Mission Report

Posted on Wed May 28, 2025 @ 8:37am by Lieutenant Barnaby Jefferson-Dal & Commander Jack Aeyers

1,848 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: 1. Trouble Brewing
Location: Various

Barnaby Jefferson-Dal was a strange man, it took him a while to accept his difference. All those years on Earth, in Clacton-On-Sea, working at the pier fixing arcade mechanics as an apprentice made him who he was, an engineer, and the Trill program opened his eyes, allowing him to embrace his weirdness. It took him a while to go from depression, a world of grey to a world of joy where everything was bright and fuzzy.

He was now a Lt-Captain in Starfleet, his friends called him Barbie, a shortened version of Barnaby, and he was the 12th host to the Dal symbiont. Life was pretty good for Barbie.

Barbie stepped off the bridge and headed for his office on the lower decks. The Fading Sun was a support ship to Starbase Icarus, among her duties was to patrol the UFP-Cardissan border... And behind the Cardissan lines, they were being followed across the line. What was unnatural was, it followed them for the whole patrol. They usually waited for FS (Fading Sun) to pass by so it could launch its raid attack and scuttle back behind the border in time.

The Green Alien slouched in his chair and opened up a comm channel to Icarus to report, while having an alternative motive. While he waited for the channel to be picked up on the other side, he made no attempt to clean up his office, the walls had paint of red, blue and yellow thrown at them, left to drip off the wall and onto the grey carpet while the pink-red sofa looked like it was shredded to death by a cat with anger issues and a Kunekune pig, brown fur and black spots snorred loudly on a blanket clearly in view of the computer camera.

The pig was called "Pig". Barbie rescued him as part of an animal cruelty raid when the FS was in orbit of a colony in 2339, they were ordered to deter piracy. Pig was meant to go to a retirement farm, but Barbie grew attached and now Pig was part of the crew and became a free-roaming pig, often walking into engineering for warmth and the canteen for breakfast. Barbie was an extremely lax CO, but he loved Pig, and Pig loved taking naps in public footpaths like a Snorlax.

|Icarus Base, First Officer's Office
|Subsequently

Returning to his office for the first time in a week, Aeyers wasn't able to move more than twenty meters in any one direction before being stopped by someone wanting to provide a status update, give him news or hoist another complaint on him. A week as acting commander aboard the USS Tantanoola, a Sydney Class vessel on a relief mission to a Bajoran colony, had allowed plenty of paperwork to pile up too. A favour for a friend had become an administrative hailstorm; his desk was stacked with PADDs, and his inbox was overflowing. Worse, he had the sense he was stepping into a crisis. No. A veritable shitshow.

Nevertheless, all that could wait. The first order of business on return was a chat with the green man the kids called Barbie. Aeyers found him to be a bit weird in a way that had become endearing. A competent operator, and one with whom he implicitly trusted with the operation of the Fading Sun. In a report forwarded by Icarus' communications officer, the Lieutenant had flagged an issue that even had Aeyers watching his back on the way home aboard the Tant.

The Commander cleared a mountain of PADDs away from his clunky desktop computer and opened a channel to the Fading Sun. A few moments passed as the computer made its connection to the Constellation Class ship through a congested communications network.

"Lieutenant Jefferson-Dal," Aeyers began, stifling a yawn as his ass hit a worn-in leather desk chair. He grabbed another piece of the PADD-jenga on his desk and began to read the report, but the words looked like alphabet soup. "I hear you've had some trouble out on the border. Care to fill me in?"

"Morning to you, too," Barbie grinned, looking up from a PADD he was reading to keep his mind busy. The PADD wasn't anything fancy, just a report from a junior officer that somehow wormed its way to the top of the chain of command on the Fading Sun. Something he needed to finish read among many other reports that he skimmed at breakfast. As the pig in the background snored, Baribe's volume increased as he put the PADD down in his lap. "Mhm, yeah. We're still patrolling the border, but on their side is a Cardissan warship; she's followed us for the whole patrol now, it's spooky. They've never done this, followed up across, normally they stand still, wait for us to drive past and pounce on our terf while the FS (Fading Sun) shakes at max warp to get back while they schuttle away. The Union is up to something."

“The Cardies are always up to something, Lieutenant,” Aeyers reminded Barbie. “I read your preliminary report. I was out on the Tantanoola, I’ll hand it to you, it had me skittish. What’s your take on it?”

Barbie much preferred John to John's predecessor, he was much more of a militarist than her. "We didn't get much data, the long-range sensors have fused with the secondary isolinear resonance node." The problem with the Constellation, everything broke on an hourly basis. The Chief Engineer was trying her best, but they still had 3 weeks until they would be replaced by the Proxima. "Looks like intimidation techniques, trying to scare us or annoy us." The Union had info on UFP worlds; heck, they raided enough of them.

“Waiting to see who can’t hold their nerve as an excuse to give the other a bloody nose,” Jack grumbled. “Same old story. Did you only see one ship out there?”

"Yeah, just one. Still following us to 117," Barbie replied. 117 was Icarus' sister, she was wedged between the Union & the Tholians. But he couldn't help thinking, what if a war broke out, what would happen under Captain Tel? "Sir?" Barbie asked. He was clearly uneasy and not gunning for a promotion. By now, Fading Sun's CO pet pig had stopped snoring. "Permission to speak freely?"

Aeyers gave the request a moment to breathe. “Go on.”

"Thank you, sir," he said with a hint of unease in his voice. There was no way of saying it, so he just said it. "I don't think Capt Tel is what we need to stop the border wars with the Union." Barbie worked with her when she was CO of the Fading Sun; heck, he was her 2XO, he knew the former JAG officer wasn't up to it. "I think it's time we talk about pressing Helena to resign." Barbie didn't want to start listing her failures, it was pretty huge. Crime wave on Icarus, for one thing.

Aeyers tossed his PADD onto the desk. His eyes narrowed as he gave the youthful officer a glare down the screen. Despite appearances, Jack knew the officer opposite him was more than twice his age. It didn't do much to dampen the Lieutenant's tenacity. "Someone forgot to wear his admiral's pin today, huh?" The Commander's lips pursed and he relented. Another member of the base's staff had taken a similar line with him as soon as he'd arrived aboard. "That's quite a charge to make over subspace, Lieutenant. If you want to discuss that, you bring your ship in and we talk about it. Got it?" Aeyers wasn't interested in an answer or further dissent. He was interested in a subject change. He leaned forward, "Right now, Lieutenant, I'm interested in the safety of the Fading Sun and your crew. Do you need backup?"

Barbie couldn't help but feel ashamed, but he knew deep down in his heart he was right. "No, sir," answering his question about backup, though a recall to Icarus wouldn't hurt. "But we're suffering major engineering faults, I'd bring her back to port, but Proxima isn't available to replace us still for 3 more weeks." Oh, the Constellation class... A dream of the fastest, best defended ship... The Khitmor accords killed that dream in seconds with its armament and weapon bans. It'd been a hot minute since Barbie read the docked and drydocked manifest of Icarus, maybe something in the reserve fleet was stationed there still.

Aeyers nodded, understanding the officer's predicament. Hell, he'd been there himself. This is where the problem-solver part of their job came in. There wasn't much they could do about politics, but busted tech had solutions. The engineer on the screen would be able to give an honest appraisal. "What's the nature of the fault, Lieutenant?"

"Defenses mostly," Barbie stated plainly. "Long-range sensors have merged with other systems." With a scratch of his head, he talked about the other faults. "The check engine light is on, too. Inertial damping fails every time we hit warp 4, so the G-forces at warp 3 are killing us." There were *many* other problems, but the odds of the Fading Sun getting a long-needed repair were unlikely.

Aeyers let out a long breath. They both knew help was a long way away. "Can I get a repair crew out to you? I've got a tug free. Maybe some workbees and a few extra techs might lighten the load for repairs? I'll be honest, we can't have you out there holding the line in your current state, and I don't have a lot of resources to play with."

Peering across the room, Barbie looked at the galactic map that was linked to the Helm, displaying the Fading Sun's current location. "I don't like it either, but we're entering the sisters' sphere of influence now. Radio for an engineering team to be picked up, and we'll let them go in a shuttle." The workerbees wouldn't be able to catch FS in time, with the Starbase covering the other half of the Union's border and the Tholian, it would be much easier to pick someone up in passing while being chased forever by something that'd never catch up.

"I'll send an engineering team out," Aeyers nodded. "Any supplies we can pack along with them?"

The only thing he could 'pack along' was the Proxima; wherever she was coming from, the quicker FS was in port, the better for everyone's sanity. "We're all good. If we need anything, we'll pick it up from the sister along with that engineering team."

"You got it," Aeyers replied. "Godspeed, Lieutenant. I look forward to seeing you back on the station."

Giving a miniature Starfleet salute to his computer screen, Barbie replied. "You too, sir. See you in a couple of weeks." Then, Jack was gone, and the only thing left to do was close the comm channel on his end. It'd been what, 2 years since Jack became XO? He was fitting those shoes quite well.

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