The Sinking Feeling That This IS Your Circus And Those ARE Your Monkeys

Posted on Wed Jul 29th, 2026 @ 11:27pm by Subcommander Kaiae t'Lien & Centurion Nancy Gable & Captain Freya Mannerheim

2,558 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Intermission: Safe Haven
Location: The Forum, Haven Colony
Timeline: Early October, 2387

"I'm glad to hear things are going well on Haven, Captain. As for our situation, I have good news, and I have bad news."

Freya frowned at Mila Lynn's words. Ourainavassa's Chief Science Officer had called to update her on the status of the ongoing repairs and refit of the ship on her home planet of Cera - the same place the crew had already visited for repairs after their ill-fated battle with the Vulture, that had cost the life of their Ferengi quartermaster and several Romulan crew, as well as Raven's eye. Although Vulture and her syndicate had been very quiet since the destruction of Romulus, Freya was certain it was going to be only a matter of time until she reappeared. "Right, then," she finally replied. "Report, Lieutenant."

Mila smiled. "We just got news from the dockmaster. Work on Ourainavassa is pretty much completed. Including those upgrades we discussed. As it stands, we will depart Cera the day after tomorrow, following final tests and a shakedown run, and once we've loaded the aid supplies. Good thing we only brought a minimal crew, we'll be filling every free compartment with stuff."

"That really is good news. What about the bad news?"

"Well," Mila hesitated. "You see, Dad isn't doing so great recently, health-wise. Miles and I talked it out, and, well, he decided to stay. At least for a few months, while Dad recovers."

Freya sighed, but finally nodded. She understood the importance of family, after all. "I see. Well, I hope Seira is up for the task of taking over as our chief pilot then. Thank you for the update, Mila. I've got a meeting with some of the council in a little while, I will let them know."

------

An hour later, Freya was sitting in the office of the colony's treasurer and de facto leader, Vareth, repeating most of what Mila had said. "So," she concluded, handing over the PADD listing the supplies donated by Cera. "we'll have our ship back in a week or so, provided the shakedown is successful. And I'm sure the medical and farming supplies will be very welcome, too."

"Yes." Vareth wondered, not first the first time - or even the first time that day - exactly how she had ended up with this role. Yes, she had served somewhat of a coordination role with the various groups the year leading up to the evacuation; but that had more to do with being to one her daughter had had contact with to pass information onto (and vice versa) rather than anything else. "I hope we got a good price on them..."

The Captain smiled. "How good does free sound? Apparently, Professor Lynn did a charity fundraiser of sorts, and purchased some machinery for us from the proceeds. The seeds and fertilizer come from his own stock, his late wife was a geneticist who developed the particular strains he's providing. A variety of grains and vegetables, specifically engineered to be grown in less than ideal soil. Helps that their twin children are members of Ourainavassa's crew."

'Free' would have actually been, in most circumstances, a price that sounded not only not 'good', but significantly stress-inducing, to Vareth: 'Free' implied a debt now owed to the other party; and worst of all, an open-ended one; which was about as far from actually free as one could get. In this case though, after mulling on it and its circumstances for a moment, she decided it fell more into repayment of one; or a mutual one.

"Once they have a firmer arrival date, then, we can get a group arranged to help unload supplies or move them off a transport point when they arrive." The middle-aged banker's finger swiped the PADD balanced on the desk - which was actually not so much a desk as a piece of sheet metal that had been secured to the top of two storage bins - to make a note of such. "Anything else?"

"Good," Freya replied with a nod. "There is something else I needed to discuss, yes. Although it would probably be best if the Weapons Master was present for that discussion as well, as it pertains to the defence of the colony."

Vareth sighed, less at the topic than at the fact that not even the apocalypse seemed to have ended having to attend meetings; then clicked the comm unit clipped to one hip to make the call.

---

Vareth wasn't entirely surprised that when Valdus arrived, it was in the company of Miana t'Reiza - while the majority of the adults in the colony were technically veterans, in many cases that service had been simply for the minimum required term, or had been fairly long ago before retiring or moving on to a subsequent career. Other than the officers and crew who had come with her daughter and the cadets Valdus had referenced the other day, very few of the group were or had been active duty at the time of the disaster. The eldest of Seira's siblings and mother to Zhara was the highest-ranked of the few exceptions; a 70-something year old centurion who had been at the tail end of her maternity leave period with her almost-year-old second child, and therefore in a position to slip away relatively unnoticed. And exactly the sort of person Vareth would have expected to fall in with whatever would hopefully become the nascent colony's militia.

Freya dipped her head in greeting as the two Romulans arrived. "Thank you for coming. With our ship coming back, we need to talk about the future needs of the colony, and the military aspect of it all is probably the most complex."

"We are here to serve," Valdus replied, narrowly stifling an urge to give a Galae salute and instead inclining his head a precise degree. "It is good news that the ship returning, though a single ship, powerful as she is, is not enough. I understand that establishing defense satellites or ground-to-space defenses is outside our current capabilities, but I believe could begin to create bunkers, as well as passages that could allow a trained militia to conduct effective asymmetric combat if it becomes necessary."

"Excellent thinking, Weapons Master. I was thinking along similar lines," Freya replied, nodding. "While the Ceran Defence Forsce has offered us three defensive satellites complete with drone squadrons, from my understanding, their asking price is beyond our current budget. In fact, the matter of budget is another thing I wish to discuss. Before she got entangled in the rescue mission, Raven was a mercenary. That is, after all, how she first got involved. If I were to assume her mantle, much as I have pretty much succeeded her as commanding officer of her ship, I believe I would be able to leverage some of her old contacts. I am sure Councillor Vareth will confirm that we are desperately in need of incoming funds, and since we have nothing to trade, mercenary work may be the only thing we can offer."

Vareth said nothing, but shrugged her eyebrows up-and-down for a moment - the statement was neither false nor true, in the short term; while they certainly had limited funds - and significantly less so after buying the planet - she was attempting to bolster the amount through various investments. It was still unlikely to provide enough returns to support the colony beyond a few years at most, however.

Valdus' lips compressed a moment - mercenary was the role his son had had to take on when a worthless heir had destroyed the house he'd served. It had ultimately been fortunate as it led to his family's survival, but it still galled that he'd had to rely on his son's support. He'd imagined that had ended; that Hatham would step into the role he'd always imagined and become his assistant, learning to eventually assume the mantel of Weapons Master. Now he saw that would not be. Hatham would continue as a mercenary, this time to support not just family but the colony. He could wish he could join him - he was still young enough and had the skills - but he knew in his heart that his role lay here, with the colony's defenses. All of this passed in a that moment, never showing beyond a tightening of lips. "Aye, it is a path worth exploring. You might also serve as escort for some merchants. I have some contacts there that might prove worthwhile."

Freya nodded slowly. "Especially when it comes to traversing the territories controlled by the various warlord factions, I am sure. From what I understand, the two main players are a group calling themselves the Romulan Free State, and a group claiming to be the legitimate continuation of the Romulan Star Empire. And then there's a variety of factions led by local governors and such. I doubt mercenary work will be difficult to come by in these circumstances."

She looked around the room. "Of course, we will need to be careful. Nobody must know of the location of our colony until we have established at least basic orbital defenses. And I am sure everyone here agrees that we should not take contracts from any of the remnant factions themselves."

"No one should know the location if at all possible once we have established them, either." Miana interjected. "Even the factions led by breakaway governors or such will likely outclass us for quite some time, even once we acquire better armaments, if only in terms of available manpower." There were, after all, only so many ways you could split less than a thousand people; and even less of them once you subtracted anyone needed for other tasks or too young or old to be effective.

It was regrettable that even had to be said, but Valdus had heard enough of the stories from prior to their rescue that he knew one couldn't count on the idea that non-Romulans, even those with command experience, would understand what his own people would implicitly. "Agreed. Population is a mixed factor for us - with so few and most underage, we are likely not worth the time of those contending to secure their own claims or take down rivals to power, but it also makes us far too easy targets for others, like this Vulture that Hatham described. That is why I propose constructing well hidden, secure bunkers as a line of defense."

"Do you have what you'd need for that?" Vareth's fingers hovered over the PADD again. "If not, get me a supply list and I'll have it purchased immediately."

"What about weaponry," Freya asked. "I know we salvaged the phaser arrays from the James Bedford. Obviously we don't have anything to mount them to, but once we have, that will surely come in useful. But is our militia fully equipped?"

"I believe we have enough salvage to make a good start," Valdus replied to Vareth. "The initial work is earth-moving. We can used transporters to rough out the spaces and manpower to construct the shelters. Ideally, we'd have shields and a cloak, but for now we can make do with improvised traps and countermeasures. We'd want those as an added measure in any case. As for the weapons," he turned to address Freya, "from what Hatham's told me you have some very resourceful engineers on the Ourainvassa, so I'd request that you put the problem of phaser mounts to them.

Our militia however could certainly use more," he continued. "Few have weapons beyond personal knives. While that's been fine for forcing the youngsters to learn to think in terms of anything being a weapon, that only goes so far for a militia. We need disruptors for every able-bodied adult at a minimum."

Freya nodded. "They may have to get used to using different types of energy weapons, all depends on what we can collect, salvage, and purchase. And purchasing large amounts of weaponry in any one transaction may raise unwelcome attention."

Miana dipped her head, acknowledging the point. "However we do so, I would suggest we aim for enough for anyone 14 and up, if possible." She would not, normally, have recommended planning to hand out energy weapons to 14 year olds for anything beyond lessons and practice: Most were still learning to keep a handle on their temper at that age - and not always successfully - but the situation was dire enough to change her thoughts on the issue, perhaps all the moreso as a mother of two of the children herself. "Should we need all the adults for a fight, the older children will need to be equipped to defend the younger children if need be."

"But the weapons for older children should be kept in an armory in the bunker, or a secure safe that only parents can open," Valdus put in. He'd trained enough kids that age, and the even more temperamental late teens, to think letting have unsupervised access to firearms would be anything but a recipe for disaster. "Some," he tipped his head fractionally toward Miana, "may have children who can be responsible, but in my experience, it would be foolhardy to count on maturity in most."

"I wouldn't ascribe any unnatural maturity to mine, either." Miana chuckled for a moment. "As for a cloak..." She grimaced. "We stripped the cloak we'd tried to install on the Bedford before we scrapped her; but at least as far as I understand it - " she was not, when it came down to it, an engineer " - there's nowhere near enough power available to run it, certainly not while running anything else." The unspoken part here was mostly that only an insane woman considered putting a singularity core on a planet, regardless of their greater power potential; and with only one or two normal reactors available, the odds of there being much to spare for running a cloak were slim.

"Another goal for the future, then; if we can find the funds for the necessary power." Vareth sighed again, and looked around the room. "Anything else?"

"I mean, there are other ways of disrupting detection than a traditional cloaking device," Freya noted. "Ones that may not fool people in visual range, but at least somewhat hide us from sensors. Would still require a lot of power, though." She turned to Valdus. "If you can give me a list of the needed equipment for the militia, I'll see what I can get through Raven's old contacts. Maybe Eilif knows a good source as well, he has plenty of experience with the, shall we say, less than reputable businessmen in this sector."

"Khnai'ra, I will have a list for you tomorrow," Valdus replied.

"Excellent," the Captain replied with a nod. "That's all from my side, anyone else have anything they want to discuss?"

Unfortunately it was becoming rapidly clear to Vareth that despite a variety of appropriate opportunities and signaling from nearly all it's participants, somehow no one else was going to end this session outright unless or until she did. "I think we're done here; everyone knows what they have to do for now."

 

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