Tech Conference: Mishap

Posted on Sat May 30th, 2020 @ 1:40am by Commodore Jane Saulitis

Mission: Tech Conference
Location: Starbase 621, Main Promenade
2607 words - 5.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Ledeya was not sure how she ended up joining Task Group 72-A on a walkabout, but there she stood at the back of the group as they took a tour of the tech conference. She was pretty sure it was because of Jane and the catch up the woman wanted to have after the streaking incident the last time they had seen each other in person. She looked around the promenade, relieved it was no longer the sorry state it had been just over a month ago. No longer covered in blood and debris, and certainly no smoke and haze from faulty environment systems.

"Anyone have something specific they are looking forward to at this event?" Ledeya wondered, trying to get her mind off the bombing that had occurred but back to the cubicles that held vendors showing off the latest technology.

Jane shook her head. "I wish I could say I was more science inclined, but it's not my specialty at all." She'd been known to try and grow a few things in her lifetime, but any other kind of science she barely made it through at the academy with Hak's help. "I'm just going to have a look around."

"Mine is medical. I always like these events for the newest approaches to medicine. What about yourselves, gentlemen?" Ledeya spoke up. She was not sure if they knew her background, but she got her licence up to date and her learning just as current as if she was still a chief medical officer.

"Tactical," Kane grunted. He was curious, as always, about potential tactical developments in the technical arena. Anything that gave them an edge. The new quantum slipstream drive they'd installed on Athena was one such example. He nodded to Ledeya, remembering her from the cancelled war games exercises a few months back. "Good to see you again, Commodore."

Tan’ato smiled, looking around at the booths surrounding them. This was his wheelhouse as an old engineering and operations officer. “The next generation of bio gel packs are supposed to be fifty percent more efficient, and the new quantum processor by SkyNet should increase computing capacity and ship AI intelligence.”

"As it is nice to see you again, Commander," Ledeya assured with a small smile. "You got all the toys, I hear." Ledeya was not sore about missing out on quantum slipstream by a few months at all. She just hoped by the time her next refit came around it would just go without fail. "They are still a few years from testing from what I remember from the shipyards telling me when Cosmos was being refitted at the beginning of the year."

"We certainly do, but we've not had cause to put all of them to use yet." Kane nodded. Aside from a brief use of the multi-vector assault mode, Athena hadn't been given cause to operate at her full tactical capabilities. He was both relieved and disappointed that their frontier patrols had been thus far uneventful.

Jane smiled slightly as she listened to the conversation. Her ship may not be the fastest or most heavily armed, but she was rather attached to it. It was more than the bulkheads that surrounded her day by day. It had become home for her and her crew. "I'm a little leery of AI intelligence," she answered. "Too many ghosts in the machines, if you ask me. I know I use technology every day, and I love how convenient it makes life, but at some point do you think scientists take it too far?"

Ledeya said nothing in response to the thoughts on AI intelligence. It was not something she thought about, honestly, after all the things that had happened in the last decade. "Scientists will never stop taking it too far. It is in their nature to go big or go home," Ledeya said with a shrug.

“And we usually have to clean up the mess,” Tan’ato said with a chuckle.

"Yeah," Jane sighed. "Maybe that's why I'm grumpy about it."

"Is that not how the universe has always been?" Ledeya wondered as she stopped at a stall, seeing something that interested her.

Jane bit her tongue on a response. "Speak of the devil," she said, pointing to a robotics display where a humanoid robot was standing, surveying the crowd. She didn't have anything against robots in general. She thought they could be extremely useful for a lot of things. It was just that their creators tended to make them more advanced than they could sometimes keep up with. She began to read the holographic display about what the robot’s primary functions were when it took a step towards her, reaching down it's mechanical arm. She paused, took a step back, and wondered what it was doing.

It was mostly an instinctive move for Kane, towering over his TGCO, to step just in front of her like a bodyguard might. Years of tactical training had built it into him like a habit: protect your senior officers from harm. Not that there was any harm to be had. The android moved like a marionette, head cocked to the side as though studying the small group.

"Damn things," he mumbled, annoyed that it had stirred him to act unnecessarily.

It lunged unexpectedly. Jane let out a yelp of surprise and flung herself off to the side on the ground. "What the hell?!"

Ledeya took an automatic step backwards and frowned as she looked around for the stall owner, but there was no one around to ask questions of. "Where are they?" Ledeya wondered looking across the stall trying to see what trying of basic android it was.

Tan’ato looked over with surprise, as well. For such a big being, the massive Orion moved quickly. An arm the size of a tree reached out and scooped up Jane, moving her safely behind the broad, muscular expanse of his back as he interposed himself between her and the android. Kane had the Commodore. There didn’t seem to be anyone manning the booth.

“STOP!” Tan’ato rumbled out the command, hoping the android had been given some rudimentary programming. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a try before he had to rip apart someone’s life’s work with his bare hands, because no one here was armed.

But it didn't stop. It turned its attention toward Tan'ato but began to move forward. Jane was seriously feeling naked now that she had no phaser on her. Who needed one when you visited a Starfleet station? The robot's arms reached toward them, its legs starting to move faster. The only eyes discernible on its head were slits that had suddenly turned from blue to a swirling red.

Although he had no love for the Orion, Kane's penchant for protecting anyone in a Starfleet uniform was a higher priority. He made a grab for the machine's arm, only for it to toss him several feet through the air with barely any sort of effort. He landed on his back, actually skidding on the deck plate as he did so.

Ledeya watched the scene, amazed as the commander skidded across the deck, and reactively touched her comm badge. "Ehestri to Security. Security incident Main Promenade," she said as people started to back up now seeing it as something fearful.

The machine came for him, and Tan’ato let it. If it was focused on him, the others could get away. “Scatter!” yelled to the others. “Get everyone out of here!”

Tan had grown up as a Syndicate enforcer, dealing with Orion’s. He was powerful. He charged in suddenly, grappling with the robot. He felt his collarbone snap as one of the robot’s arms came down hard on it, but he simply locked his hands around the machine, forcing the pain aside. He felt the monster inside of him rage. This was a machine. Could he safely let it out? The rage, the hatred, the bloodlust? But there were too many people around. He forced it back, fighting two battles as he fought to just hold the robot, keep it in place, and fought the bloodlust inside of him.

Jane didn't wait around. She jumped to her feet and pushed the others along, directing them toward the exits. How could this happen? Why was it happening? Those thoughts were just the briefest of flickers in her mind. "I don't suppose there's any way to seal it off once we're clear?" she yelled to anyone who wanted to answer.

"Containment field," Ledeya called over the noise of panic and mayhem. Not exactly what the base's new commanding officer would want at all. It was like the base was cursed.

Tan grunted, his massive muscles straining as he wrestled with the robot. Part of him was delighted. He rarely allowed himself any violence in his life, and there were usually few worthy opponents. He felt pain burn as muscles tore. He couldn’t beat the thing; it was stronger and didn’t have the limitations of flesh. But he could delay it until everyone was safe.

On his feet now, Kane moved to assist the big Orion while the others dealt with the crowd control side. He came in from behind, wrapping his arms around the head of the machine in a sort-of sleeper hold. Although he wouldn't be able to choke the thing out, if he twisted hard enough he might be able to dislodge the head from the rest of the body. It was unlikely to work, but at the very least he was assisting the other captain in his efforts.

Tan grunted his appreciation. Joints. Focus on the joints. He grabbed one of the robot’s wrists to twist, try and break its hold on him.

"What are you doing?" a man yelled suddenly next to Ledeya. What were these Starfleet officers doing to this machine? "That is my robot!" the vendor started screaming as he frantically started to press buttons on his padd.

"Shut it down!" Jane bellowed back at him. "The thing’s gone crazy and attacked us." Obviously that wasn't working, however, as he began to pound the thing. "Is there another way? A failsafe?"

"On the back of its neck," the man said as Ledeya looked at the robot, trying to work out if she could jump on its back and press the failsafe.

"Tan’ato? Jacob? Get it facing you," Ledeya said, knowing she was going to be in so much trouble with several people for what she was about to do.

Scowling hard at being called by his first name by the Commodore, Kane did his best to leverage his weight more to the side, a little closer to where Tan'ato was doing his level best to work on the arms. It left the opening that Ledeya had asked for though.

Jane let Ledeya move around while the others distracted it. It might catch the movement of more than one person, and there were still a few stragglers she helped crouch behind tables as they made their way out of the room.

"I am going to regret this so much," the commodore whispered to herself, saying a prayer to the deities under her breath. She glanced around as she climbed up onto a table, wondering where Security was. They were not here, and she was, so it was now or never. Taking a deep breath, she leapt onto the robot’s back, clinging on for dear life as she rooted around for the failsafe.

Tan’ato steeled his grip on the robot’s arms, using leverage to force it around. It was still stronger than him, but it didn’t seem to have much beyond brute force, no technique or knowledge of fighting. Tan gave a primal roar and managed to wrench off one of the arms in a flurry of sparking wires, his vision red.

Kane was momentarily taken aback by the sheer brute strength of the Orion, and although it might have robbed the robot of one arm, he was still vainly keeping the other occupied as the Commodore wrestled for a shutdown. He was lifted clean off his feet, the remaining mechanical hand suddenly at his throat.

"Any...time...sir..." he choked, straining to avoid passing out.

"Patience is a virtue!" Ledeya shot back as she pressed the button with a cry of success. The robot sent her flying off of it with crunch from her and a crash from the menace as it fell forward.

Jane rushed forward now that the robot seemed offline. "Are you all right?" she asked Ledyeya, crouching down in front of her. She would check on the others in a moment, but that had been a hard toss, and she'd slid hard against the bulkhead.

"Yeah, I'm --" Kane realised she wasn't talking to him. He cleared his throat, rubbing his neck with his hand as he eyed the fallen machine. "The hell happened?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to find out. Medical bay, both of you," Jane nearly snapped to Kane and Tan'ato." In a softer voice, and almost as an afterthought, she added, "And thank you. I owe you both dinner once we figure this out."

Ledeya slowly sat up, holding her head. "I feel woozy," she said, stumbling over the Human word as she slipped into Betazed as she tried to focus.

"Whoa," Jane said, putting both hands on her. "Stay put, we'll get someone to you as soon as we can."

"No... No..." Ledeya used the wall to climb up unsteadily and looked around, trying to focus on speaking Federation Standard. The vendor was scurrying to try and gather pieces to investigate what had happened when no control had been to his creation to do anything other than to just sit there. "We are all going to sickbay right?" She looked at the two men looking just as unsettled as her.

Tan’ato hadn’t stopped. As the robot went down, he kept beating it with its own arm, nearly catching Jane and Ledeya with the wild, barely controlled swings. The vendor nearly lost his head as Tan turned on him, but Jane’s authoritative voice somehow forced a pause. He spun around to face her, a dangerous look in his dark eyes, and then he seemed to shudder, his shoulders slumping. He dropped the robot’s arm like it was scalding and backed away from everyone.

“I am sorry,” the massive Orion rumbled. “I’m sorry…” He stared around at the violence he had done as the pain started to slip through the adrenaline and rage, bruises, torn muscles, broken knuckles, cracked ribs.

"It's okay," Jane assured him. "Alright. Together as a group them." She really wanted to almost keep a hand on Ledeya but stayed close to her instead. "Maybe you better follow along behind us, just in case," she said to Kane. While they all got checked out she was going to slip back to the scene and try to make sense of it all.

Kane just nodded, still rubbing his neck. It started, although he was relieved the situation had been cleared. He nudged Tan'ato. "Not bad," he just said hoarsely. A sign of respect for someone he may have misjudged previously.

OFF::

Commodore Ledeya ‘Ed’ Ehestri
Commanding Officer
USS Cosmos / TG 72-B
(PNPC Gregnol)

Commander Jacob Kane
Commanding Officer
USS Athena
(PNPC Ford)

Captain Jane Saulitis
Commanding Officer
USS Majestic/ TG 72-A
(PNPC Bowers)

Captain Tan’ato Tejera
Commanding Officer
USS Nightingale
(PNPC Jorasco)