War Games

Posted on Wed Mar 16th, 2022 @ 3:34pm by Lieutenant Commander Dorian Sheppard & Captain Devin Hadenbeer & Lieutenant Commander Ull Arkyn & Lieutenant Commander Klarth

947 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Into The Void
Location: Holodeck 1
Timeline: During the trip to … wherever they’re going?

“LaBrea! Report!” Sheppard barks, drawing some raised eyebrows. It’s unlike him to snap orders, but the recent events certainly legitimized it.

-*sNaP- -pOp!*-

Sparks pour down like a waterfall from the upper display panels, and acrid black smoke spills in through the cracks. An Ensign grabs a fire extinguisher and sprays down the flames, coating the area with a thick layer of suppressant foam. A klaxon is blaring.

"Starboard damage to decks three through six. Minimal casualties. Reporting decompression but forcefields are holding," LaBrea responds. Her read out screen flickers but remains functioning. "Shields at twenty two percent and falling," she continues. "Life support holding at sixty four percent."

“Dupree, reroute secondary vacuum nodes,” Sheppard orders, rapidly tapping icons on the LCARs readout. “Bypass the manifold conduits if you have to. Just get those tubes back onli-…”

And midsentence, the lights come up and the klaxon stops.

“What happened?” Sheppard asks.

“Simulation Complete” the ship’s computer states.

“My bad,” Ensign Bolasre comms from a Jeffreys tube. “I couldn’t get the bypass completed fast enough. We lost a port side vapor lock,” the Bolian explains. “It’s ok, though. I now know what I need to protect the secondary nodes.”

Sheppard slaps his palms on the console and stands, tapping his comm. “Sheppard to Arkyn. Congratulations Commander. You’ve blown us out of the sky. Best two out of three?” he asks.

The Holodeck quantum torpedo tests put a strain on the ships system, especially considering their current warp speed, but Captain Hadenbeer wanted to push the limits and they couldn’t exactly run sins from the bridge until they had most of the bugs figured out . . .

Ull looked around the bridge of his simulated ship as a small haze had filled the space. The scenario completed and shut down. "You got some good hits in there too Sheppard. A few more minutes and you would have had me." He chuckled at the question from. Sheppard. "I'll never turn down some practice, Sheppard. Try pushing a little more aggressive at the start of the engagement. You were a little too reserved this last time. You had the right targeting, just a little too slow on the trigger."

“Acknowledged, Commander,” Sheppard says. “Computer. Begin ‘Sheppard War Games, situation beta’. Good luck, Arkyn. Sheppard out.”

“Ensign Collins,” the Chief Engineer calls. “Let’s take it up to level three,” he orders, as the holodeck resets the interior of the USS Cerritos, a California class ship, back to original.

“Dupree, bring us around from their starboard,” he says. “Let’s try to keep that asteroid field at our aft.” He taps his PADD twice.

“Rabahk, what’s their strategy?” Sheppard asks.

“Looks like they’re following standard engagement protocol,” the Rhaandarite Ensign replies.

“Good,” Sheppard smiles. “Lieutenant Növótńy?” he asks.

“Yes Commander,” comes the reply from the helm.

“You heard the Commander’s suggestion?,” Sheppard asks. “Fire at will.”

The shots came in fast and in a flurry. Ull couldn't help but smile at the onset of the fight. "Release full salvo of torpedos and brace for shock." Ull called out to his crew as the impacts started coming in. He know the salvo wouldn't take out Sheppard, but it would certainly be fun.

"Simulation complete." Rang out as Ull's reactor went critical.

Ull tapped his comm. "Sheppard to Arkyn. Good show."

“Agreed,” Sheppard replies. “I’ll review the system logs and have a report ready for the Captain in a couple hours,” he says. “But I’d like to try one more scenario, if you’re up for it,” he offers. “Let’s see how it goes at Warp speed,” Sheppard suggests. “Obviously it will be purely theoretical,” he explains, keying in the program settings. “But it should be-

/SYSTEM FAILURE/

the computer states loudly, klaxon alarm bleating three times, and resetting the Holodeck to its standard gray hexagonal default appearance while bringing the harsh unfiltered lights to full.

“Damn,” Sheppard mutters under his breath. “Maybe the buffer can’t handle theoretical data after all.” He glances across the room at Ull. “It’s a fifteen minute reboot to bring the ‘deck back online. Sorry. I’ll start working my way through those logs in the meantime and get the report to you first so you can brief the Captain.”

Ull looks up for a second as the holodeck drops back to the default appearance. "We should probably try the next run with just one ship, minimal systems, and the quantum torpedoes. See if the holodeck can handle even that before we start a full wargame with that much theoretical data being processed. I'll start going through my logs as well and see about getting tactical employment practices ready. I still need to review the full battle orders and see if I have any recommendations on changes. Until the next fight." Ull walked over to Sheppard and held out his hand.

“Sounds good. I’ll let you know when it’s ready,” Sheppard says, shaking the Orion’s hand.

Klarth slaps them on the back and says "A war game what fun....I remember a war game we had a couple of years ago, it turned out the the safeties got turned off so the weapons fire was real and a lot of the crew got injured. Yes I had to pull double shifts in sickbay for 3 days and four crewmen died...." Klarth started to leave but continued talking. "Try to get it right this time okay, I'm getting too old to lose that much sleep again."

/end

 

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