Private Routine Drill

[Mattali Omenza]

Location: Weapon Battery Onboard the Exile
Tag: VADM Tarsa Doon

It was a bit nerve racking, being in charge of her first weapons drill as a commissioned officer. Yet, Mirinda was here, ready to get to work, as she walked along the line of weapon platforms, datapad in hand, checking off a list of what she liked to see and didn't want to see. Honestly, they needed more munition men down here, she didn't feel exceptionally confident in the skill of the reloading crew her; they handled ordinance like a Huttball. As she moved to weapon battery fourteen however, she began to notice a problem. The color of the energy cell indicator was off, it wasn't the normal crimson red, rather it was more akin to an orange color. That suggested someone had mixed something into the batch of Tibanna gas during the recharge process. Which meant this ammo wasn't good to fire, it shouldn't even be on the line. Glancing to her aide, Mirinda asked the question she was truthfully dying to know. "Officer Darrnel, who put this ammo batch on the line?"

Darrnel, a young female human, seemed confused as she moved closer to the ensign, stepping past a crew as they were setting up for the test sequence later in the day. "Is there something wrong with it ma'am?" She inquired, tilting her head to the side, and following the motion of Mirinda's hand as the Zeltron pointed out the problem. "Yea, actually, major one. Why is this ammo out here? That indicator is all wrong, this should have been caught in the armory." Mirinda wasn't one for shouting, but the fact someone had missed this set off major flags in her mind. It was a good thing they didn't have the drill until later in the evening, otherwise who knew how many other cannons were being loaded with bad ammo. Shaking her head, Mirinda began to make a note of the incident, and noted it in her report. Admiral grumpy-pants was going to find someway to pin this on her somehow. "Right, well have all the crews check their supply, and get the name of whoever was in the armory when these things were filled. Don't want to start launching accusations, but this feels like-"

An ear splitting 'boom' washed through the gun deck, sending Mirinda off her feet, a flare up of heat swept over her, and then she saw darkness sweep over her.

The clanging of alarms sounded, and the Zeltron could smell something burning; causing her nostrils to burn as she was starting to realize she wasn't in fact dead. Her vision slowly started to come into focus, and she soon found herself sprawled out on a deck littered with fire, bodies, and debris. Her ears were still ringing, and her clothes were pelted with burn residence. Turning to look for Darrnel, she found the young woman face down in a pool of her own blood, a metal fragment had went right through her collar bone. She managed to get to her feet, and shouted something she couldn't quite hear, but those with their hearing intact could hear her shouting out to anyone still alive to respond. "Someone get fire control down here, stat!"

With that done, Mirinda moved to try and help the downed human, though there wasn't much she could do other than try.

Meanwhile on the bridge, it was fairly obvious that something had gone wrong on the west most gun platforms.

 

[VADM Tarsa Doon]

Location : Undisclosed, Deep Space Objective: Routine Patrol Mood: Soon to be pissed off

Thankfully things had been pretty nominal so far. After her tense meeting with the Regent Admiral, the last thing she needed was an accident on the ship. Though Prefsbelt troopers weren't exactly NIO; they were dedicated, and hard working. An accident should've have happened... And yet, as she sat in the chair swiping through some of the features of her new warship; a warning was sounded from one of the panels ahead, causing her to glance up with her head still lowered.

A human male systems technician Specialist would rapidly tap away at his console, turning and speaking to Tarsa.

"Vice Admiral, an explosion was just detected in ammunition storage; battery fourteen."

She stared back blankly, shifting in her seat.

"Damage Report?"

"Not clear, Chief Warrant Officer Rites has requested Fire Control... Orders?"

"Send Medical as well, and make sure nothing else explodes on my ship; in fact... Go personally; Ensign Eskrit"

"Mam!" A fresh recruit being trained for technical systems work called out, voice dripping with patriotism, and zealotry; he stepped forward, saluting. Just as the initial Specialist had made a rapid beeline for the affected areas, relaying Tarsa's orders as he moved.

"Take Specialist Abbot's station till he returns, Bring up security footage for Weapons Battery fourteen thirty seconds before the incident."

"Mam!"

She was surprisingly calm, which oddly put the Flight Deck at unease. They expected her to be roaring with anger, but with her most previous conversation with the Regent Admiral, she knew beter... She needed to soften that image until it was gone; but that would not neuter her. She wasn't going to stand for this, not so soon after she had been given such status; Boy, did she want to murder someone right now...

As the security footage was brought up, she swiped through right up until that thud rocked the camera, then lightly reeled back to see what they were pointing at. Grimacing at what she saw... What kind of idiot? She ran it back then, fully across a few hours; she was going to find the person responsible.

Mattali Omenza

 

[Mattali Omenza]

The next few moments passed in a bit of a haze. Darrnel didn't make it, in spite of her efforts, the warrant officer was dead before help arrived. Her hands still wet from the blood of her fallen crew member, the Zeltron tried to make herself useful, but found herself unable to stop shaking from the ordeal. The fire was contained within the hour, and Mirinda herself was given medical attention not long after all. It was about that time that her ears stopped rigging as well, allowing her to hear the madness that was ensuing.

One thing was made very clear to her however, she was done for today. Her datapad hadn't been found, probably melted into slag with all of her notes and reports on it. Which meant she had nothing to give to Doon other than her word; which was worth very little to the admiral. Sighing, she hid her face behind her long locks, and eventually mustered the courage to retreat to her quarters and await execution.

On Doon's screen however, she would notice one common trend with the the gun platforms. Each canister was delivered by a droid, with a second smaller 'mouse' droid accompanying it. While mouse droids were sometimes used in the armory for moving about small arms parts and gear, they had no business being in this part of the ship, and indeed, there was no record of such a droid being stationed within that part of the ship. Whoever was causing this problem, had some connection to the droids; but there was quite a deal of names to go through.

VADM Tarsa Doon

 

[VADM Tarsa Doon]

After some semblance of normalcy had returned to the ship, and everyone had returned to her stations, The Admiral who had been sitting on some very interesting information would then issue a sudden lockdown of the Star Destroyer; the light system flicked once, a monotonous Lieutenants voice audible repeating the same phrase over and over.

"Now hear this... Now... Hear this... We are on a full station lockdown, remain in your quarters. If you are not inside quarters, remain where you are and present your Chain Codes to the Troopers beginning sweeps of the ship... I repeat"

Tarsa had left the XO in charge of the command deck, herself walking with a smooth thudding gait through the halls of the Star Destroyer. She was looking for droids, but she was also sound enough of mind to notice her Chief Warrant Officer had excused herself from her duties. Doon didn't have time for her to be feeling guilty, or downtrodden. She could do that later. Moving outside of Rites room, she would override the door panel with a passcode, and step in; ignoring where-ever, or whatever she was doing at that point. Instead, she turned around and opened another panel inside the room to lock it, and turn off the announcement (within Rites quarters).

"Surely, you have a good reason you didn't report the earlier situation to me? You don't seem dying, or dead... And yet you came to your quarters? Are you tired Officer?"

Doon questioned, peering as though she was genuinely concerned for her, though her words clearly belied the sentiment.

Mattali Omenza

 

[Mattali Omenza]

Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Mirinda had several of her recordings pulled up on her personal datapad, in the midst of removing her damaged uniform, when the door hissed open. Thankful she hadn't gotten too far in the process, she turned to face the admiral, and gave a rather limp salute. The towering form of Doon looming down at her, and yet the Zeltron didn't feel phased in the slightest.

Her expression showed she was half past done, and very little the admiral could say was going to shift her at the moment. She just lost several members of her crew, her station was currently shut down, and she had only small amount of information to go through. Either way, she was going to get served papers for this. Why bother? "Given the situation and the fact I lost hearing for the last hour ma'am, I believed our subordinates would pass the information along. My datapad was destroyed, and with it my information on who was on deck and supplying, so I came to my quarters to retrieve said information and try to assist in an investigation." Glancing over the admiral, Mirinda sighed. "No ma'am, I'm not tired. I'm fething livid right now. Someone sabotaged that ammo, and it went off right when I told Dar-" She paused, her teeth gritting at the thought that she had gotten the woman killed.

"Someone was listening in on that conversation, they had to. If my canister went first, it would have killed me, and as much as you might enjoy that thought ma'am, it means that someone planned a remote detonation." Of course, she was grasping at straws, motioning to her records, and knowing Doon wouldn't give a damn what she had to say. She violated protocol, and would pay the price for it.

VADM Tarsa Doon

 

[VADM Tarsa Doon]

"Someone was listening in on that conversation, they had to. If my canister went first, it would have killed me, and as much as you might enjoy that thought ma'am, it means that someone planned a remote detonation."

The other finished, Doon had her wrists clasped together laterally, resting just at the small of her back, eyes coldly observing the other as she gave the report she should've given an hour ago.

"Let me make something clear, very clear to you Rites... This is not a game. In war we lose people... Friends, Fam- Family... Death has no eyes. Only an appetite."

The Admiral said, taking a few steps, and ACTUALLY beginning to tower over the other.

"The only time you will decide what you do, is if you are unconscious, dying, or dead... From now on. I asked you, I asked you two weeks ago to not FETH ME ON THIS!"

She barked the last bit down on her, leaning back and straightening her vest. Then turning to the holo-screen in Rites room and using her own wrist-pad to bring up the information she already knew. Being the droids, and the list of names that were associated with being around, or servicing them.

"I could've had this started thirty minutes ago, silly me for actually assuming you would come straight to me... Silly me for thinking a woman I made a Chief Warrant Officer, straight from Ensign, due to her obvious skill, and talent would report to her Commanding Officer."

"Let me guess, your hands were numb, and you couldn't write? These two droids here were responsible for the tampered cells; these lists show anyone who have been directly involved with updating, or performing maintenance on them. This isn't my expertise... I need to know what technical modifications I'm looking for... NOW, please..." The last word catching ever her off guard, but the truth was; she was pissed.

Mattali Omenza

 

[Mattali Omenza]

Perhaps she wasn't good under pressure. Or perhaps she just wasn't good at anything at current, but Mirinda merely took the shouting from her commander without flinching, feeling her mood shift to something she hadn't felt in a long time. Numbness. She with the admiral leering down at her, she turned her thoughts to trying to figure out what might have gone wrong. She had nothing truthfully, only that someone from the armory had rigged the equipment. Of course, this all came to a head as the admiral began to rant about droids and modifications that would have been made to them; which told Mirinda just how technically inept her admiral was. There was only so much she could do.

Taking these new orders, she looked over the data being shown to her and went to work. She crossed checked the droid model numbers with the subroutines that tracked their pathing routes, and cross checked that with the maintenance subroutines that she had on hand from the diagnostics systems in the repair bay. In plain speak, she was checking the pathing of the droids for that day and checking if there had been a change from their programed paths for today. At first glance, nothing irregular was shown.

Mirinda frowned, bit her lip, and went back at it. This time, she began to cross check for the mouse droid that had been on the cam for several moments. She quickly became frustrated as she found the droid sticking to maintainnce routes, making it effectively impossible to track it back via normal means. However, there was something else she could do. Using the cameras, she took several images of the small droid from different angles, ensuring to capture every inch of it, before running it into a database of the on station droids for the ship. The result, found nothing. She next went to the ammunition droid, and looked through the database for it, and quickly found it. AMD-0531 had been serviced three days ago, but there was no note of changes made to it's software. Odd. Mirinda flagged the droid, sent a report to the maintenance crews, and issued a report for the missing mouse droid. With this done, she forwarded all the information towards Doons information terminal, so she could read at her leisure.

"That mouse droid isn't one of ours. Someone brought it on board, and force only knows where it is now. The ammunition droid is being inspected for sabatoge the moment they locate it, and I sent out an alert for all mouse droids to be recalled and inspected for the time being. All the details have been forwarded to your private database ma'am."

It was all she could think to do, but it was wrong. She was always wrong in Doon's eyes, and that's just how it was. Now she only sat at attention and waited to be told off once more. There had to be something that the woman didn't approve of.

VADM Tarsa Doon

 

[VADM Tarsa Doon]

She had been pacing the entire time the other was at work, thinking about how this had happened. She needed this fixed, as she wasn't content about reporting this back to the Regent Admiral. What she would have liked, was to sweep this under a rug like it never happened. Eventually, she moved to sit down, exhaling and closing her eyes for a while. When the other spoke, and transferred the information; she would look at her own wrist pad, and forward updated target lists to them immediately. With that done, she would sigh aloud, and lean forward. Holding her own head in her heads briefly. This was uncharacteristic for her, and didn't last long. About six seconds passed, and she would slowly get to her feet, looking at Rites.

"For the record, I brought you with me because I knew you had the minerals to get the job done... We're women in a hierarchy dominated by men; try not forgetting that..."

She took a few steps towards the other, left hand moving out to grasp at Mirinda's right shoulder, squeezing lightly. After that she turned and walked towards the door, stopping only to glance back once again and peer at the other; turning and stopping for a moment.

"You really think I hate you... After promoting you in such a way? Do you have any idea how much flak I got for it? I promoted you because of what you just displayed. You can pay attention... You find things others don't... I wasn't always this way. I was carefree, and happy just like you once; with that same look in your eye that you're giving me now... And then I watched my babies cough up their insides, once the Sith nuked Csilla. Dragged my husbands corpse for twenty minutes before I realized he was gone..."

"If you feel I'm too harsh on you, then you need to hand me your resignation, or request a different station; but otherwise you'll buck up... And get serious. Let today show you we are never as safe, or comfortable as we think we are..."

Doon seemed a little... Deflated, explaining all that to her, not trying to impose, but for a brief moment, just explaining. Displaying the fact that under all the Zealotry, and Bravado; she was indeed a human being. She was absolutely an extremist, but now Rites was one of the only people on the Destroyer that knew at all why.

Mattali Omenza

 

[Mattali Omenza]

Truthfully, she hadn't expected what the admiral had said. Mirinda was initally concerned she might have been talking to someone else now, an imposter clearly, as this didn't seem to be the same admiral she held such a dread for. The confusion she had was evident, having thought she was hated for her upbringing, of being a gutter rat from Zeltros. It honestly took her for a spin. She felt a tad bit of guilt well up in her chest, wondering why it was that the admiral had gone so hard to try and push this on her. She didn't quite get it.

Honestly she wasn't really loyal to this Empire, not really. She had her own concerns to worry about. Her head dipped, the squeezing of her shoulder snapped her out of her numbness, though it was the words that came from the woman that got to her. She couldn't muster anything to say, nor did she, only sitting there like an idiot because she never faced direct consequences before. She could always hide behind it from a distance but now? She had no way to deal.

She felt rather terrible as the admiral left, and as the door slide behind the woman, Mirinda slowly dragged herself into bed, crawled under her covers, and cried.

It was just supposed to be a routine drill today.

How could it go so wrong?

VADM Tarsa Doon