PIN Eastrovia (Prome)
Bridge
“Captain’s Log 08052392. Imperial Guard Captain Jan Pate reporting from Prome, Eastrovia Decoy. Ship and crew are functioning at 100% on our return trip from our first trade conference with the United Urth Federation. It was a trip that allowed the crew members to visit our historic homeland of Southeast Yasteria. We are traveling standard formation with the Eastrovia decoys. Eastrovia Actual is currently in East Group Formation and we are traveling through known neutral space on our way to Peregrin Prime. We are about 20 hours away from the boarder and six hours before we must have a warp core cool down,” Jan spoke to the computer in her ready room as she recorded her daily log when she was called to report to the bridge. “Save log,” she said as she left her desk and entered the bridge.
“Report?” she asked as she strolled across the bridge to the command chair, taking over from the second command officer. It was the third shift and she was still awake doing paperwork. She would take the second shift based on the current time.
“We have picked up a ship approaching us from the rear, the Queen’s Landing has confirmed. We send out a standard greeting but no response,” reported Keith Land, the second command officer and chief of security.
“Is the ship within our visual range?”
“Barely but I’ll put it on the main view screen.”
“It’s not the best view,” she said focusing on the image, “but that’s a large ship and similar in Peregrin configuration of our largest class. We still don’t have any ships that size and we are outside of our territory. Helm, adjust course and increase speed once Queen’s Landing confirms.”
The helm officer confirmed and Keith asked, “did you want me to call for the senior staff?”
“I don’t want to jump the gun, let’s see what, they do to our changes. Let me access the Decoy Logs to see if any other have noticed anything,” as she pulled the subspace communication logs that connect each decoy ship. She was skimming through the logs and noticed something off. A momentary laps in the link that wouldn’t have been noticed by the computer. “Hail the eastern flank ships.”
Keith worked the console to open a channel but didn’t get a response and tried again but the console continued to flash pending. He looked up and locked eyes with the captain, “no response.”
“The Decoy Logs have been compromised. Terminate the link and reconnect, that will give the Eastrovia and rest of the decoys a heads up.
He quickly worked the keys on the console, “link has been terminated and will restart in thirty seconds. We should have a complete ping back in five minutes based on decoy positioning.”
“Captain,” the helm officer Krista Yang said, “that ship has matched our course and increased their speed when the link was terminated. We’re at standard cruising speed and they are at 9.997 and gaining on us.”
The unknown ship quickly became clearer in resolution on the screen, “increase to maximum. Tactical analysis, that’s a larger version of our largest class.” Krista and Keith both confirmed and carried out their orders.
Meanwhile in the cafeteria hall the Chief of Engineering, Matthew Rex, was up a few hours before his shift to read over ship reports and have a quiet breakfast. Most of the other officers in the hall were on break, couldn’t sleep or on a leisure leave for having worked at the conference and didn’t get much time to have free time. He had been assigned to the Prome for the last five years and as the COE for the past two and knew the ship like the back of his hand. Most officers wouldn’t have noticed that the ship had increased speed but he noticed that they had increased a little bit but not unusual. Several minutes later it did become unusual when he felt a jolt in the deck plating that indicated they suddenly went to their maximum and as he looked around it wasn’t something unnoticed by the rest of the crew in the hall. He looked at the time on the wall and started to mentally calculated when they would need to drop out of warp for their cool down period as that would mess with the duty schedule.
With it being third shift, the bridge had a skeleton crew and seemed empty but the atmosphere was tense as they waited for the decoy ping back to finalize. Captain Pate had the decoy fleet positioning on the view screen and each time it connected with a ship it would report back their location and status. “Eastern flank is the final ping back, timer countdown is thirty seconds,” Keith reported.
She clasped her hands together, hoping her worst fear would not come true, but fate had other plans as the ping back from the two ships located in their eastern flak reported offline with last known active status more than an hour ago. She noticed the immediate shift in the Eastrovia Actual course and speed to maximum as their formation had been compromised. “Based on the ship’s speed to our stern and the last known activity of our ships. Where would a possible unknown ship be and are we within a visual range?”
Keith quickly put in the data and it took the computer a moment to give a response. Within 5 light years of Eastrovia Actual and within our visual range. Sensor scan is underway… should we adjust…?”
He stopped talking when she raised her hand up. “Assessing the situation and relying tactical data to the Eastrovia Actual is our primary goal. The eastern flank has been compromised and we are in the blind. Have the Queen’s Landing break off and join the western flank as that ship following us will readjust to match the Eastrovia Actual.”
About five minutes later the console alarm went off. Keith quickly accessed the data and put it on the view screen. It revealed a similar designed ship that was chasing them was approaching from their eastern flank. “Relay tactical data to the decoy link. Adjust our course to intercept that ship,” she ordered as she turned on ship wide communications. “All hands report to your battle stations.”