Don't Rock the Boat. Pt2
Posted on Wed Jul 24th, 2024 @ 8:07pm by Captain Velasaria Azumé & Ensign Natsumi Nogura & Commander Roscoe Mayhew & Lieutenant Commander Clare MacArthur & Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Ingram Dr & Lieutenant Jennifer Matthews
2,463 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Mission 1: A Million Miles Away
Location: USS Amaterasu
Timeline: MD01 1430hrs
"Comm... Captain." Nogura said from her post. "I'm getting some... weird readings. Something toward the border, it's in the path of our drift." Amaterasu had been slowly drifting toward the border since she was hit, so far all attempts to regain control had failed.
"That would be them," Mayhew said without a shred of doubt. "If we're lucky, my challenge incensed them and they're planning a boarding action instead of finishing us off at a distance. We need impulse engines ready before we're in transporter range. Tell me Engineering and the Shuttle Bay received my orders."
"Comms are down below deck five," announced an ensign manning the Communications station. "Whatever connection we had with Engineering was just severed. Looks like the control matrices are offline."
"Not just comms..." Velasaria Azume said with a grunt, she and Clare pushing the doors to the turbolift open. The Orion woman's face contorted in concentration as she tried to balance and get herself between the doors long enough for Clare to slip through. Their climb up the Turboshaft seemed to have taken forever, wisps of her dark hair were stuck to her forehead and neck.
Clare followed her friend, easily slipping through while unobtrusively pushing Vel from behind so the hatch would close. Her eyes went to the Tactical station, one eyebrow going up as she saw an unknown Ensign instead of the Assistant Chief she was expecting. Moving around to said station, she took charge with a quiet,” Status?” directed at the young woman she had replaced.
"Commander, we struck something, took out systems across the ship, the computer's simulated hull breaches..." Nat replied, her nerves calming now that the Chief was here. Now not all the eyes would be on her, maybe she could figure out what that strange energy reading was. Or maybe the Orion Science Officer...
While Clare checked in with tactical Vel had made her way to Mayhew. As she approaches the much taller and very stern human, Vel's eyes fell to the Captain's chair, noticeably empty but also stained heavily with blood. It wasn't hard to guess that the Captain was dead. Vel frowned saying a silent prayer for her friend before refocusing in the Ship's XO... Acting Captain.
"What orders would those be, that you're trying to relay?"
Mayhew slowly swiveled on his heels and cocked his head at Vel. "We are being hunted by Klingons, Commander. My orders are to draw them in for an attempted boarding action, ditch a few shuttles rigged to explode, and then jump away at whatever impulse speeds we can manage with the warp core offline. Think you can handle that?"
"If that's the situation yes, have we detected an enemy presence?" Vel replied as she glanced at the Science and Tactical stations. "Klingons are generally aggressive, if they intended to attack wouldn't they have done so already and if they are out there and haven't struck... why not?" As her mother would say there were layers and motivations to all creatures actions. Knowing your mark and their motivations for their actions was key to coming out on top and unscathed. Vel might have been a scientist, but those lessons her family took from their Syndicate traditions had served her well so far.
"They're out there," Mayhew assured her, staring at the scopes. "And the challenge I issued will guarantee they don't finish us off from a distance. They'll be out for blood and that means getting in close. I suggest you make yourself useful and ready all hands, Commander. We'll only have one shot to get out of this." Otherwise they were going to take the Klingons down with them, but Mayhew left the quiet part unsaid.
Vel's hands rested on her hips, yes Mayhew was the ship's XO, the Captain was clearly... no longer with them and was in charge. But the lack of thought and aggressive reaction was frustrating to the Nth degree. With a click of her tongue, and a simple "Aye sir," Vel swallowed her pride and turned to Tactical. "Clare, I need an eval of our weapons and engine status, if the Klingons are out there I don't want shuttles to be our only option."
“Both are…problematic, Commander,” Clare replied, eyeing the sea of red icons across her displays. “Engineering appears to be already working on Engines, Security has only been able to access half of the weapons systems for diagnostics. I’ll try and send other teams if we can get comms back to the other parts of the ship.”
"Hard to put up a fight if we can't move and can't throw down, beyond a single punch." Vel sighed, looking from Mayhew to Clare. "Any luck reestablishing communications?"
Suddenly, the bridge got brighter. Normal illumination hadn't been restored, but a few of the dormat light panels had sprung to life, as did a few other display screens on the various consoles. "Auxiliary power just came online," said a petty officer at the engineering station. "Starting level five diagnostics on critical systems."
"Is it enough to power our weapon systems?" Vel asked heading for tactical to look over Clare's shoulder. She still didn't like the idea that they were going to get into a fight but Vel certainly didn't want to start one unprepared. Glancing at the various displays she recognized a few. Minimal weapons, understandable under auxiliary power until the mains were back up.
"Sir, the energy reading..." Nogura said from the Secondary Tactical station, having moved there when Clare took over and Commander Azume stepped into observe. "It's fluctuating, I think it's moving! Forty-thousand kilometers and closing, it's almost across the border!"
"Impulse engines are down," said the engineering operator. "Telemetry from impulse control indicates a repair team is on-site and working on it. We do have thrusters." A new readout popped up on her screen as the diagnostic results began to pour in. "Structural integrity for the saucer is at ninety percent. Engineering hull... is thirty. Inertial dampeners are online, but at minimum power. We need to be careful with any sudden movements."
"With the integrity of the Engineering Section so low I recommend we try and put the saucer between it and the energy reading." Vel said as she turned to Mayhew. "If it is the Klingons and they intend to attack let's not show weakness."
"That's what I've been saying!" Mayhew barked. "We lure them close, jettison shuttles primed to explode, and then get the hell out of here before they figure out we're not the sitting ducks they think we are!"
Vel rolled her eyes, That's not all you've been saying. "I'm still hoping we don't need to lure them at all."
"Ensign!" Vel called, turning to face Nogura standing nervously at the secondary Tactical Station. "Get down to impulse control and coordinate with the Engineers to get our systems back up and in communication with them! If we don't have control we need to be able to tell those who did what's going on."
"Energy reading at thirty thousand kilometers distant." A nervous call came from Science. "I-i think it's slowing."
Natalie did her best to make her way quickly down to Engineering. The tubolifts from deck one down to fifteen were out, she ended up climbing and crawling through a dozen tubes before she found a working lift. Still she only made it to deck Nineteen before it jammed and...
"Motherfucker! We can't get it!"
Whipping her head around the Ensign drew her weapon, listening for more voices she made her way down the corridor, coming to the hatchway to Auxiliary Generator Control. Taking a deep breath she spun the corner pieing off the room as she'd been trained. As her phase came to bare on the first figure she started to shout a warning at the Maroon and Cream clad Crewman. Both of them letting out a yelp, she pulled her weapon up and back, bending over Nat rested her hands on her knees.
"What the hell!?" the crewman yelled as he took a deep breath leaning back on the console.
"Sorry."
"You're sorry!? You pointed a Phaser at me!"
"I said I was sor-"
"I don't care!"
"OI! Both of you, same team, we'll deal with it later for now we need to get Auxiliary Power back online, you heard the Lieutenant."
Nat tried to keep up with the rest of their conversation, but was lost in the technobabble until she perked up at the mention of radiation leak and the Engines.
"Wait, you're saying that we need to get the Auxiliary Power systems back up or we can't use the engines?"
"That's what we were told, you can ask the Chief, she's on Comms."
Nodding her head, Nat flipped open her communicator, surprised to actually get a positive response. "Auxiliary Control to Engineering?"
Back in Engineering, Jenni stood over the pool table, doing her best to access the ventilation system. It wouldn't be too effective on flushing out the radiation, but it would at least make the environment workable enough to get a couple specialists in there to close the leak. Her ears heard an unfamiliar voice (or at least, a voice unfamiliar to the crisis she'd been dealing with), come through the comms speaker. "Engineering," she called out. "Tell me you've got some good news."
"Ummm, well I don't know if it's good news..." Nat said, shooting a nervous grin over at the engineers. "So the Captain needs warp as soon as you can give it, he's about to throw some shuttle's we've rigged to blow at the Klingons and use that as a distraction to get us out of here. But we need warp power."
"You're not getting warp power any time soon," Jenni stated over the comm as calmly as she could. She tried not to think of the shuttles that would be so willingly sacrificed, especially since it would rob the whole crew of the change to escape should she not be able to successfully pull off a miracle. "Magnetic constrictors are breeched and misaligned. Radiation has flooded half the compartment. The damage is so severe, it'll take at least three hours to fix. And, if I override all that, and turn the warp core back on, it'll ignite the antimatter, and there won't be a ship to warp out. Our priority has to be aux power and impulse. Only then are we going to have a chance to do anything else."
"Then I'd say thrusters and impulse engines I don't think the Commander is going to hold off on his plan much longer."
"Can you get a better read on it?"
"Negative Commander, but..." The Officer at Sciences paused a moment. "Ma'am, we're being hailed."
"On screen," Mayhew said with dispassionate readiness for violence.
The viewscreen flickered to life, revealing the imposing figure of a Klingon captain standing on the bridge of his warship. His ridged forehead furrowed in disdain as he glared at the human before him.
The Klingon captain leaned closer to the screen, his eyes burning with fury as he began to speak. "pujwI' SoH! tlhIngan Hol Dalo'chu'be'. mu'meylIj nap 'ej Dal. tlhIngan maH! maHtaH 'ej batlh maSuv. qaStaHvIS bISuvchu'be'!"
Mayhew scoffed as if he understood perfectly. "vIghro'wIj Dammo'laHbe' SoSlI'."
The Klingon captain straightened, his posture bristling with haughty confidence and strength. Only the snarl of his voice betrayed his repressed anger.
"reH tlhInganpu' maH! batlh DaqaSmoHmeH. DaH Hegh yIghoj, tera'ngan. yInmeymaj botIvQo'!"
The transmission cut off abruptly, leaving the bridge in tense silence.
"I assume he expressed his intent to attack." Mayhew cocked his head with grim resolve. "Battle stations! And ready the plan!"
As the alarm blared loudly the crew moved about the bridge manning their stations Vel raised her eyebrow. She wasn't fluent in Klingon by a long shot but she had picked up a few words and phrases over the years. Not to mention she'd been threatened more than once while serving aboard the Enterprise, that is not what this sounded like.
"Commander," Vel said stepping closer to Mayhew and lowering her voice. "They're not intending to attack."
"Don't be an idiot!" Mayhew turned and shouted directly into her face. "They didn't fire on us before just to not fire on us again! We have one chance to get out of here and it involves blowing those sons of bitches to hell!" He stepped away from her and addressed the bridge. "Now I want those shuttles primed and ready to self-destruct now! Whatever propulsion we can scrape together will just have to be enough to drag our sorry asses out of the blast radius, and I invite you all to pray to the higher power of your choice to make it happen." He punched the arm of the command chair next to him. "Let's move it, people!"
Vel rolled her eyes but oved to follow instructions anyway. That was lift aboard a Starship you followed your Captain's orders once the decision had been made. She'd made her case and been ignored, hopefully they'd get out of this. Returning to sciences she took control of the shuttles, forming them into a starburst so that they'd bracket the Klingons and be harder to avoid.
"Klingon Captain signaling sir."
nuq Davang? DaHjaj ghoD yImej!
"They're targeting the shuttles." Vel reported. "initiating evasive maneuvers, twenty thousand Kilometers to detonation range"
As the shuttles shot forward like they'd been launched from a cannon, the Klingon cruiser started to turn, bearing down on the small craft and by extension the Amaterasu. "Ten Thousand Kilometers, Mayhew if you're going to do this get ready."
"Ready on my mark," Mayhew ordered. He was in charge, not Vel.
The viewer filled with a blinding light as the first shuttle exploded, it's small warp core detonating in a brilliant blue shockwave. The Klingons managed to Target and destroy two of shuttles with a volley of disruptor fire even as they started to be pushed off course. But the next shuttle made it through and the next, each detonating in sequence pushing the Klingon Cruiser further and further off course until it reentered the neutral zone.
"Mark!" shouted Mayhew, making a fist in the air.
The Amaterasu groaned as she began a lumbering turn away from the small scale battle. Her hull barely holding together, Amaterasu turned, her impulse engines coming to life the red glow ont eh back of the saucer like a rocket. As they pulled further and further away from the Klingons the comm system came to life one last time.
"wanI'vam yIntaH SoH!"
"GretorDaq SoSlI' yInga'!" Mayhew shouted back, then looked at the ensign working the communications console. "Did they hear that?"
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