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Chirakis

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
Aboard USS Kole
Two Days Before Aegean Departs
 

 

“Aw, crap… not again,” Ens Jess Parista muttered, then began recording.  Assigned to Sound Surveillance aboard USS Kole, his position demanded precision scanning over a designated area of space, listening for conversation that might be pertinent to the mission: tracking and pinning down hostile ships and bases of the Alien Alliance.

A few days ago, the stealth destroyer USS Kole NCC/DDG 1787 had settled into stationkeeping just outside Nebula 235a to focus on communication coming from or going into that area.  Normally, the ship would be on patrol with USS Iowa, but given the most recent events involving the Alien Alliance, they had orders to break off and take aim on a corridor within the nebula where ships of the Alien Alliance had been spotted. The Sound Surveillance Center that abutted Incident Command was usually abuzz with activity.  For the last two days it had been surprisingly quiet.

Assorted screens hung strategically on every wall of the Sound Surveillance Center, displaying a complete sweep of the targeted area.  Banks of sound surveillance systems manned by personnel who focused solely on chatter from all frequencies used by the Alien Alliance circled the room below translation screens.  So far, third watch had come up with nothing more than senseless chatter from passing vessels and occasional sounds that the system recognized as music, but drove the listeners close to insanity. Watch Commander Cdr Jim Bucher moved smoothly among them, answering questions and occasionally changing frequencies to listen.

Parista adjusted his headset to listen.  “Eh ... što ti znaš. Tvoj rid,” seemed to come from a male with a deep, confident voice.  “Um ... crvena tri do plava sedam,” registered as another male, higher pitched, and calculating.  “Ako možete nadmašiti, kupujem,” was followed by a deep chuckle, then “Tako... misliš da si tako pametan?  Plavi od pet do tri crvena, a vi ste mrtvi, prijatelju!  HA!!!” was obviously triumphant.

Parista scrambled to cut his sound level when a chair kicked over and skidded along the  floor with a high-pitched screeeeeeee.  A table overturned, followed with punching,  shouting, and banging, along with a series of expletives that the translation system couldn’t decipher.

He added a few expletives of his own.

“Something goin’ on?  Need another listener?” Ens Delia Sanchez paused her scanning. 

“Nah, bunch o’ crap,” Jess replied. “It’s been like this all shift. First they argue, then they roll dice, then they argue, they burp… and I mean really burp, they eat something that sounds crunchy but your brain tells you it’s nasty, and now it’s a knock down drag out with chairs, fists, you name it.  Gees….”

“Yeah, well, change of watch is in less than thirty.” Sanchez adjusted her headset and continued scanning her designated area. 

“Thirty more minutes of crap and ,” Parista groaned, checking his translation monitor.  “It’s insane, the slowest recon we’ve had so far.  Just hope I’ll... get….”

He stopped cold, pressed a finger against his headset, cleared up the transmission, listened a minute and checked the translation monitor, then pressed a button on his console.  Above his station, a yellow light began to flash, bringing the watch commander across the room to grab a secondary headset and listen.

Cdr Bucher listened a moment, then reached to change the yellow to red as he removed his headset.  “All personnel, connect to frequency on one five and begin the procedure, sweep and pin, by the numbers,” he called out.  “Sanchez, cover one five as his second.  Dion.” He turned to his second in command. “Inform CnC.”

Not a sound—not a “yes sir” nor an “aye, sir” or any other acknowledgement—was heard in the room, only slight movement as stations scrambled to adjust frequencies and began the procedure.  Extra sound on a stealth vessel negated the stealth, no matter how buffered the ship.  They ran silent. They didn’t talk, they listened.

Several minutes later, Bucher stepped into Command and Control, slate tucked into its holder at his waist.  Captain Jira Adley leaned over the table viewscreen, monitoring movement in the designated area.  

“What do you have, Commander?” she asked, her eyes still focused on the vessels coming into and going out of the nebula.  

“Low frequency chatter similar to what we picked up a while back.  Ship to ship orders, no responses.”  He pulled his slate and flipped it open, then handed it to her.

“Um…” she mused, straightening up to look it over.  “Similar to what we heard last time.  Repetitive orders and similar responses.  My best guess is that it’s coming from this vessel.”  She pressed a finger on the tactical table and flicked it to the wall screen.  An exceptionally large and strangely configured starship, similar to the alien ship seen on An-Ward, moved suspiciously through the nebula. “They seem to be monitoring all traffic, like someone herding cattle.”  She turned to face Bucher.  “Chatter?”

“Nothing new,” he replied, handing her the translation.  “Pretty much the same as last time. Maybe a few new players.  Translation is more difficult because of different languages, probably some slang thrown in, and the languages seem to have different variants.  Bottom line, they’re revving up for something, but it’s hard to tell what.”

"Ummm…" she mused thumbing through it. "This is coming from their Echo base, and that's…." The screen flipped to the most recent sector chart. "...on the other side of the Alliance base string from An-ward. Any ideas on that?" She returned his slate.

"None so far. Analysts are working on it."

"Okay.  Spit it to the cruise ships.*  I want to read through everything the analysts find , even if it doesn't make sense, which it probably won’t for a while."

_____________________________________________________________________

*Send it via subspace to USS Iowa.
 

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