Preparations and Alterations
Posted on Fri Feb 13th, 2026 @ 8:00pm by Captain Daegan Baas & Lieutenant JG Jorra Benn
1,608 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
What was Lost is Found
Location: SB 152
[Officer's Lounge]
Admiral Pullard had taken, well been bragged away from his office by the collaborative efforts of his wife and the stations CMO. Looking up with a meal in front of his and utensils in hand he looked to the pair standing over him. "Happy now?"
The Doctor nodded, smiled and turned to leave. Jessica smiled and leaned in giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Yes very. But if you wouldn't fight us and actually stop snacking on coffee and cookies all day we wouldn't have to double team you."
His mouth opened an closed a few times, "Ah huh...well At least this is better than what Dr. Samuels tried to force on me last time."
Chuckling, "Well we came to a compromise, but you still have to eat the salad. I'll leave you to it." After a step she turned wagging a finger at him, "And don't try to be clever either. The replicator tagged your order so whatever you don't eat gets reported."
Stabbing a bite of his salad he held it up and took the bite.
She gave him a playful grin and headed out to let him eat in peace.
Cutting a bite from his small steak he looked to the side and several other officers turned away quickly. Taking the bite he put the fork down an pulled the padd from his leg pocket, scanning the roster as he chewed.
Preparations were still underway on the USS Harper as it geared up to join the Valkyrie and take over with the settlement discovered on what they referred to as 'Kril'Es'. Satisfied with the reported progress he returned to his lunch. A short time later his padd chimed as a message came in. Setting his ice tea a side as he washed down the latest bite he wiped his hands and mouth before picking up the padd to review the last order of business.
Speaking to no one, "Joy..."
Tapping his commbadge, "Pullard to Ops"
== Ops, Lt. T'San here Admiral. ==
"Lieutenant, search station engineering personnel, including all docked ship, for an engineer with quantum field experience and have the office report to me tomorrow morning."
== Aye sir. Ops out. ==
Returning to his meal he finished and took his tray to the replicator for recycling. Once the cycle was completed he grinned and decided to get a little dessert. "Computer, 2 warm chocolate chip cookies and a small cold glass of milk."
"Request denied."
"By Who!"
"Chief Medical Office Dr. Genene Samuels."
[USS Bradbury]
Lt. Jorra Benn was scanning for an alignment error in the dilithium matrix. “Come on, you little bugger, I know you’re in there,” he said, talking to himself. He usually didn’t do such things, but tasks such as this encouraged it.
Alignment errors were commonplace in matrices of this type and the engineering staff had to be diligent and stay on top of daily and weekly maintenance. Luckily for Jorra, he relished work like this. His communicator chirped. “Lieutenant Jorra, your presence is required on Starbase 152. Please report to Admiral Pullard immediately.”
Jorra acknowledged the Bradbury’s Comms Officer. “Jorra here. Thanks, Lieutenant. On my way.”
[Operations - SB 152]
It seemed that his wife's reach and the Doctor's influence had no bound, as it seemed everyone in Ops was in on the plot to improve his diet. However, being an Admiral had it's privileges. He stood looking out the window of his office at the dome of his station as it arched out into space. Taking a bite of his cookie with a grin he chuckled slightly.
At the sound of the chime he turn to see an unknown face in a yellow uniform. "Enter." Returning to his desk setting the half eaten cookie on the plate.
The new engineer stood at attention in front of Pullard’s desk. “Lieutenant Jorra Benn reporting as ordered, Admiral.”
"Ah yes." Waving him to relax, "At ease...at ease. Have a seat Lieutenant."
“Thank you, sir,” Jorra said as he made himself comfortable in the admiral’s presence.
Going through the small pile of padds on the desk he put the one concerning Lt. Benn in front of his. "We have a bit of a situation right now and that has provided an opportunity for a few."
"The long story short the USS Valkyrie had to pause it's deep space explorations. Seems they found a group of Humans and Romulans where there shouldn't have been. The Valkyrie also needs a engineer with quantum field experience. Right now they have a QSD specialist put a single point of failure out in deep space is not a good thing."
Sliding the padd across the desk, "Here are your orders. The USS Harper is preparing for departure to assist the newly found settlement. You can help with those preparations or simply enjoy some time off until they depart. Now the Valkyrie also has a highly classified mission in addition to their explorations, so these orders will be contingent on your acceptance."
Jorra skimmed the PADD and thought for a beat. “I do have quantum field experience, Admiral. It was part of my Quantum Physics Principles course on Bajor, when I was faculty at the University. But why all the secrecy, sir? How much can you tell me should I accept the position aboard Valkyrie?”
"The situation is currently unfolding and has been complicated by the current situation. The Valkyrie's secondary mission came about shortly after they began their exploration of the region of the beta quadrant. We were hoping to get more information first, but we will be informing the Klingon and Romulan Empires of the what the Valkyrie found.
"Computer Opaque all windows and seal this room."
"To be completely honest I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. What they found defies know science. Seem more like a late 20th century horror movie than anything else. But I'm getting ahead of myself... It all started when the Valkyrie encountered a prewarp spacecraft adrift and heavily damage. Aboard that ship, one of 6 adults and several pods of cryogenically frozen emryos intact. According to the survivor they had been selected to rebuild their society with those embryos after their planet was overrun by come kind of lifeform.
"The surviving adult told a tale that in Captain Baas' words 'defied belief.' Ironically the name given for this contagen is 'The Defiled'.
"Using the information recovered from the craft they were able to find their home world to investigate. What the found not only confirmed the man's story but they also encountered something he hand seen before." Activating the monitor he displayed several imaged from Baas' report. Tricorder and sensor images of various 'soldier' forms, massive 'guardian' form, the towering 'conglomerate' entity, and finally... "While trying to escape from the facility they were investigating several members of the away team were killed and the this is what happened to Lt. Wallace after being infected."
Jorra looked closely at the images. “That’s….horrible, to say the least. I have a lot of questions….for one, is this naturally occurring or engineered in some way? I’ve also read about beings that infect others in order to…propagate their species. Could this be whatever these things are doing?”
“Can Medical do anything for them?” Jorra took a deep breath and then said, “How can I help, Admiral?”
Killing the screen the Admiral took a deep breath. "No. Lt. Wallace was incinerated. If this was like other life-forms that spread by infection we would at least have a fairly standard means of analysis. Whatever this thing is, it kills the host first. That's what I meant by defying known science...whatever they are they're already dead.
"To add a twist to the whole thing the ships sent to quarantine the planet and begin studying these things arrived to find the planet's surface molten. Who or what did it...we don't know. We know that at least one planet had been over run and another had managed to stop them. Right now there are more questions than answers.
"As far as what you can do to help. Just do your job, but it was only fair to let you know what you were heading into."
“Understood, sir. Count me in, then, Admiral. I’ve been learning and teaching my whole career, figuring out new and innovating ways to do things. I can’t think of a better time and place to put my talents to use. I hate leaving Bradbury but it seems like Valkyrie needs me more. I can do this, Admiral.”
"Excellent. For the time being I will place use on permissive temporary additional duty. Get your belongings transferred to the the Harper. If they want your help getting ready, fine. If not, brush up on quantum drive systems to just enjoy yourself."
“Thank you, sir. I’ll get my gear together,”. Jorra said as he scrolled through the new orders on his PADD.
“Looks like I still have some time to kill before I have to report, so maybe I’ll get a little work done. Say my goodbyes.”
Jorra rose out of his chair and reached out a hand to the Admiral. “Permission to be dismissed, sir. And if I may say so, good luck to us all.”
Pullard rose as well, their meeting over. "Granted."
He watched as the young officer left his office and after the doors had closed, "If those things make it over here we're going to need it."
Admiral Pullard and other SB 152 staff
Played by Baas
Lieutenant JG Jorra Benn
Soon to be Assistant CEO
RSS Feed