The Enemy (Part 1 of 8)

Posted on 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:54pm 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 Lilou Zaren & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas & Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley & Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh & Ensign Im'er Mor'an & Lieutenant JG Jacrux & Ensign Ariadne Fleming & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Tarishiana Barel & Alexander Iella & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & 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" & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Amon Mormont

2,180 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Main Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 03 - 0105 hrs

Previously, on Ambush (Part 5)...

Amon moved forward, frowning as he looked around. The Venture crew had been scared enough by Markos to start retreating into their rooms, but the way the ship was moving made it clear to Amon that something wasn't right. "Come on," he touched Gabriel's shoulder, grinning.

Gabriel nodded to him, his hand wrapped tight with the grip on a rifle, but the barrel was rested up against his shoulder as they moved down to the end of the corridor to make sure it was all clear. "Quiet before the storm?"

"Quiet before something..." Amon whispered and nodded, frowning as he walked. "I think this will just get worse. So...be prepared."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Dark, cloudy tendrils of deuterium exhaust leaked out of Galileo's primary impulse reactor as the Nova Class attempted to limp its way out of the battle arena. The confrontation with the Borg probe had been less than even-sided, yet Galileo had managed to inflict severe damage on its opponent, thanks to the ship's full complement of quantum and photon torpedoes. Now, with the probe's sensors and weapons severely damaged, a tiny window had opened up to allow them the opportunity to escape into a nearby dense pocket of nebulous gasses.

On the bridge, Lirha took the momentary pause in combat to look around and survey the damage. The bridge was a mess, and various types of debris littered the floor accompanied by a collapsed support beam which had fallen from the ceiling near the astrometrics MSD. Her XO had thankfully put out the fires earlier in the engagement, but the lingering smoke and stench of burnt electrical systems still lingered in the air, casting a dark and cloudy hue illuminated only by the red alert strobes on various LCARS consoles.

"Damage report." the captain called out, wanting to know exactly how badly her ship had been beaten up.

"Our shields are only at 31%," Mor'an called in reply, "The aft shields being barfly functional.'

S'Ranna was one of the few officers to have remained on her paws, thanks to her tail, but she was not unaffected by the damage to the bridge: her fur was sooty from a console explosion, there was a rip in her onesie, and the ruffing of her mane and clacking of her claws made her agitated state plain to see. She tried to concentrate on the conn readings, but her gaze was unsteady.

"Impulse - ah, Captain, I am rrreading a damage rrreporrrt on the impulse engines. We arrre down to one tenth powerrr. Damage to the auxiliarrry thrrrusterrrs, minor powerrr fluctuations in the navigational arrrrrrrrray," she purred in a grim voice. "I will trrry to keep herrr steady but we will not be able to outrrrun the Borrrg in ourrr present state."

Most conventional evasive manoeuvres were no longer an option given the ship's damaged state, so S'Ranna opened up the navigational subroutines and began programming in a custom pattern, using resonance feedback from the nebula to guide her.

Victarion frowned as he looked at what was coming up. "Captain, we have several hull breaches near the impulse drive. It is making the power fluctuate. It explains why the impulse drive is so affected..."

"27 injured reported so far," Blake looked across to the Captain from where she sat at her tattered station, tense as she shook her head. "And 2 fatalities."

Over the comms came the harried sound of Fahad's voice, "We've repaired the fracture, for now. I'm sending Chief Quinn up to liaise with you on the bridge."

Quinn, as ordered, contacted the Bridge. =^=Engineering to Bridge!=^= shouted the old salt as panel erupted down in main engineering. =^=We just vented several thousands of pounds worth of warp plasma from our nacelles and its volatile. Maybe you can light a match for us. It may make a big enough boom to give us a few extra seconds!=^=

S'Ranna checked her sensors. "Captain," she hissed in concern. "We may not have enough powerrr to rrride the shockwave if we trrry this verrry, hrrrrrm, verrry bold courrrse of action."

Lirha listened to the COB's proposal with a great deal of concern. It was true that the highly-volatile warp plasma would be a good igniter which could most likely destroy the Borg probe, but the explosion also had the ability to cause serious if not catastrophic damage to her own ship. With Galileo's propulsion system damaged, as S'Ranna had diligently pointed out, and with shields depleted, such a course of action had all the markings of disaster written all over it. Turning to glance at her 2XO with wary eyes, Lirha made eye contact with commander and hoped she shared her silent opinion.

Scarlet held the Captain's eyes, her features as cool and neutral as ever, but she gave a slight shake of her head, to indicate her worry about them surviving the shockwave. It was something of a killer cure; if they still had good shielding and power, it would have been worth the risk, as they were, the 'cure' could very well end up finishing them off.

Jacob spoke up as he was trying to digest the immense data coming over his console. "Captain, I strongly suggest we get to that area of strong, concentrated dark matter within the nebula if we can. If the Borg fire weapons in that region they will destroy themselves, something I highly doubt they will want to do."

Listening to the various inputs of the officers around her, Lirha agreed with the helmsman and science officer. She didn't want to take any unnecessary chances with her already-damaged ship, and least of all get more of her injured. "Helm, set course to," she paused to look down at her center console and quickly picked out a directional course which would take them into a dense part of the nebula, "bearing one-zero-one, mark three-one-eight. Best possible speed." she ordered

S'Ranna coughed out an affirmative, choking on the thick smoke drifting from the broken console, and swept her paws across the surface of her own to clear the broken fragments of plexiglass.

"Setting courrrse, one zerrro one, marrrk thrrree one eight, maximum impulse." Maximum impulse in this case was only one twelfth speed, but with the fluctuations in the deflector array it was not safe to go any faster anyway.

Despite her damaged state, Galileo managed to limp its way into a nearby dense cluster of thick nebulous gasses, and the Nova Class disappeared from view of the Borg probe as the viewscreen suddenly turned a deep hazy blue with almost zero visibility. It wasn't necessarily an ideal situation, hiding out inside the nebula, but it was a prudent precaution to protect the ship. At least, in the captain's mind.


Shuttlebay

Dea knew it was only a matter of time before the adrenaline rush faded. Her attention shifted to Sylver. "Ensure flight recorder footage is pulled from the Marina i want to review the battle to see what we can do to adapt our strategy."

"Yes, ma'am," Sylver said, wiping his face with a damp cloth to clean the blood. He took a breath before barking orders at the few enlisted gathered.

While she was trying to get orders out, Dea felt her like her legs were reaching a point where they weren't going to hold her up any longer. "I should go see medical.."

"Yes, you should," he said and frowned as he moved to her side, touching her arm. "Get so sickbay. Now. And then you can come back when you've patched up."

Lamar had found himself transported back to the shuttlebay after Virginia had taken critical damage, and he was mostly just happy to be alive. The adrenaline rush of space combat was still coursing through his veins and he looked around wide-eyed for a few moments while taking in the familiar surroundings of Galileo's shuttlebay. Spotting his pilot next to him and giving her a job-well-done nod, he then looked across the bay and saw his department head, Lieutenant Mialin. He walked up to her with a bit of soot and debris still on his uniform from one of the consoles which had exploded in the Type-9.

"Ma'am." he said quietly to acknowledge her. "Good to see you guys made it back safe. I think we lost Virginia...she took some pretty bad damage and we had to bail." he solemnly yet briefly explained.

"Yeah we came very close to losing Marina as well." She reached out to steady herself. "But damage prevented them from beaming us out of there so we had no choice but to try and land manually."

The warrant officer surveyed the damaged craft which was parked at an off-angle on the landing deck. There were several scorch marks on the hull which revealed its combat damage, but the large runabout seemed to be mostly intact. "Looks like you did a pretty good job...all things considered." he commented.

Dea attempted to shift position once again without really thinking. This time she visibly stumbled. For the first time her injured side could be seen by Lamar. "Had to shut down a bunch of systems to avoid an explosion. There's also damage visible inside the cockpit."

Glancing back at the runabout again, Lamar nodded when he looked through the window and saw the inside of the control surfaces which were a combination of ruptured consoles and other various exploded components. He then saw Dea stumble, and his gaze turned towards her side where he noticed she had been hurt. Moving closer to her, he put an arm around her waist to give her support. "You don't look so good. I think we should go to sickbay." he began to lead her towards the door.

"Yeah I'm not going to do anyone any good in my current state," Dea commented, "But it's not a good time for any of the Flight Control staff to be out of commission either."

"I know how ya feel...but we should still get you to sickbay." he said in a comforting voice. He didn't want to see his department head any worse than she already was, and often times untreated injuries had a nasty habit of making themselves worse.

Dea simply nodded as she allowed Lamar to help her towards the shuttlebay exit. "Thank you I didn't want to make a big deal of it but I don't have confidence that I'd make it there myself right now."

Lamar gave her a sideways grin of reassurance. "No problem at all, ma'am. You'll be feeling better in no time once we get you there." he moved with her to the large doors which parted with a swish, and proceeded to take her to sickbay.


Main Engineering

Quinn looked to Fahad, then back to a console. "That idea is a no-go, Lieutenant! Shields at thirty-one percent and dropping fast. We need to get some more power back to the shields and tweak these engines. Any ideas?"

Fahad pounded a fist down on the console. "We can get back up to 100% but only for about 30 seconds and it's risky." He worked up a quick simulation. "We would have to route all our power away from both primary and auxiliary life support."

"As for the engines, we risk another microfracture if we pump too much power into them. That or a stall. Anyone have another solution?"

"The new surface relays we installed should be able to redirect our power through the Galileo's hull and back into the impulse engine without overloading it," a woman's voice echoed out of the access vent above their heads. A moment later, the grate shifted and Lilou Peers poked her goggled face out, peering down at them, bug-like. "We haven't run a full test sequence on them, but trying it might be better than just waiting to explode. Just a thought." She shoved the goggles up to her forehead and rubbed some sweat from her cheek, replacing it with grime. "Chief," she nodded to Quinn. "Chief," she glanced at Fahad. "I could scuttle out to the hull if you need."

Ammar nodded, surprised to see her appear. He had yet to meet Galileo's former Chief Engineer, but he recognized her from her photograph. "If you can avoid going EVA, that would be best. But, yes, let's try that."

"Can do," she gave him a small salute. "I'll try to access them by squeezing through the inner shield tracts. Give me just a few minutes. I'll be on comm." Her head disappeared back into the access vent. For a few seconds, it sounded as though a large mouse was scurrying over their heads. Then nothing.

Galileo's newest chief engineer frowned. Things were not going well at all.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

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