Captured

Posted on 16 Jul 2012 @ 10:10am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA) & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil & Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman & Lieutenant Theron Rhodes & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Commander Scarlet Blake & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis

4,047 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 07 - 2215 hrs

Previously, on Tough Little Ship (Part 3)...

With the distress call sent out, Lirha turned her attention back towards the engagement. One Klingon warship had been destroyed, much to her relief, yet the Na'vi was closing hard and in optimal firing position. The captain's heart beat rapidly as the heat of combat sent adrenaline pumping through her body. A quick glance down at her console revealed the Bird of Prey entering weapons range, and Lirha called out several commands in preparation. "Reinforce forward shields!" she ordered.

Kestra did as she was told, pulling energy from the battered aft shields to route into the forward as they flew towards it. "Forward shields reinforced, sir," she reported. "They're firing on us, disruptors again. We can't take much more of this, Captain."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Looking through the viewscreen, the Orion captain watched wide-eyed as the Na'vi bore down hard on her ship, coming in above and to the left of the Nova Class in optimal firing position. The Klingon warship's disruptor cannons flared, sending a steady and concentrated salvo of green projectiles into the shields of the science vessel. Galileo's forward shields glowed and flickered as it successfully used the additional power provided by the tactical chief to absorb the incoming fire. The dorsal shields, already weakened from previous disruptor and torpedo fire, were much less fortunate, and multiple disruptor pulses punched through the defensive energy field, exploding violently against Galileo's exposed hull armor and blasting mangled chunks of hull plating into space.


Corridor

Stacks ran down the corridor of Deck two, struggling to keep upright as the ships shudder and lights flickering. Angela stopped dead in her tracks as the wall panel exploded in a burst of smoke and flame in front of her. "Holy cow!" she muttered.

Hearing the explosion Petty Officer 2nd Class Osed Ashir rushed out of the turbolfit and turned the corner of the corridor to see the aftermath of the sound he heard. "Hold right there, CPO Stacks!" He called out as he turned and entered one of the quarters. He looked around and found the wall panel he was looking for. He pulled the covering off and pulled out an extinguisher. He ran out of the quarters and began to use the extinguisher to suppress the fire.

"Boy I'm lucky you were around." She smiled as Ashir succeeded in putting out the fire. As she approached him, the ship rocked violently again and the bulkhead ruptured. The force of the explosion knocked them back into the opposing wall of the hallway.

Instantaneously after being forced backward, Angela felt she was being pulled. Her eyes opened wide as she stared out to deep space. The entire corridor decompressed, by luck she grabbed hold of the railing that runs along the midsection of the corridor, tightly. Air, debris began blowing out of the hull breach. She didn't see Ashir nywhere near until her eyes caught sight of a Starfleet uniform tumbling away deep in space. Her body began to lift off the floor, as space continued to pull on her. Her grip on the handrail began to loosen and in her head she screamed Forcefield, Forcefield! The ship shuddered again and Angela lost her grip and was sucked out.

Her world went black.


Engineering

Scarlet Blake virtually fell through the half opening doors to Main Sickbay, the force of the hit sending her forward. Luckily, or unluckily depending on viewpoint, there was a rail ahead to stop her from falling completely, her body half hooking over it.

Straightening up, she shook her head to clear it, looking around Engineering with a frown. It was manic, as would be expected, personnel 'fire fighting' left right and centre to try and keep up with the damage being torn into the little science vessel.

It was clear many had minor injuries but were pushing on with the work, knowing they were on the edge of a knife. Instead, her eyes fell onto an engineer who was laid out on the floor by a wall, uniform half soaked in his own blood.

She made her way to him on unsteady feet, opting to kneel next to him, leaving less chance to fall or slide off balance. "Hey, can you hear me officer?" she kept her voice deliberately light and casual, trying to see how aware he was as she ran the tricorder over him. "What's your name?"

He watched her with half open eyes, but he was clearly at least aware of what was going on, even if he wasn't making much sense of it anymore. He was pale as he tried to get a grip on her arm, as if he was about to try and pull himself up to sit. "Sharpe. Jonathan Sharpe."

"Easy there, Jonathan," she chuckled, despite her concern of what she saw on the tricorder, holding his shoulder firmly back to prevent him from making anymore attempts of movement. "You've got some nasty injuries," she said firmly to him, and that was an understatement. He'd lost a lot of blood, trauma with an open and large bleeding wound, burns, it wouldn't take much more to send him into shock and shutdown, she was amazed he was still conscious as it was. "You need to stay still and let me patch you up."

"The ship is....ship is half breaking...breaking up," Jonathan got out through strained breath, tipping his head to one side to try and see.

"Yeah, well your body is going to do the same if you don't stay still," she replied easily, shaking her head firmly as she half ripped, half pulled his uniform jacket and the under top open, watching the wound down his side with a frown, taking a slight breath. She wasn't a doctor. She wasn't a nurse. She was a counsellor with a Marine background that had included some field medic training to treat emergency wounds in the middle of a firefight. She could patch stuff up until a real doctor got to it, but not much more. She was going to need one big patch.

"It hurt a lot," Jonathan looked back to her with confused eyes, his features pale. "Now...now I feel more numb."

Scarlet held his eyes for a moment. And that's what was more worrying. "You have to trust me on this one," she replied firmly, as she pressed a hypo to stimulate his blood cells to replenish and then another to help with pain that might result from her treatment. Her hands moved down to the open wound, the blood loss clearly a result of the gash. There was no way her hand held regenerator was going to heal it, it was too deep and wide. "You trust me, right?"

"Yeah, sure I do," he tried a trademark grin to her, his fingers moving to touch her arm where she'd rolled her sleeves up.

"Good," she smiled back to him as she started to bring the wound together, the blood already on her fingers and hands, making it more difficult. "You need to stay awake for now, okay? Once we get you to Sickbay, you can sleep as much as you like, but for now you need to stay awake."

"I'm tired already," Jonathan frowned, breathing harder as he grimaced with the pain, but he was clearly making an effort to stay still for her.

"I know, I know," she whispered, shaking her head with a frown, but her focus and gaze were on the wound she tried to manipulate to close off the blood flow. Her eyes went to the medkit she had. Nothing in there was strong enough for it, and the hand held regenerator was barely touching it. He needed to be in Sickbay with the proper equipment they had there, but it wasn't an option for the moment. If she'd been out in the field with the marines, she'd have stopped her messing around and just cauterised the wound and let the doctors fix it up later. It was harsh and ugly as a fix, but it would stop the blood loss. "Just....trust me..."

"By the Guardians." Rhodes exclaimed as he knelt down next to fallen Engineer. Looking to the medical officer, he asked, "Is he going to make it?" As he took a bandage and pressed it to his shoulder that was also bleeding.

Scarlet looked to Rhodes for a long moment, her blue eyes darker than usual as she held her breath. To be honest, she wasn't sure. "He needs to be in main Sickbay," she said quietly to him with a frown, swallowing. "I need to stop that bleeding, nothing in the kit is strong enough to do it." She pulled the phaser out from her belt, frowning as she watched it, considering cauterising it. She sighed, shaking her head as she pressed the padding against the wound, trying her best to staunch the blood. "It depends how long we have to keep him stable before we can get him into Sickbay."

"There is not much time." Theron yelled out over the sparks and small explosions taking place around them. "There is little doubt that we will be boarded soon. He must be moved now."


Bridge

"Dorsal shields are down!" Kestra called, desperately searching for a way to restore power to them, without opening the rest of the ship to the same fate. The disruptor fire made it impossible to weaken the forward shields.

"Hull breaches on decks two and three," Remington announced, wincing. He was surprised the ship had lasted so long already. "Containment fields in those areas are not operational but bulkhead doors seem to be holding."

Punching the arm of his chair in annoyance at the damage that the Klingons were causing to his ship, John knew full well that lives were going to have been lost today. They had done well to disable one ship and destroy another, but it seemed that the third Klingon vessel was intent on condemning them to the abyss as much as any other enemy had ever been in his career.

"Evacuate the surrounding sections - deck three should have been cleared by now so lock down the entire deck, nobody goes in or out until the radiation leak is cleared and the hull breach is repaired"

"Aye, sir."

There weren't really many options left for the small Nova-class. She had been outgunned and outmatched from the start, but to the credit of both her builders and her crew, so far, her spaceframe had stayed in mostly one piece.

"Helm, adjust our heading to bearing 070 mark 47 - take us parallel to the Klingon's nose."

Dea nodded adjusting Galileo's course as she answered, "Heading bearing 070 mark 47." Watching closely as the ship took up a flight vector that brought them parallel to the Klingon ship.

"Lieutenant, lock our forward phasers onto their disruptors and fire at will - lets see how dangerous a toothless Bird of Prey is shall we?"

They'd been driven into a corner and there simply weren't any other options. Kestra set her jaw, shut down her personal shields hard, and focused years of training and experience on her console. Her fingers flew, running calculations and preparing the phasers to fire as target exact as possible. "Firing," she called, just above the din, and did so. She wanted their weapons out of commission. She wanted a situation where they could stop any more lives from being lost today on either side, but if that wasn't to be, then she'd damn well protect her crew.

The Klingon Bird of Prey closed quickly on Galileo as the Nova Class returned fire. Her forward phaser banks glowed yellow as phased energy traveled along the arrays until they converged at optimum firing angles, then shot out towards the Na'vi. The Klingon ship returned fire, and a mass exchange of orange and green weapons energy illuminated the darkness of space and cast colorful hues against both ship's hulls. Several of Galileo's phaser bursts missed their mark while aiming for the disruptor cannons, however they were still accurate enough to hammer the warbird's port shields and punch a hole through the over-sized green wing.

Having sustained damage yet still in the fight, the Na'vi quickly initiated an aggressive maneuver and her RCS thrusters propelled the ship directly above Galileo at point-blank range. With the Nova Class' dorsal shields down, the Na'vi dropped her ventral shields as her combat transporters attempted to lock on and beam out personnel and equipment from Galileo.

The transport inhibitors, which Galileo's crew had previously set up to protect Project Sienna, did their job as they scattered the Klingon ship's transporter scanners. Yet, despite the valiant crew's best attempts, there were still many unprotected areas still vulnerable.

The master warning panel on the ops readout started flshing in more places than Remington could track of. "Captain!" Remington looked back toward the bridge crew. "I'm reading transports occurring on decks four and seven. The energy signature is klingon. They're beaming crew off, but the transport inhibitors are working." But he knew things would only get worse. He was going to advice anti-boarding protocols, but did not have time.

Lirha spun in her chair as the operations chief reported the grim new development. "Get the shields back--" she began to yell, but was cut off in mid sentence as a shimmer of red energy particles formed around her. The transporter beam swiftly encompassed her body with an inward-sweeping motion and she dematerialized, leaving the previously-occupied captain's chair now empty.

Coleman's eyes widen as she saw Lirha be transported away, she turned to her station, "I'll try to get her back!" As soon as Evelyn's fingers touched her console, there was a flash of red, and her body was enveloped by the Klingon transporter beam.


Cargo Bay

Justice glanced down as his rigged combadge flashed twice. Finally, he thought, wrapping his arms around Emma. He tagged her combadge and his own, initiating the homing sequence he'd programmed into each and by extension the equipment crates he'd marked with electromagnetic signatures for the Klingons. It was all going to be fine. He pressed his forehead to Emma's, smiling, as the transporter beam enveloped them and the seven indispensable crates in the cargo bay. Everything would be just fine.

As Justice disappeared, Eric went to grab him around the waist before realizing it was pointless. The last thing he saw was a wide smile, as if Justice had been victorious... but that made no sense. Looking around him in a daze he tried to figure out what was happening.

At first, Anthony could not believe what he'd just seen. Justice vanished, but far too easily considering there was a transport inhibitor... and the cargo containers. "We need to get those back!" Anthony shouted. "Eric, help me." He helped Rachel to the floor. "Keep your phaser," he told her, patting his hip to make sure his own was there, "don't hesitate if the klingons come." She knew how important their work was. With a last look at her, he whirled around to face Eric and ran towards the control panels.

"Something happened," he said to the other scientist. "We'll hack into this ship's transporter controls if we have to, but we're getting Sienna back." Eric would recognize the cold determination in the doctor's eyes. He might not be a soldier, but what he lacked in physical prowess he more than made up for in genius.

Eric looked at Anthony as if he had just lost his mind. People had just disappeared and he was worried damn equipment? Even if Justice was involved with this, what the hell would happen when they saw an unwanted person in Emma. "The damn ship is falling apart, how the hell do you expect to get Sienna back? Drop the shields and give them oppertunity to steal more equipment and more people? Take away the shields and allow us to be blown up. Don't be stupid Hardaway."

As the room shifted, items and people disappearing, Lucalin trilled, trying to understand the sudden spacial change. Everything was blurry, lacking hard edges, and he was having a hard time keeping his thoughts straight from one moment to the next.


Bridge

Dea looked up in shock at the events taking place. Trying to concentrate on her duties and keep an eye on the helm console ready to move on short notice. Of course thing only went from bad to worse before Mialin had a chance to blink. Unable to hide the knot of dread that had surfaced in her stomach.

Adrenalin pulsed through Kiri's small body, her left arm throbbed with pain with every beat, fingers oozing puss and blood onto her console with each button press. None of that mattered though when she turned to see what everyone else was making noise about. That the Captain was gone, someone had torn the heart out of the ship. There hadn't been time for fear before, now she was shaking visibility. Her brain stalled for a few seconds before she realised where she was, she wasn't helpless. Using what sensors she had left she tried to trace where the transports had come from. Trying to keep track of it.

"Captain!" The XO could not believe what had happened right in front of his eyes. With their shields down the Galileo was unable to prevent much of what had happened from taking place, with Klingon transporter signatures swarming all over the vessel.

Kestra turned at the XO's shout just in time to see the captain disappearing in a fizzle of red. Now there was no choice. She threw open her shields and opened herself to monitoring Saalm's state through the transport, even as she stared at the console and tried to lock down the shields with power reserves that simply weren't there.

Reaching out his hand as if to try and grab the already-dematerialised Orion, John found only air in the space that had once been occupied by his commanding officer, and the dull realisation kicked in that he was now once again in command whether he liked it or not.

"Commander Remington I want shields up and I want them now! Tactical - get a weapons lock on their engines, if they go to warp we're in a whole heap of trouble!"

"Aye sir," Remington replied. "I suggest we initiate anti-boarding protocols." He was the first officer now, more or less, and he prepared to issue the orders to the computer himself even as he tried to get power up to shields.

Kestra had already begun targeting procedures so that the moment Holliday gave the order, she was already initiating the sequence. She fired two carefully aimed shots which met directly in the center of the Na'vi and her scans showed their warp drive powering down. A secondary scan showed the drive had been disabled by system overloads in their engine room. "Disabled their warp drive," she reported. "They won't be going anywhere very fast for the next few hours."

"Agreed - all hands this is the Bridge, secure your stations and prepare to repel boarding parties, repeat, prepare to repel boarding parties."

=^=All Security personnel, ten eighty-eight, ten fifty-nine,=^= Kestra instructed into her com badge. =^=Report locations on secure channel. T'Paaru, I want scans of that ship, life sign readings, anything and everything you can get me on the layout. Pawlak-=^=

=^=Weapons are already distributed, sir,=^= the Pole's voice reported loud and clear. =^=Davidson and Rhodes, D are aligning the holograms to funnel boarding parties.=^=

=^=Copy that,=^= Kestra replied.

Aria rolled her eyes, grimacing. Just brilliant. Just what she wanted. Secure channel. She sent her current location through.

On secure channel, =^= Ens. Rhodes in Engineering. We are assisting with the wounded. We will be ready for them when they get here. =^=

Jumping from the XO's chair, John had no choice but to occupy the now-vacant central chair. For a moment, it felt like he had walked across his CO's grave, taking up the mantle that she had only given up a few seconds ago aginst her will. Now his workload had increased, not only did he have a ship to keep together, a Klingon ship to repel, but now he had possible incoming boarding parties and abducted crew to recover at the same time!

=^=Willis to Bridge, The starboard nacelles gauges are all green! We have Warp capability again! The Chief did it, but I can't get communication with him. He isn't responding.=^=

John's blood ran cold as he heard the news. Could it be that their chief engineer had been injured somehow, or worse? There weren't a huge number of options for him, something had to have happened or he would have at least let the rest of his team know he was ok.

Lilou froze at her station, head swiveling towards the XO as Willis' voice emanated from his chest.

Slapping his commbadge, John called out as if his voice was going to make the slightest bit of difference to the situation.

=^=Bridge to Quinn... Mr Quinn do you read? =^=

There was nothing, not even static over the comm line, nothing to even indicate the Chief was still alive let alone in a position to be able to respond.

"Mr. Remington, take power from wherever you need it and transfer it to the transporters - can you get a lock on Mr. Quinn and get him to sickbay?"

"Not if you want the shields up too, sir," Remington replied, the speed of his fingers over the controls never lessening as he tried to rerout enough power to give the shield generators a kick. He spoke a bit more tersely than he would have in a less stressful situation, but the importance of shielding over Quinn's health could not be denied.

Lilou swallowed hard. "I can get him. I can get up there. He's in the nacelle control room. I can throw a EV suit on and get there in minutes." She looked between Will and the XO. "Willis has the consoles from Engineering and better eyes on the system from down there too." She spoke quickly and quietly, but there was a determination in her. The Chief was responsible for them still flying. They couldn't do without him. They couldn't risk leaving him hurt and trapped somewhere. It just wasn't an option in her mind.

"Go." John acknowledged with a nod to the young engineer. He hated the idea of sending anyone into danger, but hopefully the protective equipment provided by Starfleet would be more than enough.

"As soon as you get him clear we'll beam him straight to sickbay - Mr Remington if the shields have to dip for a millisecond to make it possible then do it, the hull has held up pretty well so far."

The shielding within the nacelle was legendary for making transporting difficult, but at least with the missing engineer retrieved to the deck, then at least it might not take up quite so much power to save the life of an injured colleague.

"Yes, sir," Lilou said, already scrambling for the door. =^=Willis, the console's yours. Keep her running.=^=

=^=Bridge to Sickbay - Chief Quinn is being beamed across to you momentarily - prepare to receive him. =^=

=^=Sickbay to bridge; We are standing by, sickbay out=^=

"More transporter signals, sir," Remington interrupted once more. "Main Engineering, deck four. Now the cargo bays and-" He spun around, reaching for his phaser, "the bridge."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

All Player Characters
All Positions
USS Galileo

CPO Arthur Willis
Computer Systems Specialist
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Markum Quinn

Rachel Hardaway, Ph.D.
Lead Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Tarishiana Barel

Anthony Hardaway, Ph.D.
Lead Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Chauncey Remington III

Justice Abernathy Ph.D.
Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Lilou Peers

Eric Anderson
Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Pola Ni Dhuinn

Emma Kennedy
Dr. Hardaway's Secretary
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Pola Ni Dhuinn

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