Debriefing and Regrouping

Posted on Mon Oct 6th, 2025 @ 8:30pm by Commodore Elias McEntyre & Lieutenant Colonel W.B Llewelyn & Commander Cressida Vale MD & Commander Gil’an Tyris & Lieutenant Commander Drevas & Lieutenant Commander Frinx & Major Jesse Moriarty & Sergeant Jace Morven & Commander Rylen Lyo & Lieutenant JG Elen Rell & Ensign Vesper Wells

2,776 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Pilot - "The Gate"
Location: The Gate
Timeline: Shortly after the Romulan Retreat

Ships Log - USS Guinevere Supplemental:

After forcing the Romulans to retreat, we are now holding station just outside the gate. Captain Johansson and her crew are departing and the USS New Hope has arrived. Departing from the ship, Captain Standing Bear, recalled to Starfleet and Counselor Frinx, returning to Feranginar. In the XO’s place, Commaneer Rylen Lao, a highly capable and well respected commander.

The briefing room was just below the bridge. A large conference table dominated the space. A massive slab of oak wood hand carved by Elias’ cousin, J.R. Leather chairs surrounding the table. Fine brown leather, handcrafted as well. More of his personal touches to his flagship. He pondered the gate beyond, hands clasped behind his back as he waited for his senior officers to assemble.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Elen Rell walked in with the confidence of someone who had spent their day in various Jeffries tubes, and today, just doing repairs while trying not to think about the stuff happening around her. Her hair was tied back with a scarf, but enough curls had escaped to rest against her cheek and yes, her uniform showed she had been crawling, climbing and hitting her hand against the bulkhead while muttering sweet words to systems under strain. And sure, she had some bruises and a minor scrape on her hand, nothing worth reporting.

"Sir," she gave Elias a nod, looking at the table. She didn't hesitate but went to touch the wood that seemed to invite tactile touch.

"Elen, come in. There's coffee and snacks on the table." Elias turns hearing the doors open and the Engineer coming in. He gestures to the spead on the table.

Arriving second was the newly minted XO, Commander Rylen Lyo. The Kriosian carried himself with a dignified, almost stone-faced bearing that reflected his aristocratic heritage. He walked with purpose toward the head of the table, nodding crisply toward the persons present. “Commodore. Lieutenant Rell,” he said in a clipped and efficient tone.

"Commander," Elen said with a nod, looking at him, her head tilted. Oh, she hadn't met him yet. Well, not face to...anyway, didn't matter. He knew who she was. Like...proper knew, with...words...She smiled despite everything, awed by the sheer grace the man moved in. In comparison she sort of felt like she'd fallen out of a warp core. She sat down and self-consciously tried to tuck some stray locks into the dark blue crochet scarf tying her hair back.

"Commander Lyo, welcome." Elias spoke as he walked over to offer his hand in greeting.

"I apologize for the abrutness of your assignment here but We're glad to have you." Elias offered.

Lyo took the offered hand snd clasped it firmly, pumping up and down twice before releasing. “Thank you, Sir,” he said coolly. “I am grateful for the opportunity.”

"Most excellent. We'll be hitting the ground running so I hope you've brought your A-Game with you. Barring anything else, I would like to also speak one on one after this briefing." Elias nods, releasing his hand.

Next to arrive was Lieutenant Commander Jalay Prinnet, sporting a cauterized gash across her forehead and looking a bit shaken, but otherwise unharmed. She was tapping away at a PADD as she entered, on which little colored dots representing damage control parties moved steadily across a cross-sectional map of the Guinevere. She took notice of the others and nodded politely, but quickly took her seat and returned to remotely directing the repair work.

Drevas was next to enter. Debriefing the rest of his team had been a chore, to say the least. There'd been many unhappy voices. At least one person had cried. Two were in sickbay fir plasma fire burns. Drevas had dealt with worse in similar contexts in his career thus far, but there was no amount of preparation that could possibly ever prepare one to face the rawness that followed action. Especially action that claimed lives.

Nonetheless, this meeting was on the other pressing concern of the hour, and as much as he'd have liked to stay with his department, this priority had precedence. The Kelpien nodded politely to the others and sank into an empty seat.

Gil Tyris eased in behind the Kelpien, making it just as the door had begun to close. He was examining a larger-than-standard PADD, which contained a detailed schematic of the transwarp gate as well as live streams of data from the forward sensor arrays. He looked up, nodding to each person individually…except for one. “Lyo,” he said simply, the chill in his tone bringing the temperature in the room down a few degrees.

“Actually,” began the XO, “I am properly addressed as either Commander or Sir, Mister Tyris.”

Gil tossed the PADD onto the table, just hard enough so that it produced a loud polymer smacking sound. “And I am properly addressed as either Commander or Doctor Tyris. Sir.”

“Our ranks may be equivalent, but my position supersedes yours. Therefore, I can address you as Princess Pretty Pants if I so choose, Mister Tyris.”

The muscles in Gil’s jaw tightened considerably, his expression a mask of cold indifference. He picked up his PADD and sat down silently.

Elias moved behind his husband with a protective stance and a glare at his new first officer. He did not like what he heard from both men.

"I see you two have met?" Elias asked in a curious yet serious tone.

Gil nodded once. “At the Terraforming and Rebuilding Symposium last year on Tellar Prime. Commander Lyo had some very…unorthodox opinions about restoring planetary ecosystems ravaged by Dominion occupation.”

Elen's eyes were wide as she watched the exchange, her body tensed up and her fingers nervously stroking over the crochet cuff on her wrist. She brushed, briefly, against something that felt like a sandstorm and she looked down, frowning as she wrapped herself into herself...mentally anyway. Nope, she was not touching that, not even with a tractor beam calibrated for half a klick.

Drevas noticed the human's discomfort at once. She hadn't asked to be made acting chief engineer at this stage in her career, not had she asked to have to navigate the politics and rivalries that sometimes existed between members of senior staff so early. He felt for her, really. In her shoes he would've been apprehensive too.

"Forgive me for interrupting. Commanders, Commodore." Drevas placed a hand gently on Elen's shoulder as he spoke from his seat at the table. "I believe this discussion should be had after this meeting has concluded? The priority in front of us now is the Gate, after all."

"Mr. Drevas is right gentlemen, let's attend to the matters at hand. If you would take your seats.

Yeoman Vesper Wells let out a soft breath as the situation deescalated, letting the PADDs she held to her chest loosen just a little with it. She was already seated close to the commodore, her long blonde hair swept out of her face by a slender braid that was pinned neatly. For some reason, she suspected it was best to keep that exchange out of the minutes.

The doors opened to allow Major Jesse Moriarty inside. His features were stoic, and although he moved straight for a seat without hesitation, his gaze swept the gathered crew, taking them in for a moment. It was an old habit, and he was unlikely to shake it anytime soon. The amount of people gathered did make him double check the time though, but he'd made it with a couple of minutes to spare.

One of the last to arrive was the CMO and Second Officer. Cressida had waited until the last possible second before leaving her post to attend the meeting. The work in sickbay was not done, but it was in good hands with the rest of the medical staff for now.

The door opened to admit her and one other. “Commodore, I have someone who wants to see you.” She stepped aside so little Emery, who had come up with her holding her hand, could see his dads.

Emery squirmed away from the doctor and made a bee line to his fathers. Elias knelt down, as the young caitian leapt into his arms.

"My brave kitten!" Elias spoke to Emery as he embraced his son, standing up next to his husband. "Were you good for Doctor Vale?" He asked.

"He was the bravest I've seen," Cressida answered. "A few more years and he'll be helping me in sickbay."

"One can hope, though I hope he's follows us in Starfleet Security"

Elias sat at the head of the table, a small plate in front of his, with his son in his lap. Elias moved the plate so Emery could get at it. A plate of various miniture muffins and a small glass of milk.

"Before we begin, this is Commander Rylen Lyo." Elias started as he gestures to the Commander.

"He's taking over for Captain Standing Bear as Interim First Officer until a permanent replacement can be vetted and found. We're glad to have him. Also of note, Counselor Frinx will also be leaving us on the New Hope.” Elias said as he handed a piece of muffin to Emery before continuing.

"As it stands, we took a bit of a beating. Astrea departed last night, with our thanks. The starship New Hope will remain on station for another day to assist in further repairs to us before returning to DS-12. Admiral Johns has assured me that DS-12 has not detected any more Romulans in our area so we're free to continue our main mission. Getting the Gate online." Elias turned in his chair to look at Gil.

"Dr. Tyris, your analysis of the gate, thus far?" Elias inquired of his husband and science officer.

Gil cleared his throat softly, pressing a button on his PADD. “Currently, the Transwarp Gate is, for lack of a better term, completely powered down. There have been small energy spikes in secondary systems, as well as tachyon spikes in a local spatial radius of 100 million kilometers.” He paused, setting the PADD on the conference room ramble. “As far as my team can tell, the only thing holding us back from activation is the ability to generate sufficient energy.”

“Engineer, do you have any recommendations for how we can get energy to the gate in the necessary quantities needed?” Elias turned to Jalay, Emery still eating the small muffin in his hands as he too looked with intense curiosity in that childlike wonder.

The Bajoran's hand went her to earring and she rubbed at it thoughtfully for a long moment. "Well, before we were rudely interrupted by those Romulans, Rell and I were working on a small power converter as a proof of concept that our systems and those of the Gate would be compatible. I think we were basically there. Assuming it works, it won't be a matter of how, just a matter of how much."

Jalay stood slowly and walked over to the large display that dominated one of the walls of the conference room. She pressed a bright blue LCARS button and brought up a still image of the station. Reaching out with her finger, she pointed out an irregular bit of the gate's ring, zooming in to show what looked like blast damage. "This part is interesting. You see how the hull plating buckles outward instead of inward? This Gate was probably disabled by this breach, and its creators either never bothered to repair it, or ran out of energy before they could finish."

Her speech picked up in pace as she got excited. "The ring structure is remarkably similar to our own warp plasma conduits that bring energy from the warp core to the nacelles. Many Borg systems are still borderline incomprehensible to Federation science, but this isn't one of them. They use plasma to get energy from place to place, just like we do. So when the Gate worked, warp plasma would flow around the ring, hitting all of the transwarp emitters in sequence, which creates the transwarp opening."

She could tell that she was losing some of them, so she shifted away from the technobabble into something more general. "The breach in the ring is... it's like an old-fashioned IV with a path into the veins of the Gate. If we inject warp plasma into it, the blood starts flowing again, the Borg automated systems should finish the repairs, and restore the Gate."

Now the crazy part. But if you said something crazy with enough confidence, people woudl believe you that it was possible. Like a race of religious architects and artists overthrowing a fascist interstellar empire of lizards. "The good news is that the Guinevere already has a great way to get warp plasma from our core to other places: the conduits that lead to the warp nacelles. So I think we should take the warp engines off, point the open plasma conduits into the breach on the ring, then run the warp core at maximum until the station has enough juice."

She paused for a moment. "I'll put them back on," she added helpfully. "The nacelles."

Elias looked a bit…dumbfounded.

“Take off…the nacelles?” He asked for his own clarification.

“Perhaps we could find a solution that is less…invasive?” said Lyo. “This vessel, along with its companion shuttles, could be capable of realigning their shield emitters to create a plasma transfer conduit from the graviton emissions.”

“They could be set up similar to magnetic constrictors,” said Gil excitedly. “Frequency matched to push the plasma along.”

“That sounds like the most reasonable plan. Engineer?” Elias asked Jalay but he had already made his mind up about going with Lyo and Gil’s plan.

“It seems to me like this isn’t a problem of frequency but of scale,” Cressida offered. “Ms. Jalay’s suggestion is akin to amputation, and that’s not a suggestion made lightly, even if you’re confident you can re-attach.” She nodded to Prinnet. “It’ll leave us vulnerable though.”

“And we just got to a state of repair, I’d rather not risk leave our asses hanging out again. Even with the New Hope here, I’d rather not take any chances of breaking the ship anymore than we have too.” Elias also commented.

Jalay knew when to make a tactical retreat. "Points well taken. I hadn't thought to use the shuttles to stabilize a plasma transfer corridor. That's a great idea, Commander," she nodded at Lyo, giving credit where it was due. "Rerouting the nacelle conduits to the graviton emitters will take a little time, but the principal is sound. Commander Drevas, I may ask your team to take lead on realigning the shield generators to create the transfer corridor itself, since most of my people will be busy with the conduits and repairs."

"Of course. We will begin as soon as possible once we have had the opportunity to plan for te opration adequately." Drevas replies with a smile, glancing at Jalay. "I would be pleased to work with Engineering on the endeavor."

Elen twisted the edge of her scarf as her mind ran ahead, half-tempted by the madness of detachable nacelles but far more caught by the elegance of shuttles shepherding plasma like filings across a magnet. The diagrams came thick and fast in her head, though she knew the fun of theory would soon give way to crawling through half-finished repairs and coaxing stubborn systems back into line. Her eyes had gone to Drevas, briefly, then to her Chief. Yeah...she would totally be stuck doing the repairs, because someone had to, rather than the...fun stuff.


"Beyond that, if there is nothing else, we've got work to do." Elias said as he took the last sip of his coffee before he stood, moving Emery to his hip.

"Thank you all. This meeting is adjourned."

--------
Commodore Elias McEntyre
Commanding Officer
USS Guinevere

Emery McEntyre
The Littlest Commodore
USS Guinevere

Commander Cressida Vale, MD
Chief Medical Officer and Second Officer
USS Guinevere

Lt. Cmdr Drevas
Chief Tactical Officer
USS Guinevere

Lt. JG Elen Rell
Acting Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Guinevere

Commander Rylen Lyo
Executive Officer
USS Guinevere

Commander Dr. Gil’an Tyris
Chied Science Officer
USS Guinevere

Ensign Vesper Wells
Yeoman
USS Guinevere

Major Jesse Moriarty
XO Federation Ground Forces
USS Guinevere

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