Ambush (Part 3 of 5)

Posted on 31 Aug 2013 @ 10:05am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Scarlet Blake & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Lieutenant Ammar Fahad & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas & Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley & Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh & Ensign Im'er Mor'an & Ensign Natalie Chevalier & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Tarishiana Barel & Lieutenant JG Nenokah Ral & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Amon Mormont & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Oliver Sylver & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Riley Cameron & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis & Chief Petty Officer K8 Yellow & Senior Chief Petty Officer Keval zh'Erinov & Petty Officer 1st Class Victarion Jaqen & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Petty Officer 1st Class Siren Hex Saalm & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley"
Edited on on 17 Sep 2013 @ 7:46pm

2,696 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 03 - 0042 hrs

Previously, on Ambush (Part 2)...

"Hold on Lieutenant click! I am getting you out click! now!" Kate replied through the comm channel, rasping in her tinny insectoid voice. She then took a deep breath, her carapace rattling slightly, and set to work. She used two of her hands for each pattern and a third pair to reconfigure the sensors to compensate for the gravitational forces: if she didn't, they'd end up being crushed as they materialised on the other end of the annular confinement beam. She watched the Heisenberg compensator readings steadily spiking, her hands working furiously to keep ahead. Just as the reading was dangerously close to the red zone of 1400+ kilowatts, she jabbed down.

"Ener click! gizing!"

Two swirling blue patterns began to materialise on the transporter pad: Ral and Lamar. Kate gave a relieved click of her antennae and turned her attention back to the other craft.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Runabout Marina

Dea was grateful for the support Virginia had tried to give them. While she knew it wasn't much and couldn't last forever. A short time later things took a turn for the worse aboard the Marina. The runabout became very hard to pilot as they quickly began to lose flight control capability after a shot connected on a damaged area causing an external explosion that rocked the tiny ship violently.

Dea hit the console in front of her unable to brace herself in time but fought to keep control. Aware they were quickly running out of options she contacted home base, "Marina to Galileo get us out of here."

Sylver frowned as he glanced at her, taking a breath as he made sure he was properly strapped in.

Kate found the bio-signs on the Marina were harder to isolate. There was so much plasma being vented that it was interfering with the target compression matrix. A sharp electronic bleep sounded as the Heisenberg compensator went past 20,000 kiloWalts. The insectoid transporter chief shook her head and tried again, all six hands tapping away at the console, antennae clicking frantically.

Another bleep.

"Marina, I cannot safely isolate your signals. There is too much interference." Kate relayed her grim message to the runabout, though as ever the timbre of her voice was not altered: only the drooping of her antennae could truly communicate her regret. "You will have to try an emergency landing."

Hearing the response from Galileo didn't help the situation even though they were closing distance with their home base and doing their best to runaway from the Borg. "Brace yourself the best you can this is going to be a rough landing." Dea knew they were coming in with a very damaged runabout. "Galileo be advised this is a hot landing." She got across the point they were going to make an emergency landing under combat conditions which was very tricky.

Dea was going to do everything in her power to keep the runabout from exploding. "Transfer power from unnecessary systems. Do your best to isolate the damaged ones. I'm going to cut propulsion and take us in like a glider to minimize further damage when we land." It wasn't long after that Dea had the Marina lined up for a very hairy landing. After a quick calculation she shut off the engines to reduce the risk of damage causing an explosion or other problem when they touched down in the shuttle bay. Despite the pain Mialin shoved it aside long enough to land the runabout.


USS Galileo

Galileo's aft shields did their best to absorb all of the incoming green weapons fire, but eventually began to buckle under the sustained barrage. A well-placed strategic hit finally punctured the shield grid and slammed into the Nova Class' exposed space frame just below the impulse reactor, a critical area of the secondary hull.

Keval had been on his way to Engineering, when the whole ship shuddered violently, or at least it seemed like the whole ship, it may just have been the area near Engineering.

The bulkhead he had just passed by fifteen seconds ago gave way with a sickening groaning sound as the metal sheared away. A human girl no more than seven or eight was running towards him screaming in panic when he was knocked to the floor by another falling bulkhead.

He was almost crushed by the weight and felt a searing pain as the jagged edge cut across the top of his forehead and cutting of one of his antenna. He felt a warmth trickling into his eyes and down his cheeks.

He managed, thanks to his Andorian strength to push the metal off of him. The girl was not so lucky. The sharp jagged edge had almost completely severed her left leg.

Without his antennae he was too off balance to stand, so he knelt there and hit his comm badge.^=^Computer site to site transport Medical Emergency^=^

Kate saw the request for an internal transport come up on her console. With the runabout returning to the ship, she no longer had to maintain the locks on its occupants, and instead switched over the targetting scanners manually. Her antennae clicked furiously as two pairs of hands skipped across the console, activating the particle filter. The pattern buffers were detecting two biosigns, one Andorian, one human: she locked in on them, but the human biosign was particularly weak, and it took all her skill as a transporter operative to compensate for the interference caused by the modulating shield harmonics.

A sweep of the internal sensors picked out free space in Sickbay to focus the annular confinement beam and with another click of her antennae, she activated the site-to-site transporter interlock. A distressing part of her job was picking up a second, smaller, human biosign and adding it to the pattern matrix: it seemed as though a limb had been severed, and she flexed her six arms as a means of self-assurance. Once the Heisenberg compensator was fully initialised, she completed the final stage of the process and transported the Andorian and (both) human patterns directly to Sickbay, reviewing her work with one final pleased click of her antennae.

In Sickbay, Andreus Kohl and a crewman were hefting from a biobed to an adjacent antigrav gurney. As soon as they had done so, the young girl materialized atop the biobed, and Keval appeared kneeling on the floor beside the bed. Kohl made to move to tend to Keval --with his gaping head wound-- but the overhead biofunction monitor started screaming at Kohl. Kohl spun back to the biobed and slapped his hand on the contact for the surgical support frame. While the frame rolled into place, Kohl consulted the readings on the biofunction monitor. The patient wasn't breathing; her low blood pressure indicated shock from the near-amputation trauma to her left leg.

Responding to Kohl's fingers on the support frame controls, the biobed initiated forcefield intubation of the young girl. Once the biobed began mechanical ventilation, Kohl entered additional commands to keep the patient warm and to apply sterifields across the open wounds. Although the patient was more than ready for microsurgery, Kohl wasn't the medical officer for her. Vascular regeneration at that level was beyond his capabilities. As there were no doctors immediately available, Kohl activated the stasis fields to put his patient on pause until she worked her way up the triage queue.

Keval leaned back against an occupied bio-bed. It seemed all the bio-beds were occupied. He touched his hand to his forehead and it came away sticky. "How is the girl?" he started asking till a wave of dizziness overtook him. "You better get me something to throw up in, I think I'm going to be sick." he told the doctor.

Kohl snatched up a bedpan from a scattered instrument tray and he handed it on over to Keval. As soon as his hands were free, Kohl palmed his medical tricorder and aimed it over at the Andorian. "Do you have it?" Kohl asked. "The other antennae?"

"No," he replied, "I was near Engineering when it happened," he managed before retching into the bedpan. He went a very pale blue after that for a few moments. "It's probably still there. The bulkhead collapsed. I was more focusing on the little girl.

It will grow back eventually, if we don't find it. Assuming we don't get blown to hell in the meantime."

Fumbling through the a mess of equipment piled on the instrument tray, it took Kohl too many heartbeats to wrap his hand around the pistol-shaped vascular regenerator. He swung his arms around and pointed it at Keval's head. "I'm going to repair the blood vessels to stop the bleeding," Kohl said. "In case we find the antennae, I'm not going to close the wound. I'll patch you up with a dermaplastic graft."

"Thanks," he replied with a weak smile, "You said you wanted to see more of me. I hope you're satisfied."


Bridge

On the bridge, consoles exploded behind the captain, and overhead conduits ruptured sending showers of sparks and flames across various parts of the command center. Thick smoke accompanied by the stench of burnt electrical systems permeated Lirha's nostrils, forcing her to spin around to quickly survey the damage. "Report!" she yelled over the loud, chaotic sounds.

Aria swore loudly from the floor, hitting the panel that blinked at her numbly, almost as if to say 'don't look at me, you're on your own'. Her arm hurt. A lot. She had also banged her head. She blinked for a moment before hitting her palm against the console again. "Aft shields are down!" she shouted, shaking her head as she wiped sweat from her brow, her fingers sticky with blood. "We need to get them back up before they line up another shot!"

"There are numerous hull breaches on deck 5!" Mor'an called, her voice clear and almost childlike among the chaos that had just erupted around her.

Scarlet caught her breath from the console that was threatening to spark, gripping it tighter as she brought up as many reports as she could on the screens she had. "We've already got a number of casualties on our hands, we're going to be short staffed!" she called across the busy bridge. "Impulse power is holding - but at 40%."

Jumping from his chair, John swiped at one of the bulkheads to pull the panel free and grab a fire suppression kit, turning the device on some of the plasma fires and electrical fires that had broken out in the rear of the Bridge and in the overhead portions.

"Let's get these fires out! Damage control team to the Bridge immediately! And someone get me a status report on that Borg ship!"

Victarion's breath had been tight in his chest, his eyes dark. He grabbed onto his console, reaching to press a button. "Damage Control Teams, to the bridge," he said and looked around. There was fear in his eyes...but also a strange calm.

The bridge was turning into nothing less than a disaster zone, and Lirha looked around wide-eyed while taking in the multitude of damage and casualty reports. There was unfortunately not much she could directly do for the injured personnel throughout her ship; that task fell to the medical staff and individual crew members who would hopefully be able to remember their emergency medical training and provide assistance where necessary. More importantly, however, Galileo's aft shields were now offline meaning the ship's hull was exposed at her most vital areas, including the warp nacelles and reactor. Any weapons fire to either of those areas could cripple the ship, which would then most certainly lead to their untimely assimilation.

"Divert auxiliary power to aft shields!" Lirha called out to the operations alcove.

"Aye!" Mor'an called. She had been waiting for the command so her fingers were poised at the ready to divert power to the aft shields. "Auxiliary power diverted!" she called again a moment later, "Aft shields are back online."

The LCARS display on Lirha's center console showed her ship's rear shield grid being reinforced, and they came back up to 25% of full strength -- enough to hopefully give them another few minutes of escape time. But they needed more, and the underpowered Nova Class didn't have much energy to spare.

"Lieutenant, transfer all forward torpedo ordinance into our aft launcher and commence rapid fire. Target primary weapons nodes and their main navigational array." she said to Rice, who remained diligent at her station. Galileo's automatic torpedo loading mechanism only required a couple of inputs from the tactical officer to re-load the remaining torpedoes, provided the system had not been damaged.

"Roger!" Aria called out, doing as ordered as she frowned. Getting a lock was harder now, with how the ship was handling. And she could have sworn even the computer was going 'screw this'.

Galileo's single aft bust-fire launcher was not ideally equipped for rapid fire, but thanks to the tactical officer's competent skills, it did a capable enough job considering the circumstances. A stream of successive quantum torpedoes launched separated by only a matter of seconds, and impacted the Borg probe with great efficiency. Luminous detonations encompassed the front of the probe's hull as they impacted, blowing apart large chunks of its space frame.

"Come on...come on..." Aria breathed, keeping the torpedoes going as she frowned. Her hair was in her face now, falling free from the braid, but she didn't even notice. All she noticed was what she was doing.

Once the quantum torpedoes were depleted, the remaining photons were launched and provided excellent clean-up for any targets which the previous volley had missed. Primary and secondary explosions erupted in the front of the probe's hull, causing it to temporarily cease fire and slow its speed while it attempted to repair its damage.

"Shit!" Aria swore and hit the console, watching the message flashing up. "We're out! We're out of torpedoes..."

A small smile was on Scarlet's lips though, and she chuckled softly in her throat. "You struck gold, Rice, damage to the Borg's weapons and sensors!"

"Take our torpedo launchers offline and divert the power to shields." Lirha responded to the operations officers with a brief sigh of relief. They had for now, they had managed to strip the teeth and eyes away from the predator, but it wouldn't be long before it grew new ones.

Mor'an breathed out a few words of relief in her native tongue as she took the torpedo launchers offline. "Power diverted to shields," she reported. It wasn't over, but at least they had a moment to breathe.

Victarion breathed harder as he reinforced the aft shields, watching the various reports coming in. He was praying, inside. He was praying for their lives.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Natalie Chevalier
Ecologist
USS Galileo

Lt. Cmdr Scarlet Blake
Chief Counsellor/2XO
USS Galileo

Lt. Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh
Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Chief Petty Officer K8 Yellow
Transporter Chief
USS Galileo
[NPC - T'Srrr'Kharh]

Lt. JG Victoria Crawley
Psychologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Ammar Fahad
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Crewman Apprentice Thanis Rothgra
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
[Played by Fahad]

Lt Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Allyndra illm Warraquim
CMO
USS Galileo

Lt Amynta Markos
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Im'er Mor'an
Operations Officer
USS Galileo

Master Chief Petty Officer Markum Quinn
CoB
USS Galileo

& All Others

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