Cave Terrors (Part 8 of 8)

Posted on 07 Aug 2014 @ 3:56pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Scarlet Blake & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Commander Norvi Stace & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Commander Luke Wyatt & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D. & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Petty Officer Lyras Ueda

2,667 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: Lyshan III - Uridium Mine, Central Matrix Station, Section LV881-LV900
Timeline: MD 07 - 1140 hrs

Previously, on Cave Terrors (Part 7)...

Amynta breathed hard as she narrowed her eyes, moving beside Alexion. She put her hand to the door as well, looking at him or a moment. She had to admit to herself, when she envisioned herself dying, it wasn't like this. And that pissed her off beyond belief.

All three of them, Stace, Alexion and Amynta, were now pressing their combined weight against the door. All three of them, with each clatter and bang from the other side, pushing that extra bit harder into the frame itself. As the banging began to intensify, the team of three began to held fast. As Stace looked up, a sprinkling of rusted dust rested on her visor, pluming out from the seals around the door in gusts of smoke and particles. "I'm not sure how much longer this will hold, Tratar," she called out across the comm.

And Now, the Conclusion...

[ON]

"You can hold it," Scarlet said firmly, stood a little away from them, facing the door with her rifle pointed at it, ready to shoot anything that did manage to get through. She was trying to think ahead though. Even if they shut down the self destruct, they still needed a way past those things. She glanced around trying to find any other vents or access hatches out of the room. Of course, it all meant nothing if someone 'cut the wrong wire' and blew them all up. She thanked whatever stars were looking out for them that she had a good team. Now all they could do was put their trust in a Cardassian. How bloody ironic.

The alert klaxons in the room began to sound with decreasing intervals as the destruct sequence reached a mere fifteen seconds. Tratar was ready, and looked around at the three other makeshift technicians one last time before giving the command to cut the first relay. "On the count of five...four...three...two...sever the seventh relay!" On cue, he use the medical laser scalpel Wylde had given him and delicately activated it. The small red laser was a not ideal, but it was precise enough for the Cardassian to perform the operation and disconnect the electrical pathway.

The thrumming of blood pumping urgently through Kohl's head was a distraction, but no more so than the klaxon and the bustling around the room. Kohl ignored it all; he narrowed his focus down to a pin-point. All he saw, all that existed was the first relay. He didn't think about what would happen if he hit the relays on either side of it, or what the relay was connected to. With the practiced ease of a surgical nurse, Kohl flicked his wrist. It was the slightest of movements, it was hardly a movement at all, but the laser scalpel struck home.

Using the cutting tool she'd been handed Dea cut the appropriate relay on her console along with the others. This required every bit of focus she had. Not allowing herself to think about the alternative.

Delainey looked worriedly in the direction of the door and did the only thing she knew to do that could possibly help now, and that was to point her weapon at the door to mirror Blake. She felt a bit guilty that Andreus was helping to take care of the bomb and she wasn't, because if something happened to him, she wouldn't truly forgive herself. It was a traitorous thought for a counselor, but in the heat of the moment, it was how she felt.

Satisfied they'd not blown themselves up yet, Tratar proceeded on to the final eighth relay which now needed to be disconnected to complete the deactivation sequence. "Sever the eighth relay in five...four...three...two...now!" As he had just done several seconds ago, the Cardassian use the laser scalpel to cut through the tiny relay.

Over at the other computer console, Kohl sliced his scalpel through the relay in time with Tratar.

Dea moved onto eighth relay in her console. Approaching it with careful precison just like the previous one. Later she knew there would be a wide range of emotions that accompanied this whole experience but Dea couldn't think about that now.

Luke began disconnecting the wires carefully with his KA-bar. The weapon was clumsy even when cutting through the ribs of enemies, but cutting wires precisely was even harder. Cutting the last one he slipped, cutting himself and additional wires inside the panel. "Shit" he muttered.

With all the critical connections to the detonation charges now severed, the alert warnings ceased operating but so did the entire computer network and accompanying power generators. Apparently, one of them had cut an additional relay by accident, and the room was suddenly plunged into darkness as every computer console and lighting fixture went offline. The soft hum of the computer core matrix ceased as well, leaving the away team in an eerily dark and quiet room.

Scarlet looked around the darkness with wide eyes, her breath catching with it. Her hand slid down the rifle to flip on the torch, but it was only a single, dull ray of light in the pitch black. "What happened?" she moved towards one of the computers, almost walking into it. They were still in one piece...that had to be a good thing. Being plunged into darkness wasn't so good. The computers looked pretty dead too. "Everything's down?"

"Apparently," Oren said, his tone uncharacteristically deadpan, sounding as if he was so over what was happening now. Which he was. This mine was starting to get to him and he wasn't sure just how long he could be his usual optimistic self. When the equipment and lights suddenly went out, Oren felt a fresh coat of sweat come over him. He hated the dark.

Blinking a few times in the hopes of his eyesight adapting, Oren felt around for his science kit. Getting a hold of it, he managed to activate it and the light from the device illuminated his face.

He turned the light away from himself to check if everyone was there.

"Everyone alright?" he asked the room, hoping for an affirmative answer.

"i'm here," thats as far as Dea wanted to let herself think about it for now. They were still stuck in the mine and were not safely back aboard Galileo just yet.

"Me too," chimed in Kohl. He grinned over in Dea's direction, and then at Luke too. Whatever else came next, at least they weren't exploded. Kohl activated more of the lights on his EV suit, and scrambled to re-attach his gloves into place.

Stace breathed in a sigh as everything seemed to go rather dark and quiet. She slumped a little against the thick, heavy door, the tense agitation now leaving her body like a spirit ascending up to the skies in death. She took in another breath and as she did so an almighty thud heaved itself against the door. The creaking of seal began to crack and pull away a little from the frame. Orange and grey dust plumed outwards showering herself, Alexion and Amynta in its shower. All three of them heaved against the door again with a renewed might. "Commander!" she called out urgently. "We need to move!"

Back at one of the computer terminals, Tratar looked around at all of the non-functioning computer equipment and angrily pounded his fist against one of the dark consoles. "No! What have you done?" he demanded from Mialin, Kohl, and Wyatt. "One of you must have severed the primary power relay!" With the entire control room now offline, the entire mine's electrical functions had now been shut down including the oxygen recyclers and most importantly, the lift back to the surface.

Sounding entirely unimpressed by Tratar's accusatory tone, Kohl was intentionally condescending, when he said, "So... We fix it?"

"Are any of you engineers?" the Cardassian replied. Being a security chief, he had no idea how to perform such a complex operation or reroute the necessary subsystems. He was equally concerned with Stace's recent cry of urgency and could see that the door would not hold much longer.

Dea ignored the Cardassian's accusations. There were more critical things to be concerned with then placing blame. At the moment they had no idea what caused the issue but her intentions were to place her efforts on getting out of the mine rather than wasting time playing some 'blame game'.

Scarlet pointed the dim glow of light from her rifle towards the door, frowning as she saw how it was weakening under the bombardment. "No time anyway..." she used her rifle to find the square panel high up on the wall that she'd clocked before they'd been plunged into darkness. She moved to Alexion, taking his medkit over her arm, then to Emerson to catch hold of his tricorder to borrow. She caught hold of Luke, pulling him towards the wall. "Hold still..." she shouldered her rifle with the light still on and climbed up onto his back and then up to sit on his shoulders. Resting the little light from her rifle on her shoulder, she scanned behind the panel, finding a ventilation shaft behind it. "Someone give me a hand with this?" she called, even as she looked for a tool in the medkit, pulling out something long, metallic and flat, with no clue what it was actually used for, and started to try and get the corner, screw like fastenings open.

"I'm on it," Dea replied moving to assist Blake. They weren't safe until they were back aboard Galileo. At this point the sooner she preferred to get out of this place as quickly as possible.

Luke had left his rifle leaning up against the wall, the KA-bar held in his mouth like a pirate you would see in one of Pendletons holo novels. His hands were placed nervously on Blakes legs as he supported her. "Its only taken you this long to get on top" he joked. "But I'm taking you to the gym after this," his smile was caught between a half groan, he found comfort in humour in times of stress.

"You're lucky I don't have a hand free..." Blake murmured, half distracted though as they finally managed to get it loose. "Got it. Let's go..."

Jumping down from Luke's shoulders, Scarlet moved opposite him, joining her hands with his so they could give a boost up to the team members so they could reach the high shaft and climb in. "Up you go, Mialin..."

Dea didn't hesitate climbing up with help. "Thank you," she called back down to Scarlet and Luke. Working her way into the shaft and moving forward. Using her light the best she could to make the path in front of her not as dark.

"Come on, let's move," Scarlet called to the others, keeping her hands joined with Luke's to give a push up to them one at a time so they could climb up. They might be just moving from one fire to another, but if they could keep quiet enough, they had a chance of waiting it out.

Lyras didn't wait for anyone to repeat the order. He was instantly up in and through the the opening. "Hopefully there aren't any monsters on the other side."

When it was Kohl's turn to leap-frog up to the opening, his grips and reaches and posturing looked especially awkward. He could hardly decide which grips to favour -- the muscular marine Luke or his trusted friend Scarlet. He didn't even try to support his weight with his legs on a precarious footing; he wasn't sure his legs would hold. Rather, he made the climb with his upper body alone. Kohl didn't say a word, as he climbed into the tight passage; he listened to his comms for further instructions and orders.

Tratar quickly followed Kohl and moved below the ventilation shaft where he then jumped up to secure his grip on the sides of the conduit. Pulling himself up with relative ease, he briefly checked to make sure his disruptor rifle was still slung over his shoulder before scrambling inside and disappearing.

Pulling himself up with Wyatt's and Blake's help, Alexion paused just for a moment to catch his breath, his hearts thumping hard in his chest. He reached down to help Amynta who had been behind him, catching hold of her arm to support her up.

Stace then motioned to Alexion for the same assistance, took his outreached hand in her's and heaved herself into the shaft.

After Stace, Oren hoped he didn't look too eager to get away from the room as he accepted Blake and Wyatt's help getting up. Once he felt himself stable at the shaft, he crawled after the others, hoping for the best.

With everyone else other than themselves Luke let go of Blake's hands and gestures for her to take his help in pushing her up. "You go first Blake no arguments," he said knowing he could easily haul himself up.

Scarlet frowned, about to do just that, preferring to be the last one up, but decided it was just quicker to do than argue. "You break me, you buy me..." she murmured with an arched eyebrow, catching her breath before setting her foot into his hands and grabbing hold of his shoulder. She pushed off the ground with her other foot to give as much motion as possible, relying on Luke to boost her the rest of the way. She grabbed hold of the ledge and got onto her elbows before sliding up in, breathing hard. "Let's go, Wyatt, I want to get this thing sealed."

Luke threw his rifle up into the shaft before jumping and taking a firm grip of both sides to the shaft. Slowly and surley he hoisted himself up until his head and finally his chest was inside the shaft with one last push he hauled his entire body up and just in time as the control rooms door gave up it's valient defence against the possessed cardassians.

Scarlet pressed against the edge of the narrow tunnel, leaving Luke to not so delicately crawl past and against her as she caught hold of the panel behind his feet to stop it slamming. She pulled it shut just as she heard the creatures battering the now busted doors to get them fully open. She used a hand phaser to seal the corners and edge. It wouldn't hold for long against a good battering, but it was enough not to leave it open and obvious as to their escape route. If nothing else, it could buy them a minute or two.

Letting Luke move ahead of her, she put her finger to her visor, as if to her lips, to indicate silence before motioning with her fingers that they should try and make their way deeper into the system without drawing too much attention to themselves. All they could do was try and put some distance between them in a deadly game of hide and seek...but for all she knew, they could just be crawling into an even deeper circle of hell.

[OFF]

--

First Glinn Tratar
Chief of Security
CDS Aldara
[PNPC Saalm]

LTCMDR Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer/Second Officer
USS Galileo

LT(JG) Luke Wyatt
Acting Chief of Security
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo

SWO Alexion Wylde
Doctor
USS Galileo
[PNPC Blake]

Lieutenant Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

PO 1rst Lyras Ueda
Diplomatic Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC Kita]

Oren Idris, Ph.D.
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

LT Delainey Carlisle
Counselor
USS Galileo

LT Amynta Markos
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

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