Sunrise

Posted on Thu Aug 13th, 2026 @ 2:44pm by Captain Gary Taylor & Commander Kyle Reece & Lieutenant Colonel Azhul Naxea & Lieutenant Camryn Shepard & Lieutenant Damien Blackford & Captain Samuel Woolheater & Commodore Phoenix Lalor-Richardson & Major George Charles [Reece]
Edited on on Thu Aug 13th, 2026 @ 3:55pm

Mission: Season 6: Episode 7: Crossroads of Destiny
Location: Deck 36 - Starfighter Squadron Imaging Suite
Timeline: Planning Day
1788 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Location: Deck 36 - Starfighter Imaging Suite

The Starfighter Imaging Suite had been designed for pilots. Captain Samuel Woolheater was decidedly not a pilot. That much became obvious from the moment the Marine captain stepped through the doors carrying a PaDD under one arm and took his place beside the room's primary tactical display.

He had been aboard Valkyries before. He knew which end pointed toward the enemy. Beyond that, Sam was perfectly content to leave the flying to people who had devoted considerably more time to the subject than he had.

The display behind him showed the Toruna Municipality. At its center sat the prison. Around it, scattered beneath kilometers of forest, were the symbols nobody in the room particularly wanted to see.

Surface-to-air weapons.

Some markers were solid. Confirmed positions. Others were surrounded by uncertainty circles. And there were conspicuous stretches of forest where the sensors showed nothing at all.

Those bothered Sam the most, "All right. Listen up." He looked around the room at the assembled pilots. "I'm Captain Samuel Woolheater, MARDET XO. For those of you I haven't worked with before, I promise not to tell you how to fly your fighters if you promise not to tell me how to kick down doors."

A beat.

"Unless you've got a better way to kick down a door. Then I'm listening." Sam turned toward the display.

"I'll lay it out. The Lonians have arrested and detained members of our crew and my Lieutenant Colonel. If diplomacy fails, then we're up, and we will get our people back. In order to do that, I need your help."

He paused.

"I know you've been told this is a special operation. It is. This is going to be different from anything you may have flown before. You are going to put yourselves and your fighters directly in harm's way to deliver a message."

The tactical screen began moving, imagined Valkyries appearing over the terrain. "This is the Toruna prison complex. Our people are inside." Several indicators appeared within the structure. "The operation is being built in phases. Phase One belongs to an infiltration team. They're going in quietly to give us eyes inside the compound and refine the intelligence picture."

Another touch highlighted the prison perimeter. "Phase Two is the breach. Marines and allied forces go in and start bringing our people out."

Then Sam expanded the display outward. The forest filled the room. Threat rings began appearing. "Phase Three belongs to you."

Sam let them look.

"We've identified roughly half of what we believe could be three dozen surface-to-air positions. Shielding, terrain and rotating interference are making the rest difficult to isolate. The Elysium is purposefully remaining in high orbit with a wide sensor sweep in case the Lonians can detect our sensors. We don't want them to know that we know the location of the prison."

A beat.

"Yet."

He paused.

"But Phase Three isn't actually why I asked you here." Sam picked up his PaDD. "Phase Two is." A different file appeared beside the tactical display. Not a targeting package. Not reconnaissance imagery.

An audio file.

Sam allowed himself the smallest grin. "Engineering is preparing a modification package for the Valkyries assigned to this operation. External acoustic emitters. High-output, atmospheric operation, slaved to your flight computers."

He let that settle for a moment.

"Yes." The grin grew slightly, "I'm putting speakers on your fighters."

Sam touched the PaDD.

A deep, almost primordial note rolled through the Imaging Suite. He allowed only a few seconds before stopping it.

"Richard Strauss. Also sprach Zarathustra. Earth, 1896."

Sam glanced toward the display. "The opening is called Sonnenaufgang. Sunrise." He let that word hang there. "It starts in darkness. That low rumble you just heard. Then it rises out of it."

Sam looked toward the prison suspended in the holographic display, "Our people have been in the dark long enough."

His eyes remained on the markers inside the prison, "They've been in there without communications. They've been separated. Interrogated. Moved around. They don't know what we're doing up here." His voice became quieter. "They don't know we're coming."

Sam looked back toward the pilots. "I need you to tell them." He expanded the tactical image until the prison and surrounding airspace occupied most of the room. "At the opening of Phase Two, Valkyries will approach from multiple bearings around the compound. The emitters will be synchronized through the operation clock and compensated by the flight computers for position, distance and atmospheric propagation."

He pointed toward the prison. "I don't want six fighters playing the same piece of music."

A beat.

"I want one piece of music surrounding that prison." Sam's finger traced several approaches around the holographic compound. "The sound reaches them together. No one aircraft is the source. No one direction is the source. For the people inside those walls, I want it to feel like the whole goddamned sky just started playing."

Sam lowered his hand. "The music is also the audio cue for the ground forces. When Strauss ends, we breach."

His eyes returned to the prison. "That's when the Lonians learn exactly what that music meant."

He looked toward the markers representing the prisoners, "But the first audience isn't Sama. It isn't the guards. It isn't even us."

A pause.

"It's them."

Sam looked at the first cluster. "We found you."

Another.

"You're not alone."

Then:

"We're coming."

Sam let the silence sit for a moment.

"Once the breach is underway, Strauss Op is complete. You transition to Phase Three, and the Air Wing goes to work."

He pointed toward one of the empty areas between known threat envelopes, "So I'm not going to insult anybody in this room by calling these gaps safe corridors. Right now they're places where we haven't found the thing trying to kill you yet."

Sam folded his arms across his chest, "Once the breach starts, I need the Air Wing to keep the fight outside that prison. Suppress anything that threatens the rescue force. Intercept anything they put into the air. And most importantly..."

The display changed. An extraction corridor appeared, "...keep this target area clean and open."

Sam looked around the room, "I'm an infantry officer. My professional relationship with aircraft generally consists of asking them to make something over there stop bothering me and give me some air cover."

The faintest grin appeared beneath his beard, "You people are the experts on everything that happens above my head."

He gestured toward the tactical picture, "So before I tell you what I think I need..." Sam looked around at the assembled pilots, "...tell me what I've gotten wrong."

From his position on the other side of the table, George spoke up. "Well, Mister Woolheater," his voice was commanding and level, though those who knew him well enough could detect an underlying anger that had been boiling ever since his REO and good friend, 2nd Lieutenant Slarth, callsign Tink, had been brutally killed by the Galatonian stormtroopers. "You seem to have laid out a fairly good plan. Will the insert team be beaming down to the surface and waiting for the signal to attack, or will they be dropped into the middle of the hornet's nest as soon as the music plays its part?"
Sam nodded toward George.

"Good question, Major." He turned back toward the tactical display and enlarged the prison perimeter.

"Neither. I'm not putting Marines on the ground early and asking them to sit underneath three dozen surface-to-air batteries waiting for somebody to notice them. And I'm sure as hell not transporting an assault force blind into the middle of a fortified prison." He indicated the infiltration phase. "Phase One gives us the insertion point. S'hib and Reece get inside, refine the picture and, if possible, identify where the transporter interference is coming from and where we can punch through it."

The display advanced to Phase Two. "Once we've got that window, Strauss begins. Your aircraft make their approaches while Alpha and Bravo are standing by for transport. The music isn't permission for us to attack. It's the clock. Its the synchronization. And if it makes the Lonians shit their pants...so much the better."

Sam tapped the display. "Ground insertion occurs during Strauss. We transport into the prisoner-processing area or whatever insertion point Phase One gives us that puts both teams inside the perimeter with the shortest route to their objectives. Alpha and Bravo establish the breach, split for their respective wings, and start recovery."

His eyes moved back to George. "When that last note hits, I want Marines already inside and moving. That's the point." Sam gestured toward the Valkyrie tracks surrounding the prison. "And that's when pilots and fighter craft stop being the world's loudest orchestra and become the Air Wing again."

George grinned darkly at Sam. "Well, Mister Woolheater, you want those Lonian fools to quake in their tiny boots, then that is what we shall do. Then, we'll make sure to clear the entire area of any threats. You ground pounders have fun getting our people out, me and pulis will own the skies above you."

Gary nodded his head in approval. "Excellent plan Sam. I like the musical cues." He glanced at George, "Your fighters will provide effective coverage for the ground forces just make sure to watch your six. I don't want the prison to be able to call or get any fighters of their own into the sky."'

George looked over at Gary, a bit of well-earned bravado in his voice. "Captain, I've gone up against the best our galaxy had to offer, plus a few heavies from here. A few midgets aren't gonna be a threat to my birds."

Gary nodded. "Good to be confident Major but I wouldn't put anything past the Munchkins and neither should you."

George tapped the side of his head, as his Betazoid obsidian eyes grew wider. He responded with an ominous tone. "Hard to fight someone, if your mind is burning, Sir." He then stood and nodded to the group. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to brief my pilots, Gentleman."

Sam nodded as George headed for the door. "Major." He looked around the Imaging Suite at the remaining officers, then back toward the tactical display. The prison still hung there beneath its overlapping threat rings. There were plenty of details left to solve. But they had a plan.

Woolheater picked up his PaDD. "All right. Unless anybody sees a hole we've missed, I'll get this coordinated with the ground element and Engineering." His eyes settled briefly on the audio file still displayed beside the prison.

Sonnenaufgang.

Sunrise.

~OFF~