Cl.02.06 – The ‘red alert’ claxons echoed through the bridge as soon as Aelyn gave the other to put the Callisto in the highest status of readiness. The ambient level of illumination was reduced by 30% allowing the bridge officers to solely focus on their selected post and assignment, thereby increasing overall efficiency of the ship and crew by itself. Captain Aelyn hurried back to her command chair and took a seat, logging in onto her side consoles. “I want a full tactical sweep of a 200 light year radius around us.” She ordered, rather distressed about their current predicament. “Aye, sir” T’sani acknowledged her instruction with a short nod and started working on gather the local telemetry.
“I will instruct the launched probe to assist.” Denaris replied while swivelling his chair back to the science station he was seated. He could spot from the corner of his eye that the Captain nodded.
“Any ships in the immediate vicinity?” Kobrrei turned his attention to the tactical station behind him.
Lieutenant Criss performed a swift scan but she shook her head. “Negative, Commander.” Kobrrei eyed his Captain as if he were to say ‘at least there is some good news.’ “Commander, how far away is the border to neutral space?” Commander Faulckner turned around and entered some commands into the CONN station. “The quickest and shortest way out of here is along heading 230-098, which would take us to neutral space in 13 hours at emergency warp.” Commander Faulckner reported.
“Ma’am, long range scanners have finished their long range sweep.” T’sani reported after the main scanners and the lateral scanners did their work.
“Good, present the result during a briefing in a minute.” Aelyn said. T’sani nodded again and relayed the information to the computer terminal that controlled the 3D holoprojector beneath the conference table. “Aelyn to Jaura.” She opened a comm channel in order to speak with her chief engineer. “Jaura, we need emergency warp. How long can you give me?”
It was clearly audible that Jaura did not quite like the request the Captain had. “I have to advise against it, ma’am…” Aelyn interrupted the Kaaroan. “Please answer my question, Lieutenant.”
“2 hours and 30 minutes maximum, Captain.”
“Not enough, Jaura. We need to get as much speed out of the engines as possible.” Aelyn demanded quite a lot from him. “I will take those 2 hours and 30 minutes but make sure we can sustain emergency warp for a longer period than that.”
“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am.” With that the channel closed.
“All senior staff to the conference lounge for a briefing.” Aelyn demanded shortly after she opened a ship wide comm message.
Several minutes later the senior staff reassembled in the briefing lounge once more. Captain Aelyn was seated at the head of the table and Denaris could see that she was noticeably worried about their predicament. Though he had heard about the infamous Dakkala wall, he failed to remember what was so ominous about it. He made a mental note to read his weekly intel digest a little more rigorously. As soon as all of the senior staff had arrived, Aelyn gave Kobrrei and Raa a short nod.
“As you may know our second jump through the Chozo network of subspace tunnels failed. We are still determining the cause as to why we fell out the subspace tunnel that was formed between the two gates we are travelling, the failure threw us out and stranding us on the other side of the Dakkala wall. We are currently in Dakkala space. Little is known about the Dakkala Tech Conglomerate, but all we know is from both Zaanth intelligence and Felwar intelligence will now be briefed by Lieutenant Raa.” Kobrrei’s words were loud and clear. As soon as he finished, he took a seat at the Captain’s right hand side.
Raa got out of his chair and used his claws to engage the holoprojector beneath the table. “Nerey’N is here… Felwar space here… Zaanth head base here…. Genyor space here… the Borrhali corridor can be found here with Delwayr affiliated space next to it. On the other side, deep into the Delta quadrant we can find Ho’ot space and even further the Dakkala wall.” With each faction that Raa mentioned, he gave orders to the holoprojector to add that part of space to the three dimensional part of the Reach that was projected above the table. “The Dakkala wall is seen by many factions as a frontier of this part of space. Not much, if anything at all, is actually known about the space behind it and it is that notion that makes it so troubling. Several Ho’ot scouts have ventured beyond the wall but have never returned. The same can be said by a Zaanth mission that took place near the Dakkala wall. The ship and its crew were reported missed in action and never to be heard of again. We do know however that the Dakkala wall is in itself the frontier beyond which lies Dakkala territory. The Dakkala Technological Conglomerate is a large faction that seems to be highly xenophobic but very technologically advanced. Not much more is known, other than that they have a large detection grid that warns them of any border incursion. No doubt their resources are grand so it is safe to assume that our presence on their side of their detection grid or wall if you will, shall undoubtedly seen by the Dakkala as a serious threat of their internal security.” Having said that, Raa sat down again and Kobrrei gave the floor to Lieutenant Criss. The cold furred Caitlan female rose from her chair and she used the holoprojector to zoom in on a particular sector within Dakkala space…………….
What happens next??