Annoyed Avians

[Crash Calestorm 0]

The following log takes place during our 48 hour TBS…

 

SS Imperious

T’tooine Orbital Docks

 

With the initial flight recon of the T’tooine sector completed, Captain Calestorm had made the call to start deploying personnel for the secondary undercover recon phase. The SS Imperious had locked down a berth in the orbital docking platform above the planet of T’tooine, and the shore teams had already begun to deploy.

 

Lieutenant’s Belo and Kvar had managed to tap into a wireless advertisement for a place called ‘J’bbas Cantina’, and the transmission content had been unexpected. It had been a shock to hear Commander Wesley singing, and voiceprints had verified that it was indeed her. Somehow, the missing officer had ended up as the star attraction at this nightclub, but the questions and answers would have to wait until Cale and the others could spring her.

 

The main mission parameters of tracking the Black Kris hadn’t changed however. Undercover teams of two would be seeded throughout the main night club complex and the surrounding T’tooine frontier towns and cities in order to gather any information they could on the sector movements and business deals of the Orion Cartel faction. The two digital tickets that Belo had managed to illegally attain from the wireless station promoting Wesley’s night club act -- thanks to some fancy program bypassing -- would be used to get two operatives directly into Scooter’s show.

 

She was planning on tagging along on that section of the operation, definitely. What captain wouldn’t want iComanche blackmail footage of their XO belting it out in a nightclub?

 

Oh, wait – did she think that out loud? Anyway…

 

In her assigned quarters, Crash was making some last minute changes to her ‘wardrobe’. She gave her reflection in the mirror the once over, satisfied with the results.

 

The short hair cut, skin injections and blue contacts had certainly altered her appearance. Suited up in full mercenary clothing and weapons, the transformation was complete: boots, jacket with tactical armor plates sewn in, ships commander stripe up the side of the trousers, low slung gunbelt.

 

Enter Marie Lightwind, former Fleet officer looking to make a go of the mercenary lifestyle in the Outer Rim worlds. The key was to keep it simple and erring on the side of caution was usually the best way to go. Most Outer Rim locations, J’bbas included, had a no energy weapons policy, so you adapted with bladed and ballistic.

 

She carried her combat knife on the belt, and it was a common enough weapon: affordable, reliable and wouldn’t attract undue attention within the frontier sectors. Could she use the knife as well as energy and ballistic firearms? No. But she sure as shootin’ could cut you up real good. Rear Admiral Coyote was the true knife expert, and had taught Cale a few good tricks over the years.

 

Her concealed weapon was a COP 357 Derringer. Her main weapon was a Colt M1873 single action, sporting the shorter ‘gunfighter’ length barrel.

 

The Colt was a working custom model, special ordered back in the 2150’s by First Lieutenant Killian, a MACO* officer assigned to the UES Enterprise NX-01 during the Xindi counterassault mission. With Cale’s small arms MOS*, she’d default inherited the weapon when an elderly cousin from that side of the family had passed away.

 

Deftly manipulating the unloaded Colt with palm and fingers, she twirled the weapon in a classic flyaway* gunslinger pattern, dropping it barrel down in the holster on the end flip spin. She quickly re-drew the gun, cocking the hammer with one swift flick of the thumb before she had the barrel completely level. It felt natural in her grip.

 

Was she a gunfighter? No. Could she be quick? Yes. Was she a glory hound? Hell no.

 

In a straight gun fight, Crash had the skill to drop an opponent (or two) before they cleared their own weapons. With three or four opponents against her, the situation got dicey. She also wasn’t adverse to a sneaky draw and fire under the table if she needed to. Not a very honorable tactic, but if it came down to personal qualms and getting a hole blown clear through her hide she’d go with the sneaky-sneaky method every time.

 

“Bridge to Captain.”

 

She reached over to jab a finger at the bulkhead inset mount intercom. “Cale here.”

 

The voice of the communications officer on duty came back to her over the two way. “Sir, we have a communications transmission coming through on an encrypted priority channel.”

 

“Encrypted transmit?”

 

“Yes, ma’am. No return signal for the digital packet.”

 

There were only a select few who had the frequencies to the Operation: Whiteout comm channels. Had the mission been compromised? Is this a recall? “Is it Skipper?” Crash used Coyote’s old call sign for security purposes, and her tone held concern.

 

“Negative. The code sign registers as…SniperWolfBC44?”

 

She felt the blood drain from her face. “Lord Almighty! Put it through Petty Officer! NOW!” She tore out of the bunk area and over to the small, personal office space just outside the partition.

 

Her 17 year old nephew’s image soon appeared on the desk top mounted flat screen monitor. He had the body of a football jock, but the heart of a tech geek. Bodie Calestorm could make technical and communications systems stand up and do a Betazed Waltz. He’d already been tapped by several scholarship offers, as well as Starfleet R&D and Special Operations.

 

His youthful, handsome face showed puzzlement. “Uh, Hi…Aunt Ash! You look different?”

 

“Bodie Jonathan Calestorm!”

 

“Dude! You’re totally screwed! She used your full name!” A voice gleefully called from somewhere off screen, and Bodie’s two best friends in the entire universe suddenly came bounding into the viewer feed. The three of them had been inseparable since they were five years old, and Cale knew Jamie and Lee very well.

 

A fourth jostled for position in the teenaged melee, the spitting image of her brother. “Sorry Aunt Ash – told ‘em you wouldn’t be happy with the communications ping.”

 

Shannon Calestorm, the female musketeer of the Four Musketeers of Ghost Falls. She had the same prowess as Bodie in communications, though she’d recently expressed an interest in tactical security systems – no doubt due to her father’s line of work.

 

“Your Daddy know about this Shannon?”

 

Shannon looked insulted. “As if. ‘Course not!”

 

“Gettim’ outta yer room now! Bodie I wanna talk to y’in Shannon one ‘n one.”

 

Melt. The. Bulkhead. Tone.

 

Even though they were being raised in the same geographic area that Calestorm had grown up in, the captain had been more country; a few seconds passed as the kids mentally processed the Extreme Crash Accented Redneck Speak (ECARS), confused expressions evident.

 

“Jamie, Lee! Git! NOW! I’m not playin’!” The statement came out harsh. She wasn’t normally harsh with the kids.

 

Cale got a kick out of the four of them, and she enjoyed it when they got together for some WoFDR game play. But her stomach had knotted in fear, and that fear was feeding the anger. The SS Imperious had top of the line EC* equipment and they were running dark, but if any of the Black Kris agents should happen to pick up a stray communications band…

 

After Jamie and Lee had hastily exited the room with muttered apologies, Shannon ventured to speak.

 

“We know you talked to our parents, and you sent Gramma and Pops to Uncle Forrest’s, and now you’re all Secret Agent,” the younger female indicate Calestorm’s obvious physical changes with a hand gesture, ”Woman. How come you didn’t talk to us? What’s going on Aunt Ash?”

 

“This is not acceptable. Y’all are treading on dangerous ground here and I do not have to explain, you hear me now? This is way diff’rent then y’all tappin’ into the wireless and sendin’ me the latest illegal update for the Ah-nnoyed Avians game, or sendin’ me a gamer invite ping to jump into the World of Forgotten Dragon Realms MMO server so we can get to bashin’ some Paladins!”

 

Crash StormAxe, SniperWolfBC47, Mr. SmileyVulcan, PreachersKid, and SilverAxeWolf were regular late night visitors to the Dragon Realms servers, but that was a whole other topic of conversation and now was not the right time.

 

Bodie spoke up then. “Take a deep breath Aunt Ash. Speak Standard. Roll back the accent. ”

 

Completely livid, Crash regarded her niece and nephew silently, mouth set in a grim line. Her eyes sparked even though the blue contact lenses, and her expression was very stern.

 

The siblings glanced at one another nervously and then back at their aunt. Bodie cleared his throat. “Uh, we’re in deep when you get back here to Earth, aren’t we?”

 

“You have. No. Idea.”

 

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*Credit for this gunslinger move goes to Rodd Redwing, a Hollywood gun and knife trainer, and actor DeForest Kelley (pre-Star Trek) as they worked together on the 1959 western film, Warlock, as told by Mr. Kelley in interviews and convention appearances.

 

His outlaw character, Curly, has a reputation as a gunslinger. So, guess who gets to greet the new Marshal in town? During the altercation, Marshal Blaisedell (actor Henry Fonda) outdraws Kelley’s character, but doesn’t kill him (which is pretty cool considering in most of De Kelley’s westerns, he usually ends up *really* dead). Anyway, when Curly re-holsters his weapon, he twirls it by hand in this fancy ‘flyaway’ pattern to drop it back into the holster.

 

Very slick move!

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*MACO – Military Assault Command Operations

*MOS – Military Occupational Specialty

*EC – Electronic Countermeasures