A Game of Tactics

Posted on Sat Feb 18th, 2023 @ 6:44pm by Ensign Edg'rrr Anisu

1,466 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 115 - Planting for the Future
Location: Starbase 400
Timeline: MD1, 0317 hrs
Tags: Edg'rrr, Courage, game, communication array

Edg'rrr gritted his teeth as he looked at the situation. Here, in the Hydraxa star system, his task force sits in a nebula waiting for the opponent to make their next move. He looks at numbers on a pad. A couple of cruisers, some escorts, a carrier, and a dozen fighter squadrons against whatever lay within the system. "You can't hide forever Commodore. You have to play your turn eventually." Said a gruff voice while Edg'rrr continued to think. They were right but if he moved he'd be an open target.

"I know General K'Tarre." Said Edg'rrr nervously as he came up with his idea. "But this isn't a game of strength." Edg'rrr smirked sending a few fighter squadrons out of the nebula in one direction.

"Oh but it is Commodore!" Said General K'Tarre as a few bird-of-prey attack ships moved in with a couple of D-7 class vessels. "Pitiful. The Federation's Starfleet lapdog has sprung my trap! You will suffer for this mistake haha!" Edg'rrr smiled as his plan was to draw them out of cloak to begin with.

"No. Remember K'Tarre. This is a game of logic! Strike group two deploy!" Said Edg'rrr moving the carrier and other ships out of the nebula on the board towards the Klingon fleet and into weapons range. A move that now had the Klingon fleet surrounded and out in the open.

"GAH! No! Not this time! I'll have my revenge Commodore Edg'rrr!" Said Courage in the Klingon voice raising his arms in the air but lowering them to make his move on the board retreating his ships back to safety.

"That went on for awhile." Said Edg'rrr looking at the game board and the miniature ship models on it. "Gotta get to adding more ships to the game though. Like to see what the Andromedans would be like in a mid twenty-fourth century style instead of the twenty-third century." Courage beeped as he shrugged. Edg'rrr sighed as he shook his head making a few notes in the pad with the various numbers on it.

"Is the new profession working out? You haven't spoken about it all week I noticed." Asked Courage as they both started to put the game away. Edg'rrr smiled.

"It's really been working out. I got a chance earlier in the week to see some of the new ships in person. I'm still not sure what I feel about the supposed borg tech on some of them. Feel like if that's true then wouldn't that leave us pretty vulnerable to them just hacking our systems, taking control of our fleets, and us resorting to self destruct everything to stop them?" Said Edg'rrr putting the miniatures into a bag and grabbing the game board from Courage before placing both in a closet. "Also this station is big. I don't think I've even scratched the amount of exploration needed to see all of it! What turbolift in all the fleet takes ten minutes to go from one engineering sector to another?! If I walked I'd see ten years go by."

"I'm sure the people who designed and built the system have worked out the borg issue." Said Courage. "As for the station I would recommend to keep exploring it. You'll need to know just about all there is on it after all."

"Don't remind me. Though do I hope that borg thing is solved as that would really suck." Said Edg'rrr walking to his bed before collapsing onto it.

"Have you met anyone else on the station? Gotten to know anyone?" Said Courage as Edg'rrr felt a twinge in his chest for a moment.

"A few. Mostly just trying to focus on work for now." Said Edg'rrr looking off to one side away from Courage.

"There is something else on your mind isn't there?" Said Courage drifting over to Edg'rrr. Edg'rrr shook his head a bit. "It may be good to say what is on your mind. Off the logs of course." Edg'rrr's ears drooped a bit before he sat up turning to look at Courage.

"Just thinking about that demotion really. Still not sure what I did to set that guy off and of course getting on the new bosses bad side but just sucks I'm the one who had to pay the price. Especially after the Terminus." Said Edg'rrr as he slammed a fist onto the bed before rubbing his eyes. "Why am I the outcast for everyone? Last picked, hardly any friends, and I still feel I'm the only one this involved into board games still." He chuckled a bit on the last part but only if a moot attempt to deter his feelings.

"I also don't know many in starfleet who took his duty on an Oberth class so seriously and got recommended to help test the Nova class refit systems. I think instead of worrying about this person who drew their anger out on you that the fallback in rank doesn't reflect you falling back on your skills." Said Courage as Edg'rrr looked at him with his ears raising up a bit. "Perhaps failing sometimes is the only way you're going to propel yourself by leaps and bounds much more than you expect but you can only do that if you push yourself. Look forwards, not back, and use that big brain to be the best at who you are and what you can do. Tossing in a bit of wisdom and a big heart along the way." Edg'rrr smiled nodding.

"Yeah. Yeah you're right Courage. Moping about what happened isn't gonna do anything but it's not gonna be easy to just wipe it away either. Hmm. Heh, think I can be better than them though. Their is this old saying to be slow to anger and give kindness even unto your enemies." Said Edg'rrr as he continued to smile and looked at the windows into space. "Huh. Maybe this assignment where the chief mentioned something about digging in the main comm array of the station to update some chips and probably look at the gel packs or something will be a good starting point to really work on that then." He jumped out of bed and started to walk around his room. "So how to do that. Iso chips are easy, just pop in and out, but they have new ones out and can be tricky to get working with old systems like this station has." Courage watched as Edg'rrr paced making sure not to say anything now that his train of thought was working right. The exact train Courage knew Edg'rrr had to become not just a good officer, but in time, a great one. "Gel packs are great too but but they can get sick so you need not only to replace them but make sure the nearby treatment boxes have what they need. So perhaps putting a micro-replicator station in them for medical supplies would make that handy? Oh but that might put the power flow in those areas on edge." Edg'rrr continued to pace before walking into the spare room rummaging in a pile and pulling out another pad and started to take down notes pulling up schematics, layouts, energy flows, conductors, everything you could imagine for just the station's communications array with him rapidly making notes, corrections, revisions, revisions on the revisions, back tracks. Eventually several hours passed as he had built some contraption with a few isolinear chips and a crude reproduction of a gel pack.

"You seem quiet. I take it you figured it out?" Asked Courage as Edg'rrr had a big grin on his face holding up the contraption.

"This is just a practice model of the idea. The new iso chips are here with a gel pack compartment here and a simple battery here. I think I'm right in that if the thing lights up then the new tech they want me to install should flawlessly work with existing systems." Said Edg'rrr giving the project a once over as Courage let out a few beeps as if concerned.

"I should warn of a fe-" said Courage as Edg'rrr was just about to press a button on the contraption.

"Relax it's just a battery and a few chips it's not gonna-" said Edg'rrr as he pressed the button. Another crewmate passed Edg'rrr's room with a loud "fwomp" coming from it making them jump back a bit but continued walking without much concern. Inside, Edg'rrr still held his hand out where the contraption had been with soot covering his face and other areas around him as the contraption itself on the floor in a few pieces.

"I feel those leaps and bounds will preferably be made without an explosion." Said Courage as Edg'rrr managed to open one eye and give a thumbs up.

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