t'Llhweiir frowned. "Check this person out. Scan for weapons. If you find
anything, alert security."
"The security detail assigned to Admiral Lasiter took care of that. He's
getting up to leave now, sir.", they reported.
"Very well. t'Llhweiir out." She suspected that Security would have checked
most people who approached Lasiter, but since they might not suspect a Star
Fleet officer, they might have let their guard down. She was unwilling to let
that happen again.
> The doors were opened for him by the time he neared them, and closed once he
> had entered.
t'Llhweiir stood with the other admirals and waited until Lasiter was seated.
As she waited, she reactivated the secure connection with the other meeting
sites.
> "I am sorry for my delay. Please be seated. We have much to discuss.",
> Lasiter siad coffee and PADD in hand as he maneuvered to his seat at the
> table. "Let me start off by saying that this is not a meeting where blame is
> going to be assigned. This is not the time for the blame game, dancing
> around the facts, or any other kind of wasteful crap. This is the time for
> straight answers. The time for truth. I expect nothing less from all of
> you.
>
> As you may have heard, Commander M'Rrenn, my long time chief of staff, was
> killed in the sniper attack. While we all will miss his unique advice and
> point of view, we will carry on in his memory. Admiral t'lLhweiir has
> graciously agrteed to temporarily fill his role in addition to her job at
> Intell.
>
> That said, let's get started and cut right to the chase. Admiral Renaud,
> just what the hell happened up on Spacedock today?"
>
> Everyone there could tell that Lasiter was being driven with a purpose. He
> was never one to waste time, but he was even more cut to the chase today. He
> was out for hard answers. let the games begin.
>
There was a static buzz from the universal translator
that could be taken for a throat clearing noise,,
"Commander Shevab, would you like to go first? asked
Admiral Renaud.
{Sir, yes I would.} he answered.
The Horta shifted a bit on the hover pad, his left
waldo moving to adjust the volume pad so everyone
could hear him. Then a holoscreen descended to his
side.
{I ask that any questions be asked at the end. Two
hours fourteen minutes and 22 seconds into Alpha
shift, an explosive device planted in a panel of
section 9A45 detonated. It's primary power was a slow
charger set to overcharge, much like a handphaser can
do, but about as 3.7835 times as powerful as a
Standard Federation weapon.}
The screen showed in slow motion the explosion
recreation from outside the station.
{Automatic fire controls and atmospheric seals began
to operate, sealing off sections with force fields and
closing doors within .2391 of a second.}
Thr picture shifted to a schematic of hallways and
levels, with sections missind and lots of red marking
sealed areas.
{What happened next is a culmination of events, either
coincidence or planned.}
Now a series of power conduits showed.
{Due to the increased strain, more energy was required
to flow to field generators, and caused one to blow
here, which increased energy flow to these, which
caused another to blow here.}
At yellow junctions, a red star appeared to make the
Commander's point.
{And here, and here, and here and so on. Which caused
a great strain on the fusion reactors, if you forgive
the pun, the cascade of coupling blowouts caused a
csacade in thr fusion reactors. Mr Knucklebiter, if
you would please."
The Dilbian placed a blacked power coupling on the
table.
(Before I go on, the couplings are, in my book,
substandard, barely within Federation allowable
tolerances, and the station is riddled with them.
Wether this was deliberate or accidental I cannot say,
as they have been purchased over several years. To
keep further damage, all non essential systems were
shut down; gravity, replicators and such.}
The Horta's waldoes clicked off the screen.
{the fusion reactors somehow would restart as fast as
I would try to shut them down. Mr Knucklebiter and a
team went in the main reactor chain to manually shut
them down. They encontered opposition. Mr
Knucklebiter, if you would.}
>From the second box, he pulled a cage unlike anmy seen
before. there was a metal bar across the top,
conecting to the sides; it's only purpose was to
support the attached handle as the actual cage was a
force cubed field.
Inside were two of the armored rat like creatures,
eyes looking everywhere and small hands rubbing one
another.
{Science and Xeno have failed to identify them, but
there is or was a colony of them in the fusion
spindle. They can chew throught just about anything if
given time, can live off hard radiation if need be,
and store oxygen foir seceral hours. They were
restarting the reactors as they have the intelligence
level of an Earth Chinpanzee or Andorian Kreeg. Using
extensive vermin protocal, thier numbers were reduced
enough for the team to shut down and reboot the
reactors in proper alignment.}
One of the rodents shocked itself againt the field,
and jumped back. Thier eyes gave the impression they
were watching and studying evrything.
{Once the reactors were running, we were able to
restore low levels of pwer and route around blown
couplings and inverters. I will take questions at this
time.}
Lasiter looked at t'Llhweiir, then to Renaud, then to Shevab. The expression was
classic... 'so you will let us ask questions now.....'
"Thank you Commander... ", Lasiter said with mild annoyance. He had expected a
shorter answer from Renaud before delving into the technical matters, but anyway...
"Why didn't the computer auto compensate for the drop in power? Why didn't
engineering compensate manually for the shift in power? How do you plan on dealing
with these substandard components?"
Feylan added to what the CinC asked..., "If I may, Admiral Lasiter, do we know if this
sub-standard component was manufactured that way by design or if it was just a dud in
mass production? We shouldn't try to shift the blame for this to a contractor out of
a knee jerk reaction."
"Your point is a good one.", Lasiter answered. "Admiral Renaud, Commander Shevab,
what do you say to Vice Admiral Feylan's question?" Judging by his tone, the down
hill slide of the meeting was about to begin.
{response}
Co-GM of Spacedock
GM of JSOC
Characters:
Adm. Samuel Lasiter, RAdm. Markus Garibaldi, and a host of others.
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