The Longest Two Days [Backpost]
Posted on Sun Jul 26th, 2026 @ 1:17am by Lieutenant Takina Inoue & Lieutenant Commander Devon Hunt & Lieutenant Nezuko & Lieutenant Teneca Quinn
2,749 words; about a 14 minute read
Mission:
Flight Of The Valkyries
Location: Iconian Starbase- Atarilla System
Timeline: March 16th, 2397- Approximately 3 hours After "Trojan Horse"
Previously on Star Trek: Tokyo:
In a matter of seconds, the Iconian Freighter emerged out of the otherside. In front of them was a huge Iconian Starbase. It was roughly three quarters the size of Earth's Spacedock. Strange glowing purple energy seemed to be pulsing through various panels. Other smaller ships were patrolling around, easily recognisable as the Herald raiders.
However, there were other smaller vessels that looked like drones working on the outer hull of the starbase. Construction was obviously still in progress. Slowly the freighter banked and started making its way towards huge space doors set into the side of the starbase. They opened slowly and the freighter glided in.
A warning in a strange language called out as the freighter came to a stop and started moving to port. A few seconds later it locked onto what was seemingly a docking port with a clunk.
They had arrived...
And now... the continuation!
It had been a few hours since the Starfleet team had managed to sneak aboard the Iconian Starbase. It was nothing like they had ever seen before. Endless corridors, with high pitched roofs. Orange and purple energy seemed to flow through the walls. However, parts of the starbase seemed lifeless, as the energy wasn't present. It was however grey and dull, like it had yet to be powered.
Heralds carrying staff weapons patrolled the corridors, and other smaller much larger Heralds were busy at work with construction. However construction was very different from what the away team had ever encountered before. When a Herald seemingly wanted to construct a new section, they used strange tools and whole corridors and rooms seemed to emerge out of nowhere.
In one of these rooms, similar crates and storage boxes were lined up. The room was powered, and the huge boxes, some as big as cars provided the perfect hiding spot for the Starfleet away team.
"This location would appear to be nonessential to the station's day-to-day operations," Lieutenant Inoue reported as she assessed the away team's proposed hiding spot for the next couple of days. "In addition, the bulkheads appear to be constructed out of some kind of sensor-dampening material, which should help in concealing our bio-signs; one of these containers could be repurposed as a makeshift privy for the short-term; and with just one entrance, we can easily monitor the comings and goings into this room."
She then indicated over towards the corner of the room, where there was a tight, but navigable gap between one of the crates and the wall. "That spot over there would offer an ideal vantage point for a sniper- anyone we don't want coming into the room can easily be dispatched before they have the chance to sound the alarm."
Looking over, Devon nodded in approval. The hours they had spent here already felt like they were dragging way too long. But to remain for the next few days, said quite a bit. What if anyone went searching for the freighter crew? Hopefully this hiding place would provide them with the cover they needed. Or this mission could end before the Fleet arrived.
"This place keeps adding new sections that were not originally anticipated. Any suggestions what to take out besides the engineering section?"
"Communications and the armory." Teneca suggested.
"I would concur with Lieutenant Quinn's assessment," Lieutenant Inoue nodded, shifting her attention back over to Devon. "Given their vastly superior numbers, it would likely be in our best interests to deny the Iconians a means with which to call for backup."
Taking a deep breath, Hunt thought about the suggestion. "This going to be a lot of ground to cover. And the handful of Heralds working on this place still pose a viable threat. We're outnumbered, but still have the element of surprise."
"Given that we've still got a couple more days before the strike force arrives, might I suggest we utilize the time to scout out the facilities in question and determine a plan of attack?" Lieutenant Inoue suggested.
"Alright, but let's not get too comfortable," the Commander reminded. "A few days is a lot of time to get caught."
“Split?” Nezuko suggested via her PADD. “One is caught, others still work.”
"In this case, splitting up is a logical choice, but it never works out well in horror movies." Teneca said.
“Only horror if we are prey,” Nezuko observed, smirking, a drop of Herald blood still visible under her lip. “We are not.”
"But we are outnumbered," Takina argued. "In the event we're discovered, we will become prey."
"When the time comes we need to move fast and swiftly," Hunt spoke in a low tone. Detonators will be placed thirty minutes before the attack to avoid being detected."
"Sounds like a plan." Teneca agreed.
Nezuko nodded.
[Communications]
The communications facility, if you could even call that wasn't small or cramped by any means. Huge arched ceilings, with the orange and purple energy flowing through them greeted the away team. Strange pillars dotted around the room, with strange balls floating over them made strange sounds.
The room was void of Heralds, however large holographic images hung in the air. Many of them showing live images of worlds currently being invaded. One of them showed a army of Heralds marching through an unknown alien city, next to that one showed a live image of the interior of the great hall on Quo'nos.
Two more images seemed were far more disturbing. One was a live image of the inside of Starfleet Headquarters, the main briefing room and was directly watching Admirals, Captains and even the Federation president, J.P. Ameda, discuss plans.
The next image showed yet another live image, the inside of the Queens Chamber of Unimatrix One. Borg drones seemed oblivious as they moved from console to console, whilst the Borg Queen herself stood in the centre, bringing order to chaos.
"Big Brother's always watching..." Lieutenant Inoue remarked.
"Indeed." Teneca agreed. "Its similar to the tech discovered by the Enterprise crew on Iconica." She added.
Devon couldn't help but to sigh. "If they have the ability to spy on us, then cuts our advantage of winning this way."
Lieutenant Inoue glanced over at Teneca. "Are you getting all of this, Lieutenant?"
"Yes." Said Teneca. "If we could replicate this, it would be a huge boost to communication through out the Federation."
Still taking in her surroundings, Lieutenant Inoue asked aloud- "Does anyone here have any idea how we're going to take this out?"
“Signal interference?” Nezuko suggested. “Universe full of cosmic information. Too much. Needs filters. Disable filters. Too much signals, crossing over each other. Clean data buried in noise. Could even cascade to other Iconian facilities.”
[Armory]
The room which had been designated as an 'Armoury' by the away team was once again nothing short of impressive. However, the arched ceilings were covered in the Herald Staff Weapons, along with others that the away team had never seen before.
The armoury itself extended downwards, with levels upon levels below them filled with weapons, so far down you couldn't see the bottom. Starfighter Ships seemed to be lined on one level, strange looking ground vessels on another, and on one of them strange glowing torpedoes. It was like looking into a warehouse, where everything for invasion of the galaxy was gathered.
Devon began taking scans of the armory, he wanted to get a head count of every weapon to study during their time here. "I wonder just how much damage we can cause by overloading these damn things?"
"Based on what I'm seeing, I'd reckon we could blow half the station to Kingdom come," Lieutenant Inoue speculated as she studied her own tricorder readings.
"Good," Hunt responded. "Taking this place out of existence is the game plan."
Lieutenant Inoue indicated towards one of the fighters. "Miss Quinn, what sort of propulsion system do you reckon those fighters have?" she inquired. "We may be able to use one of them as an ignition source."
Teneca made a few scans of her own. "They appear to be neutrino drives, if you deactivated the containment field around the antineutrinos, that could work as a ignition source." She said.
"Would there be a sufficient enough delay for us to make our retreat once the containment field is deactivated?" Lieutenant Inoue supposed.
“Probably better to delay field deactivation,” Nezuko suggested. “Push button, any-number seconds before field drops.”
"I could configure a tri-corder to work as a timer, it could deactivate the field once we're clear." Teneca said.
Thinking about the idea, Devon nodded. "Good, that will give us the time that we need. Everything involving this plan is going to involve cutting it seriously close."
[Engineering]
The part of the starbase that the away team had designated as 'Engineering' wasn't like any Engine Room or Engineering that Starfleet could possibly imagine. It was a huge circular room, the roof arching high to a point.
Situated in the very centre were four huge cylinder machines as big as some starships. Each of them linked by a purple energy ring. Once again the pillars with floating balls over them were dotted around. Much like the other rooms, the Heralds didn't seem to be here.
The symbol of Omega was clearly displayed on each of the huge cylinders and pulses of orange and purple energy could be seen from conduits the size of houses leading into the walls.
"Well, this is certainly going to complicate things," Lieutenant Inoue surmised.
She glanced over at Devon. "Commander, we can't blow these; not without rendering half the quadrant warp-dead."
"Can we bring these offline for say a good hour?" Hunt inquired.
"Provided, of course, they don't go into a full-on meltdown if we were to leave them unattended," Lieutenant Inoue speculated.
“Tech exists to neutralize Omega,” Nezuko noted. “Can be applied in bulk. Dissipate molecules before boom.”
Devon simply shrugged. "That question is far outside my expertise."
Nezuko grinned. “Not mine.”
[Approximately 4 hours later]
Having retired to their hiding spot, the away team had opted to take turns monitoring the entrance whilst the others slept. Given the Tokyo was still 18 hours out, it would inevitably do them well to conserve their energy for when the assault began in earnest. Until then, all they could do was eat, plan, sleep, and avoid detection, rinse and repeat.
At present, it was Lieutenant Inoue's turn to stand guard, and she was already about halfway through her rotation before she was set to switch out with Teneca. Not like it was issue with her, considering she was a fairly light sleeper anyways. Certain facets of her upbringing saw to it that she always slept with an eye open.
Then again, "upbringing" was obviously a bit of a stretch, considering her father hadn't been there and her mother was a junkie who lived for her next fix; Takina was her own teacher in those formative years, when the adults in her life simply "tolerated" her. She couldn't get out of that disease-ridden bordello soon enough...
Her attention was suddenly drawn to a slight rustling noise coming from somewhere behind her.
"Rotation's not for another half-hour," she stated without bothering to look over her shoulder.
"During missions like these, I find it extremely difficult to get any rest," the Commander spoke. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine," Lieutenant Inoue dismissed, without going any further on the subject.
For all she was concerned, fine was fine; unless the Commander requested it, she wasn't obligated to give him her whole life story. And so, with nothing further to be said on the matter, she shifted her focus back over to the door.
It was clear that Inoue had no desire for a deep conversation. Which was something the security chief personally understood. "How long have you been in Starfleet?"
Another pause.
"...About 11 years now," Lieutenant Inoue replied.
"You're clearly making a career out of it," Hunt joked. "Fairly certain you didn't expect to be another war. Didn't think we would be facing anything as deadly as the Dominion War."
"Deadlier, if certain channels are to be believed," Lieutenant Inoue remarked. "Apparently the Romulans are getting it a lot worse than we are, though seeing as they didn't have any role in inciting this conflict, I'm not entirely sure why..."
"We don't really know that for certain," the Commander responded. "Experience with the Romulans typically has them behind the scenes involved in some fashion."
"Then again, I can't envision them hyperbolating casualties as badly as they are," Lieutenant Inoue pondered aloud. "807 million is a pretty big number- and not one you necessarily pull out of nowhere, especially considering that memories of the last time we lost over 807 million people are still fresh in everyone's minds."
"The Romulans will never allow anyone to know how bad their casualties truly are." Hunt thought about just how secret the Romulan Empire had always been. While trying to survive this onslaught by the Iconians, they were likely looking at ways of taking advantage of the situation in the long run.
"So, that begs the question- if they're too proud to acknowledge how bad things are going- even for themselves- why would they be allowing rumors of that specific magnitude to circulate in the first place?" Lieutenant Inoue speculated.
"Rumors always tend to have some truth, but often are quite off. All the Romulans have to do at this point is stay in the shadows. Which they have alway perfected."
"Sounds to me like they're struggling, then," Lieutenant Inoue surmised. "Even if we assume that they're stretching the truth as part of some master plan, it would still indicate towards the possibility that casualties on the Romulan front are substantial; the real issue that remains to be seen is whether or not they're just biding their time until everything falls into place."
"And there is the great mystery which is the Romulan Empire," Devon responded with a slight chuckle.
"It seems the more we try to learn about them, the less we actually understand..." Lieutenant Inoue muttered.
With the Tokyo not due for at least another day and a half, the entirety of the 17th- and a good chunk of the 18th- was spent gathering additional intel, scouting out locations and determining their eventual plan of attack. It was eventually decided they could deal the most damage by setting off a chain reaction in the armory, but what with the danger that the presence of Omega molecules posed, this assault would be two-pronged; at least one group (after much discussion, it was decided that this would comprise of Teneca and Nezuko) would neutralize the Omega molecules down in engineering, while up in the armory, Devon and Lieutenant Inoue would tasked with rigging up a mechanism that would disable the neutrino drive of one of the fighters, which would hopefully blow the station to pieces, if not damage it to an extent where the Tokyo could finish it off.
Taking the tricorder that Teneca had rigged up the night before and carefully stowing it away, Lieutenant Inoue stood up and didn't last inspection of the cargo bay, ensuring that the away team had left no trace of their presence.
"Alright, looks like that's everything, Commander," she reported. "I think we're ready to deploy."
"Good job everyone," the Commander mentioned. "Regardless of what happens here. And I know that we're all still very much unfamiliar with each other. But it's been an honor. So, here's to keeping our heads down, until it's time to fight."
"Thanks Commander."Teneca said "Same to you." She added rechecking her equipment.
Nezuko looked up from checking hers and cracked her superior officer a salute. It was as best as she could return the sentiment given the work that still needed to be done.
When she was satisfied that she was ready, she gave Teneca a thumbs-up.
Posting By (In order of appearance):
Lieutenant Takina Inoue
Acting Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Tokyo (NCC-91101)
Lieutenant Commander Devon Hunt
Chief Security Officer
USS Tokyo (NCC-91101)
Lieutenant Teneca Quinn
Chief Science Officer
USS Tokyo (NCC-91101)
Lieutenant Nezuko
Chief Operations Officer
USS Tokyo (NCC-91101)
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