The hail from the USS Dragonfly provided Captain Harper and the crew of the Sausalito with much needed intel. The call with the Dragonfly had only lasted a few minutes but the information gathered had been invaluable and would save more lives as a result. It was her first interaction with the Captain of the Dragonfly and she had been impressed. The confidence that she saw from the Captain while speaking with her caused her to gain some self-confidence of her own. She hoped to one day be that type of Captain and she knew that it would come with time and also that her growth depended on her response to these very type of situations.

Harper looked towards her bridge crew at their stations all around her. “Alright, here is what we know. We learned more about the colony itself due to reports received by the Dragonfly. Topo is an independent Romulan colony—they’re not officially one of the Federation colonies. They moved onto the planet five years ago and have largely remained separate from the ongoing Romulan political divisions and situations.  Federation leadership reached out to them a month ago, but there has been no response received.”

Harper accepted a PADD from her XO: “We’re getting updates on the situation on the ground—plenty of injuries and infrastructure damage. We still aren’t sure what we are looking at so we must all be on alert.”

LtCo Sili nodded in agreement before speaking. “We could be looking at anything from a surprise attack to a natural disaster. We must be prepared for any and all situations.”

“Correct,” Harper replied. “Helm – set an immediate course – maximum warp.  Yellow alert.”  The lights flickered to a golden hue as the yellow alert alarm sounded across the ship. 

Harper pulled up a PADD to begin her planning. “Ensign Hazel, notify sickbay and engineering teams – they have less than two hours to prepare for an emergency response. Let sickbay know they can utilize the cargo bay for emergency response if required.” This ship had been designed with large cargo bays for this very purpose and she had never been more grateful for that fact until this very moment.

“Yes, Captain.” Ensign Hazel responded and quickly turned to get to work.

“Commander Brady, you have my permission to make whatever contact you deem necessary in order to get us more information on what we may be walking into. Let’s put your Intelligence background to good use.” Harper spoke directly to her Chief Security Officer, Commander Brady.

“Right away, Captain. I will notify you as soon as I learn anything,” Commander Brady spoke while walking towards the turbolift. He wasn’t sure if his contacts would know anything or not but he was determined to find out what he could.

“Commander Piya and LtCo T’Penne, start running scans on the planet as soon as we are in range. Learn as much as you can and report back what you find immediately. I don’t want to walk into any type of trap if we can help it. The more we can learn, the better off we are.”

“Yes, Captain.” The two replied almost in complete unison.

Harper looked up from her PADD to the view of space crossing in front of her. This situation is not one that she wanted to be in. The lack of information terrified her and she worried that ignorance could lead to some unplanned consequences. Despite her worry, she was determined to save as many lives as possible no matter what the situation hurled their way. She looked back down to her PADD and began working again. She had two hours to gather what information she could and she would not waste a single second. Lives literally hung in the balance.