762

“Murphy’s Godsmack”

 

It was a bright, clear afternoon on the day side of the Avaros colony world. If it wasn’t for the continuing aftershocks rumbling and the various support and rescue teams that had been deployed both from the Agincourt as well as the local civilian disaster response teams in an attempt to return some semblance of normalcy to the affected main city and suburbs, then you might be fooled into thinking that it was the perfect day to be planet side.

 

Operations at our base camp were pretty much well in hand, and the Agincourt remained in a fixed orbital planetary pattern high overhead; I had been planning on doing a series of flyovers across the affected planetary sectors to get a visual and airborne grid pattern sense of where the rescue and rebuilding operations stood, and I figured now was as good a time as any to bolt for the clear blue yonder.

 

So, I wrangled one of my former security guards, Lieutenant Thay’lienne Mical, to accompany me, and the shuttle vehicle designated as the Bonaventure. I had wanted an officer who was a senior squad member and could handle themselves, but not necessarily a squad leader or chief as most of them were up to their armpits in prep work if not actual searches, and the Andorian female fit my needed co-pilot profile.

 

The blue skinned Andorian lieutenant humanoid had come a long way. She had originally posted on board the ‘Court for a final work study program toward her training cruise, and now found herself graduated and a full time crew member. She wasn’t quite as green as she was when she had first started her service under me in the security department.

 

Then again … a certain executive officer who shall remain nameless has also come a long way since her own green security newbie days.

 

“Commander JoNs? Everything going alright? You seem to be … veering.”

 

“Aye, Lieutenant Mical. Everything is fine.” I flashed the slightly younger woman a reassuring grin, exposing my incisor fangs slightly.

 

“Sir, it’s just a suggestion, but we really should head back over onto our original flight vector.”

 

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m off the original flight path that we had catalogued with the Agincourt bridge personnel prior to taking off from the base camp. I can’t help it, I’m a wandering spirit. Hey – the communicator is working and the shuttle transponder allows us to be tracked, thank you very much. It’s not like I’m going incognito again like that prison planet fiasco where the Colonel ripped me a new one.

 

I really could have pounced the lieutenant verbally at that moment, calling her out for questioning a senior officer. But, the problem with that sort of confrontation is that you can enter into military martinet territory. I knew, not consciously, a couple years back that I didn’t want to be a hard case type off officer, because there’s already a few of them in the JoNs family. I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, but that sort of officer personality is not necessarily my thing.

 

One case in point I can use as an illustration is my cousin, Captain Left Ear JoNs, currently the commanding officer of the USS Yellowjacket. As much as I love my cousin, and admire her … I’d rather not be her regarding some specific aspects of her Starfleet career.

 

She’s definitely the go to type of officer, tough, gets the mission done, plays by the book, and you can rely on her to bring either her ship or squad back safe. But, she’s a piece of work and can be a pretty gruff individual, and gods help you if you deter from what she perceives as proper military etiquette. Yet, Lefty’s adaptable enough where her disciplinarian leanings don’t hinder her. Most of the time.

 

Left Ear is my Elder Guardian, or to be more precise, she’s my Godmother in the Human vernacular. She has been very good to me, and I’ll always cherish her guidance and my unique cultural and familial relationship with her. But, I am decidedly on the other end of the spectrum when you compare the two of us both in personality and in our Starfleet career methods. I’d like to think that I can be as efficient as Left Ear, as capable in both the field of combat as well as Fleet career as she is. But, her “cold fire”, is the opposite of my adventurous type of spirit, and my temper can flare whereas hers is rarely witnessed.

 

I’m working on the temper. Really. It does tend to come in handy though whenever I need to give an officer a well deserved dressing down. These incidents are few and far between though, thank the gods. It’s an unpleasant task, for all the parties involved, totally.

 

I know, I know … I’ve been both lucky in some ways, fortunate in others, and personally driven in the remaining aspects of my career. I’m untried in senior command, but came up through the general security command ranks and that training and experience will pay for itself ten times over. I know I can be unorthodox, if not slightly by the seat of my pants.

 

I was a handful during the Perseus Arm quadrant campaign. Yeah – obvious statement.

 

I’ve considered just up and giving Colonel Harper a big hug for not stranding her future executive officer in the quadrant. Then, my common sense kicks in and I realize that I’d run the risk of not only freaking our commanding marine officer and CO the Hades out, but would probably be grabbed in a head lock during the process.

 

So, yeah, no hugging.

 

Since serving on board the ‘Court, I’ve also been tagged with the call sign of ‘Will’ - as in dead human writer ‘William Shakespeare’.

 

This moniker came about partly because I have a stop and start fiction writing hobby not well known among the crew, only a select few, that may or may not come to fruition some day as a second career if I were to ever leave the service. He won’t admit it, but I bet even credits that Master Chief Petty Officer Keltex is responsible for letting the would be writer information slip. The other logical (then again, whoever said jarhead influenced call signs are logical?) reasoning behind the mission ops tag is the fact that I’m willful with my quests for that next big adventure, which has gotten me in trouble quite a few times.

 

I’ve been told in various departmental evaluations, that my saving graces come in the form of being good at what I do, capable, and my general enthusiasm is hard to deflect. While the qualities are good to possess, they are also double edged, because I have to balance all this and not get cocky.

 

I’m sure it also helps that I come from a large family that is no stranger to military service, and that exposure to them for the most part taught me the right and wrong ways to handle myself, and I tend to use this familial schooling as a backdrop.

 

My battlefield promotion to the Agincourt’s Executive Officer changed a lot though, and I find myself having to adapt even more. I’m not just responsible for a department or a squad anymore. Now, I’m responsible for several departments, hundreds of personnel, and a commanding officer. That’s a lot to take in for a younger officer. But, I know that I can adapt and do a good job. I’m also not stupid; this position will not go to my head. I can’t afford to let it.

 

Okay, moment of introspection done, and back to Lieutenant Mical. She has an honest query, and therefore I’ll answer it without any unnecessary hidebound proper spit and polish.

 

“I know Lieutenant; I just want to visually eyeball this upcoming area and get some readings. The ship and the ground teams can track us by our badges and the shuttles transponder if they really want to keep tabs on where we actually go. Go ahead and inform the operations officer that we’ve gone off the original vector path, on my authority, and have the officer relay the heads up to any Avaros on site department chiefs as well as Colonel Harper …”

 

The Bonaventure shuttle had now cleared the outer perimeter of the city proper, and we found ourselves flying over what looked like farm fields. There were some commercial properties scattered about the perimeter, with stand alone warehouses or parking lots used as storage and parking for ground vehicles, but mostly the area opened up into undeveloped land and farms. I could make out some indigenous mountains in the distance. It was a pretty planet, and the locals hadn’t gone nuts with renovations or developments. It was a shame that things were rattling and rolling with these earthquakes; this planet might be a good place to retire, provided our Sciences department can figure out how to stabilize the area if possible.

 

I was pulled out of my contented visual musings as the proximity alert warning started pinging from a console located directly in front of both the pilot and co-piloting chairs. My training automatically kicked in, and I went right into sit rep mode, my paws entering commands into the inset computer keyboard set just off my right elbow. I booted up some backup control programs in case we would need to use them.

“We have a hit Lieutenant; confirm and ascertain what’s going on.”

 

Mical was right on the astro ball as well, and her slender blue hands flew over her control board console, entering commands into the on board systems so her section of the programs could further aide us. “Aye sir, checking now. External scans are go …. Oh frag!”

 

The little warning ping had turned into full on warning alert, as our proximity sensors picked up an incoming object going full speed right for the Bonaventure; the shuttles main interior console turned into the proverbial Christmas tree as various automatic sensors and targeting beacons tracked whatever was coming right for us. The internal sensor warning went to full volume, blaring and bleating a steady rhythm of the ‘move your ass! there’s something coming at you!’ tone.

 

That something was a small rocket type projectile zooming at about half speed up at the Bonaventure. I couldn’t make out the model or type of weapon by just the visual grid image that was appearing on one of our cockpit tactical screens, but no matter what the thing was, it had locked onto us and was incoming and we needed to do something about it. My pressure spiked, but my fight or flight instincts kicked in as well, and so did Mical’s. Myself and the El Tee both worked as a team without even coordinating verbally with one another; I got the shuttle the heck out of the way, flying an escape pattern that I like to refer to as the Zig Zag Spazz out, while the lieutenant took care of identifying, locking onto, and destroying the little rocket with an EM pulse burst.

 

Okay, note to self: going off course from my assigned vector pattern was not a good idea, yet, I’d rather trip the proverbial tripwire in a titanium hulled shuttle then with my own hide walking into a trap or something planetside on one of the search teams. Regardless, Murphy’s Godsmack of Law is noted.

I let out a puff of breath through my muzzle that I hadn’t realized I’d be holding. “You okay Lieutenant? Good? Alright, do a scan of whatever launched that projectile at us.”

 

Within seconds, the schematics of the ground launcher appeared on our main tactical viewer. My ears perked forward when I suddenly realized the exact schematics that I was staring at. “These are specs for an old XR Class Perimeter Sweeper!”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Sweepers are small defensive platforms no bigger then one of the Agincourt bridge stations, and they contain limited short range projectile missile or bullet based ammunition. That projectile wouldn’t have knocked the Bonaventure out of the air, but it would have given us a nasty gash if the thing impacted with our outer hull. Low power, but can pack a wallop.”

 

“You seem a bit, um, happy, Commander. Considering we almost got nailed by it.” Micals tone was equal parts curiosity and ‘you are nuts, with all due respect sir’.

 

I couldn’t help the fanged grin that spread across my muzzle, and I turned my attention back on the blue skinned Andorian security officer. “Flashbacks. I spent every summer of my childhood and early to mid teen years at a ranch outpost that my extended family owns, on Cait. At one time, the ranch had about four of these things set around the perimeter, to keep out the local predators and the occasional rustler. As the area settled down and there was less of a need for the turrets, my cousins and I would program them to launch low grade stun plasma rounds at the local rabbit population to keep ‘em off the outer edges of the property.”

 

“So, these things are mainly used for property defense?”

 

“Exactly. This model,” I pointed a golden furred paw at the green on black schematic specification pattern that kept rotating on one of our main cockpit consoles, “is probably the low grade defensive option for colony commercial properties, my guess. The Sweepers came in three models for civilians, and all of them were just powerful enough to defend a section of property. All models were discontinued a few years back, but the production line was huge, and there’s quite a few of the XR Sweepers still in circulation.”

 

The lieutenant ran a slender hand through her medium length silver white hair, her brow knitted in confusion. “The main property down there that the device is located on seems to be a bit abandoned anyway?” She pointed a finger at another one of the screens that held a grid scan of the warehouse building.”That structure is well kept, but it shows signs of aging, there is no movement from any available life signs, and I can’t detect any sort of cargo inside the structure either.”

 

“Okay. Now that we have an idea about what we’re dealing with, maintain our current altitude, standard hover holding pattern. Keep us just above our original position, where that thing locked onto us. Scan the area for several kilometers in case there are any more of these things.”

 

It took about three minutes for Mical to complete the full scan of the ground area that had been targeted by our program parameters, and she confirmed the readings again with a backup program before giving me her final report on the matter.

 

She was efficient, and precise. She always had been.

 

“Negative Commander; no more targets detected. Again, I’m not even detecting any locals on the bio scanner.”

 

I nodded my affirmation. “Launch one of the short range probes. Sync it up with our flight logs and then program it to fly over our last position before we bugged out. I want to make sure that the Sweeper is truly inactive.”

 

“Aye sir.”

 

The little probe was launched from our aft holding compartment on the underside of the shuttle, and the tracker program started receiving pings from the device as it zipped back and forth per Micals programming instructions; the ground based Sweeper didn’t lock onto the probe, and that was a good sign. I was pretty much satisfied that the perimeter defensive device thing was inert, but there was nothing wrong with a little overkill in this particular situation.

 

“Let’s take it out. One phaser shot should do it. On my mark.”

 

Within ten seconds, the R Class had been blown apart and disintegrated; the on board targeting computers confirmed the hit.

 

“Commander, I wish we had more Intel on what we just blew to smithereens, if we took out some farmers crop defense, but that doesn’t explain why it’s set just on the perimeter of the city, and I sure don’t see any farmland in the immediate area.”

 

“You mean I ordered the destruction of the device. So it’s all the felinoids fault, huh Lieutenant?”

 

I was lightly teasing the junior security officer, and she blushed a bit, her cheeks going one shade of blue darker then her skin. I didn’t normally do this sort of thing to Mical, but since it was just her and I piloting the shuttle, I was free to tease her without embarrassing her in front of the other security guys.

 

“Sorry sir.”

 

My one ear flipped back in amusement and I offered a reassuring purr. “Don’t be, and I’m just teasing. You have a legitimate point. We have no idea why that thing went wonkers, and there sure isn’t anyone out this way that we can detect to answer our questions right now. With all the electromagnetic activity, the sweeper might have been deactivated and then reactivated; some of the older class XR’s had a programmable subroutine that could be quite twitchy …”

 

I knew even as I vocalized my statement, no matter how logical it seemed, something just wasn’t sitting right with me. Sure, the security drone turret could have been malfunctioning, and this property was as long abandoned as it seemed. But then again, maybe that really wasn’t the case, and there were more of these things dotting the surrounding countryside, activated and set for a purpose? Or was this one an isolated incident that happened to be brought on by my little detour, and our overhead flight activating the little device for whatever factors or reasons?

 

Any kind of natural disaster always brought out both the good and bad in residents. I know that a couple of the search teams scuffled with local looters. It was also possible that some of these unsavory types had moved on from the quaked out city into the surrounding farmlands and commercial properties, setting up some sort of defense grid with XR’s.

 

Bottom line was that the Agincourt ground teams needed to ramp up their already vigilant state if there were more of these XR’s or looter buggers about.

 

“… so, in the meantime, we’ll removed this current issue. How are we doing with the flight plan update? Any local shuttle traffic scheduled to be on our return vector to the base camp?”

 

Mical’s blue forhead antennae quivered, indicating that she was eager to tackle whatever my next orders were. “Negative Commander. Agincourt ops confirmed that we have clear atmo with the local traffic controllers.”

 

“That’s good. I’ll handle the return vector flight, you prep an information packet and forward the technical information we did scan from the turret onto the tactical and operation leads on shift. Have the Ops El Tee send out a general warning to all search, rescue and engineering assessment teams to be mindful when they head out and start working on the city perimeters in case any more of these Sweepers have been activated or planted. Okay, let’s move … “

 

I tapped at my communications badge, signaling the ops control console located on the ‘Courts bridge. The officer on duty shift responded immediately and connected me to my intended recipient, and soon I found myself speaking over the ships wireless with Colonel Harper.

 

“Medusa, this is Will. Reporting on another new development planet side, you can read the details in the information packet that’ll be incoming over the wireless. Lieutenant Mical and I were flying some patterns, I veered off onto another flight path, and we encountered a local civilian defensive device out here in the commercial warehouse perimeter … “