After the Dawn

Posted on Tue May 13th, 2025 @ 12:19pm by Captain Rovak & Colonel Ashaan Vhau & Commander Utlaq Son of Ha'Qaam & Commander Alex Flynn & Lieutenant Rune Thul & Lieutenant S'Lace & Mana'i & Doctor Intharia T'Zor & SubCommander Saa & Lieutenant JG Akaar Zuul & Ensign Nimah & Senior Chief Petty Officer Gaz & Llaudh Drusilla Creon & Dowager General Kloh'theQ, Daughter of Q'Lath & Captain Nemo & 1st Lieutenant V'Lanzo & Chimaera & Nurse Sharsa & Lord Akhenaten & Lord Typhon & First Prime Kanahkt & First Prime Pindar
Edited on on Tue May 13th, 2025 @ 12:26pm

3,204 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: The Serpent's Tooth [3]
Location: Great Hall, Civilian Sector
Timeline: 1945 - MD08 (After 'Dawning as a Soul')

As the last of Hera's Jaffa left the great hall and the doors sealed behind them, Rovak finally felt the strength to right himself, though the strange effect of the weapon was a pain even his Vulcan mental control could not neutralise. He managed not to express it.

He looked around, and realised Hera and her Jaffa were gone. The sounds from his semi-consciousness seemed to play out in his recollection. He had heard Saa's surrender that had broadcast station-wide.

Alex was awake, in a sense. She could think, and as long as she kept her eyes shut, the migraine-like pain behind them wasn't quite so searing. She felt someone she didn't want to look at grab at her arm and ask if she was alright. Sounded like Macdonald. She gave a pained smile and a thumbs up and gestured to her eyes.

"Status report." He ordered as he got to his feet, though his head still rang.

"Sir," Saa listed slightly as she attempted to approach him. She corrected for the error, and faced him. "Hera's forces managed to obtain weapons and launched a sneak-attack, which was coordinated with a computer takeover. We're locked out of even basic functions. Doors won't open, computer won't answer our queries. We're putting our heads together, but we haven't made any progress so far. Hera indicated she's going for the Excalibur. Expert opinion says that probably won't end well for her."

"I see." Rovak said, looking around the room. "Any suggestions?"

“Touch screen interface is still active. That means we should be able to get the terminal into debug mode, maybe get a message out. Short-range only, though. Subspace radio is a whole separate system we’d need permissions to even get a look at the status of.” Gaz suggested. He was cradling Lieutenant sh’Rhavar, who still seemed to be feeling the effects of the stun weapon, she was shivering with pain.

“Doc, I think you might want to take a look at her.” Gaz said to S’Lace, seeing that the other stun victims, even the unconscious ones, didn’t seem to have had such an adverse reaction.

S'Lace could recognize the symptoms of phase pulse infection and quickly made her way to the nearest first aid kit. Thus "armed", she rushed to sh'Rhavar and opened up her tricorder. While she recognized the symptoms and her diagnosis was statistically correct she wished to be certain. Once confirmed she prepared a suitable counter agent to alleviate the symptoms.

As she injected her patient she said aloud, "This will mitigate the effects but I will need to get the lieutenant to Sickbay as soon as possible."

“Can we tell from here how they’ve breached the system? We are flying blind seeking solutions until we know what they have done to it.” Rovak asked the group, considering their options. There wasn't likely to be anything in the medkits that would help, except to help the injured. There was no other equipment he was aware of in the room.

“Alph would be the man to ask. My direct interface equipment is primitive compared to his. He is interface equipment.” Saa responded.

From the upper area, the Ambassadors Creon and Kloh’theQ arrived with their respective retinues, accompanied by Akhenaten and his people. A shamefaced Ambassador Velt followed.

“Captain, there are not enough words in the tongues of Goa’uld or Jaffa to convey my shame and apology. This betrayal is how shol’va system lords would behave, but never one who serves the Aten.” Akhenaten said, his fury barely contained.

“We understand. You were not privy to this insurgency. If there is any help you or your people could provide, we would be grateful.” Rovak told him, still considering what logical alternatives were available to them.

“I will help you by bringing you the head of the traitor Heracles. He profanes the Aten to be born in its light and turn his back on it.” Chimaera, son of Typhon boomed, stepping forward.

“We will condone no lethal violence where an alternative is possible.” Rovak said directly and in a tone that brooked no argument. “We do not take life unless it is a last resort. If you still seek our sanctuary, you will respect this and abide by it, regardless of what is to come.” Though he focused on Chimaera, he was addressing all the Atenists.

“My son, and all my forces shall obey.” Typhon responded after a moment.

“So too shall my followers. The Aten wills it.” Akhenaten said with a nod.

Rovak nodded in agreement, and looked over to Lieutenant Zuul, who was still holding onto Lieutenant Thul. The Betazoid was already being attended to by a pair of Doctors. Rovak had not seen what transpired, but he had a memory of the sound of Thul's defiance, Hera's laughter, and the sound of whatever weapon she had used.

"Is Lieutenant Thul in a condition safe to be moved?" Rovak asked. He knew getting everyone in need to sickbay simultaneously was the safest option, they had no way of knowing how many Jaffa Hera had beamed aboard, or where they would be found.

Akaar was holding Rune's head in his lap as he was told to keep the Lieutenant's head raised by the medical officers that had been treating the Security and Tactical Chief. "Doctor S'Lace, can he be moved?" He echoed the Captain's question.

S'Lace weighed statistics in her head, she considered the current situation.

"Moving the lieutenant is not advisable," she said after a moment, "But treating Thul here is not recommended. We move him at the earliest available opportunity."

Rovak weighed the decision momentarily, his mind analyzing potentialities and possibilties. He needed more data. "Ambassadors, at the risk of imposing upon your privacy, if there are any resources at your disposal that can assist us in reclaiming the station, we would be in your debt. I need not tell you what harm could befall your own governments if a Goa'uld symbiote found its way into the head of Chancellor Martok or Consul D'Tan." He asked the allied Ambassadors, hoping that the seriousness of the situation would undercut their usual polite treachery.

"I will admit for the sake of our alliance Captain, that my Bird of Prey did not leave as announced shortly after the arrival of these Atenists. It remains cloaked in docking bay 14. I imagine we may be able to arrange a single beamout before they erect forcefields around the bay." Kloh'theQ told the Captain. She was old enough to remember interacting with the changeling impersonating Martok, she had no desire for him to be overtaken by some parasitic snake.

"Your honesty is appreciated, Dowager General." Rovak said to the woman with a nod. "Doctor, please prepare the injured for beamout. We will prioritise returning you to sickbay." Rovak told S'Lace, wary of adding a further task, but confident of her ability to achieve it deftly.

"Yes, Captain," S'Lace replied. She set about positioning the wounded in the best possible positions on the floor to ensure the safest arrival in Sickbay.

Rovak squinted momentarily at Flynn, laid out on the floor. It was somewhat surreal to him to see so many incapacitated colleagues. Something he had not seen since New Siberia, or the Dominion War. Even when they'd lost the Mercury, everyone walked away. He knew they needed multiple simultaneous approaches, and even a single transport would allow for that.

"Our first transport will be the injured to sickbay. My current thought is that we should assemble tactical teams and begin raids on patrols and take back the CIC." Rovak announced to all. "But I am open to suggestions in the time it takes for us to discover if a second transport will be possible."

"Isn't it logical to just let them go?" asked Saa. "After all, we know they can't get far." At the forefront of her mind was a promise that the Excalibur's 'Commander' had once made, that any intruders on his ship would starve to death before finding their way off again. A promise that now and then had restrained her from her own contemplated invasions of its more esoteric systems.

"Even with the Commander's help, we cannot be sure they will be stopped or that they do not have something else planned. I appreciate the weight of the argument to let them be, but our standing orders are to ensure nothing extraversally imported leaves the system, and everything we have learned of these Goa'uld tells me that whoever should be unfortunate enough to encounter them next would undoubtedly be grateful that we did not." Rovak said, grateful for the Chief Engineer's candor, he felt like he was still running the arguments in his own mind, to say it out loud crystallised it.

"Captain," Akhenaten interjected, "I would send Kanahkt with you. He can advise of that which only those familiar with my kind would know."

Rovak looked to the burly Jaffa, then back to Akhenaten, and nodded. "Thank you."

He looked back towards the direction of the door, where the mechanical bulk of Captain Nemo was visible. "Captain, you are the most physically capable among us. Please attempt to open the door manually."

"With pleasure, sir." The Orca marine responded, turning around with a few loud steps before approaching the door, trying without much immediately obvious success to pry it apart with the forearms of her suit.

"If it's possible, we should try and beam a team into one of the inactive docks. If we can disconnect their computer cores from the network, we should still have control of all the dock's systems. We may even be able to access a few backdoor commands and retake more of the station from there. Even if we can't beam there, it'd still be worth sending a team, sir." Gaz suggested, realising that Foxtrot Dock was quite close.

"As ever I defer to your knowledge on such matters, Chief." Rovak told Gaz, considering the suggestion. "Doctor T'Zor, Lieutenant Zuul, Subcommander Saa, Ensign Nimah and Chief Gaz with me. If possible we will beam into Foxtrot Dock Ops. If beaming becomes untenable, we will make our way there by foot." Rovak looked to Creon and Kloh'theQ once more. "We are at present unarmed. We may require your tactical support."

"It is fortunate then that we are not." Ambassador Creon said, making an arching movement with her leg that made her training in Romulan ballet obvious, as she brought her pointed foot up and around, allowing her to remove a sleek phase-disruptor from an ankle-holster. "I will accompany you to the dock. I am as well-versed in Starfleet systems and the layout of this station as anyone here." Creon said, turning back to her people before Rovak could argue.

"Ixim, accompany the injured. Ensure their healing is uninterrupted." She told the scar-faced security chief who nodded, removing a disruptor from the back of his pants. "The rest of you, remain here, ensure none but the insurgents are harmed. Assist Starfleet where you can." Creon commanded.

Rovak raised an eyebrow, not willing to argue the finer points with the Ambassador. He had never been particularly good at arguing with her when she was his Captain. He looked to her Klingon counterpart, hoping her enthusiasm would be similar. The sounds of heavy metallic creaking as Nemo tried to pry the door open continued.

"Colonel Vhau, I am leaving you in command of efforts here. I trust you to ensure the safety of all present, and that of the station." Rovak told the Andorian, who looked resigned, but understanding of the assignment. He did look rather sharp in his marine dress uniform.

The Dowager General removed a chunky communicator from her bodice, and activated it with her thumb. "Utlaq, prepare for site-to-site transport. We will first beam a starfleet crew to their sickbay, then if we are still able, we will beam another to the operations centre in F-Dock." She commanded her security chief in guttural Klingon. She then gave a few orders to the warriors in the hall, and several of them moved to the injured, standing protectively around them.

"I will make its access signal available for the next few seconds. Any of you who have working communicators should store it and share your own so we can communicate once split up. Your water-dwellers, in particular." Kloh'theQ said, assuming they were the only Starfleet crew whose comms hadn't been stifled by the shutdown order from the CIC.

Creon did the same, and looked around at her people to encourage those that had one to do it.

In main engineering, Lieutenant Alph was interpreting and analyzing every signal in range with his internal equipment, and detected the sudden activation of access signals. He began to listen in, simultaneous to his analysis of Jaffa chatter. At this point he was totally clueless about what had transpired in the hall and CIC, and locked out of standard interfaces.

"You, give one of the healers your communicator." Kloh'theQ told one of her more senior warriors, he moved across to where S'Lace had gathered the injured. He passed it to one of the nurses and stepped away.

"Beam Tolqa's communicator and the team gathered around it to the base hospital." Kloh'theQ ordered.

S'Lace and the injured were absorbed and absconded by the bright red glow of Klingon transporters.

"Now, be quick, or they will raise shields. I am sending you the Romulan Ambassador's comm signal. Transport her and the team gathered around her to F-Dock Operations. Now." The Dowager General ordered.

Another red Klingon transporter beam swept the team away, and when they didn't return, Kloh'theQ assumed the best.

"Kloh'theQ to Creon. Your status?" The Klingon matriarch asked her fellow Ambassador.

"We have arrived. We will advise when we have the dock active." Creon said.

“Alright, everybody listen up.” Came the voice of Colonel Vhau, calling out to all in the room. “Once we get this door open, we’ll send out recon teams to establish the situation outside. Once we’re sure that there’s no hostages in the line of fire, we’re going to start luring any hostiles away so they can be safely pacified. To our Romulan friends, please set your weapons to stun. And to our Klingon friends, we would appreciate if you could perhaps prioritize maiming and wounding over killing.” Vhau said. “That said, everyone armed or combat trained, please move over to this side of the room.” The Andorian Colonel gestured towards the door.

Vhau looked back to those remaining away from the small armed and trained group. He noticed one tall head sticking out of the crowd. Miss, uh.. Mana’i, is it?” Vhau asked the tall Toa, who he’d read about in the tactical assessments. The officers standing between her and Vhau parted to reveal her. “I know you’re a guest here, and I have no right to ask you to join in our fight, but from what I’ve read, you’ve got skills that could prove very valuable in helping to keep our advancing teams safe and reclaim our station. There’s no shame in refusal, but I’ve got to ask. Will you help us?”

"I can protect your people. But I will not take a life." Mana'i responded. "If that is acceptable."

"It's not just acceptable, ma'am, I insist on it." Vhau, told the woman, gesturing her to join him, and guiding her towards the others. He walked inbetween the starfleet volunteers who had crossed the line to be among the armed and the trained, he sent about half of them back to the others.

"Alright, thank you for your cooperation. These folks here are going to stay with you and keep you secure." Vhau said of those he'd just sent back.

"Please make yourselves comfortable, we're going to sort out where we go from here. If you hear some light phasering don't worry, it's just us making an exit. We'll call out if anyone needs to get to cover, but in the meanwhile, it might be better if everyone could proceed back up to the balconies. I'll be leaving Lieutenant V'Lanzo here in charge while we move on. Best of luck, and we'll see you soon." Colonel Vhau called out, showing he was capable of sincerity when the moment called for it.

"How are we looking, Captain?" Vhau asked Nemo as he got back to the tactical division of the room at the door.

"They locked it, sir. I strain any harder and my micropneumatics might go. Then I'm no good to anyone." Nemo said, sounding defeated, but not ready to quit.

"Not to worry, Captain, you've done the corps proud. However, I would remind you of the parable of the right tool for the right job." Vhau turned to look at a nearby cluster of Romulans as Nemo moved away from the door.

"Okay boys, I'm going to need one of your phase-disruptors." The Andorian Colonel told the group of embassy staff, one of whom looked like he might scoff at the request, but managed to regain his composure.

"I'll give it back." He said to the silence, subtly feigning hurt feelings at his own imputation.

One of them passed theirs forward at the sight of the wizened blue marine, feeling some stirring of martial honour at the sight of a Federation warrior. Vhau knew the weapon immediately, he made changes to the sittings in the time it took to reorient his body so he was facing the door.

The Colonel reduced the door to a glowing image of itself that faded into nothing with the disruptor. "Alright, Jaffa. I need the two most generic-looking of you to go first. Don't worry, we won't let you go into the firing line unless we're there with you."

The closest two Jaffa stepped forward, others seemed like they were about to. Both of Akhenaten's forces, judging from the black circle tattoos on their foreheads.

He looked around for Nurse Sharsa, knowing as a paramedic she'd have a kit. "Nurse, think you can use the dermal regenerator to turn these tattoos into cow's heads like Hera's people have?" He asked the woman, pointing to the foreheads of the Jaffa volunteers.

"It'll be but a minute, sir." Sharsa said, setting about the work quickly.

"Hey, uh, First Prime. You're the baddest ass in your Lord's stables, I'm guessing?" Vhau asked the tall blonde man whose name he couldn't remember.

"Something like that." Pindar said flatly in response.

"Okay great, you're drafted, grab a phase-disruptor." Vhau told him. He looked back to Sharsa, who was already almost done with the first Jaffa.

"Once these boys look the part, we'll be sending out sorties of four at a time to see what we can draw back here and ambush. Once we've got the arms, we'll break out into additional teams. Once everyone here is armed, we'll mobilise against the Jaffa forces." Vhau concluded his plan.

"Any questions?" Two or three hands went up, to the Colonel's chagrin. "Please direct them to someone else wearing the same colour uniform as me. Got me a recon team to support."

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