"Accidents & Pranks"

[FredM 0]

"Accidents & Pranks"

Comm. Relay 78549

Algira Sector, 20.4 ly from Cardassia

(5 1/2 days at maximum warp)

 

 

Stacy Jones couldn't help but laugh. It was a rarity aboard Starfleet Communications Relay Station 78549. Sitting in the middle of what once some of the hottest real estate during the Dominion War, the small station's mission was a very busy one. Coordinating subspace messages sent from at least twelve Federation facilities, numerous Cardassian stations, close to forty star systems and at any point at least thirty starships made life...interesting.

 

Today, the mundane tasks had been replaced by a message from home. It had taken almost a week for it to reach the Lieutenant, but it was worth it. Sitting on the viewer in front of her was an image of a small child...who happened to have some type of frosting in his hair. The cute scene even grabbed the attention of Lieutenant Jack Driveman, who had been realigning a power relay.

 

"It was his birthday! Mom had told him to be a sweet kid while everyone was at the house. He thought that meant he had to physically taste sweet!", she chuckled. Jack only shook his head, "Thank the Almighty my parents never told me that..." The conversation was interrupted by an alarm from a console behind them. It signaled a priority message was being received and they'd better do their best to get it forwarded.

 

As Lieutenant Driveman sat down at the station, he brought up the information. "Stacy, you'd better clear the board...get that line set for a message to HQ. The 34th is having some sort of...I don't know. The Bozeman's reporting their under attack, the Churchill's claiming the other six ships in the task force have been destroyed...but...", he paused. It took the computer several seconds to convert the poor audio into text so it could be understood.

 

Lieutenant Jones stood from her desk and walked over, leaning to see the viewer. Jack glanced up, "It doesn't make any sense. They're just outside of Kelvas. There sitting in the middle of Cardassian space." Before Stacy could reply, another set of alarms erupted. As she moved to sit at a station, information started to scroll on the screen before her.

 

"This has to be some type of joke....this...isn't possible...," she said, launching a full diagnostic of the terminal. Driveman stood and glanced at the screen, "What?" The Lieutenant looked to her left and pointed to the screen. "According to this, we're getting signals from several smaller worlds near the Kelvas system. Sarpedion's showing their under attack. Some transport near Unerfa is saying everyone on the third planet is killed...," she said coldly.

 

Signals continued to come in from that particular region of space for several hours. It wasn't until a priority message came from the opposite side of the galaxy, Earth, that the full extent of the problem could be seen. As Jones and Driveman read the message, it became clear this was no accident or prank.