Safe Harbour At Last

Posted on Thu Aug 13th, 2020 @ 3:16pm by Plot-Related NPC & Colonel Sehan t'Varis & Centurion Nancy Gable & Lieutenant N'Vok & Lieutenant Kaol Ralaa

1,576 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Shore Leave: Welcome to Drozana
Location: Drozana Station
Timeline: 238612.27

Borex let out a sigh of relief as the docking procedure finally concluded. With the Sianna having been in far worse of a state than initially assumed, he had had his doubts as to whether they would ever make it to their destination. But, finally, they had arrived - and not a second too soon.

"Lieutenant," one of the bridge officers called out. "Our warp drive just shut down. We are running on auxiliary power only." The acting Commander patted the young officer on the shoulder. "She survived long enough to get us here. Open ship-wide channel."

++"All hands, this is Lieutenant Borex. We have finally reached safe haven. Welcome to Drozana station. I have arranged transport back to the Empire for those of you who wish to leave this operation behind. However, for those who wish to carry on, and, if possible, rescue the survivors of the flotilla, I have made contact with the mercenary hired by Commander Areinnye. She is on her way to our ship right now, and will speak to us shortly."++

-----An hour later-----

Many of the officers of the Sianna had disembarked and decided to head back to Imperial space. Not a decision Borex could blame them for. He himself had made arrangements to join with another ship's crew, and was going to make his farewells after the mercenary had introduced herself.

A small gaggle of crew had gathered in the stricken hospital ship's mess hall, as the mercenary finally entered. She certainly looked like a character, Borex thought to himself. Her long, flowing leather coat, weapons belt, high boots and skirt strangely contrasted with the formal shirt and necktie, and her short white hair and amber eyes made her look like more of a character from a holo than a real mercenary. Borex' laugh, however, died in his throat, when he saw the rank insignia on the newcomer's collar. She was a Tal Shiar Colonel?

Raven looked around the room, and let everyone get a good look at her, before finally introducing herself.

"Jolan tru. To the Tal Shiar, I am Colonel t'Varis. To my crew, I am Raven. To you, we shall see." She smirked. "Lieutenant Borex filled me in on what happened to you. And I won't bore you with a long speech. Areinnye hired me, and got me this commission, to escort the flotilla, after we acquire a suitable ship. That mission failed before it could begin. But that does not mean I am giving up. We are at the moment investigating leads where we could get a better ship. And then, we will find the refugees, and we will save them."

She looked around again. "I am told this is a hospital ship. My crew is awfully devoid of medical personnel, so I hope some of you fit that bill. Introduce yourselves, please - and I will make sure your skills are put to good use during our mission."

Kaol looked up at the space pirate that just walked into the room and rolled his eyes. First a CMO with a bat'leth and now this? Why DID he leave his practice again? Who knew saving lives would mean working alongside such... colorful... characters. But, he sighed, composed himself, and walked up to Raven. "Colonel, my name is Dr. Kaol Rala. My skills are renowned in the quadrant. I'll be glad to work with you and your mission," he said as he extended a hand.

Nancy had risen at the same time. She let Kaol approach first, because she was no fool and she wanted to watch how this merc/Tal'Shiar reacted. But a Romulan offering a hand? She could almost see the Orion CMO she'd once served with mouthing 'kinky'. The bragging was bad enough, but there was no hope of observing minutae of body language after that.

"And I'm Doctor Gable," she said, stepping forward and inclining her head a precise degree in proper Galae greeting. "The CMO of the Sianna. I signed on to see these people to safety, and I'll gladly serve your crew as well to see that through."

Raven took the offered hand, surprised to see such a gesture from a Romulan. "Doctor Rala, Doctor Gable. It will be good to have two capable medical officers on board, for the last year we have had to make do with a salvaged Federation EMH." She chuckled. "Although you will find the medbay on the Claw to be adequately equipped nonetheless. At least I hope it is."

Kaol noted the behavior of Raven and the handshake... she is definitely a Romulan mercenary rather than a mercenary that happens to have Romulan in their blood. A good fact to keep in mind. "Excellent, Colonel. I look forward to seeing the medbay and," he paused to glance at Gable, "I'll be sure to let both of you know if it's not adequately equipped. I intend to make it the best medical facility."

"I will be seeing it with you," Gable replied dryly. "There are things we'll need to set up before bringing over the more badly injured patients. Speaking of which, how is your ship set for replicating prosthetics? And if it's limited there, does this base have any good facilities for that?"

Raven thought for a moment. "How many patients do you have that need to be transferred? The Claw is not a large ship, we need to make sure we have the capacity to support them. As for prosthetics, this is Drozana station. Probably the biggest black market hub in the quadrant. If there is nobody here selling what you need, you will not find it anywhere else."

"At least a dozen, though it may be more. We don't have a full count on who has decided to continue on and who is giving up and returning to the Empire." Nancy frowned. She understood the decision was in her opinion it was just a delayed death sentence. "I'll make some inquiries on the prosthetics. We have an officer in need of a new arm."

Kaol nodded as he let the CMO talk. All he needs is the prosthetic and a nice sterile surgical bay to take care of Seira.

Raven sighed. "Our sickbay has room for eight. However, we will be staying here for the next few weeks at least. Maybe we can continue to use this vessel as a hospital?"

"We can while in port," Gable replied. "But if I understand correctly, the warp engine is down and there's other serious damage. You'd have to speak to an engineer as to whether she's even salvageable."

"We have an excellent engineer. I am sure she won't mind having a look over the ship and seeing what can be done," replied Raven, in a businesslike manner. "Now, who else is there that is joining us?"

"Any assistance would be much appreciated," Gable acknowledged, gratefully but with a business-like demeanor. "As to who else, there are a few officers and roughly 40 surviving refugees."

N'Vok raised his hand before running it through his blond hair. He had been disguised as human for his duration aboard the Sianna, helping out with various tasks, mostly engineering in nature. "Dan Thompson. I uh... I'm a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak. It would be great to join up and off such a vulnerable ship, to be honest."

Raven turned to look at the man that had spoken up. "A jack-of-all-trades you say?" She scratched her chin for a moment. "Tell me, Mr Thompson, can you cook? Sadly, the chef has elected to leave our crew, and the quartermaster's cooking, well, I would not call it 'haute cuisine', if you get my gist."

Dan smiled awkwardly as he appeared to rack his brain for a moment before responding with a shrug, "I'm not a gourmet chef but people always talk about my Bolian soufflé. I picked that up from a Bolian trader last year before I made my way to Romulan space."

The Colonel simply nodded. "Excellent. Anything is better than more Ferengi bean stew. It may be cheap and contain all the nutrients you need, but it does not contain flavour. At all. Feel free to have a look around the galley and let Gedak know of any requirements."

"I will, indeed," he replied with a friendly bow. "Ferengi eat slugs. Enough said about their cuisine, eh?"

Raven chuckled. "I made doubly sure he could not get hold of any of those for his cookery."

She looked around the room. "Right, everyone else, please make sure to send me a dossier or CV or what have you, so I know where best to place you on the crew. We will be in port for at least another six weeks while we make various enquiries, as well as resupplying and shore leave. We may well leave on short stints, but we will primarily be based here for now. Any questions?"

"Not at the moment, Colonel," Nancy replied. "For now, I have patients to see to. And then I'm going to get a nice stiff drink."

"Agreed. But I'll forgo the stiff drink, there's a prosthetic to fit for one of our patients and I want to make sure that I'm completely prepared for the task," Kaol finally spoke up. He just wanted to get to the medbay, everything else can be handled by the others.

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