| SUBMITTED: Stardate 95206.6 | FILED BY: CAPT K Se'Lai | SECURITY: Level 2 - Confidential |
LOCATION: Deep Space
MISSION: Intercept rogue forces attempting to capture Starfleet shuttlecraft
OUTCOME: Truce negotiated & shuttle recovered with minimal damage to allied forces & minimal losses to pirate forces.
KEY PERSONNEL:
CAPT Bahieh (USS Invictus)
CAPT Keelah (USS Valley Forge)
CAPT Keller (USS Lamia)
CAPT Somek (USS Republic)
CMDR sh'Sonora (USS Baton Rouge)
CMDR zh'Zhavis
LCDR Keliaya
FLT Baelai
LT McLean
LT Moon
LTJG Minatozaki
NARRATIVE: The Valley Forge was holding position at our pre-arranged rendezvous coordinates to reunite with shuttlecraft Skye from it's mission to transfer specialist personnel to the USS Attar. Before reaching the planned return time, a general distress was picked up from the shuttle. The signal was heavily degraded and lacking visual, though thanks to a commendable effort from LT Moon the audio was cleared up enough to determine that the shuttle was facing hostile action.
Though moving immediately to intercept, we were some distance still from the shuttle's pinpointed position. Fortunately the signal was directed solely to the Valley Forge but transmitted on an open Starfleet emergency frequency, enabling it to be intercepted by a number of other vessels in the region who all moved to respond in kind. USS Invictus & Republic were the first to arrive and found a number of pirate vessels (predominately Nausicaan & Orion in origin) seemingly searching around the perimeter of a nebula, though the shuttle did not appear on sensors to them at this time. Moving to investigate - as the nebula matched the coordinates of the signal source - they were met with immediate hostilities by the pirate vessels, shortly before the arrival of USS Lamia & Baton Rouge; both moving to assist.
The shuttlecraft appeared on sensors a number of times while the gathered task force was engaged in the unprovoked attack; appearing from the nebula and firing on the smaller Orion vessel before promptly returning to the nebula. Though advised over comms to remain in the safety of the nebula, it was difficult to discern if the message was received in the short time that a channel was available with the ship being clear of the nebula's interference. However it did not appear again until a series of explosions from remote detonated charges - detected by the Republic - triggered throughout the nebula, forcing the shuttle to emerge once more. This time a larger vessel of unknown origin emerged in it's wake and moved to join the assault on allied forces.
Shortly after the enemy flagship engaged, the Valley Forge arrived and moved to assist; being fully aware and prepared for the situation from a continuous monitoring of open communication channels between allied vessels. Hostilities were soon ceased after the Orion vessel was disabled, and the commander of the flagship contacted us. The Nausicaan CO - identifying himself as 'Dumac the Gunslinger' - made clear his understanding that this was not a fruitful engagement to continue and proposed a cease fire, requesting that we disengage and allow them to leave the area. The decision was discussed among all present CO's, and though there was evidence enough (salvaged hull plating found on the pirate flagship) to hold fair suspicion of this group being responsible for the destruction of USS Jasmine, and the ultimate fate of her crew; the decision was made to honour a cease fire on this day given that even with the superior allied forces present, a victory would not come without a cost, and we still had an errant shuttle in unknown condition to be recovered.
Signalling the pirate flagship to depart as agreed, attention was quickly turned to the recovery of our shuttle. A number of options were discussed to overcome the lack of communications, but ultimately it was decided to first attempt using a class IV probe launched into the nebula to overcome this barrier and provide a fixed instruction to the shuttle that it was now safe to exit. This proved successful and the shuttle emerged with the probe in tow, following a brief acknowledgement to the efforts of the gathered task force, it returned to our hangar safely and the gathered vessels departed to resume their duties.
RECOMMENDATION: Shuttlecraft Skye will be temporarily stood down to allow repairs as she sustained moderate damage before the allied forces arrived to intervene. FLT Baelai was unscathed and has been commended for her impressive effort in withstanding pursuit from such a sizable force. All Starfleet & allied vessels should be made aware of the confirmed ID now made against these pirate forces and act with appropriate caution & consideration if encountered. Through association of intelligence already gathered elsewhere in the fleet, we were able to discern that this particular group - whilst once affiliated to the former Branded Lady pirate operation - is now a direct report of the TSTT under a Klingon named T'Kuq.
ATTACHMENTS:
//95206.6_UnidentVessels.scn//
//TSTT_Dumac.dos//
OOC: This is from the Valley Forge episode: "Waylaid". If I've unintentionally misrepresented your character's actions, misspelled their names, got their rank incorrect, et cetera, please send me a PM over enjin and I'll make the necessary edits. For those so interested, the full capture of this story including chat logs is available at the ST:TTV season 3 episodic here - episode 321.