((USS Culver City))

Lieutenant Varyn K’lev, commanding officer of the Culver City, was in the middle of a quiet breakfast in his quarters, halfway through a mouthful of bacon when the intercom sounded.  “Yellow alert.  Captain to the bridge,” came Chief Bong’s voice.

K’lev groaned as the ship’s yellow alert lighting began to flash, then stood and swatted at his combadge.  “On my way…”  He grabbed his tunic in one hand – his coffee in the other – and headed for the door; he may not get to finish the meal, but wasn’t about to waste the drink.

A short turbolift ride deposited him – his tunic now on, and trying to close it around handling his drink – onto the port side of the bridge.  Chief Bong stood and headed back to Ops as K’lev walked to his command seat, not even trying to hide the coffee.  “What’s going on?” he asked.

“The buoy network picked up a Tholian ship approaching the border,” Chief Bong answered as the other turbolift deposited Ensigns Lotharys and Tiza onto the bridge; Lotharys took her station at Sciences, and Tiza moved to the auxiliary console along the back wall.  “It’s much larger than that meshweaver, likely a cruiser of some sort; it isn’t currently showing signs of hostility, though.”

In light of the meshweaver that Blythe and Culver City had recently destroyed, K’lev’s heart immediately jumped into his throat; it was more than likely in his mind that the two California-class ships were nowhere near a match for this Tholian ship if it came to blows, and serious diplomacy was something he didn’t feel confident in attempting yet.  “Chief, please let the Blythe know what’s going on, and ask them to join us.  Ari, I guess let’s go intercept them, but keep us on our side of the border.”  Culver City wheeled about, accelerating for the border.

On the Blythe, Ingram noticed a sensor contact be detected right along the Tholian side of the border. The targetting ID noted it as a ‘Tholian Deonar Class Cruiser’, an older model, but a tough task for 2 Cali’s to take down. Vaughn, now with a noticeable full beard, stubble having not found time to shave in the past several days, had a busy console. He then noted a communique coming in from the CC. Apparently they were slightly closer, and the CC bridge crew was quicker on the ball then he and his fellows. It all had happened within a few seconds, so Vaughn synthesuzed it all and blurted out an appropriate summation.

‘Those kids are quick, I’ll give em that’ the pilot-cum-tactical officer thought to himself.

“Sir, Tholian cruiser approaching the border from within the nebula. The CC is responding and asks that we move to support them.” Anticipating the next commands, the fighter jock began prepping the weapons, shields and targetting sensors.

Tyler stood and turned to Vaughn. “Acknowledge the signal from the CC. Lasalle, set course, maximum warp. Red alert, all hands to battlestations.”

It was sadly becoming routine now. With the engagement they had the day before and all the drills they had been running, the half strength crew snapped to and reported to their stations. Ingram brought the ships to full combat alert status, and the klaxons began blaring.

Mee IH, the second officer then popped his head up and out of the water tunnel next to Lasalle as he often did now that he could.

“Yo Lasalle, the calcutions are good for this whole area, you can punch it whenever you need to…oh, by the way cap, with the new red alert I took the liberty of cancelling tonights syncronized diving competition sir.” He propelled himself up and out of the the 7 foot wide pipe opening thar served as his bridge station(Tesa, the engineer had installed 2 snout/nose activated consoles 1 foot below the surface.

Tyler could barely contain his laughter. Here they were, heading into combat potentially, and the new Second Officer, Mee IH had had the wherewithal to double check the warp calculations, AND realize he should cancel the sync diving competition that had been scheduled weeks ago. Marvelous. He found himself again rapt in the realization that cetaceans had been under utilized and even mistreated by starfleet for generations. Twice as many generations for the cetaceans since they lived shorter lives on average…but Tyler caught his train of thought. They were on the border where a border skirmish between 2 third parties waa ongoing, and where they had literally just destroyed a tholian light frigate.

((Culver City, Bridge))

Chief Bong consulted his console, then looked to K’lev.  “Blythe acknowledges, and is on her way, sir,” he said.

The young Orion lieutenant nodded.  “Does it look like the Tholians mean to cross the border?” he asked, apprehension in his voice; if the answer was yes, there really wasn’t much Culver City could do about it, especially on her own.

Ensign sh’Livo – at Tactical – shook her head.  “Not at the moment, but they could anyway,” she said, sounding cautiously relieved.  Chief Bong and Ensign Lotharys both nodded their agreements, based on their consoles’ displays.

K’lev paced around to join Lotharys at her station, looking at the sensor telemetry for the oncoming Deonar-class vessel; for a moment, one could be forgiven for thinking that it looked as though either the ensign or the lieutenant was almost leaning in to the other, so close were they to each other, though it was unclear if it would be for comfort or reassurance.  Regardless, he then looked across the bridge to sh’Livo.  “Let’s go to red alert; who knows, maybe we can discourage them from attempting to cross?”

The Andorian nodded, pressing a few controls, and in very short order Culver City was at full battle readiness.  A good thing, too; seconds later, she dropped out of warp at the border.  A short distance – by interstellar standards, at least – away, the Tholian cruiser drifted in space; it was still on the Tholian side of the border, thankfully, and as K’lev moved back to his chair he hoped that it would stay that way.  “Blythe is 15 seconds out,” Chief Bong announced.