===== Mess hall, During the Haloween party, USS Chimera ===== Shane was sitting on a confortable chair behind a little 4-eck table stretching his legs. For the last hour and a half he was dancing with Rangi and a few other monsters in one corner of the mess hall (still all clad in his shining plate mail) and his legs were already aching a bit. Beeing in a good mood he had to laugh about all the surprised looks the sheep bell alike sound of his armour was attracting. He had to do his best to hide his amusement when secretly watching the other dancers who were all the time looking for the sheep with the BELL. Rangi was not too pleased about the interruption of the dance feast ... but she agreed on a little while of rest before joining the dance-party again. She offered to go for the drinks and Shane knew she was about to bring something special ... like some "centuries-old secret Bora-Bora vitality drink" or something. There was no clock in the mess hall and Shane felt a tiny bit uneasy knowing that the Chimera was sheduled to arrive in the orbit of Sidos round this very time. He felt a bit guilty for beeing on the party and not on the bridge. But well ... as Rangi said to him before ... he could not spend 24 hours on the bridge, partially cause there were others who wanted to spend some time in the BiG seat and partially cause there was no bed in there ... The only thought that pleased Shane was the fact that it was LT. Foster who was in charge of the bridge and even if the LT wasnt the best efficient on board, he had years of bridge experience ... and that was something many junior officer crew were missing. For a moment he doubted if it was a good idea of leaving Tactical in charge of cadet C'el but well ... how was she supposed to get some experience when not in real duty ... Shane pushed those thoughts back in his mind and enjoyed the sight on the dancing crowd. Looks like that afterall the counselor was right about the party. Folks seemed to enjoy the party and cause it was Heloween time it seemed to be appropriate. Shane only hoped that those guys in the NCO club – Green Dragon – were not having too much fun. Looking at the crowd he had to smile at the colorfull bunch of witches, cats, warriors, demons, angels, faeries, cowboys, androids and other undefinitable "things". The last time there was such an party on board was long ago ... only some months after they've got the first Chimera. It wasnt more then three years back ... but for Shane it felt like ten. Shane looked at his half full cup of kiwi juice he's got an hour back and grinned. It was QUITE difficult to drink from a cup when you are wearing a full-plated helm on your head. Shane wanted to keep his identity secret as long as possible and therefore didnt removed the helm here ... not even for drinking. He had to lugh about the joke he was told about an knight wanting to use a toilette ... His thoughts were interrupted by a quiet call from the bridge: +Sir, we are just about to enter the orbit of Sidos.+ Shane reached into his tin pocket, pulled his comm badge and tapped it: +TAPS+ Guzman here. Understood. Enter the orbit, I'll be on the bridge in 15 minutes + +Rodger that sir+ Shane sighed quite reluctant to leave the party. He wanted to wait for Rangi to tell her that they had to go when a tall and beautifull witch approached slowly the table ... one drink in each hand and smiled at Shane. {she looks amazing} Shane thought {this suits her better then the uniform}. He knew that some of the crew were not happy about Rangi beeing appointed as Executive officer and there were again some "wild rumours" circling around the ship about her and him but new assigments were never easy ... Getting at the table she smiled. "Looks here Mr. Knight" she said "that is an ..." Her words were interrupted as the ship shook violently. Many of the "Pokemons" in the room were thrown to the walls or ground, glases were broken and plates in shards on the ground. There was no time to realise what happened when a second rocking shook the ship. The lights flickered for a while. People began to speak all at one time but were interruped by the red alert sirene and the mess hall went darker as the red allert lighting kicked in. Still shocked and surprised the crew started to stand up from the floor. Now was time to be thankfull about his armour ... Shane was thrown against a wall and would be knocked unconcious if his armour wouldnt absorb the hit. Shane threw away his helm and rubed his eyes for a moment. The red and yellow lights in his sight slowly faded and Shane crawled on his legs. Seeing Rangi on the floor he hurried towards her. "I am fine, I am fine" she said in a quiet voice and got up on all four. "What the hell ..." Shane curned and helped her to stand up. "Are you ok?" he asked and looked in her face. She seemed to be shocked a bit but aside that all right. She noded: "Yes, I am fine ... what about you?" the doctor in her kicked in. Shane noded: "I am fine as well" Looking around he asked fastly: "Do you think you can handle it here?". Almost without hesistation she answered: "Yes, sure ... ". Shane noded reached in the pocket for his commbadge. It wasnt there. He must have lost it when beeing thrown against the wall so he turned around and swiftly walked over to the next computel panel and tapped few buttons. He activated the emergency procedure and a site-to-site tranport brought him directly on the bridge. ===== Bridge, USS Chimera ===== Ignoring the surprised looks of the bridge crew he immediatelly asked: "Report!" and walked to the CO's seat. LT. Foster hurried to free the seat for Shane and said: "We've been hit by two explosions sir. Both deck 11, sections 5 and 8. Shields are online and damage reports coming in". "What's the reason for the explosions?" Shane asked and sat himself in the seat. "Unknown for now, sir" Foster replied, "But we suspect explosives". Shane turned in his seat and looked at the OPS officer who was now again behind his own console: "Explosive? Like some of the crew played fireworks?" he asked surprised. Anderson shook his head: "Negative sir. Those were explosions from outside the hull sir. Like someone planted two bombs on out outer hull and let them detonate" "What?" Shane asked even more surprised. {Outside the hull?} he thought. "How?" he asked in his genuie manners. Andersen shrugged slightly: "Unknown sir. There were no explosives there before we have droped to impulse. We have entered the orbit and in three minutes we were hit by those explosions." Shane thought about it for a moment and then asked again: "Could the explosives been beamed over to the hull by someone?" Now it was the young vulcan cadet C'el who replied: "No sir. The sensors would detect the tranportation circle and jammed it. But I believe that I've found the way how those explosives were planted on teh hull." Shane waited for a seconds for the cadet to go on: "Shoot cadet" he said impatiently. "The sensors detected two short bursts of EM radiation 10 meters from the hull near where the bombs exloded. Those bursts were of a very small intensity and lasted for less then half a second but my scans confirm that they were caused by an impulse drive ... a federation impulse drive." It took Shane two seconds to chew that information: "Impulse drive cadet?" he asked, "like some ship?" he frowned. "Not exactly sir" the cadet replied in a calm voice like only vulcans and half-vulcans can speak. "It was a shuttle and its cloak was activated. Those bursts were created as the shuttle opened a small window in the cloak to allow the bombs to be released" Shane frowned even deeper: "You mean that some cloacked federation shuttle just sidled up and planted two bombs on our hull?" he asked with his teeths clentched. "Not that literary speaking Commander, but yes" she replied. "Find my that shuttle cadet" Shen said aloud, "and quickly!". C'el noded and said: "That shuttle is cloaked sir and I am detecting no impulse drive trail, but i'll try a tachyone beam sweep" Shane noded calming down: "All right cadet, but maintain red alert and shields and watch out for any more cloacked surprises". Turning back to Anderson he asked: "Whats the status on deck 11 Lieutenant?" Andy tapped his console and reading from there he said: "Two small hull breaches on deck 11, emergency force fields in place, engineering teams responding. Casuality reports still coming in but aside from some scratches noone was seriously injured". Shane noded thinking that: {Damn it, I have this ship for a week and already have two holes in it ... } "Lieutenant, plese inform Commander Summers and Major Walsh that I want them to gather the away team together in 15 minutes. I want to see whats going on down there." ===== End of log ===== Cmdr. Shane Guzman CO USS Chimera