Mission 1: Recovery

The only sound David heard was the heavy crashing of his body through the brush in the forest. The moon was behind a cloud, and there was just about zero visibility. His lungs burned from the lack of oxygen and his legs threatened to give out at any second.

<I can not fail, I have to get back to base camp!> He urged himself forward. Adrenaline was the only thing propelling his body forward.

He felt a branch scrape against his cheek as he tumbled through another set of densely packed trees. He felt the warm blood slowly trickle down his face.

He wondered if Dar'esh had made it back to camp yet. Their Romulan pursuers were surely still tracking them, yet the deeper David ran into the woods, the more unsure of his location he became. He needed to assess his position. He spotted the outline of a large tree ahead and made a decision to hide behind it.

He ducked behind the tree and then doubled over onto his knees, panting frantically. He drew in as much oxygen as he could and tried to slow his breathing. He took a moment to listen for any tell tale signs of followers. As he strained his ears, he noticed how heavily his heart pounded within his chest. David tried to concentrate...nothing. The forest was completely quiet. Eerily quiet.

David looked around. The moon was breaking through the cloud cover, providing more illumination. It was fall, so there wasn't much in the way of leaves to block out the moon. There! He saw it...50 yards away was the river. It's surface glistened in the moonlight. The camp was close.

David pulled himself back up to his feet.

"One more step and your dead" said a voice that clearly meant it.

David complied.

"Hand over the isolinear chip, and I will let you go" came the voice, though this time Mayne didn't believe it.

"I don't know what your talking about" said Mayne

"Don't waste my time Human, I know you were part of a small task force that just broke into our computer system and hacked our network. This Disruptor is set on its highest setting, if I pull the trigger, you and everything you are carrying will disintegrate. You might as well hand it over and spare your life."

David weighed his options. The Romulan behind him clearly had him in his sights, and David had nothing to gain at this point by playing innocent. "Okay, its in my pocket" Mayne called.

"Hand it-" A loud crack sounded behind him. Mayne spun around and saw a tall figure slump to the ground.

"Your slow" said Dar'esh. Mayne couldnt see his face, but he knew there was a smart ass smile on it.

"Thanks" Mayne said.

"Grab his weapon and lets go. We need to transmit this data to StarFleet immediately"

"Agreed" said Mayne, thinking about the contents of the isolinear chip in his pocket.



Lieutenant David Mayne
Survivor of former Federation Outpost 77 at Regula Prime

The bulkheads shuddered ever so slightly as the ship dropped out of warp.

"Status report?" called Captain Stetson.

"Ship systems are running within expected parameters" informed Sulvak the Vulcan officer at the ops station.

Arron smiled at the Captain, "Looks like we didn't burn the ships systems out afterall." Drexel felt relieved at this as it was his suggestion to Captain Stetson that she was pushing the engines of the Hornet too hard by staying at maximum warp as long as they did. Though speed was critical to the Hornets mission as they were carrying a high level diplomatic officer whom StarFleet had hoped would be able to negotiate with the Romulans after their sudden and unexpected invasion.

Arron Drexel was the first officer onboard the USS Hornet. The ship was a Defiant class vessel that had seen numerous battles during the Dominion War, however was mothballed and had been since sitting abandoned at the shipyards in Alpha Centauri. Drexel and Stetson had been serving together on their prior assignment, the USS Bunker Hill, but that ship was one of the first to be destroyed during the initial Romulan invasion. Most of the crew had been lost or captured, though they were part of a dozen or so crew that had made it to the escape pods. Drexel remembered carrying his Captains unconscious body through the burning corridors of the Akira class starship. They had been rescued by a medical ship and returned to StarFleet headquarters where they were promptly assigned a new ship and crew and had the dubious honor of sneaking a diplomat into a war zone.

They had dropped out of war in the Regulus system, a planet now controlled by Romulans, though there were reports of StarFleet personell still on the surface putting up a fight.

"Captain, 2 Romulan Warbirds have broken out of orbit of Regulus Prime and are I'm an intercept course to our location" Said the tactical officer, Lieutenant Woods.

"How did they detect us?" said Arron spinning around. "is the cloaking device offline?"

"Negative." said Woods.

"Commander Drexel," said Captain Stetson. "Please advise our diplomatic officer that were going to have to make this a hasty drop off."

"Acknowledged Captain" and Drexel headed to the turbolift to go find him.

Commander Arron Drexel
First Officer
USS Hornet

"Not another one" said Heather Choate, Chief Engineer as she examined the burnt power coupling in her hand.

"That's the fourth one since we left." she her Assistant, Lieutenant j/g Eryryn Quarren, a blue skinned Bolian.

"They cant push this ship that hard again, or we wont have a ship left!" said Choate in frustration. Heather tossed the coupling to Quarren. "Get this replaced, and see what we can reroute to lessen the power flow through that sector"

Quarren nodded and turned away.

=/\=Woods to Engineering =/\=

=/\= Choate here, go ahead. =/\=

=/\= There are two Romulan ships on an intercept course with us. Is there a chance they may have detected us even though our cloak is up and running?=/\=

=/\=A Chance? Your damn right, there is a bloody good chance we lit up every sensor relay between here and Romulus.=/\= Choate snapped, her Irish temper getting the better of her. =/\=This ship is extremely overpowered. The warp drive is way to big for a ship this small. Jumping out of warp at that speed left a sup space wake 3 times our size. You can bet your ass they know a cloaked ship is out here. I recommend shutting down all non essential ship systems and running silent for a few hours, see if they pass us off as a sensor anomaly and move along. =/\=

=/\=And what id they don't pass us off?=/\=

=/\=Then I hope that blown power coupling didn't power the torpedo bay, or we wont be much time to point out my mistake in judgement before were all floating in space =/\=

=/\=Understood, I will inform the Captain. Woods out. =/\=

Choate sighed. She shouldn't have snapped at Woods. Its not like it was his call to blow this ship past its regulatory safeguards. She hoped they knew what they were doing up on the Bridge, or this was going to be the shortest assignment of all time...

The water was freezing, absolutely freezing. David cursed as he splashed through the river. Dar'esh looked over his shoulder at Mayne.

"You know...you could be dead right now. Life could be worse"

David rolled his eyes "Look man, I know you went through the whole 'Cardassian Occupation of Bajor', and you were part of the resistance there, and I'm sure it was horrible, but that doesn't make this any easier for the rest of us.

"I'm just saying, the conditions here are much better" replied Dar'esh.

"For now..." David muttered under his breath. Finally across the cold water, David jumped up and down several times trying to restore feeling to his numb legs.

"The cave should be just by those rocks over there" Dar'esh said pointing ahead of them. "Daybreak, we need to get moving, it will be light soon"

David and Dar'esh headed for the caves. They were filled with deposits of Kelbonite, meaning the Romulan sensors could not penetrate the rock. The resistance had made a base there, and they would be safe unless spotted visually. Chances are, there were still Romulan troops on their tail.

Dar'esh and Mayne scrambled up the hill and ran towards the rocks. It didn't take them long to find the cave entrance. Two armed sentries appeared, phasor rifles aimed at the pair of them.

"Your back!" said one of them.

"Yeah, Jeffries didn't make it though" he said referencing the young Ensign who accompanied them on their mission to secure Romulan intelligence from the outpost that had been turned into a command center for the Romulan invasion in this sector. Mayne pulled the isolinear chip they had stolen from the Romulan base out from this pocket. "We need to see Brendael right away"

One of the sentries lead Mayne and Dar'esh through a labyrinth of paths inside the cave. They stepped into a large opening that was lit with some lights connected to some generators they had salvaged from prior ops.

"Dar'esh, Mayne...just the two of you?" called Brendael, the Bolian who served as Chief of Security back when Outpost 77 under Federation control

Dar'esh nodded. "Jeffries was killed...though we wouldn't have made it with out him"

Mayne swallowed, the memory of Ensign Jeffries leading the Romulan's away from Dar'esh and Mayne after the alarm had sounded from their unauthorized download of Romulan intelligence files came flashing back. He forced the thought away, he would come to terms with that later.

"He was just a kid..." Brendael said shaking his head sorrowfully.

"Let's make sure his life wasn't lost in vain" said David who handed Brendael the isolinear chip that held their captured data. "Did you guys make any progress with the transmitter?"

Brendael smiled. "Better than that. We recovered a computer console and can now transmit and access sensor satellites in orbit. Though...we tend to only access them for a brief time. We have no way to tell if the Romulan's can detect our access. And with the Kelbonite, obviously we have to set the equipment up outside, under cover of darkness."

Mayne frowned. "That's not going to work, we have vital intel we need to pass on to Star Fleet immediately"

Brendael's eyebrows furrowed. "What kind of intel?"

"An extremely large convoy is going to be coming through here next week. They have plans to build several shipyards in orbit, and in 3 months time they will have a fleet large enough to strike right to the heart of the Federation. Earth" Mayne advised.

"Son of a bitch...Where are the Romulan's procuring this many resources? They cant possibly have an economy to support this so soon after the Dominion War..."

"No clue" said Dar'esh. "My guess is they are being aided by someone...but we don't have any proof of that. Regardless, we need to transmit this data."

Brendael paused for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "Let's set up outside, and see what we can do"

Lieutenant David Mayne
Survivor of former Federation Outpost 77 at Regula Prime

Halo peered through the small window of the transport vessel, looking down toward the ship Starfleet had assigned him to. The ship looked like it had been to hell and back. It was covered in dents and was scarred with burn marks caused by near misses from enemy vessels. As they approached the loading dock he could barely make out the name above as it curved around the top center of the ship; U.S.S. Hornet he read.

The transport finally came to a stop and the main door opened. Halo approached the door where he was greeted by two Ensigns. They saluted Halo as he exited the transport vessel. Several other people in the loading dock could be seen saluting Halo as he made his way over to the turbolift. From one of the main doors Halo observed a young Ensign making her way toward him.

“Welcome aboard the USS Hornet Officer Jax” said the young woman.

“Thank you, can you please escort me to my quarters? I am quite tired from my long journey out here” said Halo without addressing the Ensign by name.

“Of course, right away sir” replied the young Ensign.

As Halo followed the young ensign to the turbolift he couldn’t help but notice the maroon colored clothing tightly covering her skin. She wore it well as her pants and shirt smoothly stretched over her body. He wasn’t particularly attracted to human woman, although part of him seemed to be. Trying to create a distraction Halo began looking over the ship as he made his way down the hall to his living quarters. The smell of the ship was very distinct. It smelled of human sweat, dust and recycled air. Power to the ship seemed stable, although there were some lights that flickered in and out.

“Here we are sir, room AC-130” explained the young woman.

“Thank you” Halo replied as he watched the young woman walk away before entering his room.

The room was brightly lit and very clean. Halo made his way over to a small table in the corner of the room and sat down while he waited for his luggage from the transport vessel to arrive. The window in his room was fairly large. He looked out the window and saw the transport vessel he just arrived in making its way back out to the vast emptiness of space. As he watched the transport speed away he began wondering to himself if was up to the challenge of trying to end this conflict with Romulans. He heard many stories of former Federation Diplomat Officers being imprisoned, kidnapped and even killed while they attempted to negotiate a truce with the Romulans.

<Why me? What makes me any different than the others?> Halo thought to himself.

He grabbed onto the table as he felt the ship go into warp drive. The stars out his window turned into straight lines as the USS Hornet sped toward its destination. As the ship began to slow Halo made his way to the bedroom were he pulled his suit down from the closet and got dressed. He grabbed the communicator from a drawer in his dresser and attached it to his officer suit.

Just then he heard a buzz at his door.

“Officer Dax, it’s Commander Drexel” said a man from just outside the door.

“Come in Commander, please sit down” replied Halo as Drexel walked through the door.

Commander Drexel stepped into the Ambassadors quarters. <On a small military vessel, how was it, that this guy got his own personal space?> Thought Arron. <Every other officer on board has to double up with someone, except the Captain> Arron noticed the spots down the Ambassadors neck. <A trill eh? Wonder if he is joined...> Drexel realized that the Ambassador was still gesturing to a chair, inviting him to sit.

"Uh, I think I will stand Ambassador..."

"Jax, Halo Jax" said the Trill, smiling.

"Yeah. I'm Commander Arron Drexel. The Captain has asked me to prepare you for your mission."

"What's the rush?" Jax inquired, perhaps sensing the urgency in Drexel's voice.

"2 Romulan Warbirds may have detected us, we need to get you planet side." Arron stepped closer to Halo. "Look, I don't know what exactly you have planned, but if I'm sending some of my officers down as a security detachment, I need to know that we have a real shot at peace here. Who exactly are you meeting, and what are the chances of us getting blown to pieces in the process?"

Jax nodded as if expecting the question.

"Well Commander..." Jax began.


Commander Arron Drexel
First Officer
USS Hornet