Star Trek Asalooq Episode One: Arrival With Fanfares

Chapter 6 - Those Rolling Hills

Smiling, the Captain stepped onto Petrov's bridge. Ensign Issor, nervous as he was, noticed him first. „Captain on the bridge!" Everyone turned towards Peña, and he cheerily waved them all back to work. The XO reeled off her routine, and Teldac, turning back to his console, felt his pulse start to race. "All hatches are closed, crew and officers present and accounted for, ship's systems are ready for undocking, all posts manned, sir." "Thank you, Ms Velna. Take us out and set course for Asalooq, warp ... Ensign Issor, what's the maximum cruise speed for our transport ship?" Teldac jumped. Fortunately, the two ship's computers had exchanged information, following some standard prodecure Teldac was immensely grateful for at this moment. "Warp 6.5, sir." "Thank you. We don't want to be late, so signal them that's going to be our speed for the time being." In the way of CO's, the order was addressed to nobody in particular, but Teldac was relatively sure this wasn't his job. To his relief, frantic beeping from the OPS station told him he was right.

Velna took command. Issor's heart hat already sunk at Peña's order to do so. The crew were all complete strangers to him, even though he could now consider himself introduced to the other officers (I am a Starfleet officer, he thought, panicking), but at least Peña's attitude was friendly. Velna, in contrast, seemed extremely unhappy. He had long known that most humanoids did little to hide their emotions, at least when compared to his own people. Issor also had the impression something about him bothered Velna, but he could not tell what. Maybe it was just her doubts in his abilities, which at this point, she was bound to have. After all, he had never, ever done this. He hoped his ancestors would not forsake him, even if his parents had defied Tashaneton, the Asalooq moral code, in conceiving him...

"CONN, release docking clamps. Maneuvering thrusters 50% reverse." "Release docking clamps, thrusters 50% reverse, aye," Issor confirmed in a strangely high-pitched voice, blood pulsing in his ears. He managed to get the order of the instructions wrong and fired up the thrusters before releasing the clamps, which caused a shrill beep of protest from his console. He quickly released the clamps and DS9's docking ring seemed to drift away on the main screen. "Report, Ensign!" snarled Velna, her mood fouler than Issor had expected. "I... I just fired the thrusters early and the computer warned me. I've got things under control now, ma'am." A snort was his answer and he felt his head reddening. Recommended distance for the turn was twice the length of the ship. During his exchange with Velna, he had long-since passed that distance and the thrusters had accelerated Petrov far more than was standard procedure. He killed the thrusters and turned the ship to the exit course DS9 flight control was giving him. "Undocking complete, holding exit course. Ready for warp in sixty seconds, ma'am."

Thankfully, nobody expected Teldac to do anything fancy. They safely reached their jump-off point. "All systems to cruise mode," Velna ordered. Teldac knew from some manual that this order was optional, but with OPS and CONN so young, he understood why she would give it. Thankfully, he had prepared a course to Asalooq already, and when she gave the order to go to warp, he was ready. He watched anxiously for any trouble, but Petrov accelerated with the swiftness of a ship very light for its engines. Warp 6.5 appeared on his console and stabilized as expected, and the navigation sensors showed SAV-332 in safe distance and on a matching course. "Course and speed stable," Issor reported, relief much too obvious in his voice. "Very well," Peña himself acknowledged. "Good job for a first time, Ensign," he added. "Commander, you have the bridge. Keep the senior officers at their posts until you're satisfied everything is going well. Good night, everyone!" A few voices answered, but Issor was much too relieved to say anything. He had not screwed up completely, he was on his first mission, and six days away from returning to his home world...

*

Those rolling hills. Eddie smiled. He had only been on Asalooq for a week and he had already fallen in love with the place. ASF was a thing of beauty, almost like SFHQ in San Francisco or the Presidential Palace in Paris. From the higher buildings, you could see all of the Asalooq "Council City", a growing mesh of the old and the new, sitting at the center of the oldest road network on Asalooq's Buwath continent, and right on the coast with its glittering beaches and water the color of translucent fresh grass. It was odd, seeing a city with an actual dust dome above it. The Asalooq still used a lot of combustion technology and it showed. Eddie had only ever heard of such things, having grown up on Mars. But his father, an engineer, had told him about old technology, and Eddie had always asked himself how people could bear the thought that their very air was poisoning them, and only because of their technology. Asalooq was luckier than Earth, he thought. Their technology had started to advance before it could take their ecosystem to the brink of destruction. He remembered a History class at the Academy: most historians now thought that the Third World War had its main root in the fight over the remaining fossil fuels. Asalooq had not needed something as terrible as those forty-eight hours of thermonuclear holocaust and something as lucky as the arrival of the Vulcans to find peace. But the Asalooq did not number more than three billion, on a planet similar to Earth, while humanity, just before the Third World War, had welcomed its ten billionth member. Asalooq was much more pristine than Earth had been then or ever since, for even if modern civilization conserved Earth to a remarkable degree, large swathes of land were inhabited, with very little wilderness left.

Eddie loved the hills the most. They were not high, but majestic, like swells in an ocean, knowing they did not have to rage, because nothing could impede their force. There were fields of Chula, the mainstay of Asalooq sustenance, but there were also the endless forests, changing from palms to larger, more demanding trees. The picture was not dissimilar to other tropical jungles, but somehow less imposing, less overpowering. The ruins of an ancient fortification throned on one of the hilltops, guarding the approaches to the Council City. Eddie planned to explore it at some point, but for now, he was under orders to keep his roughly 400 Starfleet ground troops inside their barracks until the Initial Mission arrived, which was to happen the next day. The Asalooq didn't seem to mind, had cleared his troops and equipment through what passed for orbital traffic control here and left him alone. Eddie had his people working at setting up training and duty routines while they waited for contact to be established with the planned Asalooq Planetary Defense Forces. Every UFP member planet was responsible for defence in case of a planetary invasion (though Starfleet would assist as much as possible, of course) and maintained its own military, which could be federalized in emergencies but would never be obliged serve outside its own star system. Most planets had some form of a militia system, and some in safe areas had only a lightly armed disaster response force. Asalooq, exposed as it was, would have to have a serious, heavily mechanized army, and the troops trained and advised by Eddie and his formation would be its nucleus. So far, Eddie had little idea what awaited him, but he wasn't too worried. He would get the job done. His GCE was a fine force, well-honed for months at the training center on one of Bajor's moons. And his people would be happy – it was always nice to be stationed on a planet, and no soldier worth their salt loved anything better than to train, in decent holosimulators (which were high on Eddie's equipment demand list but wouldn't arrive too soon) or actual field exercises. He would have free time, though, and so would his officers and noncoms. Their duties ended administratively at 1700, and because Eddie had a well-organized staff, that rule would not be a fiction all of the time.

"Commander?" Eddie woke from his musings at the voice of his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Esther Lazarova and turned away from the fenced edge of the HQ building's roof. "Yes, Esther?" "Lieutenant Varrak wants to know if he can run an assault ex on habitat tower C tonight. It's empty and he says his guys haven't done building assault recently." "Those recon nuts... tell him yes, but SimWeps only, and don't break anything! No breaching doors and such. Also tell him I want to watch," he added with a smile. It was always fun, seeing Varrak's elite platoon at work. They were nominally a reconnaissance unit, but they had developed capabilities usually attributed to Special Operations assault troops. They might not as precise as units specializing in that area but Eddie still slept easier knowing that, should the need ever arise, he had a small cadre of soldiers who could do deep raids, targeted hits on high value targets, and even in extremis hostage rescue. "Aye sir. Anything else?" Lazarova asked. "No, Lieutenant. You take your half-day off. Tomorrow, the transport arrives, I think it'll be the last time for a while."

Eddie looked up to the sky as Lazarova retreated. It was a pretty shade of greenish blue here. From that sky, the Initial Mission personnel would descend tomorrow, and then, work would begin. Also, his people would share guard and security duties at ASF with the Mission's security element, freeing up time for training with the Asalooq. He had browsed the personnel files for people he knew, but there weren't any, even if he had heard some names, gotten wind of some service reputations. Commander Edward Takeno (his official name was much longer, reflecting his eclectic family background) walked back to his office to give the last orders for the honour guard stand-to planned for the arrival of ASF's station ship, Stanislav Y. Petrov. Then, he retired to his quarters to record a few letters to parents, siblings and cousins, of which he had a rather large number. He hoped he would find time to read their replies, and respond again himself ...