Shattered Unity (Mission)

Shattered Unity
Season:	Season 4
Episode:	24
Date:	June 19, 2390
Span:	N/A
Template:Mission

With the remains of the USS Gaittithe in tow, the Black Hawk travels to Starbase Unity. What awaits them is a horror unseen since the rise of the Consortium. Can the crew of the Black Hawk break the mystery that is quickly overpowering Federation assets in the Gamma Quadrant?

Summary

During the graveyard shift, the Black Hawk receives a distress call from Starbase Unity. The transmission is heavily distorted, but it is clear that the starbase is under attack. Captain Geisler declares a red alert, orders the tractor towing the USS Gaittithe cut, sends word to Gamma Command, and summons the crew to action. On the way, the crew attempt to formulate a plan given the limited information and assume the attack pattern will be similar to what overwhelmed the Gaittithe two days prior. Captain Geisler also prepares for the worst, leaving behind a communications buoy while ordering the USS Valcour and USS Perseus from Task Group Belvedere to join the fray.

The Black Hawk arrives at Unity twenty minutes later to find that it is nothing more than a debris field. Its support vessels, the USS Oakland, USS Irvine, USS Bamaass, and USS Holtrame, are also among the wreckage, completely destroyed. Scans confirm there are not any hostile contacts, and also confirm small amounts of life. Search and Rescue teams are immediately dispatched, and the Black Hawk begins to beam survivors aboard. A Jem'hadar vessel, adrift, is also discovered in the wreckage. Commander Reynolds, Lieutenant T'Mari, and Lieutenant Kemm beam aboard to investigate. Their mission does not last long as the vessel and its computers are damaged beyond repair, and the lone Vorta survivor confesses that she did not get to see much during the attack.

Captain Geisler withdraws to his ready room to make an initial report to Gamma Command. By now, the quadrant's most senior officers had gathered in a ward room, including Admiral Zachary O'Connell, Chief of Intelligence Ombretta del Carlo, and Starbase Commander Commodore Virid Salire. Geisler delivers the news of Unity's destruction and provides their current status. The news is not well received, and O'Connell realizes that the loss of Unity introduces major instability on the front lines. The Admiral orders Geisler to rescue as many survivors and collect as much intel as he can, and then fall back with Belvedere to Gavara IV. O'Connell also grants Geisler a battlefield promotion to Commodore in order to affectively command the front lines. Following the call, the first senior officer to learn the news of the promotion is Lt. Commander Marsh as the two discuss how best to board the new survivors.

While the Search and Rescue teams, as well as the Flight Squadron, quickly work to rescue survivors from the precarious wreckage, Lt. Commander Di Pasquale returns aboard the runabout Kwando and joins the effort. She is able, thanks to the quick arrival of the USS Valcour and its shuttles, is able to retrieve several dozen survivors from one of Unity's collapsing shuttlebays. Her full runabout returns to the Black Hawk several minutes later where she is relieved by Commodore Geisler. The Commodore then visits Senior Chief Rasputin in Administration where he asks her to notify Belvedere of the situation, the change in command, and to fall back to Gavara. He also visits Counselor Rael to assess the morale of not just the survivors, but his own crew as well.

Doctor Monroe's Sickbay is inundated by masses of wounded, almost to the point of being overwhelmed. Additional triage points are set up on the Flight Deck in order to handle the influx of personnel. During this, two new senior officers come aboard, Lieutenant Ranul Frex, Chief Engineer, and Ensign (Provisional) Bertrim Wysocki, Chief Flight Control Officer. Frex was aboard Unity when it had been attacked and managed to escape on a shuttle, and Wysocki was being transported aboard the USS Perseus. Geisler puts both new officers to work immediately, with Wysocki assigned to create maneuvers against a fast-striking assailant, and Frex to analyze what limited data they had collected so far on the weapons signatures.

Meanwhile, Lt. Commander Geisler sets to work on gathering clues on the mysterious attackers. The ships had all been brutally, and almost surgically struck. Bridge modules and computer cores had all been effectively destroyed. One of the intelligence officers, Ensign Tetnel, suggests that some data might still be stored in key bioneural gel packs, if they could find them. Commander Geisler then instructs the Ensign and PO3 Sokamin to lead two different Away Teams to see if any gel packs could be recovered. The Away Teams take shuttlecraft to still-intact sections of the USS Irvine and USS Bamaass. They manage to each recover a handful of gel packs before the missions have to be cut short due to the quick degradation of the hull sections.

In the early evening, after the last of the survivors were safely aboard, The Black Hawk leads the trio of starships to warp, bound to regroup with the Task Group at Gavara. Aboard the Black Hawk, tensions run high among the survivors and the crew, leading to several incidents throughout the ship, including a hostage situation in a joint counseling session, and several crew quarters broken into.

Timeline

Mission Day 1 (June 19, 2390)

• 0300 hours: Rude Awakening
• 0310 hours: Blindsided
• 0325 hours: Command Crisis
• 0345 hours: Friend or Foe?
• 0350 hours: Finding Elbow Room
• 0400 hours: Search and Rescue
• 0415 hours: Cargo Bay Rescue
• 0515 hours: Finding My Home
• 0530 hours: Homecoming
• 0600 hours: Summoning Belvedere
• 0800 hours: Fresh from the Academy
• 0830 hours: The Duty Station
• 0900 hours: State of Intelligence
• 0900 hours: Triage
• 1000 hours: Meeting the Commodore
• 1100 hours: Analyzing Everything (Part 1)
• 1230 hours: Irvine Recovery
• 1230 hours: Bamaass Recovery
• 1300 hours: Morale Check
• 1400 hours: Hostage Situation
• 1700 hours: The Invasion
• 1730 hours: Captain's Log: Leaving Unity

Mission Day 2 (June 20, 2390)

• 1130 hours: The Razmena Debriefing
• 1400 hours: Personnel Screening
• 1900 hours: A Challenging Proposition

Mission Day 3 (June 21, 2390)

OOC Information

Mission 24 began on May 6, 2024. Since then, 32 posts have been published.

External Information

Complete Mission Logs for Episode 24: Shattered Unity