Confidence in Command

[Hanna-Beth Rieve 0]

Personal log, Agincourt battle simulation, first hour. This exercise has been my first contact with security chief Lt. Cmdr. Robair. Given his rank and position, he must be an experienced commander. But, his command style is haphazard at best, dangerous at worst.

 

As a loyal officer, I will continue to follow Robair's orders. But, if this exercise is leading where I think it is, joint security-Marine operations will be the norm on Agincourt. I only hope that his real-world battlefield plans are not as confused as his simulated ones.

 

Our major objective is the battle bridge - if we take control there, we win the game. As usual, the defenders have the advantage. There are a limited number of access modes to each deck: the turbolifts and the Jeffries tubes. His first plan involved sending the Marines in as decoys in the turbolift, and attacking through the Jeffries tubes. This attack was risky, and probably would have led to heavy losses. But if the Alphsa had only ten minutes to prepare for the assault, and faced a diversion, it had a chance to succeed. Needless to say, they would know that they were being diverted, but then, they would have to scramble to defend all access ports at once.

 

In my squad, Sgt. Greene has the most engineering experience, and, he was able to quickly hotwire the tubrolift to operate by remote control from the tricorder. We were going to hide in the upper crawlway, and let the lift doors open, then, when an Alpha came in to investigate the empty turbolift, we would set off a stun-grenade booby trap, drawing more Alpha forces towards the turbolift, and away from the Bravo security forces, who would take over the battle bridge.

 

Then, for some reason, with only minutes to go, the attack was delayed, and we were called in to create yet another diversion -- communications from the shuttle. Initially, I left Sgt. Greene and new recruit Lance Coporal Adams to modify the shuttle, but then, we needed electronics assistance in main engineering, where the Alphas had no presence. Cmdr. Robair's team, in addition to sealing off all the Jeffries tubes (leaving only the turbolift shafts as entryways!?), planted a simulated explosive to try to knock out their main power. Along with security support from Mid. Kor'both, we have secured Main Engineering, and are now attempting to reroute the battle bridge's auxiliary power. Sgt. Greene has informed me that hacking Agincourt's systems is not easy, but that he may be able to reroute all the auxilliary power through functioning lower priority systems. One possibility involves continually cycling a pattern through the replicator pattern buffers, a huge waste of energy. The Alphas would first learn about it when they tried to order food. Meanwhile, a noise diversion could be created through the comm system, which we can keep online through auxilliary power; shortly afterwards, we can knock out main power.

 

According to Cmdr. Robair's last communique, all turbolifts on automatic control have now been shut down. This leaves only our turbolifts operating, undoubtedly tracable on the battle bridge's main systems display. This could come to our advantage. The operating turbolift could now become the diversion. Meanwhile, with the turbolift power disabled, the shafts become more accessible, precluding a hypothetical assault force from having to eidetically remember the positions of the power junctions to avoid a nasty shock.

 

With over a half-hour now elapsed into the simulation, we may, nay, must now assume that all entryways and corridors on the battle-bridge deck are now booby-trapped. Given that we haven't encountered any Alpha team members in such an obvious target as main engineering, we should assume that the Alphas began by bunkering themselves in a fortified battle bridge. Alternatively, they may already be trying to exit and ``hunt,'' but be blocked in by the shuttered Jeffries tube hatches. At this ``late'' -- two things are certain: First, any assault, no matter how carefully carried out, will result in large numbers of Bravo ``losses.'' And second, this will become a battle of technologies in addition to being a test of combat prowess. And, there, I have to admit deficiency; the engineering knowledge required here is well beyond the basic Marine proficiency requirements. If Greene is knocked out of the game, I don't know where I would turn.

 

If this exercise does expose our weaknesses, perhaps it is worthwhile after all.