Marine Deployment

Posted on Wed Nov 8th, 2023 @ 1:47pm by Fleet Admiral Mike K`Wor Bremer & Colonel Danny Lennox & Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Ermey & Colonel Ezekiel Bagwell

2,413 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 118 - "It's About Family"
Location: Starbase 400
Timeline: MD1, 1300hrs

ON:

After the incident with the Changeling posing as Harper, Mike had sent Roebuck after the Changeling impersonating MacLeod. Mike himself wanted to brief Colonel Bagwell...and to make sure he could be trusted.

Arriving on Level 40, Mike was met by Colonel Lennox as he stepped out of the transporter room closest to the Marine Division CO's office.

"Lennox." Mike said, almost coldly.

Lennox paused a moment, he wasn't use to Mike speaking so 'unfamiliar' to him...they had served together for many years. "Fleet Admiral."

"The battle of Devos Two, when Marines were beamed down from the Pegasus-A and Falcon, what deployment did we use." Mike asked.

"We didn't." Lennox replied as he cocked his head to the side. "The George Washington was with the Pegasus-A on that operation, and we never deployed ground personnel, it was an orbital bombardment only." Lennox paused, then added, "However during the mission briefing we did agree to use a two prong assault with one Company beaming in to the north of their replicator buildings and the other Company to the west of their heavy weapons storage facility. We'd move in, and after destroying both we'd converge on the base's center."

Mike smiled, he knew the deployment plan wouldn't be in any report since it was never used. Now he knew he was talking to the read Lennox.

Mike explained what happened minutes earlier, and that MacLeod was a Changeling.

"Bagwell is who he's supposed to be, we need to bring him in on this." Lennox replied.

Mike nodded, then the two walked to Bagwell's office door and hit the chime.

Ezekiel had requested status update reports from all of the units and he was still reviewing all the files. "Enter." He called out expecting to see Lennox or one of his subordinates. When he saw Fleet Admiral Bremer he immediately stood up from his desk. "Fleet Admiral Bremer, what an honor it is to have you here." Ezekiel pulled out if he offered his chair behind the desk to the Admiral. He was offered as a sign of respect for one who is in a position of leadership over him. His chair was more comfortable than two guest chairs and no 5-star Admiral should have to sit in those uncomfortable chairs.

Mike held up his hand, not just to tell Bagwell to 'be at ease', but Mike had never been about all the pomp and circumstance. "Have you seen the report of the Changelings impersonating Harper and MacLeod?"

"I have reviewed the report, been trying to catch up on all the reports going on around here. The changeling infiltration is alarming." Ezekiel said, wondering what would happen next, and why now? He's still for couldn't understand why they chose this time the infiltrate Starfleet again. According to his reports there had been no aggressive activities coming from the Dominion it's quite some time. Time being a relative term, in all honesty he hadn't really had not looked deeply into the movements or activities of the Dominion forces. They just didn't come up in briefings, when he was still with special operations.

"I need you to get your officers vetting their Marines on the double, once you've confirmed the officers are who they say they are." Mike replied. This whole thing was a mess, 'who can you trust' was the question on everyone's mind and the suspicions everyone had during the Dominion War was creeping back into the minds of everyone. Even though this wasn't the Dominon's doing and only a rogue band of Changelings were behind everything that had happened leading up to the events of Frontier Day, and was now going on aboard Starbase 400 as well as a few other bases and ships...if the Changelings weren't all found there was no limit to the chaos and destruction they could reap on the Federation...even with the Borg now eliminated by the Enterprise-D.

"I recommend all patrols consist of at least four Marines, no one moves around alone." Lennox added.

Mike nodded. "With turbolifts shut down, I've ordered Lieutenant Xalanth to post Security teams at every transporter room and site to site transport unit aboard the station."

Before Bagwell could reply, Mike's commbadge beeped.

"Ops to Admiral Bremer. Captain Dow is here and is requesting to speak with you, alone." The voice said over the comm.

"I'm in Colonel Bagwell's office, ask him to beam up here." Mike replied.

"Um, he's already headed there sir." The voice replied with confusion.

Mike tapped his badge to close the comm.

"That's odd." Lennox commented.

"If he was beaming he'd be here by now." Mike replied.

But just then there was a beep at the door. Mike looked at Bagwell and nodded.

The door opened to reveal Captain Dow standing there.

"Pat, what brings you up here from the planet's surface?" Mike asked.

"Governor Agard and Lieutenant Governor Suuax are asking a lot of questions I can't answer about the situation on Earth with the Fleet attacking Spacedock, Borg influence, Changelings involved...they're asking for you to beam down for a face to face." Dow explained.

"I already sent them a brief statement and scheduled call with them for 1400." Mike replied.

"I know, but they're saying they must have Changelings among their population now and with a population of over three hundred and fifty thousand now, they're saying the delay isn't good enough. They want Marines and Medical going door to door to make sure people are, well, people." Dow replied.

"Do you have anyone you can spare?" Mike asked Bagwell.

"Colonel Lennox's team to start. He knows most of their officers and they can easily be vetted, some of the other teams have new commanding officers and their assessments aren't complete yet, but we could also double up on our Marines to look out for each other and I would strongly suggest rotating the crew rotations to make sure that two changelings don't stay together for very long if it does happen." Ezekiel said, thinking to himself this is as real as it gets. He hopes by sending Lennox's team first that this would break bury some of the potential hostilities between the two of them. Ezekiel didn't have any hostilities towards him but he could see from his subordinates perspective the potential of there being hostilities.

Lenox had focus on keeping the Marines together in the absence of its senior leadership. He had done a remarkable job keeping them in line and helping during crucial elements of the past few incidents. "I'll double my efforts to get the rest of the first division vetted and assessed as soon as possible." Ezekiel said to Mike, he can only imagine what that man was going through right now plus what the colony demanding his attention he doesn't want to take up too much of his time.

Lennox looked over at Dow, "Just like old times huh?"

Dow smirked, "Yeah, like that mission to Krazzle space when we tried to get the Minjay clan to join the Federation. Couldn't tell who a good Krazzle was from a bad one."

Mike smirked, remembering that mission as Lennox and Dow left Bagwell's office.

Walking to the site to site transporter, Dow stopped half way down the corridor. "We should take a shuttle, load a few of the Division's armored vehicles. Would be a safer mode of transport once on the surface."

Lennox took another step, paused, and looked back at Dow. "Why would they be needed? Patrols would be assigned to different areas of the cities and any rapid response would be via transporter."

"I just think the Governor would like the show of strength. You know how he can be." Dow replied with a smile.

Lennox drew his phaser. "Actually, I don't."

"What the hell Dan?" Dow asked.

"That mission to Krazzle space, you referring to the Pegasus-B's trip in... twenty-three seventy-six right?" Lennox asked.

"Yeah, right after I joined the crew." Dow replied.

"I wasn't aboard the ship for the mission. I heard about it from Sergeant Ermey, when I returned, but I was on leave for my brother Deacon's funeral after his remains were brought home from AR-558." Lennox replied coldly.

"I must be mistaken." Dow replied as he eyed Lennox.

Lennox nodded, "Yeah. And one other thing, no one calls me 'Dan'." Lennox fired his phaser and hit the Changeling impersonating Dow.

The Changeling shrieked from the hit, then lashed out with tentacle like appendage and slammed Lennox into the wall of the corridor. "Damn solids."

Lennox fell to the deck as he was hit again.

At that moment, Bagwell and Bremer came rushed down the corridor to see what the noise was about to find the Changeling about to deliver a death blow to Lennox. Both men fired and hit the Changeling again.

"Computer, seal off Level 40 with a forcefield, authorization Bremer-47-Bravo-Delta."

The Changeling fell to the desk as it changed to its liquid form and tried to escape through a Jefferies Tube, but the forcefield blocked it, so he changed into a bird and flew down the corridor.

"Come on. This one isn't getting away." Bremer said to Bagwell.

Ezekiel couldn't believe how easily the changeling transformed from a solid humanoid to a liquid state and then to a bird within a matter of seconds. He had heard about the changelings, but the life of me couldn't figure out why the Dominion would use this opportunity to strike at the Federation. He thought themselves just had to be a renegade faction. But at the moment it really didn't matter, at this moment they had a changeling on the list that was up to questionable activities.

Ezekiel started to chase after the changeling with Mike, as started to go down the hallway, he couldn't help but be observation of everything around them. The changelings could be hiding in anything from a pole to a picture to an imaginary wall it was just so hard to tell. Because you're such perfectionist at imitating objects. "He could have transformed again into anything, I remember reading in the 2370s on Deep Space 9 that Admiral Sisko and his team recalibrated their rifles to do a wide beam phaser sweeps to draw out the changelings."

"Do it!" Mike said as he tapped buttons on his phaser's control.

As the men started to sweep with the phasers a 'door' started to move, then morphed into Ltjg Robinson, an Engineering Officer and the usual CEO of the USS Repulse...MacLeod's ship. A second later, the 'bird' flew back and morphed back into Captain Dow.

"You're no match for us, especially in confined spaces." The Robinson changeling said with a smirk.

"Why are you doing this?" Mike asked in a concerned tone. "The Dominion and Federation are at peac.."

"Peace is relative." The Dow changeling replied. "We know you're aware of what's happened across your fleet and at Earth."

"The death toll is still being revised, but your plan with the Borg Queen to take over the Federation has failed, again. The Borg ship was destroyed, the Queen is dead, your changelings including Vadic are dead. Only a handful of your band are in hiding. There's no where for you to run, no plan to execute, no Link to return to...great or small." Mike replied.

"You don't get it. Our goal was never to return to the Great Link. It's to make you suffer like you made us." The Dow changeling replied.

As the Changelings started to change, both Bremer and Bagwell fired. The Changelings then leap at the Starfleet Officers, but before they could reach them, they smashed 'head' first into a forcefield. As the Changelings fell back, they tried to retreat down the corridor but found themselves surrounded on all sides by forcefields.

Mike looked back down the corridor to see who raised the forcefield to see old Gunny Ermey holding a rifle in one hand and tricorder in another. "Lennox sent them to help, I guess you needed it."

Mike smirked.

"And before you ask, it's really me. No god-damned pile of goo is going to impersonate me, I'm too damned old ornery for that bullshit." Ermey added as he walked up.

"Good to know Gunny." Ezekiel called out, realizing this is the first time he ever met the gunnery sergeant. So far the old man had a snarky personality to him, he could appreciate that.

"We have a transporter set up to beam these two either out into space, or hold their patterns for a bit." Ermey replied.

Mike eyed the Changelings as he thought for a moment. "Put them in the buffer."

Ermey replied, tapped a couple of buttons, and the Changelings shimmered away.

After the gunny had responded Ezekiel then turned his attention back over to the Admiral. "That was a close call, do we want to send them to intelligence for debrief?" Ezekiel asked, wondering if the rumors that he had heard were true about the torture that these changelings went through. He didn't have to put much faith in rumors, with that said though he wondered.

"We still have the possibility of others aboard the Station. The Harper changeling said there are seven. We know of five now. The MacLeod and Harper changelings are KIA, the Dow and Robinson changelings are neutralized, and Mclintock changeling is on the run and being pursued. That leaves at least two still on the loose." Mike explained as he thought.

"Yes Colonel Lennox's team will be more than happy to assist with that. I will also make sure that the rest of the Marines are on hot standby." Ezekiel called out, then he continued to say. "I think we should also post Marines to back up our security forces on the station." Colonel Lennox's team will proceed to find the changelings and the rest of the First Marine Division will assist security and protecting key assets. We only have time to properly vette them all, but they are definitely needed right now we can work with lieutenant Xalanth. The changelings have too much potential territory to hide in on station, I think we should focus on limiting that."

Mike nodded. "Start a systematic search, use force fields to lock down areas, phaser sweep them, as you go. I'll be in Ops. I want to see if there's anyway science can start internal scans of the station to detect them."

Mike then had himself beamed to Ops.


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