Combat Air Patrol

Posted on Mon Apr 7th, 2025 @ 4:25am by Captain Kett V'Laass & Captain Gary Taylor & Lieutenant JG Maxine Mckull

Mission: Season 6: Echoes of the Zynari
Location: USS Elysium Immediate Air Space
Timeline: Day 1
1948 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

The Gryphon fighter/bomber was an arrow shaped attack craft with a length of 20m, a width of 14m and a height of 3.5m. With two built in warp nacelles trailing from its aft and a pair of drifting forward wings, it came pact with two pilots, micro pulse phasers and micro torpedo launches. Two of these crafts were flying CAP (combat air patrol) close to the USS Elysium, gliding likes birds of prey through the inky blackness of space. The two fighter bombers were souring side by side the lights from the USS Elysium shinning and twinkling off their hulls, as they drift against its bow, then broke away in a heavy angled curve away from the ship.

In the chief flight controller's office, Max stood quietly, slowly pacing the room. The hologram projected in front of her displayed the Elysium, its flight path, with the fighter squadran represented by small dots. She could see their current trajectory, along with their filed flight path, all in different colors. An open comm channel allowed her to hear everything that was going on in the cockpits of the fighters.

"Good," she droned idly, her voice piped into the lead fighter. "Space appears clear, thus far..."

"She sounds as glum as you do Kett" said Kett's Co-pilot from the seat behind him. Kett tapped the side of his helmet with his fist to indicate that their was an open comm to the USS Elysium. Silence followed from the seat behind him. Kett could almost feel the ration of embarrassment coming from the cockpitt,

Not visible to the two officers, Max gave a mental sigh, glancing down at the ground and crossing her arms. Her translation implant could only communicate thought, not tone, which meant it was simply flat. However, she didn't feel like explaining it yet again. Instead, she simply asked in the same monotone, "I am afraid I did not receive that. Do you have something to report?"

"Everything is fine here, situation normal." Responded Kett on the open commlink and he banked the Gryphon fighter bomber to portside. Trailed by his wingman the two craft flew parrel to the lower hull of the Elysium. Its port lights shinning off the hulls of the smooth exterior of the star fighters. The craft banked and spun on their axis as they then headed out to the deep space around the USS Elysium

'Uh huh,' Max thought to herself, the thought restrained by her mental firewall so no it wasn't broadcast. 'That's what I thought.' Outwardly she nodded to herself, returning to stand by the holographic projection of the Elysium and its fighters. As she moved, she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. A trick of the light, probably... right?

The combat air patrol or CAP, begun its drive into deep space. Kett, ever the emotionless Vulcan, raised one eyebrow to himself as his sensors briefly picked something up before it disapeared out of sensor range "CAP to flight control. Possible bogey at co-ordinates 65099 Beta Capa over?"

This time, Max's sigh was far less internal. "Checking," she stated. She tapped at controls on the desk, the hologram focusing in on the coordinates given to her by their eye in the sky. There was nothing there, however. She shrugged a little. "I do not see anything," she stated, before another flicker appeared. Whatever they weren't seeing, it was apparently in motion.

Kett's fingers tapped quickly on the LCARS display, no easy task in a flight suite. He banked and spun his fighter into a loop so as to direct the small craft, to be at a passing right angle to the anomaly so Kett could strafe it. His fingers danced gently on the LCARS keypad, as it made the familiar beeping noise. But it was to late. The anomaly was there, then had dispered again. "Its gone" said Kett more to himself.

Monitoring the fighters from the office she was using, Max frowned thoughtfully. "My instincts are saying that we are being shadowed. Opinion?" She asked over the comm link.

Kett took another look at his instruments and readings coming up both not display in n front of him and the plexi class visor of the cockpit. There was something very familiar here. He pulled the fighters stick and the fighter took another, gliding, swooping pass. Yes he had seen readings like this once before, in the dominion war. “I believe we are looking at some sort of cloak.”

The Dominion war? Did that mean... Klingon, Romulan? Or just similar technology.

Max peered at the holographic display and frowned. "I want a way to be sure about what we're seeing," she droned.

Kett, looked at his dashboard controls, using the ships distress beacon, he diverted inverted subspace molecules through the beacon making it quantum, he then tuned the beacon, through the ships navigation ariel so as to create a leash on a distortion tether, thereby allowing the sensor leash to metaphorically leash any gravitic anomaly in the distortion matrix. Back in the war, they had just called the technique phishing . "Already on it" said Kett over comms.

Leaving the squadron to their task, Max tapped a control on the desk, muting her side of the comm line while she listened in. She reached up, tapping the commbadge on her chest. "Mckull to Captain Taylor."

The reply was instant. Gary's voice coming from Max's combadge. "Taylor here. What can I do for you Lieutenant?"

"I am in the flight control office, sir," Max started, peering intently at the hologram in front of her and crossing her arms. "I have reason to believe we are being shadowed by a cloaked vessel. We cannot lock on, but I am certain someone is out there."

"A cloaked vessel? I'm on my way to your location and we'll what we have." Gary answered crisply as he was already on the move to the flight control office to see just what was going on.

"Understood, sir," was Max's simple, immediate reply. She followed up with, "Mckull out." Tapping her communicator, she moved closer to the hologram and continued to peer at it. The Captain's response was short and to the point, and while that might come across to some as brusk Max saw it differently. Sometimes, you need to use as few words as possible, especially in a crunch. And this had the potential to become a crunch in very short order. Tapping the control panel in front of her, she stated, "Captain Taylor has been alerted. Anything?"

Kett looked at the sensor reading coming across his digital LCARS display built into the plexi glass of the cock pit "Aye Lieutenant" responded the Vulcan with typical emotionless recourse. The 'phishing' tether had briefly looped a large cloaked ship before breaking its tether and pulling away "I can confirm we have a cloaked vessel. I am sending over the data now so you can ascertain the type of craft."

Max heard a ding and moved slightly off to the side to look at the dedicated screen on her desk as data started to stream across it. She frowned slightly and offered a vocal, "Received. Take no further action at this time. Not until we figure out what to do."

Moments later Gary arrived outside the flight control office and rang the chime to announce his presence. One he got inside he could see the data firsthand and then with Max, could come up with a plan of action that could be passed on to the fighters flying combat air patrol.

The sound of the door chime came as something of a relief to Max. With someone else here, whatever happened next wouldn't be entirely on her. She turned to face the door and paused for a moment, considering. Then, deciding to leave the commlink open she stated simply, "Enter."

Hearing Max's voice bidding him to enter, Gary did just that. Entering the office Gary made his way to Max. "Lieutenant." He began then stopped. "Max, what have you got?"" Getting right down to the business at hand.

Max gestured to the holographic display hovering above her desk, the Elysium and the fighter squadron clearly marked. She tapped at her desk controls as she spoke. "It has been confirmed. Relative to us, these are the positions we have detected the vessel in. We do not know what it is. But we do know it is more than a scout based on its size."

Gary looked at the display as max gave him a quick briefing. for a moment he was silent until he remembered Malakai telling him and Phoenix of a Romulan warbird pacing them at the time of their encounter with the filament. He thought, *What if the filament had ensnared the warbird as well?* "Perhaps the size of a Romulan warbird? Max?" He questioned.

Max took a few moments to ponder this, her hands clasping in front of her as she squinted at the hologram. "Though we do not have exact dimensions, I would say that is a reasonable guess, sir."

"I don't think it is going out on a limb to think we have a warbird shadowing us. it we could run a tachyon sweep, we'd have our answer and remove all doubt."

"A tachyon sweep would it give it away that we know they are here" said Kett over the comm. Though he suspected that any half decent Warbird Captain would probably already know that the USS Elysium knew they were here by the way Kett and his wing man had been flying around.

"True enough." Gary replied "Let's not tip our hand. Though I would think that they know that we know they are out there." He turned to Max. " How many fighters are you keeping in the air Max?"

"A full squadron currently, sir," Max droned, gesturing to the hologram. "They are deployed evenly around the Elysium."

Gary nodded, "Very good. Continue that and have another six fighters placed on alert status to be ready to launch if the situation deteriorates."

Kett brought up a smaller formation display on his internal LCARS and surveyed the small, slightly flickering blue holographic image of the deployed fighter wing. He put a coded comm out to the rest of the wing hoping that, if it was a romulan war bird they were not listening to everything that had just been said. "Keep your distant from the anomaly. But do not look like you are keeping your distance.....fly casual."

With a nod, Max tapped out a message to prepare half a dozen fighters as backup for an emergency launch. The shuttle bay manager acknowledged the orders a moment later, Max's console letting out a small chime to signal the new message.

"The fighters are on stand by, sir," Max stated. "I assume you want to try to confirm the identity of the bogie before we take any further action?"

"You are correct Max. Once we can confirm the identity of the bogie, we can take the appropriate action against it." Gary stated. "However, for now we'll take a wait and see approach with our unknown tag along."

Kett activated his comm link "we are in position now. Awaiting further orders sirs."

"Keep alert for our tag along and report anything other than what they are currently doing." Gary replied.

Each fighter glided through the void. Gently souring as they sweeped through their patrole zone, each pilot kept a weary eye on their sensors.

Aboard the Elysium as the fighter pilots carried out their orders, Gary looked over to Max, "Now the hardest part. We wait to see what happens next."